139
10
1775
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js)
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Wally Nunn
Date of Interview
ND
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
80:31
Biographical Text
Wally Nunn, a former Army helicopter gunner, later became chairman of the Delaware County, PA. He is also the former head of Mid-Atlantic Public Finance Region of Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and former chairman of the Board of the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge. Nunn was the founder and leader of the non-profit "The Friends of the Grove."
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Vietnam Veterans; Jane Fonda; Malcolm X; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Berrigan Brothers; Muhammad Ali; Richard Nixon; Lyndon B. Johnson; Hubert Humphrey; George McGovern."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Vietnam Veterans; Jane Fonda; Malcolm X; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Berrigan Brothers; Muhammad Ali; Richard Nixon; Lyndon B. Johnson; Hubert Humphrey; George McGovern.</span>
Subject LCSH
Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Citigroup (Firm); Nunn, Wally--Interviews
Accessibility
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Wally Nunn
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Nunn, Wally ; 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; Citigroup (Firm); Nunn, Wally--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Wally Nunn, a former Army helicopter gunner, later became chairman of the Delaware County, PA. He is also the former head of Mid-Atlantic Public Finance Region of Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and former chairman of the Board of the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge. Nunn was the founder and leader of the non-profit "The Friends of the Grove."
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
ND
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.139a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.139b
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.
80:31
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js)
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Padraic M. Kennedy
Date of Interview
2008-07-25
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
110:42
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Cambodian Invasion; Civil Rights Movement; Generation X; Baby boom generation; generation gap; Silent Generation; Vietnam War; Anti-war; Berrigan Brothers; Peace Corps; Lyndon B. Johnson; Eugene McCarthy; Civil Rights Movement; Dr. Benjamin Spock; Richard Nixon; Hubert Humphrey."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":14849,"3":{"1":0},"12":0,"14":{"1":2,"2":4995385},"15":"Cabin, sans-serif","16":11}">Cambodian Invasion; Civil Rights Movement; Generation X; Baby boom generation; generation gap; Silent Generation; Vietnam War; Anti-war; Berrigan Brothers; Peace Corps; Lyndon B. Johnson; Eugene McCarthy; Civil Rights Movement; Dr. Benjamin Spock; Richard Nixon; Hubert Humphrey.</span>
Subject LCSH
Peace Corps (U.S.); Kennedy, Padraic M.--Interviews
Biographical Text
Padraic Kennedy was on the original staff of the Peace Corps and went from being Sargent Shriver's Associate Director to heading VISTA, the Peace Corps' domestic equivalent. He took the first volunteers to Ghana in 1961, when the original Peace Corps volunteers numbered 900 while serving in 16 countries. By 1966 the Peace Corps was at its peak with 15,554 volunteers in 52 countries. When Kennedy left the Peace Corps he took with him, in all subsequent work, the spirit of President Kennedy's Inaugural speech centered on the words that inspired a generation which were "Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You Ask What You Can Do For Your Country." This included a brief stay as Vice President of Boise Cascade where he did economic development work. His next and final move came in 1972 when he became the first and longest running President of Columbia Association in Columbia, Maryland, a non-profit organization that owns and manages community assets. President Kennedy once mentioned Padraic Kennedy in one of his speeches after he took office; a reference to the type of young people he hoped would carry on the Peace Corps mission. Kennedy received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and Master's Degree from the University of Wisconsin after serving in World War II.
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 Padraic Kennedy
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kennedy, Padraic M. ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Peace Corps (U.S.); Kennedy, Padraic M.--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Padraic Kennedy is one of the original twelve staff members of the Peace Corps and former director of VISTA. He also was the first president of the Columbia Association (1972–1998). Kennedy has a Bachelor's degree from Columbia University and a Master's degree in American Political History from the University of Wisconsin.
Padraic Kennedy was on the original staff of the Peace Corps and went from being Sargent Shriver's Associate Director to heading VISTA, the Peace Corps' domestic equivalent. He took the first volunteers to Ghana in 1961, when the original Peace Corps volunteers numbered 900 while serving in 16 countries. By 1966 the Peace Corps was at its peak with 15,554 volunteers in 52 countries. When Kennedy left the Peace Corps he took with him, in all subsequent work, the spirit of President Kennedy's Inaugural speech centered on the words that inspired a generation which were "Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You Ask What You Can Do For Your Country." This included a brief stay as Vice President of Boise Cascade where he did economic development work. His next and final move came in 1972 when he became the first and longest running President of Columbia Association in Columbia, Maryland, a non-profit organization that owns and manages community assets. President Kennedy once mentioned Padraic Kennedy in one of his speeches after he took office; a reference to the type of young people he hoped would carry on the Peace Corps mission. Kennedy received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University and Master's Degree from the University of Wisconsin after serving in World War II.
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
2008-07-25
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.10.2016.137a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.137b
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.
110:42
-
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cbaff6a89f1129c3ab427cae69129623
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4a27b7ab82d692d6d32520796fcdae1c.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js)
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Acel Moore
Date of Interview
ND
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
66:31
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Acel Moore (1940-2016) was an old school journalist who won the the Pulitzer Prize. He created the Acel Moore Workshop and hundreds of highschool students have participated in the program."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6979,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,16777215],"9":0,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Acel Moore (1940-2016) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist who began his career with the <em>Philadelphia Inquirer</em>. He began as a copy clerk in 1962 and worked his way toward becoming a staff writer from 1968-1981. In 1979, Moore won the Pennsylvania Bar Association Scale of Justice Award for his series on the juvenile court system. During this time he also co-hosted a TV show called <em>Black Perspectives on the News</em> on Philadelphia WHYY Public Television. In 1973, Moore won the Pulitzer Prize for local investigative reporting for his series on abuse of inmates at Fairview State Hospital. From 1980-1989, he served on the faculty at the University of California-Berkeley where he administered the school's summer program for minority journalists. Through the years he also was a faculty member at Temple University and Florida A & M University. Moore lectured at many colleges all over America and directed recruitment, training, and staff development at the <em>Philadelphia Inquirer</em> where he was Associate Editor and member of the prestigious editorial board. Acel Moore founded the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in 1975 and was honored with the NABJ 2005 Legacy Award. In 1984, he also created the Journalism Career Development Workshop that trained dozens of Philadelphia high school students, The program continues today in his honor. He was the recipient of many honors right through his retirement in 2004. </span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Human rights movement; Civil Rights Movement; Nineteen sixties; Vietnam War; Tom Hayden; Jane Fonda; John F. Kennedy; Robert F. Kennedy."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Human rights movement; Civil Rights Movement; Nineteen sixties; Vietnam War; Tom Hayden; Jane Fonda; John F. Kennedy; Robert F. Kennedy.</span>
Subject LCSH
Journalists; Awards—United States; Moore, Acel--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 Acel Moore
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Moore, Acel ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Journalists; Awards—United States; Moore, Acel--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Acel Moore (1940-2016) was an old school journalist who won the the Pulitzer Prize. He created the Acel Moore Workshop and hundreds of highschool students have participated in the program."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":6979,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,16777215],"9":0,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial"}">Acel Moore (1940-2016) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper columnist who began his career with the <em>Philadelphia Inquirer</em>. He began as a copy clerk in 1962 and worked his way toward becoming a staff writer from 1968-1981. In 1979, Moore won the Pennsylvania Bar Association Scale of Justice Award for his series on the juvenile court system. During this time he also co-hosted a TV show called <em>Black Perspectives on the News</em> on Philadelphia WHYY Public Television. In 1973, Moore won the Pulitzer Prize for local investigative reporting for his series on abuse of inmates at Fairview State Hospital. From 1980-1989, he served on the faculty at the University of California-Berkeley where he administered the school's summer program for minority journalists. Through the years he also was a faculty member at Temple University and Florida A & M University. Moore lectured at many colleges all over America and directed recruitment, training, and staff development at the <em>Philadelphia Inquirer</em> where he was Associate Editor and member of the prestigious editorial board. Acel Moore founded the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in 1975 and was honored with the NABJ 2005 Legacy Award. In 1984, he also created the Journalism Career Development Workshop that trained dozens of Philadelphia high school students, The program continues today in his honor. He was the recipient of many honors right through his retirement in 2004. </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
ND
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
No 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.10.2016.136a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.136b
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.
66:31
-
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84029d45994fe13bc714a96dc5ac37fe
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js)
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dr. Ted Morgan
Date of Interview
2011-02-04
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
117:15
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Ted Morgan is a Professor Emeritus in Political Science at Leigh University. He is the author of The Sixties Experience: Hard Lessons about Modern America. Dr. Morgan received his Bachelor degree from Oberlin College and his Master's degree and Ph.D. in Political Science from Brandeis University. He taught classes on Social Movements and Legacies of the 1960s, and Propaganda, Media, American Politics, and Organizing for Democracy."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,11791078],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Ted Morgan is a Professor Emeritus in Political Science at Leigh University. He is the author of <em>The Sixties Experience: Hard Lessons about Modern America</em>. Dr. Morgan received his Bachelor degree from Oberlin College and his Master's degree and Ph.D. in Political Science from Brandeis University. He taught classes on Social Movements and Legacies of the 1960s, and Propaganda, Media, American Politics, and Organizing for Democracy.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Oberlin College; Vietnam War; political activism; media; Baby boom generation; Conscientious objector; Anderson Cooper; FOX News; financial crisis; war discourse."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Oberlin College; Vietnam War; political activism; media; Baby boom generation; Conscientious objector; Anderson Cooper; FOX News; financial crisis; war discourse.</span>
Subject LCSH
Historians; Journalists; Authors; Morgan, Ted, 1932--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 Dr. Ted Morgan
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Morgan, Ted, 1932- ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Historians; Journalists; Authors; Morgan, Ted, 1932--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
2011-02-04
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.10.2016.135
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.
117:15
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Ted Morgan is a Professor Emeritus in Political Science at Leigh University. He is the author of <em>The Sixties Experience: Hard Lessons about Modern America</em>. Dr. Morgan received his Bachelor degree from Oberlin College and his Master's degree and Ph.D. in Political Science from Brandeis University. He taught classes on Social Movements and Legacies of the 1960s, and Propaganda, Media, American Politics, and Organizing for Democracy.
-
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074b152394a8b510d49a859335087f77
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js)
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
William H. (William Howard) Josephson, 1934-
Date of Interview
ND
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
85:43
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Bill Josephson is an attornay and author. Currently, he serves as the senior advisor for the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute. Josephson received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his Juris Doctor degree from the Columbia University School of Law. He also studied at the New School for Social Research and St. Antony’s College, Oxford University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15107,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,16777215],"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"open_sansregular, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif","16":10}">Bill Josephson is an attorney and author. Currently, he serves as the senior advisor for the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute. Josephson received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his Juris Doctor degree from the Columbia University School of Law. He also studied at the New School for Social Research and St. Antony’s College, Oxford University.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Henry Kissinger; Richard Nixon; Ronald Reagan; Peace Corps; AmeriCorps; Vietnam Memorial; 14th Dalai Lama; Sargent Shriver; Trust; Tom Hayden; Berry Brown; Jane Fonda; Pentagon Papers; George Mcgovern; Shirley Chisholm; Students for a Democratic Society; John Lennon."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Henry Kissinger; Richard Nixon; Ronald Reagan; Peace Corps; AmeriCorps; Vietnam Memorial; 14th Dalai Lama; Sargent Shriver; Trust; Tom Hayden; Berry Brown; Jane Fonda; Pentagon Papers; George Mcgovern; Shirley Chisholm; Students for a Democratic Society; John Lennon.</span>
Subject LCSH
Lawyers; Authors, American--20th century; Josephson, William H. (William Howard), 1934--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 Bill Josephson
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Josephson, William H. (William Howard), 1934- ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lawyers; Authors, American--20th century; Josephson, William H. (William Howard), 1934--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Bill Josephson is an attorney and author. Currently, he serves as the senior advisor for the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute. Josephson received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his Juris Doctor degree from the Columbia University School of Law. He also studied at the New School for Social Research and St. Antony’s College, Oxford 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
ND
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.132a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.132b
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.
85:43
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription
This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field.
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Chomsky, Noam
Date of Interview
ND
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:30:04
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Noam Chomsky is a theoretical linguist, historian, political activist, social critic, author, and scholar. Dr. Chomsky is one of the founders of the field of cognitive science and one of the leading figures in analytic philosophy. He is especially famous with his analyses of the pernicious influence of economic elites on U.S. domestic and foreign policy as well as intellectual culture."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":771,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16777215],"11":4,"12":0}">Dr. Noam Chomsky is a theoretical linguist, historian, political activist, social critic, author, and scholar. Dr. Chomsky is one of the founders of the field of cognitive science and one of the leading figures in analytic philosophy. He is especially famous with his analyses of the pernicious influence of economic elites on U.S. domestic and foreign policy as well as intellectual culture.</span>
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"General Yuan; Photographs; Study Abroad; College student in the nineteen sixties; Nineteen forties; North Vietnam; Rise from the South."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":769,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0}">General Yuan; Photographs; Study Abroad; College student in the nineteen sixties; Nineteen forties; North Vietnam; Rise from the South.</span>
Subject LCSH
Linguists; Historians; Authors, American--20th century; Scholars; Political activists--United States; Chomsky, Noam--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Noam Chomsky
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: ND
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(Start of Interview)
SM (00:01):
Great. What are your thoughts on the American youth of the (19)60s and the (19)70s with respect to the following? Were they unique and different than other students you have taught or been around? And that is the students before (19)64 and after 1981. Secondly, do you feel these students know their history better? And did they challenge their professors more? Did they feel more empowered? And what were their strengths and weaknesses? And it's based on your experiences, because I know you cannot talk about 74 million people.
NC (00:39):
Well, the ninth generation of consciousness, so ninth decade. So, it was kind of like the (19)30s. I was a child then, but the (19)30s and the (19)40s, it was pretty lively, student activism. And the (19)50s, things quieted down, became... It was kind of like a reasonably passive decade. I mean, partly repression, partly other things. The (19)60s, things picked up again, but not... Took some time. I mean, so for example, right here at MIT, it was very quiet until about 1967 or (19)68. Faculty was quite active and anti-war and other activities, but not the student body. And then it was different times in different places. Berkeley was a little earlier, Wisconsin was a little earlier, but by the late (19)60s, there was quite a rise in student activism, interest and all sorts of issues and challenges, thinking about new things, raising questions about the nature of the university, their lives, war, gender relations. So, all kinds of things sort of blew up. And then that just extended in the following years. There was so much student activism that elite circles became extremely concerned about what they called the failures of the institutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young. That is their phrase. That is liberal elite, I am talking about, not right wing, no trilateral, the administration liberals, those people, they are worried about the institution's responsible for the indoctrination of the young. They are not doing their job. And many measures were taken to try to pacify the population, in particular young people, ranging from the drug war to high tuition, to trap people in debt to many other things. But I do not really think it worked very well. I mean, I think generally activism has sustained, maybe even increased. So, lots of things developed in the (19)80s and the (19)90s that did not exist in the (19)60s. For example, the solidarity movements, third-world solidarity movements, they really date from the 1980s. The global justice movement, which is substantial, that is 1990s or even this century. And it is very scattered. There is not anything unified, but it is quite substantial, actually. You can see it when the Iraq War came along. The Iraq War is I think the first war in the history of the imperial powers that was massively protested before it was officially launched. In the case of Vietnam, it took five or six years before any [inaudible] developed.
SM (04:05):
When you look at the free speech movement on the Berkeley campus in (19)64, (19)65, I love Mario Savio, saddened that he did not live long. But what happened there and the challenges that were taking place within the university, obviously a lot of the students, and we are only talking a percentage now, a lot of the critics, and I would like your thoughts on this. A lot of the critics of the boomer generation of 74 million will always say that only five to 15 percent were involved in any kind of an activism. So, they use that. So, see, 85 to 90 percent were doing nothing. They were living their lives like everybody else. And they used that as a negative, as opposed to a positive. Well, how do you respond to that?
NC (04:53):
How many people were involved in the civil rights movement? That was a major movement. Changed the country. How many are involved in the feminist movement? Changed the country enormously, country's totally different from what it was 50 years ago. I mean, it takes MIT for... this university, because we happen to be sitting here, but it generalizes over the country, in fact, over much of the world. And if you came here... When I got here in the mid-(19)50s and you walk down the halls, what you saw was white males, well-dressed, deferential, no table out anywhere organizing for something, very passive, doing the work. Take a look down the halls now, you can do it. Half women, third minorities, all kind of protesting this and that, get organized and this and that and the other thing. Those are made informally dressed, which is not just, it is more than symbolic. That means change relationships to change from deference and obedience to interaction, much closer interaction. These are major changes. And how many people were involved? If you count the number of people actively involved, it was probably pretty small. We completely changed the country, civilized the country in a huge way. So, what does it mean? I mean take, say, the American Revolution, how many people were involved? Estimates are maybe a third of the population, and actually a third would probably supporting the rebels. A third were supporting British. A third wanted them all to go away. Something roughly like that. I mean, that is what happens. Take, say, resistance to the Nazis in Europe. How many people are involved with the partisans? Minuscule. In Northern, I mean, in Southern Europe were a huge number, but Italy, Greece. But in France for example, very small numbers. Most people are kind of living their lives. Paris is a pretty decent place to live.
SM (07:10):
It is almost like if you ever hear a student say, "Well, I am only one person." Well, Dr. King used to always say, "It can start with you." An idea starts with someone, and it spreads. And Dr. King was always a believer that it was about we, not me, and that every person in his congregation or people that were at his presentations, he knew could be just like him. It is about that kind of...
NC (07:41):
I mean, the civil rights movement is an interesting example that really took off with young people, snake workers sitting in at lunch counters, freedom riders and so on. And it created a wave of enthusiasm, in which King could become a national figure. If it had not been for that, he would have been talking in his church and he would have been the first to say that.
SM (08:11):
Well, another critics of Boomer generation, if you read and you hear about it a lot today, is-
NC (08:16):
I do not understand why that is a critic. I mean, it's a criticism of the American Revolution, small percentage of population period.
SM (08:23):
In (19)94, I believe Newt Gingrich when he came into power made some comments about the (19)60s and he is a Boomer himself. And if you watch television shows today, like Huckabee or some of the other people on Fox, but I do not use them as the perfect examples, but there have been people over time that criticized this generation that grew up in the (19)60s and early (19)70s as the reason why the breakup in the American society, the breakup of the society, which was the divorce rate went on the increase, the lack of respect for authority. The...
NC (08:56):
That is right. But that is part of the civilizing of the society.
SM (08:58):
Yeah.
NC (08:58):
I mean the divorce rate went up. Is it better to have domestic abuse and unhappy marriages? I mean, is it good or bad that the divorce rate went up? I mean, I happen to be married for 60 years, so we are not part. But I mean, the fact that the divorce rate went up is not either good or bad. A traditional marriage with domestic abuse, presentness, patriarchal families, extreme unhappiness. Is that a good thing? But does not mean much. Say the abortion rate went up. Is that better than unwanted pregnancies? This is part of liberation. Part of people liberating themselves is that there's turmoil. That is why the revolutionary generation in the United States cause turmoil. That is why a large part of the population lined up with the loyalists and in fact, fled the country, fled in terror because the rebels they regarded as terrorists were taking over.
SM (10:05):
Do you think that the attitude that even people my age now feel as they are now getting social security for the first time, a feeling of uniqueness that we were different than any other generation in American history, that we were going to be the change agents just for the betterment of society. We are going to end war, racism, sexism, homophobia, the whole works.
NC (10:28):
There was a substantial sector of activist engagement and independent thought and concern about human issues in the (19)60s. I cannot give it exact numbers, but there was a substantial, and it did change the society, civilized. So, it is a much more civilized society than it was 50 years ago. A lot of things that were considered perfectly normal 50 years ago would be intolerable today. Unthinkable.
SM (11:00):
The society that we live in today, which is the divisive as it takes place. Nobody's listening to anybody, "I know better than you know," and "You're the problem and I am not," that kind of an attitude, is that a shoot off?
NC (11:14):
That is propaganda. I mean, was it any different in the (19)50s? I mean, is it better if people are passive and say, "Okay, I listen to authority."
SM (11:23):
It is not.
NC (11:25):
I mean, you just cannot. These cliches that are tossed around, first of all, nobody knows whether they have any basis in reality. And if they do, are they positive or negative? I suppose people do not listen to authority. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? You want to have a totalitarian state, it's a bad thing. If you want to have a democratic society, it is a good thing.
SM (11:49):
Do you think... This is something that I started out by asking Senator Nelson of all people, a conversation over dinner, and then I used it as one of my questions throughout all my interviews over the last couple years, and actually something I worked on with students who even added to it. And that is that, do you feel that this generation or this group of people born after 1946, between 46 and 64, as they age, as they get closer and closer to passing on that they have an issue with healing, do you think that there's an issue in this country that we have not healed since all of the divisions that were taking place in the (19)60s and (19)70s, divisions over the war, divisions, over all the other issues that came about at that time? Is it important?
NC (12:42):
The divisions were very good things. Let us take the (19)60s, take the war. Kennedy launched the war in 1962. In 1962, he sent the US Air Force to start bombing South Vietnam. He authorized napalm, started chemical warfare to destroy crops and ground cover. He initiated programs which to drive the rural population into what amounted to concentration camps. Ultimately millions of them to separate them from the gorillas who the United States knew they were supporting. And it was total silence, apathy. You could not get three people together in a room to talk about it. Was that a good thing? I mean, would we think that is a good thing if say Russia had been doing it? No, it was a terrible thing. It was apathy, obedience, lack of concern enabled the United States to practically destroy South Vietnam. We practically destroyed the country before protests began. Big serious protest began around 1967. By that time... read Bernard Fall.
SM (13:52):
I have, yes.
NC (13:52):
Okay. You remember what he wrote in his last reflections on a war? He was the most respected military historian and Vietnam specialist, the one guy, McNamara and others respected. He said before he died, that in combat, that in (19)67, that he doubted whether Vietnam as a cultural and historic entity could survive the onslaught of the most violent, savage military machine ever launched against an area that size. Well, he was a hawk, but he cared about the Vietnam enemies. And that is what he was saying at the point when protests began, really took off. So, what was right? The silence and apathy that allowed that to happen, as Gingrich wanted. Or the protests that said, "No, we cannot go around destroying countries," which Gingrich, of course, hated. Supporters of state power, subservient supporters of state power of course want everybody to be quiet and obedient.
SM (14:54):
In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin?
NC (14:58):
When did the (19)60s begin?
SM (14:59):
And when did it end?
NC (15:02):
Depends what issue you pick. If you pick Vietnam, you can trace it pretty clearly. So, I mean, I was giving talks about Vietnam (19)64, (19)65 to four people in church. If we wanted to have a meeting on it at MIT, we would have to put together 10 topics and get Vietnam in there and maybe we could get 20 people to show up. In 1965, my wife, we had two little girls, seven and four I think at the time, and she took them to a women's demonstration in Concord, Mass. Concord is the center of American pacifism, you know, go back, it is transcendental center. So, they went to a women's demonstration in Concord, which was just standing quietly in a square holding signs. They were attacked, tomatoes, tin cans and so on, driven out. And we had our first public demonstration against the war in Boston in October 1965. That is three years after Kennedy attacked the country. But that time was already half destroyed. We dared to have a public demonstration on the Boston Common. It was violently broken up largely by students. The only reason I was supposed to be a speaker, but nobody could speak. Saved from being to shreds by a couple hundred state police. Take a look at the Boston Globe the next day, the liberal newspaper. It was praising the counter demonstrators and denouncing those who dared to stand up and say, "Maybe we should not bomb North Vietnam." That is October (19)65. Take a look at Congress, Senator Mansfield, who later pretended to be at Dove, which is a total lie. It was denouncing the demonstrators for their terrible behavior, for daring to stand up against the state and so on. I mean, that was October (19)65. It was a good discipline totalitarian-style culture. Couple years later it did erupt, thankfully, and you can pretty well time it. Like I say, it was in Wisconsin. It was a little bit earlier and there were small SDS demonstrations, but it really took off in about (19)67. And that was the time when Bernard Fall was describing what I said, much too late. And in fact, there has been a massive effort since to suppress what happened, deny what happened. It was so successful that by 1977, Carter was asked at a press conference, "Do we owe the Vietnamese reparation any debt for what we did to them?" His answer was, "We owe them no debt because the destruction was mutual." That is 1977. I mean, if somebody said that in Russia about Afghanistan, we would call it revival of Nazism. And by the time you get to Ronald Reagan, it was a noble cause. You get to George Bush number one, and he said, "Well, we can never forgive the Vietnamese for what they did to us, but we will maybe relax some of the constraints on them and allow them into the world if they face the one moral issue remaining from the war. Namely devoting themselves to finding the bones of pilots who they shot down maliciously." As if they were flying over central Iowa. Well, that is the elite culture and the media and so on. There has been a massive attempt to reject and deny what happened. And what happened is what Bernard Fall described. But try to find it somewhere. Try to find it in the textbook. I try to find it in the press, try to find it in Congress, even in scholarships that is way out the fringe. If fact you take a look at the elite culture, there's never anything more than, "Well, it was a mistake." Say Anthony Lewis in the New York Times way out at the extremist, at the extreme of the media when the war ended in (19)75, his retrospective was, "We entered with blundering efforts to do good," which is kind of like a totalogy if the state does it, it's good. So, we entered with blundering efforts to do good. But by 1969 it was clear that it was a disaster too costly to us. You could have read that in the Nazi general staff after Stalin threat, that is called criticism here. But among the general population that is not the view. And they did become more civilized, although elite sectors did not, the media did not. And for people like Cambridge, of course it is a catastrophe, you are supposed to obey. You are supposed to be quiet and obey the rulers.
SM (20:06):
But they Beats were pretty important too on this, were not they in terms of they influenced some-
NC (20:13):
They did.
SM (20:13):
Yeah. Because when you think about Ginsburg and Kerouac, Cassidy and that group-
NC (20:17):
And that goes back to the (19)50s.
SM (20:17):
They were a challenge to authority.
NC (20:20):
Yeah, it was a challenge, which was part of the background for what happened in the (19)60s. So sure, it was there, the counterculture was there. And those who want to reimpose discipline and ensure that there is no functioning democracy, and that people are obedient and passive, what they focus on is the fringe of craziness in the (19)60s, which was a fringe of craziness. You focus on that. And yet, so you know, scream about the bra burning, but not feminism. Okay, that is a way to try to reimpose discipline, obedience. But we do not have to live in a totalitarian culture just cause the elite sectors wanted.
SM (21:03):
We know that from history that SDS was a real, to me, it was a great organization. Students from Democratic Society, participatory democracy. And I just interviewed Mark Rudd recently and some of Kent State at the 40th Remembrance, and he admits the mistakes that were made that really affect him when we destroyed SDS. And that hurts him even more. The history of SDS and then they only think about the weatherman. And Dr. King talked about-
NC (21:36):
Weatherman and PL.
SM (21:37):
Yeah.
NC (21:39):
By (19)68 they self-destroyed.
SM (21:40):
Right.
NC (21:40):
They split into Weathermen and PL. Yes. And I remember that, in fact. I do not know if Mark Rudd remembers, but I was very critical of what he was doing in Columbia in 1965. In fact, was actually invited by his parents to come to their house so they could dress me down for criticizing what their wonderful son was doing. He may not remember.
SM (22:05):
The violence aspect is probably the negative part because to me, and I would like your thoughts on this, when we are not only talking about the Weathermen, now we are talking about in the American Indian movement where Alcatraz was a very, I think it was a very valid effort, but Wounded Knee turned into violence. You had the Black Panthers, and of course Bobby Seals says, "Oh, we were not in a violent group. We just had... Somebody else has guns. We have to have guns." So, the concept of the Black Panthers was kind of scary. The guns at Cornell University in (19)69 was certainly scary.
NC (22:44):
But let us take the violence in the Black Panthers. There was violence in the Black Panthers. Two Black Panthers were murdered. I mean, there was a major campaign by the national political police, FBI, to destroy the Panthers by violence. And it led as far as Gestapo-style assassination. I mean, in December 1969, the Chicago police was set up by the FBI, raided a Black Panther apartment and murdered one of their, Fred Hampton, the major organizer in bed in a 4:00 AM raid-raid. Also marked. That is Gestapo-style assassination at the hands of the state. Yeah, that was violence. Is that what people are talking about?
SM (23:35):
No, they are talking about the other end.
NC (23:36):
Yeah, they are talking about a student holding a gun. Not about the national political police, murdering Black Panther organizer. Yeah. So, a lot to talk about reality and fiction, but it's fiction that is favored by the Gingrich's.
SM (23:55):
I would be curious too, your thoughts on Black power because of the fact that Dr. King was a non-violent protest, Bayard Rustin, who was from Westchester, went to the national tribute on Bayard a couple years back. Bayard had a very important debate with Malcolm X. It was, I think, in 1965, I think it was at Columbia, I think. And then of course Dr. King, that famous scene of Stokely Carmichael and Dr. King with his arms in basically saying, "Your time has passed." And Malcolm was saying that, "Bayard Rustin, your time has passed." By any means necessary.
NC (24:32):
Let us take a look at what happened. I mean, I happened to be in favor of... I was involved in non-violent resistance. And I thought, well, this was a wrong and a mistake. But nevertheless, let us look at what happened. As long as Martin Luther King was denouncing racist sheriffs in Alabama, he was very popular in the north. But then what happened afterwards, "I had a dream"? He turned to class issues. He turned, first of all, to opposition to Vietnam War, strong opposition and to class issues. He started a poor people's campaign. In fact, he was murdered, remember, in Memphis when he was helping to support a sanitation workers' strike. He was on his way to Washington for a poor people's campaign. Well, at that point, he was already being vilified. And in fact, if you take a look at the memorials to King every January 15th, they are overwhelmingly pure hypocrisy. They talk about the time when he was attacking racist Alabama sheriffs. Not the time when he was trying to organize poor people, was being vilified by northern liberals and was assassinated.
SM (25:42):
That is beautiful because that is the truth. And I firmly believe, and this is just me, and I would love your thoughts on this, that if Dr. King was alive today in his 80s, that even though we have got a day in memory of him, I think he would be sensitive because he was about we, it was not about me. And he also always talked-
NC (26:08):
But those days are not about him, they are about him when he was acceptable to the power system. It was about him when he was denouncing racist Alabama sheriffs. Yeah, we can all support that. How about when he is supporting organizing a poor people's movement or criticizing the Vietnam War? No, no, then he was becoming irrational and extreme. And we have to suppress that. So, the celebrations of Martin Luther King are not about him. They are about the part of him that is acceptable to power systems.
SM (26:41):
Well, I am amazed too because I studied this, and I found out that the two people that have the largest FBI records are Dr. King and Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt.
NC (26:54):
In fact, the largest state repression program in American history was Coen Dupro, which was mostly during the democratic administrations of the (19)60s. And then it started against the Communist Party and then the Puerto Rican nationalists and the Native American movement and the Black movement and the entire new left. And the women's movement, the Panthers, everyone, it was huge regression, totally criminal, led all the way to assassinations. It is wiped out American history.
SM (27:32):
You would have been a great speaker at Kent State. I do not know if you have ever been one of the speakers there, but they had the 43-remembrance and...
NC (27:40):
I have spoken there.
SM (27:45):
I feel that the two people that were missing this year at the Remembrance were you and Howard Zen. Now I am not sure if Howard would have... Dr. Zen would have made it, but I think your voice would have been very important there. Your thoughts on... Kent State to me was a watershed moment for a lot of people felt that everything kind of went belly up after Kent State, that pretty soon the giraffe was coming to an end and young white children, and then of course two Black children or young children were killed at Jackson State 10 days later. What does that mean to the end of so-called the anti-war movement or the (19)60s? Kent State and Jackson State were the line of demarcation.
NC (28:40):
Kent State is the one that enters history, not Jackson Street, because Blacks were being killed all the time. For example, Fred Hampton.
SM (28:50):
I always have to check this too. Sure. We are doing fine. Okay.
NC (28:54):
Kent State became a major movement because they were privileged white students. And yes, that did tell people who had made fun of themselves as victims that you too could be victims, but I do not think that was the end by any means. In fact, the Kent State was... After that came the mayday in Washington mass movement to try to close down Washington. I was there with Howard, in fact, other protests. The protest became strong enough so that they impelled Congress to terminate the bombing of Cambodia, August 1973. And they were strong enough so that the US had to withdraw from Vietnam matter. In fact, they remained strong enough so that the US had to narrowly constrain the invasion of Iraq and never got anywhere near the Vietnam War. The attacks, they could not just take a look, the casualty tools. They could not do any of the things that Kennedy and Johnson could do. And there was massive protest about it. So, I do not think it ended then. I just think it took new forms. But as I said, things like the solidarity movement, which is unique in the history of imperialism, it has never happened before. I mean, in France, nobody that organized to live in an Algerian village to try to help the people and maybe defend them with a white face. But thousands of Americans were doing that in the (19)80s in Central American wars. And now it is the international solidarity movements all over the world. One of the ships that just tried to break the guys at Flotilla was the Rachel Corrie. That is an American kid who was killed by a caterpillar bulldozer trying to protect the home. Things like that did not happen in the past.
SM (30:47):
You talked about the contributions, all the movements took place, the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. Many of them were offshoots of the civil rights movement because that was kind of a teacher to the other movements, the anti-war movement and the women's movement, even the gay and lesbian and certainly Earth Day in the environmental movement. Gaylord Nelson used that as the teachings as examples of it.
NC (31:09):
And that was it. That was the 1970, (19)71.
SM (31:11):
Right.
NC (31:12):
It is after the (19)60s.
SM (31:13):
Do you think that is that one of the greatest contributions of the Boomer generation are all the movements that developed over issues? Because today I think they are somewhat being criticized as being segregated. There used to be when you had the anti-war movements in the past, you would have all these groups together. Do you think there is a segregation, or this is there is...
NC (31:37):
They are supposed to be illusion. I mean, you had the big marches together for about two years. It is (19)68 and (19)67 through (19)69. It is a moment. It was important. It was focused on a major atrocity. Probably the major crime in the post-Second World War period was focused on that, trying to end it. And then it expanded in many different directions, and it should have. So, the feminist movement, for example, which probably has had more effect on American society than any other. Now that is from the (19)70s. It began in the (19)60s, but it really took off in the (19)70s. The environmental movement is (19)70s up until today. The anti-nuclear movement, which had like 80 percent of the population, that was the early (19)80s. Solidarity movements, which were massive and coming right out of mainstream America, incidentally. They were coming out of rural churches and Kansas and Arizona. That is the (19)80s. The global justice movement, (19)90s and today. All of this has its overall effect has been to civilized the country, which is exactly why it is hated and vilified. Now if you take a look at it like any popular movement, you're going to find a fringe of craziness. See? So, then you can kind of blow that up and say, "Okay, that is the movement. It was all silliness. It was all Woodstock." It had a civilizing effect on the society. And by the early (19)70s, that was causing panic among elites. I read someday the book called The Crisis of Democracy. Very important.
SM (33:21):
Who is the author of...
NC (33:24):
It is the Trilateral Commission. Liberal, internationalist elites in Europe, the United States and Japan. The American rep with Samuel Huntington from Harvard. I mean this is essentially the Carter administration. In fact, the Carter administration was drawn almost entirely from their ranks. And The Crisis of Democracy is concerned with the fact that the country was getting civilized. They could not stand it. These are the liberals, notice not the right wing. The right wing wanted law and order and so on. This is the liberals. They said there is too much democracy. There is an what they called an excessive of democracy. Now we have to have more moderation in democracy. People who are used to be passive and obedient in the good old days are now press entering the political arena to press their demands. So, there is a turmoil and challenges and that is no good. We have to have more moderation and get back in your box, follow orders, more indoctrination. That is the liberals. And that is the early (19)70s. And a lot of things happened then. That is specific number one of the motives for the drug war, surely, was to try to head off a very dangerous development. By the 1960s, many people, many young people, but also plenty of others, were beginning to question the doctrine that everything that the state does is noble, maybe mistaken, but noble. That is every state tries to impose that doctrine. We are noble. Maybe we make mistakes. You pick anyone you want, the most horrible monsters. That is the doctor. And that was accepted in the 19s through the (19)50s and so on. (19)60s began to be challenged and that was frightening. So, something had to be done to make us the victims. People were beginning to understand what say Fall had been saying years earlier, that it was the Vietnamese that were the victims. We were destroying them. That is dangerous. Well, the drug war was intended to make us the victims. It began with fantasies about an addicted army, mostly fantasies. You get Walter Cronkite; you are getting up on television saying that "Our brave boys in Vietnam are being attacked by the Vietnamese with guns and with drugs." They are trying to addict us, turn us into a nation of junkies and this rare society. So, we are really the victims of the Vietnamese. That is Walter Cronkite. I am not talking about Glenn Beck. That is Walter Cronkite. Liberal hero. And they manage to switch it around. We are the victims. That is why in 1977, Carter could say, "We owe them no debt because the destruction is mutual." And it is an amazing propaganda chief, having destroyed three countries.
SM (36:22):
When we think of the criticisms of presidents, at least Boomers when they were young, we think of Johnson and we think of Nixon, and I do not think of Ford that much. And certainly, whether you like Ronald Reagan, it is mostly an anti-Nixon, an anti-Johnson. Of course, Johnson was a liberal and Nixon was the most liberal Republican you could find.
NC (36:46):
I will tell you; he was the last liberal president in the United States. After that came away with conservatism beginning with Carter.
SM (36:54):
What you are really saying is that in terms of helping civilization as you see it, Boomers were very important in the protesting and setting a tone that we are not the most noble people because Vietnam. The two terms that seem to always bring fire... I have been in the university now for 30 some years. Two words that always seem to raise the, let us not talk about it or let us not go there, Vietnam and quagmire. You meant quagmire. David Halberstam. You mentioned those two words.
NC (37:26):
An interesting notion. See that is David Halberstam, who was a super hawk. You take a look at his reporting. It was pretty good reporting. But why was he criticized? He was criticized because he said the war is not going well. That is like criticizing some Nazi after Stalingrad who said the war is not going well. We do not call that criticism. And elsewhere we call it criticism. Here, but it is not. He was never Randy Warman, Halberstam. He was a decent reporter. He described what he saw, and he noticed what in fact the US command that polices the lower levels of it knew pretty well. Yeah, it is going pretty badly. The messages they were sending up to the top were, "It is going wonderfully." And he was criticized and considered anti-war for saying it is not true. Is that a criticism? We do not call that... It is an indication of how corrupt the intellectual culture is. We cannot conceive of the notion of criticism. And in fact, the degree of, let us say, take the American history, think there is some real crimes in American history like extermination of the Indigenous population. Why are we here? Is that a crime? Some of the major crimes of history. We are a settler colonial society. That is the worst kind of imperialism. Oh, normal imperialism just subjugates the population. Settler colonialism wipes them out. That is millions of people who were exterminated, and the founding fathers knew it. Like John Quincy Adams talked about what he called that hapless race of Native Americans who we are exterminating with such perfidious cruelty that one of the crimes for which someday God will punish us. It is John Quincy Adams, the founder of the Manifest Destiny, the great grand strategist. But is that part of American history? No. I mean, is slavery part of American history? Well, slavery is there only to say, "Well, we got over. Look how we got over it." In fact, we never got it.
SM (39:44):
That is why Howard's in this book, the alternative American history book is really good.
NC (39:48):
That is why it was very important.
SM (39:49):
That little booklet of essays is... It is just unbelievable.
NC (39:55):
But notice that his book just changed the consciousness of a generation by bringing out elementary facts that should have been in every elementary school for centuries. But it's considered radical because it was talking about elementary truths, and it still is not penetrated intellectually leads. So, if you read the New York Review of books, for example, the leading liberal intellectual left liberal intellectual journal, an article about a year ago by Russell Baker, who's a critical left analyst. And he talks about how when... He said when Columbus got to the Western Hemisphere, he found an empty continent with maybe a million people from the steaming tropics to the Antarctic stragglers. Kind of like he is off by maybe a hundred million or so. And they had an advanced civilization kind of like Europe except in savagery. But that is the New York Review denying the extermination of tens of millions of people. Today I checked to see there was not a single letter protesting.
SM (41:06):
When you look at the wall that was built and finished in 1982, and all the veterans coming back when majority of them felt like they were not welcomed home. And we know the history of how they were treated upon their return.
NC (41:20):
Well, that history is mostly mythology.
SM (41:23):
It is?
NC (41:24):
The spiting and all that stuff.
SM (41:25):
I know the spitting part, but in terms of the veterans of foreign wars, they would not even welcome a Vietnam vets back-
NC (41:32):
That is right. Because it was not a victory.
SM (41:35):
Okay.
NC (41:36):
They want victories. Actually, was a victory for the United States that destroyed Vietnam, but it was not a big enough victory. So, the super jingoists say you guys did not hack it.
SM (41:48):
When Jan Scruggs wrote the book To Heal a Nation, I had been to the Vietnam Memorial now for 35 times in a row, paying respects. I knew Louis Puller at the end of his life, and that is a great book, Fortunate Son. And I have noticed that the wall was built to heal the veterans. It was to be a non-political statement and it was to help the families of the loved ones who died and those who served. I noticed that there still is a lot of politics there. It is not on the stage, but just you hear it by what people wear, what people say. It is the body language, it is everything. So, we have got to come a long way. What do you think the wall has done in terms of healing the nation, if it has, because that is what Jan Scruggs was hoping he was going to do, the nation as well as the Vietnam veterans and their families. And I am not even sure if he was even thinking of the anti-war people.
NC (42:51):
I mean, the veterans and their families deserve sympathy and respect. But the big issue is not healing the nation. It is getting the nation to face up to what it did after the Second World War. The problem in Germany was not healing Germany. No, the problem was getting Germans to face up to what they did. It is the same with us. It's not just the defeated who have to face up the what they believe. It is also the victors. In fact, A. J. Muste, great pastor, he once said that the problem after a war is with the victors, that they think they have shown that violence pays, and they are the problem. Watch out for them, not the defeated. And that is right. And in Vietnam though, it was not a super victory. We did not turn Vietnam into the Philippines like a miserable colony. Nevertheless, it was a substantial victory for the United States. When Carter said the destruction was mutual, I mean, the fact that people did not... There was not an uprising of protest. It's amazing. I mean, take a walk in Cordini Province and New York. Is it the same? Destruction was mutual, but that is Carter.
SM (44:18):
Right.
NC (44:20):
That is a lot for us to be ashamed of.
SM (44:22):
When you go to the wall and you stand there, obviously everybody has different perceptions, but when you look at that granite wall and all those names... Two more minutes?
Speaker 3 (44:35):
He is the boss.
NC (44:35):
Yeah. Two more minutes.
SM (44:36):
Yep. What do you see?
NC (44:39):
What I see is sympathy and pain for the victims. The victims include the American soldiers, includes their families, but a thousand times more, a million times more, it includes the countries and the people we destroyed.
SM (44:58):
The three million who died in Vietnam.
NC (45:00):
Probably four million or so were killed in Vietnam. And huge numbers of loss in Cambodia. It is countries that were just destroyed. That part's in turn to moonscapes.
SM (45:13):
I guess that is... That would be fine. Thank you very-
(End of Interview)
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Dr. Noam Chomsky
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-12-03
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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Robert Edgar, 1943-2013
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Robert William Edgar (1943-2013) was a businessman, administrator and politician. Edgar was a member of the Democratic Party and congressman in Pennsylvania for 6 terms. He received his Bachelor's degree from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity degree from the Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Edgar died from a heart attack after running on the treadmill at his home."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15105,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":10}">Robert William Edgar (1943-2013) was a businessman, administrator, and politician. Edgar was a member of the Democratic Party and congressman in Pennsylvania for 6 terms. He received his Bachelor's degree from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity degree from the Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Edgar died from a heart attack after running on the treadmill at his home.</span>
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English
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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2 Microcassettes
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Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Religion; Bishop Fulton J. Sheen; National Council Churches; Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Environment; Poverty; Televangelist; Ronald Reagan; Brown v. Board of Education; Baby boom generation; Fox News; MSNBC; Pete McCloskey; Anti-War Movement."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":13689059}}">Religion; Bishop Fulton J. Sheen; National Council Churches; Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Environment; Poverty; Televangelist; Ronald Reagan; Brown v. Board of Education; Baby boom generation; Fox News; MSNBC; Pete McCloskey; Anti-War Movement.</span>
Duration
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137:41
Subject LCSH
Legislators—United States--Pennsylvania; Democratic Party (Pa.); Edgar, Robert, 1943-2013--Interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Robert William Edgar
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 3 December 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:01):
Thank you very much for agreeing to be part of this. The interview itself includes questions that have been asked to all people, but there are also some specific questions that have been geared toward your life as well. How did you become who you are? Could you describe your upbringing, your high school and college years, and maybe some of the role models and or historic figures you read about that inspired you?
BE (00:00:31):
I am glad I gave you a copy of my book so you can find out all the details because the book is more of a biography of how I have done what I have done. As you know, I have been a United Methodist minister. I have been a congressman. I have been a faculty member at Swarthmore College. I ran a finance area for Senator Paul Simon of Illinois when he ran for president. I was head of the Committee for National Security under Paul Warnke, who negotiated the SALT II agreement. I spent 10 years as president of a graduate school. I spent seven and a half years as head of the National Council of Churches. And now I have been three years as president of Common Cause. All of my vocational life in all those different professions have centered around my mantra, which I have kind of rephrased in the last couple of years. But it is to address fear, fundamentalism, and Fox News with a commitment to peace, poverty, and planet Earth. My wife of 46 years, who I have known for 52 years, will tell you I only have one speech and a thousand illustrations, focused on ending the poverty that kills, healing the earth, and working on peace and nonviolence issues. Now, you asked the question, how'd I get started? I grew up in a blue-collar family, in a white-collar community. I grew up in suburban Philadelphia. While we were in a lower economic bracket than our neighbors and friends, my father never owned an automobile, never drove a car. I taught my mother how to drive when she was 48 years old. We did everything on buses and trolleys between Philadelphia, upper Darby, Chester, Media, communities around Philadelphia. We were, my brother and I, my older brother, we were sent to church so that my mother and father could sleep in on Sunday mornings. And I went to Sunday school and church services in the Methodist Church. And in those days, which was in the 1950s, there were an awful lot of progressive ministers who were linking gospel messages to civil rights, human rights, people's rights. When I became 15, 16, I went to a church camp, and I discovered some ministers that taught me that ministers do not have to be boring, that they can be committed to social justice. I also took a tour of some poverty areas in Philadelphia and was surprised by my reaction to seeing poor people. In June of 1968, the Methodist Church sent me to 11 countries in Europe... not (19)68, in 1961, they sent me to 11 countries, including Italy, Germany, Austria, France, but I also got in behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1961. And one of the most powerful experiences was in an orphanage that we visited in Naples, Italy. You had to travel by bus through a terrible slum, seeing the worst poverty you could see. And the bus went through a large, gated building, and inside were a couple hundred children who were orphans, all clean, all dressed, all cared for by faith-related folks, all singing and joyful. And so the contrast between the abject poverty on the outside of the building and the care that was given on the inside, had an impact on me. I had decided pretty early on to be a minister and thought that my whole life was going to be in the ministry. I wanted to be an urban minister, and in fact, that is the direction I went. A couple other incidents shaped my thinking. One was at age 19, I became pastor of my own church called the Gilberton United Methodist Church in Gilberton, Pennsylvania. This is June of 1962. I am all of 19, had never been to a funeral. I was given permission to do communion and baptisms and weddings, and most of it was to pay my way through college. After they had given churches to ordained elders in the Methodist church and retired ministers and seminary students, they had churches left over. And so as a young, beginning my second year in college, I was pastor of a church. And the interesting thing was, the church in Gilberton, the whole town was owned by the Gilberton Coal company. All of the parishioners were related to the coal mine. They owned only the inside of their houses. The coal company owned all the land underneath their houses. And it was a strip mining area. The men were all dying in their 50s of black lung disease. And even though the people were very poor, they were very loving and caring and adopted a young preacher, taught me a lot. So those kinds of experience began to move me. I would say another defining experience, which I do describe in the book, is in February of 1968, I was invited by William Sloane Coffin, who was at that time the chaplain at Yale, later to become a minister at Riverside Church in New York. But Bill Coffin invited a group of people concerned about the Vietnam War to a meeting here in Washington at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. And I boarded a bus in northern New Jersey where I was at seminary and traveled to Washington for the first time. And as we got to the door of the church, the bus came to the curb. The radical religious right of that day was a guy by the name of Carl McIntire, and he was out of Cape May, New Jersey. He was the Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jim Dobson of that day. And he had organized a protest carrying signs that said, "Kill a commie for Christ's sake," and trying to get us not to cross his picket line. And as coming out of a blue-collar union family, I broke my father's dictum, never to cross a picket line, and went inside the church, went up into the balcony of the church, and listened to speaker after speaker connect the issue of poverty and war. And in doing that, I began to recalibrate my own thinking. And the keynote speaker was a young guy, 39 years of age, by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King.
SM (00:08:48):
Oh, my God.
BE (00:08:48):
This is five weeks before he was assassinated. And he inspired me. I think of myself as a disciple of Dr. King, read his material. Less than 10 years later, by accident, I got elected to the United States Congress. And a couple years after that, I was one of 12 members of the Select Committee on Assassinations, looking into the death of Dr. King. These books over here are all the documents on the committee that was researching the death of Dr. King and John F. Kennedy. So I interviewed James Earl Ray, the assassin, as a young member of Congress. So Dr. King, by accident, has had quite an impact. This just gives you the smallest. It is only those persons that were serving-
SM (00:09:57):
Walter [inaudible]. Yes. Remember him, and met him briefly in California. Yep.
BE (00:10:02):
Yep. Chris Dodd. Bob Edgar. So this is a long answer to your short question. I think poverty and King vaccinated me to care about ending the poverty that kills, connecting poverty to war. And it was my father who connected me to the environment. He loved the trees and the land that he worked so hard on. So he paid $13,000 for a house in the suburbs without the ability to have an automobile or car. He worked 37 years at the same desk, testing relays for General Electric. Died at age 56, probably killed by the chemicals he was using in the workplace or the fact that he smoked a lot. He was offered a million dollars for his piece of land to build a shopping center, and he turned them down because the trees on his land were more important and the environment. And he introduced me to the early books in the (19)60s, The Greening of America. Some of the early conversations about the environment. When I decided to run for Congress, I became kind of the environmental candidate. And if the Republicans had run any candidate against me who cared about the environment, or cared about women's issues, I would have lost, because my district was the most Republican district in the nation and I am a Democratic congressman. And I got elected at age 31, as you know.
SM (00:11:56):
Yep. When you were in that room with, I did not know you were in the room with Dr. King six weeks before he was assassinated, I am-
BE (00:12:05):
We also marched in Arlington Cemetery that same day together.
SM (00:12:11):
Wow. He touched your life, obviously, with his words, and obviously, he was a great preacher in his delivery and everything, but I interviewed another person whose husband was in Harvard when Dr. King came, or excuse me, Michigan State, when Dr. King came to speak, and he had said that it was the greatest experience he had ever had in his life listening to him. But I do not know if he is putting me on, but he said there was something about the aura and the atmosphere that he said, "I did not think this guy was going to live long." And that was a commentary from his Michigan State speech when this person was in college there. I do not know if you felt that at all, because he was certainly different in his... he had a lot of enemies.
BE (00:13:09):
At the time, I was not smart enough to think those thoughts. I was all eyes and ears. Except for the assassination of President Kennedy, I was lulled into thinking we were a peaceful nation, but if you look back on the assassination of Kennedy, King, Bobby Kennedy, and the attempt on Wallace's life, and you go back and look in history in terms of all the attempts on presidents' lives, you realize we are a pretty violent nation. I think there is an author that wrote a book, Violence in America, [inaudible] Demery. It was a very popular book in the (19)70s and talked about Native Americans and all the things that we had done to people itself. It is interesting, we are about the same age, and I think I mentioned to your secretary that my grandfather was a Methodist minister, Peekskill, New York, from (19)54... excuse me, from 1936 to 1954, and he died in (19)56. And then I went to Methodist Church in Cortland, New York growing up as a kid, and Dr. Nason was our minister. And it is interesting you said about social messages. My mom used to tell me a story that we would go to church, I do not remember this, but we would go to church and I used to say to her, "I wish they'd cut all the singing out," because all I cared about was hearing his message. And this is a second-, third-, fourth-grade kid. There were messages that he gave. So you were right on about the social messages. One of the things, when one talks about the (19)50s and (19)60s, one rarely talks about the religious leaders that influenced the Boomers growing up this. So when I look at religion, not just politics, religion itself, I think of Billy Graham, Norman Vincent Peale, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, who were very religious, Bishop Sheen, who-
SM (00:15:25):
Happy trails to you.
BE (00:15:25):
But they were very religious too, and they had Christmas albums and they took in kids. Bishop Sheen was on TV then. And then, of course, Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel and Jesse Jackson, Reverend Schuller, Pat Roberson, these are people that I think influenced Boomers over... founding of the National Council of Churches was founded in 1950, was very much part of the Civil Rights Movement. Brown versus Board of Education. The National Council Churches had, I was General Secretary of the Council, but in 1957, had Dr. King as its keynote speaker. Had a lot of lay people, including there was a guy by the name of Jay Erwin Miller. He was a layperson, and in October, 1967, Esquire Magazine had a cover that says, "The man who ought to be the next President of the United States." He was head of Cummings Engine, which was a big industrial thing. He was a Republican. Also, he was chair of the board at the National Council of Churches. And he was one of the founders of Common Cause. He worked with John Gardner. There were three Republicans who were on the articles of incorporation. One was a guy by the name of Andrew [inaudible], who was head of Time Publishing, one was John Gardner and one was Jay Erwin Miller.
SM (00:17:06):
Yeah, I had Gardner [inaudible].
BE (00:17:06):
You look at some of these pictures, Jay Erwin Miller is with Dr. King, in some of the signing of the Civil Rights Movement issues. And so there's a whole bunch of Republican, mainly, moderate Republican, Eisenhower Republicans, who began to speak up on civil rights, human rights, and people's rights, who were also people of faith. And I think it goes back to winning World War II. I am born in 1943, May 29th, Life or Look Magazine came out that week and had Rosie the Riveter on the cover, the woman who symbolized women working in factories to win the war. But the war is won, and the Congress passes the most important piece of legislation after the war, which was the GI Bill and-
SM (00:18:22):
(19)48.
BE (00:18:28):
-all of the blue-collar workers who went to war came back and became the white-collar workers of the (19)50s and (19)60s. Some of them became ministers, some of them became teachers, some of them became lawyers and doctors and other kinds of things. Sprawl started, people started to get wealthy from development of communities and suburbs expanded, people were moving out of the cities. Churches were being built, every few minutes a new church was being dedicated, and churches were packed. It was a sense of victory. We fought evil and we won. And every child will do better than their parents did. And their parents are doing better than their parents did. And the American dream is alive and well, and we had that sense. Brown versus Board of Education happens in (19)54. And some of the hostility of civil rights. And suddenly in the (19)60s, you have got not only the war in Vietnam, you have got the burning in the cities, you have got the tension around civil rights and human rights, you get the Commission on Poverty that comes out with a scathing report, that Johnson began the War on Poverty efforts. And I think the faith leaders had read the Bible thoughtfully enough to discover that God cares about poor people. I think some of the new religious leaders, the conservatives, have read the Bible and somehow did not find out that Jesus cared about poor people and misread all of those stories and somehow come out of the text believing God is a god of wealth, God is a god of prosperity. But the (19)50s and (19)60s, we were vaccinated by faith leaders who challenged government to respect people by race, regardless of creed or color and were willing, in a sense, to fight a civil war over it. And we did not go back to the battlefield with the South in terms of military war, but we did send in troops to make sure that schools were integrated and people who were part of our society became full partners. And Dr. King was kind of the disciple of that movement.
SM (00:21:23):
It leads into the area with I wanted to address, and that is these periods that Boomers have been alive. Keep in mind that those people born, say, between (19)37 and (19)45, I think are closer to the Boomer, the front-edge Boomers, that were born between (19)46 and (19)56 than those born between, Boomers, that are from (19)57 to say (19)64 because they were graduate students, they inspired, and were right by the side of many of the older Boomers. But when you look at the different periods in America since 1946, and we are talking 64 years here now, it was the first Boomers now coming into Social Security this year. You have already said something very important. When you look at church, and I can take the experience of my life, I love going to church, when every Sunday, all throughout the (19)50s, when in the (19)60s, then my dad moved and we were quite away from the church, but it was that period that I saw church attendants seemed to wane as we started to head into the (19)60s. And then something happened, like you mentioned, in the (19)70s, and I would like your thoughts on this. In the late (19)70s, the religious right seemed to come into power. Jerry Falwell, whether it be Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson.
BE (00:22:57):
Jim Bakker, Tammy Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart. What happened was that (19)50s and (19)60s were upward mobility, growing of the suburbs, challenge with racism, challenge with poverty, but a society that said, we have got to address these issues if we are going to be great. By the early (19)70s, parents were telling their kids, "Do not go into ministry, do not go into social service, get an education, go to college. Some of us got to college by the skin of our teeth, but you're smarter than we are, so get a degree so you can make money." And the prosperity gospel got caught in. And on the political side, you had the aftermath of Barry Goldwater's loss and the conservative political right. And then you had the emergence of religious conservatives who stayed out of politics mostly. Billy Graham stayed out mostly. And many of the evangelists were talking about personal salvation and not very interested in politics. But you get into the (19)70s, and alongside of the secular effort to make money, you had a whole bunch of what I call charlatan religious leaders who said, "Send us a dollar and we will pray for you. Put your hand on the radio set, and when we finish this prayer, write us a check for a dollar-
SM (00:24:54):
The Reverend Schuller?
BE (00:24:57):
-5 dollars, 10 dollars. And this is Jimmy Swaggart and Jimmy Bakker and those guys, the televangelists. They did not want the money as much as they wanted your name and address because they were smart enough to use computers and know that they could amass large amounts of wealth by putting those names and addresses on a computer and keeping track and talking to them by region and by area, and initially, putting a stamp on a newsletter and getting it out to folks, but then getting it into a computer, so it was even cheaper.
SM (00:25:38):
Like the DNC today.
BE (00:25:39):
Right. Well, I think in 1980, there was a civil marriage, probably started in (19)76, (19)77, (19)78, a civil marriage between these charlatan religious radical right and the political right that made Ronald Reagan the Christian president and Jimmy Carter an also-ran. Ronald Reagan would not go to church, but he was envisioned as being the guru. He was going to stop Roe versus Wade, which was an early (19)70s Supreme Court decision that all the conservatives hated. And the religious right and the political right out-hustled the left. The left took 50 minutes to answer a question. The left did not deep frame from the justice language. Whereas the religious right, the political right, were willing to sloganeer simple statements. And so the left gets out-hustled, and I think the religious right thought that if they had this civil marriage with the Republicans, that they would turn back Roe versus Wade. That they would be able to prosper in kind of not just the old-time religion, but focused on personal salvation. And the wealthy were blessed by God because they were wealthy, God must be blessing them. I think they forgot the passage that talks about how hard it is for a rich man to enter Heaven, where they said it is easier for a camel than go through the eye of a needle than for rich man to enter Heaven. And they saw Jesus in a tuxedo more than touching the hem of a prostitute, hem of the dress of a prostitute, or touching the leper or hugging a poor person. And so you have got this tension that I think has actually grown into the split in our country. We are divided three ways, radical Christian and political right on one side, moderate to progressive liberals on the other side, and a whole host of people that are in the middle. And the reason I wrote the book, Middle Church, which goes against... the reason I wrote that book was to go after Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the religious right, but it is middle church, middle synagogue, middle mosque. And my argument in the book is that the religious left failed, and we failed because we would do point-counterpoint with the religious right, we forgot to evangelize the middle. And you have got a whole host of Americans in the middle who are too easily swayed by patriotism and false morality that many on the left have forgotten to use that patriotism and morality language. And that book could have been called Middle America, it is more of a secular political book than a churchy book, but it will give you some idea if you read it, of some of these thoughts.
SM (00:29:50):
But where would you place... we all know what the Beatles did. They went into, not organized religion, they went off to the Maharishi or whatever. It was fairly common that a lot of people were going off into Zen Buddhism. I interviewed Peter Coyote and he told me, the actor, that if it was not for Zen Buddhism, he would not be alive today. I mean, it's that important for him to relax. He's been doing it for 35 years. And so a lot of people became Zen Buddhist. A lot of people like the Beatles, and not just the Beatles, because they were well known, but other people, got into all these Maharishi, and they came to college campus in the late (19)60s. You had the Moonies that were everywhere. And there was this attitude, and correct me if I am wrong, that a lot of the Boomer kids and a lot of the young adults for some reason went against anything that were position of authority. They were against their political leaders, they were against their religious leaders, they were against politicians, the college administrators. So the inner spirituality became the thing in the late (19)60s, in the (19)70s. Your thoughts on this inner spirituality where you do not need to go to church, it's just that kind of-
BE (00:31:14):
I will answer that question, but let me challenge something you said. I would not use the phrase "a lot." I would use "some" because I think the majority did what their parents told them to do. Go to college, become something, get a profession. But the (19)60s and (19)70s are marked by a search, a search religiously, a search psychologically, a search for meaning, a search for life. And not only did folks search alternative religions, but they also searched alternative lifestyles, commune movement, and others. And you remember some of this came out of Woodstock, some of it came out of the anti-war movement, the draft was there, and people had to ask themselves, "Is the United States worth dying for? And if not, do I go to Canada? What do I think about 58,000 people being killed in Vietnam and hundreds of thousands being wounded? And what do I think, if I care about integration, about the fact that liberals were disappearing here and there, being killed and lynched and blacks were being attacked," and it was a big struggle for the identity of America. So there is not one issue, it was a small, important cluster. I remember when I got elected to Congress, some of my friends said, "Why would you do that? Why do not you stay on the outside of government and fight the corruption, fight the bad guys who are in government?" And those days, you know, had Watergate and you had a lot of lack of modeling of good behavior. And I think there was that tension in our society. My own personal view is that you need people inside the tent and people outside the tent, people inside government, people outside government. I have got five honorary doctorate degrees, but only four arrests for civil disobedience. If I have any regrets in my life, it is that I have not been arrested enough.
SM (00:34:13):
Dr. King would be proud of you because Dr. King used to always say that, "If you are not willing to go to jail for your beliefs, what are you out there for?"
BE (00:34:20):
Right.
SM (00:34:21):
Not doing violent things, but.
BE (00:34:23):
My friend Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary sings a song for me once in a while about, have you been to jail for justice? Good words in that song.
SM (00:34:33):
You are right. Right. One of the things, you well know that when President Kennedy, well, when he was running for president, the issue with the Catholic Church and that religion would influence his decisions. Obviously, that did not happen, but what did that say about the America of 1960, about fearful that the Pope was going to run the United States government, and. The Pope was going to run the United States government, and John Kennedy obviously saw the concern, but he said that is not going to happen with him.
BE (00:35:11):
Yeah. Well, like John Kennedy, I believe in the separation of church and state but not the separation of people of faith and institutions of government. You want your elected officials to have an active faith statement, but you need to always remember that you are not serving in public office a particular denomination or religious tradition. Henry Waxman, who is Jewish, was elected with me in 1974. I want him to be a faithful member of the Jewish community, but he would never intend to have the Jewish community make the United States a Jewish nation. I think it is true of Muslims who might serve in Congress. I want them to be faithful. I want them to read the Koran, but I do not want to have Sharia law be the law of the land. For conservative Protestants, I want them to be themselves. I do not have any animosity to people who are in the religious right unless that religious right once elected thinks that it can make this a Christian nation. Our founding fathers were very smart to help all of us understand this is a nation that believes in religious pluralism, and we want people of faith and people of no faith to use morals and values that grow out of their tradition, but not to ever allow any individual faith tradition to dominate. In our history, we used to hang people who were Roman Catholics, and we used to torture people who were a different kind of Protestant than we had. I think the founding fathers and mothers said, "Wait, that is not going to make us a very healthy nation, so let us respect everybody's religious tradition."
SM (00:37:29):
What is interesting is that we all know the founding of this country, and the people that come here are made up of people who left their homelands because of religious persecution in many cases. We all know that America is a xenophobic nation that is afraid of people who are different. It has been the whole history. I mean, the Irish. I was even educating my dad more about some of the things that happened between England and Ireland and the Potato Famine and so forth and the treatments. What amazes me today, I am very concerned about that, and I like your thoughts. Some of the attacks on President Obama, and some people say his close links with the Muslim faith. Some people say he is a Muslim. He says he is a Christian. They will not listen to his word. They have their personal opinions. It shoots me back to what was happening in 1960 about the fear of the Pope. Well, now there is a fear that Islam will take over. I know they use the issue of terrorism, but I see this continuing oftentimes a trend where-
BE (00:38:38):
Just remember that the kid that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City was a Roman Catholic, raised in the United States. And if there are terrorists in 60 countries, we do not stop terrorism by bombing capitals. Part of our problem in this country is racism. Part of our problem is fear of the other, and part of our problem is we carry around in our head World War images of what war is about. I think some of the leaders that Obama has, many of the leaders that Bush had were focused on World War II images of the world, and we got to change that view. We need an international police effort on terrorism, but we ought to cut in half our military expenditures. I laugh when I read the newspapers with a tear in my eye when I think about all of the conservatives who say, "We have got to balance the budget, but you cannot cut defense. We have got to balance the budget, but we are going to go to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq without paying for it, without raising taxes." And we got these big deficits. "Oh, those deficits are caused by overspending on healthcare and education and Social Security." That is hogwash. We are in this predicament because we, after 9/11 were manipulated by Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush on the issue of fear. We went after a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 called Iraq. We went after it even though the inspectors were there. There was no hint that they actually had nuclear weapons, or nuclear capability. On the one hand, the political right and the religious right want more expenditures on defense, more expenditures for war, but somehow that does not impact on their thinking on deficits.
SM (00:40:53):
Do you see the link here? You're talking about the fear. Now. The fear in the (19)50s was the fear of the Cold War, the boomer generation when they were younger. The fear of the Cold War, of the potential-
BE (00:41:11):
The Cold War fear started this before the Boomers were elected. The fear of the Cold War grew out of separation of Germany right after World War II. The building of... Russia was a world-class military but a third-class country without the ability to really have an economy that worked. There were all these myths about the former Soviet Union, and I think people who lived through World War II saw it in terms of the exchange of nuclear weapons. I think by the time the boomers got here, and they were very small and children at the time, that fear not only got intensified with the East West struggles, but it also pointed out that even when you tore down the Berlin Wall, you had to find another enemy to be fearful of. So, I think Rumsfeld and Cheney were able to use 9/11 as a way of tapping into the fear that people have. My complaint about Americans is we are dumb. We do not learn from history.
SM (00:42:34):
We do not read history.
BE (00:42:35):
We do not read history. And we do not realize that we have got to send our young people to get an international education and not just a domestic education.
SM (00:42:47):
Global? Yeah. That is been the tough. We have to prepare students for the global world. I remember Henry Cisneros at a conference, way back in the early (19)90s. He was speaking from a Mayor I think of San Antonio. This beautiful college administrator stood up and said, "Well, what is America be going to be like if it is the majority are minorities?" It was shocking to hear it from her, but she was asking a question. I will never forget what he said. He said, "You should not be fearing the future. You should be preparing for the future, because you are going to have bosses who are Latino. You are going to have bosses who are Asian-American, from India, you name it. So we have to prepare students for the world they are going to face because it is a global world." You raised some good points. It is interesting also that McCarthyism, which was trying to label people who spoke up or were politically active as Communists. I see sometimes today for people who may support Muslims in America, they are sometimes paying a price, too. We did a conference, Islam in America, at Westchester University. It was my last coup before we left. We packed the place the entire day, and we brought in the spiritual leader from Detroit who had written a book, and we brought in two authors from New York and we did a tremendous program. It was nine straight programs. We had 400 for every session, and we got criticized for it. In fact, some of our professors went out to speak at other universities and they had people in the audience trying to, "Do you remember when you were at that conference?" That kind of stuff.
BE (00:44:46):
It is the same thing that is happening to Obama by calling him a Socialist and some of the Tea Party folks making him a Fascist. They do not know what a Fascist is. My own concern is that he is not socialist enough.
SM (00:45:05):
One of the things too, that I think it is important, when you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and you think of the Boomer generation, and particularly the activists of that period who were anti-war, they were involved in all the movements. Many of them were the New Left, so they attacked liberals as well as conservatives because LBJ was a liberal, and he was running the war. Nixon, even though he was conservative-
BE (00:45:33):
They defeated Humphrey because Humphrey was not liberal enough.
SM (00:45:37):
Right. How we doing time wise?
BE (00:45:41):
I have got about 15 minutes and then I have got to close up. Sorry. I talk too much.
SM (00:45:46):
That is okay. When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion, and when did it end?
BE (00:45:56):
It is a silly question.
SM (00:45:56):
It is a silly question?
BE (00:45:56):
I am pulling your leg.
SM (00:45:56):
Okay.
BE (00:46:03):
It began 1960. It ended 1969. I think the (19)60s, this is going to sound strange to you, but since you are talking about the boomers, I do not think the (19)60s had as much impact on the boomer generation than the 1970s had on them. I think the 1960s had more of an impact on my generation, those of use that were born in the late (19)30s and early (19)40s and came to adulthood in the (19)60s. And those of us... I was... In 1961, entered college (19)65, graduated from college, (19)68, graduated from graduate school June of (19)68, was full-time minister in city of Philadelphia, riding with the Philadelphia police clergy unit. I think that, starting with the assassination of President Kennedy, where we all were taught about guns in America and war and violence, plus the civil rights tension and the dogs and the fire hoses and that kind of thing, I think that had much more of a psychological impact on my generation. I think that the boomers coming were teenagers in the (19)60s, some of them. Early boomers. Some were tainted by the drug culture and LSD and that kind of thing. But most of them who got into adulthood in (19)71, (19)72, (19)73, where they were tainted, they were tainted by Watergate. They were tainted by prosperity gospel. They were tainted by some of the televangelist movements. They were tainted by money being God as opposed to God being God. And I think it led to the resurgence. They brought us Ronald Reagan, they brought us George Bush. They modified a little bit with Bill Clinton, but I think of President George Bush Jr. was not as impacted by my generation as he was by the...
SM (00:49:03):
1960s.
BE (00:49:05):
Well, more of the 1970s. I think the late (19)60s, (19)70s part of that. So to answer your question, for me the 1960s have not ended.
SM (00:49:21):
You are not the only person who said that.
BE (00:49:24):
Okay. But it is diminishing in that it is smaller and smaller group of us who were impacted by the (19)60s. And I think the next generation is going to be modified by resource depletion. Dr. Jonas Salk spoke at a group of us in Congress before he died. He invented the polio vaccine. And he had a great lecture about what he called epoch A and epoch B. Epoch A for him was those that came after World War II. They are going to raise their kids, they are going to have more money, everything is going to get better. And epoch A was symbolized by consumption, quantity of life, competition. And he said, we need to evolve into epoch B, where we replace competition with cooperation, quantity of life, with quality of life, where the whole limited lifestyle was his view of the future compared to the past. Someone asked him, "Dr. Salk, how do you get from Epoch A to epoch B?" And he said, "Well, in every change in human history, there have been intellectual mutants." And he said, "What we need are teachers and ministers and prophetic leaders who help to bridge the old and the new view." And I think that is at the heart of our current political trauma. We have got people who are lamenting the demise of epoch A, and resisting moving to more stewardship of fragile resources, and are denying things like global warming, denying that we are running out of fossil fuel oil denying that we are running out of natural resources. So I think there is, kind of put it this way, I think there is a new civil war going on that is going on without guns and weapons, but it is going on for the heart and soul of Americans. And in a sense, the heart and soul of the world. And I think those of us who are progressive and liberal need to figure out how we do a better job of being the intellectual mutants that we need for this time.
SM (00:52:22):
The generation gap was certainly well documented. If you remember, there was a Life magazine cover with a young man with the glasses on, and he had the father pointing a finger at him, and the son was pointing a finger back. And in 1980, because you are a very... You care about Vietnam vets, that is where I first met you for the first time when you did a symposium on Agent Orange in Philadelphia. And this book was called The Lost Generation. And it was Senator Webb, Phil Caputo...
BE (00:53:07):
Ford Foundation found out that I had been a leader of working on Agent Orange back in the late (19)70s and early (19)80s, and forcing our government to care for our veterans that they sent me to gather a religious allegation and go to Vietnam and see the impact 35 years after the war on the children and grandchildren of the Vietnamese who are being exposed to Asian Orange.
SM (00:53:35):
Can I have a copy of this?
BE (00:53:36):
That is yours.
SM (00:53:37):
Because that is how I first met you. You probably do not remember, this is even before you came to Western. You were at a symposium, I think it was down near Temple. It was full of Vietnam vets, and you were talking about Agent Orange. And I was very impressed, and I know I am a friend of Harry Gafney. I do not know if you know Harry. And Dan Fraley and Steve Silver and that whole group, Dwight Edwards. And that is how... That was the beginning of I getting to know a lot of the Vietnam vets. And what I am trying to get at you here...
BE (00:54:07):
Do you need more than one copy?
SM (00:54:12):
If I could have a couple of these, I had appreciated it. I think I am going to turn this... It was a book that had a symposium documented, and the symposium was with Phil Caputo, Jim Webb, I think it was Bobby Mueller and James Fallows. And one other person, it was unbelievable.
BE (00:54:42):
Bobby Mueller is working with us on this.
SM (00:54:45):
Well, Bobby was at my retirement. I asked Bobby to come. He is one of the six people that was at my retirement. And what came up in this program is that I think they were talking about the generation gap and Jim Webb made a comment. The comment was, the generation gap is not between parents. Well, it is between parents and sons and daughters, but the real generation campus is within the generation between those who went to Vietnam and those who did not. And Bobby will remember this. It was a great interaction. And it was documented in the Wounded Generation book. Your thoughts on that commentary, whether, and this gets into my real big question here is, as a nation, I ask a question oftentimes, have we healed from the tremendous divisions that took place in the (19)60s and (19)70s between those who supported the war and against, between those who are black and white and all the other issues? And I took students to Washington to meet Senator Musky in 1995, and we asked this question to him, and I will give you his response in a minute. And I know Senator Nelson said it affected the body politic. But people do not want walk around Washington saying, I did not heal from the Vietnam War. Your thoughts on whether we as a nation have a problem with healing within this generation that grew after World War II, particularly those who served in Vietnam, 3 million plus, and those who may have been the anti-war people.
BE (00:56:25):
Well, before I answer your question, let me just say, I was the first anti-war activist on the Veterans Affairs Committee. And had I not been put on the Veterans Affairs Committee, I would have lost my elections. And at first, I did not want to be on the Veterans Affairs Committee, but I learned that even though you oppose the war, you can love the warrior. And even though you oppose the war, you can work on things like readjustment counseling centers, Agent Orange, post-traumatic stress disorder, et cetera. I would go to your question about the healing. I would only modify the comment about the generation gap being between those who went to war and those who did not. I think it is more complicated than that. I think it is between those who went to war and those who did not. Those who supported integration and those who did not. Those who understood the need for African Americans to be part of the quality of life in America and have resources. Expanded to those who believe that you cannot build walls to keep out Mexicans or people crossing your border, because the world has gotten complicated. I think there is a division between those who live by the God of money and those that live by the commitment to social justice and caring for people. So it is too simplistic to say it is just as though every... Because every veteran who served in Vietnam was not a hero.
SM (00:58:24):
So you know that from me, Eli, right?
BE (00:58:27):
Yeah. Many were. But there were good people and bad people in the war, and there were good people and bad people in the anti-war movement. And as human beings, what we have done to each other has been to pour salt on the wounds of race, the wounds of violence. And I think there is a division, a generation gap between those who think you can solve the world's problems by military action, and those who think you need to solve the problems with something like three cups of tea. The book that gentleman wrote is my thinking about how we should have handled Afghanistan. We are handling it with weapons and war, and every time we inadvertently kill a civilian, we have made a family of terrorists. And that is where the gap is. And I think you see it every day on nightly news. The gap is between Fox News and MSNBC. The gap is between Colbert and Rush Limbaugh. Glenn Beck is the hero of the anti-movement. And I would say both the left and the right, but mostly the right love and thrive on not allowing the nation to heal. And you see it internally in the Senate today where McConnell says, we are going to be the... We are going to be no until we can defeat Obama. And we do not want Obama to succeed. And one of the reasons I am president of Common Cause is I think John Gardner was right, that everybody had special interest in Washington except the average, ordinary people. And hostility of the generation gap is an internal gap between those who, once elected, serve the public interest as opposed to the special interest. And money is a corrosive influence in our whole system. So it is too simplistic to say it is those who went to war and those who did not, because those of us who did not go into the war, many of us worked very hard to provide the warrior healing through Regis counseling centers, the new GI Bill for the all-volunteer military, and to make sure that whether you are for or against a war, you are always for healing the soldier who goes to war. Some of us work to try to stop war.
SM (01:01:42):
Do you believe that the people who were the anti-war people, many of them are college students and well-known anti-war people, that they consider themselves veterans of the war too?
BE (01:01:59):
They are. We just gave an award, a lifetime Achievement Award to Daniel Ellsberg.
SM (01:02:06):
I am interviewing him. I am interviewing him a week from Monday.
BE (01:02:10):
He just received the John Gardner Lifetime Achievement Award in California. And he was introduced by Pete McCloskey, a marine. Former congressman. Former Democrat now... Former Republican now Democrat. But Pete McCloskey introduced him. The three of us were on the same stage together. There is two former congressmen and Daniel Ellsberg. I think of Dr. King as a hero. I think of William Sloane Coffin as a hero. I think of Kate McCloskey as a hero. I think of Daniel Ellsberg as a hero.
SM (01:02:52):
Daniel and Philip.
BE (01:02:53):
And Philip. I think of...
SM (01:02:57):
Malcolm Boyd.
BE (01:02:58):
Malcolm Boyd was a hero. Yeah. You do not have to go to war to be a hero. I think that people have given their lives for justice, peace, they are heroes too. My picture, and I have got to leave... My picture of a real hero, is the Chinese guy with two shopping bags standing in front of the tank.
SM (01:03:28):
We do not know whatever happened to him.
BE (01:03:30):
He is my hero.
SM (01:03:38):
Wow.
BE (01:03:38):
I guess I respect those who are willing to stand in front of the tanks.
SM (01:03:42):
Do you have any final thoughts on the boomer generation itself with respect to... A lot of the boomers when they were young, felt that they were... Last question. They were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society, that they were going to hopefully end war, bring peace, end racism, sexism, really kind of cure everything. Kind of be the panacea for a lot of the issues that were facing us in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. Do you feel that because of the fact that we still have a war and that we still have a lot of the, we still have racism, although we have come a long way, we still, as David Garrow said to me, the historian, I said, the accomplishments for gay and lesbian Americans has been unbelievable in terms of one of the results of the (19)60s. And of course, you got the environmental movement of Gaylord Nelson.
BE (01:04:42):
Let me answer your question because I got to go. I think that the every generation makes its contribution. When I grew up, everybody I knew smoked. No one smokes anymore. When I grew up, women were making 30 cents on the dollar that men were making. That gap is closing, and there are more rights and privileges according to women. When I grew up, there was segregation. There is still separation of the races, but much more tolerance, much more sharing, much more riding in the same bus together, in all the seats, any seat being used. So in terms of racism, there have been good movements. Environmental movement has been good. Much more quality of life issues have been improved over time. So there is good things. And one other good thing we have not talked about, which I want to think about in your book, I think the Boomer generation is going to teach us how to retire better than previous generations. They are going to want exercise rooms and theater and all of the amenities to be close to retirement. But hopefully they will also teach us that there is life after retirement. That 65 to 95-year-old need a job. They may not need a...
SM (01:06:22):
I am going back to work in a year.
BE (01:06:24):
They may not need as much of a salary, but they will need a stipend and benefits. We need a whole Peace Corps for senior adults. We need to find out how the 65 to 95-year-old can make a contribution to our society. So there is lots of positives. I think the negative is that there has been an increase in greed. Hold on second. See what happens when you talk about greed, whole thing goes up.
SM (01:06:50):
Let me just turn this over here. This is the slow one. There we go.
BE (01:07:08):
I think there has been an increase in greed, an increase in selfishness and cause of the religious right's personal salvation push, There is too much everyone for themselves. And I think one of the negative legacies that this generation is leaving us, and part of my generation is responsible for it too, is that nobody wants to pay taxes. And if you think about it, all the states are now moving to casinos to fund their schools and their elderly programs because nobody wants to pay taxes, even though we pay less in taxes than we did 30 years ago as a percentage of our income. And I think that is a very damaging legacy to leave. The other damaging legacy that has been left by those who are about to retire is that too many politicians have been caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. And too few young people see public service as an honorable profession. And my tears this week over Charlie Rangle was more about how many young blacks will avoid going into public service because they saw an 80-year-old black politician tarnished by his own lifestyle. And much of Charlie Rangel's problem was not corruption, it was sloppiness and arrogance and all of those kinds of things.
SM (01:08:48):
And how about the Vietnam veteran Cunningham, who was revered for his Vietnam service, now he is in jail.
BE (01:08:54):
Well, he took almost $5 million from military folk. So the handful of boomers who modeled bad behavior impacted more than a handful of others and other generations to have soiled views of the future. I have got to go.
SM (01:09:23):
Let me take two more pictures and then... I am going to take one definitely with only the backdrop. So this one is the one you are going to give to your wife. So if you stand right in front of it, and I will make sure the only thing I have in the back. Okay. Right there. So the only thing I am going to have in the backdrop is going to be that.
BE (01:09:42):
I think you should turn it on.
SM (01:09:42):
Yeah. And maybe one more.
BE (01:09:42):
That camera still have film in it?
SM (01:09:53):
Yes, it does.
BE (01:09:54):
Oh man, you are old fashioned.
SM (01:09:56):
Yep. Well, I have a digital, but this camera is good. There you go. Very good. Do you think when Janrus wrote his book...
SM (01:10:03):
Very good. Do you think when Jan Scruggs wrote his book, To Heal a Nation, that the wall has done some sort of a job in healing the nation? He not only talked about healing Vietnam vets and their families, but he talked about the nation itself.
BE (01:10:17):
It has helped, but remember Ronald Reagan said, "Tear down the wall." Maybe we need to tear down walls, but we need memorials. So I think that more as a memorial. Memorials are healing.
SM (01:10:36):
Here, if you can sign that to me, and I am glad you are in charge. I have John Edgar... Oh, not John Edgar, John Gardner's books. I have. I think I have all of them. Remember I read, No Easy Victories and then I had his book that I remember. I kind of encourage students to read, which is his book-
BE (01:10:54):
What do you go by in terms-
SM (01:10:56):
Stephen.
BE (01:10:57):
Stephen?
SM (01:10:57):
Yep.
BE (01:10:57):
P-H?
SM (01:11:12):
Yep. P-H-E-N. The interview itself includes questions that have been asked to all people, but there are also some specific questions and that have been geared toward your life as well.
BE (01:11:21):
Okay.
SM (01:11:22):
How did you become who you are? Could you describe your upbringing, your high school and college years, and maybe some of the role models and or historic figures you read about that inspired you?
BE (01:11:35):
Well, I am glad I gave you a copy of my book so you can find out all the details because the book is more of a biography of how I have done what I have done. As you know, I have been a United Methodist minister, I have been a congressman, I have been a faculty member at Swarthmore College. I ran the finance area for Senator Paul Simon of Illinois when he ran for president. I was head of the Committee for National Security under Paul Warnke who negotiated the SALT II agreement. I spent 10 years as president of a graduate school. I spent seven and a half years as head of the National Council of Churches, and now I have been three years as president of Common Cause. All of my vocational life in all those different professions have centered around my mantra, which I have kind of rephrased in the last couple of years. But it is to address fear, fundamentalism, and Fox News with a commitment to peace, poverty, and planet Earth. My wife of 46 years, who I have known for 52 years will tell you I only have one speech and a thousand illustrations focused on ending the poverty that kills healing the earth and working on peace and non-violence issues. Now you asked the question, how did I get started? I grew up in a blue collar family in a white collar community. I grew up in suburban Philadelphia while we were in a lower economic bracket than our neighbors and friends. My father never owned an automobile, never drove a car. I taught my mother how to drive at age, when she was 48 years old. We did everything on buses and trolleys between Philadelphia, Upper Darby, Chester, media, communities around Philadelphia. Yeah, we were, my brother and I, my older brother were sent to church so that my mother and father could sleep in on Sunday mornings. And I went to Sunday school and church services in the Methodist Church. And in those days, which was in the 1950s, there were an awful lot of progressive ministers who were linking gospel messages to civil rights, human rights, people's rights. When I became 15, 16, I went to a church camp and a couple ministers that I discovered, some ministers that taught me that ministers do not have to be boring, that they can be committed to social justice. I also took a tour of some poverty areas in Philadelphia and was surprised by my reaction to seeing poor people. In June of 1968, the Methodist Church sent me to 11 countries in Europe, not (19)68. In 1961, they sent me to 11 countries, including Italy, Germany, Austria, France. But I also got in behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1961. And one of the most powerful experiences was in an orphanage that we visited in Naples, Italy. You had to travel by bus through a terrible slum, seeing the worst poverty you could see. And the bus went through a large gated building, and inside were a couple of hundred children who were orphans, all clean, all dressed, all cared for by faith related folks, all singing and joyful. And so the contrast between the abject poverty on the outside of the building and the care that was given on the inside had an impact on me. I had decided pretty early on to be a minister and thought that my whole life was going to be in the ministry. I wanted to be an urban minister. And in fact, that is the direction I went. A couple other incidents shaped my thinking. One was at age 19, I became pastor of my own church called the Gilbert and United Methodist Church in Gilbert and Pennsylvania. This is June of 1962. I am all of 19 had never been to a funeral, had never... I was given permission to do communion and baptisms and weddings, and most of it was to pay my way through college. After they had given churches to ordained elders in the Methodist Church and retired ministers and seminary students, they had churches left over. And so as a young, beginning my second year in college, I was pastor of a church. And the interesting thing was the church in Gilbert, the whole town was owned by the Gilbert and Coal company. All of the parishioners were related to the coal mine. They owned only the inside of their houses. The coal company owned all the land underneath their houses, and it was a strip mining area. The men were all dying in their (19)50s of black lung disease. And even though the people were very poor, they were very loving and caring and adopted a young preacher, taught me a lot. So those kinds of experience began to move me. I would say another defining experience, which I do describe in the book, is in February of 1968, I was invited by William Sloan Coffin, who was at that time the chaplain at Yale, later to become a minister at Riverside Church in New York. But Bill Coffin invited a group of people concerned about the Vietnam War to a meeting here in Washington at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. And I boarded a bus in northern New Jersey where I was at seminary and traveled to Washington for the first time. And as we got to the door of the church, the bus came to the curb. The radical religious rite of that day was a guy by the name of Carl McIntire, and he was out of Cape May, New Jersey. He was the Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jim Dobson of that day. And he had organized a protest carrying signs that said, kill a commie for Christ's sake, and trying to get us not to cross his picket line. And as coming out of a blue-collar union family, I broke my father's dictum, never to cross a picket line and went inside the church, went up into the balcony of the church and listened to speaker after speaker, connect these with poverty and war. And in doing that, I began to recalibrate my own thinking. And the keynote speaker was a young guy, 39 years of age by the name of Dr. Martin Luther King.
SM (01:19:22):
Oh my God.
BE (01:19:22):
This is five weeks before he was assassinated. And he inspired me. I think of myself as a disciple of Dr. King, read his material. Less than 10 years later by accident, I got elected to the United States Congress. And a couple of years after that, I was one of 12 members of the Select Committee on assassinations looking into the death of Dr. King. These books over here are all the documents on the committee that was researching the death of Dr. King and John F. Kennedy. So I interviewed James Earl Ray the assassin as a young member of Congress. So...
SM (01:20:13):
Wow.
BE (01:20:14):
Dr. King by accident has had quite an impact. Let us just give you the smallest, it is only those persons that we are serving-
SM (01:20:27):
Walter Cronkite.
BE (01:20:28):
Yes. Remember him and Sam briefly in California.
SM (01:20:31):
Yep. Yep. Chris Dodd.
BE (01:20:34):
Yep.
SM (01:20:37):
Wow.
BE (01:20:39):
So this is a long answer to your short question. I think poverty and King vaccinated me to care about ending the poverty that kills, connecting poverty to war. And it was my father who connected me to the environment. He loved the trees and the land that he worked so hard on. Someone... He paid $13,000 for a house in the suburbs without the ability to have an automobile or a car. He worked 37 years at the same desk testing relays for General Electric, died at age 56 with probably killed by the chemicals he was using in the workplace or the fact that he smoked a lot. He was offered million dollars for his piece of land to build a shopping center. And he turned them down because the trees on his land, the environment were important and environment and introduced me to the early books in the (19)60s, The Greening of America.
SM (01:21:48):
Oh yeah.
BE (01:21:49):
Some of the early conversations about the environment. When I decided to run for Congress, I became kind of the environmental candidate. If the Republicans had run any candidate against me who cared about the environment or cared about women's issues, I would have lost because my district was the most Republican district in the nation. I had a Democratic congressman.
SM (01:22:16):
Yep.
BE (01:22:17):
And I got elected at age 31 as you know.
SM (01:22:19):
Yep. When you were in that room with, I did not know you were in the room with Dr. King six weeks before he was assassinated, I am-
BE (01:22:28):
We also marched in Arlington Cemetery that same day together.
SM (01:22:31):
Wow. Did... He touched your life obviously with his words and obvious he was a great preacher and his delivery and everything. But I interviewed another person whose husband was in Harvard when Dr. King came, or excuse me, Michigan State, when Dr. King came to speak. And he had said that it was the greatest experience he had ever had in his life listening to him. But I do not know if he is putting me on, but he said there was something about the aura and the atmosphere that he said, I did not think this guy was going to live long. And that was a commentary that from his Michigan State speech, when this person was at college there, I do not know if you felt bad at all that because he was certainly different and he had a lot of enemies.
BE (01:23:27):
At the time. I was not smart enough to think those thoughts. I was all eyes and ears except for the assassination of President Kennedy. I was lulled into thinking we were a peaceful nation. But if you look back on the assassination of Kennedy, King, Bobby Kennedy, and the attempt on Lawless' life, and you go back and look in history in terms of all the attempts on president's lives, you realize we're a pretty violent nation.
SM (01:24:06):
I think there is an author that wrote a book, Violence in America. Olga Demery was a very popular book in the (19)70s and talked about Native Americans and all the things that we had done to people in the south, you... It is interesting, we are about the same age. And I think I mentioned to your secretary that my grandfather was a Methodist minister Peekskill, New York from 54, excuse me, from 1936 to 1954. And he died in 56. And then I had, we went to Methodist Church in Courtland, New York growing up as a kid. And Dr. Nathan was our minister. And it is interesting you said about social messages. My mom used to tell me a story that we would go to church, I do not remember this, but we would go to church and I used to say to her, I wish they would cut out the singing out. Cause all I cared about was hearing his message. And this is like a second, third, fourth grade kid. There were messages that he gave. So you were right on about the social messages. One of the things when... The one talks about the (19)50s and (19)60s, one rarely talks about the religious leaders that influenced the boomers growing up. So when I look at religion, not just politics, religion itself, I think of Billy Graham, Norman Vincent Peale, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, who were very religious, Bishop Sheen that-
BE (01:25:33):
Happy trails to you...
SM (01:25:33):
But they were very religious too. And they had Christmas albums and they took in kids. Bishop Sheen was on TV then. And then as we, and of course Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel and Jesse Jackson, Reverend Schuh and Pat Robertson, these are people that I think influenced Boomers over the-
BE (01:25:49):
Founding of the National Council of Churches was founded in 1950, was very much a part of the Civil Rights Movement. Brown versus Board of Education, the National Council of Churches had, I was General Secretary of that Council, but at 1957, had Dr. King as its keynote speaker, had a lot of late people, including a guy by the name of J. Irwin Miller. He was a late person. And in October 1967, Esquire Magazine had a cover. It says, 'The man who ought to be the next President of the United States.'
SM (01:26:28):
Wow.
BE (01:26:29):
He was head of Cummins Engine in, which was a big industrial thing. He was a Republican. He was also chair of the board at the National Council of Churches. And he was one of the founders of Common Cause. He worked with John Gardner.
SM (01:26:49):
John Gardner. Yeah.
BE (01:26:50):
There were three Republicans who were on the articles of incorporation. One was a guy by the name of Andrew High School who was head of Time publishing. One was John Gardner and one was J. Irwin Miller. And you... I had Gardner look at some of these pictures. J. Irwin Miller is with Dr. King in some of the signing of the Civil Rights Movement issues. And so there's a whole bunch of Republican, mainly madder Republicans, Eisenhower Republicans who began to speak up on civil rights, human rights, and people's rights who were also people of faith. And I think it goes back to winning World War II. You get, I am born in 1943, May 29th Life or Look Magazine came out that week and had Rosie the Riveter on the cover, woman who symbolized women working in factories to win the war. But the war is won and the Congress passes the most important piece of legislation. After the war, which was the GI Bill-
SM (01:28:20):
(19)48.
BE (01:28:25):
All of the blue-collar workers who went to war came back and became the white-collar workers of the (19)50s and (19)60s. Some of them became ministers, some of them became teachers, some of them became lawyers and doctors and other kinds of things. Sprawl started, people started to get wealthy from development of communities and suburbs expanded and people were moving out of the cities. Churches were being built. Every few minutes a new church was being dedicated and churches were packed. The sense of victory, we fought evil and we won. And every child will do better than their parents did. And their parents are doing better than their parents did. And the American dream is alive and well and had that sense. Brown versus Board of education happens in (19)54 and some of the hostility of civil rights. And suddenly in the (19)60s, you have got not only the war in Vietnam, you have got the burning of the cities, you have got the tension around civil rights and human rights. You have got the Commission on Poverty that comes out with a scathing report on the, that Johnson began the war on poverty efforts. And I think the faith leaders had read the Bible, thoughtfully enough to discover that God cares about poor people. I think some of the new religious leaders, the conservatives read the Bible and somehow did not find out that Jesus cared about poor people and misread all of those stories and somehow come out of the text believing God is the God of wealth. God is the God of prosperity. But the (19)50s and (19)60s, we were vaccinated by faith leaders who challenged government to respect people by race regardless of creed or color. And were willing in a sense, to fight a civil war over it. And then we did not go back to the battlefield with the South in terms of military war, but we did send in troops to make sure that schools were integrated and people who were part of our society became full partners. And Dr. King was kind of the disciple of that movement.
SM (01:31:07):
It leads into the area where the ones you address, and that is these periods of boomers have been alive. Keep in mind that those people born, say between (19)37 and (19)45, I think are closer to the boomer, the front edge boomers that were born between (19)46 and (19)56. Then those born between boomers that are from (19)57 to say (19)64 because they were graduate students, they inspired and were right by the side of many of the older boomers. But when you look at the different periods in America since 1946, and we are talking 64 years here now in the First Boomers now coming into Social Security this year, you talk very, you have already said something very important when you look at church, I can take the experience of my life. I love going to church when every Sunday, all throughout the (19)50s, when in the (19)60s, then my dad moved and we were quite away from the church. But it was that period that I saw church attendants seemed to wane as we started to head into the (19)60s. And then something happened, like you mentioned in the (19)70s, and I like your thoughts on this. In the late (19)70s, the religious rights seemed to come into power. Jerry Falwell, whether it be Oral Roberts, they were very Pat Robertson.
BE (01:32:36):
Jim Bakker, Tammy Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart. What happened was that (19)50s and (19)60s were upward mobility, growing of the suburbs, challenged with racism, challenged with poverty. But a society that said, we have got to address these issues if we're going to be great. By the early (19)70s, parents were telling their kid, do not go into ministry, do not go into social service, get an education, go to college. Some of us got to college by the skin of our teeth, but you're smarter than we are. So get a degree so you can make money. And the prosperity gospel got caught in. And on the political side, you had the aftermath of Barry Goldwater's loss and the conservative political, and then you had the emergence of religious conservatives who stayed out of politics mostly. And Billy Graham stayed out mostly. And many of the evangelists were talking about personal salvation and not very interested in politics. But you get into the (19)70s and alongside of the secular effort to make money, you had a whole bunch of what I call charlatan religious leaders who said, send us a dollar and we will pray for you. Put your hand on the radio set. And when we finish this prayer, write us a check for $1, $5-
SM (01:34:25):
Reverend Schuller or-
BE (01:34:28):
$10. And this is Jimmy and Swaggart and Jimmy Bakker and those guys, the televangelists, they did not want the money as much as they wanted your name and address because they were smart enough to use computers and know that they could amass large amounts of wealth by putting those names and addresses on a computer and keeping track and talking to them by region and by area. And initially putting a stamp on it, on a newsletter and getting it out to folks, but then getting it into a computer. So it was even cheaper.
SM (01:35:06):
It is like the DNC today, right?
BE (01:35:08):
Well, I think in 1980, there was a civil marriage between, probably started in (19)60, in (19)76, (19)77, (19)78, a civil marriage between these charlatans religious radical and the political right that made Ronald Reagan, the Christian president and Jimmy Carter and also ran Ronald Reagan would not go to church. But yeah, he was envisioned as being the guru. He was going to stop Roe versus Wade, which was an early (19)70s Supreme Court decision is all the conservative state and the religious right and the political right out-hustled the left. The left took 50 minutes to answer a question. The left did not deep frame some of the justice language. Whereas the religious right, the political right were willing to sloganeer simple savers, and so the left gets out hustled. And I think the religious right thought that if they had this civil marriage with the Republicans, that they would turn back Roe versus Wade. That they would be able to prosper in kind of not just the old time religion, but focused on personal salvation. And the wealthy were blessed by God because they were wealthy. God must be blessing them. I think they forgot the passage that talks about how hard it is for a rich man to enter heaven, where they said, it is easier for a camel than go through the eye of a needle and for a rich man to enter heaven. And they saw Jesus in a tuxedo more than touching the hem of a prostitute, hem of the dress of a prostitute or touching the leper or hugging a poor person. And so you have got this tension that I think has actually grown into the split in our country. We are divided three ways, a radical Christian and political right on one side, moderate to progressive liberals on the other side, and a whole host of people that are in the middle. And the reason I wrote the book, Middle Church, which goes against, goes against now that is-
SM (01:37:54):
Oh, Okay. Yep.
BE (01:37:55):
The reason I wrote that book was to go after Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and the religious right. But it is middle church, middle synagogue, middle mosque. And my argument in the book is that the religious left failed, and we failed because we would do calpoint, point, counterpoint with the religious right. We forgot to evangelize the middle. And you have got a whole host of Americans in the middle who are too easily swayed by patriotism and false morality that many on the left have forgotten to use that patriotism and morality language. And that book could have been called Middle America. It is more of a secular political book then a churchy book. But it will give you some idea if you read it, some of these thoughts.
SM (01:39:01):
But where would you place in, we all know what the Beatles did. They went into any now organized religion. They went off to them, Maharishi or whatever. It was fairly common that a lot of people are going off into Zen Buddhism. I interviewed Peter Coyote and he told me, the actor, that if it was not for Zen Buddhism, he would not be alive today. I mean, it is that important for him to relax. He has been doing it for 35 years. And so a lot of people became Zen Buddhist. A lot of people like the Beatles, and not just the Beatles, because they were well known, but other people got into all these maharishis and they came to college campuses in the late (19)60s. You had the Moonies that were everywhere. And there was this attitude, and correct me if I am wrong, that a lot of the boomer kids and a lot of young adults for some reason went against anything that was in a, were position of authority. They were against their political leaders. They were against their religious leaders, they were against politicians, the college administrators. So the inner-inner spirituality became the thing in the late (19)60s, in the (19)70s. Your thoughts on this inner spirituality where you do not need to go to church. It is just that kind of-
BE (01:40:21):
I will answer that question, but let me challenge something you said. I would not use the phrase a lot. I would use some because I think the majority did what their parents told them to do. Go to college, become something, get a profession. But the (19)60s and (19)70s are marked by a search, a search religiously, a search psychologically, a search for meaning, a search for life. And not only did folks search alternative religions, but they also searched alternative lifestyles, commune movement, and others. And you remember some of this came out of Woodstock, some of it came out of the anti-war movement. Some of it, the draft was there. And people had to ask themselves, is the United States worth dying for?
SM (01:41:30):
Yeah.
BE (01:41:31):
And if not, do I go to Canada? What do I think about 58,000 people being killed in Vietnam and hundreds of thousands being wounded, and what do I think if I care about integration, about the fact that liberals were disappearing here and there being killed and lynched and blacks were being attacked. And it was a big struggle for the identity of America. So there is not one issue that it was a small important cluster. I remember when I got elected to Congress, some of my friends said, why would you do that? Why do not you stay on the outside of government and fight the corruption, fight the bad guys who are in government in those days, you know, had Watergate and you had a lot of lack of modeling of good behavior. And I think there was that tension in our society. My own personal view is that you need people inside the tent and people outside the tent, people inside government, people outside government. I have got five honorary doctorate degrees, but only four arrests for civil disobedience. If I have any regrets in my life, it is that I have not been arrested enough. And-
SM (01:43:09):
Dr. King be proud is because Dr. King used to always say that, if you're not willing to go to jail for your belief, what are you out there for?
BE (01:43:16):
Right.
SM (01:43:17):
Not doing violent things.
BE (01:43:18):
But my friend Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary sings a song for me once in a while about, "Have You Been To Jail For Justice." Good words in that song.
SM (01:43:28):
You are right. Right. What other things we... Well know that when President Kennedy, well when he was running for president, the issue with the Catholic Church and that religion would influence his decisions. Obviously, that did not happen. But what did that say about the America of 1960, about fearful that the Pope was going to run the United States of government? And John Kennedy obviously saw that the concern, but he said that is not going to happen with him.
BE (01:44:05):
Yeah. Well, like John Kennedy, I believe in the separation of church and state, but not the separation of people of faith and institutions of government. You want your elected officials to have an active faith statement, but you need to always remember that you are not serving in public office a particular denomination or religious tradition. Henry Waxman, whose Jewish was elected with me in 1974, I want him to be a faithful member of the Jewish community, but he would never intend to have the Jewish community make the United States a Jewish nation. I think it is true of Muslims who might serve in Congress. I want them to be faithful. I want them to read the Quran, but I do not want to have Sharia law lead the law of land.
SM (01:45:02):
Right.
BE (01:45:02):
I do not want to have Sharia law be the law of the land. For conservative Protestants, I want them to be themselves. I do not have any animosity to people who are in the religious right, unless that religious right once elected thinks that it can make this a Christian nation. Our founding fathers were very smart to help all of us understand this is a nation that believes in religious pluralism. We want people of faith and people of no faith to use morals and values that grow out of their tradition, but not to ever allow any individual faith tradition to dominate. In our history, we used to hang people who were Roman Catholics. We used to torture people who were a different kind of Protestant than we had. I think the founding fathers and mothers said, "Hey, that is not going to make us a very healthy nation, so let us respect everybody's religious tradition." What is interesting is that you do not know the founding of this country and the people that come here are made up of people who left their homelands because of religious persecution in many cases. We all know that America is a xenophobic nation, that is afraid of people who are different, in the whole history. I mean, the Irish. I was even educating my dad more about some of the things that happened between England and Ireland and the Potato Famine and so forth and the treatment. What amazes me today, I am very concerned about it, and I would like your thoughts on some of the attacks on President Obama, and some people say his close links with the Muslim faith. Some people say he is a Muslim. He says he is a Christian. They will not listen to his word. They have their personal opinions. It kind of shoots me back to what happened in 1960, about the fear of the Pope. Well, then there is a fear that Islam will take over. I know they use the issue of terrorism, but I see this continuing, oftentimes a trend where-
SM (01:47:17):
Just remember that-
BE (01:47:19):
The kid that blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City was a Roman Catholic raised in the United States. And if there are terrorists in 60 countries, we do not stop terrorism by bombing capitals. Part of our problem in this country is racism. Part of our problem is fear of the other. And part of our problem is we carry around in our heads, world war images of what war is about. And I think some of the leaders that Obama has, many of the leaders that Bush had were focused on World War II images of the world, and we got to change that view. We need an international police effort on terrorism, but we ought to cut in half our military expenditures. I laugh when I read the newspapers with a tear in my eye when I think about all of the conservatives who say, "We have got to balance the budget," but you cannot cut defense. We have got to balance the budget, but we're going to go to war in Afghanistan and in Iraq without paying for it, without raising taxes, and we got these big deficits. All those deficits are caused by over-spending on healthcare and education and social security. Hogwash. We are in this predicament because we, after 9/11, were manipulated by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush on the issue of fear, we went after a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11 called Iraq. We went after it even though the inspectors were there. There was no hint that they actually had nuclear weapons or nuclear capability. And on the one hand, the political right and the religious right wanted more expenditures on defense, more expenditures for war, but somehow that does not impact on their thinking on deficits.
SM (01:49:24):
Do you see the link here? You are talking about the fear now. The fear in the (19)50s was the fear of the Cold War from the boomer generation. They were [inaudible] the fear of the Cold War, the potential-
BE (01:49:41):
Cold War fear started before the boomers were elected. It was the fear grew of the cult war grew out of the separation of Germany right after World War II and the building of... Russia was a world-class military, but a third-class country without the ability to really have an economy that worked. And there were all these myths about the former Soviet Union, and I think people who lived through World War II saw in terms of the exchange of nuclear weapons. And I think by the time the boomers got here and they were very small and children at the time, that fear not only got intensified with the East-West struggle, but it also pointed out that even when you tore down the Berlin Wall, you had to find another enemy to be fearful of. And so I think Rumsfeld and Cheney were able to use 9/11 as a way of tapping into the fear that people have. And my complaint about Americans is we are dumb. We do not learn from history and-
SM (01:51:01):
We do not read history.
BE (01:51:01):
We do not read history, and we do not realize that we have got to send our young people to get an international education and not just a domestic education.
SM (01:51:10):
Global. Yeah. That has been the talk. We have to prepare students for the global world. I remember Henry Cisneros at a conference, golly way back in the early (19)90s. He was speaking for a mayor, I think, of San Antonio. And this beautiful college administrator stood up and said, "Well, what is America going to be like if it is the majority are minorities?" And it was shocking to hear it from her, but she was asking a question and he said... I will never forget what he said. He said, "You should not be fearing the future. You should be preparing for the future because you are going to have bosses who are Latino. You are going to have bosses who are Asian American and from India, you name it. And so we have to prepare students for the world they are going to face because it is a global world." And you raised some good points. It is interesting also that McCarthyism, which was trying to label people who spoke up or were politically active as communists. I see sometimes today for people who may support Muslims in America are sometimes paying a price too for... We did a conference, Islam in America at Westchester University. It was my last coup probably before we left. We packed the place the entire day and we brought in the spiritual leader from Detroit who had written a book, and we brought in two authors from New York, and we did a tremendous program, and it was nine straight program. We had a 400 for every session, and we got criticized for it. In fact, some of our professors went out to speak at other universities and they had people in the audience trying to, "Do you remember when you were at that conference," and all that kind of stuff.
BE (01:53:04):
Well, it is the same thing that is happening to Obama by calling him a socialist, and some of the Tea Party folks making him a fascist. They do not know what a fascist is. And my own concern is that he is not socialist enough.
SM (01:53:19):
Well, one of the things too that I think is important. When you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and you think of the boomer generation, and particularly the activists of that period who were anti- war. They were down in all the movement. Many of them were the new left. And so they attacked liberals as well as conservatives because LBJ was a liberal when he was running the war. Nixon was the... Even though he was conservative-
BE (01:53:47):
They defeated Humphrey.
SM (01:53:49):
Right.
BE (01:53:49):
Because Humphrey was not liberal enough.
SM (01:53:51):
Right. How are we doing time-wise?
BE (01:53:54):
I have about 15 minutes and then I have got to close up. Sorry. I talk too much.
SM (01:53:59):
That is okay. When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion, and when did it end?
BE (01:54:03):
It is a silly question.
SM (01:54:12):
Silly question?
BE (01:54:14):
I am just pulling your leg. It began in 1960 and it ended in 1969.
SM (01:54:18):
Oh, yeah.
BE (01:54:27):
I think the (19)60s... This is going to sound strange to you, but since you are talking about the boomers, I do not think the (19)60s had as much impact on the boomer generation than the 1970s had on them. I think the 1960s had more of an impact on my generation, those of us who were born in the late (19)30s and early (19)40s and who came to adulthood in the (19)60s. And those of us, I was... In 1961, entered college in (19)65, graduated from college in (19)68, and graduated from graduate school. June of (19)68 was a full-time minister in the city of Philadelphia, writing on the Philadelphia police clergy unit. I think that starting with the assassination of President Kennedy, where we all were taught about guns in America and war and violence plus the civil rights tension and the dogs and the fire hoses and that kind of thing. I think that had much more of a psychological impact on my generation. I think that the bloomers coming were like teenagers in the (19)60s, some of them early boomers. Some were tainted by the drug culture and LSD and that kind of thing. But most of them who got into adulthood in (19)71, (19)72, and (19)73, where they were tainted, they were tainted by Watergate. They were tainted by the prosperity gospel. They were tainted by some of the televangelist movement. They were tainted by money being God as opposed to God being God. And I think it led to the resurgence. They brought us Ronald Reagan. They brought us George Bush. They modified a little bit with Bill Clinton, but I think of President George Bush Jr. was not as impacted by my generation as he was by the...
SM (01:57:05):
1960s.
BE (01:57:08):
Well, more of the 1970s.
SM (01:57:08):
(19)70s, yeah.
BE (01:57:12):
I think the late (19)60s and (19)70s were part of that. So to answer your question, for me, the 1960s had not ended.
SM (01:57:22):
You are not the only person that said that.
BE (01:57:27):
Okay. But it is diminishing in that it is a smaller and smaller group of us who were impacted by the (19)60s and think the next generation is going to be modified by resource depletion. Dr. Jonas Salk spoke at a group of us in Congress before he died. He invented the polio vaccine, and he had a great lecture about what he called Epoch A and Epoch B. Epoch A for him was those that came after World War II. They are going to raise their kids. They are going to have more money and everything is going to get better. Epoch A was symbolized by consumption, quantity of life, and competition. And he said, "We need to evolve into Epoch B, where we replace competition with cooperation, quantity of life with quality of life," where the whole limited lifestyle was his view of the future compared to the past. Someone asked him, "Dr. Salk, how do you get from Epoch A to Epoch B?" And he said, "Well, in every change in human history, there have been intellectual mutants." And he said, "Well, we need our teachers and ministers and prophetic leaders who helped to bridge the old and the new view." And I think that is what is at the heart of our current political trauma. We have people who are lamenting the demise of Epoch A and resisting moving to more stewardship of fragile resources and are denying things like global warming, denying that we are running out of fossil fuel oil, denying that we are running out of natural resources. So I think there is kind of a... Put it this way, I think there is a new civil war going on. It is going on without guns and weapons, but it is going on for the heart and soul of Americans and in a sense, the heart and soul of the world. I think those of us who are progressive and liberal need to figure out how we do a better job of being the intellectual mutants that we need for this time.
SM (02:00:13):
The generation gap was certainly well-documented. You remember there was a Life magazine cover with a young man with the glasses on, and he had the father pointing a finger at him, and the son was pointing a finger back. And in 1980, because you are a very... You care about Vietnam vets. That is where I first met you for the first time when you did a symposium on Agent Orange in Philadelphia. And this book was called The Lost Generation, and it was Senator Webb, Phil Caputo... Wow.
BE (02:00:55):
Ford Foundation found out that I had been a leader of working on Agent Orange back in the late (19)70s and early (19)80s, and forcing our government to care for our veterans that they sent me to gather a religious delegation and go to Vietnam and see the impact 35 years after the war on the children and grandchildren of the Vietnamese who are being exposed to Agent Orange. So, I-
SM (02:01:21):
Can I have a copy of this?
BE (02:01:22):
That is yours.
SM (02:01:23):
Because see, that is how I first met you. I am trying to remember, this is even before you came to Westchester. You were at a symposium. I think it was down near Temple. It was full of Vietnam vets and you were talking about Agent Orange. And I was very impressed, and I know I am a friend of Harry Gaffney. I do not know if you know Harry and Dan Fraley and Steve Silver and that whole group, Dwight Edwards. And that was the beginning of my getting to know a lot of the Vietnam vets and what I am trying to get at here-
BE (02:01:52):
You need more than one copy?
SM (02:01:53):
Yes. If I could have a couple of these, I would appreciate it. I think I am going to turn this one over. The question I have is, there was a book called The Longest... Let me get this here. Sorry. It was a book that had a symposium documented, and the symposium was with Phil Caputo, Jim Webb, I think it was Bobby Mueller, James Fallows, and one other person. It was unbelievable.
BE (02:02:28):
Bobby Mueller is working with us on this.
SM (02:02:32):
Yeah. Well, Bobby was at my retirement. I asked Bobby to come. He was one of the six people that was at my retirement. And what came up in this program is that I think they were talking about the generation gap, and Jim Webb made a comment. The comment was, "The generation gap is not between parents. Well, it is between parents and sons and daughters, but the real generation gap is within the generation between those who went to Vietnam and those who did not." And Bobby will remember this. It was a great interaction. And it's documented in the Wounded Generation book. Your thoughts on that commentary, whether... And this gets into my real big question here. As a nation, I ask a question oftentimes, have we healed from one of the tremendous divisions that took place in the (19)60s and (19)70s between those who supported the war? And again, between those who are Black and White and all the other issues? And I took students to Washington to meet Senator Musky in 1995, and we asked this question to him, and I will give you his response in a minute. And I know Senator Nelson said it affected the body politic, but people do not want walk around Washington saying, "I did not heal from the Vietnam War." Your thoughts on whether we as a nation have a problem with healing within this generation, the group after World War II, particularly those who serve in Vietnam - 3 million plus - and those who may have in the anti-war people?
BE (02:04:06):
Well, before I answer your question, let me just say, I was the first anti-war activist on the Veterans Affairs Committee, and had I not been put on the Veterans Affairs Committee, I would have lost my elections. And at first, I did not want to be on the Veterans Affairs Committee, but I learned that even though you oppose the war, you can love the warrior. And even though you oppose the war, you can work on things like readjustment counseling centers, Agent Orange, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, et cetera. I would go to your question about healing. I would only modify the comment about the generation gap being between those who went to war and those who did not. I think it is more complicated than that. I think it is between those who went to war and those who did not, those who supported integration and those who did not, those who understood the need for African Americans to be part of a quality of life in America and have resources expanded to those who believe that you cannot build walls to keep out Mexicans or people crossing your border because the world has gotten complicated. I think there is a division between those who live by the god of money and those that live by the commitment to social justice and caring for people. So it's too simplistic to say it is just as though every... Because every veteran who served in Vietnam was not a hero. We know that from Eli, right?
SM (02:06:01):
Yeah.
BE (02:06:01):
Many were, but there were good people and bad people in the war, and there were good people and bad people in the anti-war movement. And as human beings, what we have done to each other has been to pour salt on the wounds of race, the wounds of violence. And I think there is a division, a generation gap between those who think you can solve the world's problems by military action. And those who think you need to solve the problems with something like three cups of tea. The book that gentleman wrote is my thinking about how we should have handled Afghanistan. We were handling it with weapons and war, and every time we inadvertently kill a civilian, we have made a family of terrorists. And that is where the gap is. I think you see it every day on Nightly News. The gap is between Fox News and MSNBC. The gap is between Cobert and Rush Limbaugh. Glenn Beck is the hero of the anti-movement. And I would say both the left and the right, but mostly the right love and thrive on not allowing the nation to heal. And you see it internally in the Senate today where McConnell says, "We are going to be no until we can defeat Obama, and we do not want Obama to succeed." And one of the reasons I am President of Common Cause is I think John Gardner was right, that everybody had a special interest in Washington except average ordinary people. And the hostility of the generation gap is that internal gap between those who once elected, serve the public interest as opposed to the special interest. And money is a corrosive influence in our whole system. So it is too simplistic to say it is those who went to war and those who did not because those of us who did not go into the war, many of us worked very hard to provide the warrior healing through Regis counseling centers, the new GI Bill for the all-volunteer military, and to make sure that whether you are for or against a warrior, you are always for healing the soldier who goes to war, and some of us work to try to stop wars.
SM (02:09:05):
Do you believe that the people who were the anti-war people, many of them are college students and well-known people, that they consider themselves veterans of the war too?
BE (02:09:21):
They are.
SM (02:09:21):
And we-
BE (02:09:22):
We just gave an award, Lifetime Achievement Award to Daniel Ellsberg.
SM (02:09:28):
I am interviewing him. I mean, a week from Monday.
BE (02:09:31):
He just received the John Gardner Lifetime Achievement Award in California. And he was introduced by Pete McCloskey, a Marine, former congressman, former Republican, now Democrat. But Pete McCloskey introduced him. But the three of us were on the same stage together. There are two former congressmen and Daniel Elizabeth. I think of Dr. King as a hero. I think of William Sloane Coffin as a hero. I think of Pete McCloskey as a hero. I think of Daniel Ellsberg as a hero.
SM (02:10:11):
Daniel and Philip.
BE (02:10:12):
And Philip. I think of...
SM (02:10:15):
Malcolm Boyd.
BE (02:10:16):
Malcolm Boyd was a hero. And you do not have to go to war to be a hero. I think that people have given their lives for justice and peace. They are heroes too. My picture... And I have got to leave. My picture of a real hero is the Chinese guy with two shopping bags standing in front of the tank.
SM (02:10:44):
You do not know whatever happened to him.
BE (02:10:46):
He is my hero.
SM (02:10:48):
Wow.
BE (02:10:53):
I guess I respect those who are willing to stand in front of the tanks.
SM (02:10:56):
Do you have any final thoughts on the boomer generation itself with respect to... A lot of the boomers when they were young felt that they were going to... This will be my last question. They were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society, that they were going to hopefully end war to bring peace, end racism, sexism, and really kind of cure everything. Kind of be the panacea for a lot of the issues that were facing us in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. Do you feel that because of the fact that we still have of war and that we still have a lot of the... We still have racism, although we have come a long way. We still, as David Garrow said to me, the historian said the accomplishments for gay and lesbian Americans have been unbelievable in terms of one of the results of the (19)60s. And of course, you got the environmental movement, Gaylor Nelson, and...
BE (02:11:54):
Let me ask you a question because I got to go.
SM (02:11:56):
Yep.
BE (02:11:59):
I think that every generation makes its contribution. When I grew up, everybody I knew smoked. No one smokes anymore. When I grew up, women were making 30 cents on the dollar that men were making. That gap is closing, and there are more rights and privileges according to women. When I grew up, there was segregation. There is still a separation of the races, but much more tolerance, much more sharing, much more riding in the same bus together at all the seats, any seat being used. So in terms of racism, there have been good movements. Environmental movement has been good. Much more quality of life issues have been improved over time. So there is good things. And one other good thing we have not talked about, which you might want to think about in your book. I think the boomer generation is going to teach us how to retire better than previous generations. They are going to want exercise rooms and theater and all of the amenities to be close to retirement, but hopefully, they will also teach us that there is life after retirement. That 65 to 95-year-olds need a job. They may not need a-
SM (02:13:30):
Yeah, I am going back to work in a year.
BE (02:13:31):
They may not need as much of a salary, but they will need a stipend and benefits. We need a whole Peace Corps for senior adults. We need to find out how the 65 to 95-year-olds can make a contribution to our society. So there are lots of positives. I think the negative is that there has been an increase in greed and an increase in selfishness. And because of the religious rights of personal salvation push, there is too much everyone for themselves. And I think one of the negative legacies that this generation is leaving us, and part of my generation is responsible for it too, is that nobody wants to pay taxes. And if you think about it, all the states are now moving to casinos to fund their schools and their elderly programs because nobody wants to pay taxes, even though we pay less in taxes than we did 30 years ago as a percentage of our income. And I think that is a very damaging legacy to leave. The other damaging legacy that has been left by those who are about to retire is that too many politicians have been caught with their fingers in the cookie jar and too few young people see public service as an honorable profession. And my tears this week over Charlie Wrangle was more about how many young Blacks will avoid going into public service because they saw an 80-year-old Black politician tarnished by his own lifestyle and much of Charlie Wrangel's problem was not corruption. It was sloppiness and arrogance and all of those kinds of things.
SM (02:15:37):
And how about the Vietnam veteran Cunningham, who was revered for his Vietnam service? Now, he is in jail.
BE (02:15:43):
Well, he took almost $5 million from military folk. So the handful of boomers who modeled bad behavior impacted more than a handful of others and other generations who have soiled views of the future. I got to go.
SM (02:16:10):
Let me take two more pictures and then I am going to take one definitely with only the background. So this one is the one you are going to give to your wife. So if you stand right in front of it, and I will make sure the only thing I have in the back... Okay. Right there. So the only thing I am going to have in the backdrop is [inaudible] do that.
BE (02:16:29):
[inaudible].
SM (02:16:29):
Yeah. Three, six. One more.
BE (02:16:29):
That camera still have film in it?
SM (02:16:39):
Yes, it does.
BE (02:16:39):
Oh, man. You are old-fashioned.
SM (02:16:41):
Yep. Well, I have a vision over this camera is good.
BE (02:16:44):
There you go.
SM (02:16:45):
Very good. Do you think when Jan Scruggs wrote his book To Heal A Nation that the wall has done some sort of a job in healing the nation? He not only talked about healing Vietnam vets and their families, but he talked about the nation itself.
BE (02:17:02):
It helped. But remember, Ronald Reagan said tear down the wall. Maybe we need to tear down walls, but we need memorials. So I think of it more as a memorial. Memorials are healing.
SM (02:17:20):
If you can sign that to me. I am glad you're in charge. I had John Edgar... Oh, not John here. John Gardner's books. I think I have all of them. I read No Easy Victories and then I have his book that... I remember I kind of encouraged students to read, which is his book.
BE (02:17:37):
What do you go by in terms-
SM (02:17:38):
Steven.
BE (02:17:38):
Steven.
SM (02:17:39):
Yeah.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Robert William Edgar
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Edgar, Robert, 1943-2013 ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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Legislators—United States--Pennsylvania; Democratic Party (Pa.); Edgar, Robert, 1943-2013--Interviews
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Robert William Edgar (1943-2013) was a businessman, administrator, and politician. Edgar was a member of the Democratic Party and congressman in Pennsylvania for six terms. He received his Bachelor's degree from Lycoming College in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity degree from the Theological School of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Edgar died from a heart attack after running on the treadmill at his home.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2010-12-03
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.45a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.45b
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2017-03-14
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McKiernan Interviews
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137:41
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-11-23
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Randy Shaw, 1956-
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Randy Shaw is an attorney, author and activist. He is the executive director and co-founder of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, as well as the co-founder and a Board member of Directors of Uptown Tenderloin, Inc., and the editor of the newspaper, Beyond Chron. Shawn has written five books on activism. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Hastings Law School."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5039,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,5099745],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Randy Shaw is an attorney, author, and activist. He is the executive director and co-founder of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, as well as the co-founder and a Board member of Directors of Uptown Tenderloin, Inc., and the editor of the newspaper, Beyond Chron. Shawn has written five books on activism. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Hastings Law School.</span>
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
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1 Microcassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Affirmative action; Proposition 13; Activism; Activist Handbook; Illegal immigration; Baby boom generation; Tenure in the nineteen seventies; Nineteen seventies; Vietnam War"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":1,"3":{"1":0}}">Affirmative action; Proposition 13; Activism; Activist Handbook; Illegal immigration; Baby boom generation; Tenure in the nineteen seventies; Nineteen seventies; Vietnam War</span>
Duration
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42:07
Subject LCSH
Lawyers; Authors, American--20th century; Civil rights workers; Shaw, Randy, 1956--Interviews
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
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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 Randy Shaw
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Shaw, Randy, 1956- ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Lawyers; Authors, American--20th century; Civil rights workers; Shaw, Randy, 1956--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Randy Shaw is an attorney, author and activist. He is the executive director and co-founder of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, co-founder and a Board member of Directors of Uptown Tenderloin, Inc., editor of Beyond Chron. Shawn has written five books on activism. He received his Juris Doctor degree from Hastings 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
2010-11-23
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.147
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.
42:07
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-07-30
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Alan Wolfe, 1942-
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Alan Wolfe is a political scientist, scholar, and a sociologist. Dr. Wolfe is a professor of Political Science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Future of American Democracy Foundation. Wolfe received his Ph.D. from Temple University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He also has honorary degrees from Loyola College in Maryland and St. Joseph's University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5039,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,5099745],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Alan Wolfe is a political scientist, scholar, and a sociologist. Dr. Wolfe is a professor of Political Science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Future of American Democracy Foundation. Wolfe received his Ph.D. from Temple University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He also has honorary degrees from Loyola College in Maryland and St. Joseph's University.</span>
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam Veterans; Free speech movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Black Panthers; Young Lords; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Emmett Till; Vietnam War; Baby boom generation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5045,"3":{"1":0},"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Vietnam Veterans; Free speech movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Black Panthers; Young Lords; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Emmett Till; Vietnam War; Baby boom generation.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
90:46
Subject LCSH
Political scientists; Sociologists; College teachers; Boston College; Wolfe, Alan, 1942--Interviews
Accessibility
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
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 Dr. Alan Wolfe
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Wolfe, Alan, 1942- ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Political scientists; Sociologists; College teachers; Boston College; Wolfe, Alan, 1942--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Alan Wolfe is a political scientist, scholar, and a sociologist. Dr. Wolfe is a professor of Political Science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Future of American Democracy Foundation. Wolfe received his Bachelor of Science from Temple University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He also has honorary degrees from Loyola College in Maryland and St. Joseph's University.ph's 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
2010-07-30
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.10.2016.174a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.174b
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.
90:46
-
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2f8e82e93b379a361067a85cf0948ee5.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
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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
2010-05-26
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Maurice Isserman
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Maurice Isserman, born in Hartford, Connecticut, is a professor at Hamilton College and an accomplished author. He got his Bachelor of Arts in History from Reed College and his Master of Arts in American History and his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. Dr. Isserman specializes in modern U.S. History, American radical movements, and global exploration and mountaineering."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,16777215],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"9":0,"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dr. Maurice Isserman, born in Hartford, Connecticut, is a professor at Hamilton College and an accomplished author. He received his Bachelor's in History from Reed College and his Master's degree in American History and his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. Dr. Isserman specializes in modern U.S. History, American radical movements, and global exploration and mountaineering.<br /></span>
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam War; Baby boom generation; Beat writers; Activism; Volunteerism; Kent State; Jackson State; Woodstock; Counterculture; Hippies; Yippies; Weathermen; Beat generation; Sexuality; Women's Rights Movement; Students for a Democratic Society."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5041,"3":{"1":0},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Vietnam War; Baby boom generation; Beat writers; Activism; Volunteerism; Kent State; Jackson State; Woodstock; Counterculture; Sputnik; Beatnik; Hippies; Yippies; Weathermen; Weather Underground; Beat generation; Sexuality; Women's Rights Movement; Students for a Democratic Society; Participatory democracy; Nat King Cole; Bob Dylan; Aretha Franklin.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
145:25
Subject LCSH
College teachers; Hamilton College (Clinton, N.Y.); Radicalism--United States; Isserman, Maurice--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: Maurice Isserman
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 26 May 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:06):
Testing one, two, testing. I will be checking this.
(00:00:13):
Could you tell us a little bit about your background? I have read about it in the web and everything, and what fascinates me is several things that I would like you to comment on. You had an Uncle Abraham who took you to the 1967 protest at the Pentagon, that was when they levitated.
MI (00:00:34):
Right.
SM (00:00:34):
I would like you to mention that experience and how important he was. And secondly, your college experiences when you were out in Portland. You were joining the Students for Democratic Society and becoming involved with the Portland experience.
MI (00:00:50):
Right. Well, I was born in 1951, so I am smack dab in the middle of the Baby Boom. And grew up in a small town in Connecticut, which was really not on the cultural or political cutting edge of the era. But I came from a family that was marked by, not one, but two dissenting traditions. One was on my father's side, well, he was Jewish. But in the case of my uncle and to an extent my father as well, influenced by participating in the Communist Party in the 1930s and thereafter. My father was not a communist, but he certainly was sympathetic. And on my mother's side, a Quaker background, she was the daughter of, and the sister of Quaker ministers. People are sometimes surprised to hear the Quakers have ministers, and in the East they tended not to, but in the Midwest, they do. So both of those traditions, I think were influences even before the 1960s, sort of picked me up and threw me in front of the on-rushing train of history. So in the summer of 1967, I was on an American Friends Service Committee work project in Indianapolis, which is where my uncle was a Quaker minister at the time. Bonnie Raitt was on that work project. She was not yet Bonnie Raitt, she was just a high school kid who played guitar. We sang a lot of folks songs that summer. That was high school kids doing good works kind of project, but it was also in that context, it was a lot more because it was the summer of Sergeant Pepper and we were these long- haired kids coming into conservative Indianapolis and getting involved in anti-war protests there, such as it was. I remember we had Vigil Hiroshima Day and reading and talking and thinking about stuff. On the project, that is why I read Michael Harrington's "The Other America" for the first time, and the "Autobiography of Malcolm X." So that was one influence. Then going into that fall, I had been in my first anti-war protest the previous spring in New York City, the spring mobilization, which knocked my socks off to be coming from a little town in Connecticut, to be suddenly marching with 300,000 people down to the United Nations from the Central Park and hearing Martin Luther King speak.
SM (00:03:51):
Wow.
MI (00:03:51):
I am getting my chronology all jumbled here.
SM (00:03:54):
But still those are-
MI (00:03:55):
So there was the spring mobilization, then there was the Summer of Love, which I happened to spend in Indianapolis with the AFSC. Then in the fall I went down to the Pentagon with Uncle Abe. My parents were not entirely on board with this going off to anti-war protests. But somehow because my uncle was taking me, it was... When I say my parents, in that case, my mother and stepfather. So with Abe escorting me, we marched from Washington to the side of the Pentagon. And of course what happened at the Pentagon was not part of the program, which was that there was somehow a line where the MPs were not strong or were not there at all. Somebody tore down a cyclone fence and suddenly 5,000 of us tore up the hillside, were right next to the Pentagon building. Abe, I did not come all the way up to the Pentagon with him, I kind of waved goodbye to him. I was there for several hours. And finally the MPs were picking off small groups of protestors. Actually I think it was federal marshals in this case. The MPs were just standing in a line. I was gassed and thrown down the embankment, then I walked back across the Arlington Bridge to Washington and to the hotel where my uncle was staying. I wrote an article about it, which you may have seen for the Chronicle, and said that all in all, it had been the best day of my life.
SM (00:05:33):
Was that your awakening, you were awakened by other things, but the true awakening, was that it?
MI (00:05:40):
Well, I am not sure. That seems a little melodramatic, but I was certainly awakening for several years there in the mid-(19)60s. Already by 1965, (19)66, I was flipping The Times religiously of articles about Vietnam. I remember Harrison Salisbury reports from Hanoi, which established for American readers for the first time, the fact that it was very heavy bombing of civilian neighborhoods going on in Hanoi and other North Vietnamese cities. I would cut out these articles and put them up on my bedroom wall. So even before I was in the streets, I was increasingly aware of what was going on in Vietnam. Before that, the Civil Rights movement, which I had no direct participation in, but was sympathetic to. I mean, I remember watching in 1963, the March on Washington was broadcast live, and I watched King give his speech. We would get Life Magazine every week and there were these pictures of Sheriff Price and the other officers in Philadelphia, Mississippi who had kidnapped Schwerner, Cheney, Goodman. They were sitting at their trial, big fat stereotypical southern sheriffs, laughing and chewing tobacco. I knew which side I was on that one. Then it being the (19)60s, listening to the Beatles and all that was going into the mix. So by 1967, awakening, yes, I was certainly awakened, although I do not think any single event is key. I was also working at my teenage identity and establishing independence issues, going into New York or going down to Washington on my own was a way of showing my parents that I could take care of myself. In 1968, I graduated from high school in June, I am not sure the exact dates, but June 14th, let us say. That night got on a train to go down to Washington for Solidarity Day. King had been assassinated in the spring. The SCLC was calling for people to come down in solidarity with the Poor People's Movement, Resurrection City, the shanties built around the reflecting pool on the mall. So I told my parents I wanted to go down, support this, and they thought, okay, big public March in favor of poor people. What was so bad about that? So I took the train down overnight and took part in the demonstration and then wound up hanging out with the Resurrection City people for the next week, which had not been part of my parents' plan at all. I had some friends in Washington, so I stayed with them. So every day there were marches, I remember Jesse Jackson leading a march to the Department of Agriculture so I was going along. Of course, I was sort of an imposter. I was not a poor person, but in solidarity. Then the announcement was made the next day, a week after I had arrived that the feds were going to close down Resurrection City, that they had had enough of this festering mess in the middle of the Capitol.
SM (00:09:28):
Because it was raining too, was not it?
MI (00:09:29):
It was raining, it was muddy and so forth. So I called up my parents and I said, "I am going to go get arrested tomorrow." And they said, "No, you are not, you are coming home." I said, "No, this is what I got to do." First time I ever hung up on my parents. So I went down to spend the last night at Resurrection City. I went to the main gate and they said, "Well, have you been staying here are you a registered poor person protestor?" And I said, " No, just a supporter." They said, "Well, you cannot come in." So I had my knapsack and I walked down the fence and I propped myself under a tree preparing to spend the night there. It was Washington in June at this point. Somebody looked over the fence and said, "Hey kid, what are you doing?" I said, "Well, I wanted to get in, but they would not let me in." They said, "Oh, here." So they took me through a gap in the fence or something, and they took me to their little shanty. It turned out this was a Blackstone Ranger, which was a notorious Chicago Street gang, which I probably read about it in one of the books for the AFSC, except they were enlisted in the cause of the Poor People's March. So I spent the last night of Resurrection City in a shanty with a bunch of Blackstone Rangers, which is not the kind of company that most suburban kids from Connecticut actually might spend any time with.
SM (00:10:57):
Oh, no.
MI (00:10:58):
They were very pleasant. The next morning we all had breakfast and marched off to the Capitol and demonstrated on the Capitol grounds and were arrested, because it was illegal to demonstrate on the Capitol grounds, and was sentenced to seven days in jail, sent off to a minimum-security prison in Virginia. It was great. It was like an all-day-long political seminar, sitting out on the grass talking with Civil Rights veterans, singing freedom songs with this whole stock of freedom songs. Was talking about nonviolence versus violence and all kinds of issues [inaudible] the movement at the time, eating better than we did when I went off to college the next September, food in prison was much better. So I thought it was this great experience. When I came back and my parents lionized me because I made this heroic sacrifice on behalf of the poor, which they had forbidden me to do, but they knew I survived it.
SM (00:11:59):
How long were you in jail?
MI (00:12:00):
Seven days. But it was like this great adventure. What was I? Summer of 1968, I was 17 years old, turned 17 in March. Then I went off to college in the fall of (19)68. So of all times to go off to college. I had gone to England that summer for a month, which was my reward for graduating school, with a friend and his family, and hooked up with the British Left. So I met Tariq Ali, who-
SM (00:12:35):
Oh yeah, he has written several. I got a couple of his books.
MI (00:12:39):
Led the demonstrations against the American Embassy of Grosvenor Square, which took place in the previous spring when I was not there. Traveled around London, went to several demonstrations I guess about the war. But then while I was there, the Soviet Union invaded, or the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia. The British New Left, as well as a lot of Czech students who were studying in London, were of course outraged. And so there were three nights of demonstrations in the London streets marching on the Soviet Embassy and the Czech students waving the Czech flags. So when I hear charges that the New Left was pro-Soviet, [inaudible] demonstrations, which was clearly anti-imperialist, whether imperialism was our own or the Soviet version. I also was impressed by the London bobbies, and this was a pretty anarchistic crew that was turning out. This was the summer of (19)68. It was after the May (19)68 riots. So people were pretty in the streets and they were not throwing things, but they were truly not obeying the traffic laws. The London bobbies would remove people, but do it quite gently without guns and billy clubs, so it was a model of good crowd control.
SM (00:14:18):
Did you happen to see at the Pentagon in (19)67, the guy that burned himself to death? Were you aware that there was a man there that did it and he did it with McNamara looking out the window?
MI (00:14:29):
Yeah, but that was earlier. That was Norman. What was his name?
SM (00:14:34):
Was that another protest?
MI (00:14:35):
Yeah, he did that as an individual protest and that was a 1965.
SM (00:14:40):
Okay. Yeah.
MI (00:14:41):
Norman Morrison. I was certainly aware that that had happened, but it was on a different occasion.
SM (00:14:49):
Right. You have written some unbelievable books, of course, the one in the (19)60s, but what did you learn from all of your research on the war between the New Left of the (19)60s and the (19)70s?
MI (00:15:10):
Okay. Well, in "America Divided," and when I lecture to students about the era, I make a number of points. One is that although it seemed like all the thunder was on the left in the 1960s, we remember the decade in terms of a series of iconic images connected to Civil Rights protests, anti-war protests, counterculture. The decade also has to be seen as the seed time of a conservative revival that would dominate American politics for the remainder of the 20th and be certainly the beginning of the 21st century, starting with the Goldwater campaign in 1964 and the George Wallace insurgency within the Democratic Party, the rise of a right-wing populist reaction to particularly the Civil Rights, but also to counterculture and the anti-war protests. It was not something that was apparent to me at the time, but looking back, it was obvious that as significant, if not more significant than the left-wing story of the (19)60s is the right-wing story of the 1960s. Ever since, the (19)60s have been a touchpoint, as you suggest, for conservatives who are nostalgic for what they imagine to be the stability and order and morality of the patriotism of pre-1960 America, which I think is a construct. It is a Golden Age, and it is a myth, but it is a powerful argument. I mean, in fact, the 1950s were certainly not a Golden Age if you were Black in America. If you had not had the insurgencies in the 1960s, you would still be having Jim Crow society. So you cannot simply look back and say, "Oh, it was all terrible." But the problem with that right-wing argument is that the forces for the dissolution of the family, or for new family structures to emerge were already coming into place in the 1950s. Moreover, they were not restricted to the United States. If you look at single parent families and so on and so forth, any kind of social parameter you want to use, this is something that is across the industrial democratic West, and even to Eastern Europe as well, which did not have a (19)60s. But these are changes that are somehow connected to, and we do not yet have, not far enough away from it to have a satisfactory historical explanation, but something with modernity, something with what has been happening in industrial and post-industrial society, certainly the decline in the birth rate. The Baby Boom itself is an aberration. That temporary expansion of marriage rates, lowering of the age of marriage, increase in the number of children per family, and so on and so forth, which we now take as the norm is an aberration from well over a century of just the opposite, that women were getting married at older ages, having fewer children and so forth, stretching back into the 19th century. Then for particular historical reasons in certain places, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, you see this Baby Boom phenomenon. Again, it is illusory to see that as somehow being the norm. So powerful cultural forces were coming along and were going to change the family. One of the most important reasons why the family has changed is because of the decline in real wages for industrial workers. When you had a secure, stable, industrial base in this country where a male breadwinner could support a family, then you could have women stay at home and be primary childcare providers and cook a hot meal every night that the whole family sat down to eat. Once that is removed starting in the late 1960s and for the last four decades, you see a decline in real wages means women go out to work. If women go out to work, it means that first of all, they have more financial independence so they can contemplate getting a divorce if they are in an unsatisfactory marriage. It also means you are not going to have the Betty Crocker kind of housewives that you had in the 1950s. Families are going to not eat together. They are going to eat more fast food. I mean, the obesity epidemic is probably a byproduct of this. So it is a really complex mix that has something to do with the cultural insurgencies and the counterculture, the 1960s. But only something. I was just reading a piece in the New York Times the other day that pointed out that teenage birth rates, a single parent, unmarried teenage women having babies are much higher in the red states than they are in the blue states. That has something to do with the availability of abortion. There might be more pregnancies in the blue states, but they are not being carried to term. But it has also something to do with the availability of contraception. All you have to do is look at Sarah Palin's daughter, who's now going around as an advocate of teen abstinence.
SM (00:21:34):
She did not do it.
MI (00:21:35):
Well, not really a role model for that. So it is not simply decadent places like Berkeley and Cambridge and New York City where cultural patterns have changed. It is precisely in places where you still have, at least this kind of strong norm for church, family, patriarchal authority, where in fact, the family structure breakdown is most evident, at least as measured by teen pregnancies. So it is a bogus argument.
SM (00:22:13):
It is interesting too; the Boomers for years have said that we are the largest generation in American history. We are not anymore. There are more Millennials now than there ever were Boomers. There is a brand-new book on, I was perusing through it, and it states that it is very difficult to state the exact number of Boomers, anywhere from 74 to 78, but they do know that there are close to 80 to 81 million Millennials now. So to say that Boomers are the large generation of American history isn't true.
MI (00:22:51):
Well, that might have something to do with immigration.
SM (00:22:53):
Yes, you are probably right there too. Obviously, I have interviewed a lot of people and a lot of them give their reasons, but I put down six here, but I would like your thoughts on these. What event in your eyes was the number one reason with respect to why the Vietnam War ended? And here is the six that I am listing. Tet. Number two, Kent State and Jackson State in 1970. Tet was in (19)68. Number three, when middle America, like Ohio, their sons were coming home in body banks. Number four, funding was cut off by Congress. Number five, student protests on college campuses, major effect. And number six, the wrong military strategy.
MI (00:23:40):
Number one, in a broader sense, which is to say that the war was never winnable. I mean, you could annihilate all Vietnamese, you could drop atomic bombs, but you could never build a stable South Vietnamese government there. The material simply was not there to do it. If you did not win politically, did not matter what you did militarily. The Vietnamese were not going anywhere, it was their country. They knew, just like the Americans knew in 1776, that eventually the British would get tired and go home, which was also the Confederate strategy in 1861, except in that case, the North was closer to the South. They were neighbors. But we were not neighbors to Vietnam, so we were never going to win. You could stretch it out, you could increase the number of amount of bloodshed, but at some point, there was going to become a breaking point. Tet was the symbolic breaking point, because thereafter, American people as a whole decided that it simply was not worth fighting in Vietnam. The only way you could fight in Vietnam, as Richard Nixon discovered, was by saying, we were fighting to get out as to say of this Vietnamization program, in fighting for peace with honor, we want to get back our POWs, which was a sort of self-reinforcing rationale for the war, because the longer you fought, the more POWs there were to get back. But in the end, that too was going to run out as a rationale for the war. American people after 1968 simply did not believe the game was worth the candle. Nixon and Kissinger understood that too. This is not a secret. They have this new revisionist history about how we were really winning after 1969. Well, that would have been news to Nixon and Kissinger, who on a number of occasions in the secret White House tapes said, "We cannot win this. We know we cannot win this. We are stretching it out. We want to pass it on. We want the collapse to come after we are out of office. We want a decent interval between the final withdrawal of American troops and the collapse of the Saigon regime." In 1972, they almost lost it. American troops had been wound down. It was only by a massive air expansion of the Air War, bringing the B52s from Guam, that a South Vietnamese route was halted in the summer of 1972 offensive. Two years later signed the Paris Peace Accords, or actually January (19)73, signing the Paris Peace Accords. At that point, even that air offensive was no longer politically possible. So in 1975, when the North Vietnamese again on the offensive, the entire house of cards collapses. When Nixon and Kissinger agreed that both sides would keep their forces in place, they signed South Vietnam's death warrant. Again, you could prolong it if Congress said, "Yeah, here, take another $500 billion, rush aid to South Vietnam." Maybe the final collapse would have come in 1977 instead of 1975, but there was no way it was going to be [inaudible]. So again, that is a long way of saying that, yes, Tet was the most important turning point because at that point, realization dawned on the American people that this was not World War II all over again. There was not a satisfactory narrative that it was going to end in American victory. And it was only a question of how and when we get out, and how many more American lives would be squandered. In the case of Nixon, it could have spared 20,000 American lives and a million Vietnamese lives. The peculiar thing is that if Nixon had simply come into office in 1969 and said, "I would like to win in Vietnam, we all would. But my predecessors have so screwed up everything that we are just going to go to the peace table when we are going to get out," he would have been a hero. He would have been politically invulnerable in the same way that he was when he went to China. No Democrat could open the door to China, but Richard Nixon could have-
SM (00:28:10):
You are right.
MI (00:28:10):
...could have used to get that Communist credentials. And had he done that, there would have been no Watergate, because Watergate was a direct outgrowth of his desire to keep fighting the war, expanding the war in terms of the Air War secretly, while pretending to the American people that the war was winding down. The plumbers were created to fix the leaks in the State Department. That was where the first illegal wiretaps were on the state department's personnel to see who was leaking information about the secret bombing of Cambodia. So Nixon would have gone down in history as the great unifier, the great peacemaker, no Watergate scandal, but instead, he decided he was going to prolong the war for whatever reason.
SM (00:28:58):
What was amazing about him as a person who was... I am only three years older than you are, and what is amazing is that I was in college at the time, what I considered the arrogance of Richard Nixon, that even though he may have been trying to Vietnamization process and have the peace talks and all the other things, he boldly said that no protestor is ever going to influence me.
MI (00:29:26):
Right.
SM (00:29:27):
No one protesting. And he was referring to college students, but I think he, he is referring to more than that, I think anybody. And that was just pure arrogance, was not it?
MI (00:29:35):
Right. But it also was not true because they were very aware of protests. And when he overlooked that with the invasion of Cambodia in May of 1970, that was the last time he used American ground forces to expand the war. He had suddenly understood the limits of his mandate because that strike in May 1970, I mean, again, the Vietnamese won the war in Vietnam, and it had nothing to do with protests at home. If there had been no protest... That had nothing to do with protests at home. If there had been no protests at home, the war still would have been lost for the U.S. However, it did set some constraints on policy. That strike in 1970 is significant because it was not simply places like Harvard and Wisconsin and Michigan and Berkeley that went on strike. It was places like Kent State, which is a commuter school, a working-class school, in the middle of Ohio in the heartland. It was places like Notre Dame, Catholic colleges, Southern colleges, community colleges, even some of the service academies. The Merchant Marine Academy had a protest. It was the entire younger generation in college that was rejecting war, and a lot of other people in addition, and Nixon never risked that again. Even though basically after the spring of 1970, the anti-war movement continued, it was never as powerful again. The protests between 1967 and May of 1970 created a specter of what could happen if you escalated before.
SM (00:31:22):
I am hearing something. You had been very critical of the current Students for a Democratic Society. I know several students at my former school that are in the current SDS, that they glorify the extreme radicals of that particular period, the Bernardine Dohrns, the Mark Rudds, the Bobby Seales. I find that interesting because there is truth to that, because I just got back from Kent State after being there four days. The main speakers were Bobby Seale, Bernardine Dohrn. Mark Rudd, though, I will say about Mark Rudd...
MI (00:31:59):
Mark is very self-critical. I brought to Mark speak here.
SM (00:32:00):
Yeah. I like Mark. He admits he was wrong and he admits that they destroyed a good thing, which was SDS. Sometimes Bobby is confusing, because Bobby says real good things. I do not see the anger in him anymore, but I do see the... what is the word here? He defends that they were not violent in any way. Bernardine Dohrn, to me, has never said anything to apologize for what has been done.
MI (00:32:30):
No. She has forgotten nothing and learned nothing.
SM (00:32:32):
Yeah. Well, your thoughts on why. Kent State was very important, because you had Alan Canfora there and Chic Canfora, and they were students that experienced it, and some of the more radical students at Kent State. They were there when all this happened. Just your observations on why that group is being idealized more than any others by some of the younger anti-war activists today.
MI (00:33:02):
Well, that is a big question. I think people are drawn to iconic figures. Angela Davis, say, or Bobby Seale, would have a great appeal. They are appealing public personalities in a way that say David Harris is not, or he has not chosen to play that role. One of the things I talked about in my (19)60s seminar is the leaders who chose not to be leaders in the 1960s. One of them is a Hamilton alum. Bob Moses is a critical person in the history of the (19)60s, the Freedom Summer.
SM (00:33:55):
He is the math guy too, isn't he?
MI (00:33:59):
Yes, and spoke at the first SDS anti-war march, and the people of 1965 knew. Really a central figure, who pulled out of the movement and went into self-imposed exile for a while. It was a draft business, but I do not think he felt comfortable in the way that the movement was developing. He was not a Stokely Carmichael. John Lewis, another person. Nobody was as important in the history of the civil rights movement as John Lewis, from the Freedom Rights to the march on Washington in (19)63 to the marches in Selma and in Montgomery, leading the march across the bridge. Lewis pulled out. I mean, he was displaced as SNCC chairman by Stokely Carmichael, but he did not try to out-militant Stokely Carmichael. That would have been difficult. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement...
SM (00:35:00):
Mario Savio.
MI (00:35:00):
...Mario Savio, he continued to be politically engaged, but he pulled out of leadership. He had some problems. I just read a biography.
SM (00:35:10):
Oh, I have read it too. It is a great biography.
MI (00:35:12):
It is a very good bio.
SM (00:35:13):
Robert Cohen, I believe.
MI (00:35:14):
Robert Cohen. There were all kinds of interesting, thoughtful people who simply did not fit in with and could not bring themselves to do the celebrity militant politics of the late (19)60s. What we are left with in terms of public memory are the people who did not have a problem with that, people who were not self-doubting in any sense and have these big extroverted personalities and egos to match, and who are happy to offer themselves up to the later generations as the model (19)60s radical. One of my problems with the idea of creating a new SDS was who in SDS were they looking to as leaders. Not the ones, in my mind, who exemplified the best of the movement, but actually those who killed the movement, who killed SDS, as Mark Rudd says. The second problem with the idea of a new SDS is that the essence of SDS, the reason SDS took off, was because it looked back at previous left-wing movements, and some of these kids were coming out of red-diaper-baby backgrounds. Some of them were coming out of pink-diaper-baby backgrounds, Socialist Party backgrounds. They said, "What came before does not suit us anymore. We have to do something new." SDS grew out of the Student League for Industrial Democracy. Well, what did the League for Industrial Democracy mean to young people at the start of the 1960s? It meant nothing. Industrial democracy meant nothing. They brilliantly renamed themselves as Students for a Democratic Society, which did mean something, and they [inaudible] their own statement, which owed nothing, owed little, to previous left-wing manifestos or ideas. They brilliantly recreated a Left that was relevant to their era and their generation, unlike SDS, which is a brand name. Yes, who would not want to belong to SDS? I would like to belong to the Industrial Workers of the World, but they had their moment in the past. I thought there was an irony involved in paying homage to SDS by doing something very un-SDS-like.
SM (00:37:42):
With Mark, did you talk about that in the class?
MI (00:37:49):
We did talk about that, yeah.
SM (00:37:50):
I interviewed Mark on the phone, then I had dinner with him at the conference. We spent some time together and then the rest of the time, as soon as Bernardine and that group came in, I kind of distanced myself. He has an intellectual, and he likes intellectual conversations. When I interviewed him, he said, "I do not want these fluffy questions. I want something where I can deeply think about it." He is the real deal. He is the real deal, and with respect, he has done some deep thinking about the mistakes that were made. He really admits he is wrong and it destroyed something that he loved deeply, which was SDS.
MI (00:38:27):
Kathy Wilkerson's book is good.
SM (00:38:29):
I have it. I have not read it.
MI (00:38:31):
It is good. I mean, there is problems with it. There is a disconnect at a certain point between her actions. It is hard to see from the book how she changed so dramatically. She came out of Quaker background as well, as did actually quite a number of people in the Weathermen. Jeff Jones, coming out Southern California, I think he had a Quaker-ish background or a pacifist background.
SM (00:39:05):
Well, I know that Thomas Powers wrote the book on Diana Oughton. I have the book, because she is one of the three that died. She was actually the girlfriend of Harris, who ended up marrying Bernardine Dohrn. Not Harris. He wrote a book too.
MI (00:39:24):
Bill Ayers.
SM (00:39:27):
Bill Ayers, yeah, President Obama's friend. I did not realize how close they were.
MI (00:39:32):
Oh, yeah.
SM (00:39:32):
Boyfriend and girlfriend. Okay, we are pretty close to the first half here. How did the New Left of the (19)60s differ from the old left of the (19)30s and the (19)40s? I know personally from what I have read, but what were the defining characteristics in a generation of 74 million? What was the New Left? How did they differ? I say this because I mentioned Mark and how he talked about how he read Che Guevara and these were important ideas. It was all about ideas. When he talked about Mario Savio at the Free Speech Movement, he said, "We are about ideas. We are not about just being here for the corporations. The bottom line, the university's about ideas." The Old Left was more about just pure politics, was not it?
MI (00:40:33):
Well, it was about ideas too, when they were reading their Marx and Lenin. There are a number of crucial differences. One is that the Old Left looked to the industrial proletariat as the agent of social change, so workers organizing around their economic interests would inevitably, through a scientific process that could not be stopped, come to realize their interests were in opposition to that of the employers and eventually they would make a revolution, whether peaceful or violent. People dispute it, but inevitably they would turn to Socialism and seize control of the means of production. That was their idea of who the agent of change was. In the 1960s, the agent of change was young people themselves. Instead of youth organizations like Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, being the affiliates of adult organizations, which had always been the pattern ...the Socialist Party had the Young People's Socialist League, the Communist Party had the Young Communist League, the League for Industrial Democracy had the Student League for Industrial Democracy. Instead of seeing themselves as the affiliate supporting this adult project, rather, they said ...C. Wright Mills famously wrote in a letter to the New Left, "Look around the world. Who is in motion? Who is demanding change? It is young people," young intellectuals, young workers and so forth, so there was a generational cast to their politics. "We are people of this generation, uncomfortably inhabiting a world we did not make," something like that. It is the opening lines of the Port Huron Statement. That was one thing. The other thing was organizational. The Old Left was hierarchical. In the case of the Communist Party, it was hierarchical and authoritarian. In the case of the Socialist Party it was more democratic, but still there were national chairs and presidential candidates and so on and so forth. The New Left developed a much more ultra-democratic, unto anarchistic ... not in the violent sense but in the sense of being distrustful of all authority, even authority within their own organizations ...which created a very different movement, a very localized movement. A movement, again, without a formal hierarchy, which had a lot of strengths at times, and also made for an impermanent movement and also opened up the movement for infiltration by people like the Progressive Labor Party, who had their own agenda. Ironically, being ultra-democratic meant that the authoritarians could sneak in the back door. That too, in the sense of who was the agent of social change and what was the correct proper organizational strategy, the New Left was fundamentally different than what had come before.
SM (00:43:57):
I know I see it in the current SDS at my university before I retired, is it takes forever to make a decision.
MI (00:44:04):
All process. Process.
SM (00:44:05):
Oh, it is all process, process. Everybody's got to be included. Well, they never make any decisions. That is frustrating.
MI (00:44:12):
Well, that is where it can lead. It is not an adult form of organization. There is a famous story about SDS had projects called the ERAP, Economic-something-something Action Project. One of the projects... I think it was in Cleveland... spent 24 hours debating whether it should take a day off from work to go to the beach. For young people, who have endless amounts of time and patience for that kind of thing, it is a good form of organization. For grownups, that drives you crazy.
SM (00:44:50):
Yeah. Actually, I was driving a few students crazy to join. They did not know. I think they were remembering the history or studying the history.
MI (00:44:59):
Well, there is a third element, and that is I think the pacifist movement was actually very influential in a number of ways. Not that by the end of the 1960s the New left was pacifist. Increasingly it was turning not to violence but at least to the rhetoric of violence, violent imagery and Black Panthers. The notion of a prefigurative politics, that is to say that your movement should embody the values that you hope to create in a new society, came out the pacifist movement. It came out of groups like the Catholic Worker, but others as well. I think was very influential and shaped, particularly in the mid (19)60s, SDS. You see that.
SM (00:45:46):
Hold that line. Hold that line. Very good.
MI (00:45:56):
We were talking about the impacts of the pacifist movement. You see that kind of prefigurative politics, that your movement itself should embody a more harmonious, a more humane, a more communal atmosphere. That is why these kind of campus takeovers, building takeovers, were so important, because at a place like Columbia, for the five days before the police stormed in, the occupied buildings themselves became a kind of model of what a university could be or what a decent society could be. Of course there was a lot of silliness and utopianism and so on and so forth, but it was an interesting moment. If only the world could be like that.
SM (00:46:49):
You talked about there is two different qualities and I am going to address them now, the issue of healing and the issue of trust or lack thereof. You mentioned that in the New Left, that they did not trust anybody. When you look at the generation as a whole, there is a perception out there that the generation, whether they were involved or not, just did not trust anybody in positions of leadership or responsibility, whether it be a university president as a college student, anybody in leadership roles, whether it be a church or synagogue. Because I know my fellow students at SUNY Binghamton did not trust anybody in the religious community, the corporate community, the university community or the political community. They did not trust anybody in leadership roles.
MI (00:47:32):
Right.
SM (00:47:32):
Do you see that as a major characteristic of the boomer generation overall, and by having that characteristic, it is transferred into their lives over the last 60 years and maybe into their children and into their grandchildren, and is that good?
MI (00:47:52):
I do not know if it is good, but it is certainly a fact. It is a fact. I mean, they were taught that by Lyndon Johnson, and they were taught that by Richard Nixon. The publication of the Pentagon Papers and publication of the Watergate transcripts demonstrated the absolute chasm between the public rationale and justification for issues as important as war and peace and what the private position of the policymakers were. John McNaughton, Assistant Secretary of Defense, writes a memo to Robert McNamara and lists statistically... very significant because statistics were the end-all and be-all of the McNamara defense fund... he gives a statistical breakdown of the reasons we were fighting in Vietnam. "Why are we fighting in Vietnam? It is 80 percent to protect our reputation as a guarantor, that is for credibility, 10 percent because we do not want the Red Chinese to take over South Vietnam, and 10 percent because we want the people of South Vietnam to have a free, democratic form of government," which inverted the public rationale, which is like fighting the Nazis, that we are fighting for democracy and free French, and so on and so forth. The lesson was taught, not just to the baby boomers but to their parents as well, that people in Washington would lie to you. At the start of the 1960s, public opinion polls, the Gallup poll or whatever, would ask every year, "Can you trust people in Washington to do the right thing?" 75, 85 percent of Americans, said, "Yeah, you can trust that." "How about corporations?" "Oh, yeah." At the end of the decade, you could not get 30 percent of people to believe that, because they had been through Vietnam, they had been through Watergate. There was a massive collapse in the legitimacy of institutions and leaders, which in one way was a healthy skepticism. You know, you should not trust what public authorities tell you if you do not verify. Trust but verify, as Ronald Reagan once said. On the other hand, I think it also bred a deep cynicism about politics. "Well, if they are all so corrupted they are all liars anyway, the hell of it. I just will not participate." The other thing you see is not only the number of people who trust people in Washington goes down, but voter participation drops down to 50 percent or below. I think by the mid 1970s, it is every election. Richard Nixon wins a landslide election in 1972, but about 10 percent fewer voters are participating than took part in the election 10 years earlier. That was one of the real legacies of the 1960s. That is bounced back a little. One of the interesting things about the Obama campaign is the involvement of young people and really the political participation of young people, which is always lower than that for older people [inaudible] sustained.
SM (00:51:09):
No one believes anybody in Washington today. What is interesting is that the boomer generation, whether they were protestors or not protestors, had I think an attitude that we are going to bring peace to the world. We are going to be different than any other generation, that we are going to end racism, sexism, homophobia. We are going to ... I forget the name of the book. Panacea, this book that we had to read in grad school. Basically, this generation was going to change things. It does not seem to have changed anything. In fact, it seems to have gotten worse. The question is, has the boomer generation as a generation been a failure in terms of their idealism, their hopes and dreams?
MI (00:52:00):
Well, I think it has changed tremendous amounts culturally, if not always politically. I tell my students, "Whatever your politics are, Republican or Democrat or liberal or conservative, you would not like the 1950s. You would feel really out of place in the 1950s at the level of the assumption that this was a white society. Blacks are simply invisible. Go back and read Life Magazine. Try and find blacks in the advertisements or in the news stories. The expectations about women's roles." If you go back and read the Smith or Wellesley yearbooks for the late 1950s, they would list all the people who had their, "Mrs. degree," or the number of people who were pinned or who already married, as they were going out into the world at the age of 22. The notion that women would have a career was simply not thought of, so the kind of double standard in sex and sexuality. In many ways, we are a freer, better, more egalitarian, more humane society as a result of the changes that began in the 1960s, that Rand Paul gets shellacked because he says, "I am not sure I would have voted for the Civil Rights Act." Americans might be anti-government and they might be free marketeers and all that, but the idea that a restaurant owner could discriminate on the basis of race is simply no longer possible to sustain. If you cross that line, you get slapped down, as he did. I would have to say that the (19)60s changed an enormous amount in that, in that disillusionment that followed Vietnam and Watergate, there was a disillusionment with government, and that worked against liberals and that worked against the Left. That worked against the Democrats because the Democrats are the party of government, so people did not simply conclude that government was bad because it lied us into Vietnam and could not win in Vietnam. It generalized, that the government is bad no matter what it tries to do. Regulation is bad. Workplace safety regulation is bad. Glenn Beck says fascism grew out of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, so progressivism is the beginning of fascism. I mean, you could not possibly have sold that idea at the start of the 1960s. When people thought about big government, they thought about the New Deal and Social Security and workers' rights to organize and so on and so forth. Once that idea of government as benevolent and competent was tarnished in the 1960s, it allowed the Reagan Revolution to establish a new common wisdom, which was the government's not the solution to problems, government is the problem.
SM (00:55:26):
Yeah. Then one thing when you talk about the Free Speech Movement in (19)64, (19)65 in Berkeley, when you talk about the students demanding to be part of the governance of the university and getting a better understanding of the money coming in and the money going out, the donations and everything, this link to the corporate world was talked about at Berkeley in (19)64, (19)65. You even see Clark Kerr, in a major speech he gives about the corporate, the multiversity and everything. Students at that time were coming in saying, "I do not want to be that IBM person."
MI (00:56:03):
The knowledge factory.
SM (00:56:04):
Yeah, the knowledge factory. You had that happening in the 1960s, and yet today... and that is the beginning of the Research Institute too. I interviewed Arthur Chickering, who wrote Education and Identity, the great scholar who was the Seven Vectors of Development. Integrity was the seventh one. I interviewed him. My degrees are in higher ed, and I basically said, "Is there anything about the universities today that you criticize?" He said, "Yes, that the universities are again under the control of the corporations." That scares him. Correct me if I am wrong, because someone I interviewed said that when you have universities and corporations in control, you have fascism.
MI (00:56:54):
That seems like an exaggeration.
SM (00:56:58):
That the ideas are being controlled from outside rather than inside.
MI (00:57:03):
Well, universities have sort of returned to a credentialing industry for career advancement. I mean, even in the (19)60s, many more people were business majors than [inaudible] history majors. One of the things on which the 1960s protests depended was this sense, that was not universal at the time, that economic prosperity was a permanent fact in American life, that things were going to get better and better. If you talked about poverty, you talked about poverty thinking it is terrible that these people are not sharing the general affluence. "We are a really affluent society. Why cannot everybody have access to it?" If you are a kid in college, you can think, "Well, I do not have to rush towards the degree." First of all, college is very cheap. I got out of college without any debt whatsoever. We were not from a wealthy family by any means, but what was my tuition, $2,000 a year or something? You could take time off, you could drop out, you could experiment, you could go into public service, you could be a schoolteacher or whatever. You did not have to go think of yourself as being a hedge fund manager so you can pay back your college debts. The underpinnings of that economic prosperity collapsed in the late (19)60s and the start of the 1970s with the energy crisis, stagflation, declining real wages and deindustrialization, none of which were thought of as possibilities at the start of the 1960s, but which became the economic reality through the 1970s and thereafter. Much greater instability, a much greater sense of, "You really need to buckle down, because it is a rat race out there." The number of history majors goes down and down and down, and the number of people going to take classes that they think will get them jobs with a hedge fund just goes up and up and up. I forget what the starting point for this question was. Oh, so the state of the university today. Well, I teach at what is a little outpost of the declining ideal of the liberal arts. Very few students. There are millions of college students, but probably 5 percent of them go to colleges like Hamilton, which is not vocational. I mean, you cannot take a business administration... I mean, you cannot take a business administration. You can take economics, which is what a lot of them do. You know where the ideal is, you are going to be schooled to be a better person, a better citizen, a better thinker. Where most of your teachers are tenured or tenured track. You are not being taught by adjuncts. It is a four-year residential program. I mean, that just does not describe the 95 percent of the college and university student population today. Hamilton used to be the norm. It is no longer that. It is a relic and we know that. And even at Hamilton, I am probably part of the last generation to enjoy the benefits of being a tenured faculty member at a place like Hamilton, where life isn't so bad. At least, I remind myself it is better than working in a coal mine.
SM (01:00:59):
I went to Harper College, Arts and Sciences there. I identified more with Harper College, within the school of Binghamton University, than anything. This is the other very important question I wanted to ask. Let me preface this by saying that, in 1995, I took a group of students to Washington DC to meet the late Senator Edmund Muskie, who was part of our Leadership On the Road programs. He had not been well, and we were still able to secure him through Gaylord Nelson, at the Wilderness Society. Took 14 students down there and they came up with the questions. And one of the questions was, they had looked at 1968, they knew he was the vice-presidential Democrat, running mate with Hubert Humphrey. The nation at that time looked like it was coming apart. The nation was torn apart with assassinations that year with the terrible confrontations in the streets of Chicago. The president withdrawing from the race. And then of course, looking at the (19)60s and all the other things going on. But the question is, "Is this generation going to its grave, the boomer generation, comparable to the Civil War generation, that went to its grave not healing, due to all the unbelievable divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who are against the war, supported the troops or against the troops?" It comes down to a lot of things. I even add on here, through the interviews that I have had with people, the divisions also included, certainly between Native Americans and white people and Latinos and the hard hats against the college protestors. The list goes on and on. I will tell you what Senator Muskie said in response to that question, "What is your question? Do you worry that this generation of 74 to 78 million, maybe they do not have a problem, but that they are going to go to their graves without healing from all these divisions because the division still exist?"
MI (01:03:13):
Well, interesting. I guess healing is not a word I would use, as if growing up is a therapeutic process. I would say that the significant portion of that generation was indelibly marked by the 1960s. My politics, whatever year we are in, 2010 are not my politics in 1968 or 1970. But you can certainly see the influence on the way I understand the world, on the way I understand personal responsibility and the morality. All those things are affected by the 1960s. In the aftermath of the Civil War, people voted as a shot. So for the next 40 years, American politics were dominated by that Civil War generation, north and south, and the political allegiances and conclusions that they drew on the basis of the experience of living through that kind of war. We lived through a war too. Now, oftentimes I will ask my students, "What did your parents do in the 1960s?" Actually depressingly, increasingly, their parents were not alive or were just very young during the 1960s. But when I could ask that question with reasonable assurance that their parents were my contemporaries, sometimes they would call home and say, "What did you do in the (19)60s?" And their parents would say, "Well, I missed the (19)60s. [inaudible] nursing school or I had a young child at home. Or I got married at 21. Or I was living in Dubuque and we did not have the (19)60s until the (19)70s." So one wants to avoid generalizing too much about that experience. Some people simply sailed through it. Most people are not involved in public affairs. It is not important to them. It might, every four years, sort of attract their attention, but most people are focused on home and family and relationships and work and so on and so forth. But for those of us who were involved one way or the other, on one side or another, went to Vietnam or protested against Vietnam, sometimes those are the same people. I think we will carry those influences for the rest of our life to our grave. I do not think that is a bad thing. I do not feel like I need to heal from the 1960s. I think we, as a country, need to understand the lessons of the (19)60s, the meaning of the (19)60s, and not simply reduce it to a set of iconic images and a few stereotypes, whether favorable or unfavorable.
SM (01:06:08):
I think originally when I had talked to the students, I think they were a little influenced by me. Because I think what they were really talking about is what you just mentioned, those who protested against the war and those who served in that war. And thinking that when those who protested the war bring their kids or their grandkids to the wall in Washington DC, are they having second thoughts about, "Maybe I should have served. Maybe I should have been involved. Maybe I should not have gotten a deferment." The questioning, because sometimes kids and grandkids ask questions that really make the parents think even deeper about something.
MI (01:06:53):
Well, I never think that when I go see the wall and I go pretty often. I think, what a terrible tragedy that 58,000 lives were thrown away, not to mention 3 million Vietnamese lives, for nothing. And one of the great stereotypes about the 1960s is that anti-war protestors hated soldiers, hated veterans. It simply was not true. When I got involved, when I went to college in (19)68, I started meeting large numbers of Vietnam Veterans who were protesting the war. Vietnam Veterans against the war had just come into existence. And those guys were our heroes. We assumed, maybe [inaudible], that most people going through that kind of war, being of the same generation, would come back opposing the war. And in fact, there were war protests in Vietnam. People wore black armbands, people wore peace signs. People increasingly refused combat duty. I mean, one of the reasons the war came to an end is because it was destroying the American Army, collapsing morale, drug abuse, [inaudible], AWOL's and so on and so forth. The longer you stayed in Vietnam, the less of an Army you were going to have, in any sense, combat ready. So I do not see... Obviously, there were veterans who came back who hated hippies. I do not doubt that there were a few of them who were spat upon. Although, I think that is also one of the great myths, lots of people were being spat on in airports. I certainly remember anybody who spat on a veteran or somebody in uniform. If you think about it is inherently unlikely, given that hippies tend to be sort of not fighters. And these guys are just coming back from Vietnam. You do not hear about the people being sent to the hospital with broken jaws. Which is what you would expect me hear if somebody spat on you, coming to the airport back from Vietnam. So I do not see that as one of the great divisions in that sense.
SM (01:09:04):
What has the wall done? Obviously, the wall was built to heal the Vietnam Veterans and their families and to pay respect for those who paid the ultimate price. And when Jan Scruggs wrote his book, To Heal a Nation, his goal was to heal those families who had lost the 58,000 plus and all Vietnam Vets, to recognize that when they came home, they were not welcomed. They had another war, but that their service was something to be honored. But in the book, itself also, he talks about the fact that, "He hopes it spreads beyond the veterans to really the nation itself." Do you think it is done a good job there?
MI (01:09:47):
Well, again, I am not crazy about the word, "Heal." After the Civil War, every southern town put a memorial to Confederate dead in the town square. And every northern community put a little model of a statue of a Civil War soldier in the town square. It was a memorial. It is a recognizing the sacrifice of the soldiers who fought on one side or the other. Memorial Day itself began as an annual occasion of putting flowers on the graves of Civil War Veterans specifically, and then it became like Iran sort of general occasions to honor veterans of all American wars. So I think that the Vietnam Memorial has to be understood as that, as a memorial, not as a therapeutic device. But in the design, interestingly, there is an ambiguity that is present in those simply heroic statues of generals or private soldiers, which is, that there is a kind of sadness to it and a contemplative. You can see your reflection in the shining stone, and plus seeing all of the names, of course, it is obviously a powerful device. Initially, it was opposed by some veterans groups who said, "It was a black gash of shame," and so forth. They wanted a more traditional statue, and eventually they put up-
SM (01:11:25):
The three-man statue.
MI (01:11:26):
...three-man statue, which to my mind, it detracts from the effect of the original. But the wall has become the most popular tourist site in Washington. So clearly, people do see it as an appropriate memorial to the Vietnam War.
SM (01:11:47):
The Muskie response was that he did not even comment about 1968, which the students thought he would talk about. His comment said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And dealing with the issue of race, he said, "When 430,000 Americans lose their lives and almost an entire generation is wiped up, particularly in the South, that is a tragedy." And you go to Gettysburg and you see oftentimes the flags on the Southern side. Is there some... Is that a train?
MI (01:12:24):
No, it is the fire siren.
SM (01:12:27):
Oh.
MI (01:12:27):
Tell you also when there is an accident. I hate it.
SM (01:12:32):
This is a question that is kind of different. Is there something about the (19)50s, the (19)60s, and (19)70s, the time when boomers were young, that is rarely discussed, but important in your eyes, with respect to the overall impact that had on 74 million? Something that is rarely discussed but important?
MI (01:12:53):
If it is rarely discussed, I probably have not thought about it or have not discussed it. Well, I do not know if it is rarely discussed, but you often see the baby boom generation counter pose to the Greatest Generation. And recently, we have been living in sort of this Greatest Generation boom let, Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, and [inaudible], The Pacific. I think what has to be understood about the (19)60s generation is of course, they are the children of the World War II generation. And World War II was enormously influential for thinking and worldview. When I grew up, when I was 10, every adult authority figure I had, from my father, to my sixth-grade teacher, to the President of the United States was a World War II Veteran.
SM (01:14:10):
Same here.
MI (01:14:14):
And the war was endlessly celebrated, Longest Day, Great Escape, television shows like Combat and Gallant Men.
SM (01:14:24):
Victory at Sea.
MI (01:14:25):
Victory at Sea, even earlier, Sergeant Rock. So you are kind of living in this. And children's play, Tom Engelhardt has written a good book called, Victory Culture about the way children's play-
SM (01:14:37):
That is with the cowboy on the cover.
MI (01:14:39):
What is that?
SM (01:14:39):
Is a cowboy on the cover? I think there is a cowboy on-
MI (01:14:43):
Oh yeah, I guess.
SM (01:14:44):
...of course. Yeah.
MI (01:14:44):
I guess so, because he takes it back to the narrative victory culture goes back to the Western. But that was the world we inhabited, and there was a tremendous amount of idealism about the United States role in the world as a liberator, liberating force, winning the war as we thought. Because we did not think much about the Soviets. A good war and so on and so forth. I think that idealism carried over into the (19)60s generation just was put into different directions, which was to instead of simply endlessly celebrating American virtues and triumphs, it was to get America action to exemplify the values at its best, it had represented in the past. So lots of people went from being excited about John Kennedy, war hero PT 109, to being excited about the moral qualities of the Civil Rights protestors, people like Bob Moses. And to being disappointed about when America and Vietnam its actions and value, seems so at odds with those World War II values and actions. So World War II did not go away. World War II went away in the 1970s. It would reappear in disguised ways, like the Star Wars Imperial Storm Trooper in helmets, like Nazi helmets and so forth. So it disappeared because of the general war movies went away. People did not want to see movies about war, they had just been through Vietnam. And then at the end of the century, as the veterans were dying off, you quickly realized this generation was not going to be around anymore, then suddenly it returned to the vengeance. But I do not know what I am going to say.
SM (01:16:50):
You made a point there. Why did the children of the World War II generation in the 1950s, all they saw were Westerns, cowboys and Indians. Indians, and guys wearing black hats were the bad guy. And the good guy was always Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, Matt Dillon, that whole group. What was the psyche there? Because we grew up as kids with cowboys and Indians, the movies, everything was Cowboys and Indians.
MI (01:17:24):
Well, that had pretty much been the case since the 1890s. I mean, the story of America was the story of Western expansion. And the conflict in Western expansion was the conflict between the cowboys and the Indians or the whites and the Indians. There was little doubt that who was the good guy in that conflict. So it was a powerful story. Hollywood was drawn to it, created its own icons like John Wayne, cowboys and Indians went away in the 1970s.
SM (01:17:56):
Yes, they did.
MI (01:17:58):
Or they changed where the Indians became the good guy, suddenly. That was a product of Vietnam as well.
SM (01:18:07):
Who do you think were the personalities of the Boomer Generation that both good and bad, that had the greatest influence on them, whether they be politicians, activists, writers, you name it, entertainers? Were there things that stood out that really, yes, this was the impact. This person in that group had the greatest impact on everyone, regardless of their politics.
MI (01:18:40):
Well, rock and roll.
SM (01:18:42):
Right.
MI (01:18:42):
I mean, I do not have anything surprising to say about that. But certainly, a lot more people took their politics from music than they did from sitting down and reading a report here on statement. And Dylan, even when he left behind his protest, Woody Guthrie persona for his other personas, he was changing personas every a couple years, but the sort of angry alienation of the mid 1960s music, the, "Do not follow leaders watch the parking meters," was still very expressive of a political worldview. So you cannot underestimate the influence of those pop-cultural figures.
SM (01:19:39):
I know that when I read the March book, Underground, he talked about the importance of Che Guevara. He read about him and thought about him a lot. But why did many of the new left read not only Che, but Mao, David and John Paul [inaudible], Camus? Bertrand Russell, who I loved to read. In fact, the opening of his biography, that first couple lines there, the purpose of his life. I do not know if you remember that line.
MI (01:20:10):
I bet a lot more people wore the T-shirt, than actually sat down than read Che. I bet a lot more people bought and carried around a little red book as a cultural icon, which I did, than actually sat down and read Mao. He was pretty boring. So I do not think, certainly by the late (19)60s, that those figures were so much important as intellectual influences, as they were just as images of heroic gorillas and so forth.
SM (01:20:52):
It is like the thought that a revolutionary can create a revolutionary society. And that socialism, we keep hearing that word today of being labeled against President Obama, which is ridiculous. But that they believed that revolution should happen in the United States. What were they meaning, "Revolution should happen in the United States?" Was it ideas? They were reading this before violence was part of the anti-war effort, before the Weatherman became part of SDS, or they took over SDS, the Black Panthers, the Young Lords in the Latino community, the violence even at the Wounded Knee, which was different than the takeover of Alcatraz in (19)69. So what were they saying here? This was even before violence.
MI (01:21:46):
Well, one of the most powerful texts to come out of the 1960s, published right in the middle of the decade, was the autobiography of Malcolm X. And sales, no doubt, helped by the fact that Malcolm X was assassinated before the book came out. And Malcolm X's story, Malcolm X famously said, "By any means necessary." But he was not himself a violent revolutionary. He simply said, "If that is what it takes to win freedom, then that is what we will do." But the story is really a story of personal transformation, of creating a new identity. He had been a pimp and a drug dealer and a drug addict and a convict who remade himself into this powerful spokesman for Black power, Black pride. And in doing so, it was a very American story. I like to compare it to the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, which is also a story of his recreation. He runs away from Boston and goes to Philadelphia [inaudible] two pennies in his pocket and becomes one of the most important businessmen and inventors and philanthropists, and then later, a revolutionary, a different revolution. I think that that was a very (19)60s message. That idea that you could remake yourself, become a new person, take on a new name. Malcolm Little becomes Malcolm X. So that text strikes me as much more authentically representative of what was driving the politics in the (19)60s, which were a lot about self-transformation, for better or worse. Then Che Guevara's Bolivian notebooks or [inaudible] Revolution, or certainly the Little Red Book, which again, I do not think anybody actually read.
SM (01:23:52):
So you saw that with Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali. And then you saw that with Lew Alcindor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They were all somewhat linked to right Elijah Mohammad. They were never [inaudible].
MI (01:24:03):
Right.
SM (01:24:09):
But anyway, I do not know if you ever had a chance to read Theodore Roszak's book, The Making of a Counterculture and Charles Reich's, the Greening of America. To me, (19)67 to (19)71, they were classic books that we were required to read in our graduate program at Ohio State. And they had a tremendous impact on me. When think of the counterculture and what was happening, would you consider those two of the greatest books to really describe the young people of the era?
MI (01:24:45):
No. I mean, I think they were attempts by well-meaning academics to account for this change. I think if you went back and read them now, they probably would not stand up. I mean, millions of people read them because they wondered, "What the [inaudible] is going on with these kids?" Again, I guess I would turn to novels for one. I turned to a book like, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey. Kesey is an interesting, significant figure. Or Doris Lessing's, Golden Notebooks, especially lots of women, but lots of men were reading Lessing. Again, books about social transformation, identifying with outsiders, people on the margins, On the Road.
SM (01:25:45):
Oh, yeah.
MI (01:25:45):
On the Road was published in 1957 and sells okay. It remains in print, but it is real moments in the 1960s. And what is On the Road? On the Road is an account of this journey of self-discovery, which is in part going to the West, a great American story, but it is also going to the margins. I think a lot of (19)60s politics, youthful (19)60s politics needs to be understood in terms of the identification with people who were on the outs.
SM (01:26:21):
The Beats.
MI (01:26:22):
Well, the Beats, but migrant farm workers. Sal Paradise goes off and picks beans and in Imperial Valley or picks cotton, jazz musicians and so forth. Especially when Kerouac was writing that book, were mostly invisible to most Americans. And the idea that true wisdom, true spirituality... Because Kerouac is nothing if not concerned with things of the spirit, Beat. Beat is the root of beatific and also beaten down. That those notions that you could find truth among people who did not share in that sort of cornucopia of American consumer culture, were not white and middle class and living in suburbs, that was at the center of a lot of (19)60s politics. And so when sharecroppers coming along in the early 1960s trying to register to vote, it was an incredibly evocative image for young people, white and black. That is why Fannie Lou Hamer, who becomes a heroine, because it is this, "Illiterate woman," as LBJ referred to her, stood up to the sheriffs. They beat her and she would not back down. And she says, "If these things can happen, I question America." Well, that had a lot of power. Now, that could translate into things, which looking back, I think we are pretty bad, which is the identification of the Black Panthers, the brothers on the block. Well, they must know something we do not know because they have this gritty, urban, authentic experience. And in fact, [inaudible] about what was going to change America. And in fact, their vision was rejected by most black people. Most black people followed Martin Luther King, they followed Bobby Seale. Black Panthers had 5,000 members at their height.
SM (01:28:30):
Well, can we go over maybe 15 or 20 minutes?
MI (01:28:33):
Sure.
SM (01:28:33):
Because I got about five here. One of the things at the very end, I am going to mention just some names and personalities for just quick thoughts. But when you look at this, this was also a protest generation, or at least protest was very important part. Obviously, you had all the rights movements, from the Civil Rights and Women's Rights, Native American, Latina, environmental groups, certainly the anti-war groups. And they even had, which has led into some of the things today, dealing with ageism and mental rights issues and disability rights and so forth, so it is carried on. And that is a very important part of the... I am getting a lot, [inaudible] here. Of all these movements, and there were a lot of them... The Civil Rights Movement is historic, so I am not even really talking about that. And the anti-war movement, we have talked about. And the Women's Movement somehow was a shoot off because of the fact that there was so much sexism going on in the Civil Rights and in the Anti-War Movement. But of all the movements that took place during that period, and as we have gone into the (19)70s and the (19)80s and the (19)90s, and now in the tens, which of the ones are the most successful in terms of consistency and being on-going? Most successful in terms of consistency and being ongoing in their fight and struggle. Are they all that way or have some kind of taken the back burner? They are not as important anymore, or they do not have the leaders like we had before?
MI (01:30:16):
Well, the civil rights movement was prime formative as, say if you take away the civil rights movement in the (19)60s, it would not have been an anti-war movement. There would not have been witness movement, would not have been in the left counter for anything, would have been small groups like in the (19)50s. But there would not have been movements. It established, it was an inspiration, it was an organizational model. It showed that small groups of people, totally committed, could actually change history. So if you are asking me to rank the movements in terms of importance, I would have to say both in terms of the issues and in terms of the influence that the civil rights movement was the first among equals. Movements can only sustain themselves at that fever pitch of kind of Christ's politics for so many years. The labor movement begins, well just beginning 1930s, but it takes off in the 1930s with the sense that labor is the great news force that is going to transform. Okay. All right. Oh, the labor movement. So the labor movement begins in this kind of fever pitch of commitment idealism and sit down strikes and whatnot. It is going to transform on the world and it becomes institutionalized. It survives, it provides a service function, and in some ways, it becomes bureaucratic in some cases becomes corrupt because you cannot simply be at that crisis edge for forever, wear yourself out. But the moment passes. It is an interesting question. What would have happened to Martin Luther King if he had not been assassinated before 1929? He could well have lived while he had a kind of unhealthy diet, but theoretically he could still be with us today. Would he still be Martin Luther King? Would he be a national icon? Would he be a national holiday after he died? Probably not. Because he would have had to settle down. He would have had to have a life post movement. The people who are around and productive, who came out of that era found a post. John Lewis became a congressman. Loads of good stuff.
SM (01:32:52):
I have interviewed him. He was great.
MI (01:32:52):
[inaudible] (19)60s. Yeah. So you cannot sustain, it is an illusion to think that, oh well, civil rights movement, it is not what it used to be. Well, it could not possibly be. It had its moment. Anti-war protest is waxed and waned in the decades since. There were certainly protests against the Iraq war, although interestingly, the biggest ones were before the Iraq War. Somehow it was hard to sustain once the Iraq War actually came and lasted and lasted and lasted. So I am not surprised, and I do not think it is a commentary on the movements of the 1960s that they are not still around in full force and full throat 40 years later. That is the life of social movements, they come and go.
SM (01:33:44):
One of the criticisms of the social movements today though, is that when protests took place in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, you would see, say for example on Earth Day. Earth Day, Gaylor Nelson consulted with the leaders of SDS before they had the Earth Day on April 22. There was a cooperation and agreement. We do not want us to outshine you, but we would like you to be a participant. There seemed to be signs of all the groups at some of the rallies. Now, this is just my observation. Now, it seems so insular that the gay and lesbian movement is just the gay and lesbian movement signs. The women's issue, just women's movement signs. And civil rights, you do not see any other group. It is all so insular now.
MI (01:34:32):
Okay. Civil rights movement, for a brief moment, to sort of, I am getting coin the phrase, but the we shall overcome moment of basically 1963, 1965 succeeded to the extent that it seemed to embody not simply the needs interests of black Americans alone, but of all Americans. It is to say white Americans who wanted to live in a true democracy, felt that their interests were being represented by the Civil Rights group. They identified with it. What happens post (19)60s, and this is again part of the rise and fall social movements, is that rather than any movement embodying a kind of larger vision, they fragment and they become interest groups, identity politics, is the phrase that is often used. And it is left to the right to pick up that banner. So Ronald Reagan, speaking about his morning in America and government is not the solution. He is the one who has the compelling narrative that this is about all of us, not just about the interest. And part of the problem with Democratic Party, is that it is political platforms and political message seems to become simply a laundry list of the demands of this or that group, without convincingly portraying itself as speaking in the interest of all Americans. And that is why Barack Obama talks about the need for the post (19)60s political paradigm and also kind of reinvent politics. And they will get past those divisive tags left over from the decade, and I wish them luck. Because it does not seem to be happening at the moment.
SM (01:36:27):
He is sometimes labeled by his opponents as the epitome of the reincarnation of the (19)60s.
MI (01:36:33):
Which of course he has no real interest in. I mean Barack Obama is essentially a moderate Republican of the early 1960s. Thinks there is some role for government, it is not central to his vision, thinks some regulation, but he is also a pro-business. I mean, it is ludicrous that people get away with calling it a socialist or a communist, let alone a Nazi dictator. Oh, my God. Do not give me started.
SM (01:37:02):
Yeah, I know. I hear from some of my relatives. I have to walk out of the room.
MI (01:37:09):
Yeah, it is insanity. So anyway, so I am not surprised that the civil rights movement is not what it was or the anti-war movement. If people studied in the 1960s, students studied in the 1960s. I hope what they conclude is that, not that they missed everything, but that you can learn from the example, if not the model. It is certainly not the organizational trappings like becoming from SDS. You can learn how social change happens. Just small groups of people study their situation, understand the need for new kind of politics, new kind of movement, devote themselves to a great cause.
SM (01:37:54):
So many notes here. This is a broad question here, maybe too broad, but what accomplishments lay at the hands of the boomer generation and what disasters lay at the hands of the boomer generation? I think you have already commented on quite a few of them. Anything you want to add to that?
MI (01:38:19):
No.
SM (01:38:20):
Technology, would you say technology is a big plus for this generation?
MI (01:38:24):
Well, not me. I am a technophobe, but I do not even have a cell phone. Right. My children call me a hippie technophobe.
SM (01:38:34):
I have had it for a couple of years. One of the questions back on here, and this is I have asked quite a few people, this particular, not everybody, but in your own words, describe how the following timeframes influenced and developed the boomer generation, between those born between (19)46 and (19)64. I have known already that people told me you cannot generalize. And when we talk about the first 10-year boomers and the second 10-years, it is almost the difference of night and day. But in terms of these periods, just if you were to briefly describe, if you were in a classroom and the students were asking you, professor, would you describe how 1946 to 1960 shape the boomers, just in a couple sentences, what would that be? 1946 to 1960?
MI (01:39:21):
Well, I think it has a lot to do with that post World War II period, the great influence of the war, the prosperity sense of a rising expectations. Sense that anything was possible in your own life. Sense of dissatisfaction with disparity between the idealism absorbed from your parents' experience of World War II and some of the senior sides of American life. And then of course the war itself. The war in Vietnam.
SM (01:39:58):
How about 1961 to 1970?
MI (01:40:01):
Oh, I cannot break it down like that.
SM (01:40:03):
Or (19)71 to (19)80.
MI (01:40:07):
Well, again, my wife was born in 1961. She is a boomer. She got to college in 1979 or 1978. Her life, her experience as a student, her expectations of the world were different to mine. Made a difference, whether it became along the start, middle or the end, used to drive me crazy speaking to when I was doing this kind of interviewing myself with some of the founders of SDS. And they said, "Oh, it is too bad you came along when you did. Too late. You missed everything." Said, "I went to college in 1968. What do you mean I missed everything?" I had to be there in 1962. Really? It was very aggravating. But the experiences were different.
SM (01:40:51):
Well, there is no question though, that when you talk about that period 1980 and beyond, it is as if the whole world of the boomers and it was all when they were young, nothing mattered really when they were older. Because the era of Reagan is 1980 and beyond. Seems like everything has been influenced by him since.
MI (01:41:14):
Right.
SM (01:41:15):
Boomers, instead of criticizing that generation or criticizing the Democratic Party like Barney Frank did and his book, Speaking Frankly, you have got to disassociate yourself from the anti-war and the left wing of the party. Is there anything you can say about the (19)80 to 2010, the last 30 years, in terms of the influence on that generation?
MI (01:41:41):
I mean, again, the pendulum does not swing. We have this tendency to think in terms of decades. So 1980s is the decade of Reagan, just like the 1960s is the decade of John Kennedy and Malcolm X. But I mean, we forget for example, that 1982, the largest war protest in American history, dwarfed the anti-war protests in 1960s took place, people were terrified Reagan’s getting ready to fight nuclear war, nuclear freeze movement was expanding dramatically. And in June of 1982, 3/4 of a million people marched in Washington, not Washington, in New York City. It was the start of the UN session on nuclear disarmament or something to protest Reagan policies. So our history, our selective memory of the past eliminates it. It is like it did not happen. Or in 1981 crushes the [inaudible] strike. Half million people, summoned by the AFL-CIO, go to Washington on Solidarity day, which was in September, maybe late August of (19)81, to protest the crushing of the strike and that gets airbrushed out too. AFL-CIO, it never had a happening in the streets of Washington. Pete Seager was there, singing Solidarity Forever. He was not usually a feature of AFL-CIO, public events. So it is much too simple to say, okay, well boomer generation or the left wing of the boomer generation, has its moment and then sort of packed its bags and went back in its tent and sulked. And things were going on and also, lots of younger people were involved obviously as well. It was not people who gotten their start in the 1960s. I mean, America has never gone, the pendulum has never swung back to where it was in the 1950s. Things remain contested. And certainly Ronald Reagan changed the equation and spoke to a great public disillusionment of the government, which was itself partially a product. Largely a product in the 1960s, Vietnam and Watergate. But it is not simply that the boomers went away.
SM (01:44:17):
A lot of the critics of the boomers say they did. But overall, not everyone, because he cannot generalize.
MI (01:44:24):
So Jerry Rubin started running the meat and meat business so that, you get one sort of iconic figure and you say, oh wow, that is representative of all.
SM (01:44:35):
And Bobby went off, Bobby Seale went off and did a cookbook.
MI (01:44:39):
Well, that is wrong with that? Cooking was a big part of [inaudible].
SM (01:44:42):
He would talk about that at the conference.
MI (01:44:44):
I would talk, actually that reminds me of something, which is food. Food in the (19)50s stank. Food in the (19)70s actually got interesting. And today the concern about food, the local food movement and the slow food movement and the Alice Waters and Michael Pollen and all, that is a product of the 1960s. We were in 1971 when I was in a collective, our Bible and our cookbook was Diet for a Small Planet by Francis Moore Lappe. He is still around and still writing, which was about how you could not sustain a meat-based diet. It was going to be bad for the Earth. It is going to lead global warming because the clearing of land in the Amazon for grazing cattle and so on and so forth. I mean, all of that was a product of the 1960s. And there was a movement that was enormously influential, even on people helping of themselves as part of the counterculture part of the left. But white would like to eat healthfully. That would not have happened if it was not in the (19)60s.
SM (01:45:53):
When you mentioned about food in the (19)50s, I think of two things that immediately come to mind. Number one, milk was brought to your door. Remember they leave milk and then the second thing, they did not have fast food places, but you could not go out and get chicken in the basket. Do you remember that? And that was very popular. What do these things mean to you? These are just quick responses. You already talked about the wall. What does Jackson State and Kent State mean to you?
MI (01:46:20):
Well, personally was sort of the height of the 1960s. All what happened in 1970 was the moment when it seemed like all things were possible. You could stop the war, you could change America. And you know that it was a deadly serious moment, four dead in Ohio.
SM (01:46:46):
What is Woodstock mean to you?
MI (01:46:48):
Well, it means I was 18, I met my girlfriend at Woodstock.
SM (01:46:51):
You were there?
MI (01:46:51):
Yeah. I was there.
SM (01:46:51):
Full four days?
MI (01:46:56):
No, I was only there for a day and night because I was stupid. Because when you went to it, you did not know it was like this historical event. I mean, I bought tickets for a day. I could not afford to buy tickets for the whole time. Nobody bothered to collect your tickets. And then once I got there, it was really cool and really neat. But you did not realize it, 40 years later, be a museum there. And the Jimmy Hendrix would know, sort of have this defining moment on the very last day if I had known that it would have stayed.
SM (01:47:28):
Now what entertainers did you actually see and hear?
MI (01:47:32):
I wrote a piece for the Chronicle Higher Education about them. I had to go check the playlist on Wikipedia. See, I had seen the movie so many times. I was a little confused. But I saw Santana.
SM (01:47:44):
Oh, what a great piece they did, that one.
MI (01:47:45):
I saw Jefferson Airplane and I saw Janis Joplin and I saw Sly and the Family Stone. And those are the ones that spring your mind. Oh, and Country Joe. Although there was a dispute about, on different websites about when Country Joe actually performed. But the website I read that persuaded me was he was after he performed.
SM (01:48:17):
Yeah. And that is where he said, give me an F, give me an O.
MI (01:48:20):
Well he performed twice was the thing.
SM (01:48:22):
How far away were you parked? Did you have to walk miles to get to it?
MI (01:48:26):
Few miles, yeah. I was in the parking lot. Muddy field.
SM (01:48:30):
What do the hippies and the yippies mean to you? The hippies and the yippies, two different groups.
MI (01:48:36):
Well, the yippies were sort of the Abby Hoffman, Jerry [inaudible] for the Chicago Democratic Convention. And it was never really an organization. It was just the people who identified with Hoffman who did in politics, which I did not, especially. The hippies were kind of much broader, diffuse. I mean, when I teach this, I draw circles on the board, overlapping circles. And I would say, okay, hippies, do you mean leftist, anti-war protestors? Here is one circle though, hippies. There is another circle that is a new left. A part of new left, the hippies, here is another circle, it is the anti-war movement. Part of the antiwar movement, were hippies and new leftists, but a lot of them were, so they were not all the same category.
SM (01:49:27):
I interviewed Steven Gaskin, who was a great interview about the farm. Very proud to be a hippie. And they have done unbelievable things too. Inventions. What does Watergate mean to you?
MI (01:49:41):
Well, Watergate proved we were right all along.
SM (01:49:45):
Vietnam, veterans against the war?
MI (01:49:47):
Were central to my understanding of the war. And were heroes to the anti-war movement. And repudiate the motion that there was a split between anti-war protestors, in the one hand, Vietnam veterans on the other.
SM (01:50:03):
What do the communes mean to you?
MI (01:50:05):
Well, lots of us were in communes and thinking that this was an alternative to family and work life and home life, that would sustain itself forever. Of course, it did not but it was certainly an interesting moment. I still find it difficult to cook for less than 13 people because I learned to cook mostly rice and vegetables. But I was cooking for the 13 people I lived with.
SM (01:50:34):
So, you were probably responsible for cooking a meal a week. And then, yeah, because I visited a commune up in Boston, when my brother was a diabetic and everyone responsible for one big dinner a week.
MI (01:50:51):
And you had to clean up too. And that was good training because it meant be cleaned as you cooked. So a big cleanup still.
SM (01:51:01):
How about, what does the counterculture mean to you? And that is counterculture, often defined as the music, the long hair, the clothes, the drugs, the sex, the whole thing.
MI (01:51:12):
Yeah. Well, you just said it.
SM (01:51:13):
Okay. What does the Black Panthers and black power mean to you?
MI (01:51:20):
Well, black power was much broader than Black Panthers. Black Panthers, one organizational expression of it, who unfortunately I think had a very negative effect on terms of their sort of gun idolatry and street thug language, which we took to be represented revolutionary authenticity, but was actually just a sort of cult.
SM (01:51:46):
How about My Lai? What did me My Lai mean to you?
MI (01:51:51):
My Lai was not exceptional, it was representative. I mean, it is not like people were not being killed every single day in terrible ways in Vietnam. It is just the one that we learned about.
SM (01:52:04):
And Tet?
MI (01:52:06):
Tet was the turning point.
SM (01:52:11):
The last part here is, where is my list at? These are just responding very few words. So these personalities or terms? Oh, I do have one question before the final thing here. In about the last 30 to 40 interviews, I have said that there are three slogans that I personally think kind of identify the boomer generation. And the other people had said, we shall overcome. And I wish I did not have on there some. But they are, the more violent aspects of this period are symbolized by Malcolm X, by any means necessary.
MI (01:52:48):
Okay.
SM (01:52:48):
Second is the quote that Bobby Kennedy used. It was a quote from another author, obviously. And that is, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not." Which is symbolic of an activism, a positive mentality, non-violent protest. Seeing injustice and wanting to create justice wherever you see it. And the third one is kind of a hippie mentality, that was on a lot of the posters. The Peter Max posters were great for that counterculture in the early (19)70s. And I had one hanging in my room at Ohio State, and that was, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, that will be beautiful." Which was a hippie mentality. And then of course the civil rights mentality was, we shall overcome. And the only other one that people have mentioned was Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." And then the other one was Timothy O' Leary, "To an intern on dropout." Are there any other slogans you think really symbolize? Does that cover it?
MI (01:53:53):
Bob Dylan lyrics are endlessly mineable for insights in these (19)60s. I think I already mentioned, "Do not follow leaders, watch the parking meters."
SM (01:54:01):
Right.
MI (01:54:02):
"You do not need a weather man to know which way the wind blows." And so forth.
SM (01:54:05):
Oh yeah.
MI (01:54:06):
Subterranean homesick blues. We used to sit down and play it endlessly and analyze it over and over again.
SM (01:54:13):
Who were your favorite, besides Bob Dylan, who were your favorite rock musicians? Did you have to have a message in your music or did you just, you would like the combination of message and just great sound?
MI (01:54:31):
Well, I mean the Doors, not political group a message except sex is a message. The approach of the apocalypse is a message. So nothing would surprise you. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Credence Clearwater, Country Joe.
SM (01:55:01):
Were there any Motown performers that you really dug?
MI (01:55:05):
Not so much. I mean, although I think that is a weakness in my musical education, but I mean, I am certainly hear about all the time. So it was part of the musical backdrop.
SM (01:55:16):
Did you ever listen to what is going on by Marvin Gay, which is just one of the greatest? We will end with these, history responded with a very few words to these people or [inaudible].
MI (01:55:28):
Actually one local group, local to the West Coast, Joy of Cooking. You do not hear much about them, they were a Berkeley group. Came, when I was in Portland. They would come up and play, were sort of cult followers of Joy of Cooking, partially because they had women lead guitarists, which was quite unusual in those days.
SM (01:55:45):
You were at the Summer of Love too, were not you? Did you say you were there or no?
MI (01:55:48):
I was in Indianapolis.
SM (01:55:51):
Oh, okay. That is right. That is right.
MI (01:55:52):
We were conscious, that was going on. Everybody laughed at the Scott Mackenzie song, which is now sort of seen as this anthem of the Summer of Love. Sergeant Pepper was really the soundtrack for that summer.
SM (01:56:06):
How about, my first one is Tom Hayden. Thoughts on Tom Hayden?
MI (01:56:08):
Tom is a smart guy. I interviewed him myself, many years ago. And I think he had a sort of complicated politics, years that followed. Sometimes it is true, there are no second acts in American lives. And I think he is an example of it.
SM (01:56:32):
He has written a lot of good books though.
MI (01:56:33):
Yeah, well he was absolutely essential in 1960s. Very brave guy. I was a young reporter from an underground newspaper and I was trying to formulate a question. I could not come up with a way of doing it. He very sort of gently steered me to the formula I still use. He said, "Well, some people would argue this. What would you say to that?" Shaping the question for him. Oh, yes. See, I was floundering. He had been a reporter, student reporter, for the Ann Arbor Daily. So whenever I use that formulation, I think of Tom.
SM (01:57:07):
I will remember that.
MI (01:57:07):
Some people would argue. What do you think?
SM (01:57:12):
Jane Fonda?
MI (01:57:14):
Well, Jane got a bad rap. I actually met Jane Fonda. Jane and Tom, in fact, came from Portland and part of the China Peace campaign in 1973. I washed her dirty laundry. That is fine. She is the most stunningly beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life at that point. She was 30 and I was just a kid. So I had never met a Hollywood star. And it is true, they are kind of incandescently walk into a room. Also, your jaw drops.
SM (01:57:44):
And she had lived with what is his name for a long time before she met Tom.
MI (01:57:49):
Roger Vadim.
SM (01:57:50):
Yeah. Roger Vadim. And she did Barbella.
MI (01:57:53):
Barbarella. So I mean, all the stuff about her being Hanoi Jane. Had one bad photograph taken, but lots of people were traveling to Hanoi. John Baez traveled to Hanoi, actually got caught in an American bombing raid. So it was not a treasonous act.
SM (01:58:14):
How about the Kennedy brothers? Just quick thoughts on John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy.
MI (01:58:18):
Yeah. Well, John Kennedy was a figure in the (19)50s, not the (19)60s, and did not care about domestic reform and was remembered as a reformer, but because of the civil rights movement, picked him up and pushed him in a direction he would not have gone himself. I think Robert Kennedy, under a much more fundamental transformation. He was younger, more attuned to the moment. And it is an interesting question. If Sirhan Sirhan's elbow, had been jostled at the last moment, I think Robert Kennedy would have received democratic nomination in (19)68, and we would not be talking about the onset of the conservative era with Richard Nixon. One of those moments of contingency as we historians, like you say, where a historical accident changes what followed.
SM (01:59:15):
How about LBJ and Hubert Humphrey?
MI (01:59:20):
Well, they are both kind tragic figures. They wanted to be domestic reformers and they wound up creating and apologizing for terrible work.
SM (01:59:36):
Dwight Eisenhower?
MI (01:59:39):
Eisenhower looks better, as the years pass. Partially because the Republican presidents who followed him were so terrible. This is not my insight, but political scientists, what is his name? He said that the New deal was ratified by Dwight Eisenhower because... The New Deal was ratified by Dwight Eisenhower because when he came into office, he did nothing to dismantle it. He was not an anti-government crusader, he in some ways expanded it. The largest public works projects in the history of the United States were the Federal Highway Act of 1956, which he pushed for.
SM (02:00:19):
Right. And the Eisenhower Locks up in the North.
MI (02:00:21):
Yeah. And again, in terms of foreign policy, although John Foster Dulles talked a mean game about rolling back communism, Eisenhower was pretty cautious.
SM (02:00:32):
What about Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew?
MI (02:00:38):
I tell my students that you only really hate one president in your life, so choose carefully. Because I really utterly, totally loathed Richard Nixon. And there have been Presidents since whose policies I have found repellent, but I cannot summon the level of vitriol that I did for Richard Nixon. And Agnew was joined at the hip with him.
SM (02:01:04):
Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern?
MI (02:01:08):
Well, I have met McGovern, brought him here to speak. And he was the first Presidential candidate I voted for in 1972. I think he would have been a good President. McCarthy had the courage that Bobby Kennedy lacked to challenge a sitting incumbent Democrat, so it is an admirable act.
SM (02:01:30):
You have already talked about Malcolm, but just comparing thoughts on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
MI (02:01:36):
Well, King was a great... They are often thought of as the moderate and the radical. But King was, to my mind, the better radical. And he really talked of... First of all, he was more realistic politically. He could build coalitions which Malcolm X could not do. And lead great consent, and actually risked his life, while Malcolm was killed by his own followers or ex-followers of the nation of Islam, whereas King was on the front lines of endless confrontations and responded non-violently. King was a real radical, and we forget that the slogan of the (19)63 March on Washington was not just Freedom Now, it was Jobs and Freedom. In the beginning, he wanted to link economic change with social and political change, and that was what he wound up doing at the end. We also forget how unpopular he was. Now, we are so in love with King, we think he is so wonderful. But many Americans hated him for opposing the war. His coming out against the war in spring of 1967 was enormously influential and legitimizing for people like us who were just beginning to cover anti-war politics.
SM (02:02:49):
But of course, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, and George Bush the first. I make a comment on Ronald Reagan when he came in, he emphatically said, "We are back," which means that the military is going to get stronger again. We are going to change the military. And then of course, Vietnam syndrome is over. And I remember George Bush saying, number one, saying that. So those three, Bush, Ford, and Reagan.
MI (02:03:16):
Well, Ford was an accidental President and was not in office long enough to move or do anything too bad. Reagan's politics, again, I find the antithesis of my own, both domestically and in terms of foreign policy. But Reagan is actually remembered as having won the Cold War. Well, I think he contributed to the end of the Cold War in the sense that he actually made an opening to Gorbachev, allowed Gorbachev to be Gorbachev. It was not by saber-rattling or building expensive, useless systems like Star Wars that he brought about the end of the Soviet Empire. Rather it was by seeking agreements. Reagan and Gorbachev signed the only arms limitation agreement which actually is an arms reduction agreement. The IMF, I believe in 1987, all the others, assault ones, simply said, "Okay, you can build more bombs, but you have to stop at this point." And Reagan, again, this is sometimes forgotten, at one point, meaning I think it was at Reykjavik or Reykjavik, however you say that said to Gorbachev, "Why do not we just do away with nuclear weapons all altogether?" Which horrified his own hawkish advisors, Reagan's advisors. Because he actually had this utopian streak. He actually really loathed nuclear weapons, and the idea of nuclear warfare he found genuinely horrifying. And we forget that. So Gorbachev thinking, "Okay, I have got this soulmate in Washington," was then able to step back from Afghanistan, from Eastern Europe. In 1989, the Soviets had 400,000 soldiers in East Germany. And Gorbachev said, "Stay on your bases. Do not interfere." If they wanted to crack down on what was going on in East Germany, they could have put an end to that real quick. But Gorbachev said, "It is a new world. We have to get used to it. If we lose Eastern Europe, we lose Eastern Europe."
SM (02:05:24):
Do you talk to your students at all in the (19)60s course about Ronald Reagan's coming to power as governor of California?
MI (02:05:31):
Yeah.
SM (02:05:32):
And what is really-
MI (02:05:33):
It is another of those ways in which the (19)60s were seed time for the conservative revival.
SM (02:05:40):
I interviewed Ed Meese, and it was great because he was the Assistant District Attorney of Alameda County. And at the time of the free, excuse me, yeah, Free Speech Movement. And he was not working for Reagan at the time, but he heard about him and they did not know each other. And then, of course, he had appointed him to be in his administration. And of course, he was involved with the People's Park crackdown and heavily involved in that. And of course, Reagan came to power dealing with the students.
MI (02:06:15):
Yeah, I will tell you a (19)60s story that has something to do with People's Park. Hamilton had compulsory chapel, been a part of the college since the beginning and had been whittled down over the years so that by 1964, there was only one... You only had to go on Sunday. We used to have to go twice a day every day of the week. But in 1964, Hamilton, which again is a sort of small, isolated men's college in upstate New York, but not the cutting edge of politics. But in spring of 1964, a freshman by the name of Daniel Steinman wrote a letter to the Spectators, this college newspaper, saying, "This is ridiculous. Why do we have to do this? It is an infringement on our conscience, and religious freedom and so on and so forth. I call on my fellow students to refuse to go into chapel on next Sunday, instead sit non-violently, not blocking way, to sit on the chapel steps instead." And 150 Hamilton students did so.
SM (02:07:14):
Oh, my God.
MI (02:07:14):
It is not like this was a hot bed of radicals.
SM (02:07:15):
Oh, yes.
MI (02:07:19):
Most of the people that did so just did not want to go to compulsory chapel. And a month later the trustees said, "Okay, no more compulsory chapel." So this 150-year-old tradition came to an end because this one college freshman said enough is enough.
SM (02:07:33):
That is student empowerment, really. That is the...
MI (02:07:37):
There is a correlation to this.
SM (02:07:38):
Okay.
MI (02:07:40):
So three years later he graduates and he goes off to the University of California to start law school at Bull Palm. And he was elected as the president of ASUP, Associated Students University of California. And at a rally in May of 1969, he is the guy who says, at the end of his speech, "Let us go take the park." So Daniel Steinman, who had gotten his start in radical politics leading a sit-in on the front steps of the chapel was the one who sent the mob marching on People's Park, which resulted in a month of civil disturbance, helicopters, James Rector getting killed, helicopters dropping CS gas on Sproul Plaza.
SM (02:08:19):
That is right. Yeah.
MI (02:08:21):
So I do not know whether he was happy with that distinction, but...
SM (02:08:25):
That is irony, though. He is a historic figure then really, when you think about it.
MI (02:08:30):
Yeah.
SM (02:08:30):
Are they proud of him here at Hamilton?
MI (02:08:32):
I do not think they-
SM (02:08:34):
They hide it.
MI (02:08:35):
Well, neither. I am writing the bicentennial history of the college. I just finished writing it, and I put him into the book just because I thought it was an interesting sideline.
SM (02:08:43):
That is an interesting sideline.
MI (02:08:45):
But I do not know how I stumbled on that fact.
SM (02:08:47):
But that, because I had mentioned People's Park with Ed Meese.
MI (02:08:49):
Right. But I do not know how I found out about Steinman's role, but I thought it was quite interesting. He still practices law. I look him up on the website.
SM (02:08:57):
When I am done with my interview, I want tell you a story that Ed Meese told me. I do not want to ruin it here now, though. The Berrigan brothers, Phillip and Daniel Berrigan and Dr. Benjamin Spock.
MI (02:09:09):
Well, the Berrigan brothers kind of emblematic of the Catholic Left, which also often gets left out of the story. And some relationship to, though independent of the Catholic worker movement, were very significant figures. And of course, Philip Berrigan was... There were crimes that they committed. Crimes? They threw blood on draft records. But Philip Berrigan was at the center of one of these alleged conspiracies, which jurors were rejecting. The Harrisburg Seven were acquitted, like the Gainesville Eight. Nixon Justice firm was setting up these elaborate conspiracy indictments against different groups, Catholic Left and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. And by the early 1970s, ordinary jurors, middle-aged, middle class jurors simply were not buying government propaganda, throwing those things out of the court.
SM (02:10:11):
How about Spock?
MI (02:10:15):
I was raised as a Spock baby. Simple version of that is permissiveness. Dr. Spock created this whole generation of so on and so forth. But actually just continued to trend towards child-centered families that had been developing since the early 19th century.
SM (02:10:34):
In my job at the university, we brought Daniel and Phillip to the campus. We brought Daniel, and then we brought Phillip, and Elizabeth McAllister, his wife, and he gave his last presentation in Phillip's library three weeks before he died, his last public presentations at Westchester University.
MI (02:10:52):
Interesting.
SM (02:10:53):
I went, because we had honored Frederick Douglass, who gave his last speech in 1895 at Westchester University. And I went to the administration and I said, "I think we need to put a plaque inside the room that this was the location where Phillip Berrigan gave his last speech." You can guess what they told me to do. Take a hike and jump off a bridge.
MI (02:11:24):
Do you have a watch on?
SM (02:11:24):
Oh, yeah.
MI (02:11:24):
Just to make sure of the time. At some point I [inaudible].
SM (02:11:24):
Yeah. It is 4:00. I only got maybe five, six more minutes here.
MI (02:11:28):
Okay.
SM (02:11:28):
The other ones are certainly the Black Panthers, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Stokely Carmichael, H Rap Brown, Huey Newton, that group, they were all unique and different personalities, but they were all part of that group.
MI (02:11:42):
Right. Well, I think overall the impact of the Black Panthers was very negative on the Black left and on the white left as well, with the sort of gun idolatry and the adventurous politics that they represented.
SM (02:12:05):
The others, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.
MI (02:12:09):
Ellsberg was central, the original whistleblower, and also a boon to historians. Most histories of the Vietnam War down to the present are simply glosses on the Pentagon Papers. And that was the basic documentary record.
SM (02:12:25):
Angela Davis, she was not a Black Panther.
MI (02:12:28):
No. Well, I think Angela Davis went to Paris on the Hamilton Junior Year Abroad program. She was a Brandeis student, so she had a Hamilton connection. A very charismatic figure. I think she was guilty as health. She was another acquittal, but I have no doubt that she was involved with buying the guns that were used in the Marin County Courthouse Shootout.
SM (02:12:55):
That is the one where George Jackson's brother was involved.
MI (02:12:58):
Dr. Jackson.
SM (02:12:58):
He got killed, did not he? I think.
MI (02:12:59):
He was killed.
SM (02:13:00):
Yeah. Let us see, just a few more here. Robert McNamara and Woodward and Bernstein.
MI (02:13:09):
Well, McNamara, he saw what he had done. He was horrified by it. He was weeping in his office in the Pentagon, but he kept his mouth shut for 30 odd years. And then when he spoke out finally in 1995 about what he really thought, he found himself loathed both by the left and the right, both by people who had supported the war and people who opposed the war. And was not an admirable figure. He was the architect of the war. Kept silent when speaking out might actually have made a difference. On the other hand, you cannot imagine Donald Rumsfeld ever 30 years later saying, "Gee, the Iraq War was not such a good idea after all."
SM (02:13:55):
And Woodward and Bernstein?
MI (02:13:58):
Well, they did not bring down Nixon by themselves. Judge John Sirica was probably much more instrumental in that. But they got on the story early and they pursued it. And they owned it in a way that...
SM (02:14:10):
Timothy Leary.
MI (02:14:12):
Showman, opportunist, obviously influenced a lot of people.
SM (02:14:20):
Muhammad Ali.
MI (02:14:23):
Very important figure, again, in that sort of sense of personal transformation. So central to (19)60s politics and (19)60s culture. Great fighter.
SM (02:14:34):
The female leaders, which Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, some of that group of politicians.
MI (02:14:42):
Yeah. If you go back and you read the Feminine Mystique, in much the same way as we were talking about the Civil Rights movement, it is not really just about women. It is about what kind of families do we want to have? What kind of society do we want to have? And I think part of its success, its influence was that lots of people can identify with it. Obviously, women were her main constituency and readership, but it was one of those moments when the feminism was speaking with a universal appeal.
SM (02:15:25):
SDS and the Weathermen, I think you have already talked about them. How about the American Indian Movement? Your thoughts on... That was a four-year phenomenon, really.
MI (02:15:34):
Yeah. It was an example of the influence of the civil rights movement that all kinds of other subgroups suddenly began to see themselves as having rights that needed to be defended in a confrontational style. They skirted. Well, they did not skirt, they embraced the violent politics, which I think worked against them. And their leader is still in jail many decades later.
SM (02:16:01):
Barry Goldwater and William Buckley.
MI (02:16:05):
Reinvented American conservatism.
SM (02:16:09):
Jackie Robinson.
MI (02:16:13):
Obviously, major figure in terms of the idea that American athletics was all white up through the end of the 1940s is kind of astounding in a sense.
SM (02:16:26):
He was a supporter of Richard Nixon. I could not believe that.
MI (02:16:31):
Right. Well, Nixon, for a while, Martin Luther King thought that Nixon had really good racial politics in the 1950s.
SM (02:16:41):
Chicago Eight.
MI (02:16:48):
You would have to separate them out. Some of them I think were incredibly important. And responsible figures like Dave Bellinger, Hayden obviously left. Jerry and Abby were entertaining clowns.
SM (02:17:03):
Bobby Seale was.
MI (02:17:05):
Bobby Seale.
SM (02:17:05):
Lee Weiner was in that group. He is still an activist. I think he is an environmental activist. And he has actually been involved in Jewish rights all over the world. I am trying to find the two that you do not hear about are Lee Weiner and the professor out in California, the eighth person.
MI (02:17:26):
Yeah, I know.
SM (02:17:27):
Anyways. But they are both still involved.
MI (02:17:29):
Right.
SM (02:17:30):
But you do not hear about it as much. And I guess we will finish with how important you feel the Free Speech Movement was overall and the Peace Corps.
MI (02:17:43):
Well, the Free Speech Movement sort of established a paradigm for campus protestors. Just to say that up to that point, protests had been launched from campuses, but not directed at university policy. And thereafter, university policy would become a central concern of new left activists. The difference was that the Free Speech Movement thought of itself as defending the best principles of the university with general intellectual and liberal arts principles as opposed to sort of the corporate shill aspects of the university. Later on-
SM (02:18:22):
Okay.
MI (02:18:23):
I was saying the Free Speech Movement identified with the universities, even while challenging university policy. But later on, I think unfortunately the universities came to be identified as, he was caught in the bushes, as the enemy, as part of the war machine and just shut it down.
SM (02:18:47):
And the Peace Corps, is this times of service?
MI (02:18:51):
Still here, part of the inspirational, idealistic side of the Kennedy administration.
SM (02:19:00):
The only last ones I have here is, of course, 1963 was the assassination of President Kennedy. Where were you? Do you remember the exact location where you were when you heard he had been killed?
MI (02:19:12):
Yeah, I was in eighth grade. I was in art class. Our teacher, Mrs. Williams, walked in the door and she was weeping, which impressed the heck out of me. I knew something important happened, because I had never seen an adult authority figure, let alone a teacher, crying. So we were all sent home, watched television the next four days, including Oswald's assassination.
SM (02:19:37):
Yes. You saw it live, too.
MI (02:19:38):
Well, I do not think I saw it live.
SM (02:19:39):
I did.
MI (02:19:40):
I saw in endless loop thereafter.
SM (02:19:42):
Yeah.
MI (02:19:43):
And then the funeral, the state funeral on...
SM (02:19:49):
He wants to go in. He wants to go in. I am down to my last three here. Okay. Let us see where my... Yeah. And the second one, do you remember where you were when you heard that Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed? Exact moment.
MI (02:20:21):
I do not remember Martin Luther King. I remember it happened. And I remember hearing about Kennedy's assassination the next morning on television. And by that point, assassinations had become so commonplace that I just sort of thought, "There is another one."
SM (02:20:46):
Were you in front of-
MI (02:20:47):
It was so much less powerful an experience than hearing that John Kennedy had shot, which itself is testimony to how common assassination had become.
SM (02:20:59):
Were you very fearful on the Cuban Missile Crisis that we-
MI (02:21:02):
I was not aware of it.
SM (02:21:05):
Okay. And the last one I have here is just the black and white TV of the fifties, which is Walt Disney, Howdy Doody, Hopalong Cassidy, those kinds of television shows. What were your favorite shows as a kid? Did you watch all those, too?
MI (02:21:21):
Sure. I was totally swept up in the Davy Crockett craze, which was the first great-
SM (02:21:26):
And Fess Parker just passed away recently.
MI (02:21:27):
I saw that. I played something for my students from YouTube with Fess Parker David Crockett.
SM (02:21:33):
Oh, wow.
MI (02:21:34):
I could sing all the words when I was five.
SM (02:21:35):
King of the wild frontier.
MI (02:21:40):
King of the wild frontier. Born on the mountaintop in Tennessee.
SM (02:21:42):
Greatest state in the land of the free.
MI (02:21:44):
Yeah. Killed in a bar when he was only three. Lived in the woods, so he knew every tree. Killed in a bar when he was only three.
SM (02:21:49):
Davy, Davy Crockett. Buddy Ebsen was his sidekick.
MI (02:21:52):
Yep. So yes, obviously. And all those westerns, I could bore you by singing theme songs to at least a half a dozen of them.
SM (02:22:03):
Have Gun Will Travel reads the card of a man.
MI (02:22:03):
A knight without honor in a savage land.
SM (02:22:03):
Yep.
MI (02:22:03):
So yes, I was a child with the television.
SM (02:22:13):
And those TV shows, those family, Donna Reed Show, Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver. Well, that was the ideal family of the fifties, but, boy, it was really hiding what was reality in the-
MI (02:22:29):
Yeah, I had a working mother, so it did not seem to describe my family. She was not standing around the kitchen in pearls and high heels washing the kitchen floor. Also, our kitchen would not look like theirs.
SM (02:22:42):
The last two Presidents are the Bill Clinton and George Bush. What are your thoughts on them? Because they are the only Boomer presidents.
MI (02:22:49):
That is right.
SM (02:22:49):
And someone said, "When you see their weaknesses, you are saying you can tell they are Boomers." I have had a couple people tell me that. Can you say that they are Boomers by looking at their life and their-
MI (02:23:03):
No. George Bush missed the (19)60s. He was a (19)50s character. He was consumed with his fraternity of skull and bones, or whatever it was.
SM (02:23:14):
Right.
MI (02:23:17):
So he was not really a (19)60s character at all. Clinton, sure, he was a (19)60s character. He was also... It is not like everybody who came out of the (19)60s was a womanizer with a taste for women with big hair. He was who he was. He is like a lot of politicians, which is an interesting point. Compare him to John Kennedy. John Kennedy makes Clinton look like a piker. Bill Clinton only had one affair while he was in the White House. John Kennedy had hundreds of women cycling through. So Clinton famously met Kennedy. He thought the rules had not changed. He thought he could be John Kennedy, the open zipper presidency.
SM (02:23:59):
Wow.
MI (02:24:00):
So was John Kennedy a typical boomer? Hardly.
SM (02:24:08):
Yeah. This is the absolute last question. And that is, when the best history books are written, or sociology books you know as a historian, they are often written 50 years after an event. And my question is when the best history books or sociology books are written on the Boomer generation after the last Boomer has died?
MI (02:24:31):
Probably so.
SM (02:24:32):
Yeah. What do you think history will say about that generation?
MI (02:24:40):
Well, that is one of those impossible questions, isn't it? I think we have much better histories of the Civil War being written now than were written when a Civil War veteran was alive, so I think that is true. We will understand the (19)60s finally when we are all gone. But it is precisely because I am part of the moment. And when I teach this course, I say to my students, "You have to be able to separate out when I am speaking with my historian's hat on and when I am speaking as an artifact." And you can learn from both, but there are some different messages involved.
SM (02:25:16):
Very-very good. Is there a question I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask?
MI (02:25:20):
No.
SM (02:25:20):
Well, thank you very much.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dr. Maurice Isserman
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Isserman, Maurice ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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College teachers; Hamilton College (Clinton, N.Y.); Radicalism--United States; Isserman, Maurice--Interviews
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Dr. Maurice Isserman, born in Hartford, Connecticut, is a professor at Hamilton College and an accomplished author. He got his Bachelor of Arts in History from Reed College and his Master of Arts in American History and his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. Dr. Isserman specializes in modern U.S. History, American radical movements, and global exploration and mountaineering.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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ND
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In copyright
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eng
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.130a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.130b
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2018-03-29
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McKiernan Interviews
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145:25