122 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/85a2e332ce2c49576b950b114a7eb46c.jpg fa712d46ece6d368ae60c16bec4559fa https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/9b382a7f1e7b21148a47f943cb63898d.mp3 7275b8ce9da1ee7814ddc96ac860a024 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-06-21 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Alice Echols Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Alice Echols is a professor of History and Gender Studies at University of Southern California. She authored four books and several articles. Dr. Echols has a Bachelor's degree in History from Macalester College and a Master's degree and Ph.D. from University of Michigan.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Dr. Alice Echols is a professor of History and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. She authored four books and several articles. Dr. Echols has a Bachelor's degree in History from Macalester College and a Master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;SDS; Racism; Weathermen; Affirmative Action; Women's Studies; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Graduate Employees Organization; Activism; Feminism; Women's Movement; Racial Discrimination; 1960s; 1970s; Environmental Movement; Anti-War Movement; Soul Music; Funk Music; Disco Era; Identity Politics; Sexual Revolution; Janis Joplin; Roe v. Wade; Sexism; Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Abortion Rights; Demobilization; John F. Kennedy Assassination; Drug Culture&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:515,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13689059},&quot;12&quot;:0}">SDS; Racism; Weathermen; Affirmative Action; Women's Studies; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Graduate Employees Organization; Activism; Feminism; Women's Movement; Racial Discrimination; 1960s; 1970s; Environmental Movement; Anti-War Movement; Soul Music; Funk Music; Disco Era; Identity Politics; Sexual Revolution; Janis Joplin; Roe v. Wade; Sexism; Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Abortion Rights; Demobilization; John F. Kennedy Assassination; Drug Culture</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 145:52 Subject LCSH College teachers; Echols, Alice--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Alice Echols Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 21 June 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Alice Echols. AE (00:00:08): Okay. SM (00:00:09): My first question is, when you were in college during the late (19)60s and early (19)70s as an undergrad and then in graduate school in the late (19)70s through the mid (19)80s, what did you see both socially and culturally? What stood out? I know that you have written in Disco about the music and the movements that were taking place in America in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, and some of the influences that were happening too, and not only African Americans, but women and gay and lesbian Americans. Just your thoughts on your college years and what you saw. AE (00:00:51): Do you mean on campus? I mean- SM (00:00:54): Yes, on campus. AE (00:00:55): Okay. Okay. Well, I went to, as an undergraduate, I attended Carleton College, which is in Northfield, Minnesota. It is sort of surrounded by cornfields. And yeah, there were not a lot of attractions beyond the campus. There were a few, but there were not very many. In fact, I left Carleton and did my senior, so my last, pretty much last year and a half, I guess I would say, at Macalester College, which was in Saint Paul. I did that for a number of reasons, but certainly, one of the reasons I transferred... Because I had a lot of friends at Carleton and we stayed friends, and they were a big piece of my story. I am still Close to some of them. But I went to Macalester because it was a more politically active campus. As I said, it was in the city. It had, I think, the greatest proportion, the highest proportion, I believe, of EEOC students of any college campus. And it also had, and this is kind of remarkable, it had... The student council or student government had been able to hire an organizer to organize students, and he was a Saul Alinsky trained organizer. And so, how many college campuses could that be set up? Probably none other. Highly unusual. Very much greater population of minorities, especially African Americans at that campus when I was there. And to make it even stranger, this was pretty much underwritten by DeWitt Wallace money, which is to say Reader's Digest money. At a certain point in time, you cannot trust me on this because it is a sort of more hearsay than anything I have actually read, but I think he pulled a good deal of his money from Macalester. But in any case, it was a very different kind of experience. At Carleton, we smoked a lot of dope, and people within my friendship network certainly dropped a good deal of acid. I did not do much of that myself because I never had as well a time, but it was a... Carleton was a college campus, which was pretty intense by virtue of being in the northern frozen tundra. So, there was not a lot of activism happening. We were one of the colleges to go on strike as a result of the invasion of Cambodia. And I have this very, very dear memory, and I may be completely wrong about this, but Kai Bird's name started to cross my radar some years ago. I think that Kai Bird may have also been a student at Carleton. But the long and the short of it was that it was not as politically active a campus as Macalester, which is, again, one of the major reasons that I switched. For me, I mean, college was... I had gone to Sidwell Friends in DC, so I had gone to a prep school. I was fairly well-prepared, I would say, academically. Culturally, socially, well, there was a lot of sex. Not very much of it, for me, very meaningful. And I do think that many of us felt as though men... I should say that among the women with whom I was friends, I certainly think that there were friends of mine who were having more fun sexually than I was probably, but I still think that there was a way in which there was some pressure to be heterosexually active. There was really no overt feminist consciousness at Carleton when I was there. I remember my roommate who became a Wall Street banker turned organic farmer, a wonderful woman. And this is much, much later, obviously, in her life. I remember her showing up with Kate Millett's Sexual Politics, and it was like, "Wow." SM (00:06:05): Wow. Yeah. AE (00:06:08): This was highly... Feminism was not part of the fabric of that school yet. Although I do remember, I think it was after I had already moved to Macalester, Gloria Steinem and Margaret Sloan, who was her sidekick then, African American woman who was very important. They came to campus and there was a huge turnout. SM (00:06:29): Wow. AE (00:06:30): And they were great. I mean, they were just wonderful. That probably would have been, I would imagine (19)73, I suspect, (19)72 or (19)73. But feminism was not a very lively presence. There were rumors. I remember the first transgender person I ever met was at Carleton, but was, again, not somebody who I at least understood as having any kind of feminist... This was SM. And it was rumored that when this person had... Well, I mean, let us just say that I was not really aware of any openly lesbian or gay people on that campus. Now, when I went to Macalester, I was living off campus. It was much less intense. It was much more of a commuter campus. Carleton was not. Everybody who was a student there lived on campus pretty much. And it was not even possible to have a car. I mean, when I was at Carleton, I had one of the few cars that you had to park it off campus and pretend that you did not own it. So, it was a kind of hot house. And I do not mean necessarily altogether intellectually so. It was sort of claustrophobic. We often tended to... It was easy to get involved with your best friend's boyfriend and stuff like that would happen. So, there was a lot of that kind of drama around. Macalester was different. As I said, it was a commuter college. There certainly was the beginnings of a feminist and lesbian feminist community there in Saint Paul. And I got introduced to it a little bit when I was a student there, but it did not... I was still rather nervous about all of that and what that meant. It really did feel like jumping off the cliff sort of to even get involved with any group. Not that I am particularly aware of there being any on-campus groups. I think I left there probably about (19)70... This is when it gets tricky. Probably, I think it was the summer of (19)74, and that is when I moved to Santa Fe. So, just to try to answer your question a little bit better, my sense was... I had been politically active, you have to understand, before I went to college. And I write about that in the introduction to Shaky Ground. I had been involved in a strange, little group outside of DC where I had grown up that was supposed to be fighting racism in the suburbs, and more specifically at University of Maryland stuff. I had done a good deal of... I had read a good deal of stuff that summer of (19)69 of some of the people who we met, because we hung out at the SDS house in DC, and we supported breaking furniture workers and did various things. Taxicab drivers went on strike that summer and we supported them at Union Station. But we were allied with this SDS office in DC that I think was viewed by the national office as rather dysfunctional. I do not know if it was. I do remember Bill Ayers coming here and being there one evening when he told us... He was very provocative, and he told us that we really had to pick up the gun if we were serious about fighting racism and stopping the war. SM (00:10:26): Is that when they were going to the Weatherman? AE (00:10:30): Yeah. This was when Weatherman was developing. Trying to remember when the War Council was in Flint, Michigan. It may have been... I think it was right around that time. You'd have to check, but there was Weather people around that factor. And I remember one of them trying to recruit me to go to David's grave, and it just did not make sense to me, actually. And I cannot really tell you why, except that I think I was probably nervous, made uncomfortable by the violence and also the elitism, I think. But again, this could very much be retrospective because certainly, I have been pretty critical of Weatherman in my hourly work. And let me just say, I was not impressed by Bill Ayers. I thought he was a real prick. So, when I came to Carleton, I thought that there was going to be more political activism. And what I found was some people who indeed had a political consciousness, but it was a pretty... Really, the life at the campus was really organized. I mean, at least among my friends, it was really about partying and keggers, and smoking dope, and the occasional dropping of acid, and having a lot of sex. It was not that... And I am not saying that that does not have a political dimension, but this was not a very strong political campus. Although that said, I did take a class with Paul Wellstone when he was- SM (00:12:26): Oh, yeah, the former senator who died in the plane crash. AE (00:12:29): And he was really incredible. I remember taking the class with him on civil disobedience. And there were indeed some political people there who influenced me. So, I do not know. I was one of those people who I suppose could have gone in the direction of further political activism of that sort. Organized, in other words, some sort of variety of left activism. And what happened to me was I ended up after college... Or again, on both campuses. Although at Macalester, there was less [inaudible]. And oddly enough, even though it was a more political campus, I do not remember being that much more politically involved. But be that as it may, I ended up moving with a bunch [inaudible] to Santa Fe, New Mexico, because I just fell in love with it when I came and visited. And one of my friends had grown up here and had been as an architect in Santa Fe and was just somebody who knew Pen La Farge. I think he was the half-brother of Peter La Farge, a folk singer in The Village and was the son of Oliver La Farge, the writer who was the author of Laughing Boy. And so, we stayed in this wonderful house that had belonged to Oliver La Farge. It was still in the La Farge family while Pen was at graduate school in Boston. We lived there for a year. And during that time, I heard about this interesting program in women's studies at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. And I started to go to their meetings. Again, this is something that I write about again in the introduction to Shaky Ground, but that experience was really pretty life changing because this was not... Even though it was ostensibly meant to be an academic program, this is a pretty wild and wooly one. I mean, this one- SM (00:14:55): It was certainly new. AE (00:15:01): It was new. It was definitely new, and one had the feeling that there was very little out there, actually. And one was really making the curriculum. But it was unusual in the sense that community people like myself, because I had not gotten my BA. But I got my BA from Macalester, not from UNM. I was not doing anything there but working as actually a gardener trainee too eventually. But community people were able, like myself, were able to speak in the program for a period of time, which was really probably not a great thing. But looking back on it, I do not think I had the expertise. I do not think I had the skills to teach effectively. I do not think I knew enough. But nonetheless, being part of that group of mostly graduate students, because there was, I believe, only one faculty member who was married, I think, to someone in the philosophy department, and I think taught as an adjunct at the university. I think she was the only faculty member. Again, very, very telling, working as an adjunct. That would change over time, but when I was involved, which probably would have been about, I think it was probably (19)74, (19)75. Again, my dates here are fairly shaky, but it was a really impressive group. I mean, impressive, yes, a lot of smart women in that group, and it was a group only of women. A lot of political tensions between socialist feminists and those who were more mainstream and those who were lesbian feminists. This was my first real introduction to lesbians, and they both inspired me and terrified me. But I would say that there was probably more in the way of admiration than terror. But they were so super articulate. They were so articulate. They were so sure of themselves. They did not seem like the kind of miserable, dysfunctional losers that they were meant to be. And that really did completely blow my mind. And so, I began to tentatively... I eventually moved to Albuquerque. I started to go to the lesbian bar. And indeed, my first visit there was terrifying because none of those women were there, but it really was life changing. Two of the women who were part of that Women's Studies Collective, as we were called, had ties to Olivia Records. And that was the all-women's record company that recorded only women, people like Cris Williamson, and not Holly Near, but Meg Christian and several others. I mean, it was a pretty accomplished group of women, Lucia Valeska, who would then go on to be one of the heads of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. This is not to romanticize it. I would say that... This was what? Probably, as I said, (19)74, (19)75, and they were all... There was a kind of dogmatism there that I did not like. I have never been a big fan of dogmatism. So, even then, that is certainly in play. I had a kind of uneasy relationship, I think, at first to that group because I was perceived very much and indeed did identify first as bisexual. And that was not a good thing to be in those days. You were not seen as farther along. You might think that lesbian feminists would think, "Oh, well, there is a bisexual. So, at least, she's more open than her heterosexual sisters." But no, it's not that way at all. It was much more the case of people, those folks, regarding you as really lacking conviction. You were seen as wishy-washy. You were seen as being the epitome of the liberal. And as you know in the (19)60s, in the long (19)60s, there was really nothing worse than being a liberal. People would rather deal with, in some sense, at least this was the rhetoric, would rather deal with somebody who was overtly inimical to their aims than somebody who they felt was dodgy in the way that they felt liberals were. So, I think bisexual women were really seen as dodgy characters, sketchy characters. And so, yeah, like many bisexual women, I did come out. And indeed, I suspect that even probably some of the women who were, I am quite sure this is true, who were the most vociferous, fiercest lesbian feminists have since gone back to men. But I did not really. I did not. But I would say that those were both wonderful years and scary years. Being involved, not so much in that collective, but in that first community and going to the bar, going to the lesbian bar, it was a very scary thing to do. It was not in a good neighborhood by any stretch of the imagination. There was sometimes men who would prowl the parking lot in order to beat up guys. That never happened to me. But I remember evening or nights when men were chased away. There were fights inside the bar for sure. There were tensions between Chicanos and Anglos, between working class women and middle-class women, between town and gown. I would not say antagonism but mistrust or distrust. So, it was a pretty... It was also a wonderful place in many ways, although it was a complete [inaudible]. But I would say you really did feel like you were leaving your life behind. And I started to see much less of my friends in Santa Fe when I moved down there, and I came out. Relations with my family became much tenser. They had been a little tense because I had been involved in these political groups. And I can remember calling my mother up to tell her that I was coming out, and she was just so actually relieved that I was not calling to say that I was joining some terrorist group. That actually, her reaction, I would not say that it was great, but it could have been a lot worse. There was definitely, I think, an element of relief. SM (00:23:16): So, your generation gap between your parents was over this issue? AE (00:23:21): Well, I would say my father was a pretty interesting character because he had been a new neoliberal and he subscribed to I. F. Stone weekly, at a point in time when actually it could have hurt him because he ended up, he worked at the Veteran's Administration, and he became the head of the mortgage loan guarantee division. And that was a job, it was a position that required congressional approval, as I understand it. And they could subpoena anything, everything, anything, including what he was subscribing to. So, that was pretty nervy of him. But over time, I will say that he became, and this was a source of a lot of conflict between us, he became a Reagan nut. He ended up moving to the right. For all I know, he voted for Nixon. I am just not sure. But he ended up moving to the right. And we did have fights about racism and about affirmative action, and about the ERA, and abortion. Yeah, we definitely did. Not so much as my mother. My mother was not as politically invested as my father was because he worked at a government agency. I do not doubt that he saw a good deal of abuse and fraud, especially in his workings with HUD because he had [inaudible]. SM (00:25:08): Do you think the McCarthy hearings had anything to do with his fear of what could happen to him if he was a liberal and... AE (00:25:23): Well, no, because he was subscribing to I. F. Stone. And I. F. Stone, as you know, was- SM (00:25:24): Yeah. Pretty much, yeah. AE (00:25:31): Certainly, was judged a dangerous lefty by some people in the administration. And I think by the time that my father... This would have been during Nixon's years when he was going up. So, I do not know. I do not really think so. I think he had every reason to be fearful given Nixon and given that administration about what might happen to his appointment. And it ended up not happening. He ended up being fine, but he was an odd person in that, as I understand it... Again, I have not checked this independently, but as I understand it, he was the first person at the VA in his division to hire an African American. And indeed, I had lunch with my father and this man a number of times. And he was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a man that could be characterized as an Uncle Tom. He really was not. So, my father was odd. I would say he was an interesting mix, who over time, I think mostly goes to the right, turns to the right because of the riots in DC. I think what happened there were friends of his were attacked by Black people in the street, including people who he knew to be very honorable liberals. That really changed him, and it was very hard to see that happen. It was hard to experience that. But we did continue to... So, he goes to the right. And for years, he would send a weekly letter, both of them, both of the parents would. And he would include a page usually, which would deal with current events and his sort of sense. He was forever making disparaging comments about gays and lesbians and feminists, and you name it. And finally, towards the latter part of his life, my mother, finally, because we had a big, serious falling out at some point, I think it was in the (19)90s, and my mother persuaded me to ratchet that down, ratchet that rhetoric down. And in fact, before my mother died, she really became quite wonderful. Now, because father has died, she became much more open to- SM (00:28:22): Did you pick the University of Michigan for your master's and PhD because you wanted to be real competent in your knowledge of the subject matter that you were talking about earlier? AE (00:28:34): I had applied to a number of schools including UCLA, I think Yale, which I did not get into. But I think UCLA was definitely one of them and I did get in there, and Michigan and Yale. I think there was another school that I did not get into, and there was another one that I did, maybe Wisconsin. I ended up going to Michigan because it was meant to be very good in women's history. And Robin Jacoby was then a young and tenured faculty member there and Louise Billie was in European history. And so, it was very strong in social history. And as you know, women's history really grows out of social history. And there was a young urban historian there by the name of Elizabeth Pleck, whose husband Joe Pleck has done a lot of work on sex-role, as they were called, through sex- role socialization as it was involved in at that point in time. So, I really went there because of its reputation as a very strong department, but one that was especially strong, I hope, in women's history. That turned out not to be true. It turned out to be a very conservative department that I was getting into. For instance, Liz Pleck was denied tenure pretty early into my- [inaudible]. Pretty early into my time there, Robin Jacoby did not go up for tenure, knowing she would not get it. And they did not make any replacement. There was no real woman's historian hired there in the US side, which was what I was supposed to be in, until Phil Carlson was hired, which was, I think the year that I was... the year that I was defending or the year before I was defending my decision. So I effectively had the decision. I remember very clearly going and had... I had nobody to work with. I will get back to that interesting problem in a minute. But I went to Michigan also because it was Ann Arbor, it had this whole aura of, and history of radicalism, right? SM (00:30:59): Yes. AE (00:31:00): And so I was very eager to be there. And I knew that women's studies there were meant to be really interesting and it was really interesting. It was so terrific. This is where Gal Rubin was a graduate student and Kathleen Stewart or Katie Stewart was a graduate student there, and there were other people and it was just the most amazing collection of people. Believe me, it was a wonderful, wonderful experience to be part of that program. And that is really where my intellectual life was, it was not in history. History was still very conservative and that changes. Indeed, it is changing by the time I am finishing up, but really much too late to help me. But I was also part of the so called women's community there, which is to say really, basically the lesbian community and the collectives that ran the women's Bookstore in town. And then there were various struggles there, three of the VA nurses who again, we argued wrongly accused of killing people. This was legalized prostitution. Ann Arbor was the home of legalized marijuana and we thought legalized prostitution. So we were sort of the leading edge of the, I would say, the protest front before the sex board actually emerged. And some of it actually was because of the fact that a number of the women who were the most active women in the lesbian family community there also worked as bus drivers at the Unionized Trust company in Ann Arbor and also moonlighted as prostitutes. They worked, they were sex workers at a brothel that were city corner from where I [inaudible] later in the [inaudible]. So politically I was involved in the Graduate Employers Organization too, but that was not really where my heart was as much as it was in the women's community over time as against, over time as those organizations there were fewer of these mobilizations and I became more involved ultimately in writing the dissertation. So I became less politically active, but I was pretty politically active at first in my first years in Ann Arbor. But the person, the people who really saved me back to faculty members, and it was Barbara Fields, the Columbia historian, Barbara [inaudible], who I had done coursework with and had been on my world. And she and I ran into it. But there were a grocery store and she offered to co-chair my committee. And Louis Hilly, who was the Europeanist, was the other co-chair. But it is quite telling that in the dissertation it was really about radical feminism in the recent past. I had no one to work with others in, and they were Louis me. I am not complaining in the sense that they were wonderful to work with, but it was not their field. This was not their field. It was still mean. The history department there, as I said, was still fairly backwards. SM (00:34:32): I got a lot of questions here that are looking at the era. Can you discuss, I just had an interview last week with Susan Brown Miller and some of these questions I asked her too, and though she had some individual questions about her background, but please discuss the movements that evolved in the late (19)60s and (19)70s. And I am talking about the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the environmental movement, the Native American movement, the Chicano movement, but civil rights movement was already taking place. But please discuss the movements that evolved in the late (19)60s and (19)70s and why they seem to have declined once the Reagan era began in the (19)80s. And a lot of people blame Reagan because of the administration, but the movements were, a lot of them were shoot offs from the civil rights and anti-war movement for a variety of reasons. I got questions down the road for that, but your thoughts on why they do not seem to be as visible today that is my perception and they really have not been as visible since the (19)80s. AE (00:35:50): Well, I do think that the (19)70s is a period in which there is a good deal activist biology, and so I do think the (19)70s, the business character, I do think by the time he gets the (19)80s, absolutely, I think it is true. And there was a cultural shift of course, that put him into office as well was inimical to the kind of political organizing that had characterized the (19)60s and into the 1970s. So I think that that was the fast. But I also think that it is very, very hard to maintain movements. Movements by their very nature or some, maybe not seminal, but they are limited. they do not just go on forever. And there shifts and they change and they rarely are, and they usually go through foul periods. Now, I do not know who is to say that there is not going to be some sort of resurgence of feminism tomorrow. Certainly people have thought that that was going to happen any number of times since the (19)70s, but I guess in the (19)80s, I have just been reading this wonderful book by 15 sample called The Feminist [inaudible], which is a history of, for the first and the second place. And one of the things that she points out, and I think this is really key, is that in part because of Reaganism and the tone that Reaganism took on feminist fear. Because faith that you felt if you were a feminist, and I would say if you were a member of a sexual or racial minority as well, or somebody who was elected, it was not one of the things that keeps movement going is a sense that you are gaining, you are actually gaining ground. We have had the experience of losing ground and having to fight and fight and fight, continuing to fight for abortion, for instance, that was getting acquittal away, continuing to fight for the era that was a losing battle. We thought that she had managed to diminish the possibilities of foreign adventures, right? Involvement in the affairs of foreign government, well, no, as Iran. So there were a number of ways in which I think people who were associated with those movements, the challenges to affirmative action, certainly there were a number of programs that had been instituted, especially during the LBJ and even during the Nixon years that were dismantled during the raging years. And I think there was this sensation that many of us had of a total fatigue. And then they are having to gear up around the pornography battle and faith in the first, within the sum movement, but it was also an internally divide movement. So one of the things that Christ stamp points out in her very really brilliant book is that when we are looking at feminism, it is not case that the movement end, which is, I would have to say that I would now revise my argument in daring to be bad. I think that radical feminism does sort of peter out. But feminism as a whole, I think that I was far too harsh on liberal feminism. I think that then becomes the ancient, I mean, as I say in my book, even the radical feminist engine cuts out and it was less liberal feminist. I do not feel as now as gloomy about that. I think an awful lot was accomplished. And I think as a result of what I was going to say that Chris in her book is that as a result of Reaganism, you find American feminists working globally and having great success in working globally. Which is not to say that global feminism has been unproblematic because there has been a tendency, as she points out in her book, to flatten women's experience out and not be yearly as attentive as one should do the sort of local conditions and traditions. But nonetheless, I think that made a huge difference. And so I would not say that feminism totally heated out. And I think there are still conversations that are happening. There are still, I would not say that there is a movement in the way in which there was in the (19)70s, but there is still happening. And I think it is even significant when you have people like Lady Gaga saying quite forthrightly on the Larry King show, that yes, she is a feminist and that she wants to change the way that girls and women think about themselves. SM (00:41:51): You wrote a book on radical feminism, and of course a lot of people I have interviewed are proud to be feminist, but they do not say they are radical feminists. How do you define the difference between a radical feminist and just a feminist or a mainstream feminist, or what is the difference? AE (00:42:08): Well, I think that really defies easy descriptions. I, again I would have to say, I really tried very diligently in that book to give a definition of radical feminism that would be broad enough to include even radical feminists who did not agree with each other. SM (00:42:39): Hold on one second. I have to turn my, okay. AE (00:42:47): But I mean, Susan Brown Miller, I do not know how she identified herself to you in her interview, but for instance, she was involved in a group called New York Radical Feminist. And I would say still that what characterized radical feminism, and this is where I would be more critical of my book now, is that I think that this began to characterize liberal feminists as well over time because it was a very powerful idea. Which is the idea that personal is political, which means this is an idea by the way that I think has been understood, has been used in ways that have not always been productive. But be that as it may, I think that the personal is political was originally an idea that was really put forward by Seawright Neural the radical sociologist, and then popularized somewhat by Hayden and then further picked up on by the woman who begin to form these little groups that become the basis of the Women's liberation Movement. And what the personal is political really means is that there is that personal life, this area of our existence that we usually assume is purely personal, actually has the political dimensions. And so it actually says something about the culture in which we live that, for instance, heterosexual sex at that point in time often was a three-minute affair that did very often was more centered around male pleasure than female. It was significant and said something about the culture that there were certain people who were changing the diapers and cooking the meals and cleaning up, et cetera, et cetera. That was what it was really, I think originally supposed to mean. Not that if you lived with a man or if your hair was long, or if you wore high heels and you were not a feminist, which is very often the way that it was construed, I think. But so a radical feminist was somebody who really felt that the real focus of our political activism needed to be around the personal and needed to be around the psychological. Not to the total dismissal of dealing with and working on employment discrimination or rape laws or violence against women more generally. But that the real meat of this, the real meat of the struggle was psychological and it was relational. And so for me, radical feminism was really about an immense challenge to personal life and to the sort of social organization of private life. And again, in some cases it led to things that I think were unfortunate. The personal political was one of the arguments that was used to by some feminists to supports the impeachment of Clinton. And I myself, could not have cared less. I should not say I could not have cared less, but I did not think that that should be the basis of impeachment. But I do think that the attention to personal life, whereas liberal had been much more tuned to sort of more conventionally understood political realm of employment discrimination laws, legislation. But here is the thing, over time, inevitably the radical feminist's agenda, the sort of focus on the personal, it be very visible and so now begins to organize CR groups now takes up the struggle more effectively than radical feminists does. Abortion rights and rape laws and on and on and on. So the liberal feminist, the liberal feminist, played an incredibly important role, and they were themselves changed and transformed by radical feminists. I would say radical feminism played a role in the women's business, not unlike the role that, for instance, Nixon rights. It pushed the issue it went deeper and sometimes in somewhat wacky ways, but it was still liberal feminism would never have developed as it did without that kind of push for radical feminists. Does that help too? SM (00:47:53): Yes. I have some names here. Would you put Gloria Steinem and Betty Fordam and Sherry Height? Would you put them in the liberal feminist where you have, but you would have Bella Abzug, Robin Morgan, Andrew Derkin, Susan Johnson, Jermaine Greer would be more in the radical. AE (00:48:16): Well, I think one of the things that I really feel at this point in time is that I am very uninterested in making those kinds of distinctions, in part because very often those distinctions were much more meaningful in the very early years of the women's movement. And over time I think became less so. Certainly somebody like Dudy Friedan had no use for radical feminism. On the other hand, she herself, her thinking was to some extent transformed by what was going on within the radical feminist sphere. But I am not comfortable making those kinds of judge, I just do not think it is, it gets us anywhere. Let us just say that at its best, at its most optimal radical feminism and liberal feminism when they worked together, were able to really accomplish a lot, sometimes in a kind of good cop, bad cop way. SM (00:49:24): The (19)60s and early (19)70s are often defined as the era that defined the color culture that includes long hair, unique dress, drugs, rock music, the sexual revolution. And a lot of people say that the (19)60s included goes right up to 1973 and that the real (19)70s began in the mid (19)70s, but the (19)70s were also important. So basically what I am saying is, and I have heard this from other people, that a lot of the things that define the (19)60s, many of them really defined the (19)70s and were more important in the (19)70s. AE (00:50:08): Well, yeah, that is maybe argument that I make in the disco book. I think this notion of the me decade, it was a great essay from Will, but think we have outlived, I think there was an awful lot of, if you want to talk about narcissism, there was an awful lot of narcissism in the (19)60s too. And I think, but to get at the question of the (19)70s, I think that what is distinctive about the (19)70s is that over time, one does have the feelings as a result of the loss of Vietnam, which different parts of the population experience differently right? As a result of that, as a result of the energy crisis, as a result of the shuttering of factories as a result of the recession and stagflation, it is a different kind of consciousness mean you do not have the sense of nearly the same sense, which was very important for the underwriting of protests. This sense of, hey, this is let the good times roll. This is just not going to end. We are going to continue to be able to live for $30 a month in a beautiful, somewhat rundown Victorian in the middle of a city. So that sense of optimism and hopefulness, I think begins to take a beating. And I think, again, more systematic research has to be done on this. And when that sort of sense of pessimism sets in, and I think also the political assassinations take their toll. I think in black communities, certainly the sense that you are able to elect mayors is important, but it is also becomes increasingly undeniable that these are cities that are in pretty bad shape. So I think, again, I think that the periodization is probably going to vary somewhat depending upon the group that one's talking about. But I think if you think about the (19)60s as being a time that did involve actually both collective action and assigned an ethos of individualism, if you think about it at the time, which was pretty hedonistic and pleasure oriented. This goes through, this runs through the threads that run through the (19)70s, and the kind of hedonism that you might have seen at the full auto auditorium becomes much more available to more people in disco culture. And in fact, one of the things that is quite striking about disco culture is that it is not, I do not want to oversell it, I do not want to romanticize it because there was racial discrimination in discos, but it is a much more integrated nightlife than what you found at Hip Ballroom where black people tended to be not typical. Something of a rarity. SM (00:53:59): Hold on. Somebody is calling. I will let it go. My cell phone. I will just let it ring. Yeah, it is interesting because as a student at Ohio State in the early (19)70s, this is before disco, African American students had their own dances and white students had their own dances, and there was this black power thing and there was a lot of intimidation going on. And then disco came about later in the (19)70s itself. Would you say, as some people have told me that some people think that the (19)70s were more about the sexual revolution and drugs was more a (19)70s thing than a (19)60s thing? AE (00:54:42): Well, I think drugs become, drugs had been part of various, if you think about it, if you think about pharmaceuticals, the (19)50s were a drug era. You think about just the very casual use of speed in the 1950s. There was a reason that so many beatniks were so many of the beats were using feed. It was that it was pretty much the drugs that a lot of people were using. And it was easy to get at Carlton, they would hand it out at examination time. And that was way into the (19)60s. So I think it depends on the kinds of drugs that you are talking about. And I certainly would not make the argument that a lot of people do that the (19)60s were good drugs and the (19)70s were bad drugs. I think that is very simplistic. But I do think that drugs in some sense become more available. I think that the sexual revolution affects more people in the 1970s. I think certainly gay liberation really changes the landscape for Williams Samaritans. So I think that it is absolutely true that there is more sexual expressiveness. There is probably, again, do not quote me, but there is certainly a lot of drug use. I think it does permeate the population more fully. And I think some of the biggest protest marches actually happened in the 1970s. I think all of that is true. SM (00:56:38): One of the things I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, and I know David Horowitz, who you are aware of, a liberal who became very conservative and has attacked the (19)60s generation in many ways. You teach women's studies and well, another areas, how do you respond to the criticism of colleges today that the troublemakers of yesterday now run today's colleges and oversee departments like women's studies, gay studies, Asian studies, and black studies. It is a criticism that some more conservative people make toward the universities today. AE (00:57:21): Well- SM (00:57:22): And it is not only been since 2000. It was all through the (19)90s too, and probably the latter part of the (19)80s. AE (00:57:31): Well, I think that it would be fair to say that the university tend to be places where faculty members tend towards the liberal. I do not think that that is the preserve only of women's studies department. There tend not be, there are departments called things like lesbian and gay, bisexual, transgender studies. I do not know. I am associated, I have taught in many places in women's studies, gender studies, LGBT, I have encountered some dogmatism. But anybody who has read my work knows that I am really not dogmatic. I am not a defender of weatherman. I am not a defender of, I have been known to be critical of the last, I have been known to be critical of other strands of feminism. I am not really a very [inaudible] person. And in fact, that whole term, politically correct or PC was a term that was created that came about within the feminists and sort of larger progressive movement as a way of poking fun at that kind of the more ideologically oriented amongst us. And so I tend to think that actually in the programs that I have been involved with, that there has been a good deal of debate. And these are not places that are characterized by semi-Nazism as some people have alleged. I think I am somebody, and I know I am not alone in this, who when she teaches feminism, will often teach well, I always teach people who are critical of the movement as well. I will teach Camille Pollia, I will teach people who... AE (01:00:03): ... I have taught Phyllis Schlafly. I think it is really important for students to be exposed to something other than simply a certain strand of feminism, a certain kind of let us say, gay and lesbian history writing. So, I have always encouraged people in my classes, and I have seen this a lot among other faculty, encouraged people to question orthodoxies no matter what the orthodoxy, even if it's a political tendency that is represented in the program that I am teaching in. I do think that feminists have been really extraordinarily self-critical, perhaps not in ways that Schlafly and Harwood would agree with, but I think we have certainly taken on board very seriously the criticisms that, for instance, women of color have made of these women's studies programs. So I would say I am very well aware of those criticisms, of course, but somebody like myself, who I really do think of as in many ways, really a free thinker. I have not felt constrained, shall we say, by my involvement in these [inaudible 01:01:47]. SM (01:01:48): You are a cultural historian, and of course the boomers have been alive since 1946. The oldest Boomers are 63 going on 64, and the youngest Boomers are 47 going on 48. So they have all been around a while. So I break it down here, and I have been asking this to all of my interviewees, at least the second half of my interviewees, is, in your words, define the culture of these particular periods. I will do one at a time here, define the culture of the late (19)40s and (19)50s and how the (19)40s shaped the (19)50s and the (19)50s shaped the (19)60s. It does not have to be anything in length, but just general, what it was like to be a kid growing up in America, or a young parent like the Boomers parents or World War II generation raising kids in this era. Just define the culture of the late (19)40s and (19)50s, and then how the (19)40s shaped the (19)50s, and how the (19)50s shaped the (19)60s. AE (01:02:54): Well, I suspect that it goes farther back. I mean, I suspect that certainly the (19)30s did a lot of shaping of the (19)60s in the sense that initially a lot of the people who were (19)60s activists, and by that, I mean people who were involved, not in Young Americans for Freedom, I am talking about the people who were involved in FBS and other left-leaning groups, the liberal groups, what they knew about the (19)30s and the left through the (19)50s was very sobering. So I think that to a great extent, there was a caution about dogmatism and about relying upon a predetermined or any kind of dogma, any kind of Marxist-Leninist thought. There was a real uneasiness about that, which of course was an uneasiness that was encouraged and to a great extent by some of the liberals who were mentoring people like Hayden and others. So I think that, you have to go even further back. When it comes to my own childhood, I think the way that I make sense of it, and I write about this a bit in the Janice book, is that Lord knows Port Arthur was not Chevy Chase, Maryland by a long shot, and her parents were not my parents. But I do think that many of us grew up feeling as though our parents were just completely unreasonably invested in a kind of safe and secure existence. They wanted stability, they wanted safety, they wanted stability, and they did not want excitement. This is what I believe in the Janice book I talk about, I think I quote Peter Coyote about the adventure shortage. SM (01:05:21): I am interviewing him in three weeks. AE (01:05:23): Yes, check it out. I am pretty sure that he's the one who talked about the adventure shortage, and I did not interview him. I could not get to him so more power to you. But I think that that is true. I think many of us growing up did feel as though there was an adventure shortage. I think there was also a sense that a number of the people that I interviewed for the Janice book talked about, which was this sense of potential oblivion. I mean, I had nightmares myself about Soviet troops marching down the street. I mean, those of us who lived through the Cuban missiles crisis and were aware of and worried about the arms buildup, I think did grow up feeling fearful. I suspect that all of that, the sort of enthusiasm that our parents had for stability and for a lack of excitement and the kind of adventure shortage that that resulted in, and these sorts of fears about nuclear destruction, probably made us take risks. It did not make us better, it did not make us more noble. It did not make us the best generation or a better generation. It made us different. I think, again, each of us dealt with us differently, and some people took no risks at all, but a lot of us did take risks, whether it was deciding to come out as a lesbian as I did, which believe me, was not a great career move, although you would not know it now, but for a long time, I did not have a tenured position, and this had to do with the kind of risks that I took in my work and it had to do also with the fact that I was not at all closeted. It was pretty easy to tell from my acknowledgements that I was not exclusively heterosexual. So a lot of us took risks, I think as a result of that, as a result of feeling this kind of claustrophobia. A lot of us grew up in suburbs that did not have a lot happening in them also. So I think in particular, many of us were drawn to African American culture and African American music. Eventually, certainly for me, and I am sure this is true for some others too, from listening to soul music, you started to read Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver, and there was for sure some pretty problematical stuff in Eldridge Cleaver. But nonetheless, this stuff changed the way that you understood power and the way that you understood America. So I guess that is what I would say. SM (01:09:05): Yeah. You do not have to go in, because I got quite a few questions here, and your explanation was beautiful there. You have talked about some of these things, but if you could define how the culture of the (19)60s shaped the (19)70s and how the culture of the (19)70s shaped the (19)80s. AE (01:09:24): I do not know if I can really do that. I mean, I think- SM (01:09:33): From a Boomer's perspective. AE (01:09:35): I think that the (19)60s got its best, and there was a worse to the (19)60s, too. I mean, I am not a romantic, I am not somebody who thinks that everything about the (19)60s was just hunky-dory. I do not. I think that there were some real mistakes. I teach the (19)60s, and so some of my favorite books are things like... Oh, what's the name of this? The TC Boyle book about the commune, which is so funny. It is just really a devastating critique. "Drop City," devastating. But at its best, I mean, the (19)60s gave people, and I know this is an overused word, but it gave some people a sense of empowerment. At the same time, it made others feel, who had been used to taking certain privileges for granted, it made them feel angry about the loss of that. But certainly for people like myself, it was an incredibly empowering experience. You really did feel as though the world could be changed, a war was stopped. I am just looking outside because we are having a hailstorm, and I am trying to think if I should call you back in a minute and move my car. SM (01:11:23): You are having a bad storm. AE (01:11:27): Yeah, we are having a hail storm, so I am just looking outside. I think it is okay. SM (01:11:32): Let me know, and then I could call you back in 10 minutes if you want me to. AE (01:11:36): I tell you, why do not you call me back in five? SM (01:11:41): Okay. AE (01:11:41): Okay? SM (01:11:41): Yep. Bye. AE (01:11:41): Okay, great. Okay, bye. SM (01:11:46): You were talking about the (19)60s. I think you were finishing up on the culture of the (19)60s and the influence on the (19)70s, and then the culture of the (19)70s. Basically, what I am really asking here is because we are talking about when Boomers have been alive and the feelings that Boomers have. It is 74 million people so they have experienced all these. So what the (19)70s, the (19)80s, and the (19)90s, and the (20)10s mean to them, just from your perspective. AE (01:12:16): Well, I think that probably the fact that I was involved in the feminist movement and the gay and lesbian movement, these were movements that did have real momentum through a large part of the (19)70s. So I think that for me, and again, this is taking into account the fact that obviously, as I said, look at what's happening as regards to global feminism, had I made that move, then I am sure my feelings would be very different. But the feelings that I had, I would say in the (19)70s, I think that I still had a sense of momentum. I think in the (19)80s, the (19)80s definitely felt like a real break on change. I think that is when I felt, and I am not sure, again, this is hard to know, it is not clear to me to what extent I felt this and to what extent this was what I was reading in at the time. But it did feel as though there was more of a backlash in that decade against feminism. Then of course, there was, in this period, this was when I was teaching, it was the beginning of AIDS, so that really reverberated. So I think there was this sense of, that I was probably not explaining very well, but I think that there was frequently this sense in the (19)80s of not only not momentum, but of having to defend the victories that you had won much, much earlier. It led to a kind of wariness, at least on my part, a kind of fatigue. I was quite pleased when Clinton won. If you were to go beyond that, obviously from the standpoint of 2010, I am almost 60, the way that the culture has changed, it takes your breath away. It's difficult sometimes to comprehend how much it has changed. In the sense of being able to be, at least in my world, pretty openly gay, being able to not have nearly the kinds of impediments that I would have had and that I did have when I first was studying history because I am female. There is just so much that is changed. On the other hand, we have this incredible poverty and we have this environmental disaster and on and on and on. So I do not know quite what else to say. I mean, I think I would say this about the (19)60s though, to go back just for a moment, that my predominant experience of the (19)60s, well into the (19)70s, was this sense of really being able to have agency and feeling a real sense of empowerment and seeing it in other people, and just really how beautiful that was. It is kind of amazing, if you consider how, for instance, the university has changed, now we can look at the fact that the university has changed in all kinds of ways that are agreeable to me, whereas other parts of society a bit more resistant to change or have actually changed in ways that have contributed to greater inequality. You think about banking, you think about the lack of regulation. But if I think about the university, I think one of the reasons that that place has been so transformed is that so many of us from the (19)60s did have the sense of we can really do this. Right? That was such a strong ethos. SM (01:17:33): Yeah, you make a good point here about the fact that in the (19)80s there was this feeling of the gains that had been made, now there was greater challenge, and it is like you are fighting the battle all over again because that is when affirmative action was challenged. So the African Americans, I know about Latinas, Caesar Chavez working with them, of course, the labor unions were set back in those times, the women's movement. I know a lot of attacks on the environmental movement took place then. Certainly, I think just about every movement we have discussed, the anti-war movement was almost nonexistent. There was a small group of anti-war, but then we saw it all over again in the early (19)90s in the Gulf War. So my next question, I am getting into some of the disco questions, which I am kind of excited about. This is Steve McKiernan now. When I think of disco, I think of Barry White, Isaac Hayes, the Bee Gees, Tavares, Thelma Houston, Donna Summer, Sylvester, Chaka Khan, Andy Gibb, Gloria Gainer, and I forget the, again, oh, Love Unlimited Orchestra. However, in this same period, these groups were very popular. And I do not know, I think Mothers and Fathers and Sisters and Brothers would be on that other side. But I think of Earth, Wind and Fire, Cool and the Gang, Eddie Kendricks, Curtis Mayfield, Al Green, the Isley Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack, and Patty LaBelle. Now, I do not know if you categorize them in the same as you would the disco performers. They are all around the same time, though. AE (01:19:30): They are all around the same time, and you will doubtless remember that one of the early big disco hits before a lot of people were really very aware of disco, was Lady Marmalade, which was done by the group Trio LaBelle, and which Patti LaBelle was a member, and certainly Earth Winds and Fire was great. Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway back together again. I used to play them all the time in [inaudible] where I DJ'ed. Again, I tend not to be particularly driven by the urge to categorize in that way. In the book, one of the arguments that I make very early on, and I am pretty attached to this idea, is that when it comes to rock music, nobody says about heavy metal, "Well, that is heavy metal. That is not really rock." Or nobody says about punk, "Well, that is punk. That is not really rock." Other words, we understand rock as being almost infinitely malleable. It's a big category that can kind of attach all category. It can contain a lot of different kind of phonics, a lot of different kinds of sounds. But that is not been true of disco. And so there will be people who say, "Oh, well, Michael Jackson was not really a disco artist." "Oh, the Philadelphia International Group, like the OJs, they were not really disco." It just goes on and on and on. SM (01:21:14): Yeah, the Stylistics were another group of that period. And the Delfonics, I mean, there was group after group and they were all great. AE (01:21:22): They were great, and many of them were produced by Tom Bell. So I would argue a couple of things. I would say, first of all, that those distinctions between artists do not mean that much to me. That when I think about disco and when I try to define disco, what my definition of it is, the music that certainly took as its template soul music, but which transformed it in ways that made it much more lush, much more symphonic, was characterized very often by as you know, the four-four thump. But it was music that included anything that really worked on a disco dance floor. That could be Betty Hendrick, and often was, it could be Parliament Funkadelics, One Nation Under A Groove. It could be Patti LaBelle. I mean, to me, it's whatever worked. I think because disco has been so stigmatized, people have been very eager to define disco very narrowly, as really referring to only the most classic disco records in, again, a very narrow and circumscribed period. Now, that said, I do think that there are some differences between funk and disco, although I would say that there is an awful lot of disco dance floors featured funk. And the Isley Brothers, for instance, did a song called "Fight the Power," that was a great song and a very political song just as The Temptations did a song "Papa was a Rolling Stone," that also was a very socially conscious song. These were songs that played in early disco. "Papa was a Rolling Stone," I think was three years before "Fight the Power," but nonetheless, this kind of music, music by Black musicians who sometimes define themselves as more oriented towards funk, sometimes more towards disco, sometimes more towards R and B, sometimes more towards rock, like Chaka Khan or LaBelle, they were all being played for a period of time on disco dance floor until disco became Disco with a capital D and then the sound narrowed somewhat. But phonically funk tended to be more about getting into a groove and finding that groove and digging deep into that groove. Whereas disco phonically, orally, it sounded more obviously constructed because it was. It was music that was remixed an remixed in ways that emphasized its dance ability. It was music whose musical movements often had a kind of arbitrary feel to it. Why do the horns come in there? Why suddenly does the vocal end here? So I think that made it phonically somewhat different from funk. But on a dance floor, I always found that most people were quite eager to dance to the full spectrum of what was danceable. I do not know if I answered your question. SM (01:25:08): A lot of rock musicians, so were really into rock in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, and jazz musicians too, could not stand disco because from what... Hold on. Okay, here we go. A lot of musicians did not like it because of the fact that it took jobs away from people because they were com- AE (01:25:39): Oh, yeah. That is true. I think that there was a whole segment of the rock community that hated disco because of the fact that a lot of rock venues, rock clubs went disco and understandable. But of course, there were a lot of other criticisms made of it too, and that it was boring and predictable. SM (01:26:07): Well, some of the things that I heard around the years when I was at Ohio State, and then of course my years as an administrator at Ohio University through (19)76, is that when you think of disco, well, the (19)60s is over because the (19)60s was about activism, the (19)60s music was messages. The folk musicians, the rock musicians, they had a lot of messages in their music. This was just pure dance. That is one of the criticisms. Another one is that the (19)70s began when disco began, because a lot of people of the (19)60s think that up to 1973, that is still the (19)60s because of the way that is. And that the (19)70s really began around (19)74 and (19)75, and you had "Saturday Night Fever," the movie, and that is when it really began the Disco era. Just your thoughts on all that hodgepodge that I just mentioned. AE (01:27:15): Well, again, I think most music of the (19)60s was not political music. It was music that very often yearned to be meaningful. I would say it very often tried to be meaningful, but I do not think very much of it actually was political. I mean, if you really look at it, if you really look at the most popular. If you look at the very earliest music that was popular on disco dance floors, what's interesting is that a lot of that music actually was not utterly apolitical the way that it has been represented. Again, a song like "Fight the Power," most people would say, "Oh, well that was funk," but it was being played in discos. So I would say that there is a shift over time in disco to a less overtly political register. Now, I think that one of the groups that is most interesting in this respect is Chic, the Bernard Edwards- Nile Rodgers group, because Nile Rodgers had been a member of the Black Panthers. Chaka Khan had been involved with Black Panthers as well. I would say that both of those musicians, both Nile Rodgers and Chaka Khan, and I would say this is true of LaBelle as well, who were popular in the early years of disco, these are musicians who wanted their music to be empowering. So "I am Every Woman," now not everybody will think of that as a political song, but I think Chaka Khan did actually. Not everybody will necessarily think of "We Are Family," as a political song, this is the Chic song, but Nelson Mandela has said that when he was in prison, this was a song when it would come on the radios that the guards were listening to, it kept him going. It was a song that Nile Rodgers claimed to have written at Woodstock. Certainly the vocal Trio LaBelle did a number of songs, which were really pretty overtly political. But I think that what is interesting about disco is that to a great extent, it is music that is not overtly political. It is satisfy- AE (01:30:03): ... political. It is satisfied with getting people dancing. And to the extent that there is a political message in any of it, it is usually rather hidden and obscured. For instance in the song, Good Times by Chic, many people thought that, that was the song that is completely out of touch with America. It seemed, for many people, to be a song celebrating the good life in the midst of a terrible recession, but it was tongue-in-cheek. It is just that nobody expected a disco group to be smart enough to do a song that was tongue-in-cheek. As Nile Rogers said, "If this had been Bob Dylan, everybody would have said, "Check out Bob. Pretty cool."" But because it was a disco group, people took it at face value. So I think that, I do think that disco tended to make its meaning obscure, it tended not to favor the politically explicit. And I think that is really interesting that, that is true. I think to some extent, because disco was really about, to a great extent, about escapism and it was much more about taking evasive action. Again, as I point out in my book, there are songs that do make political points. But this was not really, there was not very much finger pointing music, to use Bob Dylan's expression, in disco. But again, I think partly that the meaning was made on the dance floor. I mean, the meanings were made in the kinds of contacts that happened between people. The ways in which, at its best, racial boundaries were crossed, gender boundaries, sexual boundaries were crossed. So I think that, more often than not, was where the meanings were. SM (01:32:22): I will tell you one thing, going to a disco in downtown Columbus in 1975 was a lot different than going into the Ohio Union in 1972, where there was total separation. AE (01:32:36): Mm-hmm. SM (01:32:37): One of the questions here is disco, you bring this up in your book, was basically performed by Black performers. It is often scorned as a terrible period for music between rock and roll and the Motown sound of the (19)60s and mid-(19)70s that, we already just went over that, to the new wave music in the (19)80s. Does this scorn or attack have anything to do with racism, prejudice, or the lessening of the value of something because it does not come from the majority? AE (01:33:07): Well, I think unfortunately, by the time we get to the attacks on disco, it comes to be understood within the community, within communities of rock, was that rock music is a largely white genre, with the exception of Jimi Hendrix. If you were to tune into classic rock stations in 1977, and I mentioned an article by Bill Marcus who talks about a Bay Area station that does a history of rock that includes precisely one Black artist, and that is Jimi Hendrix. So there is this sense, by the time we get to the mid to late (19)70s, that rock is really... that Black people do not belong in rock music. Which is, of course, such an irony given the fact that you would never have had the rock music without Black musicians, because R&B is the essential backbone to rock. So yeah, I mean, I think there is a sense in which you have to understand the backlash against disco as certainly involving a certain kind of racism. And if you look at the two DJs in Detroit that tried to organize an anti-disco army, they called themselves the Disco Ducks Klan, I think it is. And they hatch this plot to go on stage wearing white robes. I mean, that cannot be accidental, the use of Klan, the use of... The decision is later aborted, but of course it is. I think it has to be understood, within the context of a situation, a moment in which some white heterosexual men feel under attack. They feel as though their music is being shoved off the airways. They feel like they are being shoved out of certain jobs because of affirmative action, because [inaudible]. And so, I do think that disco comes to, it is a lightning rod of sorts for a lot of discontent about racial minorities, and about feminism, and about gay men. Because certainly, even though a lot of people were unaware of the fact that gay men were the, really, disco's early adopters, a lot were not. And a lot of people did know that there were significant numbers of gay men who were among disco's poor constituencies. So I think that, the backlash against disco is inseparable from homophobia and racism, and probably as well from a kind of uneasiness about feminism. I also think, and I argue this in the book, that for some rock and rollers, it was also the case that they felt as though their style, their way of being [inaudible], their masculinity, was threatened by this new style. Which today, we would sort of characterize as metrosexual. This sort fastidiousness, personal fastidiousness, attention to clothing, attention to grooming, attention to looking good, a buff body, and a willingness to dance. And these are all sorts of characteristics that women like in this. And they like their boyfriends and husbands to look good, dress up. To, basically, look like gay men. And the biggest affront to a lot of the disco folks who were white was that, the men who were sort of responsible for these new norms were gay men who had no use for women. So, you know. SM (01:37:20): Wait, you write beautifully... Barry White is one of my favorite artists of all the time. And again, I worked for the university, and most, I know there were some gay and lesbian students at Ohio University in these dances, but obviously, they were not out. But I think when you describe the difference between Barry White and James Brown, it is beautiful. Because you talk about vulnerable masculinity, Barry White pleasuring the ladies. And I have got my notes here, from being a sex machine, James Brown, to a more loving style that was Barry White, and what a difference. And so, I never thought of it that way. But obviously, when you listen to Barry White, there is a respect for women there. And there is a respect, whereas with James Brown, it was all about sex. AE (01:38:23): Yeah. Well, with James Brown, it was all about what he wanted sexually. And I mean, listen, I am a great lover of both of their music, but I think it is really true that Barry White was much more woman friendly. And so I think that, that kind of shift, it is hard. I mean, that is something that becomes more obvious later, as you look back at the era. I think it was harder to see at the time. But I also think that, one of the reasons that rap developed the way that it did was as a backlash against that kind of love man style that was characteristic of White. SM (01:39:10): Yeah. (01:39:11): I have a quote here from your book, and this is, I think, in your introduction. "Throughout Hot Stuff, I placed disco within the discourse of feminism, de-industrialization, globalism, ongoing struggles for racial justice and greater sexual preferences." And you have already gone over most of this in your commentary, but does that really put it in a nutshell? AE (01:39:35): Yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean, I think it is just that disco, I mean, I think it is a great paradox for many. I mean, it is a paradox of sorts because disco was primarily music about getting down, which is not to say that sometimes it was not about something else. But it was, in its essence, about getting down whether on the dance floor or in the bedroom. And much of this music did not strive to be more meaningful. And yet, it nonetheless both expressed and aided and abetted a number of changes that were absolutely central to American culture, in that period. And it is just paradoxical because the music itself did not, for the most part, strain to be meaningful the way that (19)60s music did. And yet, it had such an impact. But it is an impact that, I think, some people, especially boomers, resist learning about. I mean, there was... I opened the book with a great article by Andy Costumes who was the journalist who wrote at the Nation in The Village Voice, and he published this article about disco. And he talked about the contempt that so many of his (19)60s friends had for it. And yet, both of us had a very similar experience. I mean, there were a lot of my friends who were (19)60s people who hated disco because it seemed synthetic, it seemed unnatural, it seemed sleazy. It seemed like a real regression back to the sort of universe of bubblegum. And yet, there was a lot. Because they did not go to disco, they really did not know all the work, all the cultural work, that music was doing. Because Costumes was gay and because I am gay, that gave us a different perspective because we were part of those clubs. And we could see the way that the music was actually being used. And one of the things that I wanted to do in that book was that, I have been very influenced by the work of musicologists and scholars of music, like Susan McClary and Simon Firth. I mean, many of others have been. And they talk about how music is too often seen as a reflection of the culture, and not often enough seen as actually doing cultural work itself. It is not understood as changing us, making us, changing us, socializing us. And one of the things I really came to believe as I wrote this book, it was not something that I understood at all well as I began it. But I came to understand that as I was working on it, was that disco... Everybody always looks at punk and says, "Ah, punk." This was a really transformative moment, you know? And yet, I see... Actually, I do not want to get into a hierarchy here. But, I see a whole lot of change happening in the way that people understand their bodies and the way that they understand their gender, and their sexuality in these years through disco. And so, that was something I really wanted to make manifestly clear in the book. SM (01:43:13): Well, something that really struck me was one of the criticisms of all the movements today, or the issues, was identity politics. You hear that from the more right-side that... they criticized identified politics. And of course, the (19)60s was about that. But you say the (19)70s was a time when numbers of gay men, excuse me, African Americans, women, ditched predictable social scripts. Disco played a central role in the process, which broadened the contours of Blackness, femininity, and male homosexuality. I often wonder where Native Americans and Latinos fall in there. But what I want to comment here before you respond, as a person who has worked 30 plus years with college students, the most important thing we want to see when they walk into university to when they graduate, besides a sense of knowledge about why they were there, is a sense of self-esteem, a feeling of comfortableness with who they are and a sense of belonging. And it seems like everything you talk about, about disco, and particularly in terms of the gay and lesbian community, and women, and African American as a whole, that this helped in that feeling, in our society as a whole. And I know from seeing students dance in the (19)70s that the criticisms that we are seeing today, and actually we have seen since that time, the students that I have worked with, they loved it, so. AE (01:44:54): Well, yeah. I mean, I think that disco did enable, especially gay men and women across the board, who generally like dance better than men. I mean, again, it is a generalization and there're exceptions, but it tends to be true. And I think African Americans as well, it did afford them real kinds of opportunities for changing themselves. And I do think that, you do find people in all those categories, all those identity categories, who do ditch social scripts. I mean, I would say, and this is a kind of thread throughout the book, I do think though that, that was scary just as it was in the (19)60s. I mean, change is scary. And for instance, and it is not... there are losses too. And so when we are talking about disco, and we are talking about women, we are talking about sexual expressiveness, I mean, I think it is significant that Donna Summer and some of the other disco divas end up renouncing that world because on some level it makes them uncomfortable. And I do think that the sexual revolution of (19)70s made a lot of women uncomfortable. I think that, for instance, when you are talking about African Americans, there was a way in which what had been so exciting about disco to so many Black musicians and producers, which was that it allowed them to occupy the kind of sonic territory that had been more the preserve of white musicians, right? Sophisticated, symphonic arrangements, very kind of sweet music, music that was not necessarily gritty and was not recognizably Black. That was all very liberating. But it came to feel, to some African Americans, like a selling out of Black music. And when we come to male homosexuals, I think that the move away from effeminacy to gay macho also meant that certain categories of men who were effeminate really felt sidelined. So one of the things that I tried to express in the book is that, as liberating as all this stuff could feel to these three groups, there were certainly dissenters. There were certainly people who did not buy it or people who came to feel disillusioned. So I think both of those things are true. Change is like that, isn't it? I mean, you know? SM (01:47:47): Yeah. AE (01:47:47): It is obviously, it is dialectical. And so, it makes a lot of sense that you would then have this kind of ambivalence. SM (01:47:55): Yeah. I think that what you are talking about here, when you listen to Barry White and his music from (19)75, Let the Music Play, and then when you hear Marvin Gaye, What's Going On, his album in 1971 is the difference of night and day. One is just really about, I will not say having fun, but just getting out on the dance floor and being free. And Marvin Gaye, that is a very important thing, it's a sensitivity and sensitizing people to the issues that we must all care about. But that there is a difference there, one may be more macho than the other, so to speak. AE (01:48:33): Yeah. And the thing about Marvin Gaye that is interesting is that, then he goes totally into bedroom music himself. I mean, and I think that is a really, really interesting phenomenon and it is one that I write about in the book. And I cannot say that I have cracked the nut here, that I totally understand it. I think it's fascinating that you find R&B going through this shit where there is this period, and I think it really begins early. I mean, it begins as early, I think, as (19)71. And I think it goes through, it sort of peaks in about (19)74. And I think Fight the Power is one of the last instances, I think of (19)75, but do not quote me on it, is this really fascinating period of social commentary. And much of it is not about racial uplift, it is about confusion, it is about feeling sold out, it is about disappointments. And yet, it is like then you have R&B turning on a dime and becoming... You see it with Papa Was a Rollin' Stone from the happy people. I mean, that is a really interesting shift. And I do not know exactly just what to attribute it. I mean, I think it could be that, that kind of music of reflection and social commentary and disappointment got to be almost a cliché. I mean, I think that, that is quite possible that it was just so flooding the airways. And it could be that there was this sense of, enough already. But in any case, it is a very interesting shift that it does turn, and it turns so emphatically towards something else. SM (01:50:31): You mentioned in there that you think that Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, their song was the first disco song? AE (01:50:40): Well, I say that a lot of people think that it is, The Love I Lost. SM (01:50:45): Yes. AE (01:50:45): I am reluctant to actually name one. I mean, I think there's that, I think, Girl You Need a Change of Mind. I mean, I think there are some contenders out there. I mean, there are certain elements that are beginning to cohere. But I think, yeah, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. I think, The Love I Lost is a key moment. Yeah. SM (01:51:18): But you have got to admit one thing, that Saturday Night Fever really awakened this nation to disco with John Travolta dancing. And here's a guy that is not a gay male, he is a macho male, but he is out on the dance floor wearing those clothes and feeling comfortable wearing those clothes and really into dancing. And they had the Bee Gees music in the background, and you had Tavares. Would not you say that, that is a historic moment when that movie came out? AE (01:51:48): Yeah. Yeah, I would. I would not argue against that, no. SM (01:51:56): You wrote a great book that I read a long time ago, I did not reread it, but Janis Joplin. And the question I want to ask you about her, is her life and death an example of the counterculture gone wrong, because drugs killed her? AE (01:52:14): Well, I think, yes. I mean, in some ways, drugs killed Janis, but I think [inaudible] killed Janis. I mean, I think that the disappointments in life, I think, I mean, she could never hold on [inaudible], right? And I mean, who knows? Had she lived in the age of Prozac, I am sure she would have been medicated. And probably her music would, I do not know what her music would be like. People have written about this a lot now. I mean, but we have the kind of works of art that fed off in programmed misery and unhappiness if the writers were medicated people. So I do not know, but I do not think she was... I think that the counterculture... And many of us of the boomer generation were attracted to risks and were reckless. I think that was one of the, it was part of what made it so exciting, and also so dangerous that people played with that. Janis knew what she was doing. Janis knew that she was taking a risk every time. I mean, after all, she was no stranger to ODing. So she knew what she was doing. And I think in her case, I guess I would say that, there is both this element of recklessness that is generational. And in her case, I think also very much driven by the fact that there is a lot of person unhappiness there. SM (01:54:03): Yeah. I interviewed a person who loved Janis, knew her. But she committed a sin in the drug community, she brought alcohol. AE (01:54:13): Yeah-yeah. So she- SM (01:54:14): And she was never forgiven for that by some purists who did not drink, but they were into every other drug you can imagine. AE (01:54:24): Yes, exactly. Yeah, no, it is absolutely true that there were people who really thought that Janis' love of alcohol was just completely, made her kind of beyond the pale. SM (01:54:40): This is a question I ask, because I know... this is Roe v. Wade. And I asked Susan Brownmiller this question last week, and I went to her apartment in New York and it was three hour interview. It was a great... she is a very nice person. AE (01:54:54): Yes, she is a very nice person. SM (01:54:55): Yes. The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the most important legal decision since the end of World War II, during the time that boomer women had been alive, so we are talking about the (19)63 years. Is there any other legal decisions that are more important than that one? AE (01:55:12): Well, I think that there was a lot of... I think there were some decisions around equal employment. SM (01:55:27): Brown v. Board of Education. AE (01:55:29): Oh, well, I mean. I think, yeah. Again, I mean, I would say it is very hard to... I would advise against those making any kind of hierarchy. I think that there are some legal decisions that have been very important, that would include Brown and Roe v. Wade. I think some of the stuff that has not been studied very much, but is interesting, are some of the rulings around equal employment, especially their applicability to gender. And so, I think those were important as well. And these happened in the (19)70s. So I think, again, Roe v. Wade was very important. Would I say that it was the most important? I probably would not say it was the most important, but it is important. But of course, it's flawed, and that enabled it to be picked away at. SM (01:56:27): One of the things that is historically documented is the excessive sexism in the other movements at the end of the (19)60s, during the (19)60s and before the (19)70s began. And that would be in the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement. I talked to people in every movement, and they said it was in the gay and lesbian movement, it was in the Chicano Movement, it was in the Native American movement, and it was in all the movements. And the question I am asking here is, sexism in the movements of the late (19)60s and early (19)70s played a very important role in stimulating the onset of the second wave. Is that true? And secondly, without the sexism, would the movement have gone in a different direction, because it was so dominated by white men? AE (01:57:16): Well, I mean, I think white men... SM (01:57:22): And Black men, because of the civil rights movement. AE (01:57:24): Well, I think that all men... I mean, in the case of white men, you had men who were accustomed to feeling entitled. They were accustomed to a certain kind of entitlement based upon their skin color and their gender. I think when you are talking about men of color, because of the way in which they were constructed by the dominant white cultures, they often did not necessarily feel that sense of entitlement. But that did not mean that they were any better, at all. I mean, it meant that very often they were, as Fran Beal put it in writing about some Black male activists, I mean, it was like they were trying to... I mean, their idea of what their women should be like was derived from the pages of, might as well have been from Ladies' Home Journal. And they had a very macho kind of aspect as a result of being disempowered. So yeah, I mean, it had a terrible... I mean, it's paradoxical. Because it was for the feminists who... For people like Susan Brownmiller and Ellen Willis, and all of the others who played such an important role, Fran Beal, Margaret Sloan, Marco Jefferson. I mean, all of them. It was crushing to feel how little feminism mattered and how disparaged it often was. It was really terrible. But on the other hand, it did, of course, enable the development of the second wave. I mean, it was so strange that women did begin to organize autonomously. I mean, I guess I would say that, I think I am probably... I guess, the only other thing I would say is that, I think that one of the things, one of many reasons that I have written critically about Weathermen is that- AE (02:00:03): ...that I have written critically about Weatherman is that I think both Weather and ... I think there is certain elements of the Black freedom movement, as well in the sort of fetishizing of revolution, the kind of vanguardism that they assessed, really ensured that women would have to go their own way, and that it would be a painful break. Yeah, I think it could have been different. I mean, I think if people had remained committed to participatory democracy, if people had really listened to one another and been respectful, then yeah, it could have turned out differently, but it did not. SM (02:00:57): What are the major accomplishments of the women's movements in the second wave, and what are the greatest disappointments? AE (02:01:06): Well, I mean, I would say probably the greatest would be the expansion of ... Well, I guess many things, but I mean, at the level of policy, basically, we live in a culture in which discrimination against women, gender discrimination in education and employment is ... it happened, for sure, but it is not, for the most part, seen as a good thing, right? SM (02:01:42): Mm-hmm. AE (02:01:42): So I think it is widely ... Discrimination against women is just ... I am trying to think of a way to say this that sort of takes in the complexity of it. To a great extent, it is no longer tolerated. I think that is the biggest thing. I mean, violence against women, which was just assumed to not exist or exist on the margins and not be very important, and very often was understood as [inaudible] being a woman's fault has been completely reinterpreted. That is an enormous shift. It is not to say that there's not violence against women that happens in this world, and there are not people who turn a blind eye, but it is really significant, a very significant change. Significant change in the understanding of the importance of sexual freedom for women. I mean, again, coming back to the ... too often [inaudible] in a way that none the less seems to ... for some women to have been understood as nothing more than pleasing men, but I still think that there has been significant ... I think we are talking about employment. We are talking about education. We're talking about violence against women. We are talking about right to sexual pleasure. All of those things. Abortion rights, all of those things. There have been major achievements in women's athletics. Again, more can be done, more needs to be done, but there has been considerable achievement. SM (02:03:38): This is just a general question. I have asked this to everybody. Again, we have talked about the (19)60s. When, in your opinion, did the (19)60s begin, and when did it end? And what was the watershed moment in the (19)60s? I ask the same question again. When did the (19)70s begin and end, and what was the watershed moment in the (19)70s? AE (02:04:00): Well, I do not really know. I mean, I am not trying to cop out on this. I think that this is something that is constantly ... that is changing and shifting. I mean, obviously, it just depends on what one's looking at. I mean, the (19)60s do not really begin, in some sense ... I mean, what we know as the (19)60s, a kind of period of protest. They do not really begin, for instance, gay and lesbians, until really late in the game. But if we are looking at African Americans, you can argue that in some sense the (19)60s begin in (19)55. You could go back even further. I mean, you could go back to the demobilization after World War II and the fact that so many Black soldiers had different experiences in other parts of the world and that emboldened them in certain ways. It created a shift in consciousness. It really, I think, depends upon the group in question, so that is why I am sort of reluctant to say. But clearly, you could make the argument that the (19)60s really begin back in the (19)50s. You could put it at (19)54, (19)55. You could similarly make the argument that there was an awful lot, if you're looking at college campuses, that was the same in 1964. That not very much change had actually happened, and you do not begin to really feel those shifts until probably (19)65, (19)66. Still, they really remain the land of ... many of them, many college campuses, the land of the beehive and the crew cut until well into the (19)60s. So I think I am just not ... I am sort of uneasy making those kinds of generalizations, but clearly, shifts do happen and shifts in consciousness over a long period. SM (02:06:16): Do you remember, I know you do, but I have been asking this, when you heard John Kennedy was assassinated? AE (02:06:23): Yeah, I do very, very well because I was in a Quaker meeting. I forget the day of the week, but we were having a Quaker meeting at Sidwell Friends, where I was, I think in the ... Would I have been in the seventh grade? No, no, no. Anyway, I was at Sidwell Friends. Bobby Kennedy's two boys ... two of Robert Kennedy's sons were students there. I am sure everybody at that Quaker meeting remembers it because we did not know what had happened. None of us knew. But what we did know was that in the middle of this meeting, they were ushered out. So, again, we did not know. I did not know. I remember taking the bus home, public transportation, city bus back home. It really was not until I walked into the house that I knew what had ... I knew for sure what had happened. Yeah. SM (02:07:28): Yeah. Were you another one of those that watched four straight days of TV? AE (02:07:32): Watched a lot of it. Yeah. SM (02:07:36): Yep. One of the questions that ... When Newt Gingrich came into power ... I do not want to always refer Newt, but in 1994, and when George Will writes a lot of his articles, and more recently, Huckabee on his TV show and others, they like to take shots at the (19)60s generation as to the reason why we have so many problems in today's society is because it goes right back to that time in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. They are talking about the drug culture, the sexual freedom, the lack of respect for any sort of authority, the challenging that took place, the beginning of all the isms, all these things. They blame some of the problems we have in our society today and the unwillingness to talk to each other on that period. Your thoughts on those individuals who continue to attack the (19)60s generation, which is basically attacking the Boomers. The way they lived. The way they acted. It's not all of them, now, because there is 74 million and only about 10 percent, or maybe even 5 percent, were involved in activism, but blaming them for where we are today. That includes the divorce rate. AE (02:09:06): Well, I think it is a very easy deflection for conservative politicians, many of whom have had their own marital problems, have not they, to continue to bash the-the (19)60s. I mean, when in point of fact it is hardly a problem that ... I do not know how you get from (19)60s protestors to Newt Gingrich having an affair with another woman when his wife is dying of... I do not know how you- SM (02:09:41): Yeah. AE (02:09:43): I mean, I just think it is a kind of scapegoating that these folks have engaged in all along. I think that it is true that the right wing actually... I mean, I think what I would say is more significant is... because I think that marriages are difficult things to make work. Especially when you are in denial, and especially when you are ... I often wonder if those people who are most apt to be pro-family in their rhetoric, and to bash the (19)60s, and gays and lesbians and feminists, I mean, do not really do it in order to be deflective. I mean, not just with their public, but personally deflective. You know? SM (02:10:34): Mm-hmm. AE (02:10:34): I mean, because they cannot really cope with their own indiscretions and transgressions. Because certainly, I mean, there has been such a parade of right-wing politicians who have screwed up. I mean, it is hardly the case that this is ... that the marital woes and the ... What is the word I am looking for when you have relationships outside of marriage? SM (02:11:06): Adultery? AE (02:11:08): Yeah, adultery, but there is another word. Begins with a T and I cannot remember it. But anyway, that liberals and leftists have any kind of monopoly upon whatsoever. I just think it is a kind of case loop that they just constantly run. What I would say is that that lack of ... I mean, it is true that the (19)60s was about challenging authority, and this was a message that I think was picked up on by conservatives. You look at, for instance, the anti-busing protestors in Boston and other places, and they directly borrowed the tactics of (19)60s activists. You look at the anti-abortion movement, and you see the same thing. There is a real borrowing of [inaudible]... that kind of commerce. I mean, there was a real circulation of attitudes and stances and ideas, actually, between the right and the ... I hesitate to say the left because I do not even know if we have a left in this [inaudible], but there has been significant amounts of circulation there. The thing that strikes me is that I am just consistently struck by, if you want to talk about incivility and rudeness, by the extent of which this has been so absorbed and modeled by the right wing. I think that they have become models of incivility in a way that most of us on the left or within liberalism just have not. SM (02:13:03): Well, one of the qualities that is been defined within the generation as a whole is their inability to trust. Obviously, they experienced leaders that lied to them as they were growing up. In the Vietnam War, we all know about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and certainly Watergate with Richard Nixon. If you were really in tune as a young boomer, you knew that Eisenhower lied about U-2. You see constant... McNamara and the lies about the numbers of people that were being killed over there. The number scheme. So many things. It is a quality that has somehow been aligned with the generation. Of course, we all know about Jerry Rubin and do not trust anyone over 30, and then they switched it to over 40 when they were getting close to it. But also, there is a conflict here too. It is the fact that if you are a political science major, one of the best qualities one can have as a citizen is to not trust your leaders because that shows that democracy is alive and well. So that is a normal thing. But then psychologists will oftentimes say that if you cannot trust someone else, then ... You have got to be able to trust somebody. That is not a good quality either. Would you say, first off, that they ... I think we can say about the generation. Was this a trusting or ... Is this a quality that you see within the generation, they do not trust, and is it a negative or positive? AE (02:14:42): Well, I think that ... I mean, I would say this about the generation as a whole, that, if anything, people trusted too much. I mean, they assumed that America was the country that it said it was. Many of us, we grew up with this Cold War rhetoric. I think many of us assumed it to be true. So I think it was our faith in America being different, and being democratic, and being the beacon of liberty that then caused ... that it helps to explain the philosophy of the anti-war movement and end of some of the other movements. It is that you grew up thinking that you were living in this country, which was a citadel of freedom, and then you discovered that, hold it, it was more complicated. I think as a consequence, people ... I mean, I tend not to be a conspiracy theorist. I think that most of the important left-wing thinkers are not, but are we skeptical? Yeah, probably. I do not think that skepticism is a bad thing. I think conspiracy theories, that can be disabling in its own way, because then it's sort of like, "Well, why bother, if this whole thing is sewn up?" Of course it cannot be sewn up because you would never have really had the (19)60s, and you would never have really ... you would never have had the changes that have taken place. You know? SM (02:16:37): Mm-hmm. AE (02:16:37): That is what I would say. SM (02:16:39): I only got four more questions here, so we are almost- AE (02:16:42): But Steven, you know what? I am going to have to get off in just a few minutes. SM (02:16:48): Okay, yeah. I am going to ask... Let us just cut this down to two questions here then. AE (02:16:52): Okay. SM (02:16:52): This is a big one, because this is the issue of healing. I took a group of students to Washington, D.C. in 1995. Actually, the students that came with me, 14 of them ... It was our Leadership on the Road programs. We met Senator Edmund Muskie before he passed away. The students came up with this question because they saw the films. They were not alive. They saw what happened in Chicago in 1968, of all the divisions. The whole world is watching what happened there. Of course, he was the democratic vice presidential candidate. They thought he would respond to this question based on that experience. The question was basically, "Due to all the divisions that were happening in America in 1968, do you feel we were close to a second civil war? Number one. But most importantly, do you think that the divisions between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war and those who were against the war, those who supported the troops or against the troops as a generation, are going to go to their grave, like the Civil War generation, not healing from the divisions that took place in their lives?" So it was a generational question, because they'd cite the Civil War, and some things had come up with those gatherings in Gettysburg. It was very obvious that no healing had taken place when so many people went to their graves in the Civil War. Muskie answered in a certain way. How would you answer that question? Do we have a problem with healing in the nation? Is it an issue? AE (02:18:31): Do we have a problem with healing in the nation? I do not know. I mean, I tend to think that a lot of ... that the (19)60s are used politically to great effect, and they continue to be. I mean, there was an article recently about this in the New York Times. I cannot recall what it was about, except that... I cannot remember the issue that the author was exploring. But I think it's become a political... People make political hay with it. But honestly, am I able to have conversations with neighbors who I know feel very differently about certain things? Yes. Am I able to have conversations with colleagues who I know think differently about a variety of issues that were hot issues in the (19)60s? Yeah. I mean, I do not know. For me, personally, no, I do not see it as being ... I do not see it as being quite like that. I mean, I guess with the Civil War, though, I mean, eventually you do have a kind of reconciliation that happens between North and South. That is through reconstruction and the denial of rights to Blacks. And this increasing move in the north away from an ideology of equality towards one that stresses separatism indifference. Eventually, that point is reached through unfortunate ways. This would be late in the lives of that generation, for sure. But for our own, no, I guess I do not. You know? SM (02:20:27): Yeah, Senator Muskie responded. He did not even respond to 1968. He made no comment to them. He gave a melodramatic pause for about a minute. It looked like he had a tear in his eye. We have it on videotape. Basically said, "We have not healed since the Civil War due to the issue of race." Because he just saw the Ken Burns series and it had really touched his life, and he said, "When you lose 430,000 men, and you almost lose an entire generation, that is another issue in itself." AE (02:21:00): Yeah. I think he is right about that. I mean, I think that... SM (02:21:08): Others have said to me that ... In response, he said, "You ought to be a little more specific on this question because if you simply say those who fought the war, the three million plus who went to Vietnam, and those who protested the war, you might have some issues there." AE (02:21:24): Yeah. I think that that is possible. Although, I will tell you, I mean, one of the things about my background is, by virtue of going to a prep school, I was in school with Robert McNamara's son. SM (02:21:39): Oh. AE (02:21:39): There were other people who were sons and daughters of policy makers and government leaders who were in that school. SM (02:21:48): The name of the school? AE (02:21:51): Sidwell Friends. SM (02:21:52): Okay. Yep. Yep. AE (02:21:54): It's where the Obama daughters are. It is where many, many presidents put their kids, right? SM (02:21:58): Right. AE (02:21:59): It would seem. So, I mean, I did not know that many people who actually went to Vietnam. I really did not. of course, that was not unusual in the Vietnam War. I mean, there were a lot of people who went to college, especially elite colleges, who did not know anybody who went to war. I have subsequently had contact with people who were military people who went to fight. What struck me, actually ... Maybe this is because I am in Santa Fe part of the year, and that I am in university communities to some extent, but what struck me is the extent of which so many of the people who I met and have met, who did serve in Vietnam, really shared many of the views that I had about that war. That is been quite striking to me. SM (02:23:03): You have been to the wall on Washington, do you think the ... Jan Scruggs wrote the book To Heal A Nation, do you think that wall has helped heal the nation in any way? AE (02:23:13): I do not know. SM (02:23:14): Beyond the veterans. AE (02:23:15): I do not know. I just do not. I mean, I could not say. SM (02:23:21): My last question, very last one, and thank you for going over the time, I truly appreciate it, is that when we're talking about boomers now, who were born in 1946 and beyond, we're talking about a lot of different presidents from Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson. Of course, we had Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton, George Bush the first, George Bush the second, and President Obama. I do not think I have missed anybody in there. Jimmy Carter, of course. What presidents, when you look at them and you look at your life's work, not only with gay and lesbian issues, but with women's issues, which ones are the ones you most admire in terms of those two issues? AE (02:24:27): Well, I think it is too early to say about Obama. I mean, I have been disappointed, as many have, with a lot of what he has not done. So it's too early to say. There was a lot that I admired about Clinton, but I did not admire the Welfare Reform Bill. But this does not ... I mean, a lot of my criticisms about Clinton go to other things beyond the issue of gender and sex discrimination. I have to say that in many respects, I have admired Clinton. It's too early to tell about Obama. I would say that. SM (02:25:29): Are there any questions I did not ask you thought I was going to ask? AE (02:25:32): Oh, well, yeah, I mean, there would be any number of questions that you could have asked. It is not as though I have been sitting here thinking, "Gee, why has not he asked me this?" SM (02:25:43): Right. Okay. AE (02:25:44): I have not. No. I have not. SM (02:25:45): Okay. AE (02:25:47): Now, when is your book coming out? SM (02:25:49): Let me turn this off. One second. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Alice Echols Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Echols, Alice ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; Echols, Alice--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Alice Echols is a professor of History and Gender Studies at University of Southern California. She authored four books and several articles. Dr. Echols has a bachelor's degree in History from Macalester College and master's and Ph.D. from University of Michagan. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.44a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.44b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 145:52 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/90356e6ae8f586727376c878129bf626.jpg f8bdcf5336537ff3a1a07e3a39962950 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bc72c418a7971e7fe9789d0c0a5e85a8.mp3 0c648814fe737a76adf1256d789c7592 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-06-29 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Steven McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed James M. Fallows Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;James Mackenzie Fallows is a writer, editor, columnist, and journalist. His writing pieces have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Slate, and many others. He has been a professor visiting several universities in the U.S and China. In addition, he wrote ten books and received the 1983 National Book Award. He studied at Harvard University for his Bachelor's degree in 1970 and Queen's College, Oxford for economic development.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">James Mackenzie Fallows is a writer, editor, columnist, and journalist. His writing pieces have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Slate, and many others. He has been a professor visiting several universities in the U.S and China. In addition, he wrote ten books and received the 1983 National Book Award. He studied at Harvard University for his Bachelor's degree in 1970 and Queen's College, Oxford for economic development.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Family structure; 1960's; Baby boom generation; Racial Issues; Civil War; Watergate; Gulf and Tonkin Resolution; The War in Afganistan; Iraq War; Martin Luther King Jr.; Student protest&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:2,&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Family structure; 1960s; Baby boom generation; Racial Issues; Civil War; Watergate; Gulf of Tonkin Resolution; The War in Afganistan; Iraq War; Martin Luther King Jr.; Student protest</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 46:08 Subject LCSH Authors; Editors; Journalists; College teachers; Fallows, James M.--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with James Mackenzie Fallows Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fallows, James M. ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Editors; Journalists; College teachers; Fallows, James M.--Interviews Description An account of the resource James Mackenzie Fallows is a writer, editor, columnist, and journalist. His writing pieces have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, and Slate, among others. He has been a professor visiting several universities in the U.S and China. In addition, he wrote ten books and received the 1983 National Book Award. He studied at Harvard University for his B.A., 1970 and Queen's College, Oxford for economic development. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.12 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-01 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 46:08 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c82b1cb1bd4ff5e6741ad60ec5d6984a.jpg f6e9da1d5db50a79f4ded92e4c4c7957 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/590afe30e6582c2956c60e405d5d0b5c.mp3 8e3d34cbd23894b85ec1ea4cd57a7d04 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-06-29 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Michael Barone Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, a historian, and a journalist. Barone was a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, which is a reference work on Congress and state politics. He received a Bachelor's degree from Harvard College and a Law degree from Yale Law School.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7047,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the <em>Washington Examiner</em>, a historian, and a journalist. Barone was a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, which is a reference work on Congress and state politics. He received a Bachelor's degree from Harvard College and a Law degree from Yale Law School.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 89:54 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Political Science; Vietnam War draft; Generational gap; Vietnam War; Baby boom generation; Silent generation; Mainstream media; Nixonland; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Political Science; Vietnam War draft; Generational gap; Vietnam War; Baby boom generation; Silent generation; Mainstream media; Nixonland; Native American/American Indian Movement; Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.</span> Subject LCSH Historians; Journalists; Barone, Michael--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Michael Barone Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 29 June 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:03 SM: Testing One, two. Yeah. 0:0:05 MB: I will speak right into it. 0:0:07 SM: And I have to double check to make sure. 0:0:13 MB: Yeah. 0:13 SM: First question I really want to ask is how did you become who you are early in your life or your parents, professors, role models, people to look up to when you were younger? 0:31 MB: Well, I was- guess I recounted that autobiography, that little fragmentary speech to the Bradley Prize you know I was an early reader. My parents were professional people. My father's a doctor. And his father was a doctor, my mother taught school for a while, it was full time. Homemaker and you know, we encourage reading and, you know, my mother claims I was a very early reader, I think she exaggerates, but, you know, trying to recognize letters when I was two. And I think I have just got a mind a brain that is kind of hardwired for-for reading. As I recount there, I was interested in things like statistics, the populations of major cities in 1940, and 1950. So, when I got an encyclopedia that had the 1950 census, when I must have been about six or seven, I was very excited to read this and to make tables and write up things and so forth. I just, you know, clearly had a desire to know these things. I think I tend to sort information out by geography, I would study the Detroit city map, I could recite all the streets, that cross seven mile from Woodward west to five points I was the- we went on a trip to Florida and road trip in the spring of 1951. And at one point, came to a traffic circle on a town in Tennessee or Georgia. And there was a dispute about which road they should take out of my parents that we should take this one, I said, no, you should take that one. And about 12 miles later, they said, we took the wrong one. And I became the family navigator, at that point; and stuff. So, I always want to know where I am. I learned north southeast to west before I learned right and left. And you know, one advantage when I am doing things like my Almanac, American politics is that I tend to sort information that comes my way by geography. So, if I am thinking about Lancaster County, Ohio, you the congressional district, [inaudible], I may remember about the boyhood home of William John Sherman, and stuff from your account of it, I will probably plug that information back and be able to plug that in, because it is sorted out by geography. It is not random. And, you know, I think that is one of the ways we do memory, is not it, we, we, we sort things out. And we have some organizing principle or something. Anyway, that is the way my brain works. So, I was sort of blessed with you know. So, high verbal being hardwired for reading, you know, very nonathletic, so I was terrible at that, wanted to avoid it. My mother made sure I was you know, advanced in school she sent me started sending me to elite private school in the fourth grade. Because she felt the public school was not doing enough for me. And so [crosstalk] so that I could, you know, boy that went on to the boy’s school in seventh through 12th grade. And I was so you know, intellectually very fast tracked or turns out there were lots of smart people there. This was a boarding and day school; I was a day student. We [inaudible] Cranbrook School, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, through a lot of smart people from the Detroit Metro area. I mean, I sometimes like to say that all the schools I went to the public school I went to from kindergarten through third grade Warren E. Bow School in Detroit, always the student body size about a third Jewish. And I always say if you want your kids to get a good education, put them in a school, that is about a third Jewish or more. And, you know, whatever the quality of the teachers, they are going to be a lot of smart kids around, and it will be a fairly-fairly fast track. So, you know, this was, I was always very interested in history. And so, I can sort things by dates. I tend to remember dates. I remember the dates of people's birth because it is easier to remember their eight o'clock back, remember their age later. So, when you mentioned Gene McCarthy, I remember 1916 first election of Congress in 1948, from the fourth district of Minnesota, Ramsey County, and that sort of information comes naturally to me. 5:09 SM: Gaylord Malcom, Wisconsin. Governor. 5:14 MB: Yeah, he was elected in, let us see, elected to senate 1962. I guess elected governor 1958 and (19)60 Pat Lucey succeeded at [inaudible]. Or no, they did they elect a republican governor for a while, yeah, they elected Warren Knowles as the republican governor. And then they went to Lucey one, later, and then stuff. So that was, so, you know, and I just wanted to you know, I wanted to learn more. And I wanted to know, how the world works. So, I want to learn those census figures. I was fascinated Detroit was the fourth largest city in the country in 1940. And then slipped a fifth in 1950 even though it grew, because Chicago, Los Angeles outpaced it, and everything. So, I wanted to know all that stuff. And I wanted to know dates. So, I have memorized, you know, the presidents, vice presidents, kings of England, stuff like that, I guess it is an attempt to want to make sense of the world around you and understand it better. And by having you know, precise geographic locations and dates, you can understand a lot, you know, absolutely cannot stand the whole theme of progressive education, which first goes back to 1920, where you do not want to make kids memorize dates, that is so dull and tedious. How the heck are they are able to understand things if they do not know that the revolution you know, 1776, the Civil War is 1861. No wonder they take tests now where the kids cannot figure out which one comes first. That little mnemonic of remembering four digits, the first of which is almost always won, is pretty easy way to sort information out. And even somebody that does not glass with high verbal aptitude or math aptitude can make sense of it. If you just make them memorize the dates, and if you make them memorize that at a young age, they will have it forever, like they have their times tables. When you I mean, adults do not forget seven times nine- 7:05 SM: When you look at, this is the question- 7:07 MB: If they have to make it up themselves to draw little boxes on the table to remember seven times nine, they are not going to remember it, memorize it- 7:14 SM: You like the way that higher education and the basically how they divided generations, you have got the World War Two, the greatest generation, you got the family generation, you get the boomers, which I am talking about. 07:28 MB: There is a lot to that. 07:30 SM: Your thoughts on how you like the identification of generations based on years, or you do [inaudible]? 7:38 MB: Yeah, I like that. I think, you know, Generations, that book by Neil Howe in the late William Strauss, pretty good book. You know, my first response is, gee, this is gimmicky, but I think they are actually on to something. And one of the things I have noticed in politics, you know, and I have been trying to analyze politics, when I first started off doing that, when I was in my teens, that I had to understand the point of view of people who were a lot older than I am an experienced and lived through many experiences, the 1920s (19)30s, (19)40s, and so forth. Now, I have to find out, and I have to find myself trying to understand people who have not lived through a lot of experiences, I have, and what the world looks like to them. And I think the point of the generations is that it works against the conceit of political science. Political science, you know, drawing from the analogy with the natural sciences, starting the 19th century wants to make generalizations that are always true. And what I find is that you want to- this generation stop being true after a while because people will bring to different experiences, they do not have the identical sort of experience going through. So that for that reason, I think that is the kind of flaw in political science and, you know, some of the lessons that everybody taught when I first started studying politics, the political scientists were teaching them subsequently disproved. You know, the President's party always loses seats in the off your elections. Well, as we sit here today, the President's party gained seats and two out of the last three off your elections. Yeah, well, there is some reason for the rule. You know, basically, the President's party is stuck with the President's program, the out party can adapt to local terrain. But the overall situation is that, you know, I am going to pause to eat for a while and so forth, but I sort of identify as baby boomer generation, even though I was born 1944, two years before the date of if you read the Generations book, they started in 1943 is the birth year, which gives them Newt Gingrich and Bill Bradley. Right. Hey, Tommy Haden was born earlier. Well, and you have got you know, John Kerry who was born in the last day of 1943. Or the last month took the there is something to it because generations teams tend to have the same experience with events and things. You know it is similar at least they confronted the same events and you know like the culture war within the conservative and liberal camps of the baby boom generation responded differently to it. But they, you know, they were they were facing many similar situations. 10:43 SM: We think one of the things that comes out that both early dinners those born between (19)46 and (19)54, are really totally different than the boomers that were born from the (19)55 to (19)64. Because they experienced different things even within the generation. And they [inaudible] went on college campus, when all this stuff was happening either. 11:07 MB: There is something to that. Um, now, Barack, Obama is technically a boomer-based disability or not being a boomer. Yet, I am above the culture wars of the boomer generation. That was the gist of his 2004 convention speech. 11:27 SM: Yeah, people try to identify him as a nation of boomer- 11:33 MB: I think that is part of his appeal. I think that is why he has not around to personal animosity that both Clinton and George W. Bush did. Because each of them happens to have personal characteristics, which struck people on the other side of the cultural divide, as just absolutely loathsome. And Barack Obama does not have those sorts of personal characteristics, in my view. 12:00 SM: The question I ask you right now is when you look at the boomer years 1946-(19)64. And the oldest boomers are now in the age of 64 and the youngest are 48 this year. Please describe, in your own words, the following periods during boomer live- 12:20 MB: [inaudible] One of my favorite things, to say good news is that the baby boomer generation will die out the bad news is that I am going to die about the same time- 12:32 SM: Yeah well, define that period 1946 to 1960, in terms of just a few words, your thoughts on- 12:38 MB: Well, you have got a period of you know, you are in a period of postwar app, once you are in a period where there starts to be a real commercial market for adolescent products, forms of entertainment, you start to get a split between the universal culture of, you know, 1930s, and (19)40s, movies’ 1950s and (19)60s television. And then you get generational niches in popular culture. You get this sort of oppositional sense adversarial sense to society. You have the episode of the military draft in Vietnam, which is technically an egalitarian thing, because-because of all the exceptions to the draft, it was actually go back you will find that fewer sons of members of Congress served in the military in Vietnam did in the Gulf War, or the Iraq war. Mostly worked out very inegalitarian place and you had groups of people worry and are identified as elite people refusing to fight which has vivid contrast with previous generations and most particularly, you know, the World War Two generation. [crosstalk] -generation, a match. See, you get the breakdown of universal cultural institutions of which the military draft does not operate in World War Two. And the years immediately, thereafter, was one. 14:09 SM: James Fallows talked about that in an article he wrote back in 1975, “What Did You Do in the [the Class] War, Daddy?”- 14:16 MB: You are right. 14:18 SM: Which is in the older generation book, and he talks about it in a symposium with Bobby Mahler and James Webb and Gen. Wheeler. If you look at the 1946, right after World War Two, right break through the time the President, we have already talked about it. But before President Kennedy was elected, boomers the oldest boomers are just starting to go into junior high school when President Kennedy comes on board. What were the major events and the business that kind of subconsciously or consciously affected those boomers? 14:55 MB: I think they came out of a society in which you had unusual high confidence in institutions. Bill Schneider and Marni Lipsett wrote a book about the confidence gap and was sort of saying, gee America starting in the (19)70s, or there abouts, late (19)60s loses confidence in institutions is a sort of theme is this is a country that always had confidences in their institutions. I think that is maybe an artifact of the fact that the pollsters did not start answering those questions till about 1950. If you could go back and pull people starting in 1787, or whenever he might have found that lack of confidence in institutions or discontent with them, was the norm rather than the exception. 15:42 SM: Now that was in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. But that is [inaudible] (19)50s, correct? 15:47 MB: Yeah, well. 15:47 SM: Because it was just a- 15:48 MB: We grew up in an America where they had consequences institutions. And they felt free to crash them. Particularly since it was to their advantage to do things like not serve in the military. I am speaking a part of the generation obviously, not the whole of it. 16:05 SM: What made President Kennedy so unique, so to speak, was that speech he gave when he became president resurrection ask not what you are going to do, or you can do for your country? 16:07 MB: Listen, these people got to sign up in the military, including me, right? Yeah. 16:25 SM: James Webb, we met many years before he became senator said that one of the weaknesses of the boomer generation is in this fear of them that speech was hoped to be the inspiration to service and that Peace Corps service or good managers and service to America that serving one country in the military would seem to be the norm after that point. Something try that top, top of the week recommended, this is in 1981. If the weakness was the fact that it is the generation that truly does not understand the meaning of serving one's nation, even though you had a president who inspired you. 17:05 MB: Yeah, I think there is something I think there is a lot to that. You just did not think- I am blaming [inaudible] the people structured the draft that way and gave exemption for college students. You know, this was based on some analogy in a World War One, where the British lost all these Oxford and Cambridge graduates, we, I mean, I have military deferments to all my college years. I went to law school; they gave me a deferment for that. Then they said, we are withdrawing graduate school deferments. But if you have already got one, you can renew it. Why the hell did the government need me to go to law school, but that was public policy and I took advantage of it. Then I got a job as a law clerk, for a federal judge. And I got a different occupational deferment for that. And then they announced they were getting rid of occupational deferments. But if you had one, you could renew it. Same thing, why was it so necessary that I be at a law firm to a federal judge instead of in the military? I mean, I would argue I was better at that than I might have been at something in the military, but from public policy point of view, pretty weak public policy, I sort of felt that way at the time, but I took advantage of these policies. 18:22 SM: When you look at the (19)60s, do you see a difference between the (19)60s and the (19)70s was like, overall? 18:32 MB: Well, the seeds of you know, mixed cultures, adversarial cultures, rejection, lack of confidence in society, which were nurtured by particularly by [inaudible] in the (19)60s then become the common norm in the (19)70s. I mean, Daniel Yankelevits wrote a book called New Rules that really sets that out back in 1981. And I think that is pretty definitive. 18:54 SM: Do You think that is why Carter was elected? They were- 19:03 MB: Well, that is a different question, we were talking about public more or less competence institutions to get a sense of whether you are supportive of or adversarial to the country and stop those attitudes, change. You get losses of confidence and some of its related to public policy failures, Vietnam, stagflation. You know, you have Presidents who are very experienced people, Johnson and Nixon who turned out to be grave disappointments to the public. That means the value of experiences just come by voters. So, they elect a peanut farmer from Georgia without Georgia as President. Then they become discontent with him. Then elect a former movie star far as they do not want to go. Because Reagan has one advantage that he was, unlike most of our current politicians could speak in the language of that universal culture of which he had been a part is a brave person and radio, movies and TV. When the purpose of those cultures was to attract universal audiences, everybody- Reagan just naturally fit into that he was the sort of person who in his personal values and character background, fitted him like a glove. I do not think that language. I think Obama tried to do that in just 2004 speech, but I think that it is hard to access that language for politicians today, maybe the next generations will find it easier. Boomers find it hard Clinton and Bush were never able to do. 20:54 SM: The People that protested five to 10 percent of the activists who were involved in the movements and protested against the war, a lot of them had a problem with President Reagan and President Bush one, because President Reagan really came to power in California based on his battles against the students out there during the student protest movement of (19)64. 21:20 MB: Well, he had a large riot. Right. I mean, you know, the democrats said, we are going to do lots of things for lots of people, and especially for students and blacks. And the students and blacks are rioting. And the taxpayers say what the hell is going on? People are the beneficiaries, and they are rioting. We need to have some exertion of control. And of course, that was an electorate that was tilted towards GI generation and silent generation and all that. They thought this stuff was terrible. So, you know- 21:53 SM: Well, the law I mean- 21:55 MB: I wrote, I wrote a piece in the Harvard Crimson, you can access by the way, any of my pieces of the Harvard Crimson. Yeah, [inaudible] too. It is not a particular friend of mine. He was on the Crimson later. If you look at the Harvard Crimson.com. It has got everything in the paper since 1873, you can access Franklin D, Roosevelt's writing. 22:16 SM: Oh, my God. 22:17 MB: So, you can go back to my columns 1963 through (19)65 and see what I was writing then when I was a liberal, but had some qualms about some aspects of liberalism, or just sort of predicted that Reagan had a chance to win. Fo-for example, in California, which was not the ge- the general perception was his way to the right. This is another Goldwater. He is too, you know, the political scientists were saying he is too extreme. And my conclusion, looking at the data and looking at some special election results was these people are embracing this and they do not like Watson Berkeley. 22:54 SM: Because that people [inaudible] talking about fifty-nine- 22:57 MB: Before that there was the Free Speech Movement in 1965- 23:04 SM: (19)64 [inaudible] Mario Savio- 23:05 MB: Well, that was the initial thing was that Berkeley would not give a permit to people who wanted to campaign for the Johnson Humphrey ticket on campus on Sproul Plaza. Seems pretty harmless in retrospect, but that was there was there was going to be no politics on campus. It is kind of stupid in retrospect, but lots of people at the Goldwater people go there, let everybody go there and have a booth and whatever. 23:29 SM: I think Parker was fired by President Reagan. 23:33 MB: He was born religious. And I was talking about the knowledge base. 23:38 SM: When you look at the (19)80s in terms of the links to boomers, they are now getting older. They are in their (19)40s [inaudible] generation fee, and then in the (19)80s, and the (19)90s with Bill Clinton? 23:53 MB: Well, I think it is one of the things you see, and I guess sort of foresaw this going back to the late (19)70s, late (19)60s, early (19)70s. And, in my experience in the McGovern campaign, you know, if you are looking at who enters politics is sort of the peace movement almost entirely the Democratic Party, not quite entirely. It is affluent people. I mean, I was, you know, I was involved in precinct delegates and Oakland County Democratic Party and the-the working-class towns did not elect PC. They elected union hacks, and sort of party loyalists went back 25 years. And the [inaudible] areas where there were very few Democratic voters at that time, elected peaceniks. A small number of people there that were Democrats were-were away to the left and stuff. And that sort of thing goes on, you know, and that is a harbinger. One of the things we have seen, and it comes most prominent, starting in (19)96 election is the movement of affluent professionals towards the Democratic Party. Based on liberal issues on cultural. This is the liberal half of the baby boomer generation, and they are voting for the democrat on California, they are running for Democrats who are bankrupting the states to enrich the public employee unions. But hey, they cannot bear to have anybody say anything bad about abortions. So, they are going to keep voting against their own immediate financial interest. But more importantly, for a bunch of, you know, greedy hacks who are bankrupting a private sector economy for no good reason- 25:27 SM: When we go into [inaudible] time the first 10 years of this century, President Bush was the first to talk about and we are about a year and a half into President Obama; there has been some writers out there in the past couple of years that have said that a lot of problems in our economy goes back to that boomer generation, that-that-that want it now generation got to have it now. That is the kind of mentality where people get in debt. 26:02 MB: Well, I do not know, it is just boomers, I mean, I think you got a lot of people. You know by this decade, the boomers have been homeowners, you know, for quite a while, my wife, they suddenly went out and bought a home. You know, on a dodgy mortgage. You know you had a period a period of extended low interest rates, this is maybe a product of the successful anti-inflation policies of the Federal Reserve and various administrations, when you have very low interest rates, you got an incentive not to save and you got an incentive to borrow. Right. I mean, that is what the market is suggesting you do. So yeah, I mean, one of the things that is good, I mean, as a general proposition, I think, you know, our method of home finance, over the long run of history has been a good thing. And it has helped people get a stake in society by owning property. You know, you look at 1945, we were a nation of renter's majority renters, we have become a nation of homeowners, that is probably a good thing. We got up to about 65 percent, that worked pretty well, when we got to 69 percent homeowners that fell apart. Well, that should tell us something which is, you know, 65 percent about as high as you want to go. 27:22 SM: That would be a quality, then oftentimes [inaudible] it is hard to talk about 74 million people, but if you were to get the positive or negative qualities. Thank you very much. of the people, you know, are the generation as a whole, can you say? Like, you know, that technology is basically coming from boomers. Technology, talks about the housings of certain things that come out that make this generation look good, as opposed to bad. 27:54 MB: Well, you know, [inaudible] arguments made by a lot of liberals is they are socially, culturally more tolerant. That culturally marked our and there is something to that, you know, if you go back and look at the racial attitudes that Robert Byrd was appealing to at the beginning of his political career, when he moved from Kleagle to state representative, they are not very attractive to us today. They were not very attractive to me in the 1950s, and (19)60s, and so forth. So, you know, I think there is, you know, clearly an improvement there. And when the liberals make that point, they got a good point. You know this generation to self-indulgence, so forth, you can make that argument. I do not know if I want to go through the whole generation and so forth. You know, I think the boomers were the first generation to make their way through life and niche cultures rather than universal culture. We lost the universal popular culture. Just as, we were losing, you know, we lost the universal news cast. Everybody used to watch one of three networks. In my view, they abused their responsibility died by being claiming to be objective, while in fact being fiercely partisan. They got what they deserve. But it is technology as much as anything else that shames that. 29:26 SM: Do you think the media though and the time the boomers were in the (19)60s, we know how important television was the first time that generation or never seen the war on [inaudible]. 29:39 MB: Well, they had seen the violence attended to enforcing legal segregation in the south and part of the genius of Martin Luther King that he had a sense that when people saw this on television, you know, you have got the Birmingham rebellion in (19)63. That is the same year they could go to a half hour newscast. 30:00 SM: Do you think that- 30:06 MB: So, there is some of that, you know, illustrates the unpleasant side a side of achieving progress. I mean, if we had had that kind of you know, Jim Woolsey, he is friend of mine, wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal, I think back in the (19)90s worth looking up. That is how the present press would have reported the D Day landings. 30:27 SM: Oh my god. Yeah. 30:29 MB: And, you know, it would have been the headline would have been [inaudible] resignation. You know, you know, and there were people, you know, we- newspapers made a whole lot of things about, you know, the 1000 deaths in Iraq, 2000 deaths in Iraq. I mean, in D Day, they- I forget the figures. But you know, that 24–36-hour period, you are having multiple people killed every minute. You know, and the public did not see, you know, footage comparable to searching for private Saving Private Ryan yet. At that time, they did get a still photography, almost all newsreels were set in black and white, except for the movie maker, George Stevens did color. But it was censored. And it was by a press that basically said, we want people to think well of this country. We want the good guys to win. The good guys are us. It was a we and they press. 31:33 SM: That for that-that [inaudible] changed in the (19)60s so this- 31:37 MB: The (19)60s changes- 31:39 SM: We were the bad guy and the view of many, I know Bobby Muller dropped [inaudible]. He went off the serve and came back to love this country even after but he then he started seeing the way he was treated in the hospitals and how getting better being treated. Just something wrong here. And then the-the bottom line is that a lot of veterans realize that we are not the good guy. We are the bad guy. 32:08 MB: Well, I do not think we were the bad guys. I- in fact, I was you know opposed to this war after a while and sort of Prudential grounds, but I did not believe we were the bad guys. I mean, I am, I am not ready to have a discussion with anybody about Vietnam, who does not believe that would have been better for the Vietnamese of our side and prevail? Because I think the subsequent history makes that very clear. Because the premier ruse, and wow, these people massacred people, they were a bloody mining dictatorship, you know, the government we were supporting was not perfect, by any means. But it was not like a totalitarian dictatorship. And, yeah, you look at the Vietnamese government today, things are somewhat better in a variety of ways, get started tolerable. They want to be a trade partner with the United States. That is fine. This is, you know, 40, 50 years later. But I think that you have to say that it would have been better for the South Vietnamese if-if our side had prevailed. Now you can then go on to make prudential things about was it worthwhile to do so did we do so in the right way ahead of them better to allow these bad things to happen as we have in history allowed other bad things to happen? I mean, at the end of World War Two, we cooperated with the Soviets by repatriating Russian prisoners of war, sending them on trains, you know, they were clean with their fingers trying to get off and stuff because they knew they would be executed in Russia. They were so we colluded in this process. As a price of winning that war, could we have won the war without the Soviet Union? Not likely, or at least with very much higher casualties and horror in that difficulty? You know, and so forth. I mean, you know, Hitler had not invaded the Soviet Union. You know Britain was already saved, but what about the rest of Europe? What about all this stuff, you know? So, history gives us gives our leaders and ultimately our voters, some tragic choices to make. Churchill goes on. After this, Hitler invades the Soviet Union. And makes a statement is saying, if the devil were to come and fight Hitler, I would at least find myself able to make some favorable reference to hell, in the in the House of Commons. You know, that was, you know, June 22, 1941. That is a very, very big date in history. We have to do that. And, you know, I think in some sense, the boomers are holding their elders to an impossible standard. You have to do something that is purely good. You have to do it perfectly well. And that is not the way history works. That is not the way human societies work. That is not a standard by which our World War Two effort stands up to scrutiny. 35:04 SM: I have one person I interviewed that she actually broke down. I am sorry. But whenever I see that scene in 1975, on April 30, of the helicopter going off the roof. At the very end, I guess Ellsberg [inaudible], knowing the people that could not get on that last helicopter have ever been in last. 35:28 MB: He was going to be tortured and killed. 35:29 SM: Yeah, tortured and killed. And we knew many who had served in the South Vietnamese Army were throwing away their uniforms, hoping that they would not be identified as being on the other side. 35:39 MB: So, it is like putting those [inaudible] Red Army [inaudible], the POW is on the trains. Where we actively did that, and World War Two, we proactively put them on the trains. We could have told Stalin; we are not going to do that. Our leaders had agreed to do that. And we could have well done that agreement. We decided not to because we were not. We did not want to go to war with the Soviet Union right after World War Two, for a lot of good reasons. 36:07 SM: This person said that, right around that same time, President Ford, they tried to ask questions after the helicopter, thank you very much. Yeah, he would not comment. He walked away, he would not comment on the [inaudible]. 36:22 MB: He was pretty upset. 36:26 SM: I do not know if you want to continue here- 36:27 MB: Maybe we should continue downstairs, we will be a little quieter. 36:31 SM: Okay. Say that again. 36:32 MB: The boomers held their elders to a standard of protection. You know, how can you criticize me for smoking pot when you are having a martini every night? I think the boomers continue. Many of them, particularly on the sort of liberal side have a sort of adolescent attitude that they carry far into life. We are going to criticize the old folks. And we do not have any standards, you know, we can go out and get drunk, that is fine. But the old folks have two martinis before dinner, we are going to give them a hard time. And we are going to hold them up to an impossible standard. And at least on the liberal side, and maybe you can make this argument about the conservatives as well. They hold the society up to impossible standards. As I say they do not acknowledge the necessity of making tragic choices, they do not acknowledge the imperfections of human activity and so forth and they-they make these sorts of adolescent criticisms of everybody that become kind of incoherent after a while and you know, um, you have also the-the delight childbearing. I mean, if you got back in, I think it read 1972 Richard Nixon and Wilbur Mills colluded in you know, big increases Social Security checks. The first one arrived October 3 a month before the election (19)72 they put in double colons which had to be changed, they actually heading into the highest inflation period in recent American history, they doubled [inaudible] with everybody. So, the benefits went away, it was a hell lot more than they should have started glitched when you get when you write a big bill. And the- you know, in some ways you can see that is and this is an argument Strauss and how making generations the, the GI generation gets paid off and allows the culture to be dominated by the boomers or the liberal half of the boomers and just sort of seeds cultural leadership and stewardship Johnson and Nixon did not turn out well. So, what the hell we will take our money and run and go off to the Florida retirement community or whatever. And the boomer’s kind of attitudes, including those by people who were actually older than boomers, you know, like the Gary Hart's in politics, the David Halberstam is in journalism. We were actually silent generation people by their own years. Take over institutions like the media, which then became mainstream media becomes very adversarial to the largest society critical of it. And a mainstream media which in the 1950s did not really matter much in the way of a murmur of protest against the legal segregation of the South in the way that it was enforced, often by violence and terror. Did not see fit to make much noise about that. By you know, the 19- by the 1970s, is now vigorously critical of American mores, as racist and is always ready to see racism and stuff, when in fact, the performance of the country in terms of its behavior had hugely improved. I mean, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1964,1965 were hugely effective legislation. You know, the mores of the South changed, I think, very rapidly. The public accommodation section, which is crazy grandpa Kentucky was questioning was hugely successful in the South, I think because basically white Southerners decided that if they have to serve black people in restaurants, well, they should be polite like everybody else and say, y'all come back. And what do you want, sir, ma'am, and so forth. And they just applied the sort of Southern culture of politeness, which is a cultural style that is fairly distinctive. They applied it, which they had always applied to white people, they applied it to black people, too. And, you know, what are we seeing now we are seeing migrations, for example, not very large, but perceptible of black people from Los Angeles, where most people are rude now, to Atlanta, where most people are polite. 40:54 SM: I got a whole bunch of questions here. So, they are going to go through fast and- Newt Gingrich said something in 1994. And actually, George Willis has written several times in some of his commentaries that, that the problems we have in our society today, the problems, the divorce rate, the-the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority, the beginning of the isms, the, you know, bad employees on the boomer generation, (19)60s and (19)70s. And so, the problems we have, in many respects are- 41:37 MB: What the data show is that sort of this these behaviors symbolized by people, you know, living together before getting married, which becomes popular among the elites in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s. The ankle oval, book, new rules published in 1981, documents pretty thoroughly that this becomes widely applicable across the society. By 1981, the (19)70s for most Americans, the (19)70s were that the (19)60s were actually occurred in the 1970s. And what we have seen in subsequent data is, in a number of people have written about this deal, David Brooks has written about a Kay S. Hymowitz, it is in the Manhattan Institute has written about this, this sort of upper half of society by education, income, whatever, is behaving actually, according to the old rules, now. They-they may live together before they get married, they do not have children until they get married, they tend to have lower rates of divorce, they tend to, you know, be pretty stable and steady people. You know, divorce is hugely harmful to, you know, long term lifetime wealth accumulation. I mean, it is just a huge setback. And it is kind of the lower half of society, roughly, that you got these very, and of course, with huge situation when black people, you know, unmarried parenthood, serial divorce, serial marriage, which are, you know, harmful. That, you know, the children who come out of those situations have much worse outcomes than the children that come out of the traditional rule’s thing. And the, you know, divorce is, you know, a way to make the- you know, most people should be able to accumulate, most people in America do accumulate significant wealth in their lifetimes. And I think this continues to be true, despite the financial crisis and so forth, which has put a dent in the nominal wealth of very many people, but I think is not eliminated the path by which most people can assume can well accumulate significant wealth in housing and financial instruments in the course of their lifetime. All these measurements that say, well, most Americans do not have wealth, do not stratified by age, you do not want to have 25 to 30-year-old have wealth, if they do not know how to handle it, they do very poorly with it, as rich people about how they try to train their children to live intelligently with wealth and that screw up their law habits screw up their lives. Rich people spend a lot of time and effort and thought about that, because they know that it can be, you know, a screw up, you know, they can treat it like basketball players or something and you get a lot of bad outcomes there. From this sudden wealth at a young age. If you bet that the affluent people are basically, you are playing by the old rules that the non-affluent, the more vulnerable claimed by the new rules and you know, divorce kills your lifetime wealth accumulation. It takes to one household that has accumulated some wealth and distribute and creates to households with zero wealth. And dad is a [inaudible], you know, that burdens and income and so forth. It is just devastated. 44:48 SM: Sure. Overall, he made references to it, but the counterculture is very well known. There were two classic books that came out around that (19)71, (19)72 timeframe. And it was The Greening of America, by Charles Reich [crosstalk]. And then the second one was The Making of a Counterculture by Theodore Roszak. I do not know if you saw that. 45:07 MB: I am not that familiar that. 45:08 SM: He talked about the different consciousness of [crosstalk], you think of a counterculture as long hair, bell bottoms, communal type of living– 45:21 MB: I saw Charles Reich. He was a teacher at Yale when I was a Yale Law School, I did not take his class or happen to be in his course. You know, and he was a teacher. [audio cuts] Right to welfare in the Constitution, we were going to have judges that were going to say you got a right to a standard of income from the government. Pure lunacy. I remember seeing him one time there was a little branch of [inaudible] on York Street in New Haven, right here Yale Law School. And I remember seeing Charles Reich sitting there, and he was cashing a gift certificate buying a sport coat. I guess his mom had bought him a sport coat or something. No, this is the man that wants to redistribute income, but he is still getting gifts from his gifts from his family. They have an interesting counterculture, is not it? 46:13 SM: I think he is actually living in California right now. 46:15 MB: Yeah. He has been out of public eye for a long time. And that book, I think, is pure lunacy. I mean, well, it basically makes the argument that the problems of production are all solved. We are going to have all live in affluence without any effort, whatever. And now, we can just sit around and groove. I mean, what an adolescent view of life, it is the adolescent is boys’ dope, it was mother's still buying him a sport coat? It is funny that a-a lot of people like that would wear a sport coat. 46:45 SM: You have made a comment to that a lot of the boomers, particularly activists that make up five to 10 percent of that 74 million, many of them did not grow up. And even though they may be 63 years old, they still have not grown up, they may have had a family, they have not grown up, you think a lot of them have not grown up, they still have that? 47:04 MB: Well, I think there is some of that. I mean, I think the sense of being adversarial to a larger society, it comes naturally to many adolescents, because you have got adversarial to your parents after having been nurtured by them. And, you know, seeing them as part of your world is the process of separation. And so, there is something inherently inclines you towards adversarial in adolescence. And I think, you know, in some of their, you know, if you are still voting in California for these ruinous democrats that are destroying the state, enrich in the public employees, because you do not want to have any-any-any restrictions on abortion. Boy, that is a pretty adversarial way of looking at society, in my view. 47:47 SM: When did the (19)60s begin? And when did it end, in your point of view? And what was a watershed moment? 47:51 MB: Well, the (19)60s did not begin until well into the (19)60s. You know, assassination of President Kennedy, I think was, I think that was an important event in reducing competence in America. And of course, it was nobody's fault except the communists that did it. Which of course, if you read James Pearson's book makes the point about how Mrs. Kennedy and the liberals wanted to see Kennedy as having been killed by right wingers and they have constantly nurtured this and they did not like the idea that he was killed by some tacky communists, which was in fact the case. But I think you know, it. It violated the sort of intuitive sense that we had about American history that things turn out well. We-we had seen to wartime, you know, our experiences of presidents dying. We have seen President Lincoln, you see President Roosevelt age, during the course of huge war, you have the Mathew Brady photographs, Americans still know need to be looked at the pictures of Roosevelt during the war and the physical deterioration and so forth in the world. They come to a successful moment of triumph, and then they die, assassinated in Lincoln's case, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage and so forth. This at the moment of victory, roughly, and so forth. And so, there is a sense that things come out well even though the president trial leader tragic, our great leader, tragically dies, that things will come out well, and, you know, Kennedy died did not die in a moment of victory. It was not it was not that narrative did not hold it seems senseless and weird. And, you know, people might have anticipated you know, if he conducted a successful military intervention in Iraq, and then have presided as president over the moon shot and they have been assassinated after that it might have made sense to us. 49:52 SM: Yet do you consider that the watershed moment- 49:55 MB: I think that that becomes a moment where confidence in the society is significantly eroded and the goodness and rightness and the blessedness, if you will of American society since things turn out well for us, as we know that we will pictures more complex. Yeah, I think, and I think then you start getting more adversarial things you would get the elites, you know, the college elites not signing up for Vietnam, but nestling into the academy. You get the Watts riots, you know, Berkeley and the Watt riots (19)64, (19)65, you have a Harlem Riot in (19)64. All this effort to give more to students to get more blacks seems to be resulting in rioting in the streets and stuff and go back and read some of that stuff. It was truly frightening. Now there is this left-wing writer, what is his name, Rick Perlstein that does a history of Nixon and I gave it a somewhat critical- 50:47 SM: Nixonland. 50:49 MB: Yeah, but what Rick does really well, if he goes back and gets the footage of this stuff, and what was appearing on television, in 1967, and (19)68. And it gives you a sense of a country exploding and violence and growing and so forth. So, the (19)60s happen that I mean, I guess if you really had it, you know, the bad year was 1967. And Nelson [inaudible] is to say (19)68 was the worst campaign, year presidential campaign year in American history. I think there is a lot to that. And not just because Hubert Humphrey lost which Nelson supported. But yeah, he was speaking, he was speaking much more generally about that. 51:29 SM: Is there a lean line of demarcation where you see the (19)60s is over, I know you mentioned the (19)60s, or (19)70s, a lot of people- 51:38 MB: Well, it goes into the (19)70s, as he goes into the (19)70s, in the new world sense that behavior of an elite gets transferred to the whole society to a large extent. And, you know, if you go back and look at welfare dependency, crime rates, divorce rates, and stuff like abortion zooms peaks in the early (19)90s, crime peaks in the early (19)90s, late (19)80s, welfare dependency peaks about that time, some of these things are solved by changes in public policy to an important extent. But you have got these hugely negative tracks, all three of those metrics are hugely more negative than the amount after the 1930s, (19)40s and (19)50s, hugely more negative. They go on for a long time for a long generation. And without, you know, everybody just seems to think you cannot do much about it. You know, like, Gandhi had criminologists and these, so you cannot do a lot about crime when you are-when you are oppressing people, like we are oppressing black people, you just have to expect it. You know, this is part of the vibrancy of living in a city that you might get mugged. And hit over the head. 52:43 SM: And I have been, have you-you have ever been mugged? 52:45 MB: No. 52:45 SM: I got mugged in Philly. And the first day I was talking at Thomas Jefferson University, and I was going back from a dance was getting off the topic here. But when I came back, and then the next day, I went and done the work. And two people said bet you they were black, were not they? Yeah, well, they were. But you know, I did not really- 53:05 MB: Well, the uncomfortable fact was that you have, you know, unfortunately, a disproportionate number of black people commit crimes. I mean, that is just black young males, I mean, look at the prison profile and so forth, that some people were in prison, they probably should not be, we should do something about that. But you know, the numbers are there. I mean, it is just obvious. And essentially, I my theory is-is it is a function of why you also saw huge crime rates in Russia after the fall of communism, and bad behaviors, like alcoholism, accidents, and so forth. And a huge rush of crime in the US in post-apartheid South Africa. You know, both of which strike me as true, and you get this in America post success in the Civil Rights revolution. And my-my saying on this is liberated men tend to behave badly. Liberated women are just a pain in the neck. Yeah, when we are in it, men tend to behave badly. Why the black people do not commit more crimes in the south. Because these white people would kill them. They did not beat them up if they did, or if they thought they did. Now, they know some people that had not done this stuff. They thought you had a sort of terror. And you know what, terror does work to reduce crime. It is just not a measure we Americans want to employ. 54:22 SM: What is what are your thoughts? What are your thoughts on the movements that evolved at the end of the (19)60s because the civil rights movement was already well established? It was kind of a role model for all the other movements and certainly the antiwar movement as well. 54:40 MB: That is an example that people always throw back at you, you know, you are saying, are you saying the society is basically decent? What about the civil rights movement? Well, you know- 54:48 SM: Right, and the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement and of course, a lot of the women left the- those movements because of sexism and the women's was one but the question I am really asking here. Yeah, that when you look at the women's movement and organizations like National Organization for Women and [inaudible], you have got the gay and lesbian movement they evolved after Stonewall in (19)69. You have got the environmental movement that really came about Earth Day in 1970. You have got the American Indian Movement that was from (19)69 to (19)73. And we all know about Alcatraz and-and then what happened at Wounded Knee? And then you have the world Indian civil rights movement. 55:25 MB: Well, what is the question? 55:26 SM: The question is, what do you think about those movements in terms of they were supposed to be really empowered in the 1970s. That was their time, they seem to have waned. 55:38 MB: Well, I think each one has a different trajectory. You know the feminist movement gets Roe v. Wade seven to decision and the very gets, you know, you have a lot more women entering the workforce, that is an Yankelevich to that, basically women entering the workforce is a (19)70s phenomenon, which is mostly continued. You have got now in universities and graduate schools, you know, female dominance, numerically. You know, at the same time, you look at millennials, and they are less pro-abortion rights or these pro-abortion than their elders. They have seen the sonograms; abortion does not seem so wonderful and liberating to them. And again, as you know, highwoods points out the upper half strata of women do not get many abortions, very few of them do. And so, what was a huge symbolically important thing, where you had all these gray-haired feminists who are long past menopause, you know, hugely got to have a right to abortion is central to my being. That is just not the case. It seems with most of these younger women now. It is just something that is always been there. It is in the air. It is unremarkable, and actually rather unpleasant. So, they do not particularly like that. Enviro movements, they had huge policy successes in the (19)70s. That, you know, on balance, I mean, the Endangered Species Act was written in a bad way and is really a pain in the ass and the superfund act was crap. The clean air and water acts worked very well, by and large, and managed to do it. My friend, Bill Drayton, in the Carter administration invented what he called the bubble, but it is basically the cap-and-trade idea, or, you know, buying pollution allotments as a way of enforcing clean air and water act and so forth, which the Carter administration which also proceeded on a lot of the economic deregulation getting rid of the New Deal policies that were intended to and did hold up costs. So, in transportation, communication, we squeezed huge amounts across the society, but the environmental movement had a lot of successes there. And, you know, you know, today's enviros will not believe it when you say so and cannot bear to have it set. But our you know; our air and water standards and stuff are hugely cleaner than they were in 1970. I remember going to Los Angeles 1969 could not see the mountains almost any day. Now, you see the mountains almost every day. But I mean, that is just, you know, particulate emission, but well, smog, you know, the stuff is much better. So, they had a lot of success. Over time, I think that, you know, I think they have now become a vested interest. These people executives have $300,000 jobs they are protecting, they send out direct mail that always direct mail always takes the form, the sky is falling, everything will be worse than ever, unless you send in money today. So, we have got crackpot hoaxes, like global warming, which in my opinion, is more or less that where they are bending and cheating and lying about the science, and so forth. Part of this is that a lot of these people have a statist agenda, they want to run everybody's life completely and you have, you know, some of these other environmental causes, you know, we cannot get oil from Arctic National Wildlife, that is a complete crack. I mean, the idea that you are protecting some beautiful resource, I mean, I think of the North Slope, I have seen what that is like you are talking about, you know, prospecting the oil footprint, oil exploration footprint, the size of Dulles Airport, in an area the size of the state of Connecticut. They have got a pretty good record of environmental protection and so forth, and a pretty good culture in the North Slope. That is just stupid. You know why they do that to raise money. They show pictures of the beautiful Brooks Range and the caribou, and they rake in money and they know that the oil companies will always the state of Alaska will always press for that because it is absolutely asinine not to do it and make a profit bias. And so that there will always have this they will be able to bring in the money till they retire, pay off their kids’ tuition, keep that $300,000 rolling in. I think it is one of the most cynical operations the campaign against oil drilling. And why have any political classes been carried just feathering their own nests? 1:00:04 SM: But would you agree, though, that the movement of the (19)70s that we are all unique and fairly strong fighting are different for me, because they were very visible had become somewhat invisible. They become more singular. 1:00:20 MB: Well, enviro– 1:00:21 SM: They do not work together. 1:00:22 MB: No of course they do not work together. I mean, the feminist is now kind of an antique movement, because life is so different from what they were objecting to, and you read this stuff, and some of them, I guess, are very lesbian and do not like man, I do not know much about that, you know. Antiwar movement. Well, the antiwar tilt is still a very important factor in the Democratic Party read the debates on the Gulf War as recent in 1991, on the Iraq War resolution 2002. And you hear people arguing against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, that their arguments make much more sense in terms of Vietnam, than they do in terms of the actual situations we faced in the Gulf War with Iraq. In my judgment, or at least the arguments of a lot of that continued, they have huge influence in the Democratic Party and on public policy there by the environment. As I said, I think it would become a vested interest lobby, more in feathering their own nests, than they are in really improving the environment. And in some cases, in promoting status controls and environment. Gay Rights Movements takes a long time to be successful but has had huge positive changes from their point of view, in public opinion over the last 15 years. I mean, the country's flipped totally on some case, serving openly in the military. This is an issue on which there are huge differences between this over 65 and the under 30s. And, you know, it is one of those issues, you know, the marijuana movement, where now, you know, in 1972, it looked like legalizing marijuana might be the wave of the future, California had a referendum, 33 percent voted for it. And I thought, well, you know, if marijuana you have all these under 30s, who are marijuana users grow up and still be for marijuana, then we are going to eventually see that 33 percent grow to 50 percent or something like that. And that did not happen. And so, one of the interesting questions on these cultural issues is, will the liberal attitudes that young people tend to have on these issues continuously grow old or not? And the answer is on some of them they have and some of them have not. My hunch is on the gay rights issues, they will continue to have these liberal attitudes as they grow older, it is beginning to look that way- 1:02:41 SM: Native American rights, you just do not hear about it anymore. 1:02:43 MB: You know, inherently tragic, you know, I mean, credit, the problem was, what is their solution? Well, tribal autonomy. Well, the tribal governments are not very good. We see, I think the best solution to Aboriginal peoples in the United States is Oklahoma and Alaska. Oklahoma, no reservations, integration. You get along, you are proud of your Indian glide, you make it a payment for something, or other. Alaska the Native Claims Act, Alaska Native Claims Act and Ted Stevens and others put together with which provides certain incomes to people. And what it is enabled them to do, I think, is it, it gives the individuals a choice of where they want to live on the continuum between the Aboriginal lifestyle and the mainstream lifestyle. The core problem with, you know, the autonomy for the reservation and political, political elections and reservations as you get (19)51, (19)49 elections in which the (19)51 steal for four years, and they were thrown out. And then the (19)49 becomes (19)51. And they may steal for four years. And they do not cover and effectively. And it does not give people it does not give people a range of choices of where they want to live on the continuum between the Aboriginal lifestyle and mainstream lifestyle, it tends to cabin in the end. I think, the Aboriginal lifestyle, or some variant there on a dependence lifestyle, which-which people do not do very well. I mean, look at the data. You know, it is tragic. And you have these problems in other countries, too, with how you deal with Aboriginal populations and people with those traditions in a free society. Those are difficult problems to handle. But I think Alaska and Oklahoma have done better than we have done in the reservation cultures. And, you know, the Eisenhower administration that the American Indian would criticize the Eisenhower administration for wanting to, you know, mainstream people. This was oppression, just as in Australia, there is a big move against big protests that were against the policies they had tried to mainstream Aborigines. I think That thrust of policy is the wrong thrust. I think the right thrust is not to cabin people into the Aboriginal lifestyle, but to give a continuum where people have choices, and they can partake of that lifestyle or not. You provide as the Alaska Native Claims Act does some income support for people to do that, they have the mineral rights and so forth. And in 12 native corporations, there is a pooling of the revenue so that there will not be huge windfalls for one over the other like the North Slope. But that is, that is a much better policy solution for Aboriginal rights. And so, I think, you know, the American Indian Movement was a dead-end, I am going to put you under some of those people, because were violent and stuff like that, which is pretty awful. 1:05:45 SM: I know, we are running out of time here. And but just real quick responses to these and then the boomer generation, many of them and still do think they were the most unique generation in American history, because there was this attitude, at least amongst the activists that they were going to change the world bring peace to the world, and racism, sexism, homophobia, there was a spirit of- 1:06:07 MB: Yeah, and a civil rights and revolution happens before they are adults. 1:06:10 SM: Right. But there was a feeling of empowerment. And again, some that are 63 years old still feel that because they are working old age, and they think they can change that too. So, what just a quick response to that. The second part of the question- 1:06:27 MB: It is pretty adolescent stuff, is not it? 1:06:29 SM: Yeah. 1:06:29 MB: That is the response– 1:06:31 SM: Okay. How important were the beats, some people felt that the (19)60s really began with a beat in the (19)50s that Kerouac, Ginsburg, Baldwin, Snyder, fairly Getty, those writer, Leroy Jones, those writers were basically the precursors to the anti-authoritarian. You know, I am not going to be like IMB or Titan mentality that through their writings, a kind of an independence, I am going to do it my way or the highway kind of mentality. 1:06:58 MB: I do not think they were probably very important. I do not think they were very widely read. I do not think mine are important. I mean, it is like, you know, the SDS port here and statement here in 1960 some importance too but I think this was not what inspired masses and masses of people to do things, I think, you know, the personal situations that people encounter, because the draft and things like that have much more effect then reading jack Kerouac are performing across the country. 1:07:28 SM: I interviewed Noam Chomsky and I had an hour with him. And then very difficult took me almost a year to see him. But I had a great time with him. And in one of his first books, which you probably read The American Pwer and the New Mandarins. Dr. Martin Duberman, and other well-known historian states, and Noam Chomsky, in his first books quoted this, about the generation, you recognize the anarchist spirit that lies at the heart of the rebellion of the young. he says Chomsky not only recognizes that but admires it. Your thoughts. 1:08:06 MB: So, you get a celebration of adolescence. And, you know, I found out mom and dad are imperfect and affects their real skunks. Am I not clever? And I am going to be a good person, the whole world, make the whole world better, and everything will be perfect. Now that is about that. What are we talking age 13, 14, 15. It is pretty adolescent stuff. I mean, I think ultimately, you know, if you want to, if you want to govern, if you want to be a responsible leader, if you want to exert positive forces, to contribute in some way to society, through your work, community surface elements, scenery, activities, or whatever else, it is better to start acting. It is better to become an adult than to remain an adolescent– 1:08:51 SM: You got to write an article on it. Yet, I think it is important to because I think a lot of boomers are confused, and I am not even going to go there. But I think a lot of them- 1:09:04 MB: When you are a grandparent, it is a little It is like watching, you know, Mick Jagger up on the stage being a rebellious 19-year-old and he is 66 years old, and- 1:09:11 SM: I think he is 70. 1:09:13 MB: Well, he has got a lot of, well he is actually quite a smart man, but he has got a lot of miles on the odometer, you know? I mean, it is kind of ludicrous, is not that, you know, when we go to these baby boomers, you go to these baby boomer rock concerts, they have a lot of Wolf Trap and stuff like that. And people they are all they are of a certain age. You know, we got these niche cultures like on the satellite radio, you know, got each decade different. You can get your decade and you can find your six different kinds of country music. There is, you know, you have got niches and stuff. So, these people go and watch, you know, 65-year-old watching 65-year-old sing teenage songs. [chuckles] I guess it is sort of wonderful that we have a society that is affluent enough where people get to have a chance like this and in an enjoyment dentistry of remembrance of what it was like to be young and- 1:10:03 SM: A lot of the band members are dead and they have replaced them entirely- 1:10:05 MB: Yeah, on the trajectory of life. Yeah, well, of course, it is a high. It is a high mortality occupation and given their social lives and their private plane traveling plans. 1:10:16 SM: You just you. These are quotes that came from Noam Chomsky, power for its own sake is unjustified power, unless justified is inherently illegitimate. And this is what he was talking about when we talked about the Vietnam War. 1:10:34 MB: I do not think that kind of generality gets you very far in terms of an intelligent critique of public policy. I mean, I think they are-they are serious prudential, there are serious arguments to be had about prudentially whether it was wise for the United States to intervene as it did in Vietnam. And whether, if you thought such an adventure, as well as what should have been done, but I do not think that that sort of generality is sort of, if the guy does not do what I like, he is illegitimate. I think that is kind of the that is the academy thing. Everything is legitimate except my personal preferences. Well, that does not tell us anything, except that you are ready to put people you know, you are ready to run 1984 if you get the chance. Instead, they can just run campus speech codes, and send people to re-education classes and stuff. But– 1:11:24 SM: Do you think that what Phyllis Schlafly said, she said, I interviewed her at the [inaudible] conference, and she said to me that she is still flying how? Yes, he is strong as ever. If she is very, she is not- 1:11:38 MB: She is a really petite woman. She has got a terrific body. She is great. 1:11:39 SM: She is. She has not lost anything up here. And she is sharp, but she gets tired very fast now. So yeah. 1:11:49 MB: Well into her 80s. 1:11:50 SM: Four I think 84 or 85. But she said the troublemakers of the (19)60s now run today's universities. And she and then she was said she was making a reference to the people that run them probably student life people as well as the women's studies programs, the gay studies, Asian studies, Native American studies, Black studies, she was referring to the studies program, do you think that is- 1:12:16 MB: Oh, yeah, I think it is run by the student radical. They are, you know, the descendants. Now the student radicals? I think it is becoming, you know, and I think they have become the most intolerant institutions in our society. Where do you have speech codes in our society? Well, corporate HR departments will tell you, you are not supposed to call people ethnic names and stuff on the workplace and things like that. But the real speech codes that are enforced against people that have the Roth, politically incorrect ideas are on campus, these supposedly havens of free thought, are in fact, the most intolerant part of the society. Your corporate employer does not care if you are Republican or Democrat. universities do. 1:12:58 SM: Oh, yeah, there has been actually, there has been stories of people actually being fired. 1:13:04 MB: Oh, yeah. That happened is that well was one of the things that is happened is that a lot of people like the people here at a lot of people here at AI have just fled the university for more congenial environment, and one where they will not be disfavored. So, you have got people like Chomsky sitting with the powers that legitimate unless it agrees with me have their own little niches of power, you know, there is different studies departments. You know, my sense is that they probably produce some good scholarship here and there. I mean, you know, just made to see Henry Louis Gates in this whole controversy last summer, is my understanding that he has produced some pretty good scholarship and- and has done some worthy work. I think a lot of those people are, do not produce much this worthwhile. You know, that, you know, a lot of it is kind of a scam. But there, I am sure are people in all those things that have produced some scholarship, that is, that is, that is worth serious consideration. You know, it tends to be one sided and so forth. I mean, the stuff I have read of Gates, which is not anything like a large sampling of his work, suggests that he is a fairly clear eyed and non-propagandistic sort of guy that is trying to understand a very different past and to enter sympathetically into the minds of people that are as to how they were behaving, including, you know, some people whose behavior we currently, all of us consider repugnant. That is, you know, that is an interesting thing to do. I think that, you know, a lot of the departments have just become garbage though, have not they? I mean, you have got areas you know, a lot of the English departments you know, this deconstruction stuff, because that is all crap. I mean, I remember a friend of mines daughter was at Wesleyan. She said, you know, these literature crisis, you go there, and they denounce dead white males all day or all our she says I want to read some Shakespeare some Jane Austen. Okay, well, you know, a student that wants to read Shakespeare and Jane Austen. Yeah, that is a pretty worthy motive. And then to be encountered these, these harridans, screaming about the dominance of dead white males and so forth. Boy, that is a pretty lousy educational experience. And it is hard to believe people like that are going to produce any good scholarship. 1:15:35 SM: I think the only got four more points that I have been one of the commentaries, because I have worked in higher ed about 35 years, is that I think the biggest battle today in higher education, the battles have been going on between conservatives and liberals for a long time is between liberals and liberals in the liberal, that can become a friend of a conservative, a liberal that can bring in conservative speakers and understand that it is important that all points of view are listened to and heard, and preparing students for the world they are going to face manage on diversity. 1:16:08 MB: My sense is that is not the case that a lot of university venues and you know, in a sense, it is almost worse, at the knot I suspected is worse at many of the non-elite places. 1:16:19 SM: State universities. 1:16:20 MB: Well, you have got a lot of places where I think you have got some not very smart people left wingers in control. And, you know, if you read the fire, the foundation for individual rights in education, you know, the speech codes and stuff they encounter at some of these colleges you never heard of, are pretty hair raising. And you have to say there is a large amount of stupidity involved. I mean, I used to think when I was growing up those academics were generally smarter than the rest of us. And I have come to think they are- they are not as smart as people in a lot of, you know, the top part of the law profession or something, certainly medical, hard sciences. They are a lot smarter than these left-wing academics, most of them. 1:17:01 MB: I think you and James Fallows agree on the point that you brought up earlier about the elite education back in the Harvard's and the Yale's because, because he felt that the Vietnam War was a class war, because he says so beautifully in his What Did You Do in the War, Daddy, that the voice of Chelsea, the lower income voice from Boston when often fought the war, yet the rich kids who went off to Harvard, not only- 1:17:32 MB: He did not talk quite right about Chelsea, because people from the lowest demographic do not get drafted. But that is, well- 1:17:38 SM: He mentions that. But he talks about the fact that not only they invaded the war, as opposed to protesting the draft, the annoying that they evaded the draft as opposed to protesting. So, he calls it a kind of a class war. Do you really think that Vietnam was more of a class war? 1:17:55 MB: Well, I think I discussed that earlier. Yeah. 1:17:58 SM: Yeah, what one of the things? This is, these are two very important questions that I have tried to raise to every person I have interviewed with starting with Senator McCarthy in 1996. And this may not mean anything to you, but it is something that I have been raising, and that is the fact that students at our campus came up with a question when we took a group to see Senator Muskie in 1995 in his office, they had they these students had not been born in 1968. And so, they saw (19)68 in the (19)60s through their classes, as a time of disruption coming close to a second Civil War, no one getting along with each other, riots in the streets, but (19)68 defined at our two assassinations with the Chicago convention with police and students fighting each other and oppress poles. 1:18:46 MB: We call it the worst eleven years in American history. For exactly those kinds of reasons. 1:18:51 SM: The question that they came up with, they wanted to ask him because he was the democratic vice-presidential candidate is due to all the divisions that were happening in America that time do you feel that the boomer generation, I know that it is very general do You think the boomer generation is going to go with the grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing from the divisions that they had when they were young, but they carry these into adulthood whether it be for or against the war? 1:19:19 MB: Not fully healing is my answer. Yeah, you know, I think, you know, we saw this period between (19)95 and (20)05, where you have very static reason, political alignment, voting behavior, in large part to focus on to baby boom generation president. So, the two halves are the different parts of it. And his personal characteristics reinforced their identification, you know, I mean, Kennedy was an Irish American, but he looked and acted like a British Lord, or at least most Americans regard him that way. He went against type. Clinton went with type and Bush went with type the liberal baby in the conservative baby but- 1:20:01 SM: What were those types? 1:20:04 MB: Clinton's you know, your positive way of looking at it is articulate in this the negative way a slippery immoral behavior and so forth. George W. Bush's positive way to look at its steadfastness, negative way to look at it stubbornness, the idea of a sort of moralism there is a right and wrong and the ultra-left eyes want to say, oh no, everything is relative nice and clear right or wrong, you know, we let us just talk about it for a while. And Bush is saying now some things are right or wrong and I mean, I think Bush is, right you can argue about which things are right and wrong and where you ought to go to shades of gray, but I think there are, you know, there are some real rights and wrongs you know, George Orwell, you know, thought so, too. And totalitarianism was just wrong. And, you know, so yeah, I think the boomers will continue as I that is my thing. The good news is the baby boomers will die out. The bad news is I will die about the same time. 1:21:11 SM: Do you think the wall Vietnam Memorial, what does it mean to you? Does that help you personally to know that you think is Jan Scruggs says in his book to heal a nation, it was meant to be a nonpolitical entity to help the families and those of those who died and answer why you are having to memorialize them. And it is not to be a political statement. But he also says, we hope it heals the nation. 1:21:36 MB: Well, I think it is interesting, you get five, you know, lots of people go over there and look at it. But the here is the interesting thing, to me is that the final product is a bifurcation. I mean, the complaint was made against that it was non heroic treated, treated soldiers as victims and not as heroes. And so, you get the, you know, the lifelike statues of the GI attendant with it, which is, which, if not heroic, at least, says that they are doers, not victims. And I think one of the problems in America has, you know, the call for change this to some extent, I said, Americans are seeing their military as heroes not victims, as or at least as doers, not victims. I think one of the things that I find unpleasant about valid statement about the class war, which is, you know, reasonably good description, I put it somewhat differently. But he has seen-he has seen people served in the military as victims, and I think that is selling them short. And you know, and he is saying that people who are clever enough, like himself and me, to avoid being victims, so out of the somewhat ashamed of ourselves, which I agree with, and but, you know, perhaps what we ought to be ashamed of, is not having avoided victim status, but have had it been avoided making a positive contribution. 1:23:09 SM: I know that in the symposium that they were involved, and then I am pleased before Senator Webb. And certainly, Bobby Mahler and General Wheeler and the whole group is that that it was when we talk about the generation gap between parents and their kids. But really, the severe problem is between the generation itself prior to having some served in Vietnam sitting next is somebody who graduate from Harvard when I become a lawyer. Put them in a war together, that is where the divisions come from together, that sort of 1:23:41 MB: depends on which subjects you focus on. But yeah, if you bring that up, yeah. 1:23:47 SM: Why did we lose Vietnam? In your opinion? Why do we lose that war? 1:23:54 MB: I think we have poor military strategy. I think we hadou know, I think that I think President Johnson had great military strategy, he did not elicit a winning military strategy out of his military as he should have been read Elliot Cohen and Supreme Command. I think that is good work on that. I think President Nixon had a potentially winning strategy. I mean, read, Lewis thoroughly said good war, that was undercut by Watergate in history, Henry Christian argued by Watergate and by the election of a democratic congress that refused to vote any aid to South Vietnam in 1975. So, I am not sure I agree with whether I agree or not with thoroughly status that Abram’s strategy was essentially a successful strategy. But I think that is a pretty strong argument. So, the answer, to some extent is a failure of leadership in America to produce the result. I mean, it was what George Bush failed at in 2005, (20)04 or (20)05 and (20)06 interactions conceded out in 2007 and (20)08. 1:25:01 SM: Are you supportive of Dr. King's speech in 1967, where he went against the Vietnam War, he was criticized heavily by his own– 1:25:09 MB: I just observed it. 1:25:10 SM: Do you think that is important, schemed of things? 1:25:16 MB: Somewhat, I do not think it was. I really do not know. I did not have strong. I thought it was, you know, my reaction to time was it is not really your issue. 1:25:28 SM: Yeah. 1:25:30 MB: It is interesting. I have been reading about it. I read something about Eisenhower was on Eisenhower and civil rights, and he has King and as a 28-year-old. And this guy, research these documents, his stuff, and it will be fascinating King’s, comments were really quite wise. And he really, he had, he really was a gifted man. 1:25:49 SM: We had James Farmer on our campus. It is totally visually impaired at the time, but he was still strong and very speaker. And he said, the Dr. King that we saw in the church and the Dr. King that we saw at rallies was not the real Dr. King. The real Dr. King was the man who stayed in the room. During when we were talking about the issues, and he was very quiet. He was a quiet man. And he would go get it out of Martin, what do you think? And then he would open up people and have to vote against neutral for a while- 1:26:24 MB: Interesting, the comments he made, you know, he is in the presence of President Eisenhower all these things, and he is 28 years old, and he was during Montgomary, Alabama. And he does very well. It was fascinating, frankly- 1:26:38 SM: I think we are almost done here. 1:26:39 MB: Got to retail and branch refuge was probably terrific. Anyway, yeah, I have got to go. 1:26:44 SM: Yeah, the very last question is, what do you think of lasting legacy will be on this generation will make your best history books are written 50 years from now, or when maybe when the last boomer passed away? 1:27:06 MB: A generation that did not fully live up to its responsibilities. 1:27:14 SM: And those responsibilities would have been? 1:27:24 MB: Lots of different things. And you are asking me to write the book. Right. 1:27:24 MB: And I used to work for you I just leave it at that. 1:27:32 SM: The very last thing is the issue of trust. One of the things that seems to define this generation is they do not trust because they saw leaders that lie so many of them lied to them from Watergate to Eisenhower lying about U-2 on. 1:27:46 MB: I think that is, I think that is an overbreeding for a long moment in history. I think that, you know, already talked to you about the decline in confidence. And the fact that the American that was so confident and believing in its institutions from the 1940s to the mid (19)60s was not unusual America. We had had great success. And we had two great successes that had not really been anticipated, say, circa 1940, which is success in the World War, which most Americans did not want to get into. And, no, it was a pretty terrible war, and the success of post-world economic prosperity, which almost no one anticipated, and so those huge successes that seemed to be produced by men born in the 1880s, and 1890s. 1:28:37 SM: Very good. That would be okay. Thank you. Let us- 1:28:40 MB: We had this country that had the narrative, the Lincoln Roosevelt narrative, where everything turns out well, and even the tragic death of the president comes from moments of great victory. 1:28:55 SM: Actually, one more- 1:28:57 MB: Photographers always say one more. 1:29:01 SM: Very good. 1:29:02 MB: Yeah, that moment of history. And I think, I think that was something. 1:29:05 SM: That was one of the things you know, you learn in political science class, the first thing you learn is that not trusting your government is actually healthy for democracy. So, if you are saying a generation does not trust, then- 1:29:19 MB: Yeah, you have these people, Nixon and Johnson, that were so ex- for Johnson and Nixon that were so experienced and turned out to be great disappointment. So, I think that, you know, the idea that in fact, the idea of not trusting experts, but we are not trusting people in power you know. I think that that is, you know, that is a long, long, decade long feeling rather than something that persists throughout time. 1:29:47 SM: I have been to the store to try to find your book- (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. 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Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Michael Barone Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Barone, Michael ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Historians; Journalists; Barone, Michael--Interviews Description An account of the resource Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the <em>Washington Examiner</em>, a historian, and a journalist. Barone was a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, which is a reference work on Congress and state politics. He received a Bachelor's degree from Harvard College and a Law degree from Yale Law School. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.20 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 89:54 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6fbe2d2fd56556b3c9e1fb1fdd4ae7a4.jpg 5564a6886eda460d68d2f68127807c4e https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/f80337dfb556193025186af3ad2b6d97.mp3 c1e8dc7ee92d39745e4c49f80cd31d30 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. 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Date of Interview 2010-06-29 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Michelle Easton Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Michelle Easton is the president and the founder of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. She was appointed a position at the U.S. Department of Education previously served as the President of the State Board of Education in Virginia. Easton received her Bachelor's degree in Development Psychology from Briarcliff College in New York and graduated law school at American University's Washington School of Law. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:13311,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,4884200],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;9&quot;:0,&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Michelle Easton is the president and the founder of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. She was appointed to a position at the U.S. Department of Education and previously served as the President of the State Board of Education in Virginia. Easton received her Bachelor's degree in Development Psychology from Briarcliff College in New York and graduated law school at American University's Washington School of Law. </span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Feminist Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Nineteen sixties; Anti-war Movement; Baby boom generation; Free-speech; failures of the Modern Feminism; Civil Rights Movement; N.O.W.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Feminist Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Nineteen sixties; Anti-war Movement; Baby boom generation; Free-speech; failures of Modern Feminism; Civil Rights Movement; N.O.W.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 122:19 Subject LCSH Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute; United States--Officials and employees; Easton, Michelle--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Michelle Easton Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 29 June 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: Well, I have to keep checking this too, to make sure it is going. So, I guess the first question I always ask is, describe a little bit about your upbringing, your growing up years, the influence of your parents, the high school years and the college years. What helped make you who you are, basically, from the early years? ME: I was born in Philadelphia, where my father was attending the University of Pennsylvania. When I was six months old, my father was recalled in the US Naval Reserve and sent to Alaska. And as soon as the doctor allowed, my mother took me and the other two siblings at that point to Seward, Alaska for three and a half years. I was real little. I do not remember much. I think I remember mostly the pictures. But I feel this kinship with Sarah Palin, because when I read her book Going Rogue, her love of Alaska, it was like mom and dad talking. They loved it so much. They would have stayed after Daddy got out of the Navy, but it was not even a state. They did not have schools. It was very, very primitive. But they loved the land and loved the people. So, then we came back to Philly. Daddy got a job in New York City, and I started school in Rye, New York. A wonderful little K-6. What you have to pay 25,000 for now in a private school. It was a time when most parents shared values. There were not all these controversies in school. And the emphasis was English, math, science, history, but a little bit of music, a little bit of art, and a little bit of PE. Life was simpler then. Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, mother was home, daddy worked. There was one more sister after, so there were three girls and a boy in the family. It was the era when dad worked, and mom took care of the kids. Dad continued Naval reserve, so he was gone one or two nights a week for that. He continued his education, getting very close to a PhD at NYU, but in the end, none of his professors spoke English, he could not understand them, and he did not get it. Wonderful, solid, all-American kind of family life. Ups and downs, always, ups and downs. But grandparents coming by once or twice a year, and aunts and uncles, lots of friends. Life centered around school and church and neighborhood. SM: Were there any teachers? I found that some people there is somebody who... You always hope when you are a young person, that there is somebody that takes an interest in you beyond your parents, whether it be a minister in your church or a preacher, rabbi, or whatever, or a teacher that sees you and kind of guides you, inspires you. Were there any teachers in your life, either in high school or at Briar Cliff? ME: Actually, the teachers I remember the most are elementary school. They were these wonderful, for the most part, maiden ladies whose lives back then were devoted to their jobs, and they were very serious about every child learning and being the very best educated they could be. Junior high school, I remember as almost a total waste until ninth grade, when they put children of equal ability in classes, because they took six elementary schools, the children of very widely varying ability and children could not read with seventh graders that were a 10th grade level. This was the modern notion that we will mix all the kids together, and then they will all learn from each other, but it does not work that way. If some children are so far ahead of others, they just have to drag along and do nothing. So that was a total waste. But then by ninth grade, they started to put us into class according to abilities. Went to a good public high school, Port Chester High School, where you could be a serious student if you wanted. Back then in New York State, we had very rigorous Regents Examinations. SM: Yeah, I am from New York State. ME: I remember getting a 90 in English in 11th grade, that was when they gave you English, and being so proud. That really meant that you knew your English. It was before exams were dumbed down and everybody did well. And it was a good high school. There were kids who were serious about school. Some of them were interested in sports. Some were only interested in sports. There was hoods, the bad kids back then. I graduated in (19)68. The hoods. But even then, the hoods did not use four letter words and curse out the teachers, it was just a tougher kind of group. And there was a huge group that did vocational education. They were not going to be able to go on to higher education, so they learned to be secretaries or auto mechanics. It was simpler. It was simpler. And I grew up in a family where my dad said, socially, there is two kinds of girls, those who do and those who do not. You can decide what kind you want to be. And most guys want to marry girls who do not, so it was not so complex. The popular culture was not such a huge influence like it is on the kids today. And then I went off to Briar Cliff, a woman's college. To be honest, I probably would have gone to Colby in Maine, I loved Maine, or a co-ed school somewhere, but my father thought that would be better for me because I would be close to home. It was all girls. It was a good program. And turned out he was right. And since I have learned that a lot of women who later have become leaders in different ways went to all girls’ schools. It is one less thing for girls to be worrying about. You go out on the weekend, and you have your social life, but I am a big fan of single sex education for those who want it. Not everybody. Not everybody. But of course, the government has tried to abolish it at VMI and the boys and the girls’ schools when the government's involved in anyway. SM: When did you know that you were going... We define women sometimes as being liberal or conservative. When did you know you were a conservative? Was there something that was happening in the world or in America that turned you a certain direction? ME: It was when Goldwater ran for president in 1964, and I was 14. It was really the first time my family had gotten involved in politics. My father, having come from a military background, tend to, at least they used to, step out of politics and be sort of neutral. But my mother and father were so excited that here was this man running for president who was articulating the things they felt about too much government taxes, worries about Social Security going bankrupt, worries about us not being strong enough militarily, basically libertarian economic policy and a sensible foreign policy, that is what Goldwater was. And of course, back then you had no talk radio. There were a couple in New York mom used to listen to, but you did not have Rush, you did not have Sean, you did not have Fox News, you did not have the internet, you did not have drudge. And really Goldwater running was the first time for a lot of Americans that they began to hear some of these conservative ideas. The campaign itself was an education. And of course, he lost quite badly, but it was really the start, I think, of the modern conservative movement, which has been most all my personal and professional life since then. SM: I still remember that being on TV, because I was always watching the... Actually, from (19)52 on, I was a little boy, I watched all these conventions. But I remember the battle between Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller and Governor Scranton of Pennsylvania. You saw within the Republican party the split, liberal/conservative. ME: Right. You did. And it remains in a way today, but not nearly as much. I mean, most Republicans are conservative, or pretend to be. SM: One of the things... I wrote this down here. What was it about your early years where you recognized conservative women were placed at the back burner as opposed to liberal women? What was the magic moment, so to speak of, when you knew that people who thought more conservatively were not getting the ear that liberal women were getting, or the breaks or whatever? Was there some incident? ME: Well, I think it was more cumulative. When I came to Washington in 1973, and it was to work for Young Americans for Freedom, [inaudible] the successors of that now. And I was conservative in a traditional philosophical sort of way, but I started to notice how the media especially, and the popular culture, gave all these praise to women's groups like the National Organization for Women and other groups later, The Feminist Majority, but they did not represent all women, they only represented left wing feminists, sometimes radical feminists, sometimes socialist views. How come they were called the women's groups when here I was, this conservative woman, working so hard? Who represented me? And to this day, you could probably open the Washington Post one day this week, and it will say, " So-and-so is very concerned about women's issues, blah, blah," and then they start to list all these left-wing positions on everything from taxes and daycare and right to life and whatever. That has stuck to this day. So, for me, I think it was going to college, coming to town, beginning to work my professional life, and hearing about the women's groups and what they thought. But it was not all women, it was only liberal left-wing women. SM: Were there any conservative women's groups at that time? ME: Well, there were a couple, but they were not as well known, certainly, and they did not get much coverage in the media. But I guess Phyllis Schlafly had begun her Eagle Forum. SM: The Eagle Forum, right. ME: That was a key one. And of course, there were many religiously oriented conservative groups within churches and denominations, but not really. And so that is how somehow, shooting ahead 20 years after I came here, 1993, when I founded this institute after having served President Reagan and the first President Bush, what is the real need? What is the real need in America? Well, it was to have an organization. And by that time, there were a couple of others that represented and promoted and celebrated these great conservative women leaders, some of whom you have at The Calendar, and used them as role models for young women. When I was in college, there were no conservative role models, except within my family, or perhaps within the church. Clare Boothe Luce was out there, but there is so many outstanding conservative women leaders who were never celebrated, who were never highlighted, who were never given as role models, and still are not in 99.9 percent of the universities, the women's studies programs. Come on, it is not women, it is liberal women. It is feminist women. It is radical socialist women It is not conservative women. They never study any of these women. They do not read the books of Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin, they do not have Bay Buchanan come. That is why we exist. We send them to a campus so that a different point of view can be heard. SM: Just like the Young American [inaudible]. ME: Right. Our focus is solely women, there is-is more general. So, I do not know if that is a magic moment, but it was like, hey, wait a minute, these are the women's groups? They do not represent me. They do not represent the people I know, the people I work with, people in my family, people in my church. How do they get away with being called the women's groups? And it happens to this day. SM: That is a magic moment. Because you realized from your early experiences coming here, and I am going to ask you more questions about the Young Americas Foundation. Not Young Americas Foundation, the- ME: Young Americas for Freedom. SM: Yeah, Young Americas for Freedom. ME: [foreign language]. SM: Because Lee Edwards, who I interviewed a couple years back, said this group has been excluded from the history books in many respects in terms of the anti-war movement, because they were conservative, but they were against the war. And it is all about SDS. It is about the Weathermen. ME: We were against the draft. The service did not believe it. SM: I have some questions about that coming up, but I think it is important that when you were young, you saw something that was lacking, and this is a great experience for young people, and it inspired you to create something. ME: It is really true. And it reflected how lonely it could be as a young conservative woman on campus, and then even coming to town. I had lots of friends and lots of people promoting me in different ways, but not as a woman. The women's groups let you know in every way possible if you want to be successful, and they do this to the girls at school, I think, in some ways, in colleges, you either need to be liberal or you need to be quiet. And when you see the treatment of some of the conservative women, the way they scorn culture, the way they mock Palin, the way they put down Michelle Malkin, the way they sneer at Michele Bachmann, the congresswoman from Minnesota. Not much has changed. SM: One of the things when I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly at the CPAC Conference, she gave me graciously an hour. I know she as very tired, but- ME: Look in the middle. SM: Yep, there she is. ME: She speaks for us sometimes too. She is 85. Look at that. Isn’t that amazing? 85, there amongst the 20, 30-year-olds, holding her own. SM: I think what was interesting is at CPAC she was very tired. I do not know if you noticed it. ME: She was tired. SM: I asked her assistant, said, "Yeah, this has been very tiring for her this time." ME: She had-had an accident about two CPACs ago, and she had fallen right before it and broken her hip. But she recovered very-very quickly. SM: Well, one of the things she said to me, she said, "The troublemakers of the (19)60s and early (19)70s are now running today's universities. They are running the women's studies, Black studies, gay and lesbian studies, Asian studies, Native American studies, and environmental studies." She was making reference that all of these studies are basically run by liberals. You believe that? ME: I do. I believe they are a way to promote liberal and left-wing ideas. And it is the way they use women, women's issues, they use women as a cover to promote left wing and liberal ideas. It does not have much to do with women at all, it is really sort of a dishonest thing that they do. SM: When we talk about the movements, we all know about the civil rights movement that was in the (19)50s and the (19)60s, and it was kind of a role model for all the other movements, and the anti-war movement too. Even Gaylord Nelson, when he was alive, when I interviewed him, said that the civil rights movement was the role model for us in terms of the teachings. The anti-war movement also helped. But what are your thoughts on all these movements that kind of evolved at the end of the (19)60s and early (19)70s? The women was based on sexism, because women were not treated equally in civil rights or basically hardly any of these movements were they treated equally. And are conservative women, and conservatives as a whole, linked, maybe not to now, but in any of these other movements? ME: I guess I would perhaps dispute that the woman's movement was based on sex discrimination and equality and law. I believe the suffragette movement, the original suffragettes, were seeking equality under the law so that men received the same rights as women. And what a tremendous success that has been. But I think in the (19)60s, as I was coming of age, what happened is that original movement for equity under the law shifted. I mean, there was an anti-war movement, there was an anti-government mood, and it shifted this woman's movement from basically what we had achieved, which was equal rights under the law, not that it's perfection, but it is the best place in the world for that, to this feminist, which was a sort of an anti-male, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, anti-American, anti-free enterprise for sure, and that was the liberalism and the leftism and the socialism, and anti-religious, all religious people are hypocrites and bigots. It shifted the original suffragette movement, which was in fact about equity under the law, to this really left-wing movement, which was just developing when I was in college in (19)68 to (19)72. I do not know if you remember, but I remember the early feminists, the radical feminists, the thing was to take off their bras and burn them. Bra burners. Remember that? SM: I remember there was something in a Miss America Contest in Atlantic City. ME: They protested the beauty pageants because it objectified women, as if they are discussing plays like the Vagina Monologues do not objectify women. But beauty pageants were just an absolute no-no. So did the Barbie thing, too. The Barbie doll we were talking about. The Barbie doll, she is just too slim and attractive, and this is harmful to little girl's psyches. I mean, just this absurd stuff. I mean, you hear Sarah Palin talking about the beauty... she said, "Hey, it got me scholarships." She was from a poor family. She had to work her way through college. She was beautiful to boot. But the whole feminist movement shifted from the original suffragette. Just everybody nowadays supports equal treatment without discrimination for everybody, regardless of your sex or your race or your religion. So that is one movement that, to me, just morphed into something that was really not representative of most women, although they did suck a fair number of people into this notion that the most important thing as a woman is to take care of yourself and to worry about yourself. And of course, we want to worry about ourselves, but for lots of women, they want to worry about a husband and a family as well. And they said, "Well, that is really secondary to you and yourself." And for some women, they choose that. But for an awful lot of women, they want to have both the opportunities professionally and the opportunities to have a traditional family life. SM: It is interesting, I cannot remember who I interviewed, because I have interviewed so many people, I have to look at the transcripts, but I can remember one speaker mentioning that growing up in the (19)50s, women, the housewives, really were not fulfilled deep down inside because they gave up everything to raise a family. And even though they never said anything. Some were secretaries or whatever, and then they just went home and raised a family, and they could not use their skills or whatever beyond, so basically, they never spoke about it, and they kept it hidden. So, we are talking about boomers' parents now, who are now in their (19)80s or passing away. ME: Well, I know Betty Friedan wrote about that. What was her book called? SM: The Feminine Mystique. ME: Yes. And how it was so godawful to be home with children, you need to throw off the bonds and go do whatever. I know from my own family, I know my mother, I know both of my grandmothers, I know my aunts, they loved being home. They loved raising a family. Were there challenges? Of course. The notion that they were so totally dominated by the men in their life, I can tell you, they made it appear that the man made all the decisions, but my mother made a huge number of decisions in our family. But it was something that you presented to the world. "What do you think, Glen?" "Well, you decide that one mom," and say whatever. I am sure there were some women who were unhappy, but there were huge, huge, huge numbers of women who were terribly happy. They devoted their whole lives to their husband and their children, and then they would move on sometime. SM: That is my mom. ME: My mother had trouble when my baby sister left. It was really empty nest, because she did not have that many outside interests. But she developed a bridge club and this and that. She got more active in different things. But it was really hard. See, I never had that, because I never stopped working. But this notion that they all hated it is just bunk. Some of them probably did. And for them, good for you, get out and do what you want. But life was certainly simpler for a lot of them, because now you have to choose. You have the baby. And I talk to so many young women and, "I do not know what to do. I love my job, but now I do not know, we are going to have a baby, blah, blah, blah." Choices. Well, this is the freedom we wanted so much. We have got it. SM: One of the things that I am putting down here, what Phyllis Schlafly told me at my interview with her, also, when you look at the (19)50s, it is kind of defined as more of a conservative vera as opposed to the (19)60s and the (19)70s. And obviously a lot of it has to do with Eisenhower, who was the president, he was like the grandfather figure. Certainly, William Buckley was... God and Man at Yale, which I read a long time ago, it is a great book. But he was starting National Review, and so there were conservative things happening in the United States before President Kennedy came in. ME: Russell Kirk wrote The Conservative Mind, which is still read. SM: Right. And of course, you talk about Goldwater and the rise of Ronald Reagan in the (19)70s and the (19)80s. And I interviewed Ed Meese too, because I wanted Mr. Meese to talk to me about his work with Ronald Reagan in California, not his presidency, in California. I learned an awful lot from him about those years, about law and order, against the welfare state, and those kinds of things. Can you talk about what happened? We're talking about the end of the war, we are talking about these kinds of major things still happening, that there were a lot of conservatives, that seemed like a conservative era. I do not blame it all on John Kennedy for the change. ME: Well, remember, I was... SM: ...Blame it all on John Kennedy for the change. ME: Well, remember I was 10 in 1960, so I was not that much into it until about (19)64. So, the question is what happened then in the (19)50s and (19)60s to energize conservatives? SM: Yes. ME: I think it was a mix of things. Again, I was a little girl, but I do think that people started to get disturbed about the growth of government. Even back then Goldwater used to talk about the national debt. Lord, is not he turning in his grave looking at our debt right now? I think that, and I have heard people in my family talk about this, when they had the end of World War II and they split up Europe and you had the communists, I do not think that people at the time thought that was forever. And I do not think, from what I read, it was not Churchill. He did not think that was for decades and decades. It was just a way to set things up post-war. I think that Americans were sort of horrified by the oppression. The oppression in communist nations of so many people. This was supposed to be a temporary fix after the war. I think that Buckley starting the National Review was caught on that in both the foreign and in the country. Eisenhower interestingly was a little bit ahead of his time. Do you know he appointed Clare Booth Luce; the first woman ever named to a major ambassadorial post? He named Mrs. Luce our ambassador to Italy. This was the first time. So that was always sort of interesting to me because you always hear about this guy as not much of an exciting guy, but that was really key what he did. And now you look, and of course the ambassadors, many of them are women. The funny thing was that when she went to Italy, she said the first thing she had to do was hire a wife because the ambassador's wife plays such a critical role in running the embassy and the social. So, she hired Letitia Baldridge, who later became a social- SM: She has done a book. ME: Yes, she has done a lot of books. She loved Mrs. Luce. She is still with us in Washington. And Mr. Luce had by then, sort of semi-retired from time, and he would come and spend six to eight months a year in Italy with her. But she needed a wife. I always loved that. But Eisenhower was smart enough to name a beautiful, smart, philosophically sound woman to a key post like that post-war. I always give him credit for that. SM: Yeah, that is interesting about him. I remember the golfing. He would go to Gettysburg and you see that... You have been there. The little three... The little hole he has there. ME: And Mamie. Mamie people nowadays sort of snicker at Mamie Eisenhower. But from what I have read and heard; she was a power in that family. SM: I always have to check this. What is really amazing about Goldwater too, and this is the thing, I will always remember that here is this man who ran for president in 1964 and got clabbered by Lyndon Johnson, but he was a very distinguished senator. In the end, he and Hugh Scott were the two men that walked into President Nixon's office and said he had to resign. ME: Right. Because- SM: [inaudible] story. ME: ...He had integrity. SM: Yes. ME: He had integrity and that is a rare quality these days. And whether it is people lying about what they are going to do when they get on the Supreme Court or lying about what they are going to do when they are President. They run as moderates, and they come in with these left wing plans. Integrity is a very rare quality and Goldwater did have it. SM: Yeah. Integrity, you raised a very important point because in higher education, Arthur Chickering, one of the gospel books or the Bible books of higher education is Education and Identity. And the seventh vector of development is integrity. Students should always be striving for that ultimate, which is integrity, which is being comfortable with who you are and standing for something. ME: Right. And this is something I teach my kids. I mean, we all make mistakes. You go through life, but you have to show integrity. You have to be honest with people. You have to be honest with yourself. I do not know how you live with yourself when you are a liar. Lots of people are. SM: Well, I am a firm believer that you could pay a higher up. ME: I think you are right. SM: This is very important for me because even though I interviewed Lee Edwards on this and I have had other people talk about it, and I think Tom Hawkin, I interviewed. He was one of the leaders of the Young Americans for Freedom. And I think he has a book coming out pretty soon. He said he has. And he is a Vietnam vet too. But please describe the Young Americans for Freedom in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s. They were activists and they were against the war in Vietnam. How did they start? How big were they? Describe the students and what was their goals and purposes and accomplishments. I think we need to know more. I would like to see a book written about it. ME: Actually. I think Ron is doing one. SM: Is he? ME: It is a detailed one about the history of a former board member, Wayne Thorburn, T-H-O-R-B-U-R-N. Ask Ron. They might even let you see the draft or whatever it is in. It is in that state. SM: It is fantastic that he is doing that because nobody has done it. ME: Nope, nope. He has spent a lot of time on it. Wayne Thorburn was the executive director of YAF when I came to town in (19)73. Also, when Ron came, we both worked for him at Young Americans for Freedom. But I never heard of YAF until about (19)68, (19)69. There I was a freshman at Briarcliffe. I think there was a brochure. Somehow a brochure was on the table, and I picked it up and it described a group that was founded at William F. Buckley's home. And of course, I had been a fan of his from watching Firing Line and we got National Review at home. I do not know what it cost, $10 to join or something. So, I filled it out and sent it in. Before long, I got a call from somebody who wanted to come and see if I was interested in going into this and that. They had different meetings, and I did go. I was personally not ready for leadership then. I was feeling my way. I was learning what I had to learn. I was developing my personality. What happened for me was my junior year, I went to the University of London. This would have been (19)70 to (19)71. This was before Margaret Thatcher. This was Socialist England. Some people are sole learners. I had to see socialism. I had to see how it brought everybody down. I had to see how me, a relatively rich American when I broke my toe, went and got free medical care. Some hardworking ditch digger was paying for my medical care because it was free in England. I had to see it to understand the virtues of our then, anyway, free country, smaller government where people took more responsibility for themselves instead of looking to government always. So that was another magic moment for me, a year abroad in Socialist England. So, when I came back my senior year, that is when I got really active in Young Americans for Freedom. I brought in a speaker to college. I went to the different conferences and events. I read more. And then when I graduated, I was offered a position. My first position after college was at Young Americans for Freedom. So, I did not get that involved until I got back in August of (19)70, (19)71 and so that final year of college. And actually, then the young conservatives had it with Nixon because he had sold out to China, Red China and he was expanding the government incredibly. And so, for that election, we had a group called 72 Youth Against McGovern. What are young conservatives going to do when the presidential candidate is so disappointing? And so, we had Youth Against McGovern, and actually, that is where I was stuffing a mailing down at the New York YAF office on Jane Street in Greenwich Village; that is where I met my husband, and he was going to Fordham grad. We became friends and then he came to Washington then I came to Washington. But YAH was an alternative voice on campuses that were dominated by the left. When I started college in (19)68, that was the year that they shut down Columbia. They were blowing up places. Even at Briarcliffe, there was this ridiculous little contingent who shut it down for a day or so, right around exam time. And I remember thinking, of course, it was great not to take exams, but here we are paying this money and these stupid nitwits, and you are talking about a privileged brunch of young women who went to Briarcliffe shutting down the school and enforcing their views because they know best. And this is so typical of the left of Obama and of many of the feminists, they know what is best for you and we need to shut this school down for a couple of days to make our point about whatever, instead of really listening to what other people have to say. It is a kind of arrogance. In recent times, I remember when they had the healthcare summit and you had President Obama sitting there and you had Republicans and you had Democrats and everything in his body language, in his face, in his tone of voice was I really know best about Americans' healthcare. And to me, that just was so symbolic. SM: Would you say the other Democrats like Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, even Harry Truman, would you put them in the same- ME: Not as bad. SM: No? ME: No. It has gotten really bad. It has gotten really bad. This particular administration, I am certain he is a one-term President, but to me, it typifies what we saw in the left on the college campus at the time that YAF grew so tremendously. It was this arrogance that the left-wing way is the best. We know what is best. We are going to shut this down. We are going to blow things up like it or leave it. Bill Ayers, Obama's good buddy, we are going to blow things up because we know what's best. No contrition. To this day, no contrition out of Bill Ayers. SM: I know that Mark Rudd, who I have interviewed, has written the book Underground. I do not know if you saw that book. He admits some mistakes that were made by the Weather... He is not going to change anything about SDS, but- ME: No. SM: Yeah, going to violence, he has said that was wrong. It destroyed our organization. I do not think the other, Bernadine Dorn, has even... She is married to Bill Ayers. I do not think she has said anything like Mark Rudd. ME: Right-right. But I mean, this is sort of... To me, YAF was the alternative to this arrogant left-wing insistence that they knew best about everything. And then over time, it became a more positive thing promoting conservative ideas. And maybe it was that from the beginning. I mean, as I said, I was not involved until 10, 11 years into YAF. SM: I hope when your husband writes this book about the Young Americans for Freedom, that when he is talking about that particular organization in the (19)60s and the (19)70s that he brings in the important college students that a lot of students were not going to SDS, they were not going to the Black Panthers, they were not going to the women's groups. There were large contingents of students that were... I hope he really does that because when you read the periods, it seems like it is more liberal. It is all about the liberals and the activists. ME: But I mean, do not forget back then, that is all we heard about. Because other than human events and National Review and a couple of conservative talk show hosts, the whole media was run by people who were disagreeing with conservative ideas. They are all still there, but we have different outlets now. They have not changed. Listen to ABC, NBC, or CBS one night. You want to pull your hair out. That is how I feel. I listen sometimes just to get motivated. But now there are other outlets: internet, talk radio, and Fox. So that has changed. They have not changed at all. SM: See, what happens is that in all of these groups here, for example, in the gay and lesbian students or movement, Stonewall, in (19)69, then the Environmental Earth Day in 1970, then you have... Well, you have Black Panthers started and SDS. They all have these starting periods and how important they were and how many people were linked to them. Maybe it is because they are more visible. Were the Young Americans for Freedom they trying to be more invisible, or the media just did not... ME: The media just ignored them totally. They got away with it. They pretty much ignored what Goldwater had to say. They would characterize him as a cowboy. He was going to blow up the world. He had such a wonderful platform. So many good ideas about things that people started talking about seriously. The country would not be nearly in the pickle it is right now. He never got any coverage. It was so dominated by the left. SM: How about when Bill Buckley had that first meeting in the creation of the Young Americans for Freedom was there any kind of coverage for that? ME: I am sure there was not except in National Review, perhaps. SM: Those early students that started coming... I mean, that in itself would be a book. ME: Right. I am sure there was not. I mean, it was total dominance. We have a video on our website of Clare Booth Luce in about (19)64, I guess. I think it was during the campaign. And she is being interviewed by I think Eric Sevareid and some other lefty. And they are just incredulous, astonished beyond belief that she would suggest there was any bias in the media towards Barry Goldwater. You can find it on our website if you want. But I mean that was so typical. Not only did they not cover anybody, and did they pick on unfairly on conservatives, but then they denied it. And some of them to this day still do. She was fighting the good fight. One thing we love about her, she was so lovely, so gracious, so intelligent, and feisty. She would stand up way back then when the ladies were not on TV for the most part. But they just denied that there was any... Oh, they laughed at her. SM: Would you consider her kind of what Eleanor Roosevelt was to the Democratic Party is what Clare Booth Luce was to the Republican Party? ME: I consider her much better. I consider her much smarter, much more articulate, much more influential, and grossly ignored. It is one of the reasons we picked her. Well, partly because there was really no contest. There was nobody that did as much as she did from (19)44 through the end of her life. Well, before (19)44; this was when she did the keynote. Because they never studied her, they never talk about her. The women's studies do not even acknowledge the existence of such an extraordinary woman in that era who influenced so many things. Eleanor Roosevelt, they give her all kinds of credit for all kinds of stuff. Nobody in universities or in most books give Mrs. Luce credit for what she did. SM: The only person that I can remember that kind of stands out in the (19)50s was a female when I was young was Margaret Chase. ME: Yes. And she was a senator from Maine, and she was very distinct. SM: There you go. Yep. ME: We looked at Margaret Chase Smith when it came to the naming the institute because we wanted to name it after an individual woman, somebody that young women of this era could relate to. And she was elected. She worked hard. But her life compared to Mrs. Luce's; she was the playwright, wrote the [inaudible] still being produced to this day. She was an ambassador. She was a congresswoman. She was the editor of Vanity Fair. She had a long marriage to Henry Lewis and I am sure that was a challenge. She had a daughter. She had stepsons. She had a deep spiritual life. She became a Catholic at a certain point in her life actually when her daughter was killed in a car crash. It was terrible, terrible. So, you look at all those dimensions to her life and then you look at Margaret Chase Smith, who was a lovely accomplished woman. There was no comparison. There was no contest. There was no woman like Mrs. Luce in modern American history in the modern conservative movement. There was no contest. So that is why I went to her family and asked permission. The lawyer said, you do not have to ask the family, but smart. So, I did. And her stepson, Henry Luce, who was heading the Luce Foundation was the son of Clare's husband as sort of this gruff fella. And he said, "Well, I do not agree with what you're doing, but she would like it so you can use the name." SM: What would you say... And a lot of people do not like the term boomer, but what would you say that Clare Booth Luce's life meant to the post-World War II generation that they may not even be aware of? ME: Well, I think she was a wonderful role model for a woman who wanted to enjoy traditional life and professional life. And who was proud of her religious deep spirituality, who loved her family, and had this amazing career all at the same time. She is a role model. I mean, that is why we picked her. Now, the truth is you did not hear much about her because the left and the liberals so dominated the media. And that is one of the reasons we talk about her a lot here, especially with the young women because they never hear about her in college. Never. SM: I know a lot of conservative women that are at Westchester University. They graduated and... Actually, a lot of them never even said whether they were liberal or conservative, but- ME: Because it is easier not to. SM: But now they have graduated, you see on their Facebook conservative. They came to everything to learn. But I did not know they were conservative or liberal. But when you look at these periods when boomers were alive, in your eyes, could you define them in your own words? Either through experience or just studying and knowledge of history, what do these periods mean to you? The period 1946 to 1960. ME: I mean, in 1960, I was ten. So, I mean, that was an era when Americans were so relieved that the war was over. I know my own parents started their family. They settled in the Levi Towns. The guys went to college on the GI Bill. It was a time when America was happy at being America without all the questioning. We had won the war. We defeated the tyrant. The settlement was not so great in the way they divided up Europe. But it was a calmer time. It was an easier time. It was a time when schools, the public schools, it was so much easier for parents because people shared values about what it was they wanted the schools to teach their kids and you did not have all these raging social controversies. Not that there was perfection, there were still challenges. There were children who were not well cared for. There were wives and husbands who were not happy. But it was a simpler time. And I think it was post the chaos of the World War people were happy to be safe and prosperous. Taxes were fairly low. Government was reasonably small, although it was starting to creep up there. And so, it was a calmer, quieter time. And certainly, my childhood was probably typical. SM: Well, before we get to the other periods, one of the negatives about the period, two of them, is that the television of the era really hid the racism that was happening in our society. ME: Yes-yes. SM: That it was basically all White people on television except for Amos and Andy in the early (19)50s, which was a slapstick. And Nat King Cole had a program like 10 weeks- ME: That is right. SM: ...In the middle (19)50s. And then the second thing was the McCarthy hearing, which was the fear that everybody was a communist and people... ME: Well, I am just reading about Sandra Bird in the Post at lunchtime, and I mean he led the filibuster to prevent the Civil Rights Act from passing. I do not think I'd have been with Senator Bird on that one. I mean, I was a young adolescent at the time, but there were an awful lot of people in the Democrat party who were opposed to the kind of changes. And of course, the Republican Party came out of the Civil War and the people who wanted to have freedom for the slaves. So, it is interesting how that is all twisted around in some ways, although there are some interesting candidates coming to the fore now. SM: That is the criticism of President Kennedy because if anything, he was a pragmatic politician. Before he ever started linking up with the big four: Dr. King, Jane Farmer, Wilkins, and Whitney Young. It is what kind of effect is this going to have in my Southern Democrats who basically- ME: Right-right. But then the residual effects of that today are absurd like in Virginia, you cannot... When it comes to primary elections, any person can vote in any of them. That is a residual effect of the Civil Rights Act saying that if you had to declare a party, it is stigmatized in a racial way. I mean, it is ridiculous. What happens around here is the liberal Democrats come and vote for the liberal Republicans in the primaries or the more liberal and they skew the elections. And that is a crazy leftover. SM: You can see a direct... I asked this to James Spanos too. Do you see a direct link between what we are seeing today in Congress between Republicans and Democrats and what happened in the (19)60s? Because a lot of those people that are in Congress are boomers from that era. Some are older that are World War II generations. The majority of them are boomers or Generation Xers, which is the group that followed boomers. ME: When you say what happens in Congress, are you talking about the dominance of the liberal and the left? SM: Yeah. Well, no, it is just that they do not talk to each other. There is dislike, there is no trust between the other side. They have these meetings, but it's all show. People are frustrated with both parties. ME: Right-right. Well, I remember when the Republicans took over the Senate whenever that was way back, and they basically equalized the numbers with maybe one or two extra on each of these committees. I was looking at the judiciary committee that is looking at Kagan. I think it is like 12-7 or something. I think that from my observation, the Democrats rarely seek fairness. They seek power. They seek absolute power whereas when the Republican... And then the other thing the Republicans did when they took over is they cut budgets of committees. So, I mean, I do not see equal blame here for the current incivility. I see a kind of arrogance and we are in charge now, Harry Reid and Pelosi, this despicable kind of arrogance. We are running things so we do not have to talk to you, which they both literally said as the root of the problem, not that the loyal opposition is speaking up. They are supposed to speak up. And if you watch this Kagan hearing going on now, you see an awful lot of courteous but hard questioning from Jack Sessions from some of the others. You see a courtesy. I remember when Bork was up and they pulverized him. SM: I remember that. ME: It was brutal. It was personal. It was unbelievable. I do not see that as much on the Republican side. SM: I think Alito had some pretty rough ones too. ME: Yep. I remember they went after... It was the Post, really. But the way Robert's children were dressed, I do not know if you remember that. That to me was the ultimate sneering because they were dressed in pastel colors. It was this little boy and this little girl, and I thought, "This is just too absurd." I mean, this is so uncivil. SM: Well, just your thoughts again on this period between 1961 to 1970. How do you read that period? [inaudible] thoughts. ME: I do not know, 11 to 20. It was turmoil. You saw the left, certainly in the schools and the universities. The anti-war movement you saw that developing big time during the (19)60s. I mean, Goldwater was defeated in (19)64. And then the conservatives started to get together and act more strategically. The left was just loving its power and the anti-war movement. We talked about how the woman's movement at that point shifted more from equality in the law [inaudible] to this hating man, hating America, hating religion, hating faith, and female solidarity. That was the thing. But it was only liberal and conservative female, not conservative female solitary. I remember when one of my favorites is when Kay Bailey Hutchison was running for senate in Texas. Gloria Steinem, the grandmother of the feminist movement, attacked her viciously. She said, " Hutchison is a female impersonator. She looks like us but thinks like them." See, this was the woman's movement that was developing in the (19)60s. You cannot be a good woman unless you were a liberal or leftist. And it ties back to when I had my eureka moment; who are these people? They do not represent me. This was the (19)60s. This is what they grew into. When I was in college, they were sort of burning their bras. They were not running it yet, although most of my professors were liberal. SM: What about the (19)70s? Is that just a continuation of the (19)60s? ME: These are good questions. I mean, I have not thought that much about it. I mean, to me personally and professionally, it was building up to Reagan. It was losing different things. SM: That might be it. ME: Yeah-yeah. SM: Although some people say up to (19)73, it was still the (19)60s. ME: Maybe. Could be. SM: I think those first four years were really the same. ME: I came to town and then we had Watergate. We were working away. We were also discouraged with Nixon. Anyway. You had Goldwater. You had the man of integrity on our side saying you need to resign. In (19)76, I took off work. I went down to Florida, worked for Reagan. We lost big time. Remember two to one, Tommy; he said we were going to win two to one. We lost big time. And Reagan lost at the Republican National Convention by a few votes. But it was sort of in the hands of God because then we had Jimmy Carter and then the nation was ready for Ronald Reagan. So, it is interesting how things work. SM: How about the (19)80s? Because that is... A lot of people say it was Ronald Reagan and George Bush came out at the end of it. ME: We had a financial problem in the country, so we cut taxes and we let the money go into the private sector. And guess what? In a year or two we were out of it. If only Obama could think of that and could see that. And then the (19)80s was tremendous growth. I mean, this area here in Northern Virginia and tremendous growth all around Dulles Airport here. All these computer companies, the private sector, Bill Gates, computers. And I remember early in the Reagan years, I had a big deal job, and I had a computer, and I took a course. But you know what? There was no reason for me to learn how to use that computer because I did not need it at my job. I come here, I start this institute. I got to do the computer. I got to do the word process. We keep all our donor records on it. I mean, there is a huge increase in productivity because of the boom that came with the growth of computers and technology. So, the (19)80s were fabulous growth years. I give credit to lower taxes and the flourishing of business by leaving them alone. Leave them alone. SM: Would you consider the (19)80s bringing back the military because the military had gone really downhill in the... Well, the (19)70s. ME: Yes. Right. The people would spit on the returning Vietnam veterans. But Reagan had a great reverence for the military. And as President, he really was a leader in that sense and he would highlight them and honor the military people, as many Americans had always done anyway. SM: When Ronald Reagan... He did not say in a speech, but it was a feeling. It was ambience. It was just an aura about him. It was a perception of we are back. And that was something that he set up very early in his administration. What did he mean by that? We are back. Was that strictly about the military? Was that pride of- ME: I mean, I do not remember specifically saying it, but to me, it would mean the time-tested values that made America great, which are acknowledging the wonderful productivity of people and businesses left alone, families keeping more of their own money to spend it on their children and whatever they want in the way they do. America becoming a leader in the world, defeating the Soviet Union. We outspent them. We did more military than they did. They could not keep up all those communist nations with those people held captives for all those years with that Roosevelt-Churchill agreement were freed. Well, I went on a cruise over there a couple of years ago. Those people love Ronald Reagan. You go up to anybody in the street. They love Ronald Reagan because they are free now. So, we are back: freedom, families, celebrating faith. He did celebrate faith. SM: Do you think the most well-known quote from him is tear down this wall? ME: It is a good one. When I was president of the Virginia Board of Education, we had standards of learning in history. I got that in there. They may have removed it since, but I had to barter with the Democrats to do that. SM: Just to have that in there? ME: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. See, they dominated. SM: That is part of history. ME: It did not matter. It was so political. These Democrats are so political. We had a board of nine- So they were so political. These Democrats were so political. We had a board of nine, five were Democrats, four were Republicans, at that point. And so, I had to barter. I had to give them some stupid [inaudible]- SM: When you think of the (19)90s, of course, we're thinking of the latter part of George Bush's, number one, and Bill Clinton. ME: That is right. That is right. SM: So, what are the (19)90s statement first? ME: Well, I remember the day he made the announcement that he was going to raise taxes. I was working for him. And I called in the staff, said, "That is it. We're out here." Oh, no. People will understand, blah, blah, blah." No, they did not. They did not. It was breaking faith with the Americans. He said, "Read my lips, no new taxes." And he was a good man. He seemed to have integrity in different ways, but that was it for him. And then we got Bill Clinton, what a grotesque character. But in the end, he put his finger in the wind and he did some things with the budget. Of course, he was living off of all the glorious success of Reagan and Bush and their policies generally. So, the country was still growing. They were able to balance the budget because the military budget was way down, because we had won the Cold War. But on sort of a personal social level, what a grotesque character to be. I mean, people say the certain behaviors of teenagers now, they take it back to Bill Clinton saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." These kids are saying, "Well, that is not sex to be doing this to each other. That is not sex." I do not know if it goes back to Clinton. SM: And then of course, the 10s is George Bush, number two. ME: Right. Right. SM: And Obama has been here a year-and-a-half. But [inaudible]- ME: Right. I mean, George Bush, number two, kept us safe militarily. He reacted very well after 911. Nobody was ready before 911 to do the kind of things we needed to do to keep those wicked terrorists out of our country. He spent too much money. He did not veto enough. I think he did his best, but he was a tremendous disappointment to conservatives. And then Obama ran as a moderate. Americans like to give somebody a chance. I cannot tell you how many people I know who are fairly conservative say, "Well, I want to give the Black guy a chance because that shows in America anybody can be president." And now, most of those people have turned against him, totally, because he's not governing as a moderate. SM: I know on Newt Gingrich and the Republicans came into power in (19)94, and I have read, I think it is also in his brand-new book, Newt Gingrich talks about that era when boomers were young, or the (19)60s and (19)70s, and a lot of the problems we have in our society today go right back to that period. And he was making reference to the drug culture, the lack of morality, certainly the divorce rate- ME: Newt is talking about this? SM: Yeah. I know. I know. It was basically he was just making general statements. And George will also, at times in his writings, will make judgements or commentaries going back to that period. But a lot of the reasons why we have had problems in our country, it goes right back to that time. And they were making reference to I think the kind of the countercultural issues that we were going through at that time. ME: Right. SM: Just your thoughts on- ME: I think that some of that is true. I think that this, I remember in the (19)60s it was, "If it feels good, do it." And the reference, of course, sexually. SM: Right. ME: And so, then a lot of folks, mostly educated folks, figured out that was not such a good idea. But a whole segment of society just bought into it. And isn’t it like something, 40, 50, 60 percent of children, urban children, are born without a married mother and father. And so, that I mean, I do not know what it is from. But it seems to me, that it makes sense that it came from that, "Oh, just do whatever you want." But educated people of greater economics figured out, "No, this is not the best for kids or for society." But there is just huge chunks of society now, especially at the lower end economically, who just they have the children without marriage. And the children suffer, and the families suffer. It is a terrible cultural situation. SM: A lot of people, very critical of Lyndon Johnson on that because they say he created the welfare state. ME: Right. SM: Do you think that is a pretty strong statement? ME: No. I think it is true. And I think that at times, some of the rules that rewarded mothers for having more children without husbands, if they had a husband, then they would be off the assistance program. But if they did not have a husband and they had more children, they would get more money. I mean, I think all the incentives were perverse. And I think this whole notion that we help people when they are down, sure. But not for decades, and decades, and decades. You help people a little. And then of course, the government takes so much of our money that although Americans still are the most generous on the face of the earth, privately, people could do much more if they were not paying 20, 30, 40, 50 percent taxes. So, the government steps in, it encourages behaviors which are harmful to children and families by its idiot policies. So, yeah. I mean, I think that Lyndon Johnson and what he meant to do to help people, in effect, it really did not help. It hurt a lot of children, a lot of families all over the country. And the results we still see today. SM: Did Ronald Reagan try to fight that when he was in? Because- ME: Yes. Yes. SM: ...correct me if I am wrong, there were two things that he built his reputation on in California. It was he was going to be tough on students who try to shut down and disrupt universities. ME: Right-right. SM: And number two, was to end the welfare state. ME: Right. And he tried. But who signed welfare reform? It was Bill Clinton. It was a Republican Congress. And in the end, he signed a federal bill that forced states to make people go back to work instead of just staying on welfare year, after year, after year. Now, I feel sure that I have read Obama has changed that back. But it was Bill Clinton who signed welfare reform, which was so interesting to me. He was not nearly as ideological as either Hillary or Obama. SM: People think Bill Clinton was kind of a middle of the roader. ME: Right. But I mean, I think it was not from conviction. It was just whatever seemed to work right. SM: Oh, when did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion? And when did it end? ME: The (19)60s? SM: And what was the watershed moment? ME: Well, for conservatives it was the Goldwater nomination and election, (19)64. Because it coalesced us around a candidate who, well, like I said, in my family, it was the first-time mom and dad said, "Anybody running for national office was really articulating their beliefs about taxes were too high." People have gotten so used to high taxes. And I remember reading Wall Street Journal while I was serving and it said, and it was a few years ago but, "Most women who make less than their husbands, most women, their paycheck goes to pay taxes." Is not that outrageous? Most of what women make in families when the husband makes more than the wife, pays the taxes. Now, this is just wrong. This means taxes are too high. And so, I think Goldwater was talking about this. I know my dad, he worked very-very hard. He would always work against the school bond increases. I mean, he was paying taxes that were just sapping our family. We had four kids. Mother did not work. She took care of the family. So, that was back in the (19)60s. Goldwater was finally a national candidate saying this. And so, for conservatives, yes. Even though we lost, we can have a national voice. And then Reagan and different people. So, that was the watershed, I think for conservatives in the (19)60s. SM: That was the end, when did it end, the (19)60s end? ME: I do not know. You were talking about (19)70s. I am not exactly sure on that, to be honest. I was in school (19)68 to (19)72. I had that year abroad. That opened my eyes to what socialism is. I am not sure I have an answer when it ended. SM: But the beginning of the (19)60s and the watershed moment were Goldwater? ME: Yes. SM: Why did the Vietnam War end, in your opinion? Just your thoughts on that. ME: Why did it end? SM: Mm-hmm. ME: It ended because the Congress did not appropriate the funds they needed. They were winning. They were doing wonderfully well. But they were sick of the war. Americans were sick of the war. It is going to happen in Afghanistan, you watch. We have to choose our wars in a better way. We have to get in and get out. I mean, George Bush understood this. The first George Bush. The second Bush pretty much got into Iraq, and we finished that up. I do not think Obama has a clue about these kinds of strategic matters. I mean, when he announced the big thing in Afghanistan, I remember thinking- SM: That is a year-and-a-half, it is going- ME: What? Nobody ever wins in Afghanistan. The Russians do not win. The invading... Centuries pass, nobody wins. SM: Alexander the Great did not win. ME: That is right. That is right. But I do not believe that Obama has very much breadth and depth of knowledge about foreign affairs. And I think our country is in peril. I think what will happen is he will give up in a year or two. Those people will be in a terrible way. We will pull out like we did in Vietnam. Anybody who helped us, they will send to reeducation camps or kill them. Vietnam was such a disgrace for our country to end it that way. After 50,000 lives. I do not know if you knew anybody that died, but I sure did. SM: Oh, I do. ME: Just young, idealistic men who went to fight the war. We could have won it if we would have had a little more guts. But we never should have started it, and it was LBJ, remember, that greatly increased our presence there, if we were not going to finish it. SM: Yeah. And I have read so many books on Eisenhower, and Kennedy, and [inaudible]- ME: Right. You know what? In my mind, Vietnam ending was the helicopter on the top of the embassy. SM: April 30th, 1975. ME: It makes me emotional when I think about the ambassador. You remember him? He was the last one to get on. And I remember his face was so distraught because we were leaving so many behind, Vietnamese who had helped us. And he could not take them all. And it was the last copter. And I also remember Gerald Ford, who I never liked anyway, that day he was getting off a plane somewhere and he literally ran away from the media, so he did not have to answer questions about this disgrace that had just happened. But I think it was Ellsworth Bunker, was that his name? SM: Yeah, Ellsworth Bunker. Yes. ME: Right. SM: He was, yes. ME: And it was the saddest sight. And all these people on the ground trying to get up there. And we just abandoned them. We abandon the horrors of reeducation camp. SM: I know that the ARVN, which was South Vietnamese Army, they were throwing their uniforms away, hoping that the North Vietnamese would not know that they had been in the service. ME: Right. There was no hope for those people. So, many of them tortured, ruined. What a disgrace. What a horrible thing. I hope it does not end that way in Afghanistan. But I have very little faith in Obama. SM: I have been talking about the boomer generation. But what term would best define this group that was born after the war? Would you say, I just have a couple of them, the Vietnam generation, the protest generation, the Woodstock generation, the movement generation? Is there a term that you would use to define the 74 million that were born after World War II, what they define as a boomer? ME: It is interesting. Because I think you gave five terms, and four of them were for the left. Woodstock. SM: Yeah. ME: The last one was the movement. SM: Yeah, movements and Woodstock. That is a counterculture. ME: Maybe it is dominance. Dominance in expression by a very small number who had their lives in the political world, and in the media, and in the popular culture. Americans, I have always thought most Americans at core, pretty conservative about stuff. But they do get sucked in by Obama types. They do get tired of wars, especially when it looks like we are not winning them. But I mean, it is a great country with great people. And there is a small number of lefties who have had tremendous success in dominating policy. Much, much more than they should based on their numbers or the logic of their positions. So, I mean, I know all those terms. And they are valid. They describe certain groups. SM: Right. ME: But maybe it is the silent majority. Maybe that is what it is. Is that when we talked about the silent majority in the (19)60s? I do not know. It is just the people that just go to work, they pay their taxes, they raise their families. SM: That is a Nixon term, the silent majority. ME: Yeah. Right. Well, that would have been what, (19)68 to whatever. SM: Yeah. And I know the Silent Generation is what they define as the generation before the boomers, which was not the Greatest Generation. ME: Right. SM: It was that five- or six-year period, almost like the Korean War people. But a lot of those people were really involved in the anti-war movement. ME: Right. Right. I mean, the left dominated. But they were not dominant in numbers. SM: I am going to read this. I will get my glasses on here. Because you worked for both President Reagan and President Bush. Within the boomer generation, something about Ronald Reagan. He is revered by some and despised by others. Why? I know in California he stood for those two things that I talked about. And that obviously, people that lived in California at the time knew what he stood for when he was running for president. Just your thoughts of why... I am being impartial on this. ME: Right. SM: Because I am a Democrat. And I am more of a liberal. ME: Right. SM: But I really like Ronald Reagan. ME: Right. SM: And I am not going to put that in my interview. ME: Right-right, right. SM: But I just do not understand why he just draws the ire of so many people when he was basically a decent human being. ME: Right. First off, I do not think he is as widely despised, even by some of the worst despisers now, since his death. I think it was so interesting. He was sick. He was sick for a while, and then he died. And the reporting on Reagan, even from the liberal outlets, was so interesting to me that it was much more positive than I would have thought. Okay. So, I do not think he is as despised now as he was. But I think it is what happens when somebody is so clear, and so plain, and communicating, in this case, conservative ideas. And people just get enthusiastic just listening to him. It is almost like with Sarah Palin, a little bit of what you saw. And the people who disagree in terms of policy are so angry, are so angry at the effectiveness. I mean, Ronald Reagan was the most effective communicator we have ever had in the country. And people just love to hear him and listen to him. And they say, "Yeah. Yeah, that is right." Democrats and Republican. Well, the Reagan Democrats. And I think that just makes sort of the ideological left is so angry. And that is why they despise him because he is so effective. SM: Are you upset with Sarah Palin though? Because I even have read that Republicans are upset with her by saying that she wants to meet Margaret Thatcher to get her support because she was close to Ronald Reagan. And somebody said, "The nerve of her to put herself in the same league with Ronald Reagan." I mean, it is some Republicans are furious about this. ME: There's some people who do not like her. I was talking more about Sarah Palin during the campaign. I mean, what a vicious stuff with her kids. And there's a viciousness towards her. I do not know if it is because she is a beautiful, conservative woman. I do not know that she is ever going to run again, to be honest. She is enjoying the success with her book. SM: Right. Right. ME: Going all around the country. She has got all these kids, this great life in Alaska. People do not want to leave Alaska because my parents did not want to leave it. But I do not see her saying, "I am in the same category with them." But I will tell you, I have been in crowds when she is speaking, and I see a similar enthusiasm for what she has to say. It is a plain common-sense way of articulating ideas that most people believe in, like Ronald Reagan did. She has that ability. She has the ability to get everybody on their feet cheering at a dinner, at a rally. There is not a lot of politicians... John McCain sure did not have it. Obama had a lot of charisma. But I mean, I am not saying she is equal to Ronald Reagan in any way. But I am just saying the hatred, the viciousness, that you saw about Reagan, that you saw about Palin, especially during the election. I think it has to do with anger that they're so successful at articulating these views. And people just want to hear them. SM: I kind of wish, and this is off the cuff here, but I kind of wish that we had the politics of a Tip O'Neill and a Ronald Reagan. And to be able to have a diehard Democrat and a diehard Republican and to be able to be friends. ME: Yeah, it is true. SM: That is what we need in Washington. We need Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill types. ME: But I mean, it has become ugly and bitter. And to have a healthcare bill like that that Republicans did not even see until the day before they were voting on it, I mean, it is insane. That is some kind of a special arrogance. Well, they did not want them to see it because they would get opposition to it. SM: Right. ME: But this is a crazy way to run a family, to run a Congress. SM: We made a reference to Betty Friedan. What is the difference between feminism and radical feminism? I have noticed in my interviews that the radical feminists really do not like or have really problems with Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan because they are not radical enough. They are mainstream feminists. ME: Yeah. SM: And a lot of people believe that radical feminists are running the women's studies programs, not the feminists like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. ME: Right. Right. SM: And basically, what are your thoughts on Betty Friedan, people like Betty Friedan. I got a group here. Bear with me as I read these. ME: Right-right. Okay. SM: Your thoughts on Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Smeal, Kate Millett, Germaine Greer. These are all liberals. ME: Right-right. SM: Susan Brownmiller, Rebecca Walker, Winona LaDuke, Robin Morgan, Susan Johnson, and I think Andrea Dworkin, and Alice Walker. These are people- ME: I mean, you... Go ahead. SM: These are people that are defined as liberals, but they are different in their approach. ME: But I mean, there is so many different strains there. That Andrea Dworkin. I mean, she had an unhappy life with men. And she was basically a man-hater. Lookism, anybody who looked good, this was really a bad thing. There is a lot of different strains in feminism. What I do when I teach the young women workers about it is I just use the words of their leadership. Gloria Steinem, she is a female impersonator. That says it all to me. This is what she said about a conservative woman running. There are some conservative women who call themselves feminist of a sort. They call themselves equity feminist. And that goes back to the suffragette idea of equal treatment under the law. I cannot use the word feminist to describe now. But people say, "What do you mean? You got your, well, you are a professor. You are a feminist." No, no, no. It is like the word gay. Gay is not children playing Ring Around the Rosie anymore. Gay is homosexuals and sodomites. SM: Right. ME: Well, to me, feminist is a word they have taken. I mean suffragette, okay. I am okay with that. But they have taken, and it means sort of this man-hating, this disparaging anti-conservative woman, discouraging anybody who does not toe the line. Anybody who talked about life is totally unreasonably, a million babies a year. No problem. So, I mean, to me, you hate to lump them all together. But most of them are pretty radical to me, based on what they say and what they have written. SM: Yeah. Yeah, and their books are very popular books. Most of them are very popular writers. ME: Right. SM: Some of the younger ones. The two younger ones are Rebecca Walker and Winona LaDuke. I mean, they are power brokers. One's Native American. ME: Yep. Yeah. SM: And I mean, they are very popular on college campuses. ME: Right. SM: The other thing too is that when you talk about the politicians, yeah, the Geraldine Ferraro, the Elizabeth Holtzman, the Hillary Clinton, Tipper Gore, Susan Molinari, Pat Schroeder, Lindy Boggs. Those are people that really define I think the Democratic Party as females. ME: Right. They are hardworking. They are smart. But they are extremely left-wing, every single one of them. SM: What are your thoughts though? I think of the women's studies and certainly Black studies and some of these programs started, they were all challenged in the beginning for their academic, certainly Black studies because it is happening on college campuses, but all of these studies programs were developed because their history was not in the history books. ME: Right. SM: Howard Zinn has written the alternative history. Just your thoughts on that. ME: The fatal flaw to all of these is their lack of intellectual diversity. They do not teach Thomas Sowell. They do not do Clarence Thomas in Black studies. They only teach certain Blacks. SM: They do teach Phyllis Schlafly though. ME: Well. They teach her to ridicule her, in most cases, in women's studies. They do not teach her in a fair and even hand. I have never heard about it if they do. They do not have them read Ann Coulter. They do not have them read Michelle Malkin. They do not have Star Parker, turned her life around. It is a lack of intellectual diversity that makes them all lack integrity. But it is typical, frankly, no offense. But typical of the university environment. I went to four years of law school at American University, graduated in (19)80 when Reagan was elected. I had one conservative professor in four years. That is a disservice to me as a student. All the legal policy issues, we only heard them from a left-wing point of view. All the money we paid, that is a disservice to students. And these programs, that is their fatal flaw. It is a lack of intellectual diversity. SM: It is interesting because I worked with Pat a lot. ME: Yeah. Right-right. SM: And he brought a lot of conservatives to the campus. ME: Right. But this was extraordinarily unusual that a professor would work at the conservative group to have different points of view heard. SM: Well, I love Pat. I said to Ron, I said, "You got a great young man here." Not only because he was at Penn State, but we need more of it. And we need to find more people that are willing to bring in these points of views. Because now it is even more so. It is all about the bottom line. So, if anything is brought in that will threaten the bottom line, I think that is a major issue, even for conservative speakers. So, there is a lot of liberals that are giving money. I mean, if a conservative speaker comes in and it is going to threaten the bottom line and what money's going to be donated, that is wrong. Education is primary. It is number one. ME: Right. Right. SM: It is not about the bottom line. ME: Right. SM: Why did the ERA fail? Because of- ME: Because Phyllis Schlafly got millions of moms who had never before been active to go up and complain and say, "We do not want this. We do not want unelected judges deciding things the state legislators ought to be deciding." And she activated millions and millions of, a lot of them were housewives, just women who had never before been active in a policy debate. And you got to give her credit for that. How amazing. Not only did she beat it back, but she had a number of states rescind their original. I remember in Virginia going and testifying, way early in the (19)70s. I do not think Virginia ever passed it. But it was almost a Ronald Reaganesque to bring people into the process who previously had not been in. And the truth is, Obama did that in a way too. A lot of people, especially African Americans who never voted, who never cared, they got excited about this guy. SM: See, I like Obama. But I do not like the people around him. And I think he had brought into his administration too many Clintonites. ME: Right. SM: And I think it is really hurt him. And I think he has gotten bad advice. A lot of people do not like his body language. And there is a lot of things they do not like about him. And certainly, the Bill Ayers thing. ME: Right. SM: That has been discussed behind the scenes because I have friends over at the [inaudible]- ME: But I mean, whoever advised him on this oil spill ought to be shot. SM: Yeah. And, yeah. ME: The Jones Act was suspended. Have the partnerships, whatever. SM: Yeah. Yeah. I just think, talk about, who was it to talk about firing people? Forget, was it you or Bill? He needs to fire some of his people. ME: That is right. SM: And I- ME: Well, a couple are starting to go, but- SM: ...do not like his chief of staff. ME: No, I do not. SM: I do not like his chief of staff. ME: He is so crooked. He is so crooked. SM: And I think it's hurting him. ME: Here is something else. I probably should not say this on tape. SM: Well, I will be editing all this. ME: Okay. I think Obama is going to be brought into this Blagojevich thing. I think that he was involved. I think that- SM: Well, the governor of- ME: Right. Selling his seat. I think Rahm has sort of taken the fall for it. I think that Obama is corrupt in a financial way. And just Mark, where is that? Take it out of there. [inaudible]- SM: Well, I am amazed though that this guy's still not in jail. But anyways. ME: I know. SM: Might ask also, what were the most important, as a lawyer, the most important legal decisions that have taken place for say boomer women during this time frame? Could be all women. I said Roe vs Wade seems to be the big one. And then cannot take away Brown versus Board of Education, which is for everyone. Would you say those are the two most- ME: I would. SM: ...important legal decisions [inaudible]? ME: I would. And I think that our grandkids and our great grandkids are going to look back on the pro choices with the same scorn that grandchildren of slave owners look back on their grandparents for owning slaves, and Dred Scott, and all that. I think they're going to be horrified at the number of children who have been killed prior to birth for no good reason other than just convenience. Yeah. I think, I will probably be dead, but my kids and my kids' kids will see an incredible scorn heaped on these pro choices, who are any time, any place, anywhere, any how it's fine to kill the babies. Yeah. SM: Yeah. Let us- ME: Those are the two I would pick. Those are the two cases. SM: Yeah. And I interviewed Susan Brownmiller last week in New York City. ME: Right. SM: And she said, "Certainly Roe vs Wade." And she said there were other decisions too beyond just the Brown versus Board of Education. But those two kinds of stand out. I already asked you who Clare Boothe Luce is. ME: Yeah. Amazing lady. SM: Are your thoughts on the best writers of the (19)50s and (19)60s, beginning, I would like your thoughts on the beat writers. The beat writers of the (19)50s were kind of the role models for many of the activists of the (19)60s on the new left because they were anti-authoritarian. That is Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassidy, Gary Snyder, Ferlinghetti, Ann Walden, Leroy Jones. These were the writers. These were the beatniks, the beats. And some people have told me that the (19)60s really began in the (19)50s when they wrote their books. And Howl, that historic book that Ginsberg wrote in the middle (19)50s that was banned, and on the road, they-they were very influential in creating amongst, at least the red diaper babies, who were the group that many of them became the new left. They were important. ME: Right. SM: Because they were anti-authoritarian. ME: Right. I was a little girl in the (19)50s. And in the (19)60s, I cannot say that I read that many of those. But I think in the (19)60s, if you just listened to the TV, and the radio, and read the papers, you could absorb their liberal ideas, anti-authoritarian, if you will. I cannot say that I have read many of those, to be honest. But I am familiar with the names. And maybe it was some of the writing in the (19)50s, Russell Kirk, Bill Buckley, and others, that brought us to '64 and Goldwater. So, maybe it takes 10 years for books to be ingested. SM: You mentioned Buckley, God and Man at Yale, is a classic. ME: Right. SM: And I have encouraged every student to read it, no matter who they are. ME: He wrote that one, The Unmaking of a Mayor. I think it was like (19)65 when he ran for- SM: I think I have that book. Yeah. ME: ...mayor. What a wonderful book. In fact, I do not know if my husband told you, but that is the book that made him a conservative. Because he had a professor, a high school teacher, who said, "He is the most dangerous person next to Hitler in the history of the world." So, Ron went and read the book and he agreed with everything. He was in Catholic high school. SM: One of the greatest debates I have ever seen, because I have got it on YouTube, is the debate of Malcolm X and William Buckley over- ME: Yes. SM: I mean, and I love Firing Line. And I liked any of those shows because of the fact that he brought on really smart people. ME: Right. SM: And he brought on people that he did not even like. ME: That is right. SM: Philosophically. But they were friends. [inaudible]- ME: But he liked to debate. SM: ...was a friend of his. ME: I know that. I know. He had Clare Boothe Luce on at one point. They had a wonderful discussion. Because she defended feminism, but it was the feminism of the suffragists. SM: Do you have that on tape? And where is Firing the Line? Are they going to be allowed to be shown on public broadcasting? You do not see them. ME: I do not know. I do not know. I am trying to think. I can check on that. SM: Yeah, that would be interesting to check on. Because all you see on YouTube are these snippets of about five minutes. ME: Right. Right. SM: And you do not get a gist of anything. ME: Yeah, it was a wonderful show. And it showed sort of an openness to discussion debate, which is what most of us want, especially at the university. Let us hear all sides. SM: Yeah. Well, we had Buckley on our campus. It was great. ME: Yeah. Yeah. SM: And we had a reception with him. And he signed a million different books. But I asked him about the time he had Allen Ginsberg on, because he thought Ginsberg was- ME: Right. SM: ...kind of a flake. ME: Right. SM: And you could sense he was kind of a flake. And then at the very end, he respected him. Because this flake that he thought was a flake, well, then he answered with really in- Well, then he answered with really in-depth responses, and then in the flight business [inaudible]. ME: Yeah. No, no, no. There is a lot of thoughtful lefties. The other one I remember is when he had Gore Vidal on and Gore Vidal called him a Nazi, and then Buckley we called him a fag or something and it deteriorated, but I do not know if that was Firing Line or some other show, but that was unusual for Buckley. He kept it at a certain level. SM: Two classic books of the period was C Wright Mills in White Collar, which was a book that really explained the IBM mentality of the 19(19)50s and I think a lot of boomers went against that kind of mentality. Daniel Bellow interviewed up at Harvard a couple of weeks ago. He is pretty up there in years now. SM: There we go. SM: There we go. SM: And Daniel Bell wrote The End of Ideology, which I think is a great book too. I do not know if I asked this earlier, but you were too young, but what are your thoughts on the free speech movement at Berkeley, because it happened in 64 and 65, and it was really about the right of free speech? ME: Well, I am all... SM: On the campus itself, and that kind of was the beginning of all the protests really. ME: I am all for free speech, but now it's conservatives that need free speech and in fact, conservatives of some campuses have free speech clubs because they're not allowed to express conservative views for the most part, because it may not be politically correct, whether it's about racial preferences or views about homosexuality or whatever. I am all for civil free speech. We do not have to go after each other personally, but now on most campuses, it's conservatives that are seeking free speech. You go into a woman's studies course and try to have free speech, I mean, the occasional professional might allow it, but most will not. I mean, I hear this from the girls. They do not know ... Most stay away from the women's studies. My own son at Catholic University had a feminist professor for communications course, and so he wrote a straightforward paper about communications. She gave him a C and said, "RJ, you really have to study this more carefully." The next paper I gave him some of the stupid, the Patriarchy is oppressive to women. It was about advertising the car ads, and women are subjugated under their heavy hand. In the paper he wrote this stupid stuff. She does all these checks, " RJ, now you understand," she gave him an A. This is in my own family. He was on a scholarship. He needed the A, so he wrote these idiot papers for the whole semester. She gave him A's. Who needs free speech, huh? SM: Well, yeah. I have been in higher ed for thirty-something years and that... ME: I am sure you were a wonderful professor who welcomed different points of view that were reasoned, but an awful lot of them do not. SM: Yeah. My greatest conversations were in my office over the issues you are talking about. I just say, "Well do what they did in the (19)60s. Protest. Challenge the vice president of student affairs." Anyways, who are the great conservative women that you are talking about? Of course, I know about Clare Boothe Luce. What makes some of these people today... ME: Well. SM: Were there any others besides Clare Boothe Luce and Margaret Chase Smith, this... ME: She had a saying, Mrs. Luce, and in fact, we have it on our newsletter. I should get you one. It is called the Luce Ladder. "Courage is the ladder upon which all other virtues climb," something like that. What makes them great? First off, they are smart, they are beautiful, they are articulate, but they have the courage to stand up and say what is perhaps politically unpopular. That is Bay Buchanan on immigration. SM: I know Bay real well. ME: That is Carrie Prejean. She gave an honest answer. She is not a politician. Her thoughts about traditional marriage, Michelle Bachman, everything. I mean, she is tough. S.E. Cupp, she is pretty new. A star says welfare hurts Black families. Phyllis, we just talked about her, ERA. I mean, it is courage. It is the courage, and this is what we do here at Clare Boothe Luce. We try, not everybody is going to be up at the podium, giving the speech arguing professor, but whatever venue women are comfortable in, we try to give them the courage, the background, the depth of knowledge, the encouragement to stand up and defend their own conservative beliefs. Courage is the key. SM: Well, I think that they need to be seen more on college campuses, because that is what the (19)60s were about. ME: That is right. SM: The (19)60s were about standing up for what you believe in and if you understand the definition of integrity, integrity means I know who I am. I know what I stand for, and I am willing to stand up in front of an audience, become vulnerable and stand up for my beliefs, even though I may be attacked. ME: Right, and I mean, if that is what the (19)60s free speech movement was about, what a sad commentary on where we are now. SM: Yeah. That is what it was about. ME: Yeah. Let us have all points of view. Now, I was not for closing down the university for trashing the professor doing defense research, his office, that kind of thing, but different points of view, sure. SM: I noticed that you had a couple speeches that you give the listings of your speeches, and one of them was the failures of feminism. ME: Right. SM: What are the failures of feminism? What are they just real quick? ME: Well, the modern radical feminist movement, the greatest failures that they do not represent the use of most women. The leadership based on their own quotes and the things they have to say, too often, they mock women who choose to be full-time mothers. Not all of them, but enough of them do. They criticize women who do not toe the line, certainly on the life issue or the choice issue, whatever you want to call it. I mean, they are brutal about that. They do not represent women. A lot of them, I mean, when you go downtown to NOW and you go into the office, National Organization for Women, I will tell you what is going to be on the big table in the front. About a third of it will be about AIDs, about a third of it will be about lesbianism, and then the other third will be about abortions. I mean, they have really narrowed the focus in a lot of ways or go to their website or go to the feminist majority. I mean, lesbianism, AIDs, and abortion. This does not represent women. SM: That is interesting because Susan Broma was almost said the very same thing as a liberal. ME: There you go. SM: She said that she tried to raise the issue of pornography within the women's movement and Feminine Mystique... I forgot her name, Betty Friedan. ME: Yeah-yeah. SM: Would have nothing to it. No, we are not going to be talking about pornography. ME: Yeah. Well, that is interesting. SM: Yeah. I have that on tape, and it got very frustrating, she said. Also, you mentioned here, comment on your speech, "Women's studies, conservatives not welcome." I think you have already gone over that. Did you have any gap with your kids, any generation gap at all with any of them on issues? ME: I had three boys. The biggest challenge for my husband and I was the social pressures on the boys to do things that were not acceptable, but they all turned out okay. They all go to church. My mom and dad lived across the street for years, and I took care of them like you did yours. My kids were so respectful and so helpful to my parents, and that was wonderful for them. They turned out pretty conservative, but we did not really beat it into them. One of them is really an active conservative. The other two are just kind of go about their business. No, I mean, it was the social pressure. It was the drinking. It was all the friends doing marijuana. It was the sexual promiscuity, but we got through it. They are all in their twenties and they are all doing well. SM: That is good. You did not have any generation gap with your parents, did you in any way? ME: No, but some of my siblings did. I loved them. SM: Yeah. ME: I got along with them. When you were a teenager, they would get on your nerves, but my father moved down here and he said, "Do you think I could move across the street?" And I said, "Well, it would be fine with me, but check with Ron," and Ron said, "Sure." I mean, I got along with him, but I know not everybody does. I feel truly blessed to have had him. SM: The other thing, I got just about four more. ME: Okay. All right. SM: The issue of the term empowerment. We had Tom Hayden on our campus several years back, and he wanted to know if the students of student government, what kind of power they had. They were talking about that they were empowered. They said, "Oh, yeah, we can control the budgets and give out money to student organizations," but there is something that Tom said, "No, I am talking about empowerment, where you have a voice and everything." Empowerment is a term that is defined by activist students in the (19)60s, in the early (19)70s, not power, but which term do you like best? Empowerment or power? Because empowerment is really a (19)60s term that came out all the time. Students always said, "I want to be empowered. I want my voice in the decisions that this university makes." It was much more... ME: Aren’t they different? Aren’t they different subjects? The university president has power, okay. SM: Yes. ME: He has a tremendous amount of power to make decisions. The head of your department has a tremendous amount of power. Hiring, firing, or whatever tenure. Empowerment is, to me, it is somebody who feels they do not have power and they want to have a bigger voice. SM: Yeah. That is what the (19)60s was about. ME: Right power, to me, is sort of more absolute. Empowerment is having a little bit to say about this and that and being listened to. SM: Do you like the term empowerment then with respect to women's issues? Like the conservative students? ME: I am for power myself. SM: Well, that is all I need to hear. The issue of healing, and we took a group of students to Washington, DC in the mid (19)90s, and they came up with this question. We met with Senator Musky. ME: Oh, yeah. SM: About six months before he passed away. ME: Oh, yeah. SM: And we thought he was going to respond about the year 1968 because he was the nominee for the vice president. The question was this, that the students came up with, "Due to the divisions that took place in the (19)60s between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who were for the war and against those who supported the troops or were against it. Do you feel the boomer generation, those born between 1946 and (19)64, are going to go to their graves like the Civil War generation, not healing from the divisions of that time?" The question is really, do you think that many within the boomer generation that were involved in the activism are having issues that they have not healed? ME: No. I think most people move on with life and life is what it is. We certainly change our views on different things. I mean, think about when you were 16, and then when you are a parent with your own kids, and it is life that changes and heals you. You are tired of your parents saying this and that, and then suddenly you are a parent, and you have kids. It is a part of the growth and development that we all go through in life that makes us heal because it just moves on. SM: Do you think though, if Safers had Phyllis Schlafly sitting here and Betty Friedan, not Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem is next to her, that the divisions that they have had, that they can heal between their divisions, is that practical or? ME: I mean, does heal mean agree or just be civil? SM: Just be civil. ME: Yeah. I think they could be civil. SM: Yeah, because there is a lot of lack of civility today. ME: Oh, Bay here does TV shows with some of these lefty women, and I will not name names, but she... SM: Yeah, she is really good. ME: She has told me that they will sit in the green room and talk about all the common things moms and wives talk about, and then they go out and- SM: Okay, that is good. ME: But I do think that women, there is always stuff we can talk about. Men too, whether it is sports or whatever, but women talk about husbands, talk about children, whether you are lefties or not. I mean some anyway, so you find the common ground and you do that with your neighbors. You do not talk politics, or we do not. We talk about the kids or the street or the shrubbery or whatever. SM: I think that that war in Vietnam really divided this nation in so many ways and that some people have said, you need to rephrase the question. Those who were against the war and those who went to war, because I think there is still some things going on there that really... ME: Yeah, but I mean, we have had these subsequent wars, and we have had 911, and we have had the fall of the Soviet Union, and even people who may be opposed, the war supported it, these other things have changed them. So healing, yeah. SM: How about the issue of trust? Because a lot of the students of that particular period, I do not even say them, the conservative students too, especially the young Americans for freedom, is they did not trust people that were in positions of authority that were running the war. I mean, a lot of the students of that era did not trust anybody in a position of responsibility, whether it be a priest, rabbi, minister, vice president of student affairs, congressman, senator, you name it, President of the United States. Anyone who is in position of authority, I cannot trust. Do you see that as a negative within the generation, or? ME: No, I think it is a great thing. Look at the tea parties. Believe me, these are people who do not trust those in authority. I think skepticism about government is always a good thing, and people in authority questioning is a good thing. SM: Yeah. That is what political science majors are taught. ME: Yeah. SM: Not having trust for your government is healthy. ME: Absolutely. SM: It means liberty is alive, and well. ME: The founding fathers did not have trust. SM: Yeah. ME: That is why they got all these different protections. SM: Yeah, that is pretty much... Finally, here I have, what do the following mean to you? And these are... ME: Oh, trust, but verify. That was the other one. SM: Oh, trust but verify. Yes. ME: Trust but verify. Okay. SM: Yes. ME: Okay, you can go ahead. SM: There is something else that Ronald Reagan said that I have always kind of lived with. If you are not afraid to let someone else get the credit... ME: Yeah. It is amazing what you can accomplish. SM: Yes. ME: And that is true. SM: It is important. ME: Absolutely. SM: That is a great quote. ME: I do that every day here at Clare Boothe Luce. Give them the credit. SM: What do the following mean to you? What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you? ME: Well, it means the controversy because the architect was opposed to the war, and many people felt that her design was not noble and what it should have been to honor those who lost their lives, but I know a lot of Americans go there and very much appreciate seeing the names of their loved ones. SM: When you went there for the first time, what is the impact that had on you? ME: I did not go. I have not gone. SM: You have not gone yet? ME: No, I do not. I will be-be too emotional. SM: Yeah. I go to about ten times a year. ME: It is like, no, I have not been in the Holocaust Museum. This place would give me such nightmares, I know. Somebody was talking about it the other day. I do not watch movies that are really horrible. It is just my head, the way it is. Stuff goes on and on and on in my head. It is like, life is too short. SM: What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? It was a major event in 1970. ME: It is like, who shot first? What a horrible thing, but there has been some stuff out recently that it was not the soldiers who shot first, but what a horrible thing that should not happen on college campuses. It was such an incendiary time. It was such an emotional time, but if I am a soldier and I am shot at, I am going to shoot back. Who knows who shot first? SM: I know that there is a tape out now that they're bringing a revelation that the National Guard was given orders to shoot. They are revealing that. The March on Washington 63, what did that mean to you? SM: Civil rights? SM: Yes. Dr. King, that great... ME: If only we would have listened to him. "Judge my children not by the color of skin, but the content of their character." Excuse me, what are we calling affirmative action, huh? Aren’t we judged by the color of the skin? If only we would have listened to him. SM: Yeah. I know the purpose of affirmative action. If you talk to an affirmative action director at a university, they will say is that we do not want to have affirmative action. That is the goal, but they still have it as far as... ME: All these years later in the Supreme Court cases. In fact, I have got a black girl as an intern this summer. Vincy Ann, native of Cameroon, now she is a citizen. She said, people come up to her on campus, she goes to Truman State, and say, "Well, you must be for affirmative action." She says it drives her crazy. She is studied, she has worked hard, she has gotten to college. It is such a negative thing for achievement-oriented minorities. SM: It is interesting because Steven Carter, the great professor at Yale who wrote a book on affirmative action and says, in the beginning of his book, every time I go into my law school classes at Yale, I know the students are looking at me saying I got here because of affirmative action and that is real sensitive to him because he earned it because he was smart. ME: That is the downside of it. We had a friend who was at Georgetown, a Black kid, and teachers would come up him, how are you? He said it was so condescending. He was at law school there. SM: What is 1968 Chicago? That convention, what did that mean to you? ME: A bunch of rowdy criminals. SM: Do you believe that happened in our country? It is just like.. ME: When I see this world, the money economic things, sort of like rent a riot, rent a mob, what a horrible group. People that got stuck in those crowds and were afraid for their life. I mean, that is no way to behave. SM: How about Woodstock in (19)69 and the summer of love in (19)67? They get the real counter cultural events. ME: A bunch of people who, I guess liked music but dirty and having sex out on the ground and drinking and drugging and no thanks. SM: How about the hippies and the yippies? ME: Yeah. SM: Hippies and yippies. ME: I mean, not people I especially admire. SM: How about the students for democratic society before they became the weatherman and the weatherman... ME: Before they came radical, they were a point of view. That is a fine thing. SM: And the weatherman need... ME: Right. Blowing things up. SM: Yeah. What about the Black Panthers? Did you... ME: Well, I know this last election, there was a Black Panther standing outside the Philadelphia polling station with a bat to discourage certain people from voting and Eric Calder, our attorney journal, said, no, I am not going to look into this. SM: I know. That is the new Black Panthers. ME: I mean, I think they are violence prone and probably not the best vehicle to promote racial harmony. SM: How about the Vietnam veterans against the war in 1971, they threw their... ME: John Kerry. SM: John Kerry, but he was a mild one compared to most. ME: Right. We took care of him with sweep up veterans. SM: Bobby Mueller was in that group, I know that. I think Ron Kovic was in the group. ME: Right. SM: Actually, Bobby Mueller was not. He made a point of saying I did not become a member of the Vietnam veterans against the war. ME: It is a point of view. It is fine, but I do not think it played too well with the American people. When Carrie... A story was told over and over. SM: How about Earth Day 1970? ME: Everybody loves the earth, the land, take good care of it, but it's become a religion to some of these folks. Especially in the schools with the little kids. Cannot talk about God, but they have this religious fervor about recycling. SM: How about NOW? National Organization for Women. ME: What a pathetic excuse for a woman's group. They are just hostile to anybody who does not toe their line. They do not support the women. Often, they will support the man if he is a more left-winger. Do not call yourself NOW. This is great American conservative women. Say what you are. The national organization for left-wing liberal feminist women. Say what you are. Do not pretend. SM: Wouldn’t it be great to be able to bring these individuals together with the other side and really have a two- or three-day learning experience? This is what I want to do. I have only got two more questions. This is what I want to do, but after my book is done, I want to bring people together. I am going to start something where I am bringing people together. I just talked to James Fallows, the symposium about the Vietnam War with the General Wheeler and Bobby Mueller and Sam Brown and Susan Jacobi. I said, "Wouldn’t it be great to bring you guys back together from after 1975?" ME: I think it would be. Make sure [inaudible] there so everybody can watch. SM: Well, I would like to bring these people together because first off, I have worked with so many different speakers, and this is all about education in our students. ME: It is. SM: This is about the future. ME: Right. It is about hearing all kinds of different ideas. SM: Stonewall, which was the major event for gay and lesbians in (19)69, any thoughts on that? Because that was the rallying crime for... ME: Not really. I mean, the truth is there has always been homosexuals since the beginning of time, and there always will be. In terms of the movement, for a long, long time, what they talked about was people ought to be tolerant. You know what? Most Americans are intolerant, but it has shifted from tolerance to, I want you to affirm what we do, and that is what most Americans resist. Tolerant? Sure. I mean, I do not want to know what you do at night, but then do not get on my face and say, "You need to say that what we're doing is a really good thing," because I am not going to say that, and that is the division, and that is the problem with the movement. SM: I think the one area is the American Indian movement because they were here first, and that is a very sensitive issue. They have always been in... Dennis Banks was... ME: Right. SM: And of course, Alcatraz. Taking over the Alcatraz in (19)69 and the violence at Wounded Knee, but just your thoughts on the Native American movement, because... ME: They are right. They were here first, but go around the world and how many countries where the people that were there first no longer run the show? For American Indians, I mean, if there was ever an example of how the government can ruin a whole group of people by paternalism and over-involvement, it is the American Indians and the reservations and the massive failures that the government intervention has had there and the terrible problems they have. Alcoholism, that, I mean, the casinos, I guess, have helped them in an economic way, but is that a beautiful example of too much government in the lives of a people? SM: Yeah, I know. So, the Latina, everybody thinks the Caesar Chavez, but it's much more than that because the young Lords were kind of copycats to the Black Panthers in the late (19)60s. I know in Newark that was the case. ME: Yeah. SM: The Watergate. ME: Yeah. SM: What is your thoughts on Watergate? Took an administration down. ME: What a stupid thing. Dishonesty, but what I always think about with Watergate is the contrast between Nixon when he was quartered and Clinton. Nixon resigned and it was over Clinton. It went on and on and on and on. He was impeached. He was not convicted, but it went on and on and on. This is the difference, the two men. People love to hate Nixon, but to me, Nixon cared more about the country than Clinton because he just got out. It was over. Was what Clinton did any less bad, lying under oath, blow jobs with the girl in the Oval Office, all that stuff, than Nixon? No, but what they did, the way they reacted when the whole country was in such a turmoil about it, that says something to me. I give Nixon more credit than I do Clinton. SM: Two last questions. The music of the era, just from the experience that you have had with conservative students, not only now, but back then, the music was part of the culture back then, and it was also might have been identified more with the liberals as opposed to the conservatives. When you talked about the folk music, the rock music, the Motown sound, and the messages that were in that music, did you identify with that music? ME: Sure. I mean, I danced. I liked it. I sang. SM: Were you a Beatles fan, like everybody? And how about Bob Dylan? ME: I want to hold your hand. Not as much Dylan. SM: Joan Baez and the [inaudible]? ME: No, not as much the folk. I mean, different tastes. My husband's a Stones fan. I do not know if you know. SM: Yeah, Rolling Stones. ME: He argues they are basically conservative. They think about the tax fan and all that, but I think that the music then was tame compared to some of this rap music about the hoes and raping the girls and all this kind of stuff. I mean, the worst they would get was the leader of the pack and I do not know, going to the drive-in movie and it was sort of tame. SM: What do you think, I know it is very difficult to say this for 74 million people, but when the best books are written on a particular era, it is normally 50 years after an event. A lot of the best World War II books have been written, are being written now. What do you think when the boomers have all passed away? This is a little longer, and what do you think historians and sociologists will be writing, because they will not have been alive when the boomers were alive. What do you think they will say about this baby boom generation that grew up after World War II and the events that shaped them in their time? ME: Well, it is all compared to what, I mean, I think they will say that a lot of us worked really hard, did what we believed in, raised our families, paid an awful lot of money to the government that wasted it in taxes, did our best, the technology boom, we were part of that. Freeing millions of people from communist oppression, and they will talk about the mistakes. And I am not sure what that will be. It probably would be electing Obama is one. Say we repeal healthcare and a couple of other things, which a lot of people want to do. They will talk about those things, and whether it was right or whether it was wrong, but I think that historians will write kindly. SM: Do you think they will say what the issues that we are facing today with the economy, this attitude that many of the boomers had that I want it now, I need it now. The students, these young people, conservative and liberal, grew up in the (19)50s when parents wanted to give them everything. They wanted to make life better because they grew up in the Depression and experienced World War II. Even in the African American community, that was, well, even though it was more stable in the (19)50s than it ever was in the (19)60s. Do you think that want it now mentality, even though in a very analytical way, is a reason why we're in some of the problems we are today? Because the people that run the world today are really boomers and the oldest of the generation X-ers, which is the group that followed them, ME: I am not sure want it now is the reason for the problems we have. I mean, you look through history. The problems we have now, throughout the centuries, people have had it. Different times, different circumstances. I am not sure I would attribute it to the boomers want it now. SM: Do you think that the Susan B Anthony's and the Elizabeth Katie Stanton would, if they were to see what was happening today in America, and the women's movement would be right with your... ME: I do. SM: They would be here... ME: On abortion, they were a hundred percent for life. SM: See, that is something that really should be brought up within the women's studies programs too, so that everybody sees clearly. Is there any questions that I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask? ME: No, you asked a lot. In fact, I wondered what is he going to ask? SM: Well, thank you very much. ME: Well, thank you. SM: Let me at... (End of Interview) Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Michelle Easton Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Easton, Michelle ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute; United States--Officials and employees; Easton, Michelle--Interviews Description An account of the resource Michelle Easton is the president and the founder of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. She was appointed to a position at the U.S. Department of Education and previously served as the President of the State Board of Education in Virginia. Easton received her Bachelor's degree in Development Psychology from Briarcliff College in New York and graduated law school at American University's Washington School of Law. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.187a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.187b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 122:19 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/77b48a955f81cba82ba0e0c5b42e2eb7.jpg 83c078d57c19a4be1f6ff5d95c961fdd https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/9f869f88c51b436addacb4dd43e555c1.mp3 15a6f6f115d47bc8e0692015fc0056a9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-07-01 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Fred R. Harris, 1930- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Fred Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator elected twice from the state of Oklahoma. Harris received his Bachelor's and Law degree from the University of Oklahoma. He won a special election in 1964, succeeding Robert S. Kerr. In 1976 and he also became a professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:4995,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Fred Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator elected twice from the state of Oklahoma. Harris received his Bachelor's and Law degree from the University of Oklahoma. He won a special election in 1964, succeeding Robert S. Kerr. In 1976 and he also became a professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 144:35 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Native Americans; Comanche nation; Comanche culture; Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO); Civil Rights Movement; Integration; Taos Pueblo; Menominee tribe; Racial stereotypes; Baby boom generation; Activism; Native American/ American Indian Movement (AIM).&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:5009,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;10&quot;:0,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Native Americans; Comanche nation; Comanche culture; Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO); Civil Rights Movement; Integration; Taos Pueblo; Menominee tribe; Racial stereotypes; Baby boom generation; Activism; Native American/ American Indian Movement (AIM).</span> Subject LCSH Legislators—United States--Oklahoma; College teachers; Harris, Fred R., 1930--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. 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Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Senator Fred Harris Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 1 July 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:08): Testing, one two. Ba, loud. And again, thank you very much. It is an honor to talk to you. Before we even start, I consider you one of those great senators of the senators that I got to know, I think, that were really men of character back in the time when Senator McCarthy and Senator McGovern and Senator Nelson, who I all know or knew. So again, thank you very much. FH (00:00:40): [inaudible] well, thank you, Jeff. That is very nice for you to say. SM (00:00:41): Yeah. First question I have is, how did your growing up years in Oklahoma make you the person you are today, including where you grew up, your high school and your college and your early political efforts? I say this because I am very impressed with your background because things that stand out in your background include things like human rights. You dealt with the issue of desegregation, caring about the plight of African Americans, women, and Native Americans. So, just a little bit about how you became who you are. FH (00:01:18): Well, I grew up in a working class family. By most standards, we were poor, but we did not really feel poor. We would grow a big garden and we raised our own beef and pork and chickens for food, and I grew up in little town where it was not a place where there was a great deal of economic stratification where there are rich people and poor people; we were all fairly alike. I think that was a big help. Went to public schools there in that little town of Walters, Oklahoma. The interesting thing is, I was just back to a class reunion and it was amazing how many out of my class graduated class there in 1948. There were just two of us, I think. A potential majority got a college educations and a significant percentage, advanced degrees. I do not know, but that seems very unusual to me. I think we just all somehow always thought we would go to college, and did, and I did though no one in my family had ever been in college before. When I was a sophomore in high school, I somehow decided I wanted to be a lawyer, but I was not quite sure what a lawyer was. But I did think, I think now looking back on it, that it was sort of involved with being in politics, too, which I was intrigued by very early. About race, I do not know. I grew up in the school and in the county, the town where there were a lot of Comanche Indians. I later married a Comanche Indian woman, LaDonna Crawford, and some of my closest friends then, and that remained true through the years were members of the Comanche Indian Tribe, and I think maybe that gave me a somewhat different perspective than I might otherwise have had in regard to race. I was writing a memoir book not long ago and I was remembering that in a high school speech class, there was one little project where we had to recite some passage from Shakespeare. I chose the Shylock speech about the Jews, but I changed it. I did not really know anything much about Jews then, and I changed it to "negro." For example, as I gave the [inaudible] I said, "If you prick a negro, will he not bleed," and so forth. Where I got all that, I do not know. But ever since I remember, I had a great deal of interest in equality, ethnic and racial equality. Of course, that was something that I got very much involved in both in private life early and when I was practicing law on integration and then in the Oklahoma State Senate where I offered the bill that created the Oklahoma Human Rights Commission and prohibited discrimination in state employment, and then eventually starting right off in the United States Senate, but sort of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. That is a short amount. That is kind of my background. SM (00:05:54): Yeah. What really intrigues me about your background is why you became a leader at such a young age. Some people I know... The only other person that was as young as you was Senator Biden, who became a United States Senator in at the age of 29. When I look at your background, and I do not know, I have not studied Vice President Biden, but I know that he was a senator at the age of 30. You both became leaders at a very young age. What was the inspiration there? Did you feel that you were ahead of the time, that you felt you had to play an important role in some of these decisions earlier rather than later? FH (00:06:36): Hey, I do not know exactly why, but I do know this. I was always sort of grown, I think. I really enjoyed being around older people and listening to their conversations. It was sort of the practice among the people I grew up with there in Southwestern Oklahoma, and it certainly was true of my own father, that they gave the boys a lot of responsibilities at an early age. That was the way my father was with me and it was, too, of several of my classmates. They treated us more or less like adults and gave us the responsibility. I think that I was considerably more mature than I would have otherwise been. But that was, too, a lot of my high school classmates. SM (00:07:33): Do you remember, you have given a lot of important speeches in your life, certainly in the United States Senate, when you were in the State Senate, and maybe even in high school, and even now that you have been a professor for so many years... But do you consider one of your speeches the most favorite of all time? Was there one that you felt dealt with an issue better than anything you had ever dealt with before? What speech stands out? FH (00:08:04): I do not know. It is probably obscure kind of a subject outside of New Mexico. But I led the fight in the United States Senate for the return to Taos Indian Pueblo here in New Mexico their 48,006 Blue Lake lands. [inaudible] was not in my home state, but I got very interested in that after talking with the old leaders of the Pueblo. It was a precedent-setting bill that we passed. The tribe had gotten a claim against the federal government, a court of claims that was upheld for the wrongful taking of that land and were going to be compensated for money, but they would not have kept money. They wanted the land back. It was inside of the National Forest at the time. So, it was not in private hands, and we finally got that done. I would say my speaking on the floor of the United States Senate on that circuit was probably something that I am proudest of, though as I said, it is not a thing known much outside of the state here in New Mexico, my adopted state where I have lived now since 1976. Taos Pueblo is such wonderful, generous people, gentle people. They have had I do not know how many different ceremonies where they have thanked me and my then wife, LaDonna Harris, for our help on returning that land to them. That is about to happen again. They are going to have a 40th anniversary celebration this September of 2010 [inaudible] their land returned and again, honoring us. SM (00:10:22): Well, that is excellent. Since the project I am working on is, of course, dealing with the boomer generation, and that is those individuals born between 1946 and 1964, and I preface this by saying that many people, one-third of the people I have interviewed, are not boomers; they are older than boomers. Many people that were born, say, around (19)40 to (19)46, many of them consider themselves boomers even though they do not fall into that timeframe. I have had a lot of different people comment on the generation itself. But what I am looking at here is what was America like during the following periods in your eyes? Because you experienced it growing up after the war, after World War II. And of course, you went to college in the early (19)50s, you became a lawyer in the (19)50s and then, of course, you were serving already at that time before you went into the (19)60s into the Senate. But if you, and just your own words, I am looking at the years that boomers have been alive, which means that the oldest boomer now is 64 this year, and the youngest one is 48 this year, if you were to describe the period 1946 to 1960, how would you describe America? FH (00:11:43): Well, it was almost a nation. I actually was born in 1930 in the midst of the Depression and Dustbowl days in Oklahoma. I grew up in those years prior to 1946 with people who that... SM (00:12:20): Still there? FH (00:12:22): ...if they had been victims of circumstances beyond their control and that the government had to do something about it, my people who were not active in politics revered Franklin Roosevelt, and I think we grew up thinking that the government could be, it should be your friend. Then came at World War II and the world just radically changed. People moved all from their home place, became very mobile. And that was true of my own family and friends. People scattered and went elsewhere to find jobs and so forth. You had this pent-up consumer demand during the war which suddenly caused enormous economic activity and growth. You had the GI Bill, which provided for those boomer people who would come back from the war, or actually they were earlier than the movement of people that came back from the war, the opportunity for higher education and showed the rest of us, too, that if we would go to school, we could go to college and university, and we did. So, it was just a radical change in American life and the national life about the time these people were born, this boomer generation. I think everybody was growing and developing as the country was, and I think there was just sort of an inevitable optimism as that group was growing up, as was true for me, too, that the possibilities were unlimited, that you could do almost anything you wanted to. It is the kind of thing that the Clintons, one of the boomer generation, used to say, people that played by the rules, worked hard, you could do just about anything you wanted to. I think that was the general feeling of that era. SM (00:14:59): Because that is from (19)46 to (19)60. And then we get into the era of 1961 to 1970, which is the Kennedy being elected, and of course we get the Vietnam War. Just your thoughts on that tumultuous decade. FH (00:15:13): Well, the Vietnam War of the (19)60s, I think for the first time caused people of that boomer generation, and a lot of rest of us as well, to come to the really shocking and depressing view that the government was not always right. There was a real question whether our leaders could be trusted, and they had gotten into this terrible mess in the war. Then, we sort of papered over, white people had, the terrible fight of the African Americans in particular, Indians, too, and all of that came to the forefront in the (19)60s. We had the terrible riots, which exploded in Black sections in most of America's cities. In the summer of 1967, I was evidently appointed by President Johnson to the President's National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, the [inaudible] commission to report and recommend concerning those terrible events. That was kind of with the war and these horrific conflicts, racial and ethnic conflicts in the country that told us what America was really like, and a lot of us had not thought about it that much. That really sort of destroyed the innocence of the people at that time. I think that made people a lot more distrustful of government, a lot more concern. Maybe there are not any solutions to some of these problems, and made people somewhat more fearful and more self-centered about their own families and their own problems, and less willing, as have been true of that Depression generation, to reach out to others and to cooperate and so forth. The (19)60s was a time of enormous change and rapid depression. SM (00:18:01): Where would you place the (19)70s? Because we all remember Kent State and Jackson State in the middle of 1970. Then we get into (19)71. We all know what happened with Watergate and those early years of... A lot of people say, I do not know how you feel about it, that the (19)60s really continued right through about 1973 or (19)74. A lot of people- FH (00:18:27): I think that is absolutely true. I think what happened... Back in the (19)50s, we had men all very optimistic and cheerful during the Eisenhower years, that is evidenced by white people and the people in the dominant society. Then the (19)60s really shocked us into a depressing reality, and then with the (19)70s, the beginning of the (19)70s particularly, the events just sort of confirmed the kind of increasing distrust and fearsomeness or fearfulness that had developed in the (19)60s. SM (00:19:19): Well, when you get to the end of the (19)70s, Jimmy Carter's ousted from office and Ronald Reagan comes in. Then when you talk about the (19)80s, (19)81 to (19)90, it is really the era of Ronald Reagan and George Bush I. Just your thoughts on the (19)80s and its reaction to the (19)70s. FH (00:19:45): There has always been two mainstreams, I think, in American life. One, that we are neighbors and neighbors ought to help each other, and we are all in this thing together. And then the other thing has always been lift yourself up by your own bootstraps; do not be going around begging other people to help you. I think the (19)80s, the advent of the Reagan and Bush administration, the thing that became dominant was this idea that you were on your own. Nobody was going to help you; you got to yourself, and quit complaining and protesting. Straighten up, take care of yourself, or you will be sorry. SM (00:20:45): Well, what is interesting, Christopher Lasch, the author wrote The Culture of Narcissism, and he wrote that in the late (19)70s, and he said, many of the people that grew up and were formed by the (19)60s and the (19)70s became so into themselves, they did not care about anybody else. They became narcissistic. They cared about a nice car, a beautiful home, just basically narcissism. Do you believe that? FH (00:21:18): I think there is some of that. I think there is something to that. With the riots, for example, in the mid-1960s or later, there was, I think, a feeling that... Well, for example, my own father, who [inaudible] and believed in me, when he read about the Carter Report as a result of those riots, the way he saw our report was that it said, "Mr. Harris, you ought to pay more taxes so we can help poor Black people who live in Detroit," and he was thinking to himself, "Wait a minute. I am paying too much taxes myself and we never protested and rioted, and I do not think we ought to condone or reward that kind of disorder." I think that began this idea of distrusting each other and began to erode that feeling that had developed back in Roosevelt years, that government ought to help those who are left fortunate, who cannot to help themselves and that we ought to help each other. Then I think Reagan, and Nixon to some degree, and then later when Reagan got elected as a benefit of that kind of individualistic tendency in the country. SM (00:23:08): Dr. King used to always talk in his speeches about "we." Even though he was up there on a platform, he always looked in the audience and says, "You are me, because it is about we. It is not about me." I think the question that always comes up, there is always exceptions to the rule, but whether as a generation as a whole, when you look at the fact that this generation of 74 million, people I have talked to say that only between 5 percent and 15 percent, depending on who you talked to, was really involved in any kind of activism. The 85 percent just went on with their daily lives, but were certainly affected by everything. So- FH (00:23:49): President Carter was a disappointment as president. He did not push enough in the right directions, and very early lost his mandate. He became the greatest and best former president we ever had [inaudible]. Bill Clinton I think sort of turned us back toward this idea that we are our brothers' keepers and that we ought to cooperate together, work together. But Clinton, too, he lost the control of the Congress and really pulled his own horns in on the great issues. He lost on some of them like health insurance, and the nation then just moved on more toward this individualistic kind of tendency [inaudible] before [inaudible] SM (00:25:01): Right. You remember this, even whether you liked President Reagan's politics or not, he and Tip O'Neill got along quite well. Remember Tippo used to always say, "All politics is local." They used to debate a lot and had tremendous disagreements, but when the day was over, they would shake hands and if they could have, they would go out and have a drink. But it was just a different time. It seems like when Ronald Reagan came in, maybe it is a result of what from LBJ and Richard Nixon and what they did to America and divided the country, that when Reagan and Clinton were in office and even George Bush II, I mean, the divisiveness and the dislike for them as leaders was immense. What has happened between 1980 and 2010, in your opinion? It has been 30 years in the boomers' lives as their middle years going into their now senior citizen status. What has happened to America in the divisiveness, and do you see any links between this divisiveness and unwillingness to work together and if someone said, "Today, if President Obama likes this, then we have got to be against it even though we might like it, but if he is for it, were against it." I mean, where did this all start? FH (00:26:22): Well, I think a few things we ought to think about. One is I think the approach, the appeal of progressives in politics and government, it was not very effective because it tended to be preachy and to call on people to do the right thing, for example, in regards to poor people or in regards to Black people because it was the moral thing to do, appeal to the people's morality and sense of the right and wrong. I thought that back then, and I still do, that it was far more appropriate and effective to, and I called this the populism, to appeal to people's self-interest, to say to a person like my dad, "You are not going to be able to live in a society of self-esteem where there is security and stability unless there is some better distribution of the income and power in this country." You may think that problems of poor Black kids down in Mississippi and [inaudible] education which consigns them forever to poverty, or that heavily discriminated against and unable to reach their full potential, you may think that is not your problem. They are off down there in Mississippi or they are up there in Harlem or something. But we are all in this thing together. They do not stay in one place. For example, they may move from Mississippi to New York [inaudible] state. You are going to [inaudible] these kind of things one way or another. As Jesse Jackson was saying at the time, "It is a heck a lot cheaper to get in on the front end, to give people some real opportunity in their education and so forth, than it is to send them off to prison or put them on welfare or whatever." That is the one thing. I think that we could have made a better... FH (00:29:03): That is one thing. I think that we could have made a better appeal on the basis of the [inaudible] of everybody rather than just on morality. And the other thing that we should notice is what was happening in the country, and therefore, in the Congress. When I first went to the United States Senate in 1964, there was no Republican member of the Senate from any of the old 11 Confederate states. And I think there are only about two Republican house members from that whole Confederate area. And all that now has changed. The majority of them in both houses are Republicans. In those days, the Democratic party in those states was an all-white racist, highly conservative party. Well, that all began to change with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. So that black people who had been prevented from voting and throughout the south, from as far back as President Wilson's day, suddenly flooded into the voting poll. And they were overwhelmingly Democrats. And the white people fled. And after a little trouble with Strom Thurmond, for example, moved into the Republican ranks. And the same thing was happening all around the country as people, the electorate began to differentiate itself on a long party line based on economic flags. And people working in [inaudible] and below were increasingly Democrat, and the others were Republicans. African Americans and the growing numbers of Hispanics were overwhelmingly Democrat. And they were increasingly different on those who identified themselves as Democrats and those who identified themselves as a Republican on issues. And that was especially true of the party activists, the people who nominate the people of Congress so that the hard right of conservative Democrats in the House and Senate disappeared, and the liberal Republicans in the House and the Senate disappeared, so that we came to have, from the (19)80s on at least, we came to have two parties in each house that were internally homogenous, and therefore, very much unlike the others. All major votes of any conflict became party line votes for a majority of one-party votes against the majority of the other. And very often, nearly all, or sometimes all, of one party voted against nearly all, or all, of the other party. So we have become highly partisan and it has made it extremely difficult to reach any compromise on any major issues. SM (00:33:05): I think this was also seen when President Kennedy was elected because he certainly cared about civil rights and the plight of African Americans, but he was a little hesitant knowing that the South was basically southern Democrats, and if he wanted to be reelected, I think there was a concern there. And I like your thoughts on that. But also the fact that on the 1963 March on Washington, when he brought the civil rights leaders into the White House, he was a little hesitant and a little fearful that the march could become a riot. And I know he was concerned about John Lewis's commentary and [inaudible] Randolph told him to really cool it, so to speak. But your thoughts on the... He was a pragmatic politician basically. FH (00:33:51): That is right. You take, for example, in the Senate in those days, and when I first went there also, in the Senate, we could not take the position as a party on issues, although we tried a time or two in the Senate talking to do so, because we were split. We had people as liberal as George McGovern, and as conservative as John Stennis and Jim Eastland. And Kennedy was having to deal with that kind of situation, both in the Congress as well as in the country. So as you know, [inaudible] his election back then the first time, he did not want to make a big fight out of civil rights. And the thought was that if he could get reelected, they would begin to pick up that issue after. Johnson who had a great change of heart himself on those kinds of issues, Lyndon Johnson came into office. We had begun to see on television the terrible violent things against black people and the horrible way as many of them were [inaudible], and we would see it on television. And then with the outpouring of sympathy, there was about... on the assassination of President Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson was able, finally, to get a filibuster broken in the Senate and pass and the Civil Rights Act of (19)64, the Voting Rights Act of (19)65. But up until President Kennedy's assassination, I think the view of his administration was that a rising tide lifts all boats. And while we will not single out African Americans to help if we do something for all people, particularly in poverty and so forth, that will automatically help them, which was true of course, but it was not enough. SM (00:36:23): When you look at that period from (19)46, actually right through to 2010, who were the role models and people you looked up to the most during this timeframe? People you worked with or people that inspired you. It does not always have to be in politics. And who and which leaders do you feel had the greatest impact on boomers themselves, both good and bad? FH (00:36:50): Well, a magazine once said that I was the only person in Washington who could have a breakfast with Lyndon Johnson and lunch with Vice President Hubert Humphrey and dinner with Andrew Robert Kennedy. And that was true, and they all knew that I got along with each one of them. But I was closer to Hubert Humphrey and to Robert Kennedy. Robert Kennedy was my seatmate in the Senate and we lived around the corner from each other in Virginia, and we know each other a lot. [inaudible] work together. And he was, in a way, like me. When I went to the Senate, in the process of becoming himself, he was terribly injured, as you can tell, damaged himself by the defamation of his brother. And he was deepening in his concern about the poor people and about African Americans and others. I liked him in [inaudible]. And then Hubert Humphrey was, of course, the greatest legislator of my generation. And then several others. He was a very well-motivated person who became awfully handicapped by his association with Lyndon Johnson as his vice president, and was very much convened by Johnson, and was put in the terrible position of having to support the Vietnam War until he finally was liberated when he was running for president himself. He almost got... I was together with Senator Walker Mondale, national co-chair of the country campaign for president, and we almost won. The country would have been a much different country had we pulled it out. SM (00:39:13): This is important because even in the history books that I have read said that if it had been two more weeks, two more weeks before the election, he would have won, that he was really rising. And even at two or three or a month earlier, he would have showed a difference between Lyndon Johnson and himself, he would have won. FH (00:39:34): Well as Larry O'Brien, who was the Democratic chair just before me, and then the National Democratic Chair took advocate, has written, and I have too... Humphrey promised him and promised me and Senator Mondale that he was going to break with Johnson on the war and called for unconditional [inaudible] and for de-Americanization of the war so that we could begin to pull out of there. And we had a platform blanket at the Chicago Convention in 1968 to do exactly that. And then Johnson moved in and blocked it. I bet his office did. And Humphrey backed down a little and compromised, which I found very disappointing. But finally late in the campaign, I was with him and helped write the speech he should have given much earlier on Vietnam, breaking with Johnson. And from that moment, we began to go up in the polls. It was not as strong an anti-Vietnam war speech as I wanted, but it was taken by the country and by people like Ted Kennedy as a peace speech. And Humphrey went up in the polls everywhere from that moment. At the very last, he went down to Texas. It was very well received and the polls in Texas showed that we had gone ahead. We went up from there to California for a last night, a national television program, and the field poll, very respected California poll, showed that we pulled even and were still moving. Other polls showed us that we were really coming up, up to that time, for a long time. Humphrey was the only one who thought he could win, and he just kept working at [inaudible]. So we went to bed that night. We flew back from California with Humphrey to Minnesota so he could vote the next morning. And when we went to bed that night in Minnesota, election night, we were pretty well convinced we were going to win it. But turned out we do not win by... they do not win the presidency by the popular vote. You have to think of states that led up to a majority of electoral college. And the next morning when I got up, I started thinking about that. I could see we were not going to make it, and of course we did not. The country would have been a wholly different country if he had been elected and Richard Nixon had not. SM (00:42:50): I agree. Let me... Okay, great. Question here. In John Kennedy's speech, " Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," certainly was a major influence a lot on the young people that... Actually boomers were just going into junior high school at that time. I am one of them. And I mean, that was one heck of a speech. And you all knew it was about the Peace Corps and Vista. And serving in the military, I guess, was maybe not like it was in Korea and World War II, but in the early (19)60s people were still serving. And do you believe the Vietnam War was a class war based on the fact that the large proportion of the minorities, low income people who were white, served, but people that were more educated and were in college and got deferments or hardship cases or went on to grad school and all other reasons for not serving or abated the draft. How would you define that war and the whole concept that really surprises me as James Wood or Senator Webb has said in a book he wrote quite a while back that here was a generation that was inspired by Kennedy to serve, and yet we have so many of the most educated and elite who did not want to serve. FH (00:44:25): Well, I think the result, it was people who were in lower economic brackets who did the fighting. There was no press about that mostly, although nobody sat down and [inaudible] on that in advance. But I never was caught up in the Kennedy thing at first because while I could not attend the convention in Los Angeles [inaudible], I had to been a supporter of [inaudible]. I kept hoping that that Stevenson might be able to pull off first nomination. But I did get very excited about the John Kennedy campaign and was a member of the group, an informal group, in my hometown in Oklahoma. So we had to call upon the Baptist preacher and threaten him with campaigning ourselves at church if he continued to speak against Kennedy from the pulpit as he did. And I think he did that as preacher, not so much because Kennedy was a Catholic, although that is what he gave as the reason, but because he was liberal. And so I was very much caught up in the excitement of the campaign. And I do not think we listened clearly to those words about... that were really sort militaristic in a way, in their anti-communism of their breadth. We were just caught up within the thing, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you do for your country." And that was, I think, a great inspiration for people to get involved in public service. I already was. But during that war, I had Robert Kennedy down to Oklahoma one time, and he spoke in the Fieldhouse on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. And he had a question after session, afterwards, that... He was asked at one point, "Do you favor the continuation of the student deferment from the draft?" And he said, "No, I am against that." And they was booing, a lot of booing. And he said, "As long as a person's economic class or income determines whether or not they go to college, which is largely true," he said, "I do not think that there ought be an automatic deferment for college." And then after some other questions and so forth, he said, "Let me ask you all some questions." And he said, "On Vietnam," he said, "how many of you support the position of Senator Eugene McCarthy for an immediate unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam?" Well, there was a smattering of the pause. It was certainly a small minority of the two who agreed with that. "How many of you," he said, "agree with my position that we ought to begin to de-Americanize the war and begin to turn it over, over time, to the Vietnamese?" And again, there were some... it was more applause, but it was still a minority of the students that agreed with that. And then, "How many of you agree with the President Johnson's policy of just sort of continuing to muddle through, doing what we are doing?", and there was more applause but still a distinct minority. And then he said, "How many of you think that we should, as some are suggesting, escalate the war and increase the military involvement and effort?" And there was a huge applause. There was a majority. SM (00:49:08): And what year was this? FH (00:49:10): It would have probably been about 1967 or somewhere in there, something like that. It was after Robert Kennedy had finally come out against the war, and it was just before I, myself, had finally come out against the war rather late. At any rate, the majority were for escalating the war. And rapidly, just immediately, he said, "How many of you who just now voted to escalate the war also support the student deferment from the draft?" And there was just a gasp in the crowd as people realized what they had just done. And then they break into applause. And I asked him, I said, "Have you done that before?" I asked him afterwards. And he said, "Yeah, I do it everywhere." I said, "Was it different here?" And he said, "No." He said, "It is a minority of students that against to war," but like that Newfield wrote, they are a pathetic minority. They are going be growing. But he said, "The same result, I get everywhere." SM (00:50:45): Wow. And of course, after (19)67, (19)68 things really changed. FH (00:50:48): Yes, they grew and the percent of people that finally grew into a majority vote in the country... getting out the war. SM (00:50:59): And what-what was really amazing, you talk about, you knew Senator McCarthy and Senator Kennedy, and I think there was an extreme dislike between the two. That might be mild. I do not know the whole story. I know when I interviewed Senator McCarthy many years back, the one section that he had kind of hesitated on responding, and he just simply said, "Read it in my book," was when I said what his thoughts were on Bobby Kennedy. Do you feel Senator McCarthy was really upset with him because he decided to run for president after he had told him he was not? FH (00:51:35): Yes. SM (00:51:35): Is that the main section? FH (00:51:38): By the time I knew McCarthy, and he and I were on the Senate Financial Committee together, and I saw him socially too a lot. He was a fairly bitter... He was a very witted person, but his wit was very often sharp and bitter. His first business was against Johnson and also, therefore, Humphrey because Humphrey had sort of dangled the vice presidential nomination back in 1964 in front of McCarthy. And then later, it became clear that he never intended to choose McCarthy; he always intended to choose Humphrey, but had only banded around McCarthy's name like he did Senator Tom Dodd because they were Catholic. And McCarthy was quite bitter about that, and really bitter about Humphrey for that reason too. The Kennedy people, they did not respect McCarthy. They thought, in a way, he was kind of... SM (00:53:09): He was what? FH (00:53:18): He was... SM (00:53:18): Oh, okay. FH (00:53:20): He did not really get down him to the trenches and fight like crazy. I do not know if it was true but they thought he was a supporter of the oil companies, for example, on the depletion allowance and on some non-liberal kind of subject like that. I know that they did not think he was the right leader to oppose Johnson and to lead the country on the war and on other issues. And I know that was Robert Kennedy's feeling. But I think that Robert finally decided to run after McCarthy, ran surprisingly well against Johnson in New Hampshire. I think he finally got to see that there was a possibility that this could be done. And there are no questions that, that certainly embittered McCarthy at his... I think he felt, also like Eleanor Roosevelt and others, that John Kennedy was too conservative, and that he and Robert both had been supporters of Joseph McCarthy. SM (00:54:44): Right. FH (00:54:45): And so there was some of that. But a lot of people felt... A lot of McCarthy's supporters felt that Kennedy was an opportunist, and only after McCarthy showed he might be able to beat Johnson for the Democratic nomination did he finally come in. SM (00:55:07): I know that the Clean for Gene group, which was the young people that had their haircut short, and I remember Senator McCarthy really had nothing to do with that. I interviewed the person that was responsible for that. He went along with it, but he was not the guy that told them to cut their hair, but he went along with the people that were advising him. But several of the people that were in the Clean for Gene said they really, when they heard that Kennedy was running, they really would have liked to have switched but feared doing. But I guess the question is, why, after Senator Kennedy, was killed, why he kind of just dwindled, just kind of petered out? FH (00:55:57): I think he was really just really very bitter, just generally. And so for example, he would not enjoy Humphrey, and even said then and later publicly some generally good things about Richard Nixon... in a way in support of Humphrey. SM (00:56:12): Yeah. The next question, how is your cell phone doing? FH (00:56:26): What did you say? SM (00:56:27): Is your cell phone still strong? FH (00:56:29): Well, hold just a second. I am going to have to... but I will be right back. SM (00:56:33): Yep. Okay. FH (00:56:35): You mind calling me on this home phone now? SM (00:56:37): Yeah. Let me get your phone number. FH (00:56:49): It is 5 oh 5- SM (00:56:49): 505. What is it, 505- FH (00:56:49): 898... SM (00:56:49): What was the last four? FH (00:56:58): 0860. SM (00:56:59): Okay, I got 505-898, and what are the last four? FH (00:57:00): 0860. SM (00:57:02): Okay. I will call you right back. Yep. Okay. (00:57:08): I knew because I have interviewed some other people and their cell phones went dead about 45 minutes. My cell phone is actually only good for 45 minutes. FH (00:57:17): Well, this is working good here. I live in an adobe house too, and sometimes that does not help the signal. But anyway, we are okay now. SM (00:57:27): Okay. Could you discuss a little bit about the anti-war movement? Were the United States Senators at that time, and I am talking really the senators in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, were they sympathetic to the college campus protests? I say this because Nixon was emphatic right around the time of Kent State, where he said that they never affected him or his policies. They can do all the protesting they want. And Johnson, on the other hand, even though he withdrew, he saw Ted in 1968 and he saw what McCarthy did up in New Hampshire. SM (00:58:03): 1968, and he saw what McCarthy did up in New Hampshire. I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that he was seeing the college students, and what they were saying, and it was a failed policy in the end. So basically, I am saying, how important were the young activists at the time, in shaping the views of Congress? FH (00:58:21): I think they were quite important. As I mentioned, Jack Newfield wrote a book, he was a columnist for the Village Voice, he wrote a book called I think, the Prophetic Minority. So his idea was the people particularly the students who were protesting against the war, were a minority to start with. But they were a prophetic bunch of minority, they were going to become a majority. I think that is exactly what happened. Very early right away in the Senate there were a lot of people, Robert Kennedy was one, and so was Ted Kennedy, and George McGovern, and Gaylord Nelson, and some others who I think began to react to that. I think McCarthy came to it late, but for example, I came to it late, but even before I changed my public position, about before, I was busy with the current commission, which is a full-time job in regards to riot. I sort of suspected be to focusing on this before. My daughter, Catherine Harris, now Catherine Harris [inaudible]. She was a student at Harvard and [inaudible] a protest. SM (01:00:09): Hello? Hello? FH (01:00:16): The effect of those student activists against the war, was especially pronounced when members of Congress had some contact from their own family members, student family members, or directly without the students. And that was certainly true in my case, my daughter Catherine Harris, that was a Harvard student and she came down one weekend with a group of other Harvard students, to take part in an anti-war protest, in Washington DC. This group camped out at our house in McLean, Virginia. The next morning it was just really was very moving to me, as I watched them prepare for their riot, I mean for their protest. They were worried about a police riot, they were worried about getting beat up. So they pinned to their clothes, their contact information, their names, and phone numbers, and so forth. They tapped to their wrist some gauze that had Vaseline on it, that they were going to use. How they knew how to do all this? I do not know. They were going to use in case they got into tear gas. Here they then bravely marched off, these kids to take part in this anti-war protest. SM (01:02:09): Wow. FH (01:02:21): I found that in just overwhelmingly moving. I think there must have been a lot of other situations like that, where members of Congress saw the same thing. In addition to the public protests, both all that had begun to work. SM (01:02:23): As a person who was heavily involved in the campaign of (19)68, began the campaign of Senator Humphrey. Chicago in 1968, was like the epitome of all the tragedies that happened that year. From Dr. King's assassination, Bobby's assassination happened early in the year. President Johnson announces he was not going to run, and there were some riots going on. Just everybody knew that something was going to happen in Chicago, and it did. What are your thoughts as, what were your thoughts then, as a person who was an elected leader in Congress? Secondly, as a person who was helping the campaign to see these students and police going at each other, and there were even skirmishes inside, with some of the newsmen being arrested, I remember Dan Rather was arrested, or he was taken away. It was unbelievable. FH (01:03:26): Well, 1968 was just a horrible year for America. Not only that situation, and the convention, and struggle. Also, the earlier assassination of Robert Kennedy, and then the later assassination of Dr. King. Walter Mondale and I, as I said, we were co-chairs with the Humphrey campaign and brought in Mario Bryan, to sort of spearhead it, prior to the convention. We, Mondale and I, started seeing what was likely to happen in Chicago, went to the Attorney General Ramsey Park. That Johnson had sort of put in charge of planning for the convention, Lyndon Johnson had, and we asked him to change the location of the convention to Miami. That was our only other choice, because the Republicans were planning on having their convention in Miami. So the logistics would work on a sort of price basis, and we told Ramsey Park what our concerns were about their Chicago situation, and Mayor Daley, and so forth, the planned protest. He did not agree, I am sure he was protecting something, those feelings, something obligated to Mayor Daley. So we could not get it changed, and our worst fears were realized. We not only had those huge protests against the war and against the auction, but we had all sorts of strikes, communication strikes, [inaudible] strikes. The city was just in a mess, and one scene that was indelible in my mind, backstage of convent watching on closed circuit television, because a lot of it was not on television. My daughter Catherine, and my son Brian, and I, sitting in tears watching the clubbing of these kids and all that. I went out once and rescued a paraplegic Vietnam veteran Tommy Frazier, in his wheelchair up against the hotel where we were, [inaudible] good police cut him into the hotel. Way up on the-the top floors of our hotel, the tear gas came all the way up there. So, it was just a horrible thing, then when the Humphrey. SM (01:06:57): That me again? Hello? What is going on here? What is going on here? At the end of the Chicago convention there? FH (01:07:00): Yeah, I left the convention after we had had Howard Kennedy's vaccination and then we had all terrible, well Humphrey backed down temporarily on the anti-Vietnam war flank, and we did not get that speech until later. Then the horrible, what the Citizen Commission called, the police riot in Chicago, at the convention. I left there very dispirited and depressed, and I did not get involved again in the campaign until much later, when Larry O'Brien, by then partly my doing I was in on asking him, had become the chairman of the Democratic Party. He asked me, he called me and asked me, to join Humphrey's plane. To be sure that the speech he was-was going to give on national television out of Po Lake, would be a strong enough anti-war speech. So I got back in his campaign then, but that is a horrible year. SM (01:08:07): Yeah. One other thing too I just wanted to mention here, is about Martin Luther King's speech against the Vietnam War. Did that surprise you? Or you thought it was appropriate too, because he was criticized heavily, within the civil rights community? FH (01:08:26): Well, I thought it was a justified thing. It was quite logical with what else he was saying, but I did not really focus that much on it at the time. I was very much involved with the current commission on Civil Rights, and the anti-poverty program like we recommended. SM (01:08:58): What are your thoughts on all those movements that evolved in the late (19)60s, and early (19)70s? We had the women's movement that many people say evolved because of the sexism that was prevalent within the civil rights and anti-war movements. Of course they went on to form the National Organization for Women, and other groups. Again, we talked briefly about the Native American movement, but the period 1969, to (19)73, was a very strong period with Alcatraz in (19)69, and Wounded Knee in (19)73. Of course, you had the environmental movement with Earth Day in 1970, you had Stonewall in (19)69, that was linked to the gay and lesbian movement, kind of inspired it. Then at the very same time within the civil rights movement, during these mid to late (19)60s, you had the more of a black power mentality. Where you had Malcolm X challenging Bayard Rustin. Or Stokely Carmichael challenging Dr. King. Concept of, say some people thought nonviolence going to violence. So that you had, what you had in the early (19)60s, were people like Dr. King, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, John Lewis, and Robert Moses or Bob Moses. Then in the later (19)60s, you have Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, Bobby Seal, Angela Davis, Fred Hampton, a whole different type of a mentality. I know I am giving an awful lot here, what are your thoughts on these movements that evolved in that period? Because the (19)70s, seemed to be the period where a lot of them really gained strength. Then when the (19)80s came, and they kind of seemed to go separate? FH (01:10:44): In 1965, I made a trip with Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, down to in the number of Latin American countries. In one, in Peru, in Lima in it they had the oldest university in this hemisphere, San Marcos University, there in Lima. And found that it was closed down, that the activist students had taken over the campus and they closed down the university. We both thought to ourselves, well that is very interesting that students here and elsewhere in the world have become very active, and we do not see that at home. Well it is just a matter of, wait a minute and you would. The same thing was true, the civil rights movement, I think, began to show people that you have got to stand up and not just beg for what is yours and rightfully yours, but you have got to demand it. We saw that with the student population then, we saw it with women. Frantz Fanon had written that, "Oppressed people," and studies showed this was absolutely true, "Come to have the same, hold the same bad areas about themselves, that the dominant society has." We will not really work, and we are not reliable, or women cannot be managers, and just that. "How you get out of that," he wrote, "Was confrontation." I think, he believed violence. I think it is true, it takes confrontation for people to change their self-image. I think what changed, or the main thing that changed for example, in regard to African Americans in the country, after 200 years. Was that they came to view themselves differently, and they came to feel that they had to stand up. In the process of standing up to authority, they became different people. That is what happened I think with students, with the African-Americans, then with Indians, Indians and Hispanics for example, women profited from the African-American example, but without so much of the terrible violence being practiced against African-Americans. I was very much involved together with my then wife, LaDonna Harris. With people like Gloria Stein, and Betty Friedan, and others formation of the national organization for Women, of Women, the National Organization of Women. And the Women's Democratic talk and so forth. I was involved with them when they eventually ringed around the capital building in action against, the protest against the Vietnam War. I saw that Betty Friedan was quite right, that the old [inaudible] concept, that women had to change their consciousness. They had to begin to change the way they thought about themselves, and that is what had happened in all these groups. So that for example, the success that African-Americans had eventually, in changing the laws and practices. Came as a result of their own effort. SM (01:15:13): I know the environmental movement in Earth Day in 1970, Gaylord Nelson, he met with the anti-war group to make sure he was not stepping on their toes. Because they had just had the moratorium in (19)69, and they used to teach in. So even that movement at the very beginning, Senator Nelson was, I am glad he was honored this year at the 40th anniversary, because he is the man that made it all happen. FH (01:15:44): Absolutely. He was truly a visionary in regard to that, and the poor people were really that conscious of it. That is a movement too, as your question indicates that benefited from the example of the African-American correction. SM (01:16:03): Just a thought, because you have seen this today being a professor on universities, the movements became so special interest. One of the critics, the critics today, the conservative critics say that all these movements, and throw the gay and lesbian movement in there too. FH (01:16:16): Yeah. SM (01:16:17): Became so special interest, that there seems to be no unity today. In the very beginning they were working together, you could see them at protests, but now they seem to be more insular. Am I correct? This is a perception I have. Do you think that groups have become more insular, and they were not working with the other groups anymore, they were all just doing their own thing? FH (01:16:42): Well maybe that is probably true. I do not know. I think that the main problem is, it is both an advancement and a retreat in a way, is that all over the country, I do not care what city you go in, you find all sorts of really successful, vigorous local citizen effort of various kinds. Whether it is against banks redlining poor areas, or black areas. Or against some utility raising freight unjustly, or whatever. In every community in this country, there are those kinds of efforts going on. It is just amazing, and quite successfully in the local community. My friend Jim Hightower. SM (01:17:36): Oh, yeah, the journalist. FH (01:17:38): Yeah, and a great text to the populist, but he says, and this is the thing we had to fight to do this when I ran for president, is that many of these people, they are willing to work in a place giving out the free food to poor people, but they somehow do not see that you have got to get active in politics in order to change things. So that there will not be so many poor and hungry people, and Hightower feels, and worked for this. That if you could get those people like that, all they seeing their common interests and understanding that if they did not get active in politics and work together, they would be adjusted in principle majority. I think that is a tremendous populous challenge, and one that Hightower is working on, and that I also talk about. SM (01:18:45): When you ran for president in (19)72, and (19)76, what did you learn most about America, that maybe surprised you before you ran? And, what did you learn about young people, that you did not know? FH (01:18:57): Just about what I said, I will give you an example. One time I went to Hattiesburg, Mississippi and I have put together a tremendous rally. This was in (19)76, (19)72 really, I did not run for president, so much as I jogged. I did not ever enter in, I did not ever, was not able to raise money and get the kind of people that had already signed up with for government. (19)76, I really ran for president. Anyway, I put together this meeting down there which is sort of a metaphor for the whole campaign, and what I learned. There were a lot of African Americans in the crowd, a lot of Choctaw Indians, from nearby reservation. A lot of what I jokingly called, but truthfully called my redneck kin folks, my dad's people all came from Mississippi. I told that group when I got up to talk I said, I was in Minnesota last night, and I told them I was on my way to Hattiesburg, Mississippi and that I was going to put together here the darnedest, the best I could say, the best political rally anybody ever saw, or the damnedest race riot. One or the other. Everybody laughed sort of nervously and so forth. I said, my feeling is you do not have to love each other, I wish you would. All you have to do is recognize that you have common interests and that if you get yourself together, you are a majority in this country. I said, I came down here when I was 12 years old and stayed where the great aunt, who had an elderly black couple come and clean her house all day, washed all the sheets, and aired all the mattresses and everything, washed down the walls of this pine house. She paid them with a jar of end green beans, and a bucket of ribbon cane syrup for their daily work. I am sure she did not realize, that that was one of the causes for the fact that a lot of folks were working for 25 cents an hour. Afterwards I had a great uncle come up me, he had tears in his eyes, and he called me Freddy and he said, "Freddy, I have been waiting all my life to hear somebody talk like that." I think that is the kind of thing that was in the country, we talked to people about their own self-interest that would work. For example, I spoke that same year in Akron, Ohio, where most of the people in the audience were rubber workers. Somebody asked me a question about gay rights and I said, "I think the government has got enough to do, without worrying about what people are doing in the privacy of their own homes." It did not fit in the flow. I said, I really thought it was true. Like George Wallace said at the time, "You be to get the hay down where the goats can get at it." SM (01:22:53): Let me change my tape. FH (01:22:53): I think it is the McGovern, are you ready? SM (01:23:04): Yep, I am ready. FH (01:23:05): I thought at the time, that if McGovern could talk that way and couch these matters, in terms of the death interest of his listeners. He could have put that thing together. Instead what Nixon was able to do, and then later Reagan, was to appeal to people's concerns, and fears, and so forth. That trumped what would have been sensible off on economic. SM (01:23:49): Both you and your wife LaDonna, have been involved with Native American issues all of your lives. FH (01:23:54): Yeah. SM (01:23:55): Where is the movement today? I have read some books on the, that the Native American movement was actually pretty strong even in the (19)50s, and the (19)60s. Then of course, then the American Indian movement came about. What were the successes of the 1960s, and (19)70s, with respect to Native American issues? Your thoughts on the American Indian movement, which people say it was only four years from (19)69, to (19)73. It started where they overtook Alcatraz, and then it ended with the violence at Wounded Knee. When you think of the American Indian movement, I think of Dennis Banks, there is one other person I forget his name now, there is two that come to the forefront. FH (01:24:39): Yeah. SM (01:24:41): Just your thought about that? FH (01:24:43): Dennis I thought was, he was a very sensible and steady person, not a kind of wild radical. But I did not agree with a lot of Roseanne people, or lot of the SDS student people. Violence as a tactic, I think that was actually wrong. I often heard people advocating, in those days, violence as a tactic. Who themselves, would not be found within 100 miles of the actual violence. They sort of this thing, let you and him fight. I thought that violence was often hurting people, and was inhumane therefore, and that it was impractical. That you could not beat the government, or those with power. Because, they wind up having a hell of a lot more guns than you got. That set us back somewhat I think, people who advocated or used violence, on a whole range of those issues. It was the more activists, and really very strong and big activists, my former wife Ladonna, who actually accomplished it. What happened with Indian movement, is they were successful. We were able to write into the laws all sorts of provisions for self-determination, for Indians to run their own programs, to run their own schools, and to run their own governments. Princeton governments, courts, Indian courts and so forth, and that is the situation today. There is still, of course those that have not been able to, or were not able to set up casinos, gambling casinos, are still struggling economically. It is pretty interesting that Indians who for a long time were victimized by black people, are now making money off of them. SM (01:27:01): Yeah, that that is right. FH (01:27:01): I do not like gang. FH (01:27:01): ... making money off of them. SM (01:27:01): Yeah, that is right. FH (01:27:03): I do not like gambling, but it has provided a way by which tribes have been able to [inaudible] their governments and their economies, and also to preserve their traditions and ancient ways. SM (01:27:20): When I think of the last 20 or 30 years in terms of writers, of course, you think of Dee Brown and I think of Mr. Alexie, Sherman Alexie- FH (01:27:30): [inaudible] yeah. SM (01:27:30): ...who was another great writer, and Vine Deloria. FH (01:27:35): Yeah, Vine. SM (01:27:36): But then there was also Ward Churchill, who has become very controversial. FH (01:27:40): Well, I do not think he is Indian, really. SM (01:27:42): Yeah, I do not know what your thoughts are. He has written a lot about the Native Americans. As a lawyer, what were the most significant laws that were passed after World War II during this time frame between (19)46 and 2010? We are talking about the years that boomers have been alive. I have asked this question and I started out by saying that I think Roe v. Wade in (19)73 and certainly the Brown vs. Board of Education (19)54 and the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, (19)64, (19)65, are those the four that really stand out in terms of impact on America, as well as even I could say impact on the generation? FH (01:28:25): And I think they are symbolic of a lot of other laws, and I think because a lot of them fit in with what we came to call self-determination for American Indians. It gives people more control over their own lives and knocked down the barriers that kept them from becoming what they want to become. SM (01:28:52): Are there any laws that you would like to add to that you think were very important, particularly for this generation that is now between the age of the 48 and 64? FH (01:29:03): Well, one important development was we moved toward, but in a fairly meager way, more of federal aid to education. And we need to do a great deal more in that respect, for smaller classrooms and better prepared teachers and so forth. And also a huge hole in our social fabric was the lack of any kind of national health program. And we have made a major step in the right direction there with Obama. Obama's election I think was really historic. And I think that while for the short run, the Republicans are able to delay and block a lot of what he is going to do and wants to do and said he would do, they are increasingly marginalizing themselves, I think. I mean, if you look at the demographic between number of Hispanics and African Americans, the greater progressive activism of students and all of that, I think makes things look pretty bad for the future for the Republicans, but we are going to win out more issues- SM (01:30:41): So the criticism of President Obama and some of the politicians of the left... I just interviewed a person a couple days ago. Why does he, and why does the left, and why did the liberals always think that they know better what to do about my life than I do? FH (01:30:57): I think that is a serious claim. That is simply not true. All of the things that Obama ran on and that he was pushing are supported by a majority of the people in the country [inaudible]. And he, after all, was elected. SM (01:31:16): Right. The Kerner Commission, you mentioned it earlier, but I want to talk about it now, which is the National Advisory Council on Civil Disorders. Why did LBJ form the committee? What were their findings? What were the main reasons for the riots? And was this a change? I guess I cannot read the file. Did this have anything to do about this change between what we called nonviolent protests, the Ghandian type of attitude that King professed, and the more violent protests that was actually happening in our cities? FH (01:31:57): Well, we had had a terrible riot in Watts, in the Black section of Los Angeles, in 1965. And we thought that was kind of an isolated thing, but it turned out to be a harbinger of things to come. We had some more of that in (19)66, but not a whole lot. And then terrible explosions in the Black sections of nearly every city in the summer of 1967, and caused enormous concern and fear. I got the Walter Mondale to co-author a resolution in the Senate to create a blue ribbon citizen commission to look into the causes and prevention of such a riot. And I had the resolution sent to my subcommittee that I chaired, the subcommittee on government research. And we held hearings. We had Daniel Patrick Moynihan, not yet in the Senate, and Whitney Young headed the National Open League as witnesses and [inaudible] about it. And then it occurred to me after a day or so that we did not have to wait until Congress passed the law and created that commission, but that the president could do it himself. So I got the majority leader, Mike Mansfield, to say he would bring it up with Johnson at his meeting that night with the president, and also talked with Douglass Cater on the president's staff, and suggested that he do that. And then it was announced that he was going to make a publicly televised speech doing that. And he called me just before his speech and he said, "I am going to appoint you to that commission that you have been talking about, and I am going to put you on it." And incidentally, he said, "I want you to remember" ... Well, first he said, "I do not want you to be like some of your colleagues and I appoint them to things and they never show up." And I said, "Well, I will show up. I will work at it." Another thing, he said, "Fred, I want you to remember you are a junction man." I said, "Yes, sir, I am a junction man." And he said, "If you forget it," he said, "I will take my pocket knife and cut your Peter off." There were some people were back in my living room, we were going to watch this thing on television. And I came back, they knew I was talking to president. They said, "What did he say? What did he say?" And I said, "Well, some of it was kind of personal." SM (01:35:07): Yeah, I heard he used to have meetings in his bathroom [inaudible]. FH (01:35:11): Oh, yeah. SM (01:35:12): And then of course, we met with Senator Fulbright when I was working at the university. And Senator Fulbright, when he went against Johnson, Johnson told him, "You will never be invited ever again to the White House." He never was, never invited to a dinner, nothing. There was a complete break. FH (01:35:32): Well, we started ... we had just a wonderful staff, David Ginsberg, who just died lately, [inaudible] lawyer, was our executive director, and put together a terrific staff. And we authorized a lot of academic studies and surveys, and then we divided into teams. John Lindsay, the mayor of New York, and I were one team. And we went to various places in the country where there had been riots. And John and I, for example, went to Cincinnati and Milwaukee and just spent the day walking around talking to people. And then we held interminable hearings. I got a room in the Capitol building where we met most of the time. Sometimes we met in the Indian Treaty Room, in the Executive Office Building. And we met days and days and days and days and days. And this was a commission written report. In these hearings, we had witnesses from J. Edgar Hoover to Martin Luther King, and lot in between. And we eventually voted line by line on every word that went into that report. What we found was that... well, the most famous words of course in the report were that America was moving toward two societies, one white, one Black, separate and unequal. And what most people cannot understand is that racism, white racism, is very much involved in what is happening in the ghettos or where people live with inferior schools, no transportation, no jobs or virtually no jobs. Jobs have moved out of the central city and gone to the suburbs or disappeared altogether, gone overseas. And so we recommended vigorous enforcement of the recently passed civil rights laws and massive new federal programs, particularly around jobs, but also the training and education and so forth. We know that a member of the commission leaked to Johnson the idea, I mean we learned later, "That this report," they said to him, "condones riots, and they do not have a good word to say about you." All of that was quite wrong. But our idea was that we would ask Johnson to continue our commission in operation for an extra six months so that we could lobby for and push for our findings for recommendations. And we set up already an official meeting where he would receive the report and so forth. But he canceled that. He would not see us, and he would not agree to have the commission's life extended. There were... both Hubert Humphrey, the vice president, for example, and Willard Wirtz, the Secretary of Labor, and others, who did endorse our findings. Willard Wirtz [inaudible] in the commission, in the words of the great American philosopher Pogo, has said that "We have met the enemy and he is us." SM (01:39:22): Golly. FH (01:39:22): And Robert Kennedy strongly supported our findings and recommendations and was involved in the Senate hearings where we appeared and [inaudible] the paperback edition of our report, which the New York Times published, was a bestseller, runaway bestseller, amazingly. And we made progress, America [inaudible] of race and poverty for about a decade after the report. But with the advent of the Reagan administration, that progress stopped and we began to go backwards. SM (01:40:09): I was reading one of your interviews that you did in 2008 on the web, and I love a quote here that the interviewer said, you remember this. You said in your announcement speech in 1972 something along the lines of, "A lot of people cannot believe America has ever been to the moon because they doubt the credibility of government." That is a classic quote. And then something else here, what you said in this interview that actually I think you have already talked about it, but I want to put it on record here. You said in response to the question to this interviewer, "No, no. Starting with the Vietnam War and with Richard Nixon, we have never recovered from the great skepticism of government. I think the skepticism about government is generally pretty healthy, but I do not like the aspect of it which came out of the Ronald Reagan years; the government cannot do anything right and everything you try turns out badly and so forth. I wish we had a little bit more skepticism of the military than we do, but it is going to be a while before we build back the sort of confidence in the government that we once had." I think that is beautiful. FH (01:41:18): That is absolutely true. I think it is true that one of the worst things that come out of the Reagan administration was that government cannot do anything right and that everything we tried, for example, even with a New Deal, failed. That is not true. Virtually everything we tried worked. We just quit trying it or we did not try it enough. And we began to move back toward doing something about all these problems with the election of Bill Clinton, but then we went the other way again with the eight years of George W. Bush. SM (01:41:59): Did- FH (01:42:00): [inaudible] a very heartening thing that Obama was elected, saying all the things that I believe in. SM (01:42:09): I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, who I think is single-handedly responsible for the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendments. FH (01:42:16): That is right. SM (01:42:17): But do you believe ... And this is what she said. She said that she believes that the troublemakers of the (19)60s now run today's universities. And she says they have taken over women's studies, Black studies, Asian studies, Native American studies, environmental studies, Chicano studies, GLBT studies. She was mainly referring to women's studies, but the reference was there toward all of them. Do you believe that? FH (01:42:42): Well, she and her fellow right-wingers, they are always critical nowadays of universities and academia generally, because they say, "They need more balance than they need more Republican hired as teachers," and so forth. But it should occur to them, I think, that what most professors believe, they believe because it is correct and it is the sensible position, and that theirs is the more selfish and the incorrect position. SM (01:43:24): This is a university question, because you are a professor and have been one since the late (19)70s. And I spent 30- some years in higher ed. But what did universities of the (19)60s and (19)70s teach the universities of the (19)80s and beyond? Did they learn about the importance of student empowerment as opposed to student power? Or are they afraid that it could happen again, what happened in the (19)60s, more controls? What I have seen in some universities is they are trying to get more controls again over students. Students today are so busy, they do not have time to protest or even to be active, although they get involved in volunteer work. And even on college campuses today, space is allocated for protests. They just cannot go anywhere. They can only have a little dinky space on campus. And I know if I was a student, I would be fighting that, but- FH (01:44:17): I think there is a distinction in that respect between the faculty and the administration. I have found administration really nervous about any kind of student activism. It worries them. But faculty, I do not think tend to feel that way. They are closer to the students. And on students, I worry about these students being too serious and too intent on getting themselves credentialed with their college and university education. And up until the Obama election, I found them not willing to be active in politics, rather disdainful of politics, and back starting with Reagan, more reflective of their parents' conservative views than is today the case. Now but even then, and especially now, what I have found for years, many years, is that there is an extremely high percentage of students who were involved in some kind of service activity. And a lot of them also began to, I was glad to see, get involved in politics, with the campaign of Obama. I am worried about them, just as I am worried about a lot of progressives who supported Obama, that they were becoming sort of disappointed and disillusioned that everything he advocated and they thought they were fighting for by supporting him cannot be done right away. A lot of them did not realize what an intransigent bunch the Republicans are in Congress, and how the archaic rules of the Senate allow a minority to block [inaudible] majority, and just became disgusted with the long fight over health insurance and so forth, health reform. So I do not know what is going to happen, just a lot of those are not going to be active, I am afraid, in the 2010 Congressional race. We always lose seats, the president's party loses seats in the years after the election. And how many depends primarily on the condition of the economy. So we are going to lose seats. I am worried about disillusion rather than about the economy as to how many we lose. SM (01:47:08): One of the things that as a professor who has taught students from... You have probably taught three generations of students now- FH (01:47:14): Yeah. SM (01:47:15): ...the boomers, the Generation Xers that actually were born between 1965 and 1982, and then you have got the millennials that are in college right now- FH (01:47:25): [inaudible] SM (01:47:26): ...with the Generation Ys now being in elementary school. FH (01:47:30): That is right. SM (01:47:30): And I do not know if you sensed this when you were teaching in the (19)80s, but there seemed to be friction between Generation X and the boomers. We had panels on this, and I do not know if it was just our campus, or my observation is just my observation, but they seemed to have two reactions to the boomer generation. One is they are sick of hearing about the nostalgia, about what it was like then, with all the protests and activities and all the rock and all the music and all this stuff, or they have a feeling, "Gee, I wish I lived then, because you had causes that were important to you. We have nothing." And that was the Generation Xers. We are not talking millennials now. Did you sense that at all? FH (01:48:17): Well, I do not know. Here is my overall feelings [inaudible]. When I first started teaching back in 1976 at the University of New Mexico, we still had quite a few older professors who were still having trouble with affirmative action. My chairman said to me one time... We were talking about women, "We ought have more women on our faculty," is what I was saying. And he said, "You know what? I think we ought to just hire people on the basis of qualifications," with sort of the [inaudible] implied idea that if we gave special attention to hiring Black people and women, we were reducing the quality of the people we hired. But all of that has changed quite a bit. But what I found today is that white kids and Black kids really have no idea of how it used to be. And it embarrasses Black kids a little bit in my class when I talk about segregated water fountains, even. In Oklahoma, there was a law that Blacks and whites could not play chess together. And then much more bitter things like killings and lynchings and bombings, and so forth. It was a shock to people to really hear that from a person who lived it and knows it. And from young women, I used to hear this, it is getting a little better, I think, used to hear a lot of them saying, "Well, I think women ought to be able to go to law school and to med school and all right. And I think they ought to have equal pay for equal work, but I am not a feminist. I am not one of those feminists." But just by definition you are [inaudible] believe in those things. SM (01:50:28): Right. FH (01:50:31): But I think a lot of young people simply think, "Well the way things are now is the way they always have been and the way they were going to be." And it takes sort of eternal vigilance, as Abraham Lincoln said. SM (01:50:49): With your kids, did you have a generation gap? I can remember there is a LIFE magazine cover that showed the face of a student wearing sunglasses. I have it framed. And it shows the father and a son arguing. Was the generation gap... was it pretty strong then? And then I followed this up with an interview I had a couple days ago with James Fallows. You probably know him. FH (01:51:16): Yeah. SM (01:51:18): And I was reading something in a book, I am not sure if he said it, but there was a discussion where the generation gap was not that bad between parents and students. The generation gap is really between those who went to the Vietnam War and those who did not. The real gap is within the generation in between those who served in war and those who protested the war or evaded the draft or service. So the history books say the generation gap is pretty strong. FH (01:51:50): I think it was, probably, but it narrowed because of the kids, just like my daughter being against the Vietnam War before I came out against it, and what influence her own example and feelings had on me. Or even smoking, my youngest daughter as a little girl saying, "Daddy, why do you keep smoking?" Or on something even more mundane than that, you threw down the piece of trash or something: "Oh, daddy, you want to see beauty, you have got to leave beauty," straight off the television. So I think there was a generation gap. A bigger gap for a good while was an economic class gap. For example, my dad, [inaudible] farmer in southwest Oklahoma, and my son, he had hair... my son had the hair no longer than the Beatles. But at the time we thought that was long. And my dad would always make it a point to say to my son, "You look like a girl with that long hair." But eventually, and it was not too long after that, you see these country and Western stars out in Nashville with long hair and mustaches and so forth. So things began to change, but there was, I think, an economic class gap on these social issues. And perhaps to some degree there still is. SM (01:53:45): And also, you think there was that generational gap too between those who fought and those who did not? FH (01:53:49): I suppose that is true. And I think if there was resentment on the part of those who went to Vietnam against those who did not, that would be understandable, because here were people going to college and having a good time and doing all right, while these other people went off to the war. I never heard of what you now hear sometimes people say, that people were disdainful of the Vietnam veterans when they came home, or spit on them, or whatever. I never knew of any such thing as that. SM (01:54:34): Yeah. That leads me into my next question. Bear with me as I read this little information here on the Vietnam veteran, because I have gotten to know them quite well, a lot of them. And I pay my respects to the people who served this nation. I have gone to the Vietnam Memorial every year since 1994 on Memorial Day and Veterans Day to pay respects to Lewis Puller, who wrote Fortunate Son. But this is the question here: was the My Lai incident and others like it, including those scenes... I remember there was many scenes on television where Vietnam vets were using their lighters to burn down villages. Do you think that these were the main reasons why vets were treated so poorly upon their return to America, this kind of baby killer image? Secondly, from the veterans I have talked to, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legions, did not want them in as their members, even though they run the organization now. And I worked on a university campus in my very first job, and they were treated so poorly that affirmative action became... they were put into affirmative action plans, which now included hiring Vietnam vets. There seemed to be a hostility on the home front that had been against the policies of the government, but I did not sense that people disliked the vets. They disliked the government that sent them to Vietnam. So there was a lot [inaudible] - SM (01:56:03): ...the symptoms of Vietnam. So there was a lot going on here. And my final thing, when I throw this in here, is that people who did serve, and came back, also oftentimes had bad experiences at health centers and in hospitals. They had served, like Kennedy had asked them to, but they were not treated well, even in the hospitals. And you can sense this over the years of battles over Agent Orange and post-traumatic stress disorder, which now for all Vietnam vets is recognized as a problem, but it took 20-some years, "Prove that you became stressful and have anxiety due to your experiences." So there was a lot happening here. And I do not know what your perceptions are of Vietnam vets, but just in reaction to what I just said here. FH (01:56:54): Well, I never knew of that kind of mistreatment of Vietnam veterans by people back home. But I do know this, even now we have had problems with the Veterans Administration operating in a bureaucratic way. Just like insurance companies try to pull their losses down, and their payments down, I think the Vietnam... I mean the Veterans people, even now, have been much too strict and rigid in recognizing legitimate veteran claims in regard to health and so forth. But I never saw that. I saw the other thing in Oklahoma, where particularly early, until fairly late in the war, where a majority of Americans were for Johnson, and Johnson's war policy on the Vietnam War. When I was beginning changing in the other direction. I remember, for example, I was holding town meetings around the state shortly after the My Lai incident became known, and I had a sheriff and his wife in one meeting, and I think they were drinking a little bit too, so they were pretty vociferous and forceful in the way they talked, but they just thought it was terrible. I said, "Well, now wait a minute, we are going to find out more about the facts, but you do not believe that our people ought to be shooting women, and children, and the innocent non-combatants and so forth, do you?" And they both said, "Hell, they are going to grow up, and they are the enemy, and they ought not to be around there if they are not part of the Viet Cong and supporting them." I heard that kind of stuff a lot, until very late in the war. But I never did see, maybe it is because it was Oklahoma, I never did see the anti-vet. SM (01:59:09): Did you have a chance to work with any Native American vets who talked about their experiences? Because even... Again, I read too much. And, again, it is only based on what you have read, and what people have told you, it may not always be fact. But that Native American Vietnam veterans were also felt put upon when they served over there, because they were automatically put on point, because the discrimination there was, well, they are Native American, and they must be great leaders, in terms of being heads of units or whatever. And so a lot of them died, because they were put on as the front of their units there. FH (01:59:51): Well, I never was aware of that, and I had not heard it. What I noticed always among American Indians, a very proud tradition of serving in the military and- SM (02:00:10): Yes, that is true. FH (02:00:11): A warrior tradition. And they are much honored in the tribe and at home. We never had a powwow, or any kind of thing like that, in Oklahoma, during or after that war, that it did not start off with some kind of tribute to the veterans and- SM (02:00:31): Good. Well, that is good news. FH (02:00:33): Yeah. SM (02:00:33): I think that is true, they are very proud. But sometimes it upset them that they used qualities that they thought they possessed, and it cost many, many lives in Vietnam. FH (02:00:48): Yeah. I just do not know about that. SM (02:00:51): Yeah. Well, we are getting toward the end here. I got a few more questions here. There has been some commentaries too where general statements are made about blaming the generation, or that period of the (19)60s and (19)70s for the problems we have in our society today. Issues like the drug culture, the welfare state, big law government versus small government, the creation of the isms, the divorce rate, all these things, the family is important. So that period of the (19)60s and the (19)70s is oftentimes condemned by many, probably on the right, more conservatives, as opposed to liberals. Do you believe that? FH (02:01:35): Well, I think there were just millions of people who, as I was growing up and entering into politics and so forth, who were living lives of quiet desperation, and, well, they decided not to be quiet anymore. Much to their credit. They changed America. They have changed the way they thought about themselves. They developed a much better and stronger self-image in the process. And they changed us too. And they changed society much for the better. So I think that is one of the proud results of the (19)60s, is America is much closer to its ideal than it has ever been in history. SM (02:02:26): I know you cannot generalize on 74 million people, because that is how many there were. And some people will not even respond to this, except based on personal experience of people they knew, but are there any positive or negative qualities that you can place on the generation? And when I say generation, I am meaning everyone. This project that I am involved in here, it is not just about white men and women, it is about African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, gay and lesbian. It is not so much about Asian culture, because we do not hear a whole lot about that during this timeframe. But how do you respond to that? FH (02:03:06): I think that they are much more aware of the world, and how it worked, and of their place in it. And they are more self-confident than was true of generations before them. I talked to, in the old days, I talked to people like my uncles who went off World War II, and they did not know anything about the world, and they had no self-confidence. They felt like victims. The times were hard, and they had a hard time finding a job that was worth a damn and so forth. I think most people today have a much stronger feeling about things like that than the people- SM (02:04:01): In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin, and when did it end, and what was the watershed moment? FH (02:04:08): Well, I think the watershed moment probably was with the election of John Kennedy. He was the of that post-war generation himself, and he said the torch passed to a new generation of Americans. And this was a different crowd. I entered the University of Oklahoma in 1948. And a lot of people that were in college with me then, or just before me, were veterans. And they were the kind of people who were not going to take that shit anymore. It used to be, I understood, the hazing of freshman, and all that kind of stuff, and people were ordered around and so forth. And these were people that just were not going to stand for it. And it rubbed off on the rest of us. So I think when John Kennedy came in, in 1960, that tendency was accelerated. SM (02:05:18): So the beginning was when Kennedy came in, and the watershed moment. When did it end? FH (02:05:25): Well, I do not think it has ended. I think it has been renewed with Obama. We backslid during the Reagan, and Bush, and the second Bush times, to some degree. But, still, I think people just, they will not stand for being held down and pushed around anymore. And I think that is all for the good. And that is true of people who are right-wingers too, they do not want the government telling them what to do. SM (02:05:58): That is the Tea Party movement that is going on now. FH (02:06:01): That is right. People see, they know... I think the Tea Party movement... People see all these changes in the country, for God's sake a Black getting elected President of the United States, and things are changing, and the world seems as dangerous, and I think they just are very fearful, and unhappy, and angry. And the kind of remedies they talk about do not fit with what the fears are. For example, they say stop raising our taxes, and Obama's taxing us. Well, there is recent studies that show that our combined tax burden now for individuals, their state, local, and federal, is the lowest since the 1950s. But people's perception is, "Well, they just keep taxing us, telling us what to do and so forth." There is just a lot of that. But nobody... I never got elected by a unanimous vote. There has always been a lot of people that are dragging along their thinking, and frame it, and I suppose that is always going to be true. We have to, I think, do our best, as Obama has tried, to reach out to them, and fill their fears, and appeal to their self-interest in doing the right thing. But some of them we just are not going to get. SM (02:07:45): ...We are here too. Because I got... And your answers are just fantastic. Vietnam... In the university, being in there for so many years, two words that seem to really stir people up when we are dealing with foreign policy on any particular issue, if you mention the word Vietnam, or you mention the word quagmire. FH (02:08:10): Yes. SM (02:08:11): I can remember, during the Gulf War, when Vietnam vets were coming out saying that they were against the war, a lot of them. Of course, then it kind of waned, it did not last very long. We lost some lives. But certainly the Iraq war, and where we are in Afghanistan right now, and I know it upsets... Many of them are Boomers. They get tired. They say this has nothing to do with Vietnam, and has nothing to do with the quagmire. They do not like going back to that period, because I think, whether it stirs up memories they want to forget, or they want to have amnesia, or... What I am getting at here is that when President Reagan came into power, he said, "We are back." It was kind of a feeling that we are back. And then President Bush number one said the Vietnam syndrome is over. And my feeling about this is that... President Reagan said we were going to have a strong military again. The military fell apart in Vietnam, now we are going to build it up again, and have a strong military, and we are going to bring values back. Our values are gone. And then Bush saying this Vietnam syndrome was over, saying we do not have to talk about it anymore. It is a different world. Your thoughts on those kinds of attitudes by those two presidents? FH (02:09:27): Well, the thing, to me, that Republicans began, especially with Reagan, to talk about, we got to get back to family values. Here was Reagan, he never went to church. He had a dysfunctional family, but was talking about family values. Or Phyllis Schlafly, she is against the women working and so on, and that is all she has ever done. SM (02:09:56): Or Newt Gingrich talking about values, and he is running around with a woman while his wife is fighting cancer. FH (02:10:03): Absolutely. All of that seems awfully hypocritical to me. But I think that over time America rejects elitist warmongers like Henry Kissinger, and Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush, and rejects their idea that it is just terrible that people have gotten involved in making foreign policy and national security policy, because it puts too much limits. Democracy has a hell of a time on the world stage, because the people limit what they can do. I think that is a damn good thing. I think I am for a populist of foreign and national security politicians. It has limits on what they can do, because the two worst things a government can do to us is tax us and kill us, or send us to get killed. I would like to have a lot of popular restriction on that. It is, I think, very difficult for a democracy like America to be involved in a long war, because people began to question, as they are now with Afghanistan, saying, "What the hell are we doing? Is this in the interest of our people?" And they begin to say, "Wait a minute, we ought to get out of this. We got a lot of problems here at home we ought to be dealing with, instead of this. Are not we killing a whole lot of innocent people in the process?" I think that is a good development. They will let you do it for a while, but over the long pull, they are going to begin to ask a lot of questions. Just as this Afghan war has become unpopular now. That really irritates the elitists, who some I have mentioned, like Henry Kissinger, and George Bush, and Dick Cheney and so forth, but I think it is good for America to speak. SM (02:12:10): This is a question I have asked everybody that is been involved in my interviews, even way back to Senator McCarthy back in 1996. That is a question of healing. I used to take students to Washington DC. I got to know Senator Nelson when we brought him to our campus twice for Earth Day events. And after his first speech, I said I was trying to get ahold of Senator Fulbright. I knew he had a stroke, but he had not said yes, or had not said no, to meeting our students. And finally Senator Nelson said, when he was here, "I will contact him. I will get him over to the Wilderness Society." So it began the first of nine senator visits, where Senator Nelson gave us almost two and a half hours with each of these unbelievable people. And the question, when we went to see Senator Muskie, he had just gotten out of the hospital, he was not feeling well, and he had just seen the Ken Burn series on the Civil War, which had really touched him. But the students came up with this question, and this is the question... Due to all the divisions that took place in America in the 1960s and (19)70s, divisions between Black and white, between male and female, between gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops, and were against the troops... Then they brought up the riots in the cities that they had seen in the (19)60s. These were all people who were not born at the time. Do you feel that the Boomer generation that experienced all these terrible events are going to go to their graves... That includes not only the activists, but those 85 percent who were not activists, they were going to go to their graves not healing from a lot of these divisions that were part of their lives? Like the people in the Civil War never healed. That was the question. Do you think we have, as a nation, and particularly the Boomer generation of 74 million, that there is a problem with healing? FH (02:14:14): I think most are healing, and will heal, but we are always going to have a minority of people, just like in the South, who still want to complain about the war between the states as they call it. And there is a lot of people who, they do not like to say it aloud these days, but who are worried about women getting out of their place, and the pushy African Americans, and these longhaired kids that are not so longhaired anymore, but that are much too activist and independent. There is always going to be people like that. But I think there is healing. And I think Obama's election showed it. SM (02:15:11): Yeah. I think Senator Nelson mentioned that, he said, "People do not walk around Washington DC with a lack of healing on their sleeves." But he said it permanently affected the body politic. FH (02:15:25): Yeah. SM (02:15:26): And Senator Muskie did not even comment, because the students wanted... They thought they had a golden opportunity, here was the man that was picked at the last minute to be Humphrey's running mate. FH (02:15:35): Yes. SM (02:15:35): And he did not even comment on 1968. He looked up and he... Actually, he is pretty emotional about it. He looked up and he said, "We have not healed since the Civil War over the issue of race." And then he went on to talk about that. Never even mentioned 1968, which meant the divisions go back to the Civil War. So that was a pretty interesting experience. FH (02:15:58): The decision came down to me and Muskie, did you know that? SM (02:16:01): Yes. FH (02:16:01): Yeah. SM (02:16:02): Yeah, I knew that. Well, actually I have read that in books. I read a lot of history. I read your book too, many years ago, but I was rereading it again, and did you feel, right to the last minute, you were going to be the person? FH (02:16:20): Well, he had us up to his hotel room, and each in an adjoining bedroom, at the last, and each of us did not know the other was in an adjoining bedroom. But he came in and talked to me awhile. And then he would say, "I will be right back." Do not know where he is going, but it later turned out he was going across the hall into the bedroom with Muskie. SM (02:16:48): Oh my gosh. FH (02:16:56): And then he came back again, we talked some more. Did I know anything that he should know that might make it difficult for him to choose me and whatever? Then he went across the hall. And then he came back. The last time he came back, had tears in his eyes. We were very close friends. He had tears in his eyes. Humphrey was very emotional. And he said, "Fred, I am going to have to choose the younger man." And so I said, "Well, if that is your decision, I will nominate." And he said, "Will you?" And I said, "Yes." He said, "Will you go with me to tell him?" I said, "Yes." I did not know where we were going, but we walked across the hall, opened the door, walked in there, there was a bunch of people just standing by the bureau over in the corner. And Humphrey said what is probably the longest sentence I have ever heard, he said, "Ed, shake hands with the man who is going nominate you." SM (02:17:49): That is a great anecdote. FH (02:17:52): And I did nominate him. I was the one who nominated him. SM (02:17:57): I heard that ... I did not know him that well, but I heard he had a temper at times. FH (02:18:03): Oh yeah. SM (02:18:03): But, oh my God, the students loved him. He was so good with the students. You could tell he loved students. FH (02:18:09): You mean Muskie or Humphrey? SM (02:18:12): No, I am talking about Muskie. FH (02:18:14): Yes, Muskie, that is true, both. Yeah. See, I told you that though, because what Humphrey gave in his reason, which was a good way to say it properly too, because it did not indicate he saw any fault in me. SM (02:18:33): Was not it because you were too young? FH (02:18:35): Yeah, that is what he said. SM (02:18:36): You were 37 years old. FH (02:18:37): Yeah. He said, "Fred, I am going to have to choose the younger man." That is why I told you that anecdote, because that is the reason he gave, and I think maybe that was the main reason. SM (02:18:51): Yep. FH (02:18:52): He later told somebody that he thought he and I were too... I do not know how he... That Muskie seemed stable compared to me and him. We were both very enthusiastic and so forth. I think the age thing was an indication, sort of, of how he felt about it. SM (02:19:21): One of the qualities, that may be a good quality, but I would like your thoughts, is that this generation is often looked upon as the generation that does not trust people, because so many of the leaders lie to them, whether it be Watergate, Nixon, the Gulf of Tonkin with Johnson, even President Eisenhower lying on TV, that we found out later about U-2. There were questions about Kennedy and his knowledge of the overthrow of the Diem regime, although I do not believe President Kennedy ever wanted him killed, but he just wanted him sent off to France or whatever. And, of course, McNamara and the numbers game that was really not really true. Do you think- FH (02:20:02): Well, I think that is absolutely true. There has always been, I think, a very healthy skepticism about the government. I have thought there was too much of it, but I see the justification for it. SM (02:20:24): Yeah. FH (02:20:27): When people say, "Well, we lowered your taxes," well there is a minority of people, the teabaggers and ... who do not believe it. Or say this health thing is going be good for you. SM (02:20:43): When I first started asking this question on trust, I did it because I remember a Psychology 101 class that I took in college, and I graduated in 1970 from undergrad, and it was basically the professor saying, "If you cannot trust people, then you will not be a success in life. Trust is a very important quality you must possess." And so I said, "Well, if my generation did not trust anybody, and they are passing this on to their kids and grandkids, that is not good." But then you take Political Science 101, and it says basically that... Because I was a history political science major just like you as an undergrad. And I learned that trust shows that democracy is alive and well, that dissent is part of our society, so lacking trust is a good quality. FH (02:21:30): You bet. I think so too. We went through the (19)50s, where we were too satisfied, and did not ask enough questions, and so things got worse. Well, I am sorry, but I am going to have to... They were waving to me here, I have got to take off. SM (02:21:46): Can I ask one last question? FH (02:21:47): Yeah, you bet. SM (02:21:48): What do you think the lasting legacy will be of this generation when they pass on? The best history books are often written 50 years after an event, like the best ones of World War II are being written now. What do you think the sociologists and historians will say after the last Boomer has passed away? Kind of like what they do over in Gettysburg, when the last Civil War soldier died, they have a statue to him over there, he died in 1924. But what do you think they will be saying about this generation that grew up after World War II overall? FH (02:22:34): I think they were more self-confident, and more concerned about others, in addition to themselves. SM (02:22:50): Well, very good. Well, Senator, thank you very much. FH (02:22:53): All right. SM (02:22:53): I do not know, you have mentioned your wife, or your former wife, she would be great. FH (02:22:58): Yeah. SM (02:22:59): How would I get ahold of her? FH (02:23:02): LaDonna Harris, and I do not have it right in front of me here the... Well, let us see, if you hold on a second, I can find it. SM (02:23:09): Either that, or you can email it to me. FH (02:23:11): Yeah. She is in... Well, I will just tell you. Hold on a second. I will look it up. She lives here in Albuquerque. I have been remarried for nearly 30 years. But let me just, if you hold on just a second here, I will look on my Blackberry, and I will tell you what... SM (02:23:30): If she has an email or... FH (02:23:35): Yeah, her email is AIO, that is the name of the organization which she heads, Americans for Indian Opportunities, aio@aio.org. SM (02:23:52): Aio.org. And the last question, how would I get ahold of Senator Mondale? FH (02:23:57): I do not know. Somebody just talked to him the other day, and sent me greetings. He is up in Minnesota, but I will be darned if I- SM (02:24:07): Yeah, I want to try to get ahold of him. And also Geraldine Ferraro is another one, but she is in New York. Senator, thank you very, very much. FH (02:24:15): All right. SM (02:24:16): I will keep you updated on everything. You will see the transcripts. I will need your picture though. FH (02:24:21): Okay. SM (02:24:22): But I will email you on that. FH (02:24:24): All right. SM (02:24:25): You have a great day. FH (02:24:26): All right. Thanks a million. SM (02:24:27): And thanks for serving our country, because you did a great job. FH (02:24:30): Well, thank you. That is very generous of you. Thank you. SM (02:24:33): Yep. Bye now. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Senator Fred Harris Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Harris, Fred R., 1930- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Legislators—United States--Oklahoma; College teachers; Harris, Fred R., 1930--Interviews Description An account of the resource Fred Harris is a former Democratic United States Senator elected twice from the state of Oklahoma. Harris received his Bachelor and Law degree from the University of Oklahoma. He won a special election in 1964, succeeding Robert S. Kerr. In 1976, he became a professor of Political Science at the University of New Mexico. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-07-01 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.128a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.128b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 144:35 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4c1d5cc5d92084df980803ebff652780.jpg 2021b16fb5f19d50a5652641d521ad7b https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a89bfb76433dc4421cefb44fec636591.mp3 5dcc4d932bfa66d4feb66eed88f7479a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-10-07 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed David Hume Kennerly Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;David Hume Kennerly is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and photojournalist. His portfolio includes photographs taken of the Vietnam War, Cambodia, East Pakistani refugees near Calcutta, and the Ali-Frazier fight in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Kennerly photographed every American president since Richard Nixon.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">David Hume Kennerly is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and photojournalist. His portfolio includes photographs taken of the Vietnam War, Cambodia, East Pakistani refugees near Calcutta, and the Ali-Frazier fight in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Kennerly photographed every American president since Richard Nixon.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Photography; Vietnam War; War photography; Rolling Stones; Supremes; Miles Davis; Ollie F. Atkins; Time Magazine; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Vietnam Memorial; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Joe Frazier; San Francisco State; Protest; Rock n' Roll; Healing.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Photography; Vietnam War; War photography; Rolling Stones; Supremes; Miles Davis; Ollie F. Atkins; Time Magazine; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Vietnam Memorial; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Joe Frazier; San Francisco State; Protest; Rock n' Roll; Healing.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 237:33 Subject LCSH Photographers; Photojournalists; Kennerly, David Hume, 1947--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: David Hume Kennerly Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 7 October 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Testing one, two. Step two. I know some people I have interviewed have been on the cell phone and then their cell phone starts to go and then they go on the landline. So anyway. DK (00:00:15): This works. I hear you fine. SM (00:00:19): Okay. First question I always ask and I really want to ask you is the beginning, how you really became a photographer as a young man or a young kid. Your early years, the influence of your parents and your teachers, your high school years, where your love for photography first began. DK (00:00:41): Well, I am a native of Roseburg, Oregon, which is a really small town. It was called the timber capital of the nation, right in the middle of the forest in Douglas County. And I grew up in a place that I really wanted to get out of. I do not know, I had that feeling from way back when, I do not know exactly when it started. But my dad was a traveling salesman and so I would go around with him every now and then, particularly up to Portland, nothing exotic. But I got to look at the big city after my little town of 10,000 people in the whole area or something like that, I realized that there was a big world out there. And I had taken an early interest in photography, and when I worked on the student newspaper called The Orange 'R, my first photo published was in 1963, and I think I was a sophomore in high school then. And that really made an impact on me, seeing the work I had done. It was not a very good picture, but as I recall, it was a baseball player coming across home place. And on the scale of good photos, it was about a one on a one-to-ten scale. But what it did was it really got me excited about photography, and I learned how to shoot and process. I learned with a Speed Graphic camera. Actually, it was probably a Crown Graphic 4x5, and you only had a holder, it was two frames. And so, I can see why the old-style photographers were so good at getting the moment because they had to get it, you could not just turn the motor drive on and take a lot of pictures. So I learned the business the old-fashioned way, which was one shot at a time and you better get it right. And I started getting better at it. Then we moved from Roseburg up to West Linn, which is a suburb of Portland, in midway my junior year. And a lot of people would have really been terrified, angry, resentful about having their parents uproot them at that point, but I was deliriously happy about leaving this little town. And I convinced the people who were running the newspaper at West Linn High School that I should be on the staff and all that. And I pretty well sold myself as a much better photographer than I was. SM (00:03:52): [Inaudible]. DK (00:03:54): But at that point, because I was close to Portland, I had a lot more access to bigger stories and things were happening. And to shorthand it all, my senior year in high school, I was working on two local newspapers, small papers, one on Lake Oswego and the other in Oregon City. And my big score was I had a picture of a fire in Lake Oswego that was on the front page of the Oregon Journal, which was the big afternoon paper in Portland, and that really did it. I was fiercely determined to become a professional photographer probably from the time I was a junior in high school. And certainly by the time I was a senior, I was actually getting paid to take pictures for a local paper. It was not much. And when I graduated, I had a full scholarship to Portland State College, now University, and it was a working scholarship to take pictures for the paper. And that did not last too long. I had my eyes set on right down the street, literally two blocks, on the Oregonian and Journal. After I graduated from high school, I worked in a flower mill to get enough money to buy good cameras, and that had two effects. One, to help me buy the cameras. And the second was I knew I was not cut out for common labor, so I have great respect for those who do it, but it was not for me. And that fall, I started college but I was already trying to get into the Oregon Journal. And so later that year I was, I would have to think about this precisely... I was hired by the journal. I was a part-timer when I was 18 years old and while I was still going to school. I left school. I went to school for about a half hour and if it was dog years, because I had got a staff job on the Oregon's Journal, which was a huge thing. And I think the youngest photographer was probably 50 years old. So I worked and at that point, my career took off. I mean, there was no question about it. And I took a leave in (19)67, to go six months in the active duty as a National Guard. So I went to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri for basic training, then Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indianapolis after that, and then came back. And when I returned, I got a job on the Oregonian, which remains to this day as a very good newspaper. And then I was offered a job by UPI to work in Los Angeles in November in (19)67. I remember this because I had pulled up stakes and moved down to LA for UPI. And at that point, I was 20 years old and was really, I think probably ahead of almost anybody else my age in terms of working in the newspaper business. But all this is leading up to why I went to Vietnam. I mean, I was in UPI through (19)68 in Los Angeles. I was at the Ambassador Hotel the night Robert Kennedy was shot. And then I was offered a chance to move back to New York early (19)69, and I covered the World Series with the Mets that year and a lot of local news. I mean, working in New York is just the best place on earth for a news photographer. It's just [inaudible] and it was very exciting to me. And plus, it is the big leagues of photography. You had all these local newspaper guys [inaudible]. And it was still getting toward the last of the good old days of photography, certainly being digital by a long shot. And I mean the big innovation of photography was really going from the 4x5 to the 45 millimeter. That was as important a revolution I think, as going from film to digital. I mean, the digital's probably had a much bigger impact overall. But when you think about it, that small little image, which was poo pooed by the old guys. But when you look back at the Erich Salomon's back into the (19)30s, was shooting with that and it gave them much more versatility and discretion in their photography. So, I had already migrated to 35 millimeter as a senior in high school. And so, I went to New York and then I was offered a position at UPI in Washington DC, which was really the prime bureau for the wire service because of the White House, [inaudible]. The center of the power of the Earth was really Washington DC, and it was a very big deal. And I just saw it the other day, a certificate. I had my first ride on Air Force One when I was 23 years old as a member of the White House travel pool. SM (00:10:42): David, I want you to stop right there because I am going to go into some questions on that period in a couple minutes, but I want to go back to a second question. You are a- DK (00:10:56): Let me back up just a touch too. SM (00:10:57): Uh-huh. DK (00:10:58): Part of my job at UPI, because it was 1967, (19)68, there were a lot of anti-war protests going on. And even earlier than that, up in Portland, I was covering that side of things. Not as much as I probably would have liked, just because State College particularly was a high college. That had a lot to do with the anti-war movement. And the student body was very divided in terms of conservative, liberal. But I was right, because it started from the middle of that, so I was seeing a lot of the big protests. And then particularly when I got to Washington DC and that is where you can ask me questions, but I moved there and early (19)70, I believe. That sounds about right, or maybe in late (19)69. It was probably late (19)69, I do not remember precisely. And obviously Richard Nixon had just become president and it was a whole new ball game from the LBJ time, and of course the anti-war protests were building and building. And that was the home front of connection to Vietnam, certainly at that point. SM (00:12:33): You are a frontline Boomer. And when I say that, you were born in (19)47, and the frontline Boomers are really those born between (19)46 and (19)56. Because the Boomer generation's defined as the- DK (00:12:45): It's even more. I would say (19)46 to early (19)50, even (19)51, (19)52, because we were the ones looking down the barrels of this Vietnam War. Having graduated (19)65, which is a key date, (19)64. So, the Clinton, Bush, Gore guys were all born in (19)46, and they all dodged the draft essentially. No, Al Gore did. Strike that comment. SM (00:13:20): Yeah, he went to Vietnam. DK (00:13:21): Bush went in the National Guard and was a pilot, Clinton dodged the draft, and Gore went over to Vietnam, even though just for not a long time, but I always respected him for doing it. His dad definitely could have gotten out of that. And he was not a fighter, but he was like, "So what?" He went over, and I do not think he was there very long. But that group, me and the two years afterwards, I mean the crucible was the ones that graduated (19)64, (19)65, (19)66, (19)67, pretty much those four. Maybe even (19)68, although it was starting to draw back a little bit. But it was a five-year sweet spot, for getting your ass at Vietnam as a soldier. And part of my rationale in going into the National Guard was, I have always had a difficulty with authority and people telling me what to do. And so, I think I got into the National Guard, I was not opposed to war or anything like that. I was not even afraid of going to Vietnam per se, I just did not want to go as an army guy. And as a result of my being in the newspaper business, I had met Tom McCall, who was the Governor of Oregon at the Lime. Very colorful, interesting character. And just as luck would have it, I was over at covering something that he was doing visiting the Portland National Guard headquarters. And I had known McCall just by, he was really friendly with the press. And so I asked him to introduce me to the general who's in charge. And then later I went back over to Steve and said, "I am really interested in going into the National Guard, could I get my name on the list?" And so I had no family input at all. I mean, I looked at the Dan Flails and the other people who manage some family connections they get... And also, I do not even think it was a big waiting list there. It probably could have just happened [inaudible]. But I did, in my own way, I probably pulled strings for myself. And so, I got into the National Guard, went off and did my thing for the six months and then post for two weeks [inaudible]. The bigger problem I had then was getting out of the Army in order to go to the war, and that happened when I was in Washington DC. Do you have some questions? I will tell you what my motivation was. Do you have another question? SM (00:16:32): Yeah. Did you identify yourself as a member of the Boomer generation, and do you like that term? DK (00:16:39): I do not really care about the term one way or the other. No, I do not think any of us did. It's funny, one of my late close friends was Jeff MacNelly, the Cartoonist. And when I did a book, well I have done a few, but one of them was called Photo Op. And Jeff did the introduction to the book, Photo Op and he called it The Adventures of Baby Boomer: a Self-Centered Generation Comes of Age and Usually has the Name for it. To answer your question, no, I never thought of it enough. What was important to me, there were two things that I obviously I knew, I was 1-A in the draft and then I went to school. I think I got a student permit, but I did not want to stay in school. So being 1-A, and then I could be drafted. But my sole focus really was to become a news photographer, and that is what I was doing. And so really getting drafted to me, would have had a serious impact on that and I would not have been guaranteed to get a, although I probably would have become very prominent outside of the Army or whatever. In one way or another, I would have ended up in Vietnam no doubt, which did not bother me. But there was no guarantee I would get what I wanted. And so that is why I went the route of getting in the National Guard. Now the National Guard, it is almost a certain, with all those units being called up though, there is no hedge against going off to several tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever. But back then it was, if you got in the National Guard or the Reserves, the chances are you were not going to go to Vietnam. So I did that. I was always calculated. Everything I have done in my career has been really about the career. Obviously, I was not afraid to go to Vietnam. So when I moved to Washington, what was happening at that point, and I can even go back and give you a single image that changed my life. Well, there is one other thing that happened in (19)66 when I was on the Oregon Journal, Robert Kennedy came to town campaigning for the local Democratic Congressional candidate. In fact, I think Edith Green was a member of Congress then, and one of the few women that had been in Congress. And I met Bill Eppridge and Steve Shapiro, two really great photographers. Bill was a LIFE photographer. And I was subjected to one of the great politicians of all time was Robert Kennedy, and it had not been that long ago that his brother had been killed. I think was in Roseburg then, I must have been. But I so vividly recall that, and I had never seen John F. Kennedy. I never saw him. So there was Robert Kennedy, and I had a really good spot. [inaudible] the LIFE guy showed me where to go, and it was very nice. But it is an image I will never forget. But that whole entourage, all the people and the two photographers and some national guys were with him. And this little makeshift motorcade went out to the airport. And back in those days, just go out onto the ramp, onto the field. So Kennedy went on. But what really struck me was these two photographers got on the plane and the door closed, then the plane backs out. It was like the final scene in Casablanca, where I am standing alone and the plane goes off into the far. And I wanted to be on that plane. I had such a visceral reaction to that. And here I was, I have never really been a small-town guy mentally. I mean, I think I am in terms of how I look at things, but I always wanted a bigger picture. And I think because of that moment, it really then made me to follow the path of covering politics. Of course, politics, was very closely aligned with war because the people, politicians sitting in a room somewhere [inaudible]. That is just how it goes. And that is a fascinating thing to know and to see, and very few people have seen it. When was the decision made to go to war here or to end the war there. But then the year before that, and I am skipping around here but now I am just thinking about, there was a story, a photo essay by Larry Burrows at LIFE magazine, and it was called Yankee Papa 13. And it was the story of a young sergeant Marine. It was really a day in the life, following this guy around. And the first images of them were sitting on the helicopter with his machine gun, and he has a huge smile on his face and all that. And what happened during the course of that day was that they went into rescue another chopper that is been shot down, so one of the crew people was killed. And the cover picture was this guy, the sergeant who a dead Marine laying in the foreground. It is just a very dramatic photo. But the most compelling image from that whole photographs, that still remains one of the great photo essays of war, was a very happy sergeant at the beginning. The last frame in the story was him in a little warehouse or something, crying with his head down, and was just all alone. It was just one image, even more than the cover image, this is considered a great photograph by me and others, but I think the more poignant on it was the one that got me. And between Robert Kennedy and Larry Burrows pictures, those two roads intersected for me. SM (00:24:07): And you were labeled, and I think I read that people call you a political photographer too. And you are proud of that fact, are not you? DK (00:24:15): Well, I do not mind that. I mean, the one term I just do not like really is journalist because it feels like changing janitors to sanitation engineers. It is the same thing to me. I am a photographer, I am a wired guy essentially. I mean, it really means you are the utility outfielder. You can cover anything, anytime, anywhere, whatever. Does not make any difference. "This is a food picture? Okay, I can do that." SM (00:24:47): I interviewed another photographer, a video maker a couple days ago who said she considered her camera a weapon because the pictures taken are an eyewitness account of what really happened on a particular day at a particular time for history's sake. No government can hide the truth. And as she said, "Pictures verify the truth so that nobody can say it did not happen." Do you consider your camera a weapon? DK (00:25:19): No, I do not think so. I mean, there is a great documentary which you must see called An Unlikely Weapon. Which is about Eddie Adams, the guy who took the picture of the General Loan shooting a DC in the head. SM (00:25:42): Oh, yes. DK (00:25:44): That documentary is an essential viewing for you, and it's called An Unlikely Weapon. I mean, maybe Eddie would have agreed to that. I do not look at it that way. I am not an activist. She's more of an activist, obviously. I am old-fashioned news guy, brought up in the business to be an objective observer as much as that is possible by people who really believed in that stuff. Nowadays, the lines have been so horribly blurred by comments like that, this weapon thing. I mean, I get it. And I have always thought that the power of photography is shedding the light and the corners that you would not otherwise see, and I am all for it. I mean, that is what journalism is really, or it should be. But it's not an activist weapon for me. I have never been that, I do not know, [inaudible]. SM (00:26:47): Yeah. Well, this person was an activist too. DK (00:26:52): Right. And that is fine. Everybody does it for their own reason. I mean, Jim Nachtwey is an activist, but he is a great photographer and he would be the first to admit that his camera could influence social change. And there have been a lot of great photographers, and that was their mission. Eugene Richard. Unabashedly so, I am just not like that. That is all. I mean, I am criticized for being who I am because I do not take a more political view of things. But I had it drummed into me. In fact, when I am asked if I am a Democrat or Republican, I say I am a photographer. SM (00:27:34): Very good. I love that response. DK (00:27:39): But that is very fouled out. I mean, I am no different now than I was before. And I worked in a Republican administration, but I honestly, I would have that same relationship with a Democrat who became president. I would have worked for him. It did not matter. In fact, let us fast you forward. By the way, the President Ford one. I had been working for him for three or four months. We're alone in the Oval Office talking about how he had been a good Republican all of his career and all he wanted was to be Speaker of the House. And there he was in the Oval Office and he looked at me and said, "I have never asked you. Are you a Republican or a Democrat?" Then he said, "Do not answer that." He did not give a shit. But that was our relationship. It was a human relationship, not a political relationship. And I think one of the problems now is that everything is so political. And even if you declare anything. If you say, "I am for Jerry Brown," or, "Meg Whitman," just say here in California now, it's like, "How can you do that? You're such a dumb shit." Whatever point of view you had, it just would not make any difference. And so I do think pictures speak for themselves, and this idea of the camera as a weapon, I think is contradictory to be honest with you, from my point of view anyway. But that is someone else's point of view. That is what they said, that is fine. We all do our own thing and I am all for it. So back to my path to Vietnam because I can remember, and there's another movie analogy here which is equally old-fashioned. But because I was the Baby-Boomer generation without even thinking of it that way, all I knew was that kids that I had gone to high school with and graduated, now were going to Vietnam and getting killed. And I also saw the photographs, and arching back to Larry Burrows, 1965 was early on in the war, but already these striking images are being made by great photographers. From Robert Capa, who was the first photographer killed in Vietnam 1954, released in that conflict, I guess where you would put a pin in that somehow. But I am seeing Eddie Adams' photographs of General Loan shooting the guy. I am seeing John Olson's pictures of the fighting [inaudible]. Catherine Leroy's photographs, and Sawada's picture of UPI, won a Pulitzer of the woman with her family coming across the river. And Toshio Sakai's picture won a Pulitzer for UPI. [inaudible 00:30:52] won the Pulitzer. Malcolm Browne for Burning Monk. And all these fabulous, probably a bad word, but these fantastic, yes, amazing photographs are being taken off to his war. And I am on the sidelines and the people fighting the war were my age. And basically, the photographers, I think for the most part were a little bit older. Although John Olson and I are the same age. He was with Stars and Stripes at the time. But all of a sudden, I started feeling like, and you will understand this analogy, although no one else does. I gave a lecture at USC the other day, they had no idea what I was talking about. But I was like, "I felt like Mr. Roberts on the supply ship watching the destroyers sail into battle." SM (00:31:48): I know that feeling. DK (00:31:49): "On the supply ship in the backwater and wanted, as a naval officer, to be on a destroyer, to be in the action, to be on the front line of what was happening." And so, I had this rather profound moment where I felt like I am going to miss the biggest story of my life and it is my generation's story. And if I do not go, I will never forgive myself. And I know that is how I felt about it. It was not to go out there for the glory of being a combat photographer. So, I started lobbying the guys in New York. And here I was, I already was doing a job that most people would go to a war in order to try to get something like this, to cover the White House, which I found boring. And it was also restricting [inaudible]. And I quite frankly hated it. And so, I just felt that I had to go to Vietnam, and so I convinced UPI to send me. And now this was late (19)70, and then I was going to be then going over early (19)71. And things were drawing down, the American involvement was being cut back, but there was still a lot of action. So they decided to send me over there. I was being such a pain in the ass about it that it was better for them to send me over than to listen to all my bullshit all the time. And so, the last assignment I had covered before I left for Vietnam was the Ali, Frazier fight at Madison Square Garden in March 8th, 1971. And what is ironic about that fight is that the next day was my birthday, March 9th, and I had the front page of New York... DK (00:34:03): I had the front page of New York Times, New York Daily News, practically every paper in the country. I was the only photographer that got the photo of Ali in mid-air, getting knocked down on the 15th round. SM (00:34:11): Wow. DK (00:34:12): What's funny is that picture is also part of my Pulitzer Prize portfolio, which was for photography. It was not just Vietnam, it was the whole year of 1971. It was coverage from that year. The centerpiece was Vietnam, but I also covered the India-Pakistan war, and I was in Cambodia. Then that fight too, which would be my outgoing thing. What happened before I got over there was that my photo hero, whom I had never met, along with Kent Potter of UPI, whom I was going to be replacing in Vietnam, and Henri Huet of AP and Japanese photographer, Shimamoto, I think his name was, of Newsweek, were on a helicopter that was shot down over Laos in the Lam Son 719 strike invasion, and were all killed. I got to be honest with you, that scared the shit out of me. SM (00:35:16): Yeah. DK (00:35:18): That all of a sudden, even though I did not know Burrows, I was going to replace Kent Potter, Larry Burrows was really my motivation or his photos were the foundation of my interest and respect for war photography. All of a sudden, all these guys are dead. Henri Huet was one of the great survivors, AP guy, French Vietnamese guy. All of a sudden, I did not have second thoughts, but it really scared me. I was like, wow. It increased my resolve to do it. It was not like I was not going to do it, but it really made it... It was not just a pedestrian thing at that point. It was really now a serious matter. Pedestrian is not the right word. It was something that I had not thought about that much. Yes, you can get killed. I knew that conceptually, but when I really saw it happen, then that was a different deal. I ended up in Vietnam and probably got there the end of March, 1971, stayed for a little over two years. SM (00:36:40): Yeah, you were right in the combat zone. I have seen your pictures. I have the book, I think it is Shooter. [inaudible]. DK (00:36:48): Shooter was the first one. Yeah, Shooter, and then there was a photo op for those cartoons of McNally are in there. SM (00:36:56): Right. You took some unbelievable shots. I am asking, do you remember the exact moment? You probably do. You took a lot of pictures, but the single soldier on the hill, which was an unbelievable shot. You took another shot of, it was kind of a jungle, and you could see through the jungle, the guy walking through there. DK (00:37:17): That was a different place. Actually, those pictures, they are a good combination because one of them just shows the lush area in which we were operating sometimes, or just a blown away hillside. The guy walking over the hillside was the photograph singled out from my portfolio, showing the loneliness, desolation of war. That was a good picture. I remember the day I shot it because it was so dangerous up there. That is the contradictory part of it, is you do not really see that many good combat action pictures because everybody's down. It is really aftermath or either the prequel or the sequel. It is never the main act usually. SM (00:38:18): You were right out there with them, and they accepted you. In that particular war, photographers could go right with the guys. I know Joe Galloway got on a helicopter for the Ia Drang valley when he was a reporter. You ate the same food, you had the same risks. Did you ever feel that you had, like Joe did, that you had to pick up a gun to save your life? Ever have that experience? DK (00:38:44): Yeah, I did. I did. It was really just ... As a kid in Oregon, I grew up shooting, hunting, everything from pheasants to quail, occasionally deer, which I never liked doing that much, but I was a good shot. In fact, I had an expert ... When I was in the army, I was an expert rifleman because I knew how to shoot. It was no big deal to me, just a different kind of a gun or weapon, I should say. Get your ass kicked the saying gun. Anyway, I have never been pacifist in that regard at all. I liked the hunt. I used to, I do not now. Nothing against it. One night I was at a place that was going to be overrun by a Vietcong attack, and somebody shoved a gun into my hand, and I was shooting back because it was nighttime. During the day, I would not have done it because I could have been taking pictures. But at night, if we were overrun, I was going to die. Self-preservation takes the priority over any other item really. SM (00:40:06): What were some of your other favorite shots in Vietnam? DK (00:40:10): That was unusual. Before, apparently, there were some photographers who would carry guns with them. I never did that. I thought that was a mistake. SM (00:40:19): Were there other favorite shots that you took in Vietnam that stick out? DK (00:40:24): Another one ... The only reason I know what photos are in the Pulitzer portfolios ... I was in Vietnam when they announced that award, and I had not even known I had been nominated for it. You can imagine the shock. There was definitely no anxiety because if I had not won, I never would have known I had been entered. They entered the editors at UPI, Larry DeSantis and Bob Schnitzlein were the two guys that did it. When I heard about it, then I was being asked all these questions about the pictures. I had no idea. I did not know. It was only about three years ago, I went up to Columbia where they had the Pulitzer archives and everything, and they had the box there with my entry in it. I went into the box, and I looked at it. Half the pictures. I did not even realize were in the portfolio. I mean you could just as easily say the photo of Ali won the Pulitzer prize, but the one they picked out, the picture of the guy going over the hillside was the one. That got published widely because of that. The citation said the pictures show the loneliness, the desperation of war. There were all these other pictures in there. One of them was a combat action picture of these two soldiers evacuating, carrying a wounded comrade off the battlefield. Another picture I always liked was near Khe Sanh, although Khe Sanh was [inaudible] as we knew it, but it was still a dicey area up there. The soldier bent over a machine gun with a cross dangling from his neck, and that was a good visual. It was symbolic too. The guy, the lone soldier, it was another lone soldier really. Much has been written about combat is 99 percent boredom and 1 percent sheer terror. That is not the quote, and that is it. You sit around, and you're anxious and tired and nervous about what might happen, and sometimes it does. To me, many times the anticipation of what might happen was worse than what really did. Not always, but sometimes. The cover picture of Shooter was during a very serious firefight and Dirck Halstead took that picture. He's another guy you should talk to by the way. SM (00:43:44): Yeah, I saw that. Do you think he would respond to talk to me? DK (00:43:47): Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hehas been teaching down at UT. He would be a great guy for you to talk to because he was there when the Marines landed in [inaudible]. Eddie Adams was there too. So Dirck can give you ... He was there when the war ended. Perfect guy. He is very articulate about it too. A good storyteller and has a really interesting point of view about it. He is an old-fashioned photographer like me, former wire guy. He and I worked together at UPI. He is the godfather of my eldest son and really was my mentor. I will give you his contact info. I am sure he will be happy to talk to you. I would do it ... Dirck's probably 10 years older than me, but he has got a ... You have guy who was there when the Marines landed and was there when they lifted off from the embassy. SM (00:44:46): In 1975, yeah. DK (00:44:53): All that and everything in between. Dirck shot that picture of me, and that was one of those occasions where we almost did not get out there alive. Galloway, Joe's an old friend and his Ia Drang experiences, I cannot imagine anything more terrifying than that. Everybody had their own war. It is like if you talk to a hundred people, you get a hundred different stories and points of view. If you walked down the street in a village, and you took a right turn instead of a left turn, you went into a different story than if you had gone the other way. It is like everybody's story was personal. When people write about the big picture ... There are some writers who have done good works that were not there because they ... It is like being a political cartoonist. You do not have to be there to put it into perspective necessarily, but the people who were there, like Bernard Fall, still to this day, one of the best books on Vietnam, Hell is a Very Small Place, and guys like ... It goes on and on, Halverson and other people. SM (00:46:16): Neil Sheehan. DK (00:46:19): Sheehan is another former UPI guy. The book he wrote, A Bright Shining Lie, that is one of the good [inaudible]. SM (00:46:31): Stanley Karnow's Vietnam, too, was another great one. DK (00:46:34): What is that? SM (00:46:35): Stanley Karnow's Vietnam. DK (00:46:42): There are just tons of good ones. To me, the best ones are by the people who were there, of course because it is like being a good photographer somewhere, where you can translate what you see, and a good writer can do it with words. Rarely do the two come together. I see writing as ... It is so difficult, but I wrote Shooter. Everything I have ever done, I have written myself. It's the good news and the bad news probably. SM (00:47:16): What was- DK (00:47:18): Observations are really ... The marriage of those two is really great. Or you will take a good photo like Phillip Jones Griffith, who did Vietnam Inc I think it was, but writing ruined a really good bunch of pictures to me because it was so biased. It detracted from the photos. Sometimes you just should let the pictures tell the story and stand out of the way. SM (00:47:52): Good point. DK (00:47:52): By interjecting opinions, Philip, who was a really good photographer, did that. You should look at that book and see what I mean. SM (00:48:05): One question I have here is, and last one really on Vietnam, was what was Vietnam like when you were there? Did you see the divisions that were taking place in America between black and white, the issue of the drug culture, soldiers questioning their leaders and their strategy, believing that the war was a mistake while they were fighting it? What did you see and hear on the bases and in combat? Was what was happening in America happening there? Were the troops also aware of the student protests and even the Vietnam veterans against the war became a very big topic. DK (00:48:44): Yeah, but when you boiled it down, those kind of ... Number one, I got there ... This is kind of a funny story, but Eddie Adams, who was a prime competitor of mine because he was AP, I was UPI, before I left for Vietnam, he told me that I was too late, all the good pictures had been taken. One of my highest possessions is that after I won the Pulitzer Prize, that Eddie sent me a cable that said, "I guess I was wrong. Congratulations." SM (00:49:35): Well, that is an anecdote. DK (00:49:35): For him to do that was a very begrudging act too. I will say it. I did not see it so much. I was on fire base for now, but again, they were drawing down Americans there at that point. It was not the (19)69, (19)70, that was really (19)67, (19)68, (19)69, were probably the three biggest years, and then they started pulling them back in. The Americans were becoming more in an advisory role, not so much frontline combat, a little bit. I mainly covered the Vietnamese side, so I do not recall really ... You would see guys wearing peace symbols and all that to some degree. The black soldiers in my estimation got along fine with their white... SM (00:50:45): What is really amazing, you have this on your website, and it is the quote from James Earl Jones, and said that, "David Hume Kennerly is like Forrest Gump, except he was really there." You seem to be everywhere. You start out in those early years, taking pictures of musical entertainers like the Rolling Stones and The Supremes and Miles Davis, unbelievable stuff. Those are icons of the Boomer Generation. DK (00:51:20): I know, but you know what, I never ... this is kind of bizarre actually. I once had a ... By the way, I think James was just being funny. It was a funny quote that ... I appreciate it obviously, but I think I would be more of a [inaudible] thing surely. This little remote voice, the guy in the background, that it is always critical events that I have a camera with me. It could have gone a lot of different ways for me because I worked nights at the Oregon Journal. I guess if I were ... The Rolling Stones' first trip to America, The Supremes, they got all the big acts at the Portland Coliseum. Igor Stravinsky, Miles Davis. Some of the pictures I did in (19)66 were just these ... Not that they were the greatest shots, but they were good pictures, but nothing better. I could very well have taken that Rolling Stone magazine route, that if I really had an interest in rock and roll and music and that whole lifestyle and everything, I could have gone down a different road just like the left or the right in Vietnam. Just depends on the fate would have it. I was so concentrated on me, more important things, it was not sports photography. I was pretty good at that too. It was not rock and roll or certainly not entertainers or movie stars. Did not interest me. The conversations I had with politicians were always much more interesting than movie stars. When I look through my photos and my experiences with photographing like a film celebrity of some kind, or a Robert Kennedy or a Bill Clinton or whomever, that the best stories I have almost always had something to do with substantive matters, not with the illusory Ones.0 when I photographed celebrities, it turns out to be an empty box of memories usually, outside of a few good pictures of them, because I just do not recall anything that interesting about them. That is not to be critical, but itis why I never did the showbiz route or the rock and roll route. It would have been more fun than getting shot at in Vietnam or slogging through a rice paddy or being dehydrated in India-Pakistan war, almost getting killed. Anything. Would have been more fun than that, but that is what I wanted to do. SM (00:54:15): A couple things, you covered the POWs when the last POWs were coming home from the war. I think that was (19)73. You went to Hanoi I believe. DK (00:54:28): That right, and that was the last... SM (00:54:29): That is a major, major happening, and then that picture that you took in Cambodia, the little girl. We knew what was happening with the Khmer Rouge. I think it is really ... When you state underneath your picture you do not know if she even survived the onslaught of the Khmer Rouge. That is an unbelievable picture. DK (00:54:54): That one also won a World Press contest. That won portrait division of World Press in (19)76. It was taken in (19)75, right before Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge, with the dog tag and all that. I have no idea what happened, but I will tell you that picture in the haunting image category, that probably ... I think about that picture probably more than anything else I have done. SM (00:55:29): It is her eyes. It is her face. DK (00:55:35): It is really about the wars. It is not about the soldiers, the politicians, but really when these things happen, it is the kids and the innocents who suffer the most and have no idea what's going on or why all this is happening. It really is a brutal existence. I think that is why that picture has some resonance. SM (00:56:02): Did you fly to Hanoi? How did you get the Hanoi to cover and take pictures of the POWs? DK (00:56:09): Well, they had let in actually ... That was two weeks after John McCain and that early group of POWs had been released. There was a prisoner of war facility called the Plantation. It was not the Hanoi Hilton, which had been downtown, an old French jail. That last group were some B-52 crew that had been shot down like six months earlier. They basically had been well treated compared to McCain and those other guys because the war was kind of grinding to a halt. They let a few select people in, and I flew in on a chartered Air WOW plane from Dien Bien into Hanoi. It was Walter Cronkite and his crew and a couple of other photographers, and they took us over and let us take pictures of these guys behind bars. Then they later bused them out to the military airport in Hanoi and released them. I got that, and yeah, it is a shocking situation to see these fellow Americans in their rice pajamas behind bars. I felt kind of self-conscious about taking pictures of them, but that was my job. SM (00:57:45): David, let me switch my tape here. I got to turn it over here. Hold on a second. Okay, let me see here. Hold on a second. All right. When I look at that quote from James Earl Jones, I kind of wrote down... Okay, I saw the movie Forrest Gump, and I saw Forest Gump in Vietnam and saw him with Richard Nixon, so I put down some of these, what I consider some of the major things that you did and the events you were at to take pictures. I know you have already talked about Bobby Kennedy, but the first one I wrote down here was when you took those pictures of Bobby at the Ambassador Hotel and all the atmosphere, the happiness. I saw it on TV. You were taking those pictures, but you did not go back into that area where he was shot, I guess, or did you? DK (00:58:47): Well, no. What happened was ... It is funny. It was sort of like the Ali-Frazier fight. The reason there are not any other pictures of him doing that V sign, he just raised his hand up and put it down. It was so fast, which I did not even realize until many years later when I saw the film. There was another photographer there from UPI, and we flipped a coin to see who would be up on the podium, and then follow him because he was going to another event. It was an overflow ballroom [inaudible] there. I lost the flip, so my friend Ron Bennett went back with him. That is normally how you cover stuff, somebody's on the riser, somebody's closer in, or I would have been back there with him, and I have no idea what would have happened if I would have gotten the pictures. I have no idea. The one thing I knew was I always had a flash. Again, going back to that be prepared news shooter thing. Anyway, he went back. Then when I heard what had happened, just all of a sudden everything changed, and someone said a shooting had happened and all the rumors. I went out in the back, and the ambulance was there, and I got a picture of Ethel in the back of the ambulance because the instinct is just go right toward the action, whatever it is. Try to get it. It really was a horrible night. It was actually someone that I had ... I had been upstairs with him. I have a picture of me and Bobby Kennedy that was taken less than an hour before he was shot. Upstairs, I was invited up because I knew Bill Etheridge was there. That goes back two years. He was there with him. They had that incredibly haunting photo they took in there of the ... That was a TV light and just that guy, the waiter bending over him. SM (01:01:04): Yes-yes. DK (01:01:07): I think it was so personal, really, that somebody I would met and talked to had now been shot. That was the [inaudible]. SM (01:01:15): Did you hear the bullets? DK (01:01:17): No. No. SM (01:01:18): Okay. DK (01:01:18): I did not. Big crowd there, a lot of people there. SM (01:01:24): Yeah. The second one that I brought up was, you mentioned it, was the coverage of the New York Mets and everybody, from last to first. Being an Atlanta Braves fan and them knocking off my Atlanta Braves in the, I think it was the best of five series at Shea Stadium. Covering that event, here it is in the 19(19)60s with all the problems, and here you have got this team who was atrocious, and then all of a sudden, the next year they become world champs. What a story. DK (01:01:59): The amazing Mets. SM (01:02:02): Did you get to know all the players? DK (01:02:04): I covered them all year. As part of a UPI photographer, sports was always one of the main things you had to shoot. Yeah, I had the first base dugout position during the World Series and- SM (01:02:19): Oh my gosh. DK (01:02:20): I was only 23 years old. I was sitting there next to Sports Illustrated guys. It was not like now, where you have 10 jillion photographers. Then it was like AP, UPI, New York Times, the Daily News, Sports Illustrated at that point. There were not that many. There Was third base dugout, first base dugout, these positions right next, so there were designated spots, but those were the best. You could not have a better place to see the ballgame, but all I am worried about is the pictures of it. To me, it's like, okay, it is the World Series. That ramps up the intensity of the moment, but I have always responded well to that. The pressure never got in the way of a good picture. SM (01:03:19): When I saw that you had taken pictures, I was just doing flashbacks of (19)69 because the Cubs were doing so well, and then they overtook the Cubs, and then they beat the Braves, and they beat the Orioles in the World, Series. When you have like Gil Hodges, and then you had Seaver, Koosman, Ryan, Mays, Charles, Kranepool, Jones, Agee, Swoboda, Weis, Grote, and JC Martin, Gentry. I will never forget Wayne Garrett. He was on the team, and he hit a home run off Pat Jarvis in the Braves Series. DK (01:03:53): I have a baseball signed by all those guys you just mentioned. SM (01:03:57): Wow. DK (01:03:58): At the time, including Gil Hodges and Tom Seaver, Nolan Ryan, Yogi Berra was their coach. They had Donn Clendenon. SM (01:04:11): Oh, first base, yes. DK (01:04:15): Right. I had a lot of really good pictures, and one of the best was after the whole thing was over with. I have a picture of Tom Seaver, and I think it was Gary Gentry. They came out after everybody left, and the field had been torn up. There were just these pieces of sod everywhere. People were just crazy. He's still got his uniform on, his shirt out, and he's like standing on the pitcher's mound, looking down. I was the only person that was out there. That picture stands out in my mind, the aftermath of it all, in a real unusual situation, which has been emblematic of my kind of photography. I have always been attracted to sort of the Pulitzer thing, loneliness, desolation. My book, Photo du Jour, you see a lot of that in there, picture a day in the year 2000. That is all part of it. SM (01:05:20): Yeah. Then you covered the resignation of Spiro Agnew, and then of course, the selection of Gerald Ford to be the VP. Your experience of taking that picture with Time Magazine, and you began your close relationship with President Ford. Could you talk about covering Agnew's and then of course that whole period of Nixon leaving? DK (01:05:45): When I came back from Vietnam, Watergate was the big story. I came back in, not sure exactly when, but I think it was like June, July, somewhere. I made a detour. I left Vietnam, although I kept going back. I lived for a while in Hong Kong, a while in Bangkok and then Paris and then back to the States and really, right into the full-frontal hurricane that was Watergate. Agnew was part of that story, although he was not really related to Watergate per se, but it was all part of the trouble that was brewing. Time Magazine assigned me to go follow him around, which was not easy because he hated the press for one thing. Those nattering nabobs of negativism. SM (01:06:51): Yes. DK (01:06:51): You know who wrote that? SM (01:06:53): Pat Buchanan? DK (01:06:53): Yep. SM (01:06:54): Yeah, I figured. Yep. DK (01:06:57): Actually, Agnew, it was impressive he could even say that. That is not [inaudible]. Anyway, I cannot say it. Then he resigned, and my classic photo of him was really the day after he resigned, in the back of the limo. It was up in Maryland. It was actually a funeral, might have been for his mother or something. That picture ran in Time. I cannot remember how much after that, not too long after, Nixon designated Ford. As I recall, it was like a Friday afternoon. I went up to take his picture up at the House. He was minority leader of the House and very friendly. Let me come in, said you're wasting your time. I took this picture with window light. That night, Nixon announced him- And then that night Nixon announced Tim, and then my picture was the cover of the magazine, the new number two, at which point Time assigned me full-time to cover Ford, which really the glory days of magazine journalism because nowadays Time Magazine does not even cover overseas presidential trips. The budgeting has gotten so bad. There are a lot of pictures not being taken as we speak every minute, every hour, because of budgetary problems in the business. Newsweek is going under us. US News is really more about lists of big colleges or hospitals. Time still remains number one, but there's no way... And somebody commented on this recently, that looking back through all my photographs, everything from Vietnam to the Middle East to Jonestown to whatever it is, that there is no way that a publication would send people off to cover stories like that anymore. As an individual [inaudible], there is no way. They cannot afford it and they do not even think about it, and honestly, I think everybody is settling for a lot less now in terms of photographic quality. And it's being replaced by somebody with a flip camera or a camera phone, snap, and that is good enough. And that is really part of the deterioration of... It does not mean there are less good photographers out there, it is just they are not traveling into the center of big stories the way they used to. SM (01:09:56): You became so close to President Ford and his family because he picked you as his personal photographer. And I love the terms that you gave them before you took that position, is that he would report directly to him, which was I think very important in that relationship. When you look at the time that he became president, the boomer generation, it is maybe the most historic time in their lives because of Watergate and the pressure that President Ford had to be under after Nixon left. And when you look at all of these things, not only the resignation, but then he pardoned him and he had to go before Congress. He separated the United States from Vietnam on April 30th of (19)75. And then of course he lost to Jimmy Carter, and then there was the whole Ford Carter debate. I remember living in San Francisco at the time when he had that blunder about Eastern Europe, and then a lot of people made fun of him because he golfed and he would hit a golf ball into the yard. There is a lot of things during that timeframe, but what was it like being every day around this president with these such historic events happening right around you? DK (01:11:16): Well, going back to my initial conversation, I lecture all the time about... My latest, one of the lectures I gave, I did it over at the Aspen Institute, and this year was the presidential [inaudible] from Lincolnville [inaudible]. But I was only the third civilian chief White House photographer, and the first was Yoichi Okamoto with Lyndon Johnson who had great access that was really the standard by all of us who followed him. Well, maybe not all, but most of us had looked to Ollie or rather Yoichi as the gold standard in presidential photography. He was the godfather of White House photography for me. And then he was followed by Ollie Atkins, who had frankly no access and a really difficult period. It was like, "Okay Ollie, that is enough. A couple pictures and then you are out." And I knew this because I covered the Nixon White House at 27 years old, and as someone who would just come back from Vietnam and [inaudible] there, et cetera, et cetera. The White House photographer job did not mean that much to me to get it, just to sit around and have somebody tell me when I can go in and out of the Oval Office. The night that Ford became president sitting over in his house with Alexandria, just the two of us after he had a few family friends come by and he had asked me, invited me over and asked me to stay after everybody left. And we had this conversation in his living room, and he said, "Well, you were going to be White House photographer. How do you see that job?" And knowing what frustrations Ollie had, I said very directly to him that I would do it on two conditions. And that one is that I worked directly for him, meaning not for the press secretary or the chief of staff, that I report directly to him, and that I have total access to everything going on, whether it's national security, any kind of... Anything. I said, otherwise I was not interested just because why would I want to do that? I love working for Time Magazine, traveling around the world and taking pictures of interesting things. But he was looking at me while I said that and puffing on his pipe, and he said, "You do not want Air Force One on the weekends?' So that was it and the deal was done, really. And that was the atmosphere in which I worked for two and a half years, and I had access to everything, whether it was top secret meetings about the Soviet Union or whatever, and including... Which was a full circle for me, was being in the room when he pulled the plug on American involvement in Vietnam. And that was in the Roosevelt Room under a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt. It's one of the most important things that I took there, and you can imagine how highly classified that was because of the security of getting out the people that wanted to get out. And it was a very decisive moment, and just having been over there, I was there only a month earlier. In March I went with General Fred Weyand, who was looking to see if there's any way they could stem the tide of the advancing North Vietnamese. And so, I had been in Cambodia and Vietnam on a presidential mission really, and that was a hard one. I had a lot of friends over there, and after the fact I sponsored more than 20 Vietnamese, getting them out of camps after they had escaped from Vietnam and all of that. So, I had always been emotionally attached to Vietnam, but having said that, I have not been... I do not think, anyway, living in the Vietnam past, and I know a lot of people who have. It was both soldiers certainly, and a lot of news people who were there, photographer who were there, and just cannot seem to shake it loose. I mean, I literally moved on. When I was out of Vietnam, that was that. Not that I did not think about it. I did think about it, but to this day, I do not look at it as the greatest story I ever covered. It was certainly one of the most important. But I have been very fortunate that I have not lived in the Vietnam past. I know a lot of people who still do, and I feel bad for them. SM (01:16:55): Yeah. You were there, again, those three things he took over at the time of the resignation, the pardon, having to go before Congress, his commentaries there, and of course the separation from Vietnam, those were all just major happenings. Do you think history has been fair to President Ford in terms of when they talk about the boomer presidents, we talk about Eisenhower in the (19)50s, and we talk about John Kennedy and then we talk about LBJ and Nixon? And then some people will say, well, then we had the lightweight Gerald Ford, then we go to Carter who was a disaster, and then we get to the powerful Ronald Reagan and then Bill Clinton in the 90s and George... So just your thoughts on whether history has treated him fairly? DK (01:17:45): I think so. I think it is treating him more fairly every day that goes by. And I think where the turnaround came was ironically with he had Kennedy giving him that profile [inaudible] for the pardoning of Richard Nixon, and Kennedy basically admitting that he was wrong in his criticism of Ford at the time, that it really did to help killed the nation, that it put Watergate behind us, but people were so mad that it cost Ford the election. I mean, he really was sacrificed on that altar of bad feelings against Nixon. And people's thought there was a deal or whatever. I mean, nobody... And everybody wanted to get rid of him, and what we ended up with was Jimmy Carter. And Carter almost lost. I mean, the more Carter was out there talking, the less people liked him, and if that election a week later, Ford probably would have beat him. And the Poland thing, you can look at anything that threw off that momentum, which Poland did. And if Ford has just said, "The spirit of the Polish people are not dominated by the Soviet Union," slam dunk, home run as opposed to "They're not dominated by the Soviet Union." That was a mistake and one that he begrudgingly admitted later, believe me. It was getting bloody, man. Most people were trying to get him to go out and clarify that. Trust me, I was one of them. But anyway- SM (01:19:31): You were also the person who took two historic pictures of five presidents at two different times. The first picture was Nixon, Carter, Bush, Reagan, and Ford, and the second was Bush one and two, Clinton, Obama and Carter. That is historic in my opinion. DK (01:19:48): No, actually that was the last one, which was early January of last year, (20)09. It was the fifth time that five presidents been together, but only the second time where they posed for a picture because the Reagan library was the first time, and then there was the Nixon funeral, and then there was the 9/11 memorial at the National Cathedral, and then there was Reagan's funeral. Might have been, actually... No, that is right. It would have been Reagan's funeral, and then president-elect Obama with the other four and that was that. It is kind of interesting there is only been two baby boomer presidents, Clinton and Bush, and now Obama is the first president of my lifetime that has been younger than me. SM (01:20:58): And actually, he is actually the last two years of what is defined as boomers, (19)46 to (19)60. Was not he born in (19)62? DK (01:21:07): I cannot remember. SM (01:21:08): So he was two years old. DK (01:21:11): Yeah, I definitely would not put him in that category, I suppose. SM (01:21:18): It must have been quite an honor for you to be picked as the photographer for these occasions. DK (01:21:24): Well, no, I was not picked. There were a lot of other photographers there. I just happened to get... By design, I got an angle where I took a chance at the Reagan library where I got off to the side and there was a little... I should admit to some premeditation there, because one of the Advanced people before called me up from Bush.... No, actually somebody doing the Reagan event and wanted me to come out, because I lived in LA here at that time, to give them some advice on what would be a good picture. And so, I had a hand in setting that up. And because I knew what they were going to do, either were going to walk out together and then stand in this one spot, and photographer were like locusts. They all gather around one place usually. And so I assumed that the head on pictures is what everybody's going to go for, but I knew the best shot would be off to the side, that Mount Rushmore type configuration. And it would not have been as good a picture if Reagan then looked over to where I was, and that is why that picture was so good. And if you see the other pictures from head on, they looked like cardboard cutouts. It's all flat lighting and I never would have taken that picture. And then the last time, because it was the Bush White House and I was not working for any news organization, but I had to get in there. So, I called Dick Cheney up, whom I am still on friendly terms with, and I told him that, I said, "Do you still have any influence over there at the White House? I got to get in and take that picture." I said, " The press office will not return my calls. I am getting no help from them." And about two minutes later, the press secretary called me up and said, "Oh yeah, sure, we would love to have you come in for that." SM (01:23:41): Wow. DK (01:23:43): But there were other photographers there, but it was not a big group, but there were others. They had like three waves of photographers. But I knew when I came in the door, that was the shot right then and there, bang-bang. It was very quick, but I had a good angle there. SM (01:23:59): You knew that... I think you had over 50 front covers on magazines, and 35 I think in that time period length of some of the (19)60s and (19)70s stuff. What are the front covers that stand out for you? What year and what was the picture? DK (01:24:19): Well, I think obviously the Ford cover was my first Time magazine cover. And then it was the... I am trying to think. Well, the other huge one was the December 4th (19)78 cover of Time Magazine, Jonestown. SM (01:24:47): Oh yes. DK (01:24:48): That was huge. And then there was Ansel Adams on the cover of Time, the only cover... September (19)79, Ansel was called the master eye, and it was him on the cover of Time. To this date, the only photographer that is ever been on the cover of Time. In October '86, Reagan and Gorbachev at Reykjavik, and it was no deal, and we transmitted that picture on a Sunday night. Early technology victory over the opposition. And I nailed the picture of Reagan kind of looking disappointed and Gorbachev, and the headline was "No Deal". Those are four covers that have all been significant, and the President Ford cover was another portrait. And the President Ford cover and Jonestown are two of the biggest selling covers in Times history, I think to this day actually, and really important events. I mean, there have been others. I have had other covers, but... SM (01:26:06): What was the most important event that you covered? You said Vietnam was not the one. What was the most important event? DK (01:26:12): It is hard to say that really, I know I said it, but I would say Sadat going to Israel was right up there. Jonestown was right up there. Reagan Gorbachev Geneva Summit was right up there. In terms of events that have profoundly impacted the world, obviously Vietnam, Reagan, Gorbachev, Jonestown would not be in the major historical importance, but in terms of drama and horror, Jonestown... I mean Vietnam affected so many people, 50,000 plus Americans being killed there during the war, hard to overlook that one. And it scared a generation of people in one way or another, at least impacted them. And I missed out [inaudible]. SM (01:27:16): I lived in the Bay Area when Jonestown happened. DK (01:27:19): Oh yeah, well that was- SM (01:27:21): Because so much was happening at that time, not only Harvey Milk being murdered in Moscone, but Jonestown. So you flew there, took the... I have that magazine. You flew there and took all those pictures. So, when you first got to that site, it must have been... You had been to Vietnam and seen death. DK (01:27:46): Well, but we did not know, and that was not even the point really. I was doing another story. I was down... The story of Shooter is a good story. [inaudible] recollect because it happened so soon [inaudible]. I think it was one of the last stories, and that is a good story. That tells you what happened. But until when we first circled over Jonestown in that plane, we just heard rumors that, oh, there were a lot of kids there, that we thought maybe they were still holding out against the Guyanese army, and we just did not know. And when we circled over there in the plane, I saw those people. I thought, well, look at all these people down there. And so, they must, it is not as bad as we thought. And as we got closer, realized that all the people were dead. And that was shocking. I mean, I cannot even begin to tell you what that was like. That is probably the most difficult thing I have ever had to deal with psychologically is to see that. And I think that was... Because at least in a war, you got some sense of why people are doing it. And in this case, there was no reality spread there. There was nothing that a sane person could understand why that would have happened. And to this day, I am perplexed as anybody, why they did that? SM (01:29:29): And you were right down on the ground there eventually? DK (01:29:33): Yeah, then we got on the ground. I was one of those few people ever to be there, fortunately for everybody else who was not. SM (01:29:40): Did you have to wear masks? Because the stench must have been really intense. DK (01:29:43): It was bad. Yeah. It was like two, three days later. SM (01:29:46): Wow. DK (01:29:47): Not good. SM (01:29:49): Why did we lose the Vietnam War, in your opinion? DK (01:29:54): Well, I do not know. The historians are still fighting about that war. I think we, well ultimately, if you take it all the way back to Eisenhower era that we backed the wrong horse. I think that is what happened. I am really curious what would have happened if you looked at Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist and not a communist, if you looked at him in a different way, could there have been a decision that would have sided with Ho Chi Minh? I do not know. I mean, the resolve was there in the north, and in the south, there was so much corruption. I mean, you read all the stories. SM (01:30:48): Yes. DK (01:30:49): I am probably the last person you should ask that question of just because I have no idea. You look at the place today, it is still a communist country, but they are big time into capitalism. So, I am just wonder what was lost other than obviously all those lives. But if I were a family who lost somebody in Vietnam, I would be pretty pissed off, quite frankly. SM (01:31:21): Did you ever have a chance to talk to President Ford about his position on the Warren Commission? About the single bullet theory? And of course, he and all- DK (01:31:33): He was emphatic that he agreed with the rest of the commission, that there were no... That it was not a conspiracy. SM (01:31:39): When you saw the wall- DK (01:31:42): To this day, by the way, I have seen nothing that would prove differently. And I know it is one of ongoing fascinations that some people have, the obsession with that whole thing. It is almost like you can... It kind of goes to the category of the United States was a co-conspirator in the 9/11 Twin Towers attack. SM (01:32:17): Yeah, there is some that think that Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, they were all connected in some way, conspiracy. DK (01:32:29): It is just I cannot... It is so hard to... It is like Jones telling to me. I do not understand that kind of thinking. So, I do not know. SM (01:32:35): When you saw the wall, the Vietnam Memorial for the first time, what was your reaction and thinking in 1982 when all the veterans came back and since? You're the person who won the Pulitzer Prize for pictures on the war in Vietnam and experienced combat firsthand. And then of course, the decision that President Ford, to depart in 1975 after 58,290 died and 3 million Vietnamese died. What was your thought when you first saw that wall? DK (01:33:07): I cried. It was the single most powerful thing I have ever seen in my life as a monument. To see those names, many of whom I knew. They were guys I went to high school with were or had met. And I thought it was... I was overcome with emotional when I saw it. And I went down there on my own to see it. I did not know what to expect. And I know it was really criticized by a lot of veterans groups and people, but I think it's emerged as probably the single most powerful vision of what that war was, because it boils down to all those people were killed. And guess what? That does not even... The names of the people who were severely injured are not on there, so you could add another 100,000- SM (01:34:14): Oh yes. DK (01:34:15): ... Names, not to mention all of the Vietnamese. SM (01:34:20): Have you ever read Lewis Puller's book, Fortunate Son? DK (01:34:27): I have not. And I have got it. And I have got so much. I mean, read all the time. I read so much. That is one, believe it or not, that was on my list. That is a good one. SM (01:34:48): Well, I knew him. And that is another story. This is your interview, not mine. But I only knew him through making an effort to contact him. He was the inspiration to write my book. DK (01:34:59): Oh wow. SM (01:34:59): He supported me to do it when I talked to him before he killed himself. DK (01:35:03): But Galway knows him or knew him. SM (01:35:03): Oh yeah, and Joe's great. Of course, Joe's now in Texas, I think so. DK (01:35:10): Yeah. Yeah. I have not talked- SM (01:35:13): And when I interviewed him for my book was many years back. His wife had just passed away, and then he ended up marrying one of the daughters of guys who died at the [inaudible] Valley. So that is an unbelievable story. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end, and what do you think was the watershed moment? DK (01:35:35): That is a good question. They definitely ended in the (19)70s. And I would say they probably ended after... Definitely after Nixon resigned, because he represented the... I mean, he was elected in (19)68, took office in (19)69. The (19)60s as we remember them did not even really start till (19)65. SM (01:36:10): You are right. DK (01:36:11): And everybody talks about the [inaudible], because then all the images that you see flashed up are Rolling Stones, Beetles, hippies, et cetera. And I think you could safely say the (19)60s ended with the end fall of Saigon. That would be probably the most dramatic moment I could think of. SM (01:36:36): Is there a watershed moment? DK (01:36:44): That moment would be the fall Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. Yeah. I mean, I think that is the end of the (19)60s right there. SM (01:36:51): Where were you when John Kennedy died? Do you remember the exact moment when you heard? DK (01:36:55): Yeah, I was in social studies class in Roseburg High School, and when they came in to the class, I remember what was more interesting to me was what I found out many years later that there were people celebrating his death here in this country. That was shocking to me. SM (01:37:26): Oh, yes. DK (01:37:26): Unbelievable. Because all we can think about at the time, all the kids, they were all fine. And I mean, he was the president. He was like this character that because of modern communication, we would actually gotten to know this guy through TV. And he was a young person who... And my parents were Republican, but everybody was so upset. I mean, the part of Oregon I come from, it is a very conservative part of the state, and I remember in [inaudible] billboards, so that was... However, nobody was celebrating. We were all the kids. We were in shock. SM (01:38:18): When you were not San Francisco State, SI [inaudible], we back in the East saw that on tele... We knew what was going on there. And of course, a lot of the protests were in Berkeley. DK (01:38:31): But Berkeley I did not really do, but the SF State I did. I was actually based in Los Angeles. They flew me up there to cover that. SM (01:38:38): That was pretty intense. An, were not you threatened at that? Or were you beat up or? DK (01:38:43): Oh yeah, the cops hit me, the students threw rocks at me, and it was kind of an equal opportunity bashing. SM (01:38:52): Geez. What was your thought when all this was happening about higher ed, our young people, and America? DK (01:39:05): Nothing surprised me at that point. To me, it was a good story. It was dangerous though, but there were a lot of good pictures out of that. Hey, you know what? It's just what I have done. That is just another story along the way. And one of the things I was going to mention to you was I had gone to pitch a book of my photos to, I think it was Abraham, and all the editors could talk about was, did I have pictures of the social changes and fashion? And I said, no. They said, why? I said, "Guys, I do not give a flying fuck about any of that stuff. I do not care about [inaudible]. I do not care about fashion. I do not really care about sports that much in terms of photography. What I cared about is what you were looking at. These are my pictures, and I cannot go back into the vault and pull out a bunch of stuff that you think I should be doing as opposed to what I did." I was really offended by them, to be honest with you. SM (01:40:23): Well, you know what is interesting- DK (01:40:24): What do you see here? I said, "This is the story of one person's journey through the events of his generation". I said, "I cannot go back and do it over again. And if I did go back and do it over again, I do not think I would do it any differently." I mean, I would have taken some better pictures and not missed as many as I did, but the direction would have been the same. SM (01:40:50): The irony of your pictures of the Ali Frazier fight before you went off to Vietnam is interesting because, I am just reflecting, he was kicked out of boxing because of his stand on the Vietnam War and stripped of his title for a while. And then he came back and we all remember what he had said, that he's not going to go off and kill yellow boys when black boys in America are not being taken care of. DK (01:41:17): Yeah, that fight, I mean, that was one of the great fights of all time. SM (01:41:21): How important do you think- DK (01:41:25): [inaudible] Frazier, you will never, ever duplicate something like that. Well, the whole boxing industry is screwed anyway anymore. But those were, again, that was sort of representative of... That was still the (19)60s, even though it was 1971. That was an event with its roots going back into... See, basically, because we divide everything into... We like neat little items. 50th anniversary of this, 20th anniversary of that, the (19)60s, the (19)70s, the (19)80s. It does not mean jack shit. (19)60s, the (19)70s, the (19)80s, it does not mean jack shit. I mean, when I did my book, [inaudible] in 2000... Hang on, I was showing this to somebody the other day and I said something here, if I can find it. Hold on. Every month I wrote something about... Where is it? Well, I cannot find it. the end of the last day of 2000, I did a picture of... Actually, one of the pictures, you should get that book. I think you would find it pretty interesting, I was at the convention in Philadelphia, among other things. SM (01:43:03): The name of the book? DK (01:43:05): Photo du Jour. SM (01:43:07): Okay, I will find that. We have a really good bookstore. DK (01:43:16): Hold on a sec, I just want to see if I can find this one thing. Well, maybe I do not have it here. Dave Barry Howard Fryman wrote a piece. SM (01:43:35): You can email me. DK (01:43:39): The main thing right now, I guess, the point was that the last picture that I did, And this was a project I did with a Mamiya 7 camera, which is like a light on steroids. It is a medium format or a range finder camera. the last photo was of a volcano in Hawaii. Normally day-to-day, I did not even know where I would be one day to the next, but in this case, by that point, at the end of the year, the family and I were going to be in Hawaii on a vacation and the volcano was still active. That was the last day of December 31st, 2000, the last day of going into 2001. The symbolism of that volcano was, it did not make any difference that it was the last day of the year or the first day of the year, or the last day of the millennium. The fact of the matter, everything, it just goes over into the next day. It does not mean anything. It is like these are just all, they are days. They are false markers. I think that was point. SM (01:45:12): How important do you feel students were in ending the war through their protests? You saw it at San Francisco State, but they were all over the country, particularly between (19)67- DK (01:45:21): Hang on one second. Here is what I said. The first day of the new millennium was basically another day. The Earth continued to spin on its axis. There was no cataclysmic thunder clap wiping out our way of life as we knew it. That would wait until September 11th, 2001. That was the point. Oops. Can you hold on one second? SM (01:45:56): Yep. DK (01:45:57): Hold on. SM (01:45:58): Yep. DK (01:46:08): The point is, when you are talking, that was a good question. When did the (19)60s end? If you just sent out all of the, if you took all that stuff out, it really, it was a state of mind really more than anything. I think that is a really good question. I have talked to people about that. Well, what does it mean the (19)60s? It's almost like the (19)70s, somebody, they do not talk about the (19)70s per se. So much shit happened during the (19)70s. More than in the (19)60s almost. SM (01:46:40): What is interesting is a lot of people have said the (19)60s were from that (19)65 till about (19)73 because you cannot separate (19)71, (19)72, (19)73 and (19)70. You cannot. DK (01:46:52): Right. SM (01:46:52): A lot of people look at disco as a change when things start changing. DK (01:46:58): Yeah-yeah, yeah. SM (01:46:59): When you look at the generation that you grew up in, the boomer generation, this would be based, the generation 74 million total. What would be the people that you knew, can you give any strengths or weaknesses to this generation if you were to comment on them? DK (01:47:20): Ask me that one more time, I am sorry. SM (01:47:22): When you look at the boomer generation itself of 74 million, not all were activists and probably only about 10 percent were, and the rest were not. But when you look at this generation, which is all inclusive, it is male, female, black, brown, yellow, gay, straight, you name it. It is all of them. Were there any strengths or weaknesses that you could list? DK (01:47:54): Well, God, there is so many. In many ways, Clinton kind of epitomized all that. I mean, he was a person who, and in a way, this is not a fair thing to say, but because we all were brought up differently too, I mean, he had a hard way to go brought up. Here's the guy that overcame a background. I do not really like Clinton, by the way. I understand his strengths and his weaknesses. In many ways he represents many of the strengths and weaknesses of the generation. A lot of promiscuous people who were, if it feels good, do it. I understand that. I think those of us, products of the World War II generation or the greatest generation as to Tom Brokaw said, makes you feel a little bit strange. They went through all that. They collectively, and we were brought up in the (19)50s where prosperity was the cornerstone of the country and on the sacrifice of our parents. My parents and those people that age really have a different way of looking at stuff. Those who went through the depression. We do not know about any of that until now, but I do not think it's the same thing. It is for certain people, but not in this overshadowing way. I am rambling here because I do not have a good answer for you. It is everything from television, the advent of TV really accompanied the rise of the baby boomers. Jeff, it was very funny. In fact, you got to get the photo out if you do not have it. If you want to use Jeff's cartoons in it, I will give you the permission to do so because what it did, and a lot of what you are writing about is the baby generation. I told you what he said, the self-centered generation comes of age, but it is all, the first frame is the (19)50s and it is the golden age of television. There is a little kid sitting on a floor and the TV with the rabbit ears is up on a wood chest of drawers. Then it's the (19)60s, the next panel, the Golden Age, the rock and roll. You have got the same, the kid is not growing up now, but he is holding a guitar, watching a bigger TV set. In the (19)70s, golden age of drugs and the kid who is still a baby has got a cigarette in his mouth watching a TV in a cabinet. Then the (19)80s, the golden age of money. The kid's got a big cigar, this huge TV, the nineties, the golden age of healthcare. The kid's got to hook up to a blood pressure machines, still watching the TV. Then the two thousand, the golden age of arthritis. The kids pushing the button on the TV with a cane. Then the 2010, the golden age of death. That was his representation of the baby boom generation. I think there is something to that because we were not only growing up in a different world, we're actually watching ourselves do it on TV. Everything that happens is on TV anymore. The car chase, the plane crash, people on the hill, live C Span. Never before has a group of people been able to track their own progress in a mirror really like now. That was not the way it was before. The evolution of how you got your news from Life magazine to NBC, when they talk about life being killed by speed, that is probably true. It had its time. That is all. I was one of the last drivers hired by them, and it was a great tragedy for us but like so many other things I have moved on from there. SM (01:52:52): You say you moved on. That that leads me into, I only got three more questions then we're done. This question is regarding the issue of healing. We took students to Washington DC in 1995 to meet Senator Edmond Musky. The students came up with a question because they were not alive in the (19)60s and (19)70s, their parents were obviously, but they had seen a video of the year 1968. They put together a question dealing with all the divisions that were happening in America at that time. The question was this, due to all the divisions that were taking place in the boomer generation or in the (19)60s generation, divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops, those who did not. Do you feel the boomer generation, the (19)60s generation, is going to go to its grave like the Civil War generation, not healing? Not healing because of the tremendous division's, animosity and sometimes outright hatred one had for the opposing point of view, or someone with a different perspective or whatever? Senator Musky, and they were thinking of the 1968 convention and all the turmoil there, the assassinations in 68, and they were thinking of Watts in 64. They were thinking of all the things about the (19)60s. What's your answer? Then I will tell you what Senator Musky said. DK (01:54:27): Well, of course we got a little, yeah, that is a different thing. I do not know. The healing. It seems a lot of that bad will is really carrying over to the here and the now. It almost does not seem to be getting better. I do not know about healing. I do not see how you- SM (01:54:51): Hold on one second. David, can you hold on one second? DK (01:54:54): Yeah. SM (01:54:54): My tape just ended. Okay. Alrighty. Go right ahead. DK (01:55:01): When you talk about a generation healing, I do not personally feel damaged, so I do not know how other people, it is such an individual situation that I could not tell you, but the world, it does. Things seem more divided now. I mean, that is a fact. Everybody talks about it. You have got Fox News on one hand is supposed to represent the conservative point of view and MSNBC on the other side, and people really polarize on certain subjects. That goes back to what I said earlier. I am not a Democrat or Republican, I am a photographer. SM (01:55:48): Right. DK (01:55:51): I have seen both sides. (End of Interview) Description 3 microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with David Hume Kennerly Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kennerly, David Hume, 1947- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Photographers; Photojournalists; Kennerly, David Hume, 1947--Interviews Description An account of the resource David Hume Kennerly is a Pulitzer Prize winnig photographer and photojournalist. His portfolio includes photographs taken of the Vietnam War, Cambodia, East Pakistani refugees near Calcutta, and the Ali-Frazier fight in Madison Square Garden on March 8, 1971. Kennerly photographed every American president since Richard Nixon. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-07-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.6a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.6b; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.6c Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-01 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 237:33 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ed9b9f39b8458eec0f12ff50d5b7fd07.jpg af3555387f2ee7602fd77eb78b1e9bd4 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/22258b27b9ddea79791638bc75048364.mp3 0bd5b5fcb4e2263c4fe87e8602e90697 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-07-22 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Peter Coyote Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Peter Coyote is an author, actor, director, screenwriter, and activist. Coyote is also a narrator for his own films and for a plethora of other events including the 2002 Winter Olympics and various Historic films. He graduated from Grinnell College with a Bachelor's degree in English Literature and attended California State University for a Master's degree in Creative Writing.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7043,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Peter Coyote is an author, actor, director, screenwriter, and activist. Coyote is also a narrator for his own films and for a plethora of other events including the 2002 Winter Olympics and various Historic films. He graduated from Grinnell College with a Bachelor's degree in English Literature and attended California State University for a Master's degree in Creative Writing.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 84:26 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The New American Poetry 1945-60; Folk music; Beats generation; Bohemian; Jazz music; Rock music; Guerilla theater; Baby boom generation; Counterculture; Richard Nixon; Civil Rights; Diggers.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">The New American Poetry 1945-60; Folk music; Beat generation; Bohemian; Jazz music; Rock music; Guerilla theater; Baby boom generation; Counterculture; Richard Nixon; Civil Rights; Diggers.</span> Subject LCSH Authors; Motion picture producers and directors; Screenwriters; Political activists--United States; Coyote, Peter--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Peter Coyote Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 22 July 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 00:04 SM: First question I want to ask is, you were still, you are recognized as one of the most well-known counterculture leaders in the late (19)60s and (19)70s. And I have several questions linked to that. Why did the counterculture and the activist boomers linked to the multiple movements of the time not succeed in changing society for the better? One of the things that even I recognized when I was a college student is that many of the boomers thought they were going to change the world for the better they were going to end war, bring peace, end racism, sexism, homophobia, all the isms that were just going to make the world a better place to live and save the environment and actually truly make a difference in the world to. I do not think they did that. What is your thoughts on the counterculture? 01:03 PC: Well, first of all, let- 01:10 SM: Please speak up to- 01:13 PC: Let us dismiss the idea that I was anyone's leader. I was part of an anarchic gang that did not recognize leaders, tried to be authentic, and we tried to follow our own counsel. So, I can speak as that I cannot really speak as elite. But the counterculture aspirations they talk about, were simply part of a long line of American reform. I mean, there has been reforming as long as there has been America. And while it is true, that the counterculture failed, and all of its political goals, it succeeded in every single one of its cultural goals. And by that, I mean, we did not end war, we did not end racism, we did not end imperialism, and capitalism, that, fair enough. I can also say that there is no place in America, you cannot go today and buy organic food, find a women’s movement finding in for metal movement, find alternative medical movements, find alternative spiritual practices, yoga, Siddhanta, [inaudible] Buddhism, you name it. So those were all direct outgrowth of the six that we succeeded in that so far beyond our wildest dreams. That was changes have become ubiquitous and invisible. And it is my belief, actually the culture, Trumps politics, that in the long run the way people live every day, Trump their ideas about political system? So, I do not, I do not chalk this all up as a failure by any means. Now, your question was, why did we fail? Well, failed for a number of reasons. One is that the idea of a counterculture in itself is a failure. It condemns you to mark formation. And we as being members of counterculture, we missed the opportunity to organize and gage relationship with a lot of people who did not want their kids around long hair and drugs and free sex, and all sorts of wholesale experiment. They just wanted a fair deal out of the economy out of this. And we missed those people. So today, if I were going to create a radical magazine, you know, I would never have I would never have a marijuana leaf or anything countercultural on it at all, I would make it look this like time in life. So that is one reason we fail. The other reason we fail is that we brought all of the problems of growing up in the (19)50s with us, just because we thought that we were against a lot of the mistakes that are fake that our parents made did not mean that we are absolved from the consequences. In other words, if you think that your parents were sexually repressive, and you decide that the cure to that problem is sexual license and absolute freedom. Well, you have created a whole bunch of problems. Have not really ever really solved any just shifted from the left and the right. And thirdly, because we were concentrating on great revolutionary goals, we were not concentrating so much on kind of interpersonal dialogue and requirements that are needed to live together. So, we did not have very developed vocabularies of interpersonal relationship. You know, if I wake up in the morning, and I like to wash my face in a clean sink, and you do not care if it is a greasy pit where you wash your hands after you have just dismantled an engine, there is no revolutionary philosophy I can, I can write, as a cause for authority as to why you should clean the sink. So things like that. And then finally, the emergence of children created pressure, all of our ideas that were not fully thought out, or were not, you know, humanly sound and the communal system per se, fell apart. But that is not to say that we traded in our values for our beliefs. We are still connected as family. My daughter and her children share friends that she grew up with, are now mothers, very self-consciously a part of that world and its history. So we look this like everybody else today with that thing. That means we can all work, but do not the culture and myriad places do not buy, what we do with our lives is immediately translated by other people. So that is the long answer. But I think it is a pretty complete answer. 06:50 SM: Yeah, I have asked a lot of people that I have interviewed, particularly in the last half of people I have interviewed to define the term counterculture, a lot of people have come up with different terms. But what-what most of them have said, it is more than just being different from the mainstream. My basically, what my question is, is counterculture culture, more than being different from the mainstream, having long hair, wearing bell bottoms and colorful clothes, taking drugs, living in communes, having sex with multiple partners, of course, the pill played a part of that, where religion went to new spirituality, and where one does not have to go to church and a feeling of more meditation than before. Are those all the definitions and what the counterculture was? Or is it much more? 07:39 PC: Well, they are not definitions, their descriptions. I think the short thing to answer was, for those of us who felt that the system of the United States and capitalism was crumbling over internal contradiction, we were going to try to create a parallel structure and parallel institutions that would offer people refuge, I guess the thing fell apart. So do that we had to do a lot of experiments. We did not know how to live. We did not know what rules were worth following and what were not. I mean, a law is in agreement with a stop sign up on the street corner. But if people do not honor it, it is not a law. So, we began looking at everything that created a system that we did not like the system based on profit and private property, enhanced by racism, turning the planet and some fodder for profit. We did not like it. So we began to try to invent one from whole cloth and you make a lot of mistakes when you reinvent the wheel. 08:51 SM: Around that time in the (19)70s, when you were out there in California with the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which I saw, and I thought they were great. I lived in the Bay Area from (19)76 to (19)83. So I know about Golden Gate Park and I missed San Francisco so bad. I may end up moving back up there one day, but one of the things about that particular time while I was in graduate school, there were several books that came out and I-I want to know what books may have influenced you. The two books that I am referring to that were very popular in college campuses around (19)69 to (19)73 was Charles Reich's Greening of America. And the making of a counterculture by Theodore Roszac. And I want to know if you have ever read either one of those two? 09:36 PC: No, I never read either one of those two books that the books that I read that really kind of turned me around. One was called life against death by Norman O. Brown. One was the entire Don Juan series by Carlos Castaneda. The other was called the Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau. And what was Alan Watts Famous? 10:08 SM: Well, he did a book called Zen. Yeah, I have that. 10:13 PC: Those were the books that most influenced me. 10:17 SM: Did you read any of the beat writings to from the mid (19)50s on? 10:20 PC: Lots of it. when I was in college, my bible was a book called New American poetry 1945 to 1960, edited by Donald Allen, published by Grove Press, and me and my friends just ate that book up. And one of the reasons I came to San Francisco was to study poetry with Robert Duncan, University of San Francisco's creative writing department. 10:52 SM: What is what role did the beats play in shaping the or being the precursors of the of the (19)60s? I say this because there is a question that I will be asking you later, you do not have to answer it now is, when did the (19)60s begin? And I have only had two people that told me that they felt the (19)60s began with the beats, your thoughts on how important the beat writers were. And of course, Ginsburg goes through the entire era from the-the whole period, he goes right up to the very end, where some of the other ones have passed on, very early. But what role did they play in shaping the attitudes of not only maybe many members of the counterculture, but many members in the new left, and the activist students of the (19)60s and (19)70s? 11:42 PC: Well, you know, when the when the Beats were coming up, I was a young man, I was 12, 13 years old. And it was I was starting to get interested to then folk music. And folk music was one of the vehicles that kind of took you off the bourbon sidewalk and into the kind of trackless wilderness of Bohemia. You started hearing music that sounded more authentic voices, stories, histories that were more authentic. And when you got out there, like Greenwich Village and Washington Square Park, and the place where music was being made. You also met older, Bohemians, and Beatnik. And you got turned on to literature. So, these guys were the first kind of formative adult, other than jazz musicians I would ever meet, who were kind of guides and intellectual mentors. So they were very, very important. And, I mean, preeminent among them, for me is Gary Snyder. Yes, who was not only remained one of my closest friends to this day, but also kind of informal Zen teacher and a mentor and a whole number of ways. Same for Michael McClure. Same Lou Welt was my roommate, Gregory Corso was a later roommate. Wow. Ellen Ginsburg was a friend. So these guys were, you know, sort of the first. First representatives of wisdom that I ran into. 13:25 SM: Do-do you, a word that is very important. Oftentimes, when you talk about people and what they do, and the perceptions that other people have of them, the perception that I have always felt is they were truly genuine. It was not a putt on. It was, it was a real engine just to make publicity. That was who they were it would you agree with that? 13:45 PC: Oh, without a doubt. I mean, anybody who would guess that this was all a canard for publicity, is really reflecting their own shabbiness of character. These people were making trenching and deep and the observed critiques of the culture, which was beginning to be corporatized and standardized. And there was there was a lot to criticize. 14:14 SM: One of the things I always ask of each guest is, how did you become who you are? I read your whole background. I know your whole biography. I have read the book. And- 14:25 PC: You read on book you read the story of how I became Peter Coyote. 14:29 SM: But I mean in in your own voice. [chuckles] The basic question I am asking is, what were the greatest influences in your life in your life’s path that if you were to look at from the day you were born till today, are there two or three or four major happenings that really shaped you with respect to who you are? 14:55 PC: Well, yeah, one of which was being raised by a black woman, from the time I was two until I was about 13. And she and her friend’s kind of took over our house, my mother had a nervous breakdown, she was unable to care for me. My father was away working. And this very brilliant young woman just kind of took over the household in a very beneficent way, gave me safety and structure and by traveling with her friend, and I got a whole look at a nonwhite world. Saved me from being a white man, I mean I am Caucasian, but I am not a white [inaudible] men. And so that was a huge introduction to kind of, you know, the life of people who were invisible to disenfranchise, I witnessed, you know, 100s of little insults and things that I would never have seen if she had not been like, my mother, and I was not so observant of watching the way people treated her. So that was a huge and formative influence. We are still close day. I am writing a book about her. I talk to her all the time. 16:18 SM: Oh, when that is coming out? 16:22 PC: I do not know. I am still writing. Okay. So there was that the second one was meeting the world of jazz musician, through a bass player named Buddy Jones, who was Charlie Parker's roommate for three years in Kansas City. And buddy with became a close friend of my dad, and he brought all of these great musicians to our house to play up in the country, out calm and do Sims and Irby green and Bob Dorough and just lots of them. And buddy became and I met these people and saw them when I was about eight or nine years old. And they were the first adults I have ever seen who loved what they did. I knew right then that that is what I want. I did not have the talent to become a jazz musician, which is what I would do if I had any ability to do that. There is nothing else I would rather do. But running around with Buddy, and he took me to hear Billy holidays last concert in (19)92. He introduced me to Miles Davis when I was in, wow. traveled around took me to it. I spent all of my birthdays at the half note, a club in New York on Spring Street. From the Time I was about 12 to 18 when I left home. And, you know, I heard everybody heard Charlie Mingus John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, not only that, heard him with a guy who knew how to listen. That was a huge introduction into the life of an artist. And then, there were a lot of political people in my family. A lot of communists and socialists and left wingers. My dad used to play chess with Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy, the editors of the Monthly Review. My mother's cousin, Irving Adler was the first man fired in the New York City public school system for being a communist. My mother was the secretary of the Englewood Urban League. And so I grew up in this rich broth of political debate and dialogue. My dad was a capitalist. And so some combination of sort of growing up under the tutelage of black people and hearing learning white political theory. I would say were the two formative and also something about the community of outsiders, which is what jazz musicians were in those days. That kind of formed my whole worldview. 19:12 SM: That is interesting. I am a big jazz fan. My brother in law just passed away and he was a jazz performer in the Bay Area for quite a few years before he moved back East. They played with a group called they actually performed at Henry's at the top in San Francisco, which was they were Casey and Angel and Craig was the drummer and the whole mess of the jazz guys came out to San Francisco in (19)73, (19)74. And then they many of them are still out there, Ray Lockley, King Koi whole group of them. 19:43 PC: Well, I used to be a drummer, I studied drums with Cozy Cole- Was a great jazz drummer in the (19)40s (19)50s, Big Band drummer. 19:53 SM: You know, they always you know, what they always say yeah, Peter about jazz musicians, is they-they grew beyond rock they had the experience of rock, a lot of them did. And then they went on to the next phase, which was jazz, which was improvisation and really the ability to be creative and to be your own person. And I am, it is- 20:13 PC: Oh, I mean, these guys were there before there was rock. Mm hmm. You know, I mean, they began, you know, these guys were out there in the (19)30s and (19)40s. They these were just world class artists. And, you know, data they are not they do not owe their genesis to rock and roll, right? I am so tired of the self-importance of rock and roll like a cute. 20:38 SM: Yeah, one of the things in San Francisco Mime Troupe is historic. And you were one of the not only directed it, but one of the leaders of the group. One of the questions I want to ask is about the whole issue of guerrilla theater, how important I do not know a whole lot about it. But when I was in college guerrilla theater was very important on college campuses, because out of nowhere, she would see these people come into the student union. And they would talk and do these little skits about the Vietnam War or civil rights, or, you know, what was happening in the world. And they come you never knew they were coming, and then they just leave. And I did not know how much how important the San Francisco Mime Troupe may have been in being the inspiration for these things on college campuses of Do you know? 21:26 PC: I think they were; I think the word guerrilla theater was coined in the San Francisco mime Troupe. And, you know, we, what can I say we were revolutionary Theatre Company. And we were trying to invent modes of performance and places to perform that were appropriate to what we were talking about. 21:48 SM: What-what was the actual goal was it to inspire people to think, beyond their everyday lives to make changes, or, you know- 22:00 PC: I have changed my thinking about that. But when we were younger, I think that we were following as re-found edict that the artist is the antenna of the race. That leads to a kind of arrogance. In other words, we thought we knew what was going on, it was our job to tell everybody else. But if you look at that for even five minutes, that that does not hold up. The truth is that everybody knew what was going on. They sense that it comes up on the planet itself. And the artists are the ones who can articulate. But if the audience has done not know what was going on, they would not find what you did funny or amusing or entertaining. They would not understand it. So, what they appreciate why they clap, and holler is because you are articulating something they feel but they cannot put words. So, you know, but I think our job was to try to explain issues clearly. Break them down into kind of bytes of understanding so that they would be they can be analyzed clearly. And hopefully that that would lead people to action. 23:16 SM: Do you think that the-the so-called status quo in San Francisco there is- remember reading there your book or some of the information I saw on the web that the artist liberation from that was very important around the time San Francisco Minecraft was trying to perform, or being prevented from performing at various locations that it was a threat to the status quo? And that was why there was such resistance. 23:43 PC: Oh, I suppose so. I mean, everything. I mean, I had to laugh. Years later, when I read about how paranoid Richard Nixon was about the counterculture. You know, we could not have overthrown a-a frosty free. Our intention was that, and I guess paranoid people take that, seriously. Yeah, we were, we were fighting the status quo. And they resisted with what they had available. The police- 24:18 SM: What I really liked about the mime troop and the gorilla theater in the Bay Area that she talked about and were part of is the fact that people could see it, and he did not have to have money. And in living in the Bay Area and going to theater there. I know how expensive it is and to be able to have artists who understand the people and that a lot of people do not have the money to go see these very expensive plays or, or entertainment acts. It was really way ahead of its time. 24:50 PC: Yeah, well, I mean, that was part and parcel of going to where the people were right. And it was also something essentially honest because if-if people do not like you, they are not going to pay. 25:05 SM: Right. Quick question now Grinnell College is a very prestigious school. I am a- my whole career has been in higher ed. And I am curious as to how you picked it. 25:16 PC: I did not pick it. I, I sort of was told by my guidance counselor that I was going to go there. I had already been in jail for trying to bring a lot of marijuana across the border. And you know, I thought I was going to go to Harvard or reed or one of these photos. And she said, no-no-no, I think I think you will go to Grinnell, and it turned out to have been an inspired choice for me. I did really well. 25:47 SM: You were President of Student Government. Yeah. And then what is really impressive is the experience you had in Washington where that organizing those massive protests that was, I think you had and just mailing out all the literature about it and think you had about 25,000 people there. Could you talk a little bit about this first mass demonstration and President Kennedy's response, and you are meeting the President? And I believe it was some forget the guy's name, McGeorge Bundy. 26:20 PC: Yeah, it was getting a little ahead. So, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we thought the, we thought the world was going to end. And a bunch of us thought that banning college and class was counterproductive. And so, we organized a group of 12 people to go to Washington to do a three-day hunger strike and protest the resumption of nuclear testing and support Kennedy's geese rate. And we were pretty skillful about that. And so we got there, and Kennedy was in Phoenix. But he saw us on the sidewalk, supporting his peace race, and he gave instructions that we were to be invited in. And it was the first time in the history of the White House that any picketers had ever been invited in White Mountain, and that made national headlines. So because of that, we mimeograph those headlines, we duplicated those headlines. And we sent them around to every college in the United States. And it was after that, that the first student demonstration in Washington took place in February, I think of (19)63. So, they were different events. And I cannot, I cannot fully say that we created that. But I can say that we were certainly a part of it. And it was certainly a big kick off to the student movement. 28:17 SM: What was it like being on a college campus between 1960 and (19)64? This was kind of before all the-the anti-war movement was started in the (19)66, (19)67 was a kind of dead at Grinnell except for these activities you were involved in? 28:35 PC: Well, no there was a lot of stuff going on. And but you know, you have to distinguish sort of between before November 1963, and after November because once Kennedy was killed, suddenly there was a whole new whole new climate feeling. Things got really serious. But there was lots of political ferment. I cannot say it was dull. No, we were doing lots of political stuff. And there were student convention, you know, political conventions. Matter of fact, in sort of protest of the war at Bucknell college students’ convention. Kennedy was president Then and I actually got the convention to not nominate him. Going to nominate Hubert Humphrey, good at politic, and the dean of the college, put his foot down and intervene. Not going to be the only college in the United States that insult the sitting president. So that was sort of a political lesson right there about how much power it has. 29:59 SM: Do you remember exactly where you were? When you heard John Kennedy was assassinated? Could you explain? 30:11 PC: Yeah I do. I was going to lunch in one and the women's dorm at Grinnell at the name of the dorm but and a woman came running out to come here, listen. And I went in and started listening to the radio with her. And we heard about it. 30:33 SM: Were you like a lot of the people just watch TV that whole weekend? Yeah. You see how it is all shot? Yep. So many people did. Thanks. I want to, I asked a couple of people. Can you remember the two announcers that were present? One was NBC and one was CBS and they both passed on. Do you remember who? 30:53 PC: I mean, I have I have all that on tape. I do not. I do not remember who they were. But I remember their tan suit for you know, yep, I was serious at all. Look, and they were smoking. Interesting. 31:09 SM: What I am getting back to you lived in a commune for a while in the Bay Area, you had a specific community were involved in what were the pluses of living in the commune? And what were the negatives? And I guess that is the question. 31:24 PC: Well, the pluses of living in a commune were-were and remain that. It was cheaper, that you had many more people to divide up the rent. So you needed to make less money. And it was also fun. That was like being in a big, like in a dorm with all your friends. 31:51 SM: What was a typical day like, I would like to do that. Were you responsible each week of preparing certain number of meals, what duties you had been able to stay there? 32:01 PC: Well, nothing really, people kind of did what they wanted. It was not too later that that things have to get a little more organized when children came along. But at that time, we just needed a place to crash and sleep. 32:21 SM: You went on the road with a show called the minstrel show civil rights and cracker. 32:26 PC: Civil Rights in a cracker-cracker barrel. 32:30 SM: What was the message of the play? Why did people react negatively? And why was it banned is several colleges. 32:39 PC: Well, we were arrested, it was closed, because it was basically it was basically a look at race relations from a black revolutionary perspective. And it was also very funny and very battle logical and race was a very charged issue, and they could we made it easy for them to, you know, get distracted by talking about the-the dirty jokes and the foul language. But the real reason people were upset was because of the kind of political point of view basically came right out of Malcolm X's book. 33:25 SM: I mean, the autobiography of Malcolm X. Yeah. Look, college, you know, did the students book you and then they were told that you had you could not arrive, or you could not show up or what? 33:37 PC: Well, it depends where you are talking about in many places that happened. That happened in Canada where we were arrested. Some students turned to us in for laughing in the-the bathroom, they assumed we were on drugs. And we were not, and the police came, and they say, they searched our luggage, and they found some old marijuana seed, in the sock in the base of somebody's shoe, one of our technical guys. And they arrested him and the school canceled the show, and we held a big rally. And we pointed out that we have been hired by the students up this pool. And in the middle of that rally, they came in and pull the plug on the microphone and arrested two of the faculty members who were sitting on stage supporting us, I guess, because they had beards. We overlooked the six-foot six-inch, one eyed black guy and a six foot long stocking cap sitting next to them. We had to run away and get out of there and because we needed to make money to get on to the next gig and we were arrested and there was a long story. its told pretty clearly in my book. Yeah, and- 34:57 SM: Yeah, well what is, what is amazing thing is that being an administrator has worked on college campuses for over 30 years. Even in recent years there has been people where universities have done that, not to your groups like u but for speakers. And a whole battle over freedom of speech and the rights of students to bring a speaker still goes on and on. So what does the word digger mean? 35:27 PC: Well, the diggers were a seventeenth century group started by English pamphlets here called Gerard when family w y m f t l n e y. And they were a protest for when the it 18, I think it was Oliver Cromwell. Yeah, no, that was Cromwell was seventeenth century. 35:56 SM: Please speak up. 35:57 PC: I am trying to remember when Oliver Cromwell, what century he was. I said seventeenth century but yeah, he was just he was seventeenth century. Anyway. So what happened was the king of England took over the common where people graze their sheep. And King wanted to raise his own sheep or his woolen mill, his new woolen mill. So, they took the people's land and the people fought back on this guy [inaudible]. And they were the first people to take a position against private property. And they were called the diggers, because every morning they were seen bearing burying their dead. So we named ourselves after them. And the diggers were our kind of anarchist alternative to, you know, young communists and socialists, we-we did not want to be, you know, artists performing plays about heroic bus drivers and elevator operators. We wanted to live in a culture where we could be authentic. And we did not want to be subjugated from you know, centralized ideology. So, we created this movement. And when we did everything without money, we did everything anonymously, figuring that if you were not getting either rich or famous from it, you probably meant it. 37:40 SM: Yeah, it was. It was free medical care; I think in the summer (19)67. Because the Summer of Love, very historic event in Golden Gate Park and actually in the whole San Francisco area was, was big. And I know you had the free medical care and free housing free food for the runaways. 37:59 PC: Yeah, we fed about 600 people a day in the in the park. Wow. And we had lots of people at our free medical-medical clinic. It was pretty interesting time. 38:13 SM: Now the, in your own words, the Summer of Love, Scott McKenzie, that song that came out? Are you going to you know that one out? Are you going to San Francisco. I mean, a lot of people did not go out to San Francisco when they heard that song. Or it was an inspiration. But can you define what, whose idea was the summer of love? And then the second this in the 68th? the summer solstice, it was kind of a follow up the second year. Well, whose ideas were they in? What were they? 38:43 PC: The first idea like the be in, and you know, the Summer of Love, these were kind of ideas of what were called the hip merchant, but the hate independent propriety. And they were always trying to put this lovey-lovey spin on things. You know, that everybody, okay, and meanwhile, cops were coming in and kicking the shit out of the kids, in their doorways, and we were just not buying. So it was sort of their idea. And then the diggers came in. And we-we put up a bunch of we did the summer solstice. And our purpose was to, you know, create events that had a bigger frame, where the sun itself was the frame. He became quite famous for putting on events where kind of, you know, there was no violence. Nobody got hurt. When in fact, I think be in was turned out to be a great and surprising thing. And I think they were probably righter than we were that there was but the learned by seeing how many of us there were. But there was a lot of tension between the diggers and the-the Haight Ashbury merchants, because we felt that they were, they just wanted to, you know, change the facade on the office storefront, they had 88 inches of powder. And that was what they wanted to maintain, and they fell, you know, hash pipe. We did not think that was particularly relevant. 40:35 SM: Yeah, one of the things about that particular period is this, he talked about the Summer of Love the summer solstice, and all the things that the kind of the diggers did, there was no violence. It was all about more love and peace. But then- 40:54 PC: No-no it was not about love, it was just about if you create a frame where people are equal. For instance, this is what we warned them about our outcome, we told them what was going to happen at Alcamo. It cannot, it cannot come into a free community, and put up a stage and say, these guys are more important than those guys does not work. So, when they first came to us, the Grateful Dead wanted Peterburgs. And I to design a show for the Rolling Stones. And we said, you know, sorry, the Rolling Stones are not the occasion for a show, we will put up six stages in Golden Gate Park, and they can have one of them. And we will create an event that will celebrate, you know, something more important than local, celebrity. So what we did was we created these planetary events like the solstice or the equinox, which are not manmade, they are events under which everyone is equal. And within that frame, you can do whatever you want, and you are just expressing yourself authentically. It is not creating a hierarchical status, where the guys on stage are the most important than the guys who get closest to the state are most important. And you are basically replicating the status hierarchies of the society. 42:19 SM: That is very well put, because if you go on to the web, you see the Grateful Dead performing at one of your free events, well, on the streets, and it was very organized, and people were just walking by. And- 42:31 PC: it was before the record companies came in and started spreading around all this money they were just the guys in the neighborhood. So yes, of course they played. 42:42 SM: One of the things we need to talk about the real bit beyond what we are talking about here about the antiwar movement is that the antiwar movement at that particular time was pretty peaceful until we got into the latter part of the (19)60s, early (19)70s When SDS went toward the weathermen. And then why other people had problems with the Black Panther Party thinking they were violent as well, and the Young Bloods and the Latina communities, especially in Philadelphia, and in Newark, your thoughts on just that whole concept of, you know, Malcolm X, we have had a lot of, in my interviews, a lot of people had different feelings toward him, because of his words, by any means necessary, and so you can interpret any way you want. But some people think it is more well, by any means necessary means violence. I am not so sure if he meant that because I saw him in a debate with Buckley over in England, and I do not think he meant that. But your thoughts on when the movement went violent? 43:42 PC: Well, wait a minute. The movement? I mean, antiwar. Yeah, that that statement has so much push it. I do not know where America has been a violent country since its inception. 44:00 SM: Hold on a second. Let me change. Go Right ahead, I am back. 44:12 PC: It was founded in genocide. Let us just start with the eradication of 2 million indigenous people. Bounty still being paid in 1920 on that spoke about the 500 million buffalo that were wiped out. Let us talk about slavery as entry after Britain as made it illegal. Let us talk about let us talk about exploitation and enslavement all over the Third World. So then, when a cup a bunch of college kids who are morally outraged that we invade a third world country, and conscript them to go kill people who are not harming them are ignored long enough that they begin to fight back, you call that violence. We live in a climate of violence. And nobody talked about, you know, the 5000 lynchings that were going on of black people. But when Malcolm X stands up and says, by any means necessary, suddenly the niggers are getting violent. I mean, it is just insulting. It is insulting. White people can hang niggers from a tree. But let a black man pick up a gun. And the whole white world goes crazy. A black president is speaking. And you have got white guys walking around outside his speech, carrying guns, fully loaded weapon. And nobody is doing anything. Can you imagine what would have happened if it was a white president, and black guys were out there carrying their guns. So, if the movement got violent, it is because they got tired of having to shift kicked out of them being ignored, having murders created in their name and not being listened to. But they existed in and were trained by a climate of violence. So, to pretend if there is anybody in America, whose wealth is not based on violence, even if that violence is invisible, backed up by cop with truncheons, backed up with soldiers in the Third World, backed up with soldiers all over the world siphoning wealth off for America to pretend that we are not participating in the violence is an act of self-delusion and hypocrisy. 46:43 SM: Very good response. Thank you. When you look at the period of the boomers have been alive, and of course, the period boomers are defined as people born between 1946 and 1964. And I preface this by saying that many of the people I have interviewed 1/3 were born before 1946. Yeah, and many other people from (19)40 to (19)46. Have a, have an attitude that we are really boomers ourselves. And Richie Havens told me that, but in your own words, could you describe the years the boomers have been alive, based on what it means to be? Excuse me? Just these years, what they mean to you as a person? The years that the boomers have been alive from (19)46 to 2010. The first period is between 1946 in 1960, what did it mean, to be alive in that time? 47:50 PC: I mean, it is my entire life, but my life me. I do not know, it is everything. It is not a very good question. 47:59 SM: Well, the question I am trying to get at as I am breaking down periods of what, what, what it was like to be alive during these periods of time? 48:08 PC: You know, 1940 to (19)46, I was a little boy 1946, to about 1953. I was pre-adolescent. Starting at my adolescence, I started to become political started to listen to different music. But I mean, I just do not know how to. I just do not know how to grab that question. Yeah, it is just life, life is always just life, but it is always the same, but it always has the same elements that are recycled. [inaudible] percent 10 perfect free. Falling in love the first time, you know, having children getting married, growing old, dying. Political mischief. I mean, I just do not know how to answer your question. 48:58 SM: Yeah, I think that was what he was getting at. And the question is the difference between the (19)50s, the (19)60s, the (19)70s, and the (19)80s. As a generation what they- 49:06 PC: I do not pay up? Yeah. Really? looking at it from the outside. 49:15 SM: How do you respond to the critics that say that a lot of American problems today go right back to the (19)60s and (19)70s. And- 49:23 PC: They are too stupid to respond. Why and, you know, those people thought Bill Clinton was eight. Like trying to have a debate with a moron. What America's problems do not have anything to do with free market capitalism. They do not have anything to do with the post Roosevelt. Betrayal of labor. They do not have anything to do with the communist witch hunt. They do not have anything to do with the Treaty of Detroit and the disenfranchisement of working people is- are too stupid to pay up. 50:02 SM: I know that (19)94 when Newt Gingrich, when the Republicans came to power, he made some pretty strong statements against the (19)60s generation. And I know that George-George Will has oftentimes in his writings really likes to take jabs at the end whenever you can. And there is he could not read any of his books. And now I have an essay in there about it. George Will- 50:26 PC: Oh, he is another one is another niche for the CIA. These guys are unprincipled opportunists. They are people who are in the lifeboat beating at the people in the water with the oars. Why listen to them? 50:42 SM: Now, it is the other point of view. So I just get responses. 50:46 PC: Other point of view, there are 500 points of view. They pretend they are the other point of view, what they are is a center, right pro corporate capitalist point of view. I understand it to my bone marrow, I do not need to listen to them. 51:02 SM: when did the (19)60s begin in your-your viewpoint? 51:08 PC: I would say around (19) 56. Maybe. I would say like the middle of the decade. 51:17 SM: And when do you when did it end? 51:22 PC: Well, for me, it ended about (19)77. Maybe. 51:32 SM: Is there what was the watershed moment? 51:36 PC: Well, for me, it was losing the lamb that my come in was on my father died. The land was easy for debt. The you know, we could not we could not keep it up. And so suddenly, for the first time in a long time I was I was living alone is the nuclear family. 52:02 SM: I mentioned that the boomer generation is defined by educators and because I am from higher education, and they always have to look at generations. Whether it be the boomer generation, Generation X, the millennials. Tom Brokaw called the World War II generation, the greatest generation, but and this is kind of a general question. But the way I want to ask it is based on the people that you knew worked with, in many different capacities, the boomer generation, what are your thoughts on this generation in terms of maybe some qualities you think were some of their strengths and maybe some of their weaknesses? 52:51 PC: I do not pay any attention to this term, right? I think it is meaningless, But I would say that the strength of this group were that they grew up in a kind of economic security well of wealth after World War II, and it afforded them a kind of platform, and security in which to be experimental and buy things out. They grew up at a time where the adolescent culture was just emerging and becoming its own independent event. That gave them a kind of autonomy and freedom. Culture had not been reduced to quite a homogenized math as it is today. Rebellion has not been quite so effectively coopted. I would say the weaknesses were that, like, sort of all young people you think you are smarter than you are. You think that you know everything, and you think they are going to live forever? And you do not take care of your bodies. Those are their weakness. 54:32 SM: The term generation gap was very common in the (19)60s and (19)70s, between parents and their children. Did you have a generation gap with your parents? 54:44 PC: Oh, yeah, I really did. You know, in most cultures in the world, there is no such thing as adolescence. That kids when they become at puberty, they are taken out of the house of their parents. The girls are raised by the aunt. And the boys are raised by their uncle. And they do that because they have got real critical life skills they need to trim, and they cannot run the risk of, you know, Oedipal tension, stopping the kids from learning this stuff. So a young boy becomes the lowest status guy in the men's group, he gets this tools. And all of his imitative group energy, as an adolescent is focused on the adult, figures out who he wants to be like, who we want to imitate the who he does not. But in the kind of post war boom. Adolescents had their own spending money, they had their freedom, they had no responsibility, they were sort of kept out of the job market. So, they did not compete with returning soldiers and adults and unions. And they developed their own kind of culture. And it turned out to be a huge motive force and a capitalist economy. They had lots of disposable income. So huge that it, it determined the shape of the entire culture. So, it is sort of run today by people between 14 and 30 least run in terms of peaking their disposable income and their money and trying to get them to buy your product. The early new phenomenon. 56:31 SM: I interviewed a Vietnam veteran a couple of weeks ago, a well-known Vietnam veteran. And when I asked him this question about the generation gap between him and his parents, he immediately said, people talk too much about the differences between fam between moms and dads and their kids. But he felt very strongly that the generation gap within the boomer generation was between those who went to war, and served in Vietnam and those who protested, but mostly those who avoided the draft. So he was saying that the generation gap was really within the generation itself, your thoughts on that? 57:12 PC: Well, he is entitled to his opinion. And you know, if you felt it was immoral, if you felt that America had invaded another country, without provocation or cause, and you felt that it was a moral to go to their country, and so people, you would not call that just because somebody is in the armed forces. And just because they are following order, does not really make it service. And it does not exempt them from moral judgement. I was shot in the United States, I was beaten in the United States. So, I was also taking care of soldiers and we were passing out, only draft guards, the people on the free store and leave their uniforms and disappear out of the street. So I have a lot of respect for the military. And I got a lot of respect for people who served. But, you know, from my point of view, it was and remains an immoral war, we killed 3 million people trying to, we defoliated, the Plain of Jars in Cambodia. And we sent home young men with ghosts, and post-traumatic stress syndrome, and wounds that have lasted them the rest of their life. And they did it for them, you know, the Cold War ambitions of a bunch of old men. So let us not put more of a spin on it. then there is 58:55 SM: What do you feel established religion waned in the eyes of many boomers in the (19)60s and early (19)70s. And why was spirituality so important? To these same people, but in different ways. 59:06 PC: That established religion has become a handmaiden of the state. And it had separated itself from through spirituality. People had a hunger that they were seeking to satisfy. 59:23 SM: You in things I have read Zen Buddhism is very important to you. 59:29 PC: Yes, I have been I am an ordained Buddhist, and training now to be a teacher. I have been a Zen Buddhist for 38 years and I take this thing seriously. And, you know, less of religion than it is a way of living your life and practicing your life practicing kindness, compassion. I have never reached the bottom and unlike Judaism or policy ism or Islam, or always good to their own members and not so good everyone else who does not does not leave anybody out that like that. 1:00:13 SM: You feel in these 38 years, like it is really made you a more gives you peace of mind, meditation, I have a couple nephews are really in the meditation, they said that they cannot meditate they be well, they would be sick. So, they-they make sure they have an hour of meditation each day and they try to think about nothing except just to meditate the Zen, this has really changed your life in so many ways. 1:00:43 PC: First of all, that is not the way that we understand. You know, I probably be killing people, if I was not Buddhist. What being a Buddhist is, is basically studying the self? And, as great teacher Logan said, study the self, by forgetting I just I cannot think of another way to express fully what being human is by taking some time every day, and sitting still and checking in the- what is happening in my body and my mind. We are not trying to stop. We are just trying to detach from them enough, even, but not be jerked around by the mind is a gland using thought. When you meditate enough, it will go down on its own, but try to stop your thought of fanatic. So most people are afraid to build a very radical practice. But when you do that, it puts you in touch with what is really going on with your life. And your life is not so separate from the rest of creation. 1:02:15 SM: There is two examples that I think that most of the boomer generation saw, particularly in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. One was on college campuses, and the other was just in the news, the Beatles and how they be changed so much. And when they went to, I guess, forget the person that they went to over in India, then the Allen Ginsberg traveling through a lot of college campuses, and she came to three campuses in my area, Ohio State, and he just chanted the entire two hours he was in the room and one heck of an experience it was a spiritual happening is what it was. 1:02:57 PC: Yeah. Well, he was he was introducing people to spirituality. 1:03:05 SM: One, one question supporting them asked everyone is- 1:03:09 PC: I am starting to get tired. 1:03:12 SM: Okay, yeah. What? I have about 20 more minutes, is that okay? 1:03:17 PC: Let me just look at my calendar. Well, let us see how quickly we can get I have an appointment at one o'clock. Let us see how fast we can get through this. 1:03:29 SM: Okay, you are- one of the questions. The advanced everyone, that group of our students took a trip to Washington, DC in the mid (19)90s. We went to see Senator Edmund Muskie. And the students came up with this question after seeing films on the (19)60s and particularly in 1968. They said the question they wanted to ask the senator was based on all the protests that were happening in Chicago in (19)68. And the question went like this, due to all the divisions that were happening in America at that time between those who supported the war and those who were against the war, those who supported the troops and those who did not, between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, and then they also brought up the-the riots that were happening in the cities. Do you feel that the boomer generation is going to go to its grave, like the Civil War generation did not truly healing due to the tremendous divisions that took place at the time that they were young? And a lot of these issues and they thought he was going to answer based on the crisis in Chicago in 1968, but he did not answer that-that way. But I want to get your response to this whole issue of healing. If you think this is an issue? 1:04:55 PC: Well, there has been a fracture in American life No, there have been those people who want unfettered access and liberty to do whatever they want to have been those who think that the government should be a mediating influence for Berna [inaudible]. And that fracture has been in America since the founding fathers. It exists today between, you know, are conservatives and liberals are big boulders, and so they represent points of view, but they are never going to go away. So, I am not sure that America has any more fractures than it ever was. I mean, they started a civil war, to protect slavery. How fractured was that? So, you know, I think that we call unresolved arguments fractured. But that was assuming that it was hold. It was never hold. America was created by millions of indentured servants came over here, and owed their employers, seven years of their labor. You know, there is a, there is a guy named doubt, wrote a book called The Twisted Dream, which marked the history of America. And it is eye opening to read. Because, you know, if you were paid somebody stick it over here, you had his labor, seven years, to build your barns and your mills and your greeneries and your dams, and amass you all this wealth. And when it came to vote, who are you going to vote for? So, I do not think that anything that involves human beings is ever old. I think human beings are always fractured and independent, even when they ascribe to some great overarching political philosophy, just looked at religion, look at the way religion fragmented in the face of the Enlightenment, and suddenly had, you know, Calvinism and Methodism and press theory and they are just all reflections of different points of view on any given issue. And that is what human beings do. That is what the world is. So, I do not know, it is worse now than it ever was. I do not know. 1:07:31 SM: Senator muskie did not even respond about the (19)60s in 1968. His responses that we have not healed since the Civil War due to race, the issue of race and then he said, he actually died six months later, he was not well, and we were lucky to have the meeting. And he said he had just gotten out of the hospital, and he had seen the Ken Burns series, how we lost 430,000 people almost lost the entire generation of men. Back then, particularly in the south, so he says the issue of race, and he did not even talk about (19)68. 1:08:06 PC: Yeah, well, I think race is the big one. I agree with him on that. You know, I think a lot of what you are seeing today is the kind of panic of previously privileged white men realize that they are being submerged under a kind of new lotto tide and they are freaked out about it, because I am sure they imagine all these people of color plotting some hideous revenge on them for their persistency. 1:08:36 SM: What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you because it has played – it has certainly played a role in healing men in the Vietnam vets and their families and lost loved ones. But when Jan Scruggs wrote the book to heal a nation not only was his goal when not only was the walls’ goal to heal the veterans but to play a part, even a small part and healing the nation from this terrible war. Your thoughts? Have you been to the wall? 1:09:05 PC: Yeah, so indescribably sad. It is so beautiful. You know, I am one of those people that thinks that the way you support the group is not the sentiment of a stupid war. And my heart goes out to each and every one of those people who serve both the survivors, those that fell, you know, nobody survives a war. The way they went in, they come back scarred, they come back having seen extremes of human behavior, they come back having done things that nobody should ever have to do. And for those of us who can see it, beforehand, we are out there on the streets shouting and screaming and people think it is about politics. But it is about the soldiers I mean, you look at Afghanistan and Iraq today, what is it? One half of 1 percent of the people are making these blood sacrifices, so the rest of us can shop. It is fucking hideous. It is obscene. See, you know, and people think you want to get the troops out of there, you are against the group. I want these kids to come home with their arms and legs and their brains and their, you know, passion and their generosity and their hopefulness. They do not even know why they are there. Yeah. So, you know, healed we did not make the wars. But people that resist the wars. Yeah, we are one side of a fracture, I suppose. But do not blame me. 1:10:52 SM: In your in your view. and I am getting a lot of different opinions on this. Why did we lose the Vietnam War and, and wha- and George Bush, the first said in 1989, the Vietnam syndrome is over? Which is this war still with us as a nation, in mind and spirit? 1:11:14 PC: Well, I think, you know, I think the Korean War, morphed into the Vietnamese War which morphed into the Iraq War, which morphed into the Afghanistan war, they were all in the service of an empire They were all in the service of bracketing or protecting wealth to bring home for the mother country. So, I do not know that Vietnam is still an issue except among those who fought in it. But the underlying issue of empire and policies which you know, bombed the wealth of other people, they are still, they are still operating. And I think the reason we lost the I think the reason we lost the, or, because we had someplace else to go, most people had nowhere else. So they would never quit. And that is why we are not going to beat the Afghans. They have no place else to go, where they live. And they will fight and they will die there forever. And eventually, the body count will get high enough that Americans will say. 1:12:25 SM: that we. Yeah, this is a two-part question. It can be sure. What can we learn from the (19)60s in the (19)70s? And secondly, what is the responsibility of the artist? And what role should they all artists play in times of crisis? And I, I prefaced the second question, part of the question, based on the fact that in recent years, entertainers had been attacked, as you know, your entertainer should keep your mouth shut and just entertain. And as if entertainers do not are not a part of the American citizenry. That guess the first part, what do we learn from the (19)60s and (19)70s? 1:13:07 PC: Well, let me just let me talk about it is the height of hypocrisy. You know, there are huge industries which are dedicated to everything that entertainers do. They are a magazine devoted to who their fucking where they shop, how they decorate their home, everything, except should they open their mouth about a political opinion? They are herded back onto the ranch. Now, why do you think the simplest answer to that would be is because their real function is as marketing brands. And when they venture an opinion, they divide the consumer base. You know, if they say Democrat, you are going to lose the Republic. If you say Republicans, you are going to lose the Democrats. And so everybody is using and harnessing the charisma of celebrities to sell ship. But God forbid that the celebrity should harness their own courage to talk about something that so, you know, that, that the two edged sword if I have the charisma to sell, or to be exploited by other people, I should certainly have the ability to exploit it and use it myself. So, there is that and what was the other part. 1:14:42 SM: Of just what-what did we learn overall from the (19)60s in the (19)70s? Nothing. Okay. You made replicating. 1:14:51 PC: The same mistakes in 2010 that we that we made in the (19)70s. 1:15:00 SM: You made reference that you have a problem with the term the boomer generation, and I am telling you I have a problem. 1:15:05 PC: With it-it just does not describe anything to me. 1:15:11 SM: Well, I am finding from the majority of the people I have interviewed that they do not like, they do not like generations being labeled. 1:15:18 PC: That well, we did not make it up. It is going to with some media term, right? We did not call ourselves hippies either. 1:15:26 SM: One of the qualities of the counterculture is that money is not important, or at least I. And in a lot of the in the question is, and again, another criticism of the boomer generation, not so much the counterculture, but the boomer generation is that, well, some of the wealthiest people are now our boomers who had were idealists, and now have gone on to make a lot of money. So, they are no different than any other generation. How, how credible is the fact that that is one of the qualities of the counterculture is that money was not important. 1:16:04 PC: Well, it is hard to live in America without-without money. So, but it just stuff, it was not important. It just was not going to be our organizing. 1:16:24 SM: I-I-I know you are tired. And are there? I have other questions here. But I will ask you. Are there any questions? I did not ask you that I thought I was going to that you thought it was going to. The last question I have is what do you think the lasting legacy will be the-the best history books are often written 50 years after an event 50 years after World War II, the best books came out. But I think good books are coming out every year on any every topic, but it is the thought that what do you think? The historians the sociologists, the writers will say once the last Boomer has passed away, what do you what do you think they will say about this generation that that was that grew up after World War II? 1:17:24 PC: Something stupid. Something stupid, you can count on it. I mean, I do not know what they will say, I do not care what they say I am, I collect my letters, along with Barry Snyder, along with Michael McClure, along with a bunch of people, I give them to the University of California, hopefully to give original sources a future historian, you know, so that my generation and my time is not defined by other people. Not an original observation to say that history is written by the winners. So, we have tried to create a body of literature and stuff that would at least describe the world the way we saw it the way it felt. That is all I do. 1:18:27 SM: You have any final thoughts you want to say on anything? On the boomer generation? 1:18:32 PC: Yeah, I do not know. I mean, you have asked really good questions. I do not mean to be cranky with I am sorry. 1:18:38 SM: Well, no, Peter, that was exactly because you have a passion. I can hear it in your voice. 1:18:47 PC: And I guess what I feel is that one of the reasons I became a Buddhist is because the endless debate and discussion does not seem to lead any does not seem to lead to wisdom does not seem to lead to anything but opinions. Borrow. And I would rather day make a sandwich for a hungry person. And debate hunger. I would rather take in an orphan and wash them and debate federal policy about orphan just where I have come to in my life. 1:19:32 SM: And you notice I have not asked one question about your years in Hollywood and all your movies. So I appreciate that. Because you a re much more your every year of what is the word, I want to use your if you lose quite a life, that ss all I have to say. Well, thanks and-and I will keep I will keep you updated on where I am at. interviewing 200 people. I will be transcribing all the interviews. Wow. I am doing it myself between September and April and then you will get a copy of the I guess I will send it to your assistant. You will have a chance to read it and make sure it is okay get the approval to printed I am going to need two pictures of you for the top of it. 1:20:24 PC: Let me give you, my email. 1:20:25 SM: Okay hold on one second let me write this down. Okay. 1:20:31 PC: It is Peter at W D like David 1:20:38 SM: [inaudible] You said Peter at WD light. 1:20:46 PC: W, D be like David. Okay. Yep, P like Peter R like Richard. Oh, D like david.com It stands for Wild Dogs Production. Okay. So that is my email. If you send me an email I can email you back a photo or something. 1:21:08 SM: Very good. Well, thank you very much Peter. 1:21:12 PC: Thank you very much. 1:21:13 SM: You have a great day. Thanks a lot. Night. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 1 Microcassette Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Peter Coyote Description An account of the resource Peter Coyote is an author, actor, director, screenwriter, and activist. Coyote is also a narrator for not only his own films, but for a plethora of other events including the 2002 Winter Olympics and various Historic films. He graduated from Grinnell College with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and attended California State University for a Master's Degree in Creative Writing. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Coyote, Peter ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Motion picture producers and directors; Screenwriters; Political activists--United States; Coyote, Peter--Interviews Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-07-22 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.11 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-01 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 84:26 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/af9a347cb9b1f4bc60ba4f7899732397.jpg 1a9995d7f99da6c64aa20ccbc2f9bf8c https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a2dfde44a49cbc7dec6867796fcb6f94.mp3 4e7590ec67e961a32cdaa69a4368c2cb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-07-23 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Wheeler, 1944-2010 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15107,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,16777215],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}" data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.&quot;}">John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 153:04 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Vietnam War; West Point; disenfranchised group; \&quot;We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young\&quot;(book); Bobby Muller; Vietnam Memorial; Women's Memorial; Glenna Goodacre; Rhodes Scholar; Jim Webb; \&quot;Touched with Fire\&quot;(book).&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Vietnam War; West Point; disenfranchised group; "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young" (book); Bobby Muller; Vietnam Memorial; Women's Memorial; Glenna Goodacre; Rhodes Scholar; Jim Webb; "Touched with Fire" (book).</span> Subject LCSH Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Lawyers; Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Wheeler, John, 1944-2010--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: John Wheeler Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 23 March 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:07): Sometimes it is [inaudible]. I just clear it away. You stated in that foreign affairs... I am going to make sure I read these correctly because I have some quotes here. You state in a foreign affairs article in the spring of (19)85 that, how our country finally comes to grips with Vietnam will depend on how the Vietnam generation comes to grips with its own experiences. We are in 2010 now, that was (19)85. How would you answer this today? JW (00:00:35): We are doing it poorly because we live inside the human condition. One example is, we still have cases of stolen valor. You have got politicians running for office, making up that they served in Vietnam or that they served in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is just the latest shoot on that tree, but it is the human condition. Humans do not do well at adjusting to war and its effects. That does not mean that writing on the subject and the working on it is not a good thing. It just means it is hard. The debates we have now in Congress, in the Council on Foreign Relations of which I am a member on the current issues, for example, the rules of engagement or on the way the defense department's being run, the Pentagon, all echo for me now just another verse. It is like Dante, almost. Just another big verse and set of couplets out of, I am afraid, it is inferno. It is not the Paradiso. From 1968 to 2010, now we have Robert Gates who is making many of the same mistakes as McNamara. I know that because I was in the building with McNamara and then Clark Clifford, I worked there. SM (00:02:13): Right. JW (00:02:15): The difference is, Gates does not have the depth and breadth of character that Robert McNamara had, and that is a big difference. SM (00:02:30): What were the most important influences in your life? I know your dad and your military background and I interviewed Peter Coyote yesterday, the actor, and of course, he comes from a new left background. Totally different from your background, but when I asked him the question, I said, "When you look at your life up to this point in 2010, what are the specific events? Can you name three to five personalities, people, events, happenings that made you who you are today?" How would you respond to that? JW (00:03:04): Well, it has to be my mom who grew up on a ranch in way West Texas. We are not talking just Laredo and Webb County. We are talking Asherton, Texas. And she is Irish from that part of the state. My dad is an army brat. My grandfather was cavalry from Texas and so those are formative. My brother was formative for me. He died suddenly three years ago. That is a huge loss, helping me realize the answer to your question, how important my brother was. Shared memories and a sounding board through life. We were just barely 20 months apart in age. After that, it would be, I would have to say C.S. Lewis. Increasingly, as we age, we realize that people who influence us are not necessarily close friends. They are people whose-whose spirit or presence means a lot. C.S. Lewis and my uncle John Conley, who received the Silver Star for conduct in that first low-level raid of the B-29s over Tokyo, March 8 and 9, 1945. They were significant. Their memory, what they did and what they stood for. C.S. Lewis, because the way he writes and deals with issues of faith works for me, works for my DNA and my background. Although, and I believe in faith that I will meet him. I am a little nervous about that because he is a big gruff Irishman. I am not sure how we will get along. You know, he died the same day, and I actually calculated, the same hour as John Kennedy. SM (00:05:05): November 22, (19)63. JW (00:05:06): Yeah, the same hour, actually though, it is interesting, when you account for the time change between London and Texas. It was just interesting. SM (00:05:14): How old was he when he died? JW (00:05:15): He was 63. SM (00:05:17): Young. JW (00:05:17): He was young. Help me, one other guy died that day. You got to Google it. Three, and they were all Irish. I think all three were Irish. Anyway, Jack Kennedy and of course, Jack Lewis' nickname was Jack, happened to die that same day. At West Point, the Kennedy assassination was significant. Little did I know that also, at that same hour, another Irishman named Jack was taken and Google and find that other third. There were three significant personalities died that day. That is a good way to answer your question. West Point is significant. It is significant for everybody that goes there in different ways. SM (00:05:58): Yeah, yeah. I have actually known people who have gone to West Point. We had a couple of our students that went there and I do not know, they got in after they finished two years of college, but they wanted to go to West Point, so they got in and they graduated. One of them was the mayor of West Chester, Pennsylvania's son was at West Point. I know he served in Iraq, but duty, honor, country was something, even when you, in this book where there were differences of opinion about the war, even amongst the veterans of the Vietnam War, even there was still, no matter what the differences may have been and the frictions that took place over politics, no one ever lost that. The feeling of... There was a sense that that was something so important. How important has that been in your life? Just those three words, not only from your service in Vietnam, what you have done since Vietnam, but going into Vietnam West Point and serving for four years. JW (00:07:02): They are as important for me as any other man in my West Point class or for the women now, who go. It is important to note that it was in June, actually, May of 2005 that the 10000th woman graduated from the five Federal academies, and do not forget that James Webb and I parted company over that issue. The women going to the academies. That was his article November, 1979. Washingtonian women cannot fight. Now, he tells people when he runs for office that, "Oh, he has outgrown that article". Do not you believe it. Webb does not change much. I know him well. I edited his book, A Sense of Honor. SM (00:07:53): Yeah, I have the book. JW (00:07:54): About West Point. Have you seen it? SM (00:07:55): I have not read it. JW (00:07:56): Did you look at... Do you have the book? SM (00:07:58): Yeah, I have the book. I have read the Fields of Fire, but I have not read it. JW (00:08:00): Have you opened up... Have you opened the book up? SM (00:08:02): No. JW (00:08:02): Have you looked at the frontispiece? SM (00:08:04): Yes. JW (00:08:05): So I am in it. Are you aware of that? SM (00:08:08): No. I guess [inaudible]. JW (00:08:09): All right, here is what you are going to do. By the way, it is 14:30 and we are going to have to come to a hard stop, so I want to make sure we go through your questions. Let us answer them crisply. Then you can come back. SM (00:08:19): Right. JW (00:08:20): What I would like you to do, sir, is, go to a Sense of Honor, open it up, go to the frontispiece and look at the dedication. SM (00:08:31): Okay. JW (00:08:31): And I want you to email me back and tell me what the green bench is. SM (00:08:35): The green bench? JW (00:08:36): Yes, sir. I want you to do that. SM (00:08:39): Okay. JW (00:08:39): You are going to have to work a little bit to find out what the green bench is. SM (00:08:42): All right. I shall do that. You said in the same article that I just mentioned up briefly- JW (00:08:47): Anyway, I edited for Webb. I know the man. SM (00:08:50): Yeah. I tried to interview him before he became senator, but he was busy running for the Senate and then I was never able to interview me. So you said in the same article that the events of one generation shaped the attitudes of the next, and you brought up examples in your book about the results of the harshness on Germany in World War I and how it shaped many of the Germans and their attitudes and due to the reparations and the tough stand that was taken against Germany. How does that apply to Vietnam in terms of the effect that maybe what happened in World War II affected the Boomer generation? JW (00:09:33): Two ways. One is, the intellectual and story level, which happens in every culture because of a war. There were so many of us that went into Vietnam. The generation was roughly 30 million women, 30 million men, roughly. Roughly 60 million in all. When you count, not just technical baby boomers, but also those born a little before because so many youngsters born in (19)44 and (19)43 fought in Vietnam, but you do not count all the baby boomers born late in the (19)50s because they were just nine years old during the Vietnam War. So you use 60 million. Well, that is 30 million women and 30 million guys, and so the children grow up knowing that something happened and they pay attention. They listen and they learn like any youngster does in a family. Regardless of what the parents were doing during that period, it was significant for their parents. That is one way, story and culture, family. But there is something more significant. Everyone who fights in a war, goes through trauma, and now, in the year 2010, we understand what PTSD is. By the way, my own West Point classmate, Jim Peak, who was Secretary of Veterans Affairs, uses this term post-traumatic stress dash normal reaction. Now, he is a doctor, an MD, first MD to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. My point is, Jim is saying, that is what happens in war. And do not forget, Jim was an infantry platoon leader in combat in Vietnam, then he went to medical school. Then he becomes in many years later, secretary of Veterans Affairs. Post-traumatic stress, normal reaction. My dad had PTSD. By golly, I hope he did. I mean, that would be normal. Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge. SM (00:11:45): Right. JW (00:11:47): He was at Remagen when they found the bridge was still standing. He fought all the way to the liberation of the death camp at Nordhausen. It was a hard fight. He had a little, that small Sherman tank, fighting Panzers. That was a very risky thing to do. I am saying that that effect on those fathers, there were so few women that fought in the Vietnam War or were even in the military at that time, compared to the number of men. For example, there is only eight women on the wall. There is eight nurses. That had to hurt the children. That hurt the children. It hurts the children in every generation. Those are the two effects. Let us march on. SM (00:12:41): I have a couple of other quotes here from these two books. One of the quotes from you is, "I think the challenge that lies before us is not to forget ourselves, set up in some kind of super minority, one more special interest group, but instead, to figure out what it is we have to offer". Now, I say that because today, in our society we have a lot of people who criticize special interest groups, particularly, different minorities. You have heard the whole politics of... The year of special interests and everything. But Vietnam veterans, I know, when I worked at Ohio University in my very first job, a lot of them could not get jobs, and we had Vietnam Veterans affairs officers at Ohio University because of getting jobs and the way some of them were being treated upon their return, they were not going to be hired. So they became part of the affirmative action plan. So I just wanted your thoughts on, you made this statement about being a special interest, but in affirmative action, they became a special interest because they were being discriminated against on their return. Just your thoughts on that. JW (00:13:54): Well, there is two thoughts. One is, there is a sense in which all of us became a nigger for a while. Everyone who came back from Vietnam became for a while, a nigger. That means we became a disenfranchised group. We became someone whose particular story was not... Society did not want to hear our story. And we were stereotyped, as if we knew what stereotype was. I mean, back in the (19)40s when I was born, who used stereotype, man? But we understand what all that means. Or in another sense, we were the (19)50s housewife women sent out for coffee. What I am saying is, we were a disenfranchised group. Our fathers and our forefathers, the Civil War vets, the World War II vets, the Teddy Roosevelt era vets, they were esteemed. We were the opposite. We were disesteemed. We spent a while being niggers. I am using the term to make a point. SM (00:15:15): Yes. JW (00:15:17): But what it did, was give us great empathy. It gave many of us great empathy, actually. We did not know it when we were building a wall, but it became a fulcrum on which our country turned so that our period in that particular silo, in that particular disenfranchised condition ended. We did not know that. We were just kids. That is why that book, Hal Moore's book, We Were Soldiers Once- SM (00:15:49): Great book, with Joe Galloway. JW (00:15:51): But the last part of the title, it is not in the movie title, and young. We were young. The wall would never have been built if we were not so young and we could take a licking and keep on ticking, so to speak, when we were young. But it gives great empathy to the guys who served in Vietnam. There is no anger, and by the way, there is no big sense of entitlement. Bobby Mueller is a minority among Vietnam veterans. Most Vietnam veterans have a great sense of personality and self. They actually know where they were and what they did. That is not all. They know that and they know two other things. They also know who their fathers were and their grandfathers and that they kept faith with them. And that gives you a pretty deep keel. They know something else. It is kind of like the funnies or the cartoons because every once in a while someone pops up and says, "I was in Vietnam", when they were not. Well, why do they do that? I am going to tell you why. Have you read the book, Vanity Fair? That is okay. SM (00:17:15): No, I have not read it. JW (00:17:16): Do you know anyone who's read it? Do you know somebody who has read it? Well, sure you do. Think of the really best English teacher, probably a really good woman at Ohio. Professor at Ohio. SM (00:17:25): Right. JW (00:17:27): Anyway, anyway. There is a line in Vanity Fair, was written by William Makepeace Thackeray, "Bravery never goes out of fashion." SM (00:17:44): The one thing that I think upsets me more than anything else that I have seen in the last, is the imposters. The people who say that they were in Vietnam. It is really interesting, and this is still part of the interview because there was a book that was written about this and there was a professor up at Harvard- JW (00:18:06): Stolen Valor. SM (00:18:07): Yeah-yeah. Stolen Valor. JW (00:18:09): Jug Burkett. SM (00:18:11): Yeah. And there is others that have actually, when it was not popular to be a Vietnam veteran, and then when it becomes popular, then they come out and say that they are one. Many of them made money off it. To me, it is a crime. It is a crime. They will have to face You Know Who, above. JW (00:18:36): Do not get excited about it. It is okay. They are just dogs chasing the bus. It is okay. SM (00:18:42): Remember the professor at Harvard that did it? And I forget his name. The Long Gray Line is a great book. I read that quite a long time ago. I have not read the rewrite. It was probably 15 years ago. 806 people were in your class, and how important were Kennedy's words, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", as well as, "Pay any price, bear any burden". How did that affect the 806? JW (00:19:20): There are two big effects at West Point. One of them is, ideals expressed by our fathers or by our spiritual fathers, so to speak, like Kennedy. I want to give you one concrete example of a guy for whom that quote meant a great deal, and that is Frank Rybicki, R-Y-B-I-C-K-I. He is in the book, the Long Gray Line. You can look Frank up. He was killed. He was one of the first in our class killed in the Rung Sat Special Zone in 1967. Infantryman. That quote meant specifically, a great deal to him. So he is an example of how that imprinted on some of us. That is not what forms you at West Point. Far more important is the second thing. On July 2nd, 1962, from my West Point class, we all reported in and Uncle Sam issued us to each other. SM (00:20:35): Some of the statistics here, which you well know, you were part of the first class at West Point that took the full impact of the Vietnam War. What I gather, the information I have here, is that 30 of your classmates died in Vietnam. I never got- JW (00:20:50): They did not die. There is this great line in Mash, it is where Hawkeye is talking and someone says, "Oh, sir, they died". And it is Alan Alda. He says, "They did not die. Old people in hospitals die. These men were killed." SM (00:21:09): Very important. That is a magic moment in this interview for me. I have never thought of it in those terms. Do you know how many of your classmates were wounded that survived? Because I do not... I have never seen that statistic. JW (00:21:24): Here is what I can tell you. My West Point class, the class of 1966 was decimated. One in 10 either lost his life or a part of his body. I went through the entire register of my class, and for every Purple Heart, that meant they were either killed or wounded. I did not count all the wounded. I counted those who were wounded in a manner that significantly altered their life. So one in 10, which means... The number is 83 or 87, were killed or lost a part of their body. Which, if you convert that back to the legions and what the effect of those wounds would have been in Roman times, my class was literally decimated. Decimation was levied on allegiance as a form of punishment. My class was not punished, but it was literally decimation. That is what I know about that. SM (00:22:35): You were involved, obviously, in building something. I did not even know this, that you were involved in building a memorial to Southeast Asia at West Point. JW (00:22:46): Yes. SM (00:22:47): And that was one of the main reasons why you were picked to be the leader of raising funds or building the Vietnam Memorial. JW (00:22:54): I was chairman of the board for the Memorial Fund. SM (00:22:58): Could you tell me, we know about the wall, but I do not know anything about what happened at West Point. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? And- JW (00:23:07): It was an idea I had in... It was my idea. It was just on the eve of our 10th reunion, 1976, and I said, "Why do not we build a memorial at West Point for everyone killed?" And the reason I did it is because we were disenfranchised and our country did not know about us. What we would do for our fellows, and their next of kin and widows and kids we had to do for ourselves. With that thought in mind, I went to Wes Clark, Jeff Rogers. This is in the book, the Long Gray Line. SM (00:23:44): Yes. JW (00:23:45): And Matt Harrison, and we met right here in town at Matt Harrison's house just down the street. Wes Clark and Matt and I met, Jeff was up at West Point. We called Jeff. At our reunion, we all together presented the idea to build a memorial at West Point. It would take money, some money, and we would have to get permission to use land. We worked together to get the land from West Point. That was a good drill for getting land and wash it and in order... We were all very young, right? In order to have some money, my solution was to unite the 10 classes of the (19)60s. That is how it got built. SM (00:24:33): It is unbelievable. And then, correct me if I am wrong, but then many members of the class of (19)66 were involved in working on the Vietnam Memorial as well. JW (00:24:43): Yes. SM (00:24:44): And how did you meet Jan Scruggs and I think Bob Dubak and [inaudible]? JW (00:24:47): Again, that is in the long line, the details. SM (00:24:50): Right. JW (00:24:51): So you could look it up there. I met Scruggs because it is actually a chapter that begins in the book The Long Gray Line. But I read an article... So, look it up there. SM (00:25:00): Yes. JW (00:25:01): Save us time here. But I went and I read an article that he raised, whatever it was, 200 and some dollars. The exact sum is actually Rick Atkinson has the exact sum, and people were kind of making fun of him on national television, but we were on the cusp of finishing the memorial at West Point. So this is the summer of 1979, and I made a point to call him up when I got back to Washington. He came over to my home. It was a day like this. It was kind of a hot day, summer day. And I listened to what he said, and I said, "I got a Rolodex. You can do this." I said, "You can do this." And then he paid me a compliment, which is what a soldier can do, and he is a soldier. He said he trusted me and there were all these reasons not to trust me. I went to West Point. That is a good reason. If you have been a trooper in the one 99th, you learn that these officers with good ideas can get you hurt, no matter how good their ideas. It may be brilliant, you can still... Just like Afghanistan. General Petraeus may have a great idea, but someone is going to get hurt. SM (00:26:20): Yeah. JW (00:26:20): I am only half kidding. I am saying that he learns to be wary. He trusted me, even though I went to West Point. He trusted me, even though I was an officer and I have been to these Ivy League schools. That was really... I mean, who would... What sense does that make? So he asked me to be chairman. That is how it happened. The greatest compliment that the field soldier will ever give you is to trust you, period. SM (00:26:58): And it is important because Jan has done a great job [inaudible]. JW (00:27:04): Yes, he did. SM (00:27:05): And under a lot of criticism too, from God knows how many people. JW (00:27:12): They were not there during the fight and it was a fight. SM (00:27:16): Right. Talk about your work with the wall and your beliefs with respect to helping the healing process. One of the questions I have asked everyone from Senator McCarthy when I first started this back in (19)96 part-time, to my full-time work of last a year and a half, is that the students that I worked with at the university, when we used to go on these leadership, on the road trips, we always talked about healing. And we took a group to see Senator Muskie in 1995, 6 months before he died. And the question we asked, the students came up with is that, due to the divisions that were so intense in the Vietnam generation or the boomer generation, the divisions between those who served and those who did not, the divisions between those who supported the troops and did not, the divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight. The burnings within the cities, the riots and so forth and certainly what happened in 1968 with the assassinations. Is this generation, the Vietnam generation, going to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? I have a quote I am going to read from this book that you wrote, but what is your thought on the healing process and the role? And the second part of the question is the role that the wall has played, not just for veterans and their families and the people who lost loved ones, but the nation? JW (00:28:51): You got to read the quote first. What did I say? SM (00:28:54): There is a quote in here. Where is it here? It is on page seven and I... Page seven, and it is bottom paragraph. "Bonded by the heritage of World War II in the electronic media and profoundly shaped and divided the freedom rights, the Peace Corps, the women's movement, and the Vietnam War, the 60 million Americans who came of age in the (19)60s are healing their divisions through remembrance and dialogue. This work is vital since we will be the leaders of our national institutions in the year 2000, we are the century generation." So you were talking back when you wrote this book about the healing process, and you were very confident that it was happening. Just your thoughts now in the year 2010. JW (00:29:51): Well, there is three things about that. I always check those pictures. Three things to answer your question. First, it is in the nature of life, like a large tree, to take a wound in the trunk or a whack, but still grow and the bark heals around it and could still be a pretty sturdy tree. So that is natural. That is just natural for a human tribe. The effect of the wall was some healing. It was worth the effort, not just for its main purpose, to remember those who were killed or for the deeper remembrance, which was really for the next of kin, particularly, the mothers. Sometimes I thought, there were a number of years where I thought, we really did it for the moms as I thought about it. But there was also healing. And by striving for healing and using the word and putting the thought into. JW (00:31:03): Using the word and putting the thought into consciousness. It added materially to what might have been the slower process by nature. In particular, it accelerated the process of freeing the Vietnam veteran from disenfranchisement and being almost taboo because we were walking remembrance of things that were taboo. One of the biggest taboos is healthy manhood, that the idea of healthy manhood has 10,000 volts in it. Actually, it always does. That does not change in human culture. Probably will not change for another couple of thousand years. 800,000, I mean, that is in our genes not going to change much. The idea of healthy manhood, it has to do with stolen valor. Of course, it is a badge of healthy manhood to go out as a war fighter. But the third process goes back to CS Lewis. It is grace. I am at a point in life now where I can say not just asserting it, but affirming as CS Lewis did when he was in his (19)50s and near his own death. And that is the wall got built by grace and there has been healing by grace and our country, as do all countries and tribes of humans walks in grace. So think about grace. SM (00:33:01): You are okay. It is okay I got the main one there. Yep. Yeah. I tell you, when I go to that wall, and I am been honored to be at over 30 times on Memorial Day and Veterans Day events now. It just touches me every time I am there and I am not a veteran, and I sit usually after the ceremonies and I just sit there and reflect on, I knew a lot of Vietnam vets. I know two people on the wall, and to me, it is one of the greatest things that is ever been done in my life. JW (00:33:38): Well, it was built by grace. SM (00:33:40): Yeah. JW (00:33:40): It was not built by, I will tell you this. It was not built by a bunch of ragtag soldiers. SM (00:33:45): Yes. JW (00:33:45): I mean, which is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, our team. Let me tell you something John Warner said, and you can still ask him. God bless him. He actually might even be in the club. We are at the Metropolitan Club, so he could be here right now. He comes here often, and I will tell you what he said. He said, "I know how that wall got built. You were," and he was talking to all of us. We were young men. And then this was decades later, so we were not so young. But he said, "You were in God's hands." He actually did not say that. He said, "You were in God's hand." That is John Warner. "You were in God's hand." Go ask him. SM (00:34:41): That was, I loved him. I know he retired. JW (00:34:45): He said it. SM (00:34:46): That is Unbelievable. The wall that heals is a follow up to that question is Dan, when he wrote the book to Heal a Nation, I think you have already said it, but where does the nation stand with respect to healing from all the divisions in our society? How did, I have not had a chance to even interview Dan. I sent him a letter once and he did not respond, so maybe he does not want to-to be interviewed. But how does he feel, do you think, with respect to the nation part? I know he- JW (00:35:17): Dan has to speak for himself. SM (00:35:19): Yeah. JW (00:35:19): I will say that if you read with Carol, hear all the references to [inaudible] in this book, Touched With Fire in the Long Gray Line, and then the books he has written and go to the website for vvmf.org and read his stuff, you will get a take on his attitude. SM (00:35:38): Right. JW (00:35:38): It is a solid and faithful soldier's attitude. It is all one could ask of the American soldier. SM (00:35:47): Yeah. Well, we brought him to Westchester for our Wall that Heals. I did not mention, we brought the traveling wall and we had over 6,000 people who came and quite a few veterans after midnight. The Women's Memorial, obviously, Diane Carlson Evans has played a very important role. Again, I have gotten to know her too. I interviewed her for the book. But a lot of the movements from the (19)60s, whether it be the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement, women were put in secondary roles, were women thought of when the original Vietnam Memorial was built. Because it is my understanding, Diane had to really battle to get that in the beginnings before Congress to even get them to think about building the Women's Memorial. JW (00:36:34): Right. In the book Touched With Fire, you will find the first part of the answer to that. Several women have written, and you can Google this idea, out of the anti-war movement came the women's movement. The idea of standing up came, as women, came out of the anti-war war movement. SM (00:36:54): Yes. JW (00:36:54): That is 0.1. That is actually grace from Vietnam. There is a sense in which women came to the front of the bus and the war fighters were put in the back of the bus for that to happen in a great and poetic cultural sense, and that is great. That is okay. We are fine. I mean, you take the war fighters and say, "Go back to the back of the bus." We were disenfranchised. They were treating us like, but we were still back there remembering how great it was in Vietnam and what were they going to do. Send us to Vietnam, the bus was still air conditioned. I am just, I am making a joke. But in a sense, we went to the back of the bus while they got to the front. That is what the women were doing. In large. It was a good thing. Second, it was women were absolutely key in getting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial built, and the women will tell you they were not at the back of any bus. We were out there in the slot wrestling with Webb. But the real efficient, practical work was done by the gals. Sandy Forio is one. She could tell you about the other women on the Memorial fund, but she was our lead fundraiser. I mean, the gals were, and do not forget, it was a woman who won the design, all the productive work. SM (00:38:13): Not Linda Goodacre? JW (00:38:15): The women did. No, not Linda Goodacre. The Women's Memorial was Linda Goodacre, but Maya Lynn designed the Vietnam. I am just saying, if you look at it, the guys were out there. We were like pigs and slop doing whatever with inefficient things there. We were just basically keeping the barbarians at base. So the women actually did the productive, effective work of fundraising and designing it. Did anybody notice that the creative and sustaining work? I mean, I am just saying if you unfold the memorial story, by the way, they gave as God as they could. I mean, the people, when Sandy Borio was speaking at meetings about what Webb and Perot was doing, we had to restrain her man. She was all set to go hurt him. So I am just saying, right. If you want women's liberation, I mean, it was happening right there. That is just, it is a good part of the story. Absolutely. However, to his great credit, and everybody should be proud of this, the minute the women came, James Gregg said, "We will help you." And I did too. And then a lot of people wanted to burn us at the stake and beat us over our head and shoulders, but we did not notice any difference because we already were already being burned at the stake and beat around head and shoulders because they did not like the design to begin with. So the fact that we were helping the women with the statue, we could not tell. The pain threshold was beyond noticing the difference. I am just making a soldier's joke, to his credit, James supported it. So did I. SM (00:39:49): What is amazing is that- JW (00:39:50): And we testified you could go hear our, we went and testified together. SM (00:39:56): From knowing Lewis in that timeframe when Bill Clinton came to the wall with the bringing kinfolk to the wall, and all the speakers that have been brought in, the entertainers that had been there. To me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and the people that were involved, the wall have been the greatest advocates for healing in this entire nation, because I have witnessed it as a non-veteran who sits there and watches it. And I had conversations with Lewis about it. He was really pushing for Bill Clinton to come because he felt it was important, and he was also the reaching out to Vietnam and helping the warriors in Vietnam. JW (00:40:35): But is there a question here? SM (00:40:37): The question is, to me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund seems to be one of the leaders in the healing within the nation, period. JW (00:40:46): It is not the fund or the wall. SM (00:40:48): Well, the group in bound in the. JW (00:40:52): It is grace. SM (00:40:54): Okay. JW (00:40:54): That is the better door to go in through, I think, because we are just human beings. But it is grace. From a scientific point of view, that is an anthropological point of view. The wall is a liminal place, L-I-M-I-N-A-L. It is a liminal place. It is a phenomenon that happens in human tribes. It is a way of saying it is a sacred place. I will give you an example. At the dedication. Dan and I were alone after the speeches. We were alone, by the way, president Reagan had not come to the dedication. It was too controversial. He came two years later when we dedicated the statue, but he did not come to the dedication of the wall. We were alone in a sense. So what? We were alone in Vietnam too. Do you know what I mean? We were soldiers and young, so to speak. Anyways, what Dan and I both noticed was even though there were maybe 112,000 or 150,000 people around us, we were walking along the top of the walls. We could look over to our right. It was almost as silent as the room that we were in, with 150,000 people. And Dan turned to me and said, "When we die, there is going to be a heck of a party." My wife saw it on TV. She saw everybody going to the cathedral to read names. John Walker, the Bishop of Washington, gave us permission to do that. It is in the book, The Long Green Line, and my wife was watching that. She is an Episcopal priest. My wife at the time, not my current wife. This is my wife Lisa. There was a divorce because the wounds in the family that went with my daughter's birth defect and my selfish dedication to the wall, I took myself away from my family, ended the marriage. I did not have a family meaning saying, "I am going to do this." I did not give them a vote. That was selfish. But when we were married, she looked at the names being read at the cathedral, and she said, it was just out of the blue. I was not even paying attention because I was so tired. Matter of fact, I was so tired that week I could finally de-stress from a hard three years. And I did not know that I had seven more years of fight to go because Jim Webb and Ross Perot and John McCain were going to spend the next three Congress was trying to sneak through changes of the design. Yes, they did. But the manager here made me a sandwich. The club was closed. But- SM (00:44:34): You can eat it. You can- JW (00:44:35): No-no. I will get it. But I am just saying it was the same thing. He went, himself and personally made it because the whole town was filled with veterans, and I just came here to be alone, just like we are now. God bless him that manager. I lost my train of thought. I was talking about my wife. I was so tired I [inaudible] past three, my wife turned to me and I was almost, I could not go to sleep. You know sometimes you are so tired, you cannot go to sleep. I was just zoned down out, and she was watching the reading of the names, which was very moving. I was grateful for it. And the president went, finally, just, the president grabbed the first lady and they went to the cathedral. I was so grateful to John Walker and God bless him. He died too young. And so what I am saying is that in this mood, just out of the blue, she says "You are going to heaven, Jackie Wheeler." SM (00:45:58): You are going. No, just you are. Because I know personally the effect that it had on Vietnam veterans in my community, two in particular, WHO until we brought the traveling wall, when Dan came, they had never had the courage to even go to Washington. And they told me point blank, they were not going to even walk over. But the day that Dan was there, we had our greatest crowds in the evening because OF classes. But we had the ceremony outside with the president of the university and the mayor, and we had Vietnam veterans and their kids speaking, and Dan spoke. We had country Joe. But over in the corner, along the wall, by the science building. I saw both of them. They were emphatic that they were not ready yet. That is as close as they came. They did not walk up to the wall. But that is another thing. When I left the university, one of them thanked me for the wall. But Dan Scruggs and what you have done is just, to me, the most important thing within the generation, the boomer generation. To me, it is the most important thing that is ever happened within the boomer generation, because you cannot define, in my opinion, the boomer generation without talking about Vietnam. As Paul Critchlow says, it was the watershed moment in everyone's life. But Paul said to me, he said, "I felt I wanted to be part of the most important happening in my lifetime, that watershed moment." That is why he served in Vietnam. And even the anti-war people and all the other things. The war is the center core. So I do not ever have a chance to say thanks to Dan Scruggs and all the people that were involved like you, but to me, in my life, as a non-veteran who deeply cares about Vietnam veterans, it is the most important thing that is ever happened in my life. And I am not even a veteran. JW (00:48:29): Understood. SM (00:48:30): I come to the wall and I bring students to the wall because I know how important it is. And when you see those names, it is just unbelievable. I read books and every time there is a Vietnam veteran whose name is mentioned, who passed away in this book or that book or that book, I go to the wall and look the name up. There must be a couple hundred names that I do not even know who they are except the fact they were in books. JW (00:49:03): Okay. SM (00:49:04): So one of the conversations that I think this book is tremendous, I wish they would reprint this book. In fact, I mentioned to James Thalas when I interviewed him. I said, what would be great is to bring all these people back together again from the, that are in the symposium? And he said, and James Thalas said, "I would be willing to do it." And I know Bobby Mueller real well, and I know actually Phil Caputo, he is out in Arizona right now. But what I am getting at here is I would like your responses to some of their commentaries back in when this was written, this came out in (19)81, and you make a comment. You make a statement to, a quote here that I think is very important because you praise James Thalas, "And there are too many guys in our generation who do not understand how the war shaped them. Unlike Jim Thalas." And I said this to Mr. Thalas when I interviewed him, and you praise him and others that he admitted he was wrong. He admitted that he was a coward to obey the draft the way they did it, and not protest against the, it is not like protesting against a war. It was evading the draft. And he feels guilty about it, and he does not, I do not think he feels guilty now, but he was. JW (00:50:30): It was an article what did do in the class war end. Yeah. But he did. He stood up to it. Right. Manfully. SM (00:50:36): Right. And your thoughts on, did you think that many within the generation did that? Or was he still a rarity? JW (00:50:43): Jim? Jim is exceptional and a rarity. SM (00:50:47): Yeah. Too many did not. JW (00:50:48): Yeah. He is one that the Rhode Scholar people got, sometimes they miss, but they got it right. When he became a Rhode Scholar. He makes that program look good. You know what? You can knock Jim Thalas, just do not knock him around me. SM (00:51:01): No. Yeah. He respects you. I am telling you. And he actually respects Jim Webb too. He mentioned that the, and I have a comment from Jim Webb. JW (00:51:12): Well, that is right. You better respect Jim Webb and you better watch out for his right hook. SM (00:51:18): Right. He mentioned something when we were talking about that, when you look at the Vietnam generation, it is a generation of service. It was a generation that went in the Peace Corps. It was a generation of Vietnam veterans who went to serve their nation. It is a generation that went and volunteers in Service to America. It is a generation. And then he said, "Hold it. Hold it. I think one of the weaknesses of the boomer generation is that they are not a generation of service because they avoided the war." And he brings up the reasons why in his own-own way. So when you talk about the (19)60s generation as the generation of service, yet Jim Webb challenges that idea what do you think of Jim Webb's thoughts? JW (00:52:21): Could you restate the question? Just- SM (00:52:24): The question was- JW (00:52:24): Closer. I mean, just- SM (00:52:26): I think what Senator Webb was saying at the time is that we all look at the (19)60s to the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and the boomer generation that grew up at the World War II as a generation that was really inbound in service. It is one of the characteristics, the qualities, whether it be service by serving in Vietnam, or serving in the Peace Corps, or volunteers in Service to America, or alternative service, or at least for those who were, is objectors doing alternative service for two years in a very hard way. A couple of my friends did in Newfoundland that would have qualify. But he says, "Too many avoided the war through avoiding the draft and what a so and generation has such large numbers avoiding service, and they should have fought in the war." Is what he is really saying. Response on that? JW (00:53:38): First, Jim is right. You still got a wide shot for his right hook. I am just pulling your leg. SM (00:53:45): Yeah. JW (00:53:46): It is a combative statement, but he is right. That is the first thing. Second, he is touching on something fundamental. The people who lost the most from not going into service, as Jim said, were those who have made that choice themselves. Those good things they could have done, people they helped, did not benefit from their service, but they themselves suffered most. That is why I used this quote and why this is called Touched with Fire. SM (00:54:38): Just right there in the front. JW (00:54:43): You do not have to read it. I am just pointing to this quote. You either enter the action of your time or there is a sense in which you have not lived. So the real loss was for those who made that choice. By the way, not all of them made some kind of selfish choice. Many had no choice to make. Many were drafted. That was not choice. And yet they stood too and served with their fellows. A lot of them are on the wall. There were many women who were treated like women in the (19)50s were, they did not have much choice. That is cruel. Our society in ways was cruel to women in the (19)50s. Thank God for Catherine McKinnon and the women who did lead and still lead the women's movement. So we were, many people did not have a choice. We were so fortunate, those of us who could go to West Point or Annapolis to be able to choose. Then there is something deeper, and I will tell you who taught me this, was Elliot Richardson, God bless him. SM (00:55:54): Died of [inaudible]. JW (00:55:55): Yes. It is the, you must read the essay, the Moral Equivalent of War. Google it and read it. SM (00:56:07): He wrote it. JW (00:56:08): No, it is a classic. SM (00:56:10): Okay. JW (00:56:13): It is not Holmes, but I am embarrassed. It is a classic. You read it. SM (00:56:18): Okay. JW (00:56:19): The Moral Equivalent of War, Google it, turn of the century. Elliot pointed me to it because war evokes the deepest signatures of grace actually, and of sacrifice and of those things worth not just dying for, but living for, of any human experience. Maybe even more than birth. Maybe more than birth, because war's death. “You must read the, think about what Elliot was saying, just like I think about it. You figure out what he was saying." He said, "You read that Jack, Elliot Richardson, God bless him," and his name was on, I put his name on the back of the wall. You know there is names on the back of the wall. SM (00:57:10): No, I did not know that. Yeah. JW (00:57:11): Well, you go, if you look in The Long Gray Line, there is a set of names. I thanked everybody that was significant in getting the wall built. I called Jay Carter Brown and said, "I want to do this." But I said, "If I have to ask permission, it will never happen. It will become public." He said, "This is Jay Carter Brown, God bless him." Jay Carter Brown on the telephone, chairman of the Fine Arts Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts. He says, "Oh, I think it is like putting the builders name on a cornerstone of a building, do not you think? Comma Jack?" And I said- SM (00:58:03): Yeah. JW (00:58:04): "Well, sir, yes." And he said, "I think it would be perfectly routine." And I said, I was chairman of the board at the morning front. I said, "Yes, sir." And he said, I was on the phone. And he said, I said, "So there would not be a need for a hearing?" "I would not think so, would you?" And I said, " No, sir," I make things up. I am not making that up. SM (00:58:36): Elliot Richardson, we all know him in history because he resigned because of- JW (00:58:41): That is why I am making the point. Okay. SM (00:58:41): Yeah. JW (00:58:43): Got that, got that. That is you go, you go do that work. How we doing? It is 3:20. SM (00:58:50): I got a few more questions and you can eat your sandwich over here. Bobby Mueller, in that same discussion, talked about how disappointed he was in America, that the leaders had let us down, that he went into service. And I wonder how many people who served at that time thought like Bobby with respect to, upon the return to America, there was a thinking that when you went to Vietnam, that America was always the good guy, but now that America's the bad guy? JW (00:59:32): Bobby was reacting, but we were young. We were all overreacting. That is the way Bobby. That is the way Bobby, God bless him, overreacted. It was a little too much. There was some truth in what he said. A sense of alienation was understandable because we were alienated. I mean like a good marine, since we were alienated, he figured out that he was alienated. But you overreact. It is a little bit much to ask a guy who was 25 years old or 31 years old at the time, to have a sense of growth, maturity and history. Especially when you have had the wounds he had. SM (01:00:18): Right. JW (01:00:18): So he was putting his finger on some real truth. It is just that there was surrounding truth. Bobby sees it, I think, in a larger context now. Was he right? Yes. Was it a little overstated? Maybe. God bless Bobby. SM (01:00:36): Bobby was at my retirement party. I invited him and he came and it was an hour and a half in there. We actually met him a couple times. What is interesting, I will never forget [inaudible] telling him at the extra room at this session that you were in, he said, "Bobby, you have a temper." I do not know if you remember that. He has said, "Bobby, you have a temper." It seems like today that there are efforts by the right and conservatives to divide our nation by making references to the (19)60s and (19)70s for creating all the problems in our society today with respect to the counterculture, the new left, the activists of many movements for creating the following, the drug culture, the divorce rate, the breakup of the family, the irresponsible behavior, the welfare state, dependence on government, dissent mentality, which actually what Mr. Webb talks about in the book. Special interest, controlling ideas in universities where various studies programs are being taken over by the troublemakers of the (19)60s. Phyllis Schley and David Horowitz said, but in the two, talking about that "Universities today are run by the troublemakers of the (19)60s because they run all the studies programs from women's studies to gay." SM (01:02:03): Because they run all the studies, from women's studies to gay and lesbian studies, environmental studies, Native American studies, black studies. Your thoughts on- Actually, the people that made these comments some of them were people like New Gingrich and Governor Huckabee and George Will in some of his writings and others. JW (01:02:28): It is all as American as apple pie. If Ben Franklin and Abigail Adda, I would rather talk with Abigail before I talk to John Adams. I just think I would rather spend the afternoon having a tea with Abigail more than- SM (01:02:45): A couple of biographies done on her recently- JW (01:02:47): Oh, she is pretty good. Abigail is pretty good and John, he could come along. My point is, if the Adams' were here and Ben Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, they had listened to everything you just said. The question you just said. And, they would say "Well, it is working out. What do you think Tom" and Tom said "Well, it is working out. It is working out." Of course, they are all sitting there knowing that Tom has got this thing going with Sally Hemings, but they are not going to mention that. No one is going to, I mean you know. I am just saying they are all human. We are all human. And, they would say "Well, it looks like it is probably the Republics, looks like it is working out. What do you think?" And, they would say "Yeah." Dolly Madison, I would love to talk with Dolly Madison as well as James Madison. I am saying they would look at everything and say "This is Americans apple pie, Chris. Who knew what apple pie was and what America was?" But, I mean, that is how they look at it. Everything you have just said can be transformed by a mathematical formula so that it is the right [inaudible] while they are beating us up from the left and it is all working out. It is all just mud wrestling. And, it goes with the system that was set up. Here is the biggest thing to remember about the very healthy condition that you defined. I see it as healthy, just slinging mud at each other. What the founding people did, some of the guys being well advised by their wives, and I am talking about Dolly and Abigail, just to start with, Betsy Ross too. God bless her making the flag. Molly pitcher, God bless them. Seriously that the whole generation that fought the revolution. The condition of controversy, it is just built into our republic and it tends to work out okay. What they did in order to keep an envelope around everything, like a rocket ship has a steel shell or a metal shell, do not pierce it the oxygen will leak out in the space and we will all die. I mean, we are a big rocket ship actually. As Buckminster Fuller says, we are on a spaceship, it is called Earth. Be careful. Do not leak the oxygen out of our planet. There is some truth in that, but I am trying to make this point. What holds it all together is how they balanced. In our republic, the branches of government, executive has some powers, everybody's got some power. But, here is my point. We assume once we get the idea, do not leave. Do not take your eyes off the blackboard too quick. What we are learning, you got to pay attention to it. They were not balancing each other's virtues. They were balancing their vices. What I mean is pride and ego on one side will be a very effective antidote for pride and ego on the other side. You do not have to worry about the good impulses of one side being balanced by the good impulses of the other side. Actually, good impulses tend to work together. It is the human condition on one side, a little bit of pride, a little bit of ego, a little bit of illicit sex going on. We are shocked. We are all human. I am just saying. I am just trying to exaggerate a little bit to make a point that what they did was balance, not virtues, but balance, weaknesses or vices, so to speak. That is the genius. So, you got- I am going back to your question. Oh my God, they are calling us rascals. Well, we called them rascals. Oh my God. You never ever forget the vitriol. Just to be clear level that Abe Lincoln or Tom Jefferson or FDR. It is just we live in an envelope of life that is short. Even if we are 65 or 85 years old. It is a short envelope. A little more perspective and we could see things the way Abigail and Dolly too. SM (01:07:31): You give a good perspective there because some people may look at this and say, well, what those students were saying about the divisions and the lack of healing in the nation is just continuing with these. We see it in Congress today that no one talks to each other. Everybody has got the right answer and what other people's answers are, they are totally wrong. So, those kinds of things. And, you have a great quote here too. And, I think this is on page six, and I am not going to go over any more quote this the last one, but- JW (01:08:04): Oh, the cruelest thing you do to someone is read their book, Adam. Oh my God. SM (01:08:08): I want you because this is important. I thought of this too, growing up in the (19)50s, our generation. See, you see things- I think that is what the wall does too. You see things in terms of commonality as opposed to things that divide. You think of things that unite and you say it in this paragraph. "Our generation shares the features of common experience, background and power. We grew up in the (19)50s and (19)60s in a country united by electronics, radio, television, and many shared attitudes. For example, we watched John Kennedy's inaugural address. We watched Disneyland. Davy Crockett with S Parker who just passed away last year. We know what Conrad and civil defense drills mean. We danced together. We turned rock and roll into cultural force. Such similarity was unique in history among so many young people at one time." What you are doing there is you are doing something very positive. You are showing- Instead of always talking about the divisions, what are the commonalities that make us want, try to understand each other better through our shared experience. JW (01:09:18): That had not changed. SM (01:09:20): Yeah. JW (01:09:21): How are we doing? I am having trouble, because I know we were budgeted to four, but for various reasons I only got five hours sleep last night trying to hold my family together with what we are dealing with. SM (01:09:36): Wow. How much time do we have here? JW (01:09:37): Well, it is only 3:30. SM (01:09:39): Do you have enough time? JW (01:09:40): Yeah, I have got some more time. If we could do some more questions. SM (01:09:44): These are real [inaudible]- JW (01:09:45): Also, you can come back on the phone. I mean you can adjust this and maybe talk even on the phone tomorrow. I am just having trouble. SM (01:09:55): In your feeling. When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion? When did it end and what do you feel was the watershed moment of the (19)60s? JW (01:10:06): First, it is talking about the people. That is why I come up with the 60 minute. I say, let us not talk about baby boomers per se because that does not capture the social energy and the social framework. The social framework, and that is the question you are asking. What is the- What are the bookends socially? And then, we can talk about the human beings that were caught in that. That is 60 million, not 76 million. It is 60. SM (01:10:31): The front edge of the so-called generation is more from 46 to 56 basically. JW (01:10:34): No. SM (01:10:34): No? JW (01:10:38): No-no. I am going to be very clear on that correction. You got to go back to (19)43 or (19)42 even because you want to talk about people who were young and malleable and shaped by the events. So, forget 46, it is too late. You got to go- I am 44. I know I am in this group. So, let us first talk about the markers and then talk about the human beings in it. That is why this baby boom thing is... It is stupid. It is not measuring the right elements. It has got the bulk of them right, but it leaves out too many important people. Those born before (19)46. I mean there is- You get my point. SM (01:11:18): Oh yeah. Many people have brought it up to- JW (01:11:21): So, let us first talk- So forget baby boom. Baby boom was a label put on a bunch of human beings that were born [inaudible]. Let us talk about events and then talk about who's framed by them. Let us talk about the valley and then we will talk about the people who live there. The valley is on one side- Well, 64 let us start- When the number of funerals at West Point began to get pretty significant. That would tell you when the war was on us. That will be (19)64. Because, we are talking about either life or death. That does not mean- I am not saying West Point, I am just saying there is an indicator and that is when the funerals began to get numerous. And, how do I know? Because I marched. I was on funeral details. I know. So, it would be (19)64 when awareness of war and the simultaneous coming of age of a pretty united group of people and self-awareness among the group. Because, we were all just in college, (19)64. So then, the era would go on, has to go through (19)75 at least, which would be when the war ended with the helicopter leaving (19)64 to (19)75 would be pretty good. Now, who were the people who were 18 that is newly liberated from home, and newly empowered as young humans at that time? Well, it would be the freshman in college, would not it? So, you want freshmen in college or people in college in (19)64. Not necessarily just in college, many were not in college. But, I am saying take people who were 18 and older in (19)64 or who turned 18 in... You are going to be in college in (19)64 if you were born in (19)43. So, it would be Americans born in (19)43. And, this is how I came up with the 60 million, going up to Americans who would be... In 1975, they would be... You got to be aware in (19)75 you got to be an aware human being. So, if you were born in (19)43, you are going to be an aware human being, 18 or so, come (19)64. But then, you are going from (19)43 up to (19)50, (19)55. You add 20 years, you get 75. So, it would be 57, 43 to 57. But, that arbitrary, and that is how I gets 60 million. You go to that 40, you- and I define it in the book. That is actually defined in your book. I go through the numbers, whatever I say there is the how I got the 60 million. But, my point is (19)46 to people born as late as (19)75. That is bullshit. SM (01:15:20): 64 is- JW (01:15:20): Oh, (19)46- SM (01:15:22): (19)46 to (19)64. JW (01:15:24): Oh, so you were born in (19)64 then in 1974, you were 10 years old. You were not affected by the events of the [inaudible] of the greater world when you are 10. That is an exact example of why that whole construct of looking precisely at a baby boom like a social engineer and saying that has anything to do with cultural interpretation is bullshit. SM (01:15:59): And, you know I [inaudible]- JW (01:16:00): You are not going to say that someone who was 10 years old was really affected by that. Do you get the point on- SM (01:16:04): Yeah, yeah. And, Todd Gitman, the person who was with SDS and actually was the second leader of SDS, was born in (19)42. So, I was the leader of SDS and [inaudible]- JW (01:16:18): All I am saying is the first 10 pages or 20 pages of that book, I answer that question. How are we doing? SM (01:16:30): Okay, just three more. Three more. What was the watershed moment? Was there a watershed moment in this period, when you talk about the period? JW (01:16:35): In what sense, for who? SM (01:16:36): To you, what was the watershed moment of- JW (01:16:39): In what period? SM (01:16:42): I mean in the period we are talking about here, when the (19)60s began and when it ended. Was there such? Was there a watershed- JW (01:16:50): Yeah, it was coming back from Vietnam when I realized. I was in a different culture in a different place and the first thing I realized it was my home. My real home was- At first I thought it was in Vietnam. Well, it was really, and then I thought, well, it is really West Point. And, it was in a way, but that is not really it. My home was those that I fought with and served with. It was those guys issued to me as I was issued to them by Uncle Sam for my environment, in my world on July 2nd, 1962. But, because I had left the military, left the army I was floating alone. I was a stranger in a strange land to use a biblical phrase. And, it was disorienting. My brother had to hold me by the hand and help me figure out how to talk, so to speak. It is not that I was not culturally aware. I mean, I got a good job. I had been to good schools. For me, the watershed was understanding that my country and culture was a ship that had left me and I was not on it. And, people did not want to hear about where I had been or my classmates or know about Tommy Hayes and how he got killed. They did not want to talk about sacrifice and valor and there were three words- There were at least four words that were just heaved out the window. One of them was the idea of healthy manhood, let us throw that out the window. Oh, healthy manhood? No, we are all going to be laid back and have ponytails and that is okay. I am trying, in a poetic sense to say the idea of healthy manhood went out the window. Suddenly the motto of West Point became really old speak. It was okay if it were on [inaudible]. It very disorienting time. One reason when I went to Yale Law School, I was kind of depressed and thank God for the faculty there who fished me out of the water. God bless them. SM (01:19:49): What do you think were the, two more, in your opinion, what was the greatest mistake ever made in Vietnam? And, the thing is that, and I preface this by saying that in my opinion as a person who did not serve, but has read a lot. A lot of presidents deserve some sort of blame for our links to Vietnam from Eisenhower to Kennedy to Nixon Johnson and obviously Ford, we left after Ford, but then he was criticized heavily to leave for us leaving. So, in your opinion, what was the greatest mistake ever made in Vietnam? JW (01:20:34): Well, we now know that topping the Christmas bombing was stupid. By that I mean in the context of fighting a war to win, I want to be very careful. There are people who say that was not a war worth fighting. So, winning did not make sense. It is going-going to be a very productive conversation to explore anything with a person who says we should not have been there and we should not have been trying to win. Okay, and I understand that. Okay, but here is how I am answering the question. I am saying from the point of view of this being a war, which was to be won and for which my class was decimated in combat. From that point of view, the biggest single mistake was stopping the B52 bombing of Hanoi because we now know from general job that they were close to caving. SM (01:21:40): What year was this, the exact year? JW (01:21:42): 73, 74. We knew 72. That is how close we were. They were close to crumbling. We now know that it was a big mistake. It would have made a huge difference on what they settled for in Paris. A huge blunder. Now, wait a minute. Other people at the table will then go bananas and yell and scream and say "No, the mistake was we should not have ever been there." Well, okay, you can have that conversation. That is a different conversation. You could say it was not worth winning. You could say it was immoral. They could say, oh, you baby killer. You know, you can go nuts. And, Abigail and Dolly would say "The tea is not going to do. You got to get some bourbon. Tom" Jim, Mr. [inaudible], Dolly's husband [inaudible]. Jim [inaudible] go get some bourbon. Tea is not going to do for this crowd, they need a drink. Okay. All I am saying is I want to answer your question as a war fighter. And, as someone who is aware that we had sent soldiers to fight and win from a war fighter's point of view, given we were there, given the lives sacrificed, given the war, the fact of war, given the idea that in war there is no substitute for victory, the biggest single blunder was not pushing Hanoi past that point of caving. And, they were ready to do it, Job has said. We were being pounded toward the table and toward making big major compromises and agreements to get out of this thing. We were just being hammered. That was the biggest blunder. And, the prisoners of war who came back said, we heard the bombs. Some of them could have killed some of us. We wish you had not stopped because they were scurrying around, really scared kitty cats at that moment. This is the word from the POW's. I am really tired. I am sorry man. You have one more question and then maybe you could re-look at the stuff I asked you too. We could tag up with maybe another hour on the phone or something. SM (01:24:08): That would be fine. I appreciate this and one last question that is kind of a follow-up. When Ronald Reagan became president, you mentioned our already that it was too controversial to come to the opening of the wall. To me that is inexcusable as President of the United States- JW (01:24:27): But, I am not saying that. I am saying I understood. We were just too hot. SM (01:24:30): But, the thing is when he became president- JW (01:24:33): Because, do not forget, Perot and McCain and Webb were [inaudible] hell at us. And, Webb was close to Reagan. It is okay. SM (01:24:42): Well, President Reagan, when he became president made a comment over and over again. We are back, we are back, we are back. And then, President Bush, who was his vice president later in the late (19)80s, early (19)90s, said the Vietnam syndrome is over. That is just my last question. Could you comment on what do you think Ronald Reagan meant by we are back? The perception was that what happened in the (19)60s and the (19)70s where law and order is back. We are not going to have these student protests anymore. We are going to get the military back to the way- JW (01:25:24): Okay, let me respond to that question. First of all, God bless Nancy Reagan. I will tell you what about Nancy Reagan, as the first lady of California, she went out to meet planes coming back and coming back at the various airports. There were several places in Vietnam and rather in California, where planes would come back. And, because she was at Sacramento, she could go to Travis Air Force base and meet a lot of planes and there would be guys that would land, it would be early morning and it would be a little bit of rain and they would see a woman with a little detail of California state police with her if she was meeting a plane. And, people can make up stories why they do not like Nancy Reagan and they can do that. Just do not do that around me. Yeah, I love her for that. She was there and it is not like there were a crowd of people meeting any of the planes. SM (01:26:37): You knew from publicity. She did it because she cared. JW (01:26:40): She did it because she cared. God bless her. Now, it is not like 800 people could come to Travis Air Force base to meet the planes. I am making a point about Nancy Reagan first. Do not ever forget it. That is important. Second, what President Reagan was saying was, at the dean's level, there are things worth dying for still. And, I want to hand a compliment, and I would ask you, when you write as you do or however you put your work together, there is someone who deserves and has earned a really good compliment for the way President Reagan spoke when he came to the time when we conveyed the memorial to the United States in 1984, the statue was done. We were going to build the women's statue. That is okay. But, we conveyed it to the United States and he came, and he spoke wonderfully, and the person who wrote that speech was terrific, and please write down her name and say so. This is a bouquet of roses for her. And, that is Peggy Noonan. Now, she may not be your- I mean, all I am saying is- SM (01:28:05): I know all about her. I got a couple of reports. JW (01:28:09): I am just saying, it is like Nancy Reagan, you can knock Peggy, do not do it around me. SM (01:28:12): I am not going to. I am not going to. JW (01:28:14): I am just saying. She wrote that speech and she is terrific. SM (01:28:19): And, that is the one Ronald Reagan gave at the- JW (01:28:22): When we conveyed the memorial to the United States- SM (01:28:27): 1984. JW (01:28:28): It was Veterans Day in 1984. SM (01:28:34): Is there any way you get a copy of that speech or? JW (01:28:36): No, you can get it. You will google it or contact Peggy. Call Peggy up and say "God, this guy wants to give you a bouquet of roses. You know that?" SM (01:28:46): She lives in California, I think- JW (01:28:48): I think she lives in Manhattan. Anyway, that is your homework. Do not tell me your problems. Go do your damn work, man. I do my work. You do your work. You want to be a journalist, go P one. You want to go work mean go get your- SM (01:29:00): Well, actually, I am a college administrator [inaudible]. JW (01:29:03): I do not want to hear you telling me your problems. What I want you a college administrator. When did you get into sadism? I am just kidding. Masochism. Here is what I am saying, just you find Peggy. Tell her about that compliment. It is not-not a compliment. It is like she did it. I want to say one last thing about West Point and soldiers. It is true of the military now because it is a volunteer meal, military. It is always been true of West Point and the five service academies. West Point is just one of five. But, because we have a volunteer military, it is actually true of everybody in the US military. We are trusted by our country to defend our country. It is privilege. Citizens pay for us to be able to do that. They pay for us to develop the skills we have and the gratitude goes first from us whom they trust to the citizens. I am saying thank you. It is a trust. It is not the other way around. I mean, many people say humans do not do well at adjusting to war and its effects. That does not mean that writing on the subject and working on it-it is not a good thing. It just means it is hard. The debates we have now in Congress, in the Council on Foreign Relations of which I am a member. On the current issue, for example, the rules of engagement or on the way the defense department is being run the Pentagon. All echo for me now, just another verse. It is like Dante, almost just another big verse and set of couplets out of, I am afraid it is inferno. It is not the Paradiso from 1968 to 2010. Now, we have Robert Gates who is making many of the same mistakes as McNamara. I know that because I was in the building with McNamara and then Clark Clifford, I worked there. The difference is Gates does not have the depth and breadth of character that Robert McNamara had, and that is a big difference. SM (01:31:51): What were the most important influences in your life? I know your dad and your military background, and I interviewed Peter Coyote yesterday, the actor. And, of course he comes from the new left background, totally different from your background, but when I asked him the question, I said "When you look at your life up to this point in 2010, what are the specific events? Can you name three to five personalities, people, events, happenings that made you who you are today?" And, how do you respond to that? JW (01:32:25): Well, it has to be my mom who grew up on a ranch in way West Texas. We are not talking just Laredo and West County. We are talking Asherton, Texas, and she is Irish from that part of the state. My dad is an army brat. My grandfather was cavalry from Texas, and so those are formative. My brother was formative. I mean, he died suddenly three years ago. That is a huge loss. Helping me realize the answer to your question, how important my brother was- JW (01:33:03): ...me realize the answer to your question how important my brother was. Shared memories and a sounding board through life. We were just barely 20 months apart in age. After that, it would be, I would have to say CS Lewis. Increasingly as we age, we realize that people who influence us are not necessarily close friends. They are people whose spirit or presence means a lot. CS Lewis and my uncle John Conley, who received a silver star for conduct in the first low level raid of the B-29 is over Tokyo, March 8 and 9, 1945. They were significant, their memory and what they did, and what they stood for. CS Lewis, because the way he writes and deals with issues of faith works for me, works for my DNA and my background. Although I believe in faith, that I will meet him. I am a little nervous about that because he is a big gruff Irishman, I am not sure how we will get along. He died the same day that... and I actually calculated, the same hour as John Kennedy. SM (01:34:24): November 22, (19)63. JW (01:34:26): Yeah, the same hour, actually, though. It is interesting when you account for the time change between London and Texas. It was just interesting. SM (01:34:33): How old was he when he died? JW (01:34:34): He was 63. SM (01:34:34): Young. JW (01:34:34): He was young. Help me, one other guy died that day. You got to Google it. And they were all Irish, I think that all three were Irish. Anyway, Jack Kennedy and of course Jack Lewis, his nickname was Jack, happened to die that same day. At West Point, the Kennedy assassination was significant. Little did I know that also at that same hour, another Irishman named Jack was taken. And Google and find that other third, there were three significant personalities died that day. That is a good way to answer your question. West Point is significant. It is significant for everybody that goes there in different ways. SM (01:35:16): Yeah. I have actually known people who have gone to West Point. We had a couple of our students that went there, and I do not know, they got in after they finished two years of college, but they wanted to go to West Point, so they got in and they graduated. One of them was the mayor of Westchester, Pennsylvania's son, was a West Point graduate. I know he has served in Iraq. But duty, honor, country was something, even when you... in this book where there were differences of opinion about the war even amongst the veterans of the Vietnam War. There was still, no matter what the differences may have been and the frictions that took place over politics, no one ever lost that. The feeling of, there was a sense that that was something so important. How important has that been in your life? Just those three words. Not only from your service in Vietnam, what you have done since Vietnam, but going into West Point and serving there for four years? JW (01:36:19): They are as important for me as any other man in my West Point class, or for the women now who go. It is important to note that it was in May of 2005 that the 10000th women graduated from the five federal academies. And do not forget that James Webb and I parted company over that issue. The women going to the academy. That was his article November 1979, Washingtonian, "Women cannot fight". He tells people when he runs for office that, oh, he is outgrown that article. Do not you believe it? Webb does not change much, I know him well, I edited his book A Sense of Honor. SM (01:37:09): Yeah. I have the book. JW (01:37:10): About West Point. Have you seen it? SM (01:37:11): I have not read it. JW (01:37:12): Did you look at... do you have the book? SM (01:37:13): I have the book. I have read Fields of Fire, but I have not read the right. JW (01:37:16): Have you opened up, have you opened the book up? SM (01:37:18): No. JW (01:37:18): Have you looked at the frontispiece? SM (01:37:20): Yes. JW (01:37:21): So I am in it. Are you aware of that? SM (01:37:24): No, I... JW (01:37:25): All right, this is what you are going to do. By the way, it is 2:30 and we are going to have to come to a hard stop, so I want to make sure we go through your questions. Let us answer them crisply. Then you can come back. SM (01:37:35): Right-right. JW (01:37:35): What I would like you to do, sir, is go to A Sense of Honor, open it up, go to the frontispiece and look at the dedication. SM (01:37:45): Okay. JW (01:37:46): And I want you to email me back and tell me what the green bench is. SM (01:37:50): The green bench? JW (01:37:51): Yes, sir. I want you to do that. SM (01:37:54): All right. JW (01:37:55): You are going to have to work a little bit to find out what the green bench is. SM (01:37:58): All right I shall do that. You said in the same article that I just mentioned it briefly – JW (01:38:02): Anyway, I edited for Webb, I know the man. SM (01:38:05): Yeah. I tried to interview him before he became Senator, but he was busy running for the Senate and then I was never able to interview him. You said in the same article that the events of one generation shaped the attitudes of the next, and you brought up examples in your book about the results of the harshness on Germany in World War I and how it shaped many of the Germans and their attitudes and due to the reparations and the tough stand that was taken against Germany. How did that apply to Vietnam in terms of the effect that maybe what happened in World War II affected the boomer generation? JW (01:38:47): Two ways. One is the intellectual and story level, which happens in every culture because of a war. There were so many of us that went into Vietnam. The generation was roughly 30 million women, 30 million men roughly. Roughly 60 million in all. When you count, not just technical baby boomers, but also those born a little before because so many youngsters born (19)44 and (19)43 fought in Vietnam. But you do not count all the baby boomers born late in the (19)50s because they were just nine years old during the Vietnam War. So you use 60 million. Well that is 30 million women, 30 million guys, and so the children grow up knowing that something happened and they pay attention, they listen and they learn, like any youngster does in the family. Regardless of what the parents were doing during that period, it was significant for their parents. That is one way, story, culture, family. But there is something more significant. Everyone who fights in a war goes through trauma. And now in the year 2010, we understand what PTSD is. By the way, my own West Point classmate, Jim Peak, who was Secretary of Veterans Affairs, uses this term post-traumatic stress-normal reaction. He is a doctor, an MD, first MD to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs, my point is, Jim is saying that is what happens in war, and do not forget, Jim was an infantry platoon leader in combat in Vietnam. Then he went to medical school. Then he becomes in many years later, secretary of Veterans Affairs. Post-traumatic stress, normal reaction. My dad had PTSD. By golly, I hope he did. I mean, that would be normal. Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, he was at Remagen when they found the bridge was still standing. He fought all the way to the liberation of the death camp at Nordhausen. It was a hard fight. He would have that small Sherman tank fighting panzers, that was a very risky thing to do. I am saying that that effect on those fathers, there were so few women that fought in the Vietnam War or were even in the military at that time, compared to the number of men. For example, there is only eight women on the wall, there is eight nurses. That had to hurt the children. That hurt the children. It hurts the children in every challenge. Those are the two effects. Let us march on. SM (01:41:54): I have a couple of other quotes here from these two books. One of the quotes from you is "I think the challenge that lies before us is not to forget ourselves, set up in some kind of super minority, one more special interest group, but instead to figure out what it is we have to offer." Now, I say that because today in our society we have a lot of people who criticize special interest groups, particularly different minorities. You have heard the whole politics of the era of special interests and everything, but Vietnam veterans, I know when I worked at Ohio University in my very first job, a lot of them could not get jobs, and we had Vietnam veterans affairs officers at Ohio University. Because of getting jobs and the way some of them were being treated upon their return, they were not going to be hired. So they became part of the affirmative action plan. So I just wanted your thoughts on, you made this statement about being a special interest, but in affirmative action. They became a special interest because they were being discriminated against on their return. Just your thoughts on that. JW (01:43:05): Well, there is two thoughts. One is there is a sense in which all of us became a nigga for a while. Everyone who came back from Vietnam became for a while, a nigga. That means we became a disenfranchised group. We became someone whose particular story was not, society did not want to hear our story. And we were stereotyped as if we knew what stereotype was. I mean, back in the (19)40s when I was born, who used stereotype man, but we understand what all that means. Or in another sense, we were the (19)50s, the housewife woman sent out for coffee. What I am saying is we were a disenfranchised group. Our fathers and our forefathers, the Civil War, that is the World War II vets, the Teddy Roosevelt era vets, they were esteemed. We were the opposite. We were disesteemed. We spent a while being nigga's. I am using the term to make a point. But what it did was give us great empathy. It gave many of us great empathy actually. We did not know it when we were building a wall, but it became a fulcrum on which our country turned so that our period in that particular silo, in that particular disenfranchised condition ended. We did not know that, we were just kids. That is why that book, Helmore's book, We Were Soldiers Once – SM (01:44:57): Ah, great book with Joe Galloway. JW (01:44:59): But the last part of the title, it is not in the movie title that is, "We Were Young. The wall would never have been built if we were not so young and we could take a lick and keep on ticking, so to speak when we were young. But it gives great empathy to the guys who served in Vietnam. There is no anger, and by the way, there is no big sense of entitlement. Bobby Mueller is a minority among Vietnam veterans. Most Vietnam veterans have a great sense of personality himself. They actually know where they were and what they did. That is not all. They know that, and they know two other things. They also know who their fathers were and their grandfathers and that they kept faith with them. And that gives you a pretty deep keel. They know something else. It is kind of like the funnies or the cartoons because every once in a while someone pops up and says, "I was in Vietnam when they were not". Well, why do they do that? I am going to tell you why. Have you read the book Vanity Fair? That is okay. SM (01:46:23): No, I have not read it. JW (01:46:23): Do you know anyone who has read it? Do you know somebody who has read it? What is your- do think of the really best English teacher. Probably a really good woman at Ohio. Professor at Ohio. Anyway, there is a line in Vanity Fair was written by William Makepeace Thackeray, "Bravery never goes out of fashion." SM (01:46:50): Now, the one thing that I think upsets me more than anything else that I have seen in the last, is the imposters. The people who say that they were in Vietnam. It is a really interesting, and this is still part of the interview, because there was a book that was written about this and there was a professor up at Harvard- JW (01:47:12): Sterling Valen. SM (01:47:13): Yeah-yeah. Sterling Valen. JW (01:47:14): [inaudible]. SM (01:47:17): Yeah, and there was others that had actually, when it was not popular to be a Vietnam veteran, and then when it becomes popular then they come out and say that they are one. Many of them made money off it. To me it is a crime. It is a crime. They will have to face you know who above. JW (01:47:42): Do not get excited about it. Okay. SM (01:47:44): And they are- JW (01:47:45): Just dogs chasing the bus. It is okay. SM (01:47:47): Remember the professor at Harvard that did it, and I forget his name, The Long Gray Line is a great book. I read that quite a long time ago. I have not reread it, it was probably 15 years ago. 806 people were in your class and how important were Kennedy's words "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, as well as pay any price, bear any burden". How did that affect the 806? JW (01:48:25): There are two big effects at West Point. One of them is ideals expressed by our fathers or by our spiritual fathers, so to speak, like Kennedy. I want to give you one concrete example of a guy for whom that quote meant a great deal, and that is Frank Rybicki, RYBICKI. He is in the book, the Long Green Line, you can look Frank up. He was one of the first in our class, killed in the Rung Sat Special Zone in 1967 [inaudible]. That quote meant specifically a great deal to him. So he is in the example of how that imprinted on some of us. That is not what forms you at West Point. Far more important is the second thing. On July 2nd, 1962 from my West Point class, we all reported in and Uncle Sam issued us to each other. SM (01:49:38): Some of the statistics here, which you will know, you were part of the first class of West Point that took the full impact of the Vietnam War. What I gather, the information I have here is that 30 of your classmates died in Vietnam. I never got the- JW (01:49:53): They did not die. There is this great line in mash, it is where haw guy's talk, and someone says, "Oh sir, they died, and it is Alan Alda". He said "They did not die, old people in hospitals die, these men were killed." SM (01:50:12): Very important, that is a magic moment in this interview for me. I never thought of it in those terms. Do you know how many of your classmates were wounded that survived? Because I have never seen that statistic. JW (01:50:26): Here is what I can tell you. My West Point class, the class of 1966 was decimated. One in ten either lost his life or a part of his body. I went through the entire register of my class and for every Purple Heart that meant they were either killed or wounded. I did not count all the wounded, I counted those who were wounded in a manner that significantly altered their life. So one in ten, which means the number is 83 or 87 were killed or lost a part of their body. Which if you convert that back to the legions, and what the effect of those wounds would have been in Roman times, or my class was literally decimated. Decimation was levied on the legions as a form of punishment. My class was not punished, but it was literally decimation. That is what I know about that. SM (01:51:36): You were involved obviously in building something, I did not even know this, that you were involved in building a memorial to Southeast Asia at West Point. JW (01:51:47): Yes. SM (01:51:48): And that was one of the main reasons why you were picked to be the leader of raising funds or building the Vietnam Memorial- JW (01:51:57): I was Chairman of the board for the Memorial Fund. SM (01:51:59): Could you tell me, we know about the wall, but I do not know anything about what happened at West Point. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? JW (01:52:07): It was an idea I had in, it was my idea. It was just on the eve of our 10th reunion, 1976. And I said, "Why do not we build a memorial at West Point for everyone killed?" And the reason I did it is because we were disenfranchised and our country did not know about us. What we would do for our fellows, we and their next of kin and widows and kids we had to do for ourselves. With that thought in mind, I went to West Clark, Jeff Rogers, This is in the book of Long Gray Line, and Matt Harrison. And we met right here in town at Matt Harrison's house just down the street, West Clark. And Matt and I met, Jeff was up at West Point. We called Jeff at our reunion. We all together presented the idea to build a Memorial at West Point. It would take money; some money and we would have to get permission to use land. We worked together to get the land from West Point. That was a good drill for getting land in Washington. We were all very young, and in order to have some money, my solution was to unite the 10 classes of the (19)60s. That is how it kept up. SM (01:53:32): Unbelievable. And then, correct me if I am wrong, but then many members of the class 66 were involved in working on the Vietnam Memorial as well. And how did you meet Jan Scruggs and I think Bob Dubak and those guys? JW (01:53:49): Again, that is in the Long Gray Line, the details. SM (01:53:49): Right. JW (01:53:50): So you could look it up there. I met Scruggs because I, it is actually a chapter that begins in the book Long Gray Line, but I read an article, so look it up there. Yeah, saves time here. But I went and I read an article that he raised, whatever it was, 200 and some dollars. The exact sum is actually Rick [inaudible] that is the exact sum. And people were kind of making fun of him on national television. But we were on the cusp of finishing the Memorial at West Point. And so this is the summer of 1979. And I made a point to call him up when I got back to Washington. He came over to my home, it was a day like this, it was kind of a hot day, summer day. I listened to what he said and I said, "I got a Rolodex. You can do this. So you can do this". And then he paid me a compliment, which is what a soldier can do. And he is a soldier. He said he trusted me. And there were all these reasons not to trust me, went to West Point, that is a good reason, if you have been a trooper in the one 99th, you were that these officers with good ideas can get you hurt no matter how good their idea is. You, it may be brilliant. You can still, just like Afghanistan. General portrays, we have a great idea, but someone is going to get hurt. I am only half kidding. I am saying that he learns to be wary. He trusted me and I went, even when I went to West Point, he trusted me. Even though I was an officer and I had been to these Ivy League schools, that was really, I mean what sense does that make? So he asked me to be chairman. That is how it happened. The greatest compliment, that the field soldier will ever give you, is to trust you, period. SM (01:55:55): And [inaudible], it is important because Jan's done a great job in [inaudible]. And under a lot of criticism too, from God knows how many people. JW (01:56:08): They were not there during the fight and it was a fight. SM (01:56:12): Right. Talk about your work with the wall and your beliefs with respect to helping the healing process. One of the questions I have asked everyone from Senator McCarthy when I first started this back in (19)96 part-time to my full-time work the last year and a half, is that the students that I worked with at the university, when we used to go on these Leadership On The Road trips, we always talked about healing. And we took a group to see Senator Muskie in 1995, 6 months before he died. And the question we asked, the students came up with is, due to the divisions that were so intense in the Vietnam generation or the boomer generation. Divisions between those who served and those who did not. The divisions between those who supported the troops and did not. The divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, the burnings within the cities, the riot and so forth. And certainly what happened in 1968 with the assassination. Is this generation, the Vietnam generation, going to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? I have a quote I am going to read from this book that you wrote, but what is your thought on the healing process and the role? And the second part of the question is the role that the wall has played, not just for veterans and their families and the people who lost loved ones, but the nation. JW (01:57:43): You got to read the quote first, what did I say? SM (01:57:48): There is a quote in here. Where is it? Here? It is on page seven and it is bottom paragraph, " Bonded by the heritage of World War II and the electronic media and profoundly shaped and divided the freedom rights, the Peace Core, the women's movement, and the Vietnam War. The 60 million Americans who came of age in the (19)60s are healing their divisions to remembrance and dialogue. This work is vital, since we will be the leaders of our national institutions in the year 2000, we are the century generation". So you were talking, back when you wrote this book, about the healing process and you were very confident that just your thoughts now in the year 2010. JW (01:58:44): Well, there is three things about that. Three things to answer your question. First, it is in the nature of life, like a large tree to take a wound in the trunk or a whack, but still grow and the bark heels around it, it could still be a pretty sturdy tree. So that is natural. That is just natural for a human drive. The effect of the wall was some healing. It was worth the effort, not just for its main purpose, to remember those who were killed or for the deeper remembrance, which was for the next of kin, particularly the mothers. Sometimes I thought there were a number of years where I thought we really did it for the moms as I thought about it. But there was also healing. And by striving for healing and using the word and putting the thought into consciousness, it added materially to what might have been a slower process by nature. In particular, it accelerated the process of freeing the Vietnam veteran from disenfranchisement and being almost taboo. Because we were a walking remembrance of things that were taboo. One of the biggest taboos is healthy manhood, that the idea of healthy manhood has 10,000 volts in it. Actually, it always does. That does not change in human culture. It probably will not change for another couple of thousand years. 800,000. I mean that is in our genes not going to change much. The idea of healthy manhood, it has to do with Sterling Valen. Of course, it is a badge of healthy manhood to go out as a war fighter. But the third process goes back to CS Lewis. It is grace, I am at a point in life now where I can say not just asserting it, but affirming as CS Lewis did when he was in his (19)50s and near his own death. And that is the wall got built by grace. And there has been healing by grace and our country- SM (02:01:50): Yeah. I tell you, when I go to that wall and I have been honored to be at over 30 on Memorial Day and Veteran's Day offense now, it just touches me every time I am there and I am not a veteran. And I sit usually after the ceremonies and I just sit there and reflect on, I knew a lot of Vietnam vet, I know two people on the wall. And to me it is one of the greatest things that is ever been done in my life. JW (02:02:19): Well, it was built by grace. It was not built by, I tell you this, it was not built by a bunch of rag keg soldiers. I mean, which is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, our team. Let me tell you something, John Warner said, and you can still ask him, God bless him. He actually might even be in the club, we were at the Metropolitan Club so he could be here right now, he comes here often. And I will tell you what he said. He said, "I know how that wall got built..." and he was talking to all of us. We were young men. And then this was decades later, so we were not so young. But he said, "You were in God's hands". He actually did not say that. He said, "You were in God's hand" as John Warner, "You were in God's hand". Go ask him. SM (02:03:22): I would love to, I know he is retired. JW (02:03:25): He said it. SM (02:03:26): Unbelievable. The wall that heals, as a follow-up to that question is Jan, when he wrote the book To Heal A Nation, I think you have already said it, but where does the nation stand with respect to healing from all the divisions in our society? I have not had a chance to even interview Jan. I sent him a letter once and he did not respond. So maybe he does not want to be interviewed. But how does he feel, do you think, with respect to the nation part? I know he- JW (02:03:56): Jan has to speak for himself. I will say that if you read with care all the references to Jan Scruggs and- JW (02:04:02): Read with Care, all the references to [Jans Drugs] in this book, 'Touched With Fire', 'The Long Gray Line', and in the books he has written. Go to the website for vvmf.org and read his stuff. You will get a take on his attitude. It is a solid and faithful soldiers had to. It is all one could ask of the American soldier. SM (02:04:25): Yeah, well, we brought them to Westchester for our wall that heals. I did not mention we brought the Traveling Wall. We had over 6,000 people who came and quite a few veterans after midnight. The Women's Memorial, obviously Diane Carlson Evans has played a very important role. I have gotten to know her too. I interviewed her for the book. But, a lot of the movements from the (19)60s, whether it be the Civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, women were put in secondary roles. Were women thought of when the original Vietnam Memorial was built? Because it is my understanding, Diane had to really battle to get that in the beginning before Congress to even get them to think about building the Women's Memorial. JW (02:05:11): In the book, 'Touched with Fire', you will find the first part answers that. Several women have written and you can Google this idea. Out of the anti-war movement came the women's movement. The idea of standing up as women came out of the anti-war movement. That is point one. That is actually grace from Vietnam. There is a sense in which women came to the front of the bus and the war fighters were put in the back of the bus for that to happen in a great and poetic cultural sense. That is great. That is okay. We are fine. I mean, you take the war fighters and say, "Go back to the back of the bus." We were disenfranchised. They were treating us like niggas, but we were still back there remembering how great it was in Vietnam and what were they going to do, send us to Vietnam. The bus was still air-conditioned. I am making a joke. But in a sense, we went to the back of the bus while they got to the front. That is what the women were doing. In large it was a good thing. Second, it was, women were absolutely key in getting the Vietnam veteran memorial belt. And the women will tell you they were not in the back of any bus. We were out there in the slop wrestling with Webb. But the real efficient, practical work was done by the gals. Sandy Oriole is one. She could tell you about the other women on the Memorial fund, but she was our lead fundraiser. I mean, the gals were, and do not forget it was a woman who won the design kind. All the productive work. SM (02:06:48): Yeah, Linda Goodacre. JW (02:06:50): The women, no, not Linda Goodacre. SM (02:06:52): Glen. JW (02:06:53): The Women's Memorial was Linda Goodacre, but Maya Lynn designed the Vietnam one. I am just saying if you look at it, the guys were out there. We were like pigs in slops doing whatever with inefficient things there to, we were just basically keeping the barbarians at base so the women actually did the productive, effective work of fundraising and designing it. Did anybody notice that the creative and sustained work? I am just saying this, if you unfold the memorial story, by the way, they gave as God as they go. I mean, the people, when Sandy Foreoll was speaking at meetings about what Webb and Parole was doing, we had to restrain her man, and she was all set to go hurt him. So I am just saying, if you want women's liberation, it was happening right there. It is a good part of the story. Absolutely. However, on to his great credit, and everybody should be proud of this, the minute the women came, [Janus Greg] said, "We will help you." I did too. Then a lot of people wanted to burn us at the stake, beat us over our head and shoulders. But we did not notice any difference because we already were already being burned at the stake and beat around the head and shoulders because they did not like the design to begin with. So the fact that we were helping the women with the statue, we could not tell the pain threshold was beyond noticing the difference. I am just making a Walter's joke. To his credit he supported it. So did I. SM (02:08:21): What is amazing is that... JW (02:08:22): We testified, you could go hear, we went and testified together. SM (02:08:27): From knowing Lewis in that timeframe when Bill Clinton came to the wall with the bringing Kim folk to the wall, and all the speakers that have been brought in, the entertainers that have been there, to me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and the people that were involved in the wall have been the greatest advocates for healing in this entire nation. I have witnessed it as a non-veteran who sits there and watches it and I had conversations with Lewis about it. Even again, he was really pushing for Bill Clinton to come because he felt it was important. He was also reaching out to Vietnam and helping the warriors in Vietnam. JW (02:09:06): Is there a question here? SM (02:09:07): The question is, to me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund seems to be one of the leaders in the healing within the nation, period. JW (02:09:17): It is not the fund or the wall. It is grace. That is the better door to go in, I think. Because we are just human beings, but it is grace. From a scientific point of view, that is an anthropological point of view, the wall is a liminal place. L I M I N A L. It is a liminal place. It is a phenomenon that happens in human tribes. It is a way of saying it is a sacred place. I will give you an example. At the dedication. Jan and I were alone after the speeches. We were alone. By the way, president Reagan did not come to the dedication. It was too controversial. He came two years later when we dedicated the statute, but he did not come to the dedication of the wall. We were alone in a sense. So what? We were alone in Vietnam too. You know what I mean? We were soldiers and young, so to speak. And what Jay and I both noticed was even though there were maybe 112 or 150,000 people around us, we were walking along the top of the wall so we could look over to our right. It was almost as silent as the room that we were in 150,000 people. Then Jan turned to me and said, when we die, there is going to be a heck of a party. My wife saw it on TV. She saw everybody going to the cathedral to read names. John Walker, the Bishop of Washington, gave us permission to do that. It is in the book 'The Long Gray Line'. My wife was in Washington. She is an Episcopal priest. My wife at the time, not my current wife. This is my wife Lisa. There was a divorce because the wounds in the family that went with my daughter's birth defect and my selfish dedication to the wall. I took myself away from my family, ended the marriage. I did not have a family meeting saying, I am going to do this. I did not give them a vote. That was selfish. But when we were married, she looked at the names being read at the cathedral and she said, just was just out of the blue. I was not even paying attention because I was so tired. Matter of fact, I was so tired that week I could finally de-stress from a hard three years. And I did not know that I had seven more years of fight to go because Jim Webb and Ross Perot and John McCain were going to spend the next three congresses trying to sneak through changes of the design. Yes, they did. But the manager here made me a sandwich. The club with clothes. SM (02:12:59): You can eat it. JW (02:13:00): No-no. I will get it. But I am just saying it was the same thing. He went himself and personally made it because the whole town was filled with veterans. And I just came here to be alone, just like we are now. God bless him to that manager. I lost my train of thought. I was talking about my wife. I was so tired. SM (02:13:32): We are good through at four. What time is it now? JW (02:13:40): Yeah, 10 till 10 past three. My wife turned to me and I could not go to sleep. You know when sometimes you are so tired, you cannot go to sleep. I was just zoned out. She was watching the reading of the names, which was very moving. I was grateful for it and the president finally just, the president grabbed the first lady and they went to the cathedral. I was so grateful to John Walker and God bless him. He died too young. So what I am saying is that in this mood, just out of the blue, she says that you are going to heaven, Jackie. SM (02:14:28): You are going. No, just you are. I know personally the effect that it had on Vietnam veterans in my community, two in particular, who until we brought the traveling wall, when Jan came, they had never had the courage to even go to Washington. They told me point-blank, they were not going to even walk over. But the day that Jan was there, we had our greatest crowds in the evening because of classes. But we had the ceremony outside with the president of the university and the mayor and we had Vietnam veterans and their kids speaking and Jan spoke. We had country Joe. But over in the corner along the wall by the science building, I saw both of them. They were emphatic that they were not ready yet. That is as close as they came. They did not walk up to the wall but, that is another thing. `When I left the university, one of them thanked me for the wall. Jan Scruggs and what you have done is just, to me, the most important thing within the boomer generation. To me, it is the most important thing that is ever happened within the boomer generation. You cannot define, in my opinion, the boomer generation without talking about Vietnam. As Paul [Creshlow] says, it was the watershed moment in everyone's life. So Paul said to me, he said, I felt I wanted to be part of the most important happening in my lifetime, that watershed moment. That is why he served in Vietnam. Even the anti-war people and all the other things. The war is the center court. So I do not ever have a chance to say thanks to Jan Scruggs and all the people that were involved like you. But to me, in my life as a non-veteran who deeply cares about Vietnam veterans, it is the most important thing that ever happened in my life. I am not even a veteran. I come to the wall and I bring students to the wall because I know how important it is. When you see those names, it is just unbelievable. I read books and every time there is a Vietnam veteran whose name is mentioned, who passed away in this book or that book or that book, I go to the wall and look the name up. There must be a couple hundred names that I do not even know who they are except the fact they were in books. One of the conversations that I think this book is tremendous, I wish they would reprint this book. In fact, I mentioned to James Fallows when I interviewed him, I said, what would be greatest to bring all these people back together again that are in the symposium? And he said, and James Fallows said, I would be willing to do it. I know Bobby Mueller real well and I know actually Phil Caputo, he is out in Arizona right now. What I am getting at here is I would like your responses to some of their commentaries back when this was written, this came out in (19)81. You make a comment, you make a statement to a quote here that I think is very important because you praised James Fallows. There are too many guys in our generation who do not understand how the war shaped them. Unlike Jim Fallows, and I said this to Mr. Fallows when I interviewed him, and you praise him and others that he admitted he was wrong. He admitted that he was a coward to evade the draft the way they did it, and not protest against them. It is not like protesting against the war. It was evading the draft. He feels guilty about it and he does not. I am not saying he feels guilty now, but he was [inaudible] JW (02:18:46): There was an article, what did you do in the [class war draft]? But he did. He stood up to it right manfully. SM (02:18:53): Your thoughts on that? Did you think that many within the generation did that or was he still a rarity? JW (02:18:58): Jim? Jim is exceptional and a rarity. SM (02:19:02): Too many did not. JW (02:19:03): He is one that the Rhode Scholar people got, sometimes they miss before they got it right when he became a Rhode Scholar. He makes that program look good. You know what, you can knock Jim Fallows. Just do not knock him around me. SM (02:19:19): He respects you. I am telling you and he actually respects Jim Webb too. He mentioned that and, I have a comment from Jim Webb. JW (02:19:26): Well, that is right. You better respect Jim Webb and you better watch out for his right hook. SM (02:19:32): He mentioned something when we were talking about that this, when you look at the Vietnam generation, it is a generation of service. It was a generation that went into the Peace Corps. It was a generation of Vietnam veterans who went to serve the nation. It is a generation that went in volunteers in service to America. It is a generation and then he said, hold it. Hold it. I think one of the weaknesses of the boomer generation is that they are not a generation of service because they avoided the war. He brings up the reasons why in his own-own way. So when you talk about the (19)60s generation as a generation of service, yet Jim Webb challenges that idea. What do you think of Jim Webb's thoughts? JW (02:20:33): Could you restate the question? SM (02:20:37): I think what Senator Webb was saying at the time is that we all look at the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and the gen and boomer generation that grew up after World War II as a generation that was really involved in service. It is one of the characteristics, the qualities, whether it be service by serving in Vietnam or serving in the Peace Corps, or volunteers in service to America or alternative service. Or at least for those who were consciousness objectors, doing alternative service for two years in a very hard way like a couple of my friends did in Newfoundland that would have qualified. But he says, too many avoided the war through avoiding the draft. So the generation has such large numbers avoiding service and they should have fought in the war. Cause what he is really saying. Thoughts on that? JW (02:21:46): First, Jim is right. He has still got one shot for his right hook. It is a combative statement, but he is right. That is the first thing. Second, he is touching on something fundamental. People who have lost the most from not going into service, as Jim said, were those who have made that choice themselves. Those good things they could have done, the people they helped did not benefit from their service, but they themselves suffered most. That is why I use this quote and why this is called 'Touched with Fire.' SM (02:22:44): Pull it right there in the front. SM (02:22:45): Yes. JW (02:22:48): You do not have to read it. I am just pointing to this quote. You either enter the action of your time or there is a sense of which you have not lived. So the real loss was for those who made that choice. By the way, not all of them made some kind of selfish choice. Many had no choice to me, many were drafted. That was not choice and yet they stood too and served with their fellows, a lot of them are on the wall. There were many women who were treated like women in the (19)50s where they did not have much choice. That is cruel. Our society in ways was cruel to women in the (19)50s. Thank God for Catherine McKinnon and the women who did lead and still lead the women's movement. Many people did not have a choice. We were so fortunate, those of us who could go to West Point or Annapolis to be able to choose. Then there is something deeper, and I will tell you who taught me this, it was Elliot Richardson, God bless him. SM (02:23:57): Died about a year ago. JW (02:23:59): Yes. You must read the essay, the Moral Equivalent of War. Google it and read it. SM (02:24:10): He wrote it? JW (02:24:10): No, it is a classic. It is not a Holmes but embarrassed. It is a classic. You read it, the Moral Equivalent of War. Google it, it turned the century. Elliot pointed me to it because war evokes the deepest signatures of grace actually, and of sacrifice and of those things we are not just dying for, but living for of any human experience. Maybe even more than birth, maybe more than birth, because war's death. You must read it. Think about what Elliot was saying, just like I think about it. You will figure out what he was saying, he was saying you read that chapter. I put his name on the back of the wall. You know there is names on the back of the wall. SM (02:25:09): No, I did not know that. JW (02:25:14): Well, if you look in 'The Long Gray Line', there is a set of names. I thanked everybody that was significant in getting the wall bill. I called Jake carter Brown and said, I want to do this. But I said, if I have to ask permission, it will never happen. It will become complex. He said, this is Jake Carter of Brown, God bless you, Jake Carter of Brown on the telephone, chairman of the Fine Arts Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts. He says, "Oh I think it is like putting the builders in one of the cornerstones of the building? Do not you think, Jack?" And I said, "Well, sir, yes." And he said, " I think it would be perfectly routine." I was chairman of the board at that point. I said, "Yes, sir." I was on the phone and I said, "So there would not be a need for a hearing." "I would not think so, would you?" And I said, "No, sir." I make things up. I am not making that up. SM (02:26:32): Elliott Richardson, we all know him in history because he was resigned cause of... JW (02:26:36): Got that, got that. You go, you go do that work. How are we doing? It is 3:20. SM (02:26:36): I got a few more questions and you can eat your sandwich while we are here. Bobby Mueller, in that same discussion, talked about how disappointed he was in America, that the leaders had let us down, that he went into service. I wonder how many people who served at that time felt like Bobby with respect to, upon the return to America. There was a thinking that when you went to Vietnam, that America was always the good guy, but now that America's the bad guy. JW (02:27:26): Bobby was overreacting, but we were young. We were all overreacting. That is the way Bobby, God bless him, overreacted. It was a little too much. There was some truth in what he said. A sense of alienation was understandable because we were alienated. I mean like a good marine, since we were alienated, he figured out that he was alienated. But you overreact. It is a little bit much to ask a guy who was 25 years old or 31 years old at the time, to have a sense of growth, maturity and history. Especially when you have had the wounds he had. So he was putting his finger on some real truth. It is just that there was surrounding truth. Bobby. Bobby sees it, I think, in a larger context now. Was he right? Yes. Was it a little overstated? Maybe. SM (02:28:26): Yeah. JW (02:28:26): God bless Bobby. SM (02:28:27): Bobby was at my retirement party. I invited him and he came and it was an honor to have him there. We actually met him a couple times. What is interesting, I will never forget Phil Pipudo telling him at this session that you were at, he says, Bobby, you have a temper. If you remember that. He said, Bobby, you have a temper. It seems like today that there are efforts by the right conservatives to divide our nation by making references to the (19)60s and (19)70s for creating all the problems in our society today. With respect to the counterculture, the new left, the activists of many movements for creating the following, the drug culture, the divorce rate, the breakup of the family, the irresponsible behavior, the welfare state dependence on government of dissent mentality, which actually what Mr. Webb talks about in the book. Special interests, controlling ideas, and universities where various studies programs are being taken over by the troublemakers of the (19)60s. Phyllis Schley and David Horowitz said, but then the two talking about that universities today are run by the troublemakers of the (19)60s because they run all the studies programs from women's studies to gay lesbian studies, environmental studies, Native American studies, Black studies. Your thoughts on actually the people that made these comments, some of them were like, people like New Gingrich and Governor Huckabee and George Will and some of his writings and others. JW (02:30:14): It is all as American as Apple pie. If Ben Franklin and Abigail Adam, I would rather talk with Abigail before I talk with John. John Adams. I just think I would rather spend the afternoon having tea with the Abigail more than that. SM (02:30:31): Couple biographies out on her recently too. JW (02:30:33): She is pretty good. Yeah. Abigail was pretty good. And John, he could come along. My point is, if the Adams' were here and Ben Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, they had listened to everything you just said. The question you just said, and they said, well, it is working out. What do you think Tom? And Tom said, well, it is working out. It is working out. Of course, they are all sitting there knowing that Tom has got this thing going with Sally Hemings. But they are not going to mention that. I mean, I am just saying they are all human. We are all human. And they would say, well, it looks like it is working with the Republic. It looks like it is working out. What do you think? And they would say, yeah, Dolly Madison, I would love to talk with Dolly Madison as well as James Madison. I am saying they would look at everything and say, this is Americans apple pie. Chris, who knew what apple pie was and what America was? But I mean, that is how they look at it. Everything you have just said can be transformed by a mathematical formula so that it is the right sand. Well, they are beating us up from the left, and it is all working out. It is all just motor wrestling. And it goes with the system that was set up. Here is the biggest thing to remember about the very healthy condition that you defined. I see it as healthy. They just slinging and mud at each other. What the founding people did, some of the guys being well advised by their wives, and I am talking about Dolly and Abigail, just to start with. Betsy Ross, too, God bless her making the flag. Molly Pitcher, God bless them. Seriously, the whole generation that fought the revolution, the condition of controversy is just built into our republic, and it tends to work out okay. What they did in order to keep an envelope around everything, like a rocket ship has a steel shell or a metal shell, do not pierce that. The oxygen will leak out in the space and we will all die. I mean, we are a big rocket ship actually, as Buckminster Fuller says, we all are on a spaceship. It is called Earth. Be careful. Do not leak the oxygen out of our planet. There is some truth in that, but I... (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Wheeler Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Wheeler, John, 1944-2010 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Lawyers; Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Wheeler, John, 1944-2010--Interviews Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.</span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-07-23 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource in copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.122a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.122b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 153:04 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3d6e3ae1bbb475fa573681b735d69ee5.jpg 60e26f57e6fe8bc2d2b58551415fa62a https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ff8c54048e3784b4ac366e4ea12b5594.mp3 4f97e2da114533d20c63291f12088908 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-07-29 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rosalyn Baxandall, 1939-2015 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Rosalyn Baxandall (1939 - 2015) was a feminist historian, activist, author and educator. She was one of the leading figures of the feminist movement in New York during the late 1960s. Baxandall received her Bachelor's degree in French at University of Wisconsin and her Master of Social Work at Columbia University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:6531,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Rosalyn Baxandall (1939 - 2015) was a feminist historian, activist, author and educator. She was one of the leading figures of the feminist movement in New York during the late 1960s. Baxandall received her Bachelor's degree in French at the University of Wisconsin and her Master of Social Work at Columbia University.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Quakers; Sexism; Activism; Women's Liberation; Sex, Drugs; Rock n' Roll; Senator Muskie; Healing; Conservatives; Freedom; Counterculture; Woodstock; Summer of Love; March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; Black Power; Weathermen; Students for a Democratic Society.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Quakers; Sexism; Activism; Women's Liberation; Sex, Drugs; Rock n' Roll; Senator Muskie; Healing; Conservatives; Freedom; Counterculture; Woodstock; Summer of Love; March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; Black Power; Weathermen; Students for a Democratic Society.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 111:24 Subject LCSH Feminists; Historians; Authors; Political activists--United States; Baxandall, Rosalyn, 1939-2015--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Rosalind Baxandall Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Shah Islam Date of interview: 29 July 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:04 SM: Are you ready? 0:05 RB: Yes. 0:06 SM: [inaudible] I will continue to check this too. Who were your role models when you were growing up, who were the teachers or parents or leaders that helped you become the person that you are today? What inspired you even before you went to college? 0:23 RB: Okay, well, in some ways, my grandmother who had talked to me about marching and suffragette parades, my mother's mother. And also, she inspired me because her husband died when she was very young, leaving her with three young children, and she first took in sewing. And then she got a GED. And then she became a lawyer. And the fact that she was female, and a lawyer, and did not have a husband supporting her was inspirational to me. And she also used to go on very exotic trips. I mean, they seemed exotic to me, they would not. The world is smaller now. Like to Argentina. She would go on these trips alone. And so, she seemed extremely adventurous… to me. And then… other role mo— I mean, most of the role models were in my family. My father was a role model since he had been a communist and labor organizer and then changed his life and became a doctor. 2:15 SM: So, you had the inspirations— [crosstalk 2:17] SM: —really, RB: Within my family. 2:18 SM: Right. 2:19 RB: I would say they were really within my family. Rather than people outside. Not my teachers, particularly. When I got to college, my teachers were inspirations. 2:32 SM: Now, where did you go to school and the teachers— 2:36 RB: When I went to scho— The University of Wisconsin. 2:37 SM: Great school. 2:41 RB: I had many inspirational teachers, now let me— In American history, I have this man who taught us through using documents, and I cannot even believe that I cannot think of his name now. Anyway— William Appleman Williams. He was a real inspiration. My French teacher who I had a job working for. [inaudible] She was inspirational. I used to talk to her a lot. She had had an affair with Camus. And so it was really— [crosstalk 3:17] RB: —interesting that SM: [inaudible] Really, affair? RB: Yeah. Oh yeah. SM: Ha-ha, oh my God! 3:19 RB: I mean yeah. She had been a lover of Camus. And I mean, it is written about. 3:24 SM: Wow. 3:25 RB: So, she knew Camus and Sartre. 3:28 SM: Wow. 3:29 RB: And I majored in French, and— Simone de Beauvoir was a real… was somebody that I looked up to. 3:40 SM: She wrote The Second Sex— 3:41 RB: —Second Sex. 3:42 SM: Yeah. 3:43 RB: And I had first seen The Second Sex in my parents’ house, because I thought it was a sex book. There was a man and a woman on the cover. 3:53 SM: Right. 3:55 RB: Not dressed, so— and it was called The Second Sex. So I thought it was a sex book, and I was very curious about it. And read it. And I read it, like a guide to life. And I have my original book at home and every other word is underlined. 4:14 SM: Hard to find first editions of that book. 4:16 RB: Yeah, and I do not know if it was the first edition— 4:18 SM: They are reprinting it now. Just came out reprinted. 4:19 RB: Oh I know, a new… a new translation. 4:22 SM: Oh wow. 4:23 RB: So that was very inspirational to me. 4:25 SM: Mhm. What did… what inspired you to become a feminist? Were you part of the new left antiwar movement— [crosstalk 4:31] RB: Yes. I was. SM: —when you were younger, or− 4:33 RB: Yeah, I was part of the new left. I mean, I was not a major part. I worked on a magazine called Yet Report. I translated things from the French. I went on active— the antiwar movements. I was also, I worked for mobilization for youth, and I was active in Welfare Rights. Even in high school. I went to Philadelphia, with the Quakers and worked in slums on weekends helping people clean. And then I remember going to a night court, which was really an incredible experience. This was in Philadelphia. 5:21 SM: Mhm. 5:22 RB: Then I went, in hi— this was still in high school, up to Connecticut, where they had nuclear submarines. And we did civil resistance in front of these submarines. 5:42 SM: I think that is where the Berrigans went one time I think— 5:44 RB: Yeah, well it was a, it was a− SM: Yeah. RB: …place to go. SM: Yeah. 5:47 RB: And so I did that in high school, too. So I was already… active. But if— none of my friends did this in high school, I was very different than anyone else. I mean, no one I knew in high school was political. 6:03 SM: Where did you go— what state, did you go to school in New York? Or− 6:06 RB: In New York. [crosstalk 6:07] RB: Yeah. SM: Right. 6:08 RB: In New York. Yeah. I mean, people that I knew were political. I mean, it was the late (19)50s. They were not political. 6:15 SM: One other thing, I have interviewed Susan Brown Miller, and I have interviewed quite a few people. And what— The difference between mainstream feminism and radical feminism, correct me if I am wrong, the radical feminists were more of the new left feminine— 6:31 RB: The New Left feminists. 6:32 SM: But— RB: I was definitely a New Left— 6:34 SM: Betty Friedan is the mainstream that was— RB: —stream. Yes 6:37 SM: Ms. Magazine may be more of the— RB: —mainstream— SM: —mainstream. [inaudible] Friedan— 6:42 RB: Right. We wanted to change the whole of society, not integrate into it. We did not want better jobs in the society, we really wanted to change the society. So, we were part of the New Left. 6:57 SM: Right. 6:58 RB: And it was just that we found out in the New Left, that we needed a women's movement. It was almost by accident. 7:08 SM: Did you f— Did you feel like a lot of the women that I have interviewed, that the sexism that was so prevalent within the antiwar movement, the civil rights movement, and most recently, I have heard even in the gay and lesbian movement, and the Native American movement, and because I have interviewed people that it was ramped, and a lot of the women in those movements said, to get away from those, and join the women's movement. [crosstalk 7:31] RB: Right. SM: Do you agree with that? 7:32 RB: And that… that was in order to have you know, I— I mean, I can remember that my ex-husband, who was active in the new left, his friends, sometimes when I talk, they would answer him. [crosstalk 7:50] SM: Wow— RB: As if he had said what I had said. 7:52 SM: They will not even recognize you— 7:53 RB: It was that you were almost invisible, in meetings and things. 8:00 SM: Was that something that you were involved in the— was it Mobe? Do— were you involved in Mobe? 8:04 RB: I was involved in Mobe. 8:05 SM: Did you see these new left activists; they just treat women and like, go… go Xerox! And— [crosstalk 8:12] RB: Right— SM: and that kind of stuff? RB: Right. 8:14 RB: And also, sweep the floor, you know, not only go Xerox. And then… since we were the ones going toward the door and talking to people a lot, they would have to get information from us, and then they would give the talks. 8:30 SM: Oh my God. 8:31 RB: So, I mean, we did a lot of the labor and so on. We got very little from it. 8:39 SM: What is amazing in the studies that I have done of some of the activism, at least at the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in (19)64, Bettina Aptheker was able to stand up on that car and speak. 8:49 RB: She was able, but she says that she was one of the guys. 8:53 SM: Okay. I know that to offs— 8:56 RB: At that time, she felt like one of the guys, and she did not even think of herself as a woman. 9:01 SM: Then there is Mario Savio’s girlfriend at the time who he ended up marrying, she was also—Goldberg or− 9:06 RB: Goldberg, yeah. 9:08 SM: Yeah, there were 2 Goldbergs, [inaudible] they were… they spoke too— 9:12 RB: Right. And in the film about Berkeley women talk about being— 9:16 SM: Right. 9:17 RB: —invisible. 9:18 SM: It is amazing. 9:20 RB: And even in Wisconsin that was true. Men always wrote the things, it was just assumed. 9:27 SM: I am going to get back to books here obviously you are a scholar and a writer yourself and you have already mentioned The Second Sex but what were the— the books that really turned you on as a young person that inspired you? Wow, again, you— you already read The Second Sex and— but were there other books, like the— was The Feminine Mystique real important to you? Was— 9:49 RB: No, The Feminine Mystique, when I read The Feminine Mystique, I really thought— I know that it influenced some people, but I mean I was interested in it, but it did not influence me because it was about… over educated women who were not… were not living up to their potential, when there were so many women that did not even have opportunities to live up to their potentials. Especially at the time that I read it. I mean, the books that influenced me more was Fanshen, about the Chinese Revolution, that influenced me enormously. 10:32 SM: What year did that come out? 10:34 RB: What? Fanshen… must have come out… they have an anniversary of it. I think it came out in around… It came out in the late (19)60s. And in the book, the women get together and do consciousness raising, like we did. And they speak bitterness… about their experiences, both with men, and with the oppressive Chinese government to recall their pain. And that had a big influence to me about how people could change the whole of society and make a revolution. 11:11 SM: Do you like the term boomers? I say, I have been asking this now for the last 30 people because— 11:17 RB: I do not like the term, I do not like the term baby boomers, although that gets- 11:20 SM: Because you see what happens. You got the… you have got the greatest generation that Brokaw talks about which is the World War II generation then you have this group for five years called the Silent Generation, which is… they were not very silent. They were the people that were the leaders that were [inaudible] in (19)40 and (19)46— 11:35 RB: Right. They were in people like Ginsberg— [crosstalk 11:38] RB: —and people SM: Yeah! 11:40 SM: Tom Hayden and— RB: Yeah!— SM: —even Ronnie Davis— RB: Yeah! 11:42 SM: Richie Havens had said I am born in ’41, they said, but I am a boomer. I am not, you know, and the— Todd Gitlin told me he says, you know, kid, I will not even talk to you if you keep saying boomer I will not even— [crosstalk 11:52] RB: Right. It is not− SM: —talk to you. RB: I do not [inaudible]— SM: You know, it was… it was about a period. 11:57 RB: It is about a period and ‘boomer’, first of all, a boomer now… it just has to do with consumerism, not with activism— 12:05 SM: You see— it is also that, from what I am learning more and more is that the first 10 years of boomers, those born between (19)46 and (19)56, yes, they were all influenced. 12:18 RB: Right. SM: But when you start getting into the (19)57— RB: No− SM: —to (19)64— RB: No− 12:21 SM: They were ten years old! How can they— [crosstalk 12:22] RB: Right− SM:—you know— 12:23 RB: −they were not inf—, you know SM: Yeah, so− RB: Maybe they were influenced by other things. SM: When they get— RB: Like the media and things. 12:29 SM: When you look at your… the generation that you are linked to any… anybody born I think (19)38 on, so to speak, would you… would you say it is more like the Vie— is there a term you like to use the Vietnam generation, the Woodstock generation of the.. the protest generation that, uh, you know— 12:46 RB: The (19)60s generation or something? Or the movement? Yeah, no way. 12:50 SM: Yeah, ‘because that is kind of more of the— [crosstalk 12:51] RB: Right− SM: —definitive generation— RB: Movement generation− 12:53 RB: But not boomers. I do not like boomers, ‘because it just seems like consumerism. 12:58 SM: One of the questions… I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, and she said, and David Horowitz said the same thing— 13:04 RB: Uh huh. SM: [inaudible] ramparts. 13:06 RB: Yeah, I-I… went out with him. So, I know— 13:09 SM: Oh you know him well? 13:10 RB: Yeah. I mean, in another era. 13:11 SM: Yeah. Well, Dav— well David's a brilliant guy. [crosstalk 13:13] RB: Right, he is— SM: You know, and I— 13:15 RB: And he wrote… very important books— 13:17 SM: Oh. RB: —early on 13:18 SM: I have them. I have all these— 13:19 RB: Yes! 13:20 SM: —books. And I have been wanting to— he wrote at Berkeley and I got— 13:23 RB: Uh huh. SM: —a first edition of it. But he will not even talk about those now. Now that is like that is— 13:26 RB: Right. Yeah. 13:29 SM: But one thing you have to admit about that— 13:30 RB: I met his parents; I was at his parents’ house. 13:33 SM: —so the passion he had back then for the left is the same passion he has for the right. So he is pretty consistent in his passion. But what I am getting at here is- 13:41 RB: He has better rewards with the right. 13:43 SM: Yeah. For money— 13:44 RB: For money, right! 13:47 SM: That the people who were the troublemakers of the (19)60s are now running today's universities, and they are running the departments and the studies department— 13:55 RB: Right, that is true. SM: —the women's studies, Black Studies, Asian American Studies— [crosstalk 13:58] RB: Yeah, American studies. SM: —Native American Studies— RB: Right. Yeah. True. SM: —gay and lesbian studies and environmental studies. 14:03 RB: Mhm. SM: Do you agree with that? 14:04 RB: I think that is one arena we have been very active in. 14:09 SM: So, you do not take that as a negative you take— 14:11 RB: No! SM: —you take that as a— 14:12 SM: That… that leads me into how had professors changed in their teaching styles since the (19)60s? What did the (19)60s and the (19)70s do to the whole new wave of teaching? 14:24 RB: Well, I mean, the content of the teaching changed. I mean, we… taught much more about social movements, rather— we taught both what was happening at the bottom as well as what was happening at the top. We did not just teach elite history. We taught peoples history as well. And… the way we taught is that we cared about our student’s experience. 15:03 SM: When do you think that began… did that begin on actually some of the professors that were teaching the boomers? 15:09 RB: Um, some of our professors I mean, like William Appleman Williams taught the original documents and us to analyze the documents. He did not just have secondhand sources, and that was very important—primary sources, go to the primary sources. 15:29 SM: Right. RB: And so, he had a big influence. In the women's movement— for a while when I was teaching Women's Studies. We… we taught a great d— we put people in circles, and talked about our own experiences as well, and that we were the experts on our own experience. It was not other people that will be experts. 16:05 SM: Right. RB: And that has held me in good stead because I wrote a book with another woman about the suburbs. And the reason we wrote the book is because the books that our students were reading lived in the suburbs said this had nothing to do with their lives in the suburbs now. 16:26 SM: Yeah, I think the… I guess… Again, I have interviewed conservatives and liberals, I am making sure you get all points of view here, and Michelle Easton from the Clare Boothe Institute. I do not know if you have heard− 16:38 RB: Uh huh, that is great. 16:39 SM: And the concern they expressed, and this is not me, I might… I am not… I just get interviewing. That is all I am. No, but… is that… that many of the new laughter of the activism that the new left… the activists in the (19)60s, wanted their point of view heard, because they felt it was not being heard, and they had to fight for it to be heard. And they were kind of shutting down the other points of view, whether it be Richard Nixon speaking on the podium, or you know, whatever. Yeah, and then they come to power within the universities, and they are doing the same thing that they accused others of doing back then of not allowing a cons— a smart conservative point of view. Because Phyllis Schlafly said to me, I bet you my… I bet you have not included any of the women's studies programs, or I bet you some of the conservative speakers— Michelle Easton says to me, I bet you they do not include Ann Coulter, because they do not consider it an intellect or Michelle Malkin, or this new congresswoman— 17:34 RB: I think, as a matter of fact, we include them far more than they include us. Because we do believe in democracy, and a balance. And I am always so pleased when the students are conservative, and that we have different points of view in the classroom. And I have debates in my classroom, and make students take different points of view. Because I think you learn a lot that way. 18:06 SM: See, then that… see that… I know that for a fact, that I have been in university for 30 years, but I hear the other side. And I have been in a university where it was of— only two… two or three tenured faculty members are free to say they are conservative, because the rest of them were all liberal for fear their jobs. But it is… that-that has come up, that feeling within the university. And certainly, when we had Ann Coulter come to campus there has been some sort of reaction to her point of view as not being smart enough to [inaudible]− 18:37 RB: And I tell the students look, I want to tell you, this is my… this is where I am coming from, this is my point of view. But I want you to have, you know, I want us to argue. 18:48 SM: So, your teaching point of view is also what Hillary Clinton said in… in her biography that she learned that she was a Goldwater girl. And she learned about the other side because she did… she was going to be Goldwater and her friend was going to be for Johnson. But their teacher in high school said you have to take the other point of view. So, you learn about everything you can about Lyndon Johnson, and you debate for him, and she will debate for Goldwater. 19:15 RB: I make black students… debate from the slavery point of view. First, they are a little… uptight. I mean, because it is really important to have other points of view. And I constantly have debates in my class. 19:33 SM: Well, that is important, [inaudible]. 19:35 RB: You know, and take sides. They have to know the other side. And they learn a lot by listening to it, and thinking of how to counteract that argument. It is really good. 19:44 SM: It can change people too, because— 19:47 RB: Right! 19:47 SM: —Hillary Clinton became a— 19:49 RB: Yes, right. 19:50 SM: —democrat when she was a diehard Republican. 19:52 RB: Right. 19:52 SM: She was a Goldwater girl! 19:51 RB: Right. 19:51 SM: So… anyway, I am trying to read my writing here. I am not going to— 19:57 RB: Is the light bad? 19:58 SM: Oh no, I just… I had to… I should use my glasses here because, if you bear with me, I am going to… put my glasses— 20:03 RB: Oh, I understand, I would need my glasses to read. 20:07 SM: But I cannot [inaudible]… I have a problem to my fam— nob— nobody-nobody in my family can read my writings. So let us do it. Bear with me here, to boomers correct me if I am wrong, grew up with a very naïve… but they were very naïve, and they learned what the meaning of fear stood for. The idea of ‘be quiet’, ‘obey orders’, ‘do not question authority’. Fear, and being quiet, and being naive was the norm in the (19)50s, to many of the boomers that were born after the war. The (19)60s and (19)70s was just the opposite for all three. There were lots of injustices, many people spoke up to challenge what I believe was wrong. And they did not… they were told not to challenge authority, but students challenged everything. And this basically is because of some of the things that took place in their lives. The McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, the concept of fear, the Cold War, the concept of fear, the worry about the bomb, the concept of fear, speaking up and you could lose your job, that was very common in the (19)50s. It was written in white collar. So, you are right, Mills talked about it. Civil— and of course, the Civil Rights and Women's Rights and all the rights in that movement, it kind of developed, which challenged that kind of mentality in the (19)60s, because— they would be questioning what was wrong with President Johnson, Nixon, and Kennedy in terms of their leadership and speaking up, or they might not have spoken up so much for Eisenhower. Your thoughts about these, the dichotomy between these two extreme periods of when that front wave New Left, people born in the (19)40s, though, say, the mid (19)50s—these qualities of fear, being quiet, and also being naive? 21:53 RB: Well to deal with the fear, I grew up… when I grew up we had FBI agents outside our house, and were told not to talk to them. So— and my father’s friends went to jail. But my father did tell me that I should be proud of those people in jail. So, I did not, I mean… I knew that there were consequences for speaking up. And I grew up with the fear. And as a matter of fact, I think people, the little older generation, like myself, who saw McCarthyism, and saw conservatism, and then saw change, were less naive. Because they saw that it could change back also. And when it did change back, they had the earlier experience, as well, and they were not as naïve, because we had seen both periods. And people who had only grown up in the (19)60s, and seeing this quick change, just expected that to be forever. 23:19 SM: Like the ones today they are— 23:21 RB: Right. And then when things got really conservative, again, they were not able to deal with it. But we had seen that that is what happens in history. And as a historian, you see, I mean, that there are shifts, things change back. And people have to change, and sure we were… we were naive. And it was good that we were naïve in some ways, because we tried things that people did not think we could do. And if we had not been naive, we would not have done it. We would have been too cautious. 24:03 SM: Right. 24:04 RB: And so you have to be a little gutsy and blind to try these things. 24:10 SM: You know it is amazing, when you reflect years later, and this is just my observation, I have heard from other people, that they were naive because parents, you know, the parents were… they were not upset with their parents, but it was the way things were in the (19)50s you know, that kind of thing. But then if you reflect on it, it is not really criticism of your parents, it is a criticism of television, what you saw, the things that you use— wait a minute, there were no black people on TV in the (19)50s, Amos and Andy was the only thing on in the early (19)50s and they made fun of— slapstick. And then Nat King Cole goes on for six weeks and that was it until the early (19)60s when I Spy and Flip Wilson and Diane Carrol on The Nurse Show came on TV so— you see— wait there were no blacks! There were no other people on there. And-and everything seen from Walt Disney was all about the cowboys and Indians! [inaudible] cowboys and Indians! Indians are always the bad people. The white hat, so you start seeing that maybe we were not as naive as we thought, you know, as we age, you can start reflecting on things that are wrong, even without somebody telling you. 25:18 RB: Right. And also, it helped in a way that we believed in democracy, because we then tried to get a better. If we had been totally cynical— my students nowadays are so cynical, they think nothing can change, everything is corrupt! We believe things could change. 25:36 SM: Yeah, yes. 25:37 RB: I mean, we believed we could make a difference. We bought that, which was great. If we had not been naïve— 25:44 SM: Do you think, though, that there is even some fear? I find that the people that run today's universities are boomers, or, you know, first gen— generation Xers who really did not get along with boomers. 25:57 RB: Right. 25:58 SM: Generation X’s, I do not think… like them. We had poor programs on it, not across the board. 26:02 RB: Yeah. 26:03 SM: So, you get the people that are into these universities are the boomers that experience what you and I experienced, and also the generation Xers who had a problem with boomers to begin with. And they see things, but they are afraid of a return to what was, particularly with the term activism. I sense that this is me. And I spoke up at the university about this, that volunteerism is fine, because 95 percent of students are volunteering, and they at the end, they are doing great jobs, and it has never been higher. However, the term activism is a term I sense they fear. They do not like it. Am I wrong in perceiving that— [crosstalk 26:39] RB: No, I think they do not like it, no. SM: —because it brings back the memories of what was, and it could come again. 26:44 RB: Right. They do not like it. And also, you know, they have seen… like I had my students read Thoreau and they were very surprised that I had them read it. And I said, why? And their idea of activism, and these were feminist students, were right to lifers, and people on the right. They did not have any idea of activism of the left. That is not what they have seen. I mean, they have seen people bombing. I mean, they have seen the Oklahoma bomber, they have seen the World Trade Center bomber. They think of that, as activism. 27:29 SM: Oh, wow. 27:30 RB: So, their activism is terrorism and the right. And that is what they equate with activism. People who are against the law. 27:38 SM: How would they think about the tea party group? 27:41 RB: Well— I know! That— they— I have not— 27:45 SM: Had a chance— RB: Yeah, to talk to them about that [laughter] 27:49 SM: That… that is amazing. Because what happened is, when I have read books, I think some people think of the negatives, they think activism is off to the left. Well, activism does not have any political— 28:02 RB: At all! SM: —control. There is left, right and anything in between! 28:06 RB: Exactly! And so therefore, my students, I have students who went for abortions, and they were trying to be stopped by life— right to lifers. They think of that, as people breaking the law, people setting clinics on fire, they think about as activism. 28:20 SM: Let me turn this one, and I can… this is a 30 minute. This is a 45. Dealing with two of these here. 28:29 RB: Okay. 28:30 SM: Bear with me. I have stopped it— 28:33 SM: [inaudible] when I finished the interviews. What are the major accomplishments of the second wave? In terms of what have been the major accomplishments in the women's movement? And secondly, what are the major failures? 28:46 RB: The major accomplishments, I really think? I mean, obviously, there were changes in laws and, you know, now girls do athletics. We have an equal rights amendment. But I think more important the way people dress, the way people… young girls dream, think, their expectations. It is so all pervasive. The changes that people do not even know that it is there. It is like the air that we breathe. Girls grow up now, ex— with great expectations. They do not think of themselves as second class citizens. They think that they can do what men can do, and maybe better, they see they are the best in their class. They are called on by their teachers. They see role models all over. And I think it is so pervasive that we cannot even see it. And I mean, obviously, you know, there is a change now it is going back, people can get abortions, there is… people are less prudish. I mean, the music changed…the way people… the way people, take for granted that girls wear pants! We had a fight for girls wearing pants… to school. I mean, all of these basic kinds of things, the fact that girls do not wear girdles, make up. Just such basic changes and freedoms. Girls do not have to wait at home when a boy asks them out, they can ask them too. It is this… basic everyday life changes. Aside from the laws and their… now girls are in all sorts of jobs that they would not have been− 31:05 SM: How about— RB: −play differently. 31:08 SM: How about— was the failure of the— 31:11 RB: And this is a big failure in that we did not, at least the radical part of the women's movement did not create lasting organizations. And so, they are not around now. Now is around. But we had such loose anarchistic structures that we did not last in that way. 31:36 SM: Yeah, one of the things that has come in some of the interviews, and it is in my belief, because I worked in the university for 33 years. And that is, that what you saw in the early— in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, where if there was an anti-war movie, you said that you saw all the movements, with their placards and signs. It seems like the movements today are in their own world, the women's movements in their world, the gay rights movements in their world, the environmental movements over here, the Native American movement is West— 32:07 RB: Although there would probably be some crossover. Some, but not— 32:08 SM: Yeah, it seems like they do not work together, that there is no collaboration. It is all— as some people said, it is a bunch of special interests and— 32:15 RB: Right. And also, people make their living that way. It is not like it was before. 32:21 SM: Right. 32:21 RB: I mean, they have these organizations. But there, they each have an interest in surviving. And not looking after the whole. 32:34 SM: One, One person, well-known female leader. And she is a liberal, said that, when I asked her about the National Organization for Women, what she thought about it, if she loves the organization and thought it was very important. But she said, if you walk into the national headquarters now… now they have literature, for she says, abortions, AIDS, and the pill. And she said, that is what they stand for now- There is no— 33:02 RB: No jobs? 33:03 SM: No, no. She said, if you walk into their office— 33:06 RB: Really? 33:06 SM: —That is all the brochures you see in these three areas. And they— you do not see anything about the laws they are working on, the-the— all the other things. And so, I am wondering your thoughts on that? It is just your thoughts. 33:21 RB: Well, I think that people characterize the women's movement that way and forget that they did other things. For example, one of the things that I was most active in was daycare centers. And you do not hear a lot about the women's movement creating daycare centers and insisting on daycare, because people have a stereotype of the women's movement as not caring about children. 33:47 SM: Right. 33:48 RB: And that stereotype, women were supposed to care about themselves and no other things. And that was not what I saw in the women's movement at all. You know, and I do not see a women's movement around today. And there is a little of a women's movement around that. I know that works on the morning after pill. So, you are right on that, but not much else. 34:17 SM: The daycare centers very important. I think that is, that is a historic accomplishment from the women's movement. But if you are talking about weaknesses, I have a niece that just had a baby and I still think that corporations and businesses are still insensitive to the needs of women raising children who are still working. She said in most places, there is no privacy. There is no— you know, if they are, if they have to breastfeed their child, there is no priv— go into the lady’s room, no! Where is there a— 34:46 RB: For executives there are but there is not for the common worker. See I read this article. 34:50 SM: Yeah. 34:50 RB: Executives could breastfeed, and they make places for them. But for the common article— women, there was nothing. 34:57 SM: That should be a major cause— 34:59 RB: Well of course it should be— 35:03 SM: —and also there is the… the thing about taking care of a child too, which is they get, I think, two months or three months off of, you know? And then something about the husband should also be— 35:13 RB: Fraternity leave— 35:15 SM: Yeah. 35:15 RB: —so the husbands get a head start. 35:15 SM: Yes. So, the— you know, I am a firm believer of six months. 35:20 RB: Right. Oh yes! SM: Have either— 35:21 RB: But other countries have two years. Sweden, Denmark, France. We are the most backward country in all of the— 35:28 SM: And why is that? Why— 35:30 RB: Because we have a very bad welfare st— state. I mean, we— it is all left up to the individual. I mean, we have the most backward healthcare system of all the so-called advanced countries too. It is part of our welfare system. 35:46 SM: You know, the idea— 35:48 RB: We are very backwards and unfortunately, I think in the movement, we were so against the government that we became against systems, and did not, we were so anti-government that we did not think of how the government can help us, as well. 35:05 SM: Right. 35:05 RB: It was a big failure in the movement. It is both things. I mean, you could be against the government. But also, we have to look at what the state can do for us. 36:18 SM: Right. 36:19 RB: Especially now. And then people started buying into all that Reaganism and the minimum state, you know, and that just really irks people who are not wealthy. I mean, it is just welfare for the rich. 36:33 SM: We know what Reagan did— the AIDS crisis. 36:37 RB: Right! 36:37 SM: And in any of the interviews I have had of some gay and lesbian, especially gay men, who were major figures. They start crying when they talk about what he did not do in the (19)80s. 36:49 RB: Oh yeah. Provincetown is the gay capital of the world, right? 36:53 SM: It is? 36:54 RB: About six miles from here. 36:56 SM: Oh, I did not know that. 36:58 RB: They call it Viagra Falls. [laughter] 37:00 RB: And, it is, I mean, it is 80 percent gay. 37:02 SM: Oh my God. 37:03 RB: Yeah. It was one of the beginning of people helping each other because there was not government help. 37:10 SM: Amazing. Why did the ERA fail? Well, my first boss at High University was really working hard for it, at… in Ohio, and I can remember her having the radio on when the vote was taking place, and it did not pass in Ohio. And she worked two years on it and when she went home, she was devastated. Your thoughts on why the ERA did not pass? 37:32 RB: I really think… it was a case where the right was in power and had the media and scared working women, who thought oh, wow! I do not want to enlist in the war. And it was all scare tactics. And the people on the left and people I knew, sort of ignored it. 38:01 SM: Yeah, Nixon was, I think, in power at the time. 38:05 RB: Yeah, and they just scared women who felt they would not be protected. 38:13 SM: Yeah. 38:13 RB: And, and then I do not think that the radical part of the movement like myself, we did not work on it at all. 38:23 SM: Some people think that Phyliss Schlafly single handedly defeated it. 38:27 RB: She did very well. I do not know about single handedly, but the mood of the country had changed. 38:33 SM: I got a question here that I will read, and that is the mothers of the baby boomers, I think my mom here, raised most of the 74 million kids from (19)46 to (19)64. Or as we have talked about those from (19)40 to (19)65. How can some of the feminists say that most women of the era were unfulfilled? How do we know this? And is not it important to know that someone was home when you arrived home from school? That is what happens when you— I have talked with even liberal, left-wing baby boomers, and they love the fact their mom was home in the (19)50s when they got home from school. And a lot of kids today are missing that because they do not see a father or mother home they just come home after work. And Phyliss Schlafly talked about she-she-she said you know all this business about being unfulfilled as a female you know, I could have gone on, and I could have been long gone on and become a senator or even a bigger name politician, but my husband did not want me to and so I listened to my husband, and I did not. 39:38 RB: She was not home. She was always out doing speeches. 39:42 SM: I know but, just— just that concept. Well, if-if you I think Sally Roche for good— for full name. 39:51 RB: Yeah, Wagner. 39:51 SM: Yeah, she-she-she made medicine that if you really talked to a lot of the mothers of the (19)50s. They will probably say that they were not fulfilled, if you had a chance to talk to them, they never spoke about it. Just your thoughts on that? 40:04 RB: I do know. I mean, my mother had resentment. She definitely had resentment in that she would have— there are some people that would like to stay home. My mother was one, who was much better at career than she was at raising children. My father was the more gentle person, and would be better home. But she was discontent. And she communicated her discontent to us, all girls. I mean, and she did put her husband first. But it was almost absurd the way she put him first, I mean, and we put in first we take turns of the table sitting next to my father. He was— the best foods would always go to my father. The best of everything. And we always knew, we said, thank God, we did not have a brother, he would have been so favored. We were so happy it was all girls, because a boy would have been favored. And my mother did communicate her discontent. 41:31 SM: When you— you cannot have— 41:33 RB: My father treated her well, but she was discontent from society’s expectation. 41:38 SM: Well, Sara Evans wrote a great book, you know— 41:42 RB: Yes, I think— 41:43 SM: —And I think it is one of the best books ever written and— 41:44 RB: It is very good. 41:45 SM: —if everybody could read the first chapter in the introduction, you would get a wide awakening because of women in professional careers, as opposed to women who are housewives, and she breaks it down. And of course, World War II, and then coming back and the whole thing there. So, and I, my, my mom was a very successful secretary, she was unbelievable, but she just stopped everything, and was raising kids. And everybody on the street that I grew up in, the mothers were home, and the fathers are off work and we never saw our dads! it was always there— 42:16 RB: Uh huh, right! 42:17 SM: So then, then all of a sudden, these changes happen in the (19)60s, mid (19)60s, basically. 42:24 RB: Yeah. 42:24 SM: The second wave move— women's movement has been all inclusive with respect to women in— no, has the second wave women's movement been all-inclusive with respect to women of color, and women with different sexual orientation? And I preface this by saying, do black women identify more with being black first and/or being a woman second? 42:49 RB: It depends on the women, some identify, like Shirley Chisholm, who ran for president, she identified as a woman and a black and could not break it down. But some identify more with women, some identified much more… with race. And we all came from the civil rights movement, so it is not that we were not concerned, we had concern. But we also came from a civil rights movement, that at that point, that the women's movement started, was into black power. 43:26 SM: Right. 43:26 RB: And did not want women as… did not want white women as part of it. They thought we should do our own thing. So, our own thing was women. 43:37 SM: Right. 43:37 RB: And we made some overtures. But it was not enough. And we also made the mistake often, of talking for all women. When we were not all, you know, we were a certain kind of woman. Although, there were like, very, varied women in the group. I gave you the name of Carol Hanisch, she is from a poor rural family. 44:04 SM: I may be interviewing her she— she just responded back in— 44:07 RB: In Iowa. I mean, I, they were varied. People just talked about certain women. But there were lots of women from different backgrounds. 44:15 SM: Let me change this tape. 44:21 RB: [inaudible] 44:21 SM: Oh, you already talked to her? 44:23 RB: I emailed her, she said, you think I should do this? I said, I do think you should do it— 44:27 SM: Oh I really— I need to make sure that women's point of view is in this project. 44:32 RB: Right, and also, you know, she was very active. She really, her idea was Miss America contest when she did all sorts of things. And she was an AP, and she was also in the South during the civil rights movement as a UPI reporter. 44:46 SM: Oh wow. 44:46 RB: But, she is from a poor family in Iowa. But people just think that it was all upper middle-class women. It was not. But that has— what has been written about. 44:58 SM: You know Kaycee Hayden came from— I am trying to get ahold of, you know, Casey— 45:04 RB: Yeah, I know her. 45:06 SM: Well, Casey says she is going to do it but then she is hesitating because she— and she has not done interviews in years. 45:09 RB: Oh I know. That would be great— 45:11 SM: And but she is… she has agreed to do it. But then she hesitates, as I get close to it so [inaudible]— 45:18 RB: That would be good if she did. 45:19 SM: We will kind of see what happens here. I also bring up here, lesbian females, you know whether they identify more as lesbians or as women first? I do not know— 45:31 RB: I do not know. I mean, it depends. It really depends on… there is a big variety. And the thing is that I do think that lesbian women identify more with women than they do with gay men. Because there is a real division in that movement. 45:47 SM: Oh, yeah. And I have been told about the sexism in that movement— 45:49 RB: Oh, yes. It is incredible. 45:51 SM: As a matter of fact, there was a period when they will not even talk to the men. 45:54 RB: Right. 45:54 SM: Which is unreal. And actually, there is some things today going on that I— 45:57 RB: Right, still, they, I mean, so that there is real divisions, and there are some that feel closer. I mean, [inaudible]. She is a woman that— who writes a lot, and she was much closer to the women's movement. 46:10 SM: See, I had three other Latino women, Native American women, certainly Asian American women, and we know ever, certainly, we know about the first two here, but Asian American women, you do not hear anything about them in the (19)60s. 46:24 RB: And there were Asian American women, in-in our book, we write a little about them, they had a little newspaper in-in California, there were some Asian Americans. 46:32 SM: Well, I am trying to interview Gary Okihiro who— 46:34 RB: That would be good, yes. 46:36 SM: We brought to our campus and I forget the other similar person. And I am interviewing Kim Phuc. But because Kim, I know Kim from the Vietnam Memorial, but I— I think it is important— the boat people, we have to talk about the boat people, but the boat people are really (19)75, and they became, they were boomers from another country, and then they grew up and they have been so successful— 47:01 RB: It is unreal, yeah. 47:03 SM: I actually am— close students— I have been most close— affiliated with other Asian American students my whole life. I do not know what it is. Because I bet, they have advised organizations on most of my Facebook friends are former students. They know I care about Vietnam— [crosstalk 47:17] RB: Uh huh, that is pro— right. SM: —and most of them are Vietnamese. 47:22 SM: Okay, where did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion, and when did it end? And what is the watershed moment to you? 47:29 RB: Okay, I think the (19)60s began in 1954. 47:37 SM: Okay. 47:39 RB: With the civil rights movement, and sort of the burning movement of all the (19)60s. And then… I think it ended in the late… in the mid to late (19)70s. [inaudible] late seventies. 48:00 SM: Was there an— 48:01 RB: Then the economy changed, there was an oil crisis, the government changed. It really became different 48:09 SM: Say around, Jimmy Carter’s period? 48:10 RB: Yes, right. It was around Jimmy Carter's period. 48:13 SM: Some people in the [inaudible] 1975 because that is when the helicopters went off the– 48:17 RB: Right. 48:17 SM: And in Vietnam, but a lot happened in, in Jimmy Carter's here, too. 48:23 RB: Right. 48:23 SM: Was there a watershed moment? 48:25 RB: I do not think it is a watershed moment. I think it is gradual. 48:30 SM: So there is no— is there any one event you would— 48:32 RB: Well, I mean, the Supreme Court decision started things that were in the works in 1954. And the water— I do not, I cannot see an end. Because there is… trickles, still. 48:46 SM: The legal love of laws that have been passed in the lines of boomers. Now when we are talk— I am still using the term, I cannot— 48:55 RB: Right, that is okay. 48:56 SM: But it is from (19)40, (19)40 on– 48:58 RB: Right, right. 48:59 SM: The laws that were passed by the Supreme Court during this timeframe, they had the greatest impact not only on boomers, male and female of all colors and sexual orientation, but certainly women. What do you think are the most important for women? We know Brown versus Board of Education— 49:18 RB: Well, the Equal Rights Amendment, Title 9 for athletics for women was very important. 49:24 SM: That was in the (19)80s was not it… I think, yeah… yeah. 49:26 RB: Yeah, Title 9 was the (19)80s. Equal Rights Amendment was before that. The EEOC was very important to the Equal Opportunities Act. 49:37 SM: Well now what would that state? 49:39 RB: That stated that… Equal Opportunities Act, it had a board of discrimination and it added women as well as blacks… 49:49 SM: Okay. 49:49 RB: –to the Equal Right Amendment. And it also said, that since it had the idea of equity as well as equality… you could not have equality if there were no women in the job. So, you have to have an idea of equity. For example, there are no women truck drivers almost. But women— nurses have more training and more responsibility than truck drivers. So, if you look at equity, they should be paid as well. So, you have to look as equity as well as equality. 50:41 SM: Now do not forget Roe v. Wade. 50:43 RB: Yes. 50:43 SM: Yeah— 50:44 RB: And of course,1973, that was so basic. I was very active in the first abortion speak and– 50:53 SM: How important were the beats, in your opinion, in shaping the attitudes of not only the new left, but— actually activists of all— 51:03 RB: They were very important to me; they were very important to me. I mean, I, in high school, go to the village, I looked up to them. Even though women were not the key in the themes, it seemed like a big breakthrough. 51:26 SM: Ann Walden was the youngest of that group. She was born in 1946. When she was very close to Ginsburg— 51:34 RB: Uh huh, really? 51:34 SM: —there seemed to be a relationship between those two that was very strong. And they had the center— 51:41 RB: Well Susan Suntodd was somebody looked up to— 51:42 SM: Right, right. 51:43 RB: —and she was involved in that movement. Beats and existentialists were influences. I mean, I read. I read Ginsburg's poetry aloud. I went to readings of his— 52:02 SM: That was one of the— I was at one of his chants. At Ohio State. 52:07 RB: Yeah, oh, no, it was very moving, and a real breakthrough. 52:10 SM: Yeah, the banning of [inaudible] I believe was 1955— 52:17 RB: It was late— yeah, it was early. 52:19 SM: That was kind of a historic happening as well. And what was it about them that they challenged authority where they were like, very unique. They did not care what people thought of them . 52:28 RB: They challenged authority. They were also— they were against war. They were against bomb testing, war, all of those things. They— for me they dressed in black when the popular culture colors at that time were fuchsia and chartreuse. And they had freedoms, I mean, not only sexual freedoms, but marijuana. I mean, they— that was very, I mean, sex, drugs and rock and roll were very important. 53:15 SM: One person I interviewed out in California who was part of the counterculture out there, is it Neal Cassady? 53:22 RB: Yeah. 53:22 SM: He said Neal Cassady is the Beat. He is— you had the Ginsburg's, and you have your Snyder— [crosstalk 53:29] RB: Roman [inaudible] 53:30 SM: —[inaudible] all these others, but something about him, attracted all the others. And so people look to him as like the model Beat. you agree with that? 53:42 RB: No, I looked at Neal Cassady as a model too. 53:45 SM: I have a question here on healing. This is a question that I have asked— actually asked everyone, even Senator McCarthy when I first started this so long ago. It is a question of healing as a generation. In 1985, I took students to see Senator Muskie, six months before he passed away, he was not well, he had just gotten out of the hospital, and Gaylord Nelson had been able to organize this meeting with him. It was one of our leaderships. So, we took 14 students there and one of the questions they came up with it was based on videos they have— they have observed in the (19)60s. And the question they wanted to ask was, thinking that he would respond about 1968 in the summer, based on all the divisions that took place in America, in the 1960s, and (19)70s, including the divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, the riots and burnings within the cities, the assassinations during the (19)60s, the extreme divisions and those who supported the war, those who were against the war or those who supported the troops and against the troops. Do you think the boomer generation, like the Civil War generation, is going to go to its grave… not healing? And then they waited for him to respond. I will tell you, his response. Do you think… do you think that the boomer generation as a whole has an issue on healing because of this extreme divisions? I know you— many do not think about it, but some do! I am one of them. The divisions have— just were, so intense. And there was so much happening, that, you know, a lot of people like closure in their lives, but I am not sure if closure is possible. Just your thoughts on the concept of healing? 55:30 RB: I do not know about— I do not know— you know, I do not know about— I mean, I think… that… as far as anti-feminists, I do not feel much healing. But I can feel a lot of healing for people who went to Vietnam, I never was against the troops themselves. And I do not think we were, you know, many of us, so… And people that were for the war, they continue to be for these wars now, you know. I do not feel much sympathy with them. 56:18 SM: Somebody said, it might be better to say [inaudible] 56:22 RB: Yeah. 56:22 SM: I think I am fine– 56:26 RB: Yeah, I do not see– 56:28 SM: I am going to use this tape here. Some somebody said that it would be better if you simply just paraphrase this question, say those who supported the war, those who were against the war, which means those who went to war and those who did not, and that— and will that can ever heal? And the reason why the question came up is, what happens to the anti-war people when they go to the war for the first time, and they are with their kids? And they say, Dad, Mom, what did you do in the war? You know, that there is any guilt that they did not serve. I think that was really getting at when, when 58,000 plus died? 57:06 RB: Well, I mean, some of the people even if they did not serve, some of them protested against it. But then they were ones that did nothing. I mean, I think if you look at the wall, I do not feel it. My grandchildren now could be— asked me about it, I can tell them about protesting against this war that was killing people, and wars that are existing now. 57:34 SM: So, in a sense, what you are saying is that even the men who served in this war, they did their purpose, and we had our purpose— 57:42 RB: Purpose. 57:42 SM: —because it was genuine and real, and it was for good… 57:45 RB: Right, exactly. 57:45 SM: –it was not for bad. So, I am not going to criticize the young man. 57:51 RB: Criticizing them, is the people that sent them to war, and did not serve. 57:55 SM: Right. And then the people that protested the war— James [inaudible] does a great job talking about, there is difference between those who protested the war and those who evaded the draft. 58:05 RB: Right. 58:05 SM: And he is guilty. He feels guilty, but he does not, he does not [inaudible]. Because they did, because those people evaded the threat never protested the war. So– 58:13 RB: Right well, some had evaded the draft. I knew people that evaded the draft and protest the war. The– 58:21 SM: The— Senator Muskie answered the question in this way, he said that he never even responded about 1916. We thought he was going to talk about all the students in the [inaudible] each other— 58:32 RB: Right, yeah. 58:33 SM: He did not even mention it. He said we have not healed since the Civil War, because we have the same problem. We have the issue of race, and it has not— said it is still here. 58:41 RB: And it is, when you look at the states that voted for Obama in the states that did not it is a Civil War. 58:46 SM: And you know something when people say that they criticize Obama and then in the next breath, they say, “And I am not criticizing him because he is black.” If I hear that one more time I am going to jump out the window. Because I know some people, you know, I am not saying they are racist, but it is like, “my best friends are black.” That saying— I do not know… you do not have to, you do not have to say it!— 59:10 RB: You do not need to say it! Right. 59:13 SM: That is what Glenn Beck says. Do you think also the word that the— this particular generation is a generation that does not trust? And is that good? 59:23 RB: No— 59:23 SM: One of the characteristics of the generation is not a very trusting generation. 59:27 RB: I think it is good not to trust. You know, there is a lot in especially big government and government not to trust and questioning authority is very useful. 59:40 SM: That— 59:40 RB: We want our students to question. We want them to ask questions and not just assume that authorities are correct, since they are not most of the time. 59:51 SM: In a sense, you are saying that then this is healthy for democracy– 59:55 RB: It is. 59:55 SM: –because we are challenging the system. 59:57 RB: Right, and we need more challenging of the system. 1:00:02 SM: Very good. One of my interviewees said that now he has become a special— now— that, oh now has become a special interest group. I cannot read my own handwriting. That concentrates more on the irony, I already— I think I have already asked that question, so… strengths and weaknesses. Okay. What do you consider some of the strengths and weaknesses of the boomer generation? And I know you cannot, you cannot talk about a whole generation of people but you can talk about people you know. 1:00:30 RB: I think the strength of the people I know was that they were very daring… that they organized with other people… and protested for what they believed and stood up for what they believed, and some of them suffered for it. Some of them benefited. And the weaknesses are… that we did not have the staying power to change with changing times. And we also did not know our enemy. 1:01:30 SM: Has the enemy been the same for— 1:01:33 RB: No, the enemy has been very different. I mean, we had good times in the (19)60s, good economic times, liberal governments. And when it changed to more conservative times, we did not know how to deal with them. They knew how to deal with it, but we did not. They divided us. 1:01:53 SM: Yes, that is— 1:01:55 RB: They had spies in our organizations, we, you know, we were trusting people, we did not know any of this. 1:02:02 SM: This leads to a question here that, what was it like? And I am basically giving this question to you, what is it like being a female in America during the following timeframes, and maybe you have probably— your experience is comparable to other females of the time. And I am only saying the, because when we are looking at the boomers now, you know, we are talking right up to today so— 1:02:27 RB: That it was the most invigorating, marvelous, fun time. 1:02:31 SM: Let me break this down— 1:02:33 RB: I loved it. 1:02:34 SM: —what was it like from (19)46 to 1964 women that were— 1:02:39 RB: That was much harder. That was much harder. It was like, continual repression. Feeling a combination between oppressed and invisible. 1:02:53 SM: How about 1961 when President Kennedy came into 1970. 1:02:58 RB: That was joyous times. Fun was so important. It was so much fun to live in. It was, the atmosphere was anything is possible. Lots of experimentation, new freedoms, adventures, incredible friendships, Re- learning, and learning things. 1:03:40 SM: How about, how did the (19)70s differ from the (19)60s, say from 1971 to Reagan– 1:03:47 RB: (19)70s just started changing. I mean, America was not a great nation, and it began to be not a great nation anymore. We stopped producing anything. And we, it was no longer the same kind of times. Starting in late to mid (19)70s. 1:04:12 SM: Would you say that that period, right up to about (19)73, (19)74 is really part of the (19)60s because, yeah. 1:04:19 RB: Yes, that was part of the (19)60s, it was late (19)60s. 1:04:21 SM: How about 1981 to 1990, which was actually the period of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, the first. 1:04:28 RB: That became much harder. I mean, it came… I mean, the sixties had ended and you had to make a new life and realize that the movement was not there anymore, although some friendships continued and… 1:04:52 SM: Do you agr— Go ahead. 1:04:53 RB: …and some protests continued. 1:04:57 SM: Yeah, I know the anti-apartheid movement was about the only one that— the only movement that, that— that was early (19)80s, (19)83 to (19)84. 1:05:04 RB: Yes early (19)80s. 1:05:07 SM: Do you feel that the criticism oftentimes of people that grew up in the (19)60s generation, which is all of them, but basically is that their idealism died as they got older, that they are no different than any other generation as time goes on. They become parents, they get a job. There is always this scattering of people that stay the way they were, but the majority of them just moved on with their lives. And, and when they said, when they were young, that they were going to change the world. And we are going to end war, great peace, and racism, sexism, homophobia, and make the world a better place to live that, that was just young people talking and dreaming and hoping but in reality, as life goes on, they have responsibilities. And, and security does mean a lot to them. Because they got to put bread on the table. Just your thoughts on that. 1:05:57 RM: I think that many, many people from the (19)60s that I know, are still active, and not active in the same way. Because the world has changed. And whenever I have a student who is an activist, it turns out that someone else is an activist in their family, and many I mean, my son's activist, I mean, they— it is not— they do change, and they do go on and their lifestyles change. But some of their idealism lives and they are still protesting in their way. 1:06:47 SM: You know, it is interesting— 1:06:48 RB: Or teaching, and passing it on to their students. 1:06:51 SM: As I, as I have gotten older, because I am in my early (19)60s, now. It has gotten stronger in me, not… not weaker, because I am more confident in who I am, what I am all about, and I know who I am as a human being, and that is who I am. And so— 1:07:09 RB: No one I know almost has— the only person that I know, personally, that has gotten conservative is David [inaudible]. But most… most of the people have not. True their lives have changed, they have jobs and things, but they have not gotten conservative. 1:07:24 SM: Think his friend [inaudible], another one. They were both- 1:07:27 RB: Oh yeah, Peter, I did not know Peter. 1:07:29 SM: Yeah, yeah. 1:07:29 RB: I did not know Peter. 1:07:30 SM: Yeah, I think he was— 1:07:31 RB: Yeah, I did not know Peter. 1:07:32 SM: —[inaudible] too. 1:07:32 RB: But I did not know. 1:07:35 SM: You already talked about the— 1:07:39 RB: Yeah. 1:07:39 SM: Alright, where is it [inaudible]. Anyway, I am moving around here. 1:07:44 RB: Right that is okay. 1:07:46 SM: And, I think you have already talked about your books, both prominent writers. Legal decisions, we were doing pretty good. If you were in a packed house, of 500 female college students today. And one asked you named the three or four events in your personal life that made you who you are today. Now, this is a little takeout, from the first question, but it is a little more specific, with all of your strengths and imperfections that we all have as human beings, what are they? And I asked this to Peter Kyer and Peter Kyer said, you know, I cannot answer that. You know, I got to think for a while. Then, he— then he thought about, jeez, yeah it was— I had a maid when I grew up, who was an African American maid, and she was very important. And then he went on to talk about the experience about the maid. And then he was writing a book on it. He was writing a book on the maid. And then he said, he talks about, well, then, then I had this person that did this for me. And then I know that I went to— I just happen to be at this particular event at this time. So, he has really just really went to town on it. Other— now you have already mentioned a lot of things that influenced you— 1:09:00 RB: Yeah, I do not— 1:09:01 SM: But are there specific events? 1:09:02 RB: Specific events… I do remember, that I could not go— my birthday party had it be called off because the Rosenbergs were being executed. And that had an enormous impact on me, not only because as a kid, I was angry that my birthday party had to end. And but I then we went to this demonstration. I was a kid about the Rosenberg— 1:09:45 SM: I do not think they were guilty. 1:09:47 RB: Well she certainly was not. 1:09:49 SM: Yeah. 1:09:50 RB: Even if, you know, the bombs he did was not even a secret. But anyway, the thing is that all around the world, they protested this. And, I mean, I saw that there were events that were much huge-er than me, like my birthday party. This execution, which was a world event, right? So, it sorts of put in perspective, the personal and political. There were these events outside that determined people's lives. Plus, it scared me that my parents could be killed. You know? Not that I even knew they were communists at that time, but I knew there was something a little different about them. 1:10:42 SM: Were you aware of the Hollywood 10? At that time, too? And their testimonies before the- 1:10:47 RB: Not totally, but my parents knew some of those people. So, I mean — 1:10:51 SM: And, and the people that lost their lives? 1:10:53 RB: Yes, I knew— 1:10:54 SM: Committed suicide because— 1:10:56 RB: Right, I knew a little about that. Yeah. 1:10:59 SM: Was there a generation gap in your family at all, but if any- were your, were your with you and your parents, in any way— 1:11:04 RB: Yeah, there was a generation gap. I mean, you know, they did not like the music I listened to or the sloppy the way they thought I was dressing, no there was definitely a generation gap. 1:11:18 SM: Now, what is interesting, I interviewed a very powerful Vietnam veteran about a month ago in Washington, Jack Wheeler was the guy who raised the funds for the Vietnam Memorial. And, and there was a symposium in 1980 with James Fallows, Phil Caputo. Really top people— Bobby Muller. And basically, they talked, they said- was talked about the generation gap. And one of them— oh and James Webb was not a senator. And I think they brought up the fact that the generation gap to them was not between parents, and their sons and daughters. It was we- it was within the generation, that the generation gap was those who served and those who chose not to serve. And James Webb, if I make sure I get his quote correct because he is a pretty tough cookie. He said that… he thinks that the boomer generation, which is being praised for being a generation that served, really is the generation that did not. By people who protested and did not go to war when people in World War II and World War I, and it was it was a rite of passage, one of the services— to serve your nation. You know we had so many, that did not serve either in a variety of ways. So that was what he thought generation gap was. Do you think you agree with that concept, or– 1:12:44 RB: I did not have that much experience with that. Yeah. 1:12:51 SM: Yeah. 1:12:51 RB: But that is, it is very different for people. So— 1:12:57 SM: Yeah, especially if there was a rite of passage that many of them have gone through. 1:13:03 RB: Right they think— people serve for many different reasons. I mean, I have this black friend that, you know, it is just a way out of his life. 1:13:11 SM: Yeah, I— 1:13:12 RB: Not like he was so gung-ho war, or saw it as a passage. You know, I do not know, he made two girls pregnant. He, you know, did not know what he was doing and it was just like kids that serve today. 1:13:26 SM: So, some go in there for a career too and some did that. 1:13:30 RB: Want to get their school paid for I have students all the time that tell me they want to enlist to get— 1:13:35 SM: One of the criticisms of the military back then is that they did that to young people that did not have any money. And as a result, they end up dead in Vietnam. There was a con job so to speak. What are, what are some of the slogans of the women's movement? I have been asking a question about slogans. And I said, there were three slogans that I personally feel kind of define the boomer generation. One of them is Malcolm X by saying and “by any means necessary”, which is symbolic of the more radical revolutionary toward violence type of mentality. 1:14:09 RB: The Women's Movement was pretty anti violence. 1:14:11 SM: The second one was the hippie mentality, which Peter max it was, I am a poster you do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should get together that will be beautiful. 1:14:21 RB: Yeah, no, but for movement build that is not good. 1:14:23 SM: Yeah, and the third one was the one Bobby Kennedy was quoted. He took it from the writer from the 19th century. And the summons sees things as they are and ask why I see things that never were asked why not, which is a more of an activist mentality— 1:14:38 RB: Uh huh, right, yes, that one makes more sense 1:14:40 SM: —of seeking justice [inaudible]. So those three I thought, but I did not know if there was any other— 1:14:45 RB: The woman’s movement, the personal as political. That what you think of is personal. Like if you are being beaten. It is not personal, it is political. And having an abortion, birth control, they are not only personal issues, they are political issues as well. So that was a very important one, the personal is political. 1:15:12 SM: The last two periods that I did not talk about was the period 1991 to 2000, which was the end of the George Bush period and the Bill Clinton era. What is— what is that, for women and for you, for example just— 1:15:25 RB: Pretty bleak. Pretty bleak. 1:15:29 SM: Any progress there in any way? 1:15:33 RB: Not too much. 1:15:35 SM: And then, of course, the years— 1:15:36 RB: No, I would say it was the opposite of progress. It was going backwards. They have changed abortion to make it harder to get abortions, there are fewer abortions. People do not give abortions anymore. I mean, it has gotten backwards. 1:15:52 SM: And the year— 1:15:53 RB: [inaudible] starting to get a little better. 1:15:54 SM: The year 2001 to 2010 with George Bush the second and for Barack Obama on this— 1:16:00 RB: Well with Barack Obama there is at least there is hope. We do not know where it is going to lead, but at least there was hope. 1:16:08 SM: We are in obviously, in another war with George Bush with Iraq and Afghanistan. 1:16:13 RB: Right, we are. 1:16:14 SM: And certainly, Obama's going to gung-ho. 1:16:16 RB: He is. 1:16:17 SM: So, I do not know where that will lead. 1:16:25 SM: I would like your reaction to the following people. 1:16:29 RB: Okay. 1:16:29 SM: Terms, and what these events mean to you personally. 1:16:33 RB: Okay 1:16:33 SM: And we have still got at least 15 minutes here. Kent State, Jackson State, what does that mean to you? 1:16:40 RB: It meant a lot to me, Kent State, Jackson State. First of all, Jackson State people do not know about as much as Kent State. And it was a more working-class college. It was not an elite college. So it was very important. And then Jackson State, which was much more ignored, was equally important. And even though they came at the end, they were exceedingly important, and the fact that it was getting more violent. And people getting were more frustrated on both sides was very important. 1:17:22 SM: What does the wall mean to you? The Vietnam Memorial. 1:17:26 RB: It was a very important commemoration when I have gone there and seen all those names. And I do not know people that died in Vietnam, but it was just— it was a very moving, important Memorial. Just to have some kind of commemoration of the damages. 1:17:52 SM: Have you ever met Diane Carlson Evans? The Women’s Memorial? 1:17:55 RB: No, no. 1:17:55 SM: You ought to meet her someday. 1:17:56 RB: Yeah, I know. 1:17:57 SM: Got to bring her to your class. What a- she went before Congress to fight for the women’s memorial— 1:18:00 RB: No, I know she did, I know she did. 1:18:03 SM: And because she saw the eight names that were on the wall, but with a three-man statue, she fought for that woman statue. She did a good job. It is interesting when I asked a powerful Vietnam vet that the question about what I mean I heard that Diane really had to fight to get that Memorial built. What kind of— was there any sexism within the Vietnam veteran community? And he immediately responded, he said, no, we supported Diane from the get go. And of course, I have heard otherwise, but not from him. And it was basic as that, well look at the wall, Maya Lin designed the wall, she was a female. Who designed the woman's memorial? Glenna Goodacre. And then there was a man that designed the three man statues so two of the three main standards are women. And so, so there is our case. What does Watergate mean to you? 1:18:58 RB: Watergate, was really an opening that- first of all, it was televised. And people really got to understand what this dirty Nixon government was doing. And it was the beginning of unraveling that people could really see and feel. I mean, this new unraveling it is, it is almost like the Pentagon Papers. It has, has not created a ripple. 1:19:37 SM: Yeah, starting. But just the term counterculture. 1:19:41 RB: Yeah. 1:19:41 SM: What do you think of that. Were you- I wonder how do you— 1:19:44 RB: I define myself as part of the counterculture- 1:19:47 SM: And what is the counterculture to you? 1:19:49 RB: I like the counterculture; it was not the mainstream culture. It was not having the same goals of conquering people's— treating people very differently, wanting to live life in the moment. And it was caring for the earth– 1:20:21 SM: How About hippies and yippies. Hippies— 1:20:24 RB: Yeah, I like the hippies. You know, when I felt like a hippie myself, I lived on the Lower East Side. Liked the hippie culture. It was an alternative to the admin culture. 1:20:37 SM: How about the yippies which was Hoffman and Ruban— 1:20:40 RB: Yeah, well, I knew them. I was not as— I mean, I knew them personally. And I mean, they did things like burn money. I mean, they showed contempt for values that I felt should be made to quest- to people to question. 1:21:03 SM: How about Woodstock and Summer of Love, two separate incidents. One in (19)69, and one is (19)67. 1:21:05 RB: I did not go to Woodstock. I could have, but… I mean, it was a memorable occasion. Music was good. 1:21:20 SM: A lot of people forget the summer solstice of (19)68. 1:21:23 RB: Right. 1:21:23 SM: Yeah, that is, I— nobody talks about it. But that was big, too. 1:21:28 RB: Right? 1:21:28 SM: The year 1968. What does that mean to you? 1:21:31 RB: 1968? It meant the international movement. And it meant the beginning of the women's movement. There was a movement in Mexico, there was a movement in Germany. 1:21:47 SM: Yes. 1:21:47 RB: It was a worldwide— 1:21:50 SM: France. 1:21:51 RB: —New Left. Yeah, France. New Left. It was a worldwide— New Left was an international group which was very important. 1:22:01 SM: The 1963 march on Washington. 1:22:05 RB: That was incredibly important as well, in that racism could not be denied any longer. Thousands of people were daring to dream that it might be different. And mobilizing. And even though it was not the radical part of the civil rights movement, it was people from all over the United States. Unions, different people, maids, chauffeurs so many different people coming together. 1:22:49 SM: How about the incident on Wall Street with hard hats, beating up hippies with long hair. That was pretty similar. Like– 1:22:58 RB: Yeah, that was— showed the enormous class differences. The press was pushing. 1:23:08 SM: Some people say that was what was the silent majority were those hard hats. Because that was what Nixon was always talking about , the silent majority. 1:23:21 RB: I do not think they were the silent majority. But anyway, you know, they had their point. And they blame the wrong enemy. 1:23:28 SM: You brought up black power and black power was really prevalent on college campus, late (19)60s, early (19)70s. And Kent state, you cannot even hardly find an African American student, because it is more all white students. I am actually interviewing the president of Kansas State Student Government in three weeks. And he was an African American. But there was a— if you read James’s Michener’s book, I can state there were no African American students there. And if there were, they were asked to leave, because at that time— I was on Ohio State's campus in the early (19)70s. And black students went more towards what was happening in America and not toward Vietnam. There was that split, and the Afros and everything was pretty strong there. So black power, your thoughts on black power, and its intimidation factor number one and Black Panthers and the concept of what they were all about in terms of— 1:24:23 RB: Well, in a way, black power was a lot like separatism that had been, you know, there since Booker T. Washington, and saying, look, we can do it alone. And in the women's movement in some way. We were inspired by black power, because women's power, we had our own movement. We did not have men in the movement. And it inspired us to do our thing on our own and that we did not need men to be leaders anymore. We could be the leaders. So, there were lots of correspondences between black power and the women's movement. 1:25:12 SM: What did you think of the- when… did you think Black Panthers were violent? Number one, even though they had the food program and number two, SDS went from being an antiwar group to a violent group. Yeah, well, the weatherman- 1:25:27 RB: I am actually very against the weatherman. And they were the most macho people too. And anti-women and kind of ways and guns and macho. And it was the most anti female thing. And I did not like that transition at all. 1:25:44 SM: I mentioned that even in the American Indian Movement from (19)69 to (19)73 that was so strong that the hopes that Alcatraz, when they took over Alcatraz, and then the violence at Wounded Knee showed again, the violence does not win. Right. So, you had you had Wounded Knee for Native Americans. you had the weatherman for SDS, you had the Black Panthers, right? People have Huey Newton or Bobby Seale says we were not violent. We were there— we had guns to protect ourselves because police had guns, but then then also the Young Lords, which was the Latina, Puerto Rican group, they kind of copied the Black Panthers, so— 1:26:18 RB: But they also had breakfast programs and other things, as you say that people forget. 1:26:22 SM: Right. Right. What did you think of Earth Day? 1:26:28 RB: Earth Day, I remember going to Earth Day and my son knew more people on the demonstration for the first time than I did. 1:26:36 SM: You were in Washington for the big one? 1:26:37 RB: I was in New York City. 1:26:39 SM: Okay. 1:26:39 RB: Was it June 13th? One— and I remember my son went with me and he was saying hi to everyone and knew everyone. And I thought that was just great, that he knew more people than I did. 1:26:49 SM: Let me change the tape. 1:26:58 SM: Like at least— 1:26:59 RB: And the hippies had some of the Earth kind of things and preserving the Earth in them as well. I mean, I began having gardens and sewing things and caring about the earth and the water supply and mulching as a hippie. So, Earth Day seemed a continuation of those concerns. 1:27:25 SM: Yeah, I think the environmental movement is very strong today. Of course, there is a lot of enemies of it. 1:27:29 RB: Yeah. But it is stronger. 1:27:30 SM: It is, it is very strong. 1:27:31 RB: And it will get stronger with things like BP. 1:27:35 SM: Oh, my gosh, yes. 1:27:36 SM: The Free Speech Movement, (19)64. Just your thoughts on it? Because it was really the preamble to all the foul– 1:27:44 RB: In California. 1:27:45 SM: Yeah. 1:27:46 RB: Because, I mean, I was writing about Elizabeth Gurley Flynn and, in the Wobblies, the IWW. They had to have free speech movements, and they call them free speech movements, in order to be heard. So, in order to even raise money, with people in the south, you had to have a Free Speech Movement, to even talk about the war, and to talk about the civil rights movement. So, it had to come first. And free speech is always part of a movement. 1:28:22 SM: But I always admire— I wish I had met Mario Savio; he was not a well man. He died in his fifties. 1:28:27 RB: Right. 1:28:27 SM: And I do not know if you saw him [inaudible] I mean, there is a new book by Dr. Cohen at NYU— 1:28:33 RB: Right, yeah, NYU. 1:28:35 SM: I am interviewing in September— 1:28:37 RB: Right, my son [inaudible] 1:28:38 SM: —Strictly an hour and a half. Nothing but the free speech movement. And but one of the things that stands out, and I want you to comment on it, that he… that Mario Savio, whether you liked his style of speaking or where he, you know, came I think he originally came from New York— 1:28:56 RB: He did come from New York. 1:28:57 SM: Yeah. And the fact that you got to admire this guy, because he-he got it, that the university was about ideas. And he talks about the recent, you know, stopping about literature being handed out, you are denying ideas on a university campus. And so, he did what Clark Kerr talked about in the uses of the university, the noun, not the knowledge factory was like the corporate factory. And so, he was challenging that kind of a system— 1:29:30 RB: [crosstalk] Right and he was saying— 1:29:31 SM: The corporate mentality— 1:29:32 RB: —we cannot be cogs in a wheel 1:29:33 SM: Yeah. 1:29:33 RB: We have to change. You know, we are not little cogs. We have to open our minds. And that is supposedly what learning is about, and you cannot learn unless you have many ideas. 1:29:47 SM: See that is what worries me about the lessons that were learned from the Free Speech Movement and everything right up through probably today is that is when I interviewed Arthur Chickering, who gave me an hour and a half of his time on the phone, the great educator, rural education identity that we had to read for my graduate program. I asked him, is there any last comments you would like to make when I ended the interview. He says, yes. I am disappointed in today's universities for one reason the corporations are taking over. 1:30:13 RB: Yes, they are. 1:30:14 SM: And this is from a conservative educator— 1:30:17 RB: Yeah, but it is true, yeah. 1:30:19 SM: And that was exactly what Mario was saying. And that was [inaudible] 1:30:22 RB: Things have gotten so much worse! 1:30:24 SM: Scholarships are all based on raising funds. Everything is raising, you know, buildings are named just raising funds, scholarships, it is everything. And even in activities in— 1:30:35 RB: Even the kind of funding that is given, the people's work. 1:30:40 SM: Yeah, it has got to show that it is— 1:30:42 RB: That was what we were protesting against now the university is much worse. And also, the idea of public schools. We do not even have- we used to have free public schools. Now, even though state universities are so expensive— 1:30:57 SM: [inaudible] yeah. 1:30:58 RB: It has gone up 18 times since I have taught. 1:31:01 SM: Yeah, yeah. And I do not know what is going to happen to Berkeley. Because— 1:31:06 RB: No— 1:31:06 SM: I know some students that have left, they were not coming back. They were going to, they were going to another, they were leaving, they were leaving Berkeley! 1:31:13 RB: Right, I know, they are ruining, they are really making things— also, it is what is happening in our country now, where the differences between the rich and the poor are getting greater and greater. The gaps between the rich— 1:31:26 SM: Yeah and the middle class is going to go into the poor, and the- so 2 percent and the 98 percent— 1:31:29 RB: Right, and it is really what is happening, and therefore. for public education, they do not care. 1:31:36 SM Just a few more here, Freedom Summer. 1:31:40 RB: It was very important in— that was very important, not only for the work that was done, you know, educating black people in freedom schools, but the white people changed so much. Seeing the roles of the blacks and black leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer, and that there were people who were sharecroppers who had no education but could teach you a whole lot. And it gave people a new sense of class. And what you could learn from the people. 1:32:22 SM: Sergeant Shriver in the Peace Corps, and I— and I say Sergeant Shriver, he has got Alzheimer's now just like— 1:32:28 SM: Yeah, that is what I hear. 1:32:30 SM: And he is not long for this world, unfortunately. 1:32:34 RB: But the person from Pennsylvania who started the Peace Corps, he was president of my college at first. 1:32:38 SM: I have interviewed two pe— Harris Wofford! 1:32:39 RB: Harris Wofford. He was— 1:32:40 SM: I know Harris Wofford. 1:32:41 RB: —He was president of Old Westbury. 1:32:43 SM: Yeah. And well, I know him well in fact— 1:32:45 RB: I do not know him well. But he was president of Old Westbury when I first came. 1:32:50 SM: Yeah, well, he was from, from California. He was my first speaker at Thomas Jefferson University. Then I went over to his law office before he worked for Governor Scranton and I, seeking an hour of his time, and I invited him four times to come and speak at our school once during the Rodney King crisis when he was senator. And, and I interviewed him in his backyard, before we moved to Washington, where this book, and he— his wife, was just Claire was everything to him. And he has never been the same since he last- 1:33:22 RB: Were, well, he was president of a college so I— 1:33:26 SM: But just your thoughts on Sergeant Shriver and the Peace Corps- 1:33:28 RB: I think the Peace Corps was another very important idea, especially… We live in a world economy. And it is very important that people to see what America does to the rest of the world and how what we can learn from them, and they from us. And it was very meaningful for people who went I know, people that were in the Peace Corps, and it changed them enormously. 1:33:54 SM: What are your thoughts? When you look at the Presidents since 1946, which includes, one of the things I learned very early, when I was four or five, I learned all my presidents. I learned them the least. 1:34:05 RB: Most of the presidents have been very dismal. The good ones stand out. As a historian that is what I think. 1:34:11 SM: Well, when you think of when you think of Truman, and Eisenhower, and certainly Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and then you have Ford. 1:34:23 RB: Ford, yeah. 1:34:24 SM: Carter, Reagan, George Bush the first, Bill Clinton, George Bush the second, and now Obama, when you think of these people, these are the presidents that have been alive when boomers have been alive. And if you are talking about even FDR, for those that were born in the early (19)40s. Any of those events do you admire for their issue, for their work on behalf of women when they were in positions of leadership? 1:34:51 RB: Eleanor Roosevelt, not— not Roosevelt, and under Johnson, very good legislation was passed. I mean, the Peace Corps and those things did affect women. And the War on Poverty did affect women. Not specifically, he did not appoint that many women or have feminist consciousness, but some of his programs were really important for women. Johnson above them all. 1:35:19 SM: What were some of those programs? 1:35:21 RB: Well, I said the War on Poverty, the Peace Corps… Equal Rights Amendment passed under him, ERA. 1:35:37 SM: You mentioned also Eleanor Roosevelt and I have not talked about her at all, hardly in any of my interviews, but— 1:35:43 RB: Human Rights, she was the one to talk about human rights and she is very important. And as a wife of a president, she was very active in her role. 1:35:53 SM: She lived until— 1:35:54 RB: Aside from being gay, you know— 1:35:55 SM: She lived until (19)62, 1962. 1:35:58 RB: Right, she was very active in the UN. 1:36:03 SM: So, she was too— she— would you say she was a person— 1:36:05 RB: She was someone you could— I looked up to her. 1:36:08 SM: The women's movement is also often identified as a United States effort. But when I interviewed Charlotte Bunch– 1:36:16 RB: Oh, she— 1:36:16 SM: She talked about the international aspects, was Eleanor Roosevelt, a key figure in the international women's issues in the UN? 1:36:24 RB: She was in the UN 1:36:27 SM: Right. 1:36:27 RB: In UN, in Human Rights. 1:36:28 SM: Just a few more names, I do not tell you— 1:36:30 RB: Okay, that 1s alright. 1:36:31 SM: Okay I am going to— at least they are all— because— just your thoughts on Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. 1:36:37 SM: Um, Tom Hayden is still doing very good work. Now. I get this newsletter that he does. And he is one person who has changed with changing time and continued to be important. I mean, I really liked his Newark project… in Newark. He was not very good to Casey Hayden, or he was not good to other girlfriends, but on the whole, I think he is a very positive role. And he continues to be an activist. 1:37:14 SM: He has written and brand-new book now on the movement. 1:37:18 RB: Right, yeah, so, he continues, I mean, he is someone who is lasting. 1:37:22 SM: Jane Fonda. 1:38:25 RB: Jane Fonda. I mean, she popularized, really, fitness and protest for a while, and she certainly was hated. By the right. They made her a major enemy. 1:37:40 SM: And they still do. 1:37:43 RB: And as you know, a founder and an actress she played an important media role. 1:37:49 SM: I am interviewing Jeremy or Jerry Alinsky tomorrow, who wrote a book— 1:37:52 RB: Oh, right. Yeah, right. 1:37:53 SM: [inaudible] on Jane Fonda about Miss— Danny Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. Just your thoughts on both of them. 1:38:03 RB: They made protesting very much fun. And they, they had this yippies. I mean, I did not think of it is irresponsible, but some people good. I mean, they wanted people to feel that you could have a hell of a good time and still protest, and be very creative and inventive. 1:38:36 SM: How About the Black Panthers. And I said just like I cannot just say Black Panthers because they had like seven or eight major personalities and just if any of these people stand out— Stokely Carmichael was obviously when was— 1:38:50 RB: He is international. 1:38:51 SM: Yeah, he challenged Dr. King— 1:38:51 RB: [inaudible] Yes, right. 1:38:53 SM: —your time has passed and so Stokely Carmichael, of course, Bobby Seale, and Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver and Kathleen Cleaver and H. Rhett. Brown. 1:39:03 RB: They are all very different. Kathleen Cleaver, I was reading a book the other day; she did the introduction. She is a lawyer now. I mean, they are very, I mean, Huey Newton turned out to be a criminal. I mean, they are— they are all very different. Bobby Rush beat Obama— 1:39:20 SM: Oh, that is right— that is right. 1:39:22 RB: You know, they are very, very different people all of them. 1:39:27 SM: And the one that was murdered in Chicago. Yeah. 1:39:29 RB: Yeah. What is his name? The Chicago brown women. The Chicago branch was one of the best branches of the, of the Black Panthers. They are the ones that had a big breakfast program. 1:39:40 SM: And then there is the— Angela Davis who was not a Black Panther. 1:39:34 RB: She was sort of a media… communist, media star. 1:39:51 SM: Anything about her? 1:39:53 RB: I mean, intellectually, she, I mean, I used something that she wrote in my class about slave narratives. She wrote something about Douglass. 1:40:12 SM: How about Tommy Smith and John Carlos, they were in the 1968 Olympics. They raised their fists. 1:40:17 RB: Yeah, right, I do not, you know– 1:40:18 SM: They are black power. 1:40:19 RB: Yeah, right. 1:40:20 SM: Not Black Panthers. 1:40:21 RB: Right. 1:40:23 SM: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. 1:40:27 RB: You know, very useful event. I wish the new papers had as much impact as he did. That is a very brave individual. 1:40:37 SM: How about Dr. Benjamin Spock? 1:40:40 RB: I mean, my father was a friend of his. 1:40:43 SM: Really? 1:40:43 RB: Yeah. My father was a friend of his, he thanks him. My father, in his book. My father helped make him more left. 1:40:51 SM: Your— your father wrote a book? 1:40:53 RB: No, Ben Spock’s Book. 1:40:56 SM: Oh, I have Ben Spock’s book— 1:40:58 RB: Yeah I believe he thanked my father, Lewis Fraad, for helping him. 1:41:03 SM: How about Timothy Leary? 1:41:07 RB: LSD. I do not know, guess he escaped from prison too. No. 1:41:13 SM: Yeah. The weathermen got him. 1:41:16 RB: Yeah well, LSD, you know. 1:41:20 SM: George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy. 1:41:22 RB: I did not relate to them that much. 1:41:25 SM: Neither one of them? 1:41:27 RB: Neither of them, nope. 1:41:28 SM: What about LBJ and Hubert Humphrey? 1:41:31 RB: Oh, LBJ, in retrospect, as a historian, I think was very important to Senate leader and president, but I did not at the time. 1:41:40 SM: What about Nixon and Agnew? 1:41:42 RB: Well they were major enemies– 1:41:45 SM: And… RB: But they look good in comparison to Bush, and smart. 1:41:49 SM: George Wallace. 1:41:51 RB: At least he changed. 1:41:54 SM: Barry Goldwater and William Buckley, because those are major. 1:41:57 RB: Yeah, they were at least thinkers. They are much better than the right wingers that are around today, like Sarah Palin's much more intelligent and thoughtful. 1:42:07 SM: But the— Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. 1:42:11 RB: I think more of Betty Friedan than I do of Gloria Steinem. I mean, she is a media figure. There is nothing that she has written or said that I think is very worthwhile, but she certainly is a figure that people look to. 1:42:23 SM: About Bella Abzug. 1:42:25 RB: I admired her a lot. 1:42:27 SM: [crosstalk] A lot of people do not realize he was waiting before she was a congressman. 1:42:29 RB: —She was very gutsy— 1:42:30 RB: Very gutsy person. 1:42:32 SM: She risked her life going down South. 1:42:34 RB: Oh I know. She was an amazing person. She-she- I helped her start a daycare center. She wanted one in her campaign headquarters. 1:42:47 SM: Wow. Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson— 1:42:50 RB: I looked up to Mohammed Ali and Jackie Robinson and I think it is odd that my students do not know who either of them are 1:42:56 SM: That is amazing. 1:42:57 RB: Black students, have never heard of Jackie Robinson. 1:43:00 SM: See another one that is now up there is Curt Flood because Curt Flood was [inaudible] now more is being written. There is a couple of biographies coming on, on him. And they are going to do a section in the Cooperstown on him. 1:43:11 RB: Oh, really? 1:43:12 SM: Yeah. Because he has, he has not, he has not given any [inaudible] again. 1:43:17 RB: Yeah no. 1:53:17 SM: They bought him— actually, Muhammad Ali, is… I cannot think of— anything else here? 1:43:22 RB: I did not even like boxing, but I watched Muhammad Ali. 1:43:27 SM: Yeah, he was, he was something else. As far as, as far as musicians of the period and the music was very important politically, it was in tune with the times, but how important was music in your life in terms of not only just relaxing you and laying back and enjoying it— 1:43:43 RB: Like as protests, it was. It was. 1:43:44 SM: —but in terms of stimulation, who were the artists that really stimulated you? 1:43:47 RB: I mean even though there was sexist artist, the beat and things like the Rolling Stones influenced me and I went to the concerts and Dylan. I mean, I was influenced by male rock and roll. Even if the words were saying something different to me than the rhythms. 1:44:09 SM: Were you into Folk, as much as Ryan. 1:44:10 RB: I was into folk music. 1:44:13 SM: About the Motown sound. 1:44:15 RB: I liked Motown; I still adore Motown. 1:44:16 SM: Is there one album that you have that stands out but like me people? 1:44:24 RB: Maybe, I like Janis Joplin. I like Janis Joplin a lot. And she inspired me and feminist kind of ways. 1:44:35 SM: Too bad she passed away really quick, very bad drug situation. And down to my last three questions, what role did women play in ending the war in Vietnam, because the group or groups of personalities, the role of women in building the women's Vietnam memorial. We all know about Diane Car— Carlson Evans, who was involved in that. But the reason I bring this up is because when I interviewed John Wheeler in Washington, DC who raised funds and he has, he wrote a book, Touched With Fire. He says the three most important things that happened as a result of the Vietnam War was the— that women were, were antiwar or involved in the antiwar movement. And it was really inspirational. So, it was right during the women's movement. So— 1:45:23 RB: It was during the women’s movement. And we were very involved in the antiwar movement, as involved as men. 1:45:29 SM: Do you feel that one of the things is lacking today and students understanding— they think in terms of power and empowerment, we had Tom Hayden on our campus about six years ago. And Tom, Tom talked—[third speaker interrupts]—we were talking about women— 1:45:53 RB: In Vietnam now. I think we were the troops in the movement. We I mean, I know people like Leslie Kagan that were ahead of mold and devoted their lives to the antiwar movement. 1:46:05 SM: Are there— you said you went to some of them? Protests— 1:46:10 RB: Pentagon loans. 1:46:11 SM: Were you there at the (19)67, the raising— 1:46:15 RB: Yes, the raising of the— I was there. I was even in the front lines. 1:46:18 SM: And Norman Mailer was there. 1:46:20 RB: Yes, I know. 1:46:21 SM: And as was— Dr. Spock was there too. 1:46:24 RB: Spock was there yet. My father was in jail. Yeah. 1:46:28 SM: What was that like? A lot of people will laugh, their going to levitate the Pentagon in (19)67. What is the… what was that feeling like being there? 1:46:37 RB: The feeling was, that we have the power to, we have the power. And you do not take it literally, to rock the Pentagon. To make it air. 1:46:51 SM: Were you there at the time that the guy burned himself? Underneath McNamara? 1:46:53 RB: Oh, no, I was not there. 1:46:55 SM: What do you think of McNamara and Kissinger? 1:47:01 RB: I think they are war criminals. 1:47:06 SM: Yeah, so what I was getting at here is that when Tom Hayden was on our campus, he asked our student government if they had, if they were empowered, and they said, oh, yeah, we determine budgets, we give out money. And Tom said, we control the money that goes, no, I am not talking about power. I am talking about power. They did not have a- they did not know any difference between it. And I do know that I brought up in a student affair once meeting of the word empowerment and that scared, you know, just saying power. What is it about the difference between the word empowerment as opposed to power, I mean? 1:47:40 RB: Empowerment is sort of a spiritual state of mind. And it is an individual thing, of empowerment. It means like, you can feel empowered, you can change the color of your hair and feel differently and feel empowered. But it has nothing to do with power and who rules. 1:48:05 SM: Yet, Tom— 1:48:05 RB: It is an individual kind of… thing. I feel empowered. 1:48:11 SM: See he told me at dinner, he says, I hope the students in the audience are not like the students at dinner with me. He was dead serious. And no, they were not that was, that— those students went off to student government, and— and then the students that were at the program stayed about an hour afterwards and Tom started talking to them. That is the Tom, that, yeah, those are the ones that ask the questions. My very last question, legacy. What do you—two-part question—what do you think the legacy of the women's movement will— do you think there will be a third wave? You know, there was the first wave. I even took my dad before he passed away to Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s home after her father died. 1:48:56 RB: Oh, wow that is wonderful. 1:48:57 SM: And I— one of my famous, favorite shots is walking up the back stairs with my dad looking up at me. And we were— and I have gone to Elizabeth Cady Stanton house three times now since my dad died, and again brings tears to my eyes, it was a great memory of being with him that day at the house. But getting back to this, will there be a third wave in the women’s movement? And what is the legacy of the second wave? 1:49:24 RB: I hope so. And the legacy of the second way is, as I said, the way people think, dream, act, imagine, live their lives. And I would hope that there is going to be a third wave. 1:49:44 SM: Do you think that— when— you are a scholar and you write books, and scholars often know that the best history books are written 50 years after an event like the best World War II books— 1:49:51 RB: Oh yeah definitely. 1:49:52 SM: 50 years after the (19)60s and (19)70s, I will say 50 years from 1980 when Reagan came to power, what do you think the history books are going to say about that time and the generation that grew up after World War II? 1:50:11 RB: I think people are going to admire it a great deal and see the enormous changes that were made, and that it was a real triumph of democracy, from below. 1:50:25 SM: And those media people today, whether it be Newt Gingrich or George Orwell, in his writings, or Mike Huckabee, on his TV show or some of the commentators on Fox when they say that a lot of problems in America today are due to those times in the (19)60s and (19)70s, when love was rampant, drugs were rampant, divorces were rampant– 1:50:52 RB: Well, those people are divorced more than most people in the sixties, that is all I can say. 1:50:56 SM: Yeah, you know, do you have any— was there a question that— that I did not ask you that you thought I was going to ask? 1:51:07 RB: Cannot think of it at the moment. 1:51:08 SM: Was there any final comments or– 1:51:09 RB: No, that, you know, I think a legacy of change and democracy is only going to ask, and I hope to see it again in my lifetime. 1:51:22 SM: Good. Well, thank you. I am going to— (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Rosalind Baxandall Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Baxandall, Rosalyn, 1939-2015 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Feminists; Historians; Authors; Political activists--United States; Baxandall, Rosalyn, 1939-2015--Interviews Description An account of the resource Rosalyn Baxandall (1939 - 2015) was a feminist historian, activist, author and educator. She was one of the leading figures of the feminist movement in New York during the late 1960s. Baxandall received her Bachelor's degree in French at University of Wisconsin and her Master of Social Work at Columbia University. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-07-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.21a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.21b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 111:24 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/d51080ba635afac48cc084b4d99954e0.jpg 14082c53d3626dedeacdac8d72c8f034 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ac4e39dc523df40910ab7600cb0650a6.mp3 8efa2d6c0a1176632b0865a73e75ea51 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-07-30 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jerry Lembcke, 1943- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Jerry Lembcke is an associate professor emeritus of Sociology at Holy Cross University. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Oregon. He is the author of The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam, and The Legacy of Vietnam and Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7043,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Dr. Jerry Lembcke is an associate professor emeritus of Sociology at Holy Cross University. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Oregon. He is the author of <em>The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam</em>&nbsp;and <em>Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal</em>.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Vietnam War; Baby boom generation; Service; VISTA; Peace Corps; Army draft; Larry Siegfried; Anti-War; Barack Obama; George McGovern; Birth control pill; Beats; City Lights Booksellers and Publishers; Terrorism \n &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:4993,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;10&quot;:0,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Vietnam War; Baby boom generation; Service; VISTA; Peace Corps; Army draft; Larry Siegfried; Anti-War; Barack Obama; George McGovern; Birth control pill; Beat generation; City Lights Booksellers and Publishers; Terrorism<br /><br /></span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 144:35 Subject LCSH College teachers; Sociologists; Lembcke, Jerry, 1943--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. 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Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Jerry Lembcke Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 30 July 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) JL (00:00:05): Jeremy. Excuse me. Jerry Lembcke. SM (00:00:14): I might be taking some quotes here too for your reaction to that. You write in your book, Hanoi Jane, that many of the attacks on her are oftentimes based on the need to explain our defeat in Vietnam through betrayal on the home front. Then you also add, "the emasculation of the national will to war." Can you explain what you mean by that in more detail? JL (00:00:41): Well, I think that the United States went into Vietnam, slid into Vietnam, with no idea that it would ever maybe be fighting a major war to begin with, and much less that it would lose its first war on foreign soil. The defeat in Vietnam was a very hard pill to swallow for a lot of Americans. Still is, I think. We were almost, I think, universally self-imagined to be the most powerful nation on earth. Our trajectory in the early (19)60s was even upward from those expectations. Indeed, materially speaking, we were far superior, should have been far superior to the Vietnamese. We had more gunpowder, gun power, better-trained, formally-trained troops and so forth. And yet we lost the war. I think that the country turned inward for explanations for why we lost the war. The short form on that is a scapegoat or scapegoats, alibis, excuses for why we lost the war, and looking for reasons internally. We were too weak. We were not manly enough. That is the emasculation part of it. Vietnam was an emasculating event, I think, culturally speaking for a lot of people, for a lot of people. Looking for reasons for that, looking for scapegoats for that kind of loss, I think you look toward the feminine side of the culture. You look to women perhaps, and Fonda, for reasons we might go into, Fonda fit the bill pretty well. SM (00:02:50): Bobby Muller, who you are aware of- JL (00:02:52): Sure. SM (00:02:52): He was one of the most vocal anti-war vets, once he came out of, after overcoming those terrible tragedy, losing access to his legs and everything. But he said he went into that war knowing that America was a good nation. We were a good nation. We did not do anything wrong. And he came out of that war feeling that we were the bad guy. If you talk to some other Vietnam vets, who also had similar experiences, though some of them will say, "Oh, Bobby. Bobby does not have the attitudes that a lot of other vets had. He just continues to think the way he did and a little bit more critical than he should be." But he has not changed much. Is that part of it too, that even we can use scapegoats with Jane Fonda, we can use scapegoats to the anti-war movement as prolonging the war. That could be a myth too. But really, United States was now seen as not a very good guy in world affairs. JL (00:04:08): Well, I came home from Vietnam having re-thought things that way. Maybe I was not quite as conscious of America as Bobby Muller was going in, a vague... I grew up in an apolitical environment, so I probably did not think about those kinds of those things very much. But to the extent that I did, certainly... I had uncles that fought in World War II. That was part of my sense that in World War II, there is still no doubt in my mind that we were on the right side- SM (00:04:41): Oh, I agree. JL (00:04:42): Of those conflicts. And so sure, going into Vietnam, I thought, "Well, the country goes to war. All the wars I have ever heard of the United States going into, we were on the right side. Why would not Vietnam be the same way?" But in the course of being in Vietnam, and for me, part of coming to that Bobby Muller kind of consciousness was I, being a chaplain's assistant and working for about half the time I was there for a chaplain who was opposed to the war. So if we are talking about religious righteousness, in a religious sense of righteousness, here is the priest, a Catholic priest, and he had worked in the mission’s field in South Asia before the war and had volunteered to come in as a chaplain, which "to do his stint" as he said. But he did not support the war. He was one of the first people from whom I heard, "We are going to lose this war." SM (00:05:54): And what year did you hear that? JL (00:05:56): 1969. SM (00:05:57): That is right in that (19)67 to (19)71 period, which is the real crazy time there. JL (00:06:02): Yeah. Here is the chaplain telling me, "We are going to win." And I suppose I said, "Why? Would you say that?" Or excuse me. He said, "We are going to lose. We are not going to win." His explanation for that was that these people do not want us here. That was his explanation for it. I felt like he knew what he was talking about because he had been in the mission’s field in South Asia. That was a key moment for me in... "Okay, we are on the wrong side of this war. And there might be a righteous side to this war, but we are not on it." As I was going along through this, my questioning became, I think, more sophisticated, more nuanced, to the point where even today I am not a pacifist principally. I think that in the case of Vietnam, I think there was a righteous side to that war. I think the Vietnamese cause was a supportable cause. But we were on the other side. We were on the other side of that. SM (00:07:19): What year were you there? JL (00:07:21): (19)69. I got to Vietnam, I think, New Year's Day, 1969. And I left about the 1st of February (19)70. SM (00:07:34): Were you drafted, or was it volunteer? JL (00:07:36): I was drafted. I was drafted. I was a junior high school math teacher in Fort Dodge, Iowa- SM (00:07:44): Oh, wow. JL (00:07:45): In 1968 and got snared by the Johnson administration's post-Tet call-up of more people. I had been deferred, of course, for college. And then I had been deferred for two years for teaching. SM (00:08:08): Your deferments are running out. JL (00:08:10): I was about to turn 25, and my friendly draft board in Le Mars, Iowa, which is Plymouth County, Iowa, they kept telling me with a smile, "But you are going to have to go eventually. Yes, we will defer you for one more year. But eventually you are going to have to go." SM (00:08:29): Had you been involved in any anti-war activity while you were in college? JL (00:08:30): No, not a lick. SM (00:08:32): Of course, as a teacher, you probably could not because you could lose your job. JL (00:08:35): Well, yeah. But no, I was not. I was political. I was not political right up into induction. I tried to stay out of... I tried to still stay out on the grounds that I was a teacher and that I was of better service to my country as a math teacher than I would be in the army. SM (00:09:04): Yeah, because that whole era was about service. And I got questioned about the different opinions about service, pro and con, later in the interview. JL (00:09:14): Sure. SM (00:09:14): Another charge is that protests at home prolonged the war. I mentioned that as previously. College students on college campuses are [inaudible] that helped lose the war for Americans took place within America so that the North Vietnamese only had to wait it out. Le Duc Tho, I think, was the one in his biography who states that, "We knew America was not going to stick." There was protests going on back in the United States and that they were not going to stay the long course like they were. And of course, they had always stayed the long course in their history, no matter what. JL (00:09:49): Sure. SM (00:09:51): But do you consider this also another one of these myths that we constantly hear, particularly amongst the people that are against the anti- war movement, the New Left and that group, that they prolonged the war by their protest? JL (00:10:06): Yeah, I do not think that that is true. I think that if anything, the protests shortened, shortened the war. I think we lost the war because we were beaten by the Vietnamese. We were not beaten by the anti-war movement. There is a chemistry there between the resourcefulness and the resilience of the Vietnamese people and what is going on back home, on the home front. There is no doubt that the anti-war movement initially, that some people in the anti-war movement saw the Vietnamese cause as a righteous cause and protest the war because of that. And you have got pacifists at home who are protesting the war because it is a war, who are not going to support any war. As time went on, I think, more and more Americans came to the anti-war movement, simply because of the length of the war itself. The war went on and on, and people could see no light at the end of the tunnel, and so begin to be won over to the anti-war cause, if not the pro-Vietnamese cause, but simply because this war is not going anywhere. People came to see it as being divisive, a drain on economic resources. But if the Vietnamese had not been doing well enough to at least fight the US to a stalemate, to a standstill, then a lot of this other stuff would not have been going on at home. So I think that, to the extent that the anti-war movement becomes a factor in the outcome of the war, that in turn is attributable to the Vietnamese themselves. So it is really back to the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese won the war, and they won the hearts and minds of a lot of American people. SM (00:12:20): There is no question that we could have physically won that war with all of our military capability and of course, that mentality of the - I forget the generals - and those bomb to the Stone Age, that that kind of mentality, "Yeah, we could have ended the war there just like we did in Japan, with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." But the key question is, they won psychologically, I believe. JL (00:12:45): Sure. SM (00:12:46): They won the psychological game. And it is because they knew who they were, and they knew their history, they knew their culture, and they knew that they were not going to be defeated, no matter what. JL (00:12:56): Right. SM (00:12:57): Whether it be the French, whether it be the Chinese, the Japanese, or any other, back in their history. JL (00:13:03): We are fighting, we are fighting on their terrain. The commonplace interpretation is that, "Well, then they know the hills and the valleys and then the jungles." That might have been true too. But I think it is more psychological. It is the emotional. They are fighting for their homeland, and we are not. So they are going to be more committed to that. They are going to stay the course for a long period of time. SM (00:13:37): You said you learned from the chaplain that this war was not going to be, that we were not going to win this war. But from the time you arrived on the airplane in Vietnam to the time you left, can you specifically state when you personally felt an experience, not necessarily with a chaplain, that said, "This is ridiculous. We are not going to win this thing. Or that something is wrong here, the strategy's wrong," and whether you were saying this to your peers? That maybe you were not saying it, but other soldiers were saying it. Was there a specific instance where... JL (00:14:13): There are two that come to mind right away. Maybe as we talk more, there might be maybe. But two things that come to mind. Very early on, I saw the remnants of the French presence there. And I had no clue whatsoever. I do not know that... I graduated from college in 1966, Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I was a math major. I had had one American history class. I am not sure I had ever heard the words "colonialism" or "imperialism". When I saw the first... I still have the photograph; occasionally I run across the photograph of a bridge. I traveled around my little Instamatic. It was a bridge that had a French word on it, probably the French construction company that built the bridge and a date on it. I think it was 1941. I asked the Chaplin about that. Probably I did not even know that word was French. But I asked, "What is this?" I began to learn. I began to learn about the French colonization of Indo-China. That was hugely enlightening for me. That was just a big light pole that went off. That was one thing. The other thing that does not quite fit into your question, but I think it belongs here anyway, was seeing the permanency of what the US was putting in place there. For the first six months I was there, I was near, I was in a small Army camp near Phu Cat Airbase, which was just west of Qui Nhon. Most Americans, still to this day, have never heard of Phu Cat airbase. But to get to our little Army camp, we had to drive through Phu Cat, had to come through the main gate and then go out on the other side, so we were in and out of Phu Cat all the time. I remember vividly the cement roads, the cement - not asphalt - cement roads, cement curb, curb and gutter. "Holy cow, this is built to stay." This is not like my little Army camp that is half tents and sandbag bunkers and stuff like that. This airbase permanence, its permanence. "What is going on? What is going on with this?" Again, a light bulb, began to ask, began, "Why would we be building, why would we be building this thing here?" And I suppose at some point even, not consciously, that French bridge, the permanency of that, and the permanency of this air base began to come together. And then seeing on the air base, seeing the swimming pools, the bowling alleys, a library, football pools 10 years from now, the Sioux Bowl. Now, when I hear about Iraq, I hear the same things. SM (00:17:41): And Afghanistan. JL (00:17:42): People who have been there - and maybe Afghanistan too - say the US is building these big bases. SM (00:17:48): This gets right into my next expression here, which is Ronald Reagan, I interviewed Jack Wheeler. I do not know if you know Jack. He was a fundraiser for the Vietnam Memorial, and he was in Vietnam. He had done a Triple Heart. Ronald Reagan, he said, "Listen to Ronald Reagan's speech in (19)84," because Ronald Reagan did not come to the Vietnam Memorial when it opened in (19)82, because it was politically feasible to be there or was not the right thing. But in (19)84, he came to the Wall, and Peggy Noonan had written a great speech for him. But he said, Ronald Reagan's famous 1984 speech at the Vietnam War Memorial, he said, "We will never enter a war again without making sure that we are going to win it. We are going to give the military everything they need." And basically, he was blaming it on the leaders of the time, plus we must be... When you figure this also out, if he had been president, he probably would have been tougher, even though Nixon was pretty tough. He blamed it on the leaders. And then he also believed that we must be tougher on the dissent. Like his years as governor, where he came to power fighting students in (19)64 and (19)65 in the Free Speech Movement and (19)69 at People's Park. Reagan came to power based on two things. Number one, his law and order mentality against the students at university campuses in (19)64, (19)65, and in (19)69, when Meese was with him. And secondly, on ending the welfare state. That was the mentality. So my question is, what are your thoughts on that speech? And is this a myth? Because you have already brought the fact that we lost the war, but he is saying that if we had put everything into it, like Jim Webb and others have said, we would have won that thing. But we just did not have the will. We did not have the strategy. We did not have the desire to, whatever. Is that a myth? Is what Ronald Reagan is saying, that if we put everything into it, we would have won? JL (00:20:07): I think, no. I do not think we would have won. I think we could have prolonged the war. We might have been able to occupy Vietnam in a reasonably peaceful manner for a while. But the Vietnamese would have eventually thrown us out. SM (00:20:32): You think, even if they had done, "God, this never would have happened." I think, was it Hershey that... Who was the guy that had the mentality of dropping bombs and putting them back to the Stone Age? Was that General Hershey? JL (00:20:46): Oh, no, that was... SM (00:20:49): Oh, what is his name? Come on, Steve. I see him. There is a biography out on him right now. But anyways, we would never do that. But if by some chance we had ever dropped one bomb on Hanoi, do you think they would have continued? JL (00:21:04): Yeah, I think so. I do not know. That is the thing. SM (00:21:15): See, there is only one major city. They did not have any other major cities like that. JL (00:21:19): Yeah. But again, it maybe depends on at what point that bomb was dropping. By the end of the war, Hanoi was pretty much evacuated anyway. The Christmas bombings in 1972- SM (00:21:31): Yeah, they really did not hit much. They were bad though. JL (00:21:34): They were bad. But everything was out of the city. They had moved manufacturing out of the city, decentralized it. They had moved schools and art institutes and this stuff. It was spread out all over. It became, by the end of the war, Americans, I think, widely recognized that a country that is not very industrial is not very susceptible to bombing, because there is nothing to bomb. In 1969, as a chaplain's assistant, I was out and about all the time, on the roads, either on the roads or in helicopters. I was in an artillery unit. I was assigned to an artillery unit. These artillery units get broken up into these little gun pods that are on hilltops and checkpoints just all over the place. The chaplain and I, on a weekly basis, we made our rounds to all of these gun placement sites. The ones that we could reach by road, we drove to. The other ones, then we would helicopter to. But my point here is that I do not think there was a bridge that was still standing in the central highlands where I traveled. All the bridges had been bombed out. We had come up to the river or the creek and down into it. Maybe there had been some gravel down there, so the water was not too deep, if there was water at all. But the bridge itself was gone. SM (00:23:18): Wow. JL (00:23:21): So what are you going to... I do not know, I do not know. SM (00:23:25): When you were with the chaplain, did you give Last Rites to many? Was that part of his role? JL (00:23:31): Yes. Yes. A few. Oh, Last Rites as opposed to memorial, not a memorial service. SM (00:23:36): A combination either memorials of those who had died, and then of course, Last Rites right at the spot. JL (00:23:43): Well, not right at the spot, no. At the hospital, the chaplain would follow up after a fight. We were never on the scene of a ground attack on an LZ or a fire base. We would come in afterwards. In fact, there was a few times when we stayed in a helicopter in the air until things were cleared out. People in combat roles do not want you around if you are not part of it. They really do not. SM (00:24:29): So then in combat- JL (00:24:31): Combat's work. It is a form of work. I came to see what these guys are doing like looking at a construction site. When people are working on a construction site, they do not want you wandering around looking at things, because you are in the way. You might get hurt. SM (00:24:52): So those Joe Galloway stories, I know journalists were allowed to go with these troops. But the Joe Galloway story's a rare one. JL (00:25:01): You know what though? You better follow up on a lot of these stories about journalists going out? A lot of that stuff is baloney, because you... Closer to the truth is that they could not, they could not, they were not allowed to. There are good exceptions. SM (00:25:20): So that is another myth. JL (00:25:23): I think that is a big myth. And it has grown bigger over the years. SM (00:25:26): Well, the Joe Galloway was the big one, because we were soldiers once and brave, and he was there. And I know the story about catching the last helicopter, and he was there. And he had to take a gun up. And that is true. But that might have been a rare case then. JL (00:25:43): One of my best friends, the artillery unit where I was assigned, was the press officer. Well, he was not an officer. He was a Spec/5, but he was the press liaison person for the artillery. You have batteries. That is different, a different terminology. The artillery also have group. Those are the 41st Artillery Group. He was the press liaison officer. And I asked him, I said, "What do you do?" I said, "I never see you doing anything." This is what he said. He said, "My job is to see that any journalists who make it out here to Group Headquarters do not get any further." SM (00:26:30): Oh, wow. JL (00:26:32): He said, "I give them a story and send them back to Saigon." SM (00:26:37): Does that include the TV people? Because Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer and Dan Rather, and the African American person from 60 Minutes, Bradley, they supposedly were out there with the troops. JL (00:26:53): In 13 months I was there and out and about all the time, never saw a journalist of any kind. And more importantly, never heard of one being there. And these are places where, if there had have been a journalist at LZ Uplift, they had have been talking about that for six months. SM (00:27:11): How about the photographers like Larry Burrows and I forget the guy. There is several. Kenley, James Kenley, I forget his name was. Let me get into this from here. You wrote the great book, titled Spitting Image. First, what was your main inspiration in writing it? And second, when it was shown that this myth had little visible facts, how did Vietnam vets respond overall? Let me finish my other comments here. "The image of the vets being spit upon is still out there because I know. I have heard from people that I thought would be a little more educated about this issue. Some vets continue to use it as an example of how they were treated when they came home. The image of vets was based due to My Lai and other atrocities. Many vets were upset that they were placed in situations that made no sense and cost lives, upset with the strategy. People were upset with the leaders, and the military leaders and political leaders and the anti-war protest protestors were really not against the troops." There was a lot here, but what has been the reaction of your book Spitting Image in the Vietnam veteran community? JL (00:28:31): Almost 50-50 from what I hear. That was the pattern to begin with, and it continues to be the pattern. About half the guys I hear from say, "Right on, this never happened. It is about time somebody wrote this book," even though I wrote it, now, 12 years ago. And just as often, I hear from people who are just outraged, just beyond themselves. SM (00:29:00): But the ones that are outraged though, are they people that say... SM (00:29:03): The ones that are outraged though, are they people that say, it happened to me? Or are they going from hearsay? JL (00:29:10): It is a bit of both, but quite often it happened to me. That is what I hear. And the stories seem to get wilder all the time. By that I mean less believable, less plausible, loaded up with more exaggeration. And the guys who are locked into that are really locked into it. And I think the exaggeration reflects a kind of desperation on their part to be believed. And they keep loading in more stuff. SM (00:29:48): Is this another one of those reasons why some, we lost the war, this is our way of blaming others for the situation we were a part of? It is not like the anti-war people protesting and prolonging the war or Jane Fonda should be sent to jail for crimes that she committed against the nation? JL (00:30:18): I think it is a victimization identity. A victim identity or almost an ideology is what they are hooked on. It is a twist in the culture. It is not rational. You cannot really make sense of it. But it is that to be a victim is a credentialing. In the same sense that having a Purple Heart is a kind of credential. It is a way of saying, I am the real deal. Because I have a Purple Heart. The spat upon story. I have to step back on that one. The Purple Heart, if you are wounded, in a sense you are a victim. You have suffered, you have taken a loss. SM (00:31:11): Right. JL (00:31:13): You extend that a little bit, give it a little bit of a twist. Being spat on is also victimization. And if you believe that the real war all along was at home, not in Vietnam, if you got a Purple Heart in Vietnam, that was one front of the war. SM (00:31:32): Let us change this, this the 30 minute. This is the 40. All right, bear with me. Okay. JL (00:31:43): Vietnam was one front of that war. You got your Purple Heart there. Many people would say the real war was at home and I got my Purple Heart at home when I was spat on. You see what I am getting at. It is identity construction and they are really locked into that. SM (00:32:13): I have also wondered if people are not, they were not actually spit upon physically, but they used the term I was spit upon. It is a term they used if I was treated like crap. I am wondering if people interpret it differently? JL (00:32:33): It might be that their own thinking started that way, but then that they congealed it, or what is the word I want? It became more graphic to them even that they really were spat on. And then they start telling the story that way. SM (00:32:54): Well, I have two examples. This is your interview, but I want to bring this in here. And that is, I have been at the Vietnam Memorial now since 94, both for Memorial Day and Veteran's Day. I sit down amongst a lot of people and let them know I am not a veteran right away. And I am proud, I am very close to a lot of the Vietnam vets and I care about them. And I sat next to a mother when John McDermott was there, the singer who was singing a song and she had tears in her eyes and she said "right above John McDermott's shoulder is where my son's name is." She could see it from a distance and you know something, "the anti-war movement, when my son was buried near Penn State," that is where they lived. "The anti-war protestors were screaming and yelling and calling all kinds of names, baby killers. When my son was being buried, it was a protest. And it probably was not against the person who had died, but it was against the military as a whole." And so she said, that is an experience she will never forget. And the second person I sat next to many years later, it was raining at the Vietnam Memorial, and she said to me, there was an experience. "My son was buried at Arlington and that was a fresh grave. And there had been a major protest in Washington." And she went out to Arlington to visit the spot where her son had just been buried with the dirt put over. And it was raining and they had put canvas covers over the spots. She went out there and she noticed that somebody was moving around underneath the spot. There was an anti-war protestor underneath that little tarp to protect themselves from the rain and laying right on her son's grave. And she was so upset with him saying that, "how dare you lay on my son's grave" and "I am just protecting myself from the rain." And she said, "You are a protestor?" "Yeah, I was a protestor." "Do you really care about the war?" "No, I was paid to come here to protest." He did not care about the war at all. It was just an experience I wanted to share there. One powerful Vietnam vet said, "that the real generation gap was within the generation itself, not between parents and children." I think we know that there was a generation gap between the World War II generation and their kids. That is a well-known fact. But I had never thought of it in terms of the generation gap within. I want your comments on these, those who served and those who evaded the draft. And we are not talking about people who protested the war. We are talking about people who evaded the draft. This same person thought that the boomer generation saw service is a good thing. Because Kennedy, when he gave that speech, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." I have interviewed several people that were inspired by that. And that service could be serving in the military, serving your country in the military or in the Peace Corps or VISTA or whatever. But the reason that same person says that he defines the boomer generation as a generation that was weak in service because they did not understand that when your nation calls, you go to war. The Peace Corps and VISTA is not enough here, if you are talking about defining generation. Being a service-oriented generation is that when you are called to serve, you do. And I will mention who this person was in a minute. This is based on the Lost Generation book and the symposium that took place with James Webb and Bounty Mueller and several others, Phil Caputo and everything. Basically it was James Webb who said, who was not even a United States senator, that said that "I do not consider the boomer generation, that generation that was raised after World War II as a service-oriented generation that we look of them as because of the fact that they evaded the draft, that there were many that evaded the draft just to save their own skin." And even James Fallows has written about the fact that he felt guilty that he had evaded the draft and he had not protested against the draft. And he has felt a big difference. And he has come to terms with that and has admitted his wrongs in front of vets. He has gained the respect to vets. I would just like your thoughts on that concept that the generation gap is as strong between parents and children as it is between young people within the generation, those who served Vietnam and those who evaded the draft. JL (00:38:13): A lot of people who evaded the draft went on to serve, if not this country, serve humankind in wonderful ways. My learning for this, there is a book called Northern Passage. SM (00:38:33): Yeah, I have it. JL (00:38:36): You have it? Okay. I reviewed that book for a Canadian... SM (00:38:39): Kind of a conscientious objectors. JL (00:38:40): Yeah, both all the people who went to Canada and what an enormous talent drain that was from the United States. Some of these people have become some of Canada's most creatively productive citizens. People working in the arts, people working in politics, people working in education. People in my view, the way I view service with a huge commitment to serve and to put your talent to good use. And I know a few people who evaded the draft and who did alternative service and things like that. And there is not a slacker among any of those people. And I go back to what I was about to say at the beginning here was that I think a lot of people tried to stay out of the draft. I tried to stay out of the draft because I thought being a teacher, being a math teacher in a junior high school was a much better way for me to serve the country. And I think that motivated a lot of those people. I do not think it was to save their own hides. I do not think those people were afraid in the usual sense of the term. Some of them were philosophically or morally opposed to the war. But again, they were not trying to stay out of hard work or something like that or to stay out of service because they did service. They did service in some other way. SM (00:40:28): When I was a senior Binghamton, I remember playing basketball in the gym, my junior and senior year on athletics. And I can remember all the conversations of the draft, the lottery numbers were coming up. I was actually 72. And students were saying, oh, I do not have anything to worry about because I am going to get an alternative service as a teacher. And I remember some of the students saying, why are you going to be a teacher? I do not really want to be a teacher. It just gets me out of the draft. And the question I asked Leon Botstein, I did not interview him for my book, but I interviewed him when he came to our Westchester University campus. And I asked him, do you think there is any link between the quality of education that went down after the boomer generation in terms of quality based on the quality of the teachers? And he did not really come up with an answer. He said, nothing has ever been written about it. But I knew that those people that were becoming teachers were going to quit as soon as they could get another job as soon as the war was over. This is not about you now, this is about, do you think there is any link between the poor quality of teaching that took place after the (19)60s, we are talking late, mid (19)70s and beyond, because the teachers were not dedicated enough to being good teachers and they were only there to get out of the draft, particularly male teachers, and then they quit once the draft ended? JL (00:42:01): I have never thought about that, because I have never heard anything like that. People get out of teaching because the pay is not very good and the conditions are pretty hard. I still say today it is the hardest job I ever had teaching junior high school math. That was a tough job. That was a hard job. And I think that is why maybe, I would have to think about the political economy of education for a minute, but it might have been in the (19)70s that funding for various education programs were cut, things like that. I do not know. SM (00:42:46): I think he was making reference. I think somebody needs to do a study of this because you may be onto something. Because there was a period that students were not as well prepared, not in elementary education. Elementary education has been sound from the get-go, something happens when they reach seventh grade. JL (00:43:03): People do not stay in teaching long now. I teach at Holy Cross College and we have quite a few students who go out of college that go into teaching but they do not stay. It is a gateway or a stepping stone, a holding pattern, just something else. There are not many who go into it and stick with it. SM (00:43:22): You are teaching in a great school though. JL (00:43:24): Oh, thank you. SM (00:43:25): I know all about Holy Cross and long before Bob Cousy. Because I read about that. JL (00:43:31): That goes back a long way. SM (00:43:32): Yeah. I was a kid and I saw Bob Cousy play at the Syracuse War Memorial when the Celtics came in and played the Syracuse Nationals and they were on an 18 game winning. We lived in Binghamton and my dad drove me up. It was a winter storm there and I will never forget. The Celtics were on an 18 game winning streak. And the Nationals beat them and I will never forget Tommy Heinsohn putting his fist up with his flat top as they were booing. And then of course Jim Loscutoff got a big fight. JL (00:44:01): Geez, I have not heard these names. SM (00:44:03): And Larry Siegfried called me... JL (00:44:04): Oh my god. SM (00:44:05): Larry Siegfried was an Ohio State guy. JL (00:44:07): Ohio State guy. Yeah. SM (00:44:09): My dad and I went up to him for an autograph and he said, get out of here you little runt. Yeah, Larry Siegfried, he was as mean in person as he was on the court. He got in a lot of fights with the Sixers. Larry Siegfried and the Sixers, and of course Loscutoff was their hatchet man. Have you had any thoughts about other myths linked to the Vietnam War? I would like to list two myths that I think are here. you have already talked about the spitting image myth and the image of Jane Fonda. We are going to get in and talk about Jane in a couple minutes. But these are two myths that I came up with. Nixon's Peace with Honor. Peace with Honor was what he said in his speech in 1973. Peace and honor. What we did to Vietnam by killing 3 million people and destroying the land and agent orange and generations and so forth. Honor? I think that is a myth. And secondly, the people of South Vietnam supported their leaders and made every effort to defeat the north. We had advisors there since (19)63. I remember when I interviewed the professor at Harvard, Hue-Tam, I cannot pronounce her full name, she teaches Vietnamese history at Harvard. And when I mentioned the fact that Thieu Ky Diem regime knew, that particular group, that they were puppets. She really got upset that I said that. And she went from being a friend, and I am not going to put this on the tape, but she got very upset. She said they were elected. Let me tell you that Diem, Thieu Ky were elected, whether you like it or not, the people voted them in. Well, I thought they were puppets, but it is her interview. JL (00:45:58): Yeah, sure. SM (00:45:59): And then she said, by the way, Diem put my father in jail. It is not like she liked him. What other myths do you see in Vietnam or anything linked in Vietnam? JL (00:46:15): I wish I had some time to think about that. It was only a few days ago or a couple weeks ago that I had one really good thing in mind, but I cannot remember now what it was. You are catching me by surprise. SM (00:46:30): You can email me. JL (00:46:31): Maybe it will come back to me, but something quite big, quite broad that I did not think anybody had taken a look at. There are smaller pieces that I think need to be looked at. The journalism one, the idea that journalists could go everywhere in Vietnam. SM (00:47:00): My batteries are going in pretty good. Yeah, I am fine. JL (00:47:11): The one that I get-get asked about occasionally is the stories of throwing prisoners out of helicopters. That the US took captive VC and took them up in helicopters and we would throw one out in order to make the others talk. And probably a couple of times a year I get an email from somebody saying they have heard this story, is this story true? And I doubt if it is, but it is certainly out there. But now the question about that for a scholar like me is not the story in itself. Maybe it did happen once. I think things like that could have happened. But how does that play in then to the American imagination? That is the myth. A small story that is really a building block for something that is quite larger. It is like the spitting stories. The spitting stories are really about the myth that we lost the war on the home from. That is the myth. Where does this prisoners out of helicopters? SM (00:48:28): I have read it in books. I have read it in history books on Vietnam. Very top-quality books where there is a scene in one where there is three prisoners taken up in the helicopter. And the guys knew in the beginning that they were only going to have one coming back no matter what. Speak up. Tell me the truth. You got to tell me the truth. Are you going to tell me the truth? You got to tell me the truth. I am going to throw this guy out here if you do not tell me the truth. You do not believe I am going to tell you the truth. That kind of stuff. JL (00:49:03): The story goes also that I have heard it half a dozen times, that you never counted prisoners when you put them on the helicopter because the number might not square with how many you had when you got off the helicopter. SM (00:49:19): Is not there another one here that Americans turned over their capture to the South Vietnamese army and they basically killed them all? I remember we had Country Joe McDonald on our campus during then and Country Joe brought up something, James [inaudible] was in the room and he did not say anything, but he made a reference. [inaudible] they know why there were no prisoners of war on our side. We got POWs, but there were none on our side. And then of course, nobody ever said anything more than we just went back to the conversation about other things. But I think he was making a reference where do we ever hear about POWs on the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese forces were there? And we did hand them over to the South Vietnamese army. Did they kill them? JL (00:50:13): I do not know that I have ever heard that they did. We tried to convert them, get them to turn over, turn around course. We did that. There were the tiger cages on Con Son Island, the South Vietnamese did imprison some people there. There was the Phoenix program that was an assassination program that we operated. SM (00:50:46): I think Senator Kerry was in that too. Was not he the one, the president of the new school? Was not he a Phoenix programmer? I think. JL (00:50:54): I believe so. I believe the story that he tells that he was a Navy Seal. He tells one of the stories. Yeah. I do not know. That is a good question there, actually. SM (00:51:06): These are stories to get down to the truth of things. It is always the context. From the truth to the reality or some of these personal experiences may be just a onetime experience and it may not be across the board. And we cannot get caught up in, what do you call it, stereotyping and generalizing reality. A personal experience may be true, but a general experience may be ridiculous. JL (00:51:30): Yeah-yeah. SM (00:51:31): You bring up in your book Hanoi Jane, the destruction of characters as a key to opponents of when the neocons or the people on the right, they try to destroy character. I mentioned just some names here and I would like you to respond because you talk about Jane Fonda. But certainly Daniel Ellsberg with what happened to him and Nixon trying to find his psychiatric files or whatever to try to destroy his character. Obviously Bill Clinton went through a lot with what he did many of it on his own behalf. John Kerry in 2004, saying that he lied about his military record trying to find the Achilles heel. And nobody's perfect to that, trying to destroy character. Could you talk a little bit more about that and particularly with respect to Jane Fonda? JL (00:52:30): What seems to bug some people on the right is what they consider unstable character. The character flaw that they see is instability, inconsistency. And I think the sources of that are religious or religious ideology. What comes out of the Old Testament and the New Testament is, stories of deception, stories of betrayal, that evil masquerades as good, the good people are tricked by, are fooled, are misled into following false gods, false saviors. People need to be aware of that. People need to be able to trust what they see and what they hear. Instability becomes a clue maybe that there is something that does not meet the eye going on here. She does not seem to be stable. She herself seems to be susceptible to other characters. She is easily wooed by this or that. Again, in the religious terms, somebody who follows one image of goodness for a while, but then changes and follows a different image of goodness for another while then becomes part of the problem. They are easily deceived by Satan, easily deceived by the devil. In political terms, then that person becomes a liability, a political liability, because the enemy can use that person as an inroad. And I think they might not articulate it that way. They might not even think about it that way, but you are asking me why they, the political right in America today is very infused with Christian conservatism. And those notions are fundamental. That is those ideas, those fears of betrayal, deception, that book of revelation Christianity is fundamental. SM (00:55:32): Is another way of saying it, when people are unpredictable. When you work someplace, you would like to have people around you and you can predict how they are going to act or react in a certain situation. But when a person is unpredictable, that sends all kinds of waves up. The person may not go with the flow, may not agree with us, may be against us, may just be at the center or whatever. And it seems like we need more of those kinds of people unpredictable than we need predictable because they make us better because they challenge us more. Challenge our ways of thinking. That is when I look at Jane Fonda and I think of Daniel Ellsberg and I think of John Kerry and I think of all the other people, I consider them unpredictable people who have a conscience and will speak their minds but not necessarily agree with the mainstream. JL (00:56:27): Well, Howard Zinn notably said that the problem is not dissent from authority. The problem is complicity with authority. We got the Holocaust because people were too obedient. People were unwilling or unable to resist authority. And I think that that is true, not universally true, but I think certainly in the last half of the 20th century, I think that that was true. And I think it continues to be true today. Another thing that factors into this with the Hanoi Jane, John Kerry, had all kinds of characters and the attack on their character is the difference between people whose worldview is based on belief as opposed to evidence. People who live in an evidence-based epistemology or live with an evidence-based epistemology or worldview way of knowing the world are going to change based on new information. New information changes your view of how things are. And that is a part of what makes the... JL (00:58:02): That is a part of what makes the educated people, the intellectuals, that is what makes them intellectuals. But it is also what makes them suspect by people on the fundamentalist, religious right wing. They are suspicious of people who know quote unquote. Who know as opposed to who believe. SM (00:58:30): Beautiful. Yeah. JL (00:58:31): Knowledge is one thing. Belief is something else. And that goes clear back to the suspicions about the French Revolution, the role of intellectuals in the enlightenment period of European history. And the religious based people were always, well, the Christian, religious based people were always kind of suspicious of people who thought they... SM (00:58:56): That explains intellectuals being killed throughout the decades. JL (00:59:02): And so that is why I think, I tried to make that point in the book. SM (00:59:05): You do a good job of it. JL (00:59:07): Oh, thank you. Because she is, people would not usually think of Jane fond as an intellectual, but she works in that world of ideas. SM (00:59:17): Yes, she does. JL (00:59:18): The world of ideas and images, and a world that affects how people view the world, how people feel about the world. And so, in the way I use the term intellectual, she is an intellectual. She does intellectual work. She is a part of intellectual America. And I think that adds to her... SM (00:59:47): Yesterday when I interviewed Dr. Baxandall, I brought this up about the 1950s. Because we are talking about boomers now, people raised after 1946. But I am going to preface this by saying that I believe people born between (19)40 and (19)46, (19)45 are in this group as well. Because most of the leaders of the anti-war movement were born before 1946. And probably about one third of the people I have interviewed cannot stand the term boomer to begin with. It is about a group of people, it is about an idea, it is about a period, and they have a problem with even the younger boomers. JL (01:00:20): It might be about a marketing demographic. SM (01:00:22): Yeah, marketing demographic. But I bring up the (19)50s, because I think the 1950s are a very important part of the psyche of just about all boomers, whether they were activists or not. And I said this yesterday, and I will say it again today for your response that in the 1950s it seemed like there were three things that stood out in my mind above anything else, there was a concept of fear. There were a lot of good times for young people in the (19)50s because the parents were home. But there was a concept of fear because the Cold War was happening, the threat of nuclear war may have been in the backs of people's minds. And of course, the McCarthy hearings that anybody of the early boomers saw on television, seeing these voices saying that, "Are you or are you not a communist?" And lives being destroyed, careers being destroyed, people committing suicide because they could not get a job. Those kinds of things. So a concept of fear. Second is that the concept of being very quiet. People were quiet, they did not speak up very much. Security meant everything to people seemed like in those times. And thirdly, I felt that we were naive. And I think as boomers have evolved, the naivete was hit real hard in the 1960s, because you started seeing that black and white television, there were no black people on black and white television, you saw what was happening in the south, issues with the women and African Americans, and certainly Native Americans, the black and white cowboy and Indian culture. So what I am getting at here is the kind of a do not speak until you are spoken to mentality, which was what the (19)50s was about. Then you get in the 1960s where fear is replaced by being assertive, quiet becomes outspoken and naive becomes, you see the injustices and you want to speak. You want to speak when you have something to say, kind of a different mentality. So I would like your thoughts on that. That the (19)50s was really the very important in shaping everything that followed. JL (01:02:40): The one thing that I would add to that, and I think you are onto something, there might be an intra generational thing here. The people who are a little older and maybe... People who are a little older... JL (01:02:59): What is this? Is this... SM (01:03:01): Not that one. Hold on. Actually, this does a better job. I got to get my 45 into this one. Okay, this cannot be used again. There we go. [inaudible] JL (01:03:23): People who are a little older and who maybe came to political consciousness in the late (19)30s maybe, or during the World War II years themselves, and were more politically conscious at a younger age, might have had that sense of the 1950s. SM (01:03:50): Right. JL (01:03:52): People Who are a little younger may have experienced the 1950s as years of economic security, of hope and promise. The idea that you would ever be unemployed, growing up in the 1950s at least where I grew up, unthinkable. That was the (19)30s. I grew up hearing about the old days. That was the 1930s. My parents were working class, by the way. My father went to seventh grade country school. SM (01:04:47): I heard all about the hobos and all the stories from my parents, my mom and dad. My mom's family did not have any hard time. My dad did because he was a son of a minister. JL (01:05:01): But what I am getting at here is that maybe the masses, so to speak, of the (19)60s generation come out of the (19)50s with a lot of audacity, a lot of strength right there. A lot of resilience. A lot of that might have been false, but they were, what is the term? Possibilists? SM (01:05:32): Possibility thinkers? JL (01:05:33): Possibility thinkers, yeah. So you put those two things together. People who have a little more political consciousness, the older people, with a large bunch of people who really are not afraid of anything. I was not afraid. I did not go to college for job security. I went to college because my parents thought I could have a better life if I went to college. It was not out of necessity so much as it was taking advantage of an opportunity. SM (01:06:15): Right. And that is what the GI Bill was all about, was taking advantage after World War II, of getting a degree and education. That is another quality too, that the (19)50s was the beginning of the importance of higher education. It was always there, but the (19)50s and the (19)60s to me are at the time when the higher education really blew. JL (01:06:36): Really took off. SM (01:06:36): Particularly in the (19)60s. JL (01:06:38): Really grew. SM (01:06:38): Yeah. Really big community college movement and everything else. I am going to get back to Jane Fonda here, because I think she is fascinating in so many ways. Fonda, I am going to read this. It is page 154. I know some people do not like me to read their stuff. I have got to get my glasses again. 154. So when something strikes me, I have to put it in the interview. And I have done it, with Dr. Lifton, I had so many things. Okay here it is. Actually, sometimes I ought to ask the author to read it, you want to read it? JL (01:07:24): I am willing to. SM (01:07:25): Yes. Some people are not. JL (01:07:27): Now I need to get my glasses out. SM (01:07:28): Yeah. To me, this paragraph on 154, I want you to respond to it because I think this is very important because when I interviewed Dr. Baxandall yesterday, a lot of things she said about her life and a lot of females were comparable to what you say about Jane Fonda in this paragraph, and about speaking up for the first time. So if you could just read this paragraph from there to there, and I will have it on record. And I think it is a beautifully written paragraph. JL (01:07:55): "In an April 1974 Playboy interview with her and Tom Hayden, for example, Fonda speculated that the rising hostility to her was due to her having violated feminine norms by speaking her mind in public places. Punctuating the point by saying she would quote, 'No longer accept the image of a mindless Barbarella floating through space.' Unquote. Intending to strike a pose of mindfulness through those words, she inadvertently and unnecessarily in the light of later interpretations of Barbarella, fed the perception of discontinuity in her career that critics would soon throw back at her. 10 years later, she was still putting distance between herself and the galactic warrior woman, telling Erica Young for a Lady's Home Journal interview, that the film and her role as an activist were contradictory." SM (01:08:49): Yeah, I think that is beautiful. And it is like speaking up. Dr. Baxandall yesterday told me that she was in meetings with men and she had all the ideas, and they took her ideas during the anti-war movement. She was the one that came up with the ideas, but they did not want her to speak. Do not speak until you are spoken to, but we will take every idea that you had, and we will take the idea and say that we thought it up. JL (01:09:15): Yep. SM (01:09:16): So it is like, this is a recognition too. This is obviously, when you talk about an intellectual, she is getting it. She is getting these things here, the stereotypes about women. Do you have anything else to add on that paragraph? JL (01:09:38): One of the things, it is the galactic warrior woman thing there. I think that is the most troublesome image of Fonda for a lot of people. And I think that has gone unrecognized, and I think it is unspoken. That is what bothers a lot of people about Fonda, is this outspokenness, but it is also the combativeness for gender and sexual roles in the roles that she plays in her films. There is a real continuity in her film career, certainly from Barbarella on. SM (01:10:27): Oh, yeah. Coming home was just like, whoa. Of course Klute, we all know Klute. I remember going to see all these movies, and Coming Home was, all I can say is, wow. And there is another one, it was... There were two movies. JL (01:10:48): Well, Julia is on my mind because I read in the course of working on the book, I do not know if I wrote it in here. Do you know the film Julia? Late (19)70s, she played the Lilian Hellman. SM (01:11:00): Yes. JL (01:11:01): And in there, one of the reviewers, or one of the critics said, "It is the first romantic kiss between two women in a major Hollywood film." Now that is pretty breakthrough, breakout kind of stuff. SM (01:11:18): And oh On Golden Pond too, which was (19)81, which is the conflict with her dad, and coming together. I remember going to see that movie and all the press. It was 1981. And of course her father was an interesting person as well. You bring it up here that he was really a liberal. JL (01:11:34): Quiet. SM (01:11:34): Yeah. So his influence on her way of thinking, that is... What you do in this book is, and I think it is very important with college students, is do not believe everything you read. The gossip columns, there is context to everything. Even though I do not like Newt Gingrich personally as a politician, I do not dislike him as a human being. And I can remember (19)94, and I am a liberal, and the Women's Center had put a sign up on the door, Women's Center I hate Newt Gingrich. I said, that is inappropriate. That is inappropriate. And of course, I had to do it with the administrator on the side because I did not want to embarrass the administrator in front of the students. But I did confront the students. The students thought I was... What are you, a conservative [inaudible] guy? So I just think, you do not know Newt Gingrich. You do not know him. I do not like his politics, but do not judge him. They said "Oh, he is just some southern [inaudible]." And I said, "Did you know that he was born in Pennsylvania? He lived the first 12 years in his life in Pennsylvania near Harrisburg." JL (01:12:38): Yeah. SM (01:12:39): He has also a PhD. You may not like his politics, but anyways. This is the question you may have already answered. How did you become the person you are? Who were your greatest influences in your life, and who were your role models? Who were the role models that you most admired in the (19)50s through the (19)80s? Basically, when you were very young who were the people you looked up to that kind of inspired you? You have already talked about the chaplain you served in Vietnam, but of all the personalities and figures of that period, when boomers were young in the (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s, and early (19)80s, who did you admire? JL (01:13:22): I think it was people in my family. Because as I have said already, I was not politically conscious at all. My parents were not political people. I did not have much of a sense of culture or popular culture in those years. So were I to think of a film star or a political figure or something like that, there would be nobody. So it would be my Uncle Clay, who was a medic in World War II, and was sort of the, I guess, family war hero. Although he was, I guess the kind of classic reticent war veteran who would not say anything unless you have asked him. And then it was all medical stories, no combat stories. And then as I began to come to political consciousness, then political figures became more important to me. And then it was mostly labor people. And I have a former life as a labor historian. SM (01:14:46): Probably know about Bayard Rustin then, do not you? JL (01:14:48): Oh, yes, Bayard Rustin. SM (01:14:52): We did a national tribute at Bayard in Westchester, and we brought in Norman Hill and Rochelle Horowitz and that group. JL (01:14:56): Yeah. And so I became, oh gosh, there were so many labor sort of labor people from the 1930s. My dissertation was a study of a CIO union... SM (01:15:09): Oh wow. JL (01:15:10): In the lumber and wood products' industry. So those were my... I was a little bit older then. It was after Vietnam when I was in graduate school in, I moved away from math and into sociology and history. But it was union organizers, the people who organized the auto industry and the steel industry, and of course, the lumber and wood products industry that... SM (01:15:40): So you were probably a Woody Guthrie fan then too. Was there a... JL (01:15:46): Yeah-yeah-yeah. Woody Guthrie. SM (01:15:49): And Pete Seeger and their music. And I think it was John L. Lewis, was that the guy that... JL (01:15:52): He was the head of the CIO. SM (01:15:54): He was a big, big guy. JL (01:15:56): Yeah. Really important. SM (01:16:03): What kind of feedback you have gotten so far from this book in terms of, did you hear from Jane Fonda at all? JL (01:16:10): Oh, she blogged about the book before... I saw the cover of the book for the first time on Jane Fonda's blog. SM (01:16:20): Oh, wow. JL (01:16:20): Her January 13th blog. And she liked it. And then she was on the Larry King show probably two months ago, and she mentioned the book on the Larry King show. SM (01:16:38): Oh, wow. Very good. JL (01:16:39): So yes, she has weighed in, and she is very... SM (01:16:44): Did you talk to her at all? JL (01:16:45): Not since the book came out? I did... SM (01:16:48): Interview her for the book? JL (01:16:49): Well, I did not interview her. This is preface. SM (01:16:54): I tried to get her to interview for my book, that is when she was with Ted Turner, so I have been doing this for... JL (01:17:00): Well, you should try again. SM (01:17:01): Yeah, some people think I should try again, because some of the feminists that I have interviewed are friends of hers. JL (01:17:07): This is the first sentence of the preface. "'Oh, So it is not about me?' Jane Fonda asked, when I told her I was working on a book about Hanoi Jane. Right, I replied, it is the biography of Hanoi Jane. A phrase laden with myth and legend that plays into people's memories of the war in Vietnam." SM (01:17:28): Yeah. JL (01:17:29): We were in Harvard Square. She wanted to talk to me. It was when she was working on her memoir. SM (01:17:37): Oh yeah, that is right. I have that book too. JL (01:17:38): And she wanted to talk to me about The Spitting Image and the film chapter in The Spitting Image where I wrote about Coming Home, the 1978 film Coming Home, because I had gotten into the film archives in Los Angeles for Coming Home. And she was interested in some of the things I wrote. So she, through her research assistant called me into the Charles Hotel in Harvard Square to talk to me about that. And then in the course of that, I said, "You might be interested in the new book that I am working on." And she said, "What is that?" And I said, "It is about Hanoi Jane." SM (01:18:22): Oh my gosh. JL (01:18:24): And that comment came out, and after about a two and a half hour sit down together, which was just wonderful, there was a knock at the door, maybe a phone rang first. And she said, "Yes, I am almost finished. Come on up." And Howard Zinn walked in. SM (01:18:49): Oh my gosh. JL (01:18:52): Yeah. SM (01:18:53): So he was there the whole time you were there? JL (01:18:55): No, he just came in just as I was finishing, just as Jane and I were. SM (01:18:58): Oh, okay. And you were with her for two hours? JL (01:18:59): Yeah-yeah. A little more than two hours, yeah. SM (01:19:02): Did you tape it? JL (01:19:07): No. The terms of it was that it was not to be an interview. That was the terms of it, that I was not to be interviewing Jane, because we were talking about the Spitting Image. If anything, she was kind of interviewing me to find out... SM (01:19:23): Oh, okay, JL (01:19:25): So where did you get this? SM (01:19:29): Oh my gosh. JL (01:19:33): Because I did not like that Coming Home scene in the film, when Bob gets off the, Sally's husband, Bob gets off the airplane. And he gets off the plane and he says, where are the protestors? They told us on the plane that there would be protestors here to greet us. And then as they drive away from the airport they are greeted by protestors, and Bob flips them the bird as they drive away. And so I wrote in the book, I said, "That scene, that is fictional. That never happened. That is not the historical truth." I have met her one more time actually, when the film No Sir came out, and I saw her again at that point, and she turned to somebody, it might have been Cora Weiss actually, who was... Did you interview Cora Weiss? SM (01:20:34): No, I do not even know who Cora Weiss. Is- JL (01:20:37): Carol Weiss was the woman who, she was one of the founders of Women Strike for Peace, but she founded the Underground Mail Service between the US and Hanoi. SM (01:20:58): Where does she live, New York? JL (01:20:59): New York City, yeah. SM (01:21:02): She retired now? JL (01:21:02): Oh yeah. SM (01:21:04): Oh, wow. JL (01:21:06): But anyway, Jane Fonda turned to her, and then pointed at me and said "He is the one who said, that we got the Coming Home scene all wrong in the film." So apparently she had been talking to... Because Fonda and I were both in that film, Sir! No Sir! You probably know that, right, or not? SM (01:21:29): No, you are in the film itself? JL (01:21:32): Yeah. Because of the book, The Spitting Image. SM (01:21:37): I got to go... JL (01:21:38): Yeah, you got to see that film. SM (01:21:39): No, what is it? JL (01:21:42): Sir! No Sir! SM (01:21:43): I think I saw it. JL (01:21:44): I would think probably you have. SM (01:21:47): I go to the Ritz Theater in Philly, may have been shown there. Well, that is interesting. I might try. Although one of her best friends, I am not sure if it was Holly Near or Torie Osborn, who I interviewed, they said she does not like to talk about Vietnam at all. JL (01:22:06): Fonda? SM (01:22:07): Yeah. JL (01:22:08): I would not be surprised. In my case, that is why we were talking, but I did detect some reluctance. SM (01:22:20): In a nation that professes that free speech and the right to protest is part of the definition of liberty. Why has our government been so rough on the people who challenge the system. And I use these examples of historic events through the time that boomers have been alive. We all know about the McCarthy hearings in the early (19)50s, the HUAC hearings in the late (19)40s, the stories about the Hollywood Ten, several movies have been out on that recently. The stories of COINTELPRO that are terrible. I have had several revelations of what happened to some people, and what they did to destroy lives and the infiltration, and they did not care. We just got to go get them because they are against us. I do not care what happens to them. No sense of humanity at all. This is a United States of America, and we have a constitution and we can disagree, but they are the enemy. And of course, in a simpler way, the enemies list. A lot of people seem to be very happy that they were on it, including the late Daniel Shore who just passed away. And of course Watergate, we all know about that. Why is it that the most articulate seemed to be the greatest threat? Yes, we do not murder activists like they do in other countries, but we tend to subtly destroy them through the issue that you talked about, the destruction of their character. And you are not one of us, you are a troublemaker, all kinds of labels to put out people. We are supposed to be in a democracy where people agree to disagree. JL (01:24:14): I am not sure I can make this compelling. When I am in the classroom I am more prepared for this. But the answer is, it is precisely because this is a democracy. It is precisely because the people are sovereign, that notion of popular sovereignty. SM (01:24:35): Give you this, especially on my 45. JL (01:24:39): In the context where the economy is privately held, there is no democracy in the economy. And so the two of these together produces a kind of passive-aggressive political culture. I do not know, if I just start talking, it probably becomes less clear. But it is that trying to reconcile those two, that makes criticism of that incompatibility so dangerous. And so criticism has to be shut down. Because the people are empowered for the ballot, then the people have to be dumbed down. The people have to be kept uninformed. SM (01:25:59): The term liberty means a lot to me, and I think it is a term we do not use enough of. We talk about other terms, but liberty, it is freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to be who you are, freedom. And then we hear these kinds of things happening in the United States, and even leaders that we admire will destroy a person who disagrees. I heard stories about Al Gore, if someone went against him he would really destroy their careers. I do not know if that is true, but I heard about it. Just because they disagree with them, or said bad things about them or whatever. You got to have thick skin to be in politics. And it amazes me that democracy is a really good system, that we have a constitution that protects these things and that liberty is something we aspire to and we are proud of, and we do not kill people, but we can destroy them in other ways. That is what bothers me... SM (01:27:03): Them in other ways. And that is what bother me about that. And certainly the Vietnam War is that whole period. And the whole period the Boomers have been alive and they have seen these things throughout their lives. But it may be is part of the whole human experience throughout time too. It has probably been forever. And it may be for... It is just it confounds me and we go on, so to speak. But the breakup of the American society is due to the activities in the (19)60s and (19)70s. Now I bring up the breakup... Make sure I got my glasses here. The breakup of the American society due to the activities in the (19)60s and (19)70s. Newt Gingrich, when he came to power in 94, Mike Huckabee on his TV show. Glenn Beck all the time does this on his show. Hannity, Rush Limbaugh. I do not want always say conservatives. There are some liberals that do it as well, but they blamed a lot of the problems that we have in our society today in America on those times back in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. They say that the loss of family values, that fewer people are going to church. The divorce rate is skyrocketing, there was rampant sex. There was no commitment to the "love the one you are with" mentality. There was a drug culture. There was a lack of respect for authority. And we need to get all those values back because that is what the (19)50s were about. And that is what America's about. It is about... And just your thoughts on that because George Will, oftentimes in his books, make commentaries on this. And other people have written about it that they like to go back and whip that period, constantly whip it. And even Barney Frank, when he wrote his book, "Speaking Frankly", which was a very good book, he said that the Democratic party is going to survive and has to say goodbye to all those people that supported Montgomery. The anti-war movement and all the... He writes about it, and that was in the (19)90s when he wrote this book that the Democratic party is going to survive. It has to say goodbye to the anti-war people. So then that is a diehard, a liberal thing. JL (01:29:20): Well, Barack Obama was quoted in some way that is very close to that too, that the words there that you used goodbye to the anti-war movement. There is an internet site called Open Left. And they picked up on a conference paper that I wrote out of this. And it is in there that whoever edited that piece had a quote from Barack Obama that distances him. He is distancing himself from the anti-war movement. So that is interesting. Me putting those two together, the Barney Frank with Barack Obama, I think that maybe there is something there to pursue. SM (01:30:12): See, the book "Speaking", it is a little thin book, a great book that came out. And there is a biography on Barney Frank right now, but this is at the time he was younger. We are talking 15 years ago. It is a very good book. And I got it underlined and it is basically talking about the survival of the Democratic party. JL (01:30:27): Yeah. SM (01:30:28): And that McGovern, if you were linked to McGovern, you just simply kind of disassociated yourself with those kinds of... JL (01:30:36): I think the key word here on the view of the (19)60s that you are referring to here, I think the key word is permissiveness. That is what really bothered them. And some of that has to do with religious values. And again, things are already talked about, the instability unpredictability. I mean, those are almost antonyms or predictability antonym for permissiveness. You can kind of see those things. But there is a gender component too, to this permissiveness part of it that I think is important. The idea that maleness, that masculinity is about discipline, whereas the female side of the culture is more permissive. It is more fluid. It is more free ranging. And that we lost the war in Vietnam and America is losing its way because we have lost our focus. We have lost our discipline. And it is the quote unquote "feminine" in the culture that has percolated to the surface and did so big time during the war in Vietnam. And so what really cost us was culture. And of course that the culture was- SM (01:32:15): We all know what the pill did. And women had brought that up, this pill. It is crucial for women. And to deny that what was happening in the (19)60s was not happening in the (19)50s and the forties... Not the people that I knew. (01:32:37): Want to take a break here, Chris? (01:32:37): Where are we going on this one? This looks like... SM (01:32:37): Here we go. SM (01:32:53): This next question deals with the healing. I took a group of students to Washington DC in 1995 to see Senator Edmond Musky and the students and I came up with this question that they wanted to ask him based on the divisions that they saw on video. They were not alive in 1968 of the police and the students hitting each other. And they knew about the assassinations that year, Bobby and Martin Luther King. They knew that the president had resigned and they saw the burnings in the cities and so forth. So the question they wanted to ask is, do you feel that the boomer generation or that generation that was reared after World War II and was shaped by those first 20 to 30 years of the life and the divisions between those who supported the war and those who were against the war, those who supported the troops and were against the troop, blacks against whites, gays against straights, men against women, and all the other isms that we saw at that time. Do you think that because of all the tremendous divide that was happening in the Stratton atmosphere on every side that the boomer generation is going to go to its grave, like the civil War generation not healing? And I will tell you what must be said after I get your response. This is a whole issue of healing. And this is a lot of what I was going to talk to Dr. Lifton about, because he has written about healing with respect as the survivor concept and the whole concept of guilt and things like that. JL (01:34:44): Well, I think the notion of healing is kind of mythical because it is an idea that American society was- SM (01:34:55): No, that is that side. Oh, here we go. Wait a minute... Now that is the other side. It is an hour and a half, I am going to do this. I only started using two tapes in the last six interviews because somebody said if something happened to one, so... Go right ahead. JL (01:35:17): The notion of healing presumes that the society was, that there was a oneness or unity to the society. SM (01:35:28): Hold on one second, let us see which one. There is a... I guess that is... It has got to be here because I put the tape in here. SM (01:35:42): Very good. All right. Sorry. JL (01:35:48): The notion of healing presumes that there was a oneness or a unity to the society to begin with. And I think that the nine... Maybe some people coming out of the 1950s, maybe growing up in the 1950s, and I say it was only maybe, right, might have had that kind of illusion or an illusionary sense of America that was not already divided racially speaking or class wise. A lot of people of my age would remember Michael Harrington's book, "The Other America", is that what it was called? SM (01:36:39): Yes. That was the one Kennedy was in for... JL (01:36:42): A re-discovery, right, of poverty in America that had been there all along, but which a lot of things in the 1950s had sort of masked the presence of. People did not see it. So I guess what I am getting at here is that the notion of healing or the Boomer generation or (19)60s generation needing to heal has never been part of my thinking at all. Not at all. So will we heal or will we not heal? I guess I would be inclined to say that that is a wrong question. I mean, heading down that road probably is not going to produce anything that is very useful. SM (01:37:27): Somebody said that it might have been a better question by saying, simply put, those who served in the war and those who protested the war, whether they were going to be able to come to be, because certainly the wall was built to try to heal the Vietnam generation that served in Vietnam. And Jan Scruggs wrote "To Heal a Nation", that was his book. It was not only to heal the veterans and their families in a non-political way, but as he hoped would help heal the nation over this war that seemed to divide us so much. JL (01:38:05): Well, I have never felt like that there was a big divide between those who fought the war and those who opposed the war. I think that by the late (19)60s that there was a lot of mutuality between those two groups and large numbers of Vietnam veterans were coming home opposed to the war themselves. Some of them joined the anti-war movement. So I think the reality is one of more solidarity and unity than there is a wound between the two that needs to be healed. I do not think there is a lot of healing that needs to be done. Now on the margins, certainly there are people who came home from Vietnam, still very pro-war and very hostile to the anti-war movement. Chris Appy in his book "Working Class War" writes about that. More hostility that way than from the anti-war movement towards Vietnam veterans. Although again, on the margin, right, on the outer margin, I have heard some expressions from people who say that they were part of the anti-war movement and bad feelings towards people who fought the war. There was some of that. I do not know how much of that surfaced during the war years itself. I am not aware that it did. But in retrospect, there is some of that. But I think that is pretty marginal. SM (01:39:55): Musky did not even respond to 1968. I thought students thought he was going to talk about what was happening in the streets of Chicago and the divisions. He did not even mention it. His comment was, and he kind of gave a melodramatic pause, looked like he had a tear in his eye too, and he said, "We have not healed since the Civil War over the issue of race." And then he just simply commented that, and he had just seen the Civil War series with Ken Burns and it had touched him because 430 bows of people had died in that war. Almost an entire generation of men. So that is what he was referring to. The Boomer generation. Do you like the term or is... Do you like the term the Boomer generation? JL (01:40:40): No. As a sociologist, no. I think it is kind of meaningless. I think it is too broad. I mean, even the arguments go on about how to date it, right? SM (01:40:53): Yeah. It is supposed to be (19)46 to (19)64, but some people do not like Boomers also do not like the Greatest Generation. They do not like Generation X. Millennials... JL (01:41:06): I am a sociologist. And one of my favorite sociologists is Karl Mannheim, who wrote a book called "The Problem of Generations." And he wrote that generations are in some sense about chronology and time, but they are also about politics and ideology and culture. And so people born at very different times can be part of the same generation, culturally speaking. And I find that to be a very powerful insight. So young people who were active against the war in the late 1960s had a lot in common with people much older than them who were part of the anti-fascist movement of the 1930s and the 1940s, or who were union organizers in the 1930s. And likewise today as a college professor, occasionally I meet students who are very young. They are in their twenties today, but they strike me as people who would have fit in comfortably with people of my own age. Or we could go out and have dinner tonight, and it would not be as though they are 22 and they are with a bunch of people who are 65. Right? It would be a very free flowing conversation there. So those are some of my thoughts on generations. SM (01:42:44): It is interesting that some of the people within the Boomer generation, and I know I do not like, I am starting to not like the term either, but is that they thought they were the most unique generation of history because they felt, and I know this from talking when I was in college, we were going to change the world. We are going to make it better. We are going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, and bring peace. Nothing will ever be the same. That was kind of an attitude. Maybe it was kind of naive, hopeful, what is the term I want to use? But not realistic. So when you hear people within the generation say, we were the most unique, how do you respond to that as a sociologist? JL (01:43:25): I do not hear people say that very often. SM (01:43:27): I mean, when they were young, did you ever hear anybody? JL (01:43:30): No. SM (01:43:31): No? JL (01:43:31): Not that I remember. No-no-no-no. SM (01:43:35): Well, there was that... I went to Bingham tonight, a few students that you were saying about that. What the thing here too is something that Phyllis Schlafly said to me while I interviewed her, and David Horowitz has written about in his books, and that is the troublemakers of the (19)60s, probably making reference to the new left, run today's universities and are in charge of the curriculum. They run the women's studies, the gay studies, the Holocaust studies, the Native American studies, Latin American studies, black Studies, environmental Studies, and Asian American studies. Basically, they run it all. And it is not the way people thought back because they are not conservatives in any way. So just your thoughts on that the troublemakers of the (19)60s run today's universities? JL (01:44:24): He might be right that they run all of those programs, but they do not run the universities. I mean that is sort of the whole and part kind of thing. The whole is larger than the sum of the parts. You know what I mean? You got people running all these specific programs. But in some... I mean, again, as a sociologist speaking of this, it might be the very fact that liberals run these programs that insulates the people at the top who really run. There is a compartmentalizing that goes on, a divide and conquer. I think in some ways when it comes down to budgeting and those kinds of things- SM (01:45:16): I worked at Westchester and there is only two faculty members that are willing to admit they are conservative, and one of them is very big. JL (01:45:24): Well, liberal is different than left too. SM (01:45:27): Yes. JL (01:45:27): That is another thing. I quite commonly say to students when it comes up in classes that the colleges are run by centris, right? SM (01:45:38): A la Bill Clinton. JL (01:45:40): And it is not. People on the right and people on the left are a minority in the college and university system, and we are tolerated. Both the right and the left are tolerated. The center is quite large, quite powerful. And most administrators, in my view, come out of the center. They are pretty tolerant, which I think is a characteristic of centris, but that is different than left. SM (01:46:14): Yeah. Although left could run these programs though. JL (01:46:18): Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Absolutely. SM (01:46:20): In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? JL (01:46:26): I do not know if I have anything unique to say about that. Anything that... SM (01:46:36): A year, an event that you think started the (19)60s or... And when did it end? Was there a specific event and what was the watershed moment? JL (01:46:46): When did it end? On that, the one thing I would say on that is, I do not know. I think it just bled away. I do not know. Those years I lived through self- consciously, quite self-consciously. And I do not know, I would be very reluctant even to try to think about- SM (01:47:11): Beginnings and ends? JL (01:47:12): Beginnings and ends. SM (01:47:13): How about the watershed moment? Is there something that "This is a (19)60s..." Or actually, "This is when Boomers were young." And... JL (01:47:23): Yeah... SM (01:47:26): Same thing? JL (01:47:27): Same thing. And I think that has to do with my biography. I think the way I lived that period of time, I think makes me not a good... I know you are not looking for a source on that, that is not the point. But I did not have the consciousness coming through those periods to think in those kinds of terms. SM (01:47:53): How important were The Beats in shaping the attitudes of the (19)60s? Because they were in the (19)50s and they were the group that oftentimes was looked at as the beginning of non-conformity- JL (01:48:04): Conformists and the hippies. SM (01:48:06): And intellectuals who are not going to be part of the status quo. JL (01:48:12): Well, somehow or other they did. The Beats influenced me as a kind of nonconformist intellect. I think my own coming to self-consciousness as an intellectual was influenced. Some of the first poetry I ever read period was Ginsberg, and that is The Beats. And so that is important. SM (01:48:45): His poem Howl was banned in 1955 from schools. JL (01:48:51): Yeah. SM (01:48:51): [inaudible] JL (01:48:53): Yeah. And going to City Lights Bookstore and the old Midnight Special Books when it was in Venice. SM (01:49:06): I was in the Bay Area for a while and I never went to City Lights. I do not know where the heck I was, but... JL (01:49:09): Those were important. Those were kind of pilgrimages for me. Well, when I was in graduate school in Oregon and just kind of beginning to find myself, to me those were "wow" moments. SM (01:49:23): Yeah. Ferlinghetti still runs the City Lights Bookstore. It is amazing. He is 92. JL (01:49:29): I would like to go there with Hanoi Jane. SM (01:49:32): I bet you-you can get there. JL (01:49:33): It could be... SM (01:49:34): Just, I think all you have to do is contact, because I know that Paul Krassner has been there many times. Do you know Paul? JL (01:49:44): I know who he is. I have never met him. SM (01:49:44): Yeah, he has led me on to some good interviews. We are getting close to the end here, but this is an important one too. In your own words, describe the America that you see during the times that Boomers have been alive. Now I know, let us just forget the term Boomer, but the generation that grew up after World War II. And as Boomers age, and Boomers are now 64 years old, the oldest ones and 48, the youngest ones. So there is no spring chickens any more within the Boomer generation. And also, they now realize the concept of mortality that they are not going to live forever. But I am just going to mention these years and just give me a few thoughts. Nothing in light, just immediate reaction. 1946 to 1960, what does that mean to you? JL (01:50:35): Post-World War II America, riding the wave of victories in World War II and global respect, supremacy, domination, to use kind of pejorative terms, but riding the wave of success and victory. SM (01:51:05): 1961, this is the period when Kennedy started, to 1970? JL (01:51:20): Second wave, new Deal. The New Deal comes into its own. SM (01:51:33): 1971 to 1980, the (19)70s? JL (01:51:40): A retreat, the beginning of the downside. SM (01:51:48): Do you also believe that when you define the (19)60s, you really, the first three to four years of the (19)70s are the (19)60s too? Because (19)70, (19)71, and (19)72 and half of (19)73 were still the (19)60s. So just like you cannot put generations, sometimes you cannot put decades. JL (01:52:07): Right. No, I would agree with-with that. Although as the war and the anti-war movement began to fade in or decline in importance during those years, the counterculture begins really to come into its own, begins to gain dominance, gain influence. SM (01:52:38): How about 1981 to 1990? JL (01:52:43): Oh, the retrenchment, pessimism, loss of optimism, reaction. SM (01:53:01): Conservatives might say, we are back. That is what Ronald Reagan used to say. JL (01:53:07): Yeah. SM (01:53:08): And President Bush said the Vietnam syndrome is over. I do not think it was, but when you look at 1991 to 2000, the year of Bush and Clinton, what do you think of in that decade? JL (01:53:26): The beginning of a new Cold War against the Arab world, the Islamist world, or some... Yeah, a new war period. SM (01:53:42): And then that 2001 to 2010 with George Bush II and now President Obama, that decade? JL (01:53:54): The decade of fear. SM (01:53:54): Terrorism. JL (01:53:56): Terrorism, fear. Yeah. SM (01:54:00): Now, terrorism was also part of the (19)80s with taking over of airplanes, and it was kind of evolving. And of course you had the Olympics in 72 where the terrorists came in. So you saw some signs and things were coming. What do you think of Boomers will do in their remaining years? A lot of people think that they are going to change the retirement. They have still got 15 to 20 years left because a lot of them have taken care of themselves. They will live longer, particularly females. Think you expect anything from them? I do not. JL (01:54:36): You do not? I do. SM (01:54:38): Yeah. JL (01:54:38): I expect reforms in healthcare. Elder care. Jane Fonda's new book, new project is on aging. And Fonda has always been on, I do not know, the cutting edge or she has always had a sense of what was going on. And that is not to predict that she is right. Again, that, that is not my point. But Fonda, as a public face of that generation of people and this age group that you are talking about here, I think that that is promising. I kind of bond as a bell weather of where our generation might go. SM (01:55:40): It is interesting. Dennis Hopper just passed away. He had that ad on tv, but you guys have got to plan because you are going to live a lot longer. That ad was under quite a time and he was kind of a symbolic of a generation, even though he is a little older and now he has passed on, you do not see the ads anymore. A question on the books of the period, there is three books I wanted to ask you on. SM (01:56:03): On the books of the period, there is three books I wanted to ask you on, seeing if they were good books or you read them and they were right on, or a piece of junk, basically. Theodore Roszak's book, The Making of a Counterculture. Did you ever read it and what did you think of it? JL (01:56:18): Sure. One of the books that educated me about the counterculture. I read it in graduate school when I was trying to understand the counterculture and what it was. I knew the counterculture through books like that more than I knew through participation in the counterculture. SM (01:56:40): How about The Greening of America by Charles Reich? JL (01:56:43): Read it. SM (01:56:45): Seen to be a classic book. JL (01:56:47): Oh, my. Gosh, it is so important for me, but I am at a loss for words to say what that was, because it was so long ago and I have never talked about it. I do not think I have... I have never heard that title. SM (01:57:05): Those two books are very influential to me too, and they were powerful. JL (01:57:09): But I do not remember how and why. SM (01:57:11): They were required in grad school to read. I interviewed Daniel Bell, the great associate from Harvard, and I asked him about these two books. He said, "They are terrible books. They do not have any ideas in them," because he is... Then I asked him, "Well, how about Eric Erickson's books?" because they are also very good, and the one... Oh, come on, Steve. Kenneth Keniston. He said Kenneth Keniston's books- JL (01:57:38): Youth and Rebellion. SM (01:57:43): Yeah, those were good. They were good. And then the other one was The Culture of Narcissism, which a lot of people... Christopher Lasch. JL (01:57:49): Yes. Yes-yes-yes. SM (01:57:50): That is where a lot of the Boomers were heading or whatever. JL (01:57:53): A lot where they were heading, uh-huh. All these are... SM (01:58:00): I am down to my last... Do you have five minutes more? JL (01:58:04): Sure. SM (01:58:07): These are just real fast responses to... This is what I did yesterday with Dr. Baxendale. And quick, real fast responses. What do you think of these people, or this? What do you think about The Wall, the Vietnam Memorial? Just a quick... JL (01:58:23): Do not like it, did not like it. Did not like it, do not like it. SM (01:58:30): In what way in particular do not you like it? JL (01:58:33): It evokes wrong feelings. It makes Vietnam veterans the victims of the war and shifts the sentiments away from the Vietnamese as being victims of our aggression. That is it. SM (01:58:59): What do you think of Kent State and Jackson State? JL (01:59:06): One thing I have never been clear on is whether they belong in the same sentence. I just do not know, because I do not know... Jackson State, I have never quite been able to get a fix on what that was about. SM (01:59:19): 10 days later [inaudible]- JL (01:59:20): 10 days later. Was it? SM (01:59:23): Yeah, it was. JL (01:59:25): Somewhat... SM (01:59:28): At Kent State, they have made an effort to make sure that when they could do their remembrance, that they conclude them both and they bring speakers in from both. Because it was a loss no one... Whenever I talk about Kent State, so predominantly white campus and black campus, they did not talk about it. There was also Orangeburg too, earlier on. JL (01:59:45): I wrote a large piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education this spring. I do not know if you saw this- SM (01:59:49): No, I did not. JL (01:59:49): ...if you know about that. Yeah, it was the cover. It was a cover story. There was the weekly insert. SM (01:59:59): Oh, yes, I know. I know. JL (02:00:00): It is very good. And my piece was the cover piece, April 26th edition, I think, of it. SM (02:00:09): And what was that on? JL (02:00:09): On Kent State. SM (02:00:11): Oh, really? JL (02:00:12): Yeah. The title of it is The Times, They Changed. The point of it was why is there so much quiescence on American campuses today, 40 years after Kent State? And what I was saying, it was not the students. It was not the students, it was the times. Sociologically. You know what I am saying? The times made the students then. The times today are making the students now. SM (02:00:46): Very good point. JL (02:00:47): With an emphasis on the management of higher education, the administration of higher education, and the proliferation of a lot of those programs that you mentioned is part of that. A lot of those programs came out of that time period. And the effect of a lot of those programs is a cooling out effect. It is to say would be activists, "Here, you have got your program, you have got your budget, you have got your offices, now get to work." And that has worked. And the thing that is worked better than any is study abroad programs. SM (02:01:33): No, they are good. Yeah, I know. Every student I know is doing it. Every student, for at least one semester, and I wish I had done it. JL (02:01:41): Usually their junior year. But it completely fractures campus politics. It completely fractures political organization on campus. SM (02:01:52): As well as the amount of work they have to do to survive. They got to work so they do not have time for other things. JL (02:01:58): Do not have time for other things. So all of that is in there. SM (02:02:02): A few more and then we are done. I find it interesting that the women nurses that were murdered in 1989 up in Canada, that the Women's Center will now have annual events just about on every campus in remembrance of those female students, think 11 or 12, yet universities have never remembered Kent State, ever. And they tried to not remember it at Kent State, but now it is [inaudible] you go back. And the [inaudible] University, the (19)60s was the homecoming theme a year ago. And I would have nothing to do with it, because I was there. They were making it look like everything was happy, rock and roll. And yeah, there is a lot of good, happy remembering times, but I think they were taking away from the serious parts of that particular thing. JL (02:02:51): Last... SM (02:02:52): Go ahead. JL (02:02:53): Well, last summer at this time, (20)09, 40th anniversaries of Woodstock were all over the US News media. Everybody was talking about Woodstock and, "Were your parents at Woodstock?" Huge big deal. What, three months later, 40th anniversary of the October moratorium. Not a word. Not a word. November moratorium of (19)69. Not a word. Very little leading up to Kent State, 40th anniversary of Kent State. There was not much. Kent State came very close, the 40th anniversary came very close to going with no attention. SM (02:03:43): See, I have been there the last four years at the events, and if it was not for the [inaudible] of the world and the people pushing on that student organization, which is about 15 people... JL (02:03:53): The piece I started to write on Kent State was, I was going to start out with Woodstock and compare 40th... SM (02:04:00): Most of my interviews have been long because of... Anyway. JL (02:04:15): Yeah. SM (02:04:18): How much time do you have? JL (02:04:19): I really should... As quickly as possible, we should wrap up. SM (02:04:22): Just real fast, just say one or two words. Free speech movement. JL (02:04:32): Well, very, very important as a run-up to the anti-war movement. SM (02:04:44): Freedom Summer. JL (02:04:45): I was not part of it. I knew it was happening. SM (02:04:55): Seemed to be a great education vehicle for many of the activists down the road. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, which is Dr. King's big thing that he came to prominence. Any thoughts on Emmett Till? JL (02:05:08): These are all things, the civil rights movement. I knew about it through the news, but did not have any involvement in it. SM (02:05:15): The March on Washington (19)63? JL (02:05:17): No. SM (02:05:18): How about 1968 as a year? What are your thoughts on the year? JL (02:05:22): Oh, well, I got drafted. I got drafted in 1968. My dad died in 1968. 1968 was a keystone year, a watershed year for me. SM (02:05:33): These other events, Chicago Eight trial, the Gulf of Tonkin... Well, that was (19)64. And Tet, which was a major- JL (02:05:42): Well, I got drafted because of Tet. I started paying attention probably with Tet that year. SM (02:05:50): These are two things that we are not very proud of as Americans, and that is My Lei and Attica. Just your comments on those two. JL (02:06:00): Attica, I followed quite closely. It was shortly after I got home from Vietnam, I am thinking, right? Was 1970, (19)71? SM (02:06:10): Yeah. And that is Governor Rockefeller. JL (02:06:12): Yeah. Yeah. Also, I was in graduate school, and what was then known as the Radical Criminology movement was quite powerful, on the West Coast anyway, because of the crim school in Berkeley. And so I started following criminology issues and crime issues quite a lot. My Lei was important because I had been to Vietnam and [inaudible]- SM (02:06:48): Clicking all day long here. This the last. Yeah, that is the last on that one. Okay, good. He has done. I am retiring him. I will not go over any more of these. There is quite a few. You can see I have quite a few here, and I am not going to go over these. The last question is when the best history books and sociology books are written when the Boomer generation has passed on. I say this because I drive to Gettysburg 10 times a year. I go to the battlefield to understand what it was like for that tremendous loss of what war's all about. And they have a statue there of the last man who participated in the Civil War. He died in 1924. I always sit there and I say, "Geez, the last person who was in the Civil War died in 1924." The books are carrying the message on. So the question I am asking, what will be the legacy of this generation that grew up after World War II in the history books, once they are long gone? JL (02:07:59): I think it is going to be a positive legacy. It is going to be positive. I think the legacy will be building on the best of what came out of the Greatest Generation. SM (02:08:19): Yeah, it is interesting because we are the kids of the Greatest Generation. JL (02:08:23): Yeah. Yeah. I think the Boomer generation might be the best and most important product of the Greatest Generation. SM (02:08:32): It is interesting because you told me already how important your parents were, and I know how important my parents were. So when we are critical of the (19)50s for all the things we have discussed about the things behind the scenes that were happening, I do not blame my parents. My parents did everything in their lives to give me the happiness and health, and devoted their lives to their kids. Do you feel the same way? JL (02:09:00): Well, see, I do not think I have said along the way, in fact, I maybe sort of implied that I... In fact, I said the (19)50s for me was a time of hope and promise and optimism. That was my (19)50s. SM (02:09:19): And that was my (19)50s. JL (02:09:23): I think because of my parents, and they were products of the thirties and the forties. So I think that is where I am. That is where I am. I know that my (19)50s was not everybody's (19)50s, right? SM (02:09:43): Yeah. Certainly African-Americans and certainly women, in some respects, although some women did have a happy 1950s because they were expected to be mothers. And very few, they ended up being teachers, but they all were expecting to be married by a certain age and raise kids. They did not think of other things until all these movements happened, and a lot of the people in the (19)50s really did not start thinking about these things until the (19)60s. But I do not think they ever blamed their parents, in most respects. Well, thank you very much. When I go to the Vietnam Memorial, and I have gone now since 1994 in honor of Lewis Puller, the one thing about... Speaker 3 (02:10:24): Hey. SM (02:10:26): Hey, how you doing? Speaker 3 (02:10:26): All right. Hey. Hi, Jerry. JL (02:10:28): Hi. SM (02:10:29): Let me see now. The people they dislike the most are still Jane Fonda, because you see the stickers they sell about Jane Fonda, the decals that they wear on their clothes. They did do not like McNamara, because a couple times I have been to The Wall and they had actually had McNamara's book there with bullet holes through it. And they did not like Bill Clinton. JL (02:10:56): They are not going to do that to my book. SM (02:11:00): No. And they did not like Bill Clinton when he came there. There was some booing, some of them booing because he did not... So there was that kind of thing. There is still that strong animosity toward Jane Fonda, and Lewis Puller and Jan Scruggs, and I think the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund have done a great job in terms of trying to do their best to heal from the divisions in America by bringing Bill Clinton to The Wall and bringing some others. I often ask the vets if they brought Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, what kind of reception they would get, although probably they would not do it, number one. If McNamara was alive, would he ever have had the courage to go there now, just to protect them? But I do not know if you have any other thoughts on anything I was saying or... JL (02:11:57): The only thought is that it is... I thought where you were maybe leading with this, is why do people like this hang on? I think it is a lost war phenomenon. It is what happens after a war is lost. People have a hard time letting go of it. They want it to come out differently. Lifton would be the one to talk about sort of collective trauma. So cultural expressions come from that and the people who then are held responsible for the loss of the war are not let go of in those memories. Those things hang on. They become hang-ups, in a sense, and people cannot get beyond those. And World War I, it is not quite like Vietnam, but the outcome of it is not conclusive like World War II is. First of all, it is not a very popular war in the United States, World War I. A lot of dissent. SM (02:13:15): Very short too. JL (02:13:16): It is short. A lot of dissent. And then 12 years or so after the end of the war, you got the Depression, and World War I veterans are still looking for their bonus pay and so forth. That all gets scuttled by the Hoover administration, so you have veterans marching on... So their sense of themselves as veterans and the controversy surrounding that, the controversy surrounding the war, the nature of the war, then causes them to think about what they did in the war, what happened to them in the war. And then, 10 years after the war, they are still living their lives as veterans yet, because they are looking for the bonus payments and so forth. So there is a messy post-war period after World War I, not after World War II, but it is pretty cut and dried. SM (02:14:24): GI Bill. JL (02:14:24): War is over, people come home, the GI Bill. The country moves on. America into its glory days. Vietnam, again, the post-war legacy of Vietnam, very much more like World War I. It is messy. SM (02:14:40): Then you had the blip of the Korean War, some people say the lost war, and they did not get a whole lot either. JL (02:14:49): Well, Korea sort of gets subsumed, I think, in World War II culture. People are still looking at World War II movies and watching Victory at Sea on television. SM (02:15:11): Victory at Sea. That is another thing that you grew up in as Boomers. JL (02:15:14): Boy, we sure did. SM (02:15:15): [inaudible] television, and that guy with a voice and... JL (02:15:20): All right, I got [inaudible]- SM (02:15:21): I am going to take four more pictures and you are out of here. I know you probably do not like taking a picture of your book, but I am going to... And then I have a mannequin of Jane Fonda. I am going to bring it out here. Sorry. There we go. Get that closer in there. You going to talk to Jane at all? Do you talk to her at all? JL (02:15:45): No. No, I do not. SM (02:15:47): There you go. Ready. JL (02:15:51): Have emailed a little bit. SM (02:15:54): Here we go. I am going to take a picture right here. Right at one. Two. And the last one but not least. Ready? Three. JL (02:16:06): This is for the before and after? SM (02:16:08): Yeah. You look a little more tired. Ready. That is it. Very good. JL (02:16:15): All right. SM (02:16:19): Well, thank you very much. Pleasure meeting you. JL (02:16:21): My pleasure. SM (02:16:23): I hope you do another myth book. Are you thinking of doing another myth book? JL (02:16:29): I am not. No. I am thinking of doing whatever I can to make this book successful still and get out of it everything that can be gotten out of it. One idea that some theaters are interested in, I have got one planned now and two others, the Fonda films that I use in this book, the idea would be a mini-series, maybe done over one long weekend or over a few weekends, and then me talk about why I think those films work the way they do in the culture, the way I write about them in the book here. There is two or three theaters, small community independent theaters, that are interested in doing that. So it is things like that that I want to do before I move on to something else. SM (02:17:27): Ever thought of going out with Jane? I mean, maybe do two or three... She probably charges an arm and a leg, but she is so rich she does not need the money. But going to a place like the Ritz Theater in Philadelphia. The Ritz Theater is the one, The Most Dangerous Man In America, which was the film on Daniel Ellsberg. JL (02:17:46): Great film. SM (02:17:46): The William Kunstler movie that the daughter came and spoke at the Ritz Theater in Philly. I know there is also a really good theater at Kent State, which is the Kent State Theater, which is really... This kind of stuff would go over well there, because they have a big following from the remembrance and everything. JL (02:18:06): I would love to. Any chance that I could have to do something programmatically with Fonda and the book and films I think is just a terrific idea. I think what it needs is a venue. SM (02:18:21): I know Dr. Greene. I only got to know him because of my dad before he died, was an athlete there. And Dr. Greene is the main historian at Cazenovia College. Got a book coming out on the (19)60s. Now he is kind of a conservative guy. But I am trying to talk to them about where I am going to donate all my stuff, my archives and stuff. And in my parents' honor. Everything is for my parents, because I love them desperately. He is bringing in James Kunen, who wrote The Strawberry Statement. So I could talk to him, because he does the interviews. So you might be a good person to come in and talk about Hanoi Jane. If I was still working at the universities, I would probably be bringing you in in a minute, but I am not there anymore. So I might mention your name to Dr. Greene in August. I am going to be up there just before Labor Day. And I am interviewing Minnie Bruce Pratt. I do not know if you know her. She is at Syracuse University, a distinguished professor. I am interviewing her and then I am going to go over there. But there is a lot about this, and I think the way you write this, it really can appeal to young people. And movies, doing it through the movies is how a lot of young people... Today we did a movie series and we discussed what the movie meant. And we get people there. We link to the academic classroom. So I think there is a lot here. And she reinvents herself many times in her life, and she also has an unbelievable sense of humor. I have seen her on TV. She is a very serious person when it gets to politics, but I am telling you, she also has a great sense of humor. JL (02:20:10): Yeah. I saw the serious side of her, the time that I spent with her. A real no bullshit kind of person. SM (02:20:20): What is amazing is that relationship with Tom Hayden. I can understand the Ted Turner one. I can understand the vet, Roger Vadim. I do not understand the Tom Hayden one. Tom Hayden, historically, everybody respects him as an activist and a great writer, assertive and everything, but he has not good with women. I have had several people say that they admire him as an activist and what he has done with his life, but in terms of how he treats women, it is not good. JL (02:20:51): Turns out his, I think, still current wife, Barbara is her name... I met Barbara when Barbara was in high school in Vancouver, British Columbia, when I was up there, mini tour with my first book, One Union In Wood, on the wood products industry. I had interviewed a then older guy up there. It is kind of serendipitous now, but she was there in this bar where I was with these other folks. A couple years ago, I was back in Vancouver for a memorial service for this older guy, and Hayden came to that with Barbara. And she said to me, she said, "I bet you do not remember me, do you?" And I said, "No." And then she told me where we had met. SM (02:21:55): Oh, my God. JL (02:21:56): And I had a great time with Hayden. SM (02:21:58): Oh, he is great, and he is great to talk to. JL (02:22:01): He is so [inaudible]. SM (02:22:03): He sits down like this and... That is the Hayden that I like to remember. That is the one I always want to remember. JL (02:22:10): I just love the guy. SM (02:22:12): Yeah. I guess he is just struck some of the women the wrong way. And I am not saying that Fonda criticism, but some of the feminists have known some of the things he has done. So they do not consider him a, what is that word, a big supporter of women, I guess, in the long run. JL (02:22:37): All right, my friend. SM (02:22:39): All right. JL (02:22:39): Got to go. SM (02:22:39): All right. Thank you. JL (02:22:40): Do you get a break before your next interview? SM (02:22:42): Yeah, I think it is at two o'clock, with Dr. [inaudible]. I have his... What time is it? JL (02:22:46): [inaudible]. SM (02:22:48): Oh yeah, half hour. Okay, great talking. JL (02:22:50): All right, good talking to you. SM (02:22:51): Yep. Have a safe trip back. JL (02:22:53): Thank you. Thank you. SM (02:22:54): And I will be emailing you, and maybe we can have a three-way conversation with Jane Fonda. JL (02:23:02): I am going to be... Well, I am not sure actually. I may be in Philadelphia [inaudible]. SM (02:23:12): If you are, let me know, because I am working on the book. I will be hibernating then, doing transcribing and... JL (02:23:16): Maybe get together. SM (02:23:16): Yeah. JL (02:23:16): Okay. All right. Bye. SM (02:23:16): Bye. Have a good day. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Jerry Lembcke Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lembcke, Jerry, 1943- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; Sociologists; Lembcke, Jerry, 1943--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Jerry Lembcke is an associate professor emeritus of Sociology at Holy Cross University. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Oregon. He is the author of <em>The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam</em>&nbsp;and <em>Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal</em>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-07-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.77a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.77b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 144:35