140 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7abb528c678f65a58bd003b43d4591e5.jpg 6d77606fb6e6cb32921e3be855686068 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7bc8d9c906aade1bdb46f862efbf7d46.mp3 4b96568b30755b012594537ef3fc9188 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. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Eugene Schoenfeld, 1935- Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld is a psychiatrist, author, lecturer and was a popular underground newspaper columnist. His column \"Dr. Hip\" was published in many newspapers including the Chicago Sun Times, Tampa Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. Schoenfeld's books include Dear Dr. HipPocrates, Natural Food and Unnatural Acts, Jealousy: Taming the Green-Eyed Monster, and Dr. Hip's Down-To-Earth Health Guide."}" 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. Eugene Schoenfeld is a psychiatrist, author, lecturer and was a popular underground newspaper columnist. His column "Dr. Hip" was published in many newspapers including the <em>Chicago Sun-Times</em>, <em>Tampa Times</em>, <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em>, and the <em>San Francisco Examiner</em>. Schoenfeld's books include <em>Dear Dr. HipPocrates</em>, <em>Natural Food and Unnatural Acts</em>, <em>Jealousy: Taming the Green-Eyed Monster</em>, and <em>Dr. Hip's Down-To-Earth Health Guide</em>.</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":"Baby boom generation; Activism; STD; Birth control; Drug culture; Women's right; Summer of love; Segregation; Watergate; Vietnam War"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; Activism; STD; Birth control; Drug culture; Women's rights; Summer of love; Segregation; Watergate; Vietnam War</span> Date of Interview 2010-10-14 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 149:55 Subject LCSH Psychiatrists; Authors, American--20th century; Schoenfeld, Eugene, 1935--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: Eugene Schoenfeld Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 14 October 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Good morning. Good evening. And, just the first question I want to ask is could you give me a little bit about your background, your early years. You are a doctor, a little bit about your parents, your growing-up years, and why did you want to become a doctor? ES (00:00:25): All right. My mother was an immigrant. She came from Russia when she was 12 years old. Her parents had been separated by the First World War, and then by the Russian Revolution between 1913 and 1922. So, my mother, her younger sister, and their mother, my grandmother, were separated for nine years from my grandfather, again, because of first the First World War and then the Russian Revolution. My father's family also came from Russia. Actually, he came from Lithuania, and my father's eldest brother was born there, and then the family came to the United States. My father was born here. My father had been a union organizer, at time I was born, for the Transport Workers' Union, New York City, and that was a leftist union. My father was involved in leftist politics. In fact, he was a member of the Communist Party, and gave me my middle name, which is Lenin, L-E-N-I-N. SM (00:02:02): Oh. ES (00:02:02): A name that I stopped using after the Rosenbergs were executed- SM (00:02:07): Yeah. ES (00:02:09): ...especially when applying to medical school, thinking- SM (00:02:14): Yeah. ES (00:02:16): …that would not have been good. SM (00:02:17): No. ES (00:02:18): I was delivered by my uncle, who married my mother's younger sister. I think that influenced me to be a doctor. It was curious, also, because he was related to the infamous Arnold Rothstein, who went to the 1919 World Series. SM (00:02:46): Oh. ES (00:02:49): When I first learned about that when I was a child, I asked my parents, they would not talk about it. It was a scandal. Especially at that time. SM (00:02:59): That was the Black Sox scandal? ES (00:03:01): Yes. SM (00:03:01): Yes. ES (00:03:03): Yeah, so he was a great uncle by marriage to me. SM (00:03:10): What was it like going to college or medical school in the (19)50s, particularly undergraduate school before you went on to med school? ES (00:03:20): I graduated college from the University of California at Berkeley. I went to high school in Miami Beach. My parents moved to Miami Beach when I was 12, and I went to high school there and then a year of college. Then, I transferred to Berkeley. I went back to Miami for medical school, beginning in 1957. Well, it was very different from Berkeley, at that time. Berkeley has always been a liberal area. It always has had at least some population of what was known then as Bohemians. Then, it was smaller. Now, of course, it was larger. It was quite a shock going back to school because medical school was much more regimented than- SM (00:04:18): Right. ES (00:04:19): ...the undergraduate years at Berkeley. Also, at the time I went to medical school, we still had segregation in the South. And in fact, at the hospital where my medical school was training students, Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, there were still segregated wards and segregated dining rooms for whites and blacks. I met a resident at the medical school, who had started eating his meals in the black cafeteria to integrate it, and I started doing the same with him. His name was Tom Brewer. It was very different. I was glad to leave Miami that time. I graduated medical school in 1961. I interned at Herrick Hospital in Berkeley, even though I was offered a prestigious internship in Miami, partly because, during medical school, I had met Ernest Hemingway's youngest son, Greg. And in the beginning of my second year of medical school, he invited me to go to a photographic safari to Angola the following summer with his roommate, Bob Kyle. And I told one of my professors I was going there. He said, "Well, as long as you are in Africa, in that part, why do not you see if you can visit the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Gabon?" Because, at that time, the chief medical doctor under Albert Schweitzer, Frank Catchpool, had done some studies at the University of Miami Medical School in parasitology. So, I had a note of introduction to Dr. Catchpool, and I was able to, after our photographic safari in Angola, this was now the summer of 1959, I went to Lambaréné, and I met Albert Schweitzer and his daughter. And I was there, then, for two weeks. And when I returned and told one of my professors my adventures that summer, he said, "Well, I have just been made head of a committee that is going to award fellowships to medical students to study in remote areas of the world." He says, "If you get a letter inviting you back to this Schweitzer Hospital-" SM (00:07:12): Wow, what an experience. ES (00:07:14): Yeah. He said, "You can have this fellowship." So, I did obtain a letter inviting me back by Albert Schweitzer, and I returned in (19)60, or I spent the summer there at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital. SM (00:07:34): I can remember back in the late (19)50s, Jack Parr used to have a fascination with Albert Schweitzer and would I actually go visit him. ES (00:07:42): Yes, there were many, many visitors there. SM (00:07:47): Yeah, that was- ES (00:07:48): Yeah. SM (00:07:49): That experience itself, even before we start talking about your time in the Bay Area as in the (19)60s and the (19)70s and beyond, that experience of working with him for a year or two, what were you able to transfer into your future positions from that experience? ES (00:08:10): Well, his major philosophy was reverence for life, for all life. And this was the first exposure I had to, what is now called, ecology. Nothing was killed there unnecessarily. If they were doing construction work, rolling a wheelbarrow, and they came across a line of ants, they would lift up the wheelbarrow in order not to crush the ants. They would build around trees rather than cut down the trees. They tried to keep the hospital there as much like a native village as possible so that the area would be comfortable there. I had another chance to return there in 1965. Actually, it was through Greg Hemingway again, he is now dead. He died a woman. But he was offered this fellowship, but he could not do it and he recommended me. So, I flew to Boston and met with the head of the foundation, the International Cardiology Foundation, who is Paul Dudley White. Dr. White was President Eisenhower's physician. SM (00:09:45): Oh, yes. ES (00:09:47): And Dr. White was the one who really popularized the idea of riding bicycles you see now. So, then, I returned to Gabon while I was training to go there to do this research. It was a research project involving hypertension in Gabon because there were indications that was prevalent there, and it turns out that it was. And it seems to be a genetic predisposition in black people, and we see this here. We used to think that it was due to stress or racial discrimination, but it turns out not to be the case. During a few weeks before I was set to go there, Albert Schweitzer died. Dr. White asked me to go there anyway to conduct the research, so I had a chance to see the hospital before and after his death. Just before I left, I had an opportunity to take LSD. It was legal at that time. And so, I was, of course, interested in the effects of psychedelics, drugs in general. When I returned to Gabon that third time, I learned that native doctors there used a drug called Ibogaine. Actually, they used the plant that it comes from, the Iboga plant, in their ceremonies and for healing patients. And so, I had a chance to observe and participate in Iboga ceremonies there in Africa. And when I returned, on the way back, I stopped in France and obtained a quantity of Ibogaine, which was being prepared by a French pharmaceutical company. At that time, they would use small amounts of Ibogaine combined with vitamins as a pick-up tonic because small amounts of psychedelic, including LSD, act as a stimulant before they have the psychedelic effect in larger dose. They were also using Ibogaine at that time experimentally in French mental hospitals. So, when I returned to the United States to the Bay Area, I had a chance to do some work with the Ibogaine, and I was introduced to a doctor who had later started the free clinic movement, David Smith. See, I skipped a part where from 1963 to (19)64, I was at Yale University. I obtained a master's of public health there, and then that summer I was a ships doctor. That is it. Depression here. So, while doing work at the University of California at San Francisco, we were doing experiments with amphetamines on laboratory animals and some experimentation with the Ibogaine on ourselves. Dr. Smith had the idea of organizing the little free clinics that had been started by the digger movement, and I had an idea about having a newspaper column dealing with questions and answers about drugs and other issues at the time. Around that time, the Berkeley Barb was started by a fellow named Max Scherr. Berkeley Barb was one of the first underground newspapers. I guess The Realist was probably the first Realist Underground magazine. SM (00:14:25): Right. ES (00:14:30): And so, I mentioned this to Mr. Scherr and he said, "Well, why do not you write a column?" I had always wanted to write in some fashion, but I had not thought about writing for newspapers or a medical column. But I started doing that. At first, I would use questions that people had asked me personally because it was a time when people were first starting to use drugs, such as marijuana and LSD, and people were eager to have questions answered about those drugs, and also about sexual activities. That time there were no easily available sources of information answering questions about sex and drugs, certainly not papers. SM (00:15:27): One of the things, right around that time, (19)65, (19)66, leading up to the Summer of Love in (19)67, how did the youth of the (19)60s differ from the youth of the (19)50s that you grew up with from your vantage point? And where did you see this change in the Bay Area? Obviously there was some Bohemian lifestyle over at Berkeley at all times, and of course the Beatniks were very popular in New York and Greenwich Village and in San Francisco, and- ES (00:16:02): Yes. SM (00:16:03): ...so forth. But when did you see this shift, from your personal perspective, this big change happening in the way people's attitudes were, how young people were changing? It was a counter-cultural movement, a change. ES (00:16:19): Yes. From my point of view, I mean, maybe it was because I was living, but it seemed that it had started in the San Francisco area. Yes, you mentioned the Beatniks, and it was because it was a shift from the Eisenhower era. There were little coffee shops in San Francisco and in Berkeley. There was one called The Coexistence Bagel Shop because it was a time when speaking about coexistence with Russia after the Great Scare, the Evil Empire. So, it was a parody of the political situation at the time. I think that is when the shift occurred because people started to look at Russia not as a great enemy, but as something that we could exist with. That is why they call it Coexistence Bagel Shop. They were Beatniks. Mostly, the Beatniks were smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap wine. But there were some who started using marijuana, and that is when I first started seeing fairly large-scale marijuana use. Though my first exposure to it, though I did not use marijuana then, was an uncle I had when I was 14. It was in 1949. I had an uncle who he was an actor, a dance instructor, and went to borrow a jacket of his. In the jacket, I found this little yellow cigarette. I asked him if it was marijuana, and he said, matter-of-factly, "Yes." I did not try it then. It was my first exposure. The first time I saw fair numbers of people smoking marijuana was the Beatniks, and this was in 1958 because that summer, it was after my first year of medical school, I spent the next summer in Berkeley. That is when I first saw it. I think the combination of the philosophy and the lifestyle of the Beatniks led to the hippies. SM (00:19:23): Yeah. Obviously, you are coming from, you are not that much older, but you are almost like the graduate student or the PhD candidate compared to the incoming students that would have been the young boomers. Do you have any thoughts on them as a generation? You have seen them not only as a doctor, they have been your patients. You have seen them not only when they were young in the Summer of Love, but you have been able to see them as they have grown up into now. 63 is the front-runners of the baby boomers, and the youngest baby boomers are 47. If you were to list some strengths and weaknesses within this generation, can you list some? ES (00:20:07): Well, I think they had some strengths because their parents, which were generally more prosperous because the Second World War produced prosperity. At least, everyone was working as compared with when I was born, which was during the depression. So, I think they had more of a sense of self-assurance in that way, and I think it was because of the fact that their parents generally were not poor. They were not on bread lines. I mean, have not thought about this before this, going through this in my mind. So, I think that because of generally maybe having more assurance, they would probably be more open, less fixed on things that would give them more dependability. I think that produce some greater openness to other ideas. And that is what happened, as you say, leading up to the Summer of Love. I think they were more open to a lot of things, including more open sexuality and perhaps exploring their minds through means, such as drugs. And paradoxically, the drug use led to people being more open to ideas, which did not have things directly to do with drugs, such as meditation and yoga, et cetera, other spiritual practices. Not that all of that was good because one thing that has happened from all that is a suspicion and disdain for science, a feeling that if one has a gut reaction to something, that must be more true than using the scientific method, and that came from the fact that they would use drugs. It happens now. For example, when people are using ecstasy, they generally have a feeling of great love and warmth for everyone around them at the time. I mean, that is why, when ecstasy was legal and used in therapy, the patients would be warned not to make any enduring alliances for a period of weeks after they last took it because those feelings would dissipate and were directly drug related. SM (00:23:51): One of the things that the generation, and we are talking 74 million boomers that were born between (19)46 and (19)64, and a lot of the ones that were at the Summer of Love, were the front running boomers, the boomers born in those first 10 years. I am finding that the difference between the boomers of the first 10 and the second 10 is major in terms of the way they lived. But your thoughts on this attitude that many of them felt they were the most unique generation in American history when they were young, and that the Summer of Love, like a lot of experiences of that period, were supposed to be symbolic of this, "We are going to change the world. We are going to bring peace, love, we are going to end homophobia, sexism, war. We are going to make the world a better place to live." And so, there is a feeling of uniqueness that they were better and different than the World War II generation or any of the generations that preceded them, and those that would follow. Your thoughts on that attitude that many of them had at that time. And even today, I know of several people that feel so very proud of being part of that generation that they still feel it. ES (00:25:19): Yeah. I mean, that is because the war, the war effort, the country was together then, I think, as never before or at any time since, and there was a feeling that we had been so powerful. We had conquered the axis powers, and there was, for a time, a feeling of hopefulness. The United Nations was going to be world peace. I think that certainly influenced that generation. SM (00:26:04): I have interviewed a lot of people. Some people thought that that showed a sense of arrogance within this generation. Do you feel that? ES (00:26:11): Well, I did not think of it that way, but I think of it as being over optimistic. SM (00:26:25): Okay. 1967, I got a whole mess of questions here and I got a lot of different areas to go, but I want to talk about (19)67 because it was a very historic event. What was it like being a doctor in San Francisco in (19)67, and what were the major issues that young people were facing at that time in the summer, whether it be drug issues, sexual freedom issues? I saw a great interview you did on YouTube with one of the commentators. He has a radio show. Hammond? ES (00:26:58): Oh, yeah. John Hammond. SM (00:26:59): That was an excellent interview. ES (00:27:00): Well, thank you. SM (00:27:03): And you had made a very important comment, and I wanted to bring this up. It was after the pill, and it was before AIDS. ES (00:27:11): That is right. SM (00:27:12): Could you talk about what you mean by that, especially in reference to the summer of (19)67? ES (00:27:18): All right. The true Summer of Love began in 1966, because that is when it was the beginning of large-scale LSD use, marijuana use, and associated openness to things, including sexuality. And so, because there was no longer the great fear of unwanted pregnancy due to the birth control pills and other effective contraceptive method, and whatever sexual infections might develop as a result could be treated then. And that is why it was before AIDS is, before, sexuality could be [inaudible]. So, as I say, the real Summer of Love began in 66, and that is what attracted people to San Francisco, where I was at the time, the following summer, in (19)67. I had started writing a newspaper column in March of 1967, and I invited people to send questions. And of course, then, questions were mostly about sexuality and drugs. People wanted to know what sexual diseases could occur, what the effects of various drugs were, and I had to do some research in these matters. But I was very interested in the fact that some columnists apparently make up letters. I never had to make up a letter. The letters were very-very interesting. And I started out writing the so-called underground press, so I would print the letters pretty much as they appeared in whatever language people used to describe or ask questions about sexual acts. When the newspaper column went to the San Francisco Chronicle, and then was syndicated nationally by the Universals Press syndicate, language was edited then. ES (00:30:03): Your language was edited then. Then it would appear general newspapers. But as I said, there was no easily accessible source of information that it was available in books. I would read books, around that time also, I saw her doing radio shows, and I am told I was the first person to answer medical questions live on the radio. SM (00:30:36): Is that in the entire country? ES (00:30:38): Yes. SM (00:30:38): Wow. That is quite a unique honor. ES (00:30:42): Yes. I was glad to do it. I knew it was important because I mentioned a little while ago that I had Master degree in public health from Yale, so I knew the importance of public health education. I saw this as a way of importing information that was important, and it was interesting. So a number of times I have had regular radio programs. I mean, this was before Dr. Dini Dell. Before [inaudible] or Dr. Ruth was publicly doing things. SM (00:31:24): Right. When the Summer of Love obviously is (19)67. And when we say Summer of Love, are we only talking about the summer? Are we talking only about a few months? Or are we talking about The entire 1967 year? One of the songs this was well known on the radio at the time was Scott McKenzie's song, if You are Going to San Francisco. ES (00:31:50): Yeah. SM (00:31:51): I cannot remember if that came out in (19)66 or (19)67, but I know that had a lot of influence on people. ES (00:31:57): Yes, it did. Yeah, I knew him. I met him a few times. Yeah, it did have an influence. Yes, it was not just the summer. As I said, it really began (19)66 and during the end of (19)66 and beginning of (19)67 people were starting to come to the Bay Area. Yes, influenced by songs like that, which I think some of the lyrics described how warm and bombing it was in San Francisco made all of us laugh your – SM (00:32:33): Well, I lived in Burlingame from (19)76 to (19)83, so I – ES (00:32:38): Yeah, so you know. SM (00:32:39): I love it out there though. It makes you feel good. Tweed Coats. I love my Tweed. I miss wearing my Tweed Coats. But yeah, it is really interesting. Another song that influenced was around (19)67 that got people to the West Coast, and I know it got me to the West Coast, was the Mamas and the Papas song, California Dreaming, which was another big hit that, especially if it went to college in the middle of the winter with a lot of snow on the ground. I had all these questions here in the Summer of Love. How did it start? You already talked about that. What was the draw? How did people know? Where did they come from? What was the average age? ES (00:33:27): They were? SM (00:33:28): Where did they stay when they came? And those kinds of things? ES (00:33:33): Well, there were young people generally who came, if they knew people here, they would stay with them, crash with them, share their apartments and homes. They were generally, at first, there were people who were interested in exploring, in exploring. Exploring themselves, exploring their minds, exploring things geographically. Later it became a [inaudible] so that people were coming because they knew that other people were coming. So it changed a lot. At first, you could tell things about someone by the way they dressed or the length of their hair, but that soon changed, so you could not tell anything about a person because the followers, those who just had heard about the Summer of Love and San Francisco come and there were a lot of disturbed people and a criminal element soon came in and started taking advantage of the – SM (00:35:20): Yes. ES (00:35:24): Open-minded young people who we came to know as hippies. SM (00:35:31): I think that is what Mr. Hammond said in his interview with you on YouTube is that (19)67 was the golden era, and then all hell broke loose at (19)68. ES (00:35:42): Yes. SM (00:35:43): And that is because the drug traffickers were coming in. People were dealing in drugs, and actually even a lot of the hippies and young people wanted to get the hell out of there because of things had changed. ES (00:35:56): Yes, and even the drugs changed because at first it was marijuana and LSD and other psychedelics. And then people came in, started selling heroin and amphetamines that changed a lot. So when people want to leave, then there was a feeling, well, we were going to get out of the city and go to the country. And that is how the Commune Right then started. People had the idea that they would try to be self-sufficient and grow their own food, raise their own animals back to the plan. SM (00:36:44): Yeah. Farm's a perfect example of that. ES (00:36:47): Yes, that is right. SM (00:36:49): Steven Gaskin and I interviewed Steven for my book, and that particular, he does not even like to use the term commune. Calls it the farm. They have been very successful and they were very proud of being hippies because it was more of an attitude. When I look at, there was a very popular book, you remember back in the early (19)70s, we had to read it in grad school called The Making of a Counterculture by Theodore Roszak. ES (00:37:18): Yes. SM (00:37:19): And that book – ES (00:37:19): I knew him. Yeah. SM (00:37:20): Yeah, well, I wanted to interview him, but I guess he is not well right now, and he has written another book as kind of a follow-up, but he really explained the counterculture, combining drugs, the sex, the dancing, the music, the dress, the attitude. It was all a combination of everything into different consciousness. Did you see that there? Was that a pretty good portrayal of what it was like in the Summer of Love? ES (00:37:46): Yes. As I say, you could tell which people were part of that movement often by their dress, because they were static dress, people would dress flamboyantly. I mean now I tell my wife in Halloween, which is as a big holiday out here. SM (00:38:13): Yeah, that is big. ES (00:38:14): So in the Summer of Love, everyone dressed like that every day. So... SM (00:38:24): You were in charge, correct if I am wrong, you were in charge of the health clinic? The Haight Ashbury Health Clinic? ES (00:38:36): I was not in charge. I was – SM (00:38:38): Associate Director or – ES (00:38:41): Yeah, I was Director of the Family Practice section of The Haight Ashbury Clinic whose directed by David Smith. He founded it, he directed it. I worked with them for a long time, and then later they have a rock medicine section, still exists. I worked at that also. It was long after the Summer of Love. But yes, I did. I helped through my newspaper columns. I helped publicize the Ashbury Clinic, let people know it was available and offered free services and the kinds of services that they provided. SM (00:39:28): On a typical day, let us say you were there, were you eight hours a day? Or you came in just on an assignment or what would it be A typical day in the Summer of Love with the young people coming in and out of there? What would be their issues? ES (00:39:45): Well, some people had unfortunate drug experiences. Sometimes there was, and they were concerned, have a bad trip, an LSD trip, and were upset by that. There were a lot of sexually transmitted diseases that were treated in Ashbury clinic, especially at that time because of the open sexuality. Naturally, the more exposure someone has, the more chance they have contracting a disease. So there is a lot of exposure and more disease, a lot of treatment of gonorrhea crabs at that time. Other sexually transmitted diseases. SM (00:40:50): Well, I know one of the bands that performed there in the summertime was the Grateful Dead, and I think they lived in Haight Ashbury. ES (00:40:57): Yes. SM (00:40:57): And lived. They had that same kind of an attitude, although they were much more successful cause they were a successful band. Can you talk about the combination of that experience again in the summer or were you combined not only the young people coming in, but, the music had to be a very important part of this. It was much more than the Grateful Dead. Who were the musicians and where were they coming from to be part of this? Were they all Bay Area musicians or were they coming from different parts of the country during different times of the summer? ES (00:41:38): Much of it was based here in the Bay Area. For example, the Jefferson Airplane, the local band Country Joe and the Fish and other bands. I think, Crosby Stills and Nash often was based here. Crosby lived in Mill Valley at that time, and they also operated a lot in Los Angeles. But the music at that time, I mean it was all intertwined with the drug use, the effects of the drugs, effects of the drugs on the music, and then the music affecting drug use. I thought that generally the overall effect was positive. Of course, we know there were disasters for some people, plus it was a lot of indiscriminate drug use during that time. Tim Leary – SM (00:42:58): Hold on one second, I am going to change my tape here. All righty. We are back. ES (00:43:08): During that time, I became acquainted and then friends with Tim Leary and his family, and I became a family doctor for the Leary family at that time. And Tim was very charismatic, very bright. He had a good sense of humor, but I always found objectionable is it was sorting people to take LSD all the time was not for everyone. Certainly not for unstable people, and not to be taken all the time as he had proposed, he was telling people to use LSD once a week, and I did not think that was a good idea at all. SM (00:44:03): What is your thought about that famous slogan of his tune on – ES (00:44:10): Yeah, turn on – SM (00:44:13): Turn-on dropout or whatever. ES (00:44:14): Yeah. SM (00:44:15): Tune in turn on dropout. What are your thoughts on that? Of course, he was also linked to the Ram Dass. ES (00:44:18): Yes. SM (00:44:22): And Ram Dass went on to be very successful as a writer. I guess he has had a stroke recently, but – ES (00:44:25): He had a stroke. SM (00:44:27): But they were kind of linked too. But just your thoughts on that whole kind of an attitude? ES (00:44:33): Well, Tim had a great way of, with phrases, and I was interesting phrase and turn on and drop out. I said to him at the time, I said, Tim, you have got a PhD. I have an MD. You are telling these kids to drop out of college. And a lot of them did because there are more followers and leaders, and a lot of lives were disrupted that way. I did not think that was a good idea at all. And it was because of the indiscriminate use and abuse of LSD and other psychedelics that the legitimate use was thwarted. Only now, only in the last year or so has the government begun to approve studies of LSD and psilocybin and MDMA or ecstasy, and we are back to where we were in 1966 when they were doing the same preliminary studies. Maybe now they will continue them and permit them, but as I said, it was because of [inaudible] K was largely cost of 10 at 10 TC that yes, that the government clamped down and stomped. I think it is a great shame. I think these drugs have a very good potential for use in therapy. And when there is no psychiatric illness for self-exploration. SM (00:46:29): How would you, for example, a critic of, I am just using, I am being the devil's advocate here, that a critic of the total drug culture, maybe not marijuana, but everything else, is that, what is wrong with reality itself? Why get away from reality and go into drugs and get another reality? And then secondly, what is the effect that drugs had on that generation? I do not know if anybody's ever even written a book on the number of young people who died from ODing on drugs. We know what happened to Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin and Jim Morrison and some of the well-known people who OD'ed on drugs. You would think that might have had a negative effect on the drug culture. ES (00:47:16): Yeah, I mean, they all OD'ed on opioids, which I cannot see if they expand consciousness at all. I feel like this has the beginning of that. SM (00:47:33): Yeah, the beginning was critics, so I am a person – ES (00:47:36): So what is wrong with reality? SM (00:47:40): Yeah you know, is life – ES (00:47:42): One thing that the psychedelics do is put people in touch with the unconscious, which is part of reality. It is just that normally we do not have access that way to our unconscious except in dreams in some form. So by giving us access to our unconscious, we have an expanded knowledge of reality because that is part of reality. SM (00:48:25): What – ES (00:48:27): Thought that these consciousness expanding drugs produce a better reality, this expands our knowledge of reality. SM (00:48:42): Well, the 40th anniversary that took place in 2007, I saw little segments of that on television and certainly on YouTube and other places. ES (00:48:53): Yeah. SM (00:48:53): Was it basically people that experienced it coming back there, or was it basically a combination of young people and older people? ES (00:49:06): It was a mix, but certainly it included a large number of people who had lived through the (19)60s, many of whom had been at Woodstock, many of whom had been in San Francisco at the Summer of Love those celebrations, but there were a number of younger people. SM (00:49:32): How did you get the name Dr. Hipp? Dr. Hippocrates. ES (00:49:38): Right. Started when I was asked to do the newspaper column, the publisher of the Berkeley Barb Max Scherr said, well, what should we call the column? I said, well, what do you mean? Just use my name? Says well know we have a hippies here? How about calling it Hippocrates? I said, okay. SM (00:50:03): Right. ES (00:50:03): So it was Hippocrates. And then some of the newspapers started calling the column Dr. Hippocrates, and then some of them shortened it to Dr. Hipp, and then they started calling me Dr. Hipp. So that is how I became Dr. Hipp. SM (00:50:22): Now, when you walk around the Bay Area, do they call you by your real name or do they call you Dr. Hipp? ES (00:50:26): Well, some of the older individuals still remember me as Dr. Hipp. SM (00:50:33): That that is a very good feeling though. That you had an influence on people's lives for the better. And one thing we always ask ourselves as human beings is we want to make a difference in this world. And obviously you have in the many things that you have done, particularly with all your work in medicine. ES (00:50:52): Yeah, I have tried. I always gave a lot of attention to my work, writing newspapers, writing the papers, writing articles, doing my radio shows, because I knew that if people listened, they were eager to receive information and would act on it. So I was always trying to be careful about the advice that I gave. SM (00:51:22): Did you see the Generation gap when you were there working with these young people? In other words, did you have, I am sure there were experiences where parents somehow got back into San Francisco and found their son or daughter and said, we were going to take you home. Did you have any of those experiences where the big generation gap was taking place? ES (00:51:41): Yes. I mean, I cannot think of any specifics right now, but yes, of course parents were concerned because sometimes their children would run away. And then when they found their kids, their kids were using drugs that the parents were unfamiliar with, concerned about, and often, rightly so. Yes. And that is how the Gap stores the clothing stores. They used to be called a Generation Gap, and then they became The Gap. SM (00:52:18): Oh, I did not know that. ES (00:52:19): Yes. SM (00:52:20): Wow. Was also the Summer of Love really all-inclusive in terms of ethnic background? Were there African Americans there in large numbers, Latinas, Asian Americans? Was it a combination? Was everybody involved? ES (00:52:35): Yeah. Yes, it was. And part of what was happening was that there was a greater acceptance of different ethnic groups and races and religious beliefs. And that was one of the benefits of that time. SM (00:52:57): Was the music the same way? In other words, you might have the Grateful Dead one day and the Staple Singers the next, was it a kind of a different, all kinds of music? ES (00:53:07): Yes. And it was also when people started becoming interested in reggae, of course, and – SM (00:53:12): Right. ES (00:53:12): Reggae associated with marijuana you know in Jamaica? SM (00:53:20): Yeah. I remember when I lived out there, I used to go to some of the blues concerts at the Shell at Golden Gate Park. ES (00:53:28): Yes. SM (00:53:29): And I remember seeing Red, not Simply Red, the Rock Singer, I remember Red was his name. He is passed away. But it was one of the best concerts I have ever been at all day on a Saturday, I believe, of all these great blues singers. One of the other thing too is how, let us see, who were some of your mentors and role models yourself? People that inspired you, not only, you have already mentioned some of your relatives and people that influenced you to become a doctor, but were there people in America at the time that you looked up to, whether it be politicians – ES (00:54:11): Less or a lot of skepticism regarding so-called gurus and groups? I think that skepticism came from growing up in a communist house. Hearing and seeing the slogans at that time. And then in the (19)60s, those slogans, it was to me, seemed empty. Slogans were repeated, and I thought, oh yeah, workers are going to overthrow the bosses, things like that. So I never actively pursued any spiritual group or person. It usually would happen accidentally. Like being exposed to and having experiences with Albert Schweitzer, that was very important to me. I was close to him and to his family. And his daughter died about a year and a half ago, and she was 90, remained close to her, to her death because she lived then in Los Angeles Pacific lsa- SM (00:55:40): Right. You had mentioned that on your YouTube interview. ES (00:55:42): Yeah. So that was very important. I think that for a long time I spent a lot of time with Tim Leary, and during that time, got to meet a lot of people. There was a lot of traffic through his house. That is when I met from Ram Dass then as Richard Alpert, Ralph Metzner. And it influenced me at the same time that I was, by that time, I knew that matter how famous a person was, no matter how well known or how revered the person, he or she had play feet, just like Albert Schweitzer. I would see failings in him -blow was his greatness. So... SM (00:56:44): I can remember there was a scene with Timothy Leary, along with John Lennon and Yoko Oho and Tommy Smothers. I remember when he was doing in the bed. ES (00:56:54): Yes, that is right. SM (00:56:55): And I remember Timothy Leary was there. I said, this guy was everywhere. How did the city of San Francisco deal with all these people coming in? Was there a good relationship between the young people of the Summer of Love and the police and the political leaders at that time? ES (00:57:16): Initially it was okay, but then as more and more young people came, there was more concern, especially from the police. It did not, that period of goodwill did not last very long. Because again, because of the great numbers of people came, especially in the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco, and the resulting situations, including the rampant drug use, camping out, being out begging. SM (00:57:59): Remember Harry Reasoner, the ABC did a report once on TV and I still remember seeing it, and it was when they were doing tourists going through Haight Ashbury. ES (00:58:08): Yeah, the Gray Line Tourists, you – SM (00:58:13): Yeah. And he was there for a couple of days, I think, doing a report. And what is interesting after living out there to see how expensive those Victorian homes now are that were in Haight Ashbury. ES (00:58:22): Oh yeah. They are all million-dollar homes now. SM (00:58:25): Yeah. It is amazing. In those days, they were kind of falling apart, I think. ES (00:58:31): Yep. SM (00:58:32): What is your, just for you to define things, I asked Steve Gaskins this too. If you could define in your words what a hippie is, what a beatnik is, and your definition of a counterculture. So first off, in your definition of a hippie. ES (00:58:54): Well, these were people who were willing to depart from the usual career paths that people took. They had a more open attitude towards sexual freedom, toward the roles of men and women. A greater appreciation for nature. Know the benefits of unspoiled nature, and an openness toward exploring their minds, whether it be through spiritual practices or through the use of drugs, or both. SM (00:59:53): And a beatnik? ES (00:59:54): Part of it. That is why, oh, they start it longhaired hippies. Well, started thinking, well, why do we have to cut our hair in a certain way? ES (01:00:03): ...do we have to cut our hair in a certain way? Why are neckties a uniform that one must wear? When you think about really, even now, why do people wear neckties? And we have buttons now to close our shirts. Need a necktie to do. It was originally done. So there was a questioning. People were asking questions. Remember one of the slogans at the time, question authority? So it was the willingness to question all kinds of things. Some of that did not lead to good things because over generations and hundreds or thousands of years, humans have learned there are certain things, certain ways to behave socially. When people indiscriminately did not follow those customs or habits, there were bad results sometimes. SM (01:01:31): Mm-hmm. Hold. Okay. How would you define a beatnik? ES (01:01:37): Well, beatniks, I think that came from, if I am not mistaken, Herb Caen coined that term. Herb Caen, the late columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. First they were called the beats. I guess he felt beaten down by society. It was a style of drinking excessive amounts of cheap wine, smoking lots of tobacco. You are beat. You are trying to express the way that they felt at that time. SM (01:02:38): And lastly, how would you define the counterculture? Your definition of the counterculture? ES (01:02:46): Well, it was a reaction to the overall culture. So it was less conformity for the sake of conformity. And that led to differences in dress, the type of music that was composed and played. Art was just by definition counter mean quite the opposite of the general culture or against general culture. But when people found things in the culture that they found objectionable, they tried to act on it. SM (01:03:40): Vietnam veterans, obviously, I got some questions here on Vietnam in a minute, but there were Vietnam veterans even coming back, and I am sure there were some in the Summer of Love that had served already in Vietnam between (19)65 and (19)67. ES (01:03:56): Yes. SM (01:03:57): In looking at your biography, you worked I think in a veterans facility at one time. Did you see a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder of vets coming back? ES (01:04:10): You mean at that time? SM (01:04:11): Yes. ES (01:04:16): Yes, there were people who were traumatized. For example, I know Ron Kovic a little bit. Certainly he was traumatized physically as well as mentally. SM (01:04:34): Was it pretty common? Because I have been talking recently with some Iraq veterans who have come back from Iraq, and it was almost a hundred percent post-traumatic stress disorder within groups. ES (01:04:49): Well, it was not known then as post-traumatic stress disorder. You remember they call it shell shocked, battle fatigue, things of that kind. But as PTSD became better known, it was I think why there was more autism now. It was recognized more and reported more. I think that is why there is as much PTSD the Iraq War. In the Vietnam War, it was a great rejection of many of the veterans who came back, even though most of them were conscripts. The Iraq War were all volunteers. There is no draft now. But I think because of greater recognition and publicity about the fact that PTSD may occur. SM (01:06:06): When you were out there... Well, you have lived out there your whole life there. But there were some specific historic events at Berkeley. The Free Speech Movement in (19)64 and (19)65, Mario Savio and that group. And then People's Park in (19)69, of which one person was killed during that. ES (01:06:26): Yes. I was there during those demonstrations. I wrote about. I have published four books so far. The first two were based on newspaper columns, articles. I wrote about the People's Park in a book called Natural Food and Unnatural Acts. It was published by Delacorte. Yes, it was a tumultuous time. It was very disturbing and startling to be exposed to the National Guard so often, tear gas. I am very sensitive to tear gas. Tear gas is released near me, and I cannot stay around. So a number of times I was at the People's Park demonstration. SM (01:07:36): That was actually when Ronald Reagan was governor, I believe. When he came into power, he promised two things: that he was going to set the students straight, number one, and number two, that he was going to end welfare. And I know I have interviewed Ed Meese, who was the assistant district attorney of Alameda County, who was there at the Free Speech Movement. But he was not working for Reagan then; Reagan was People's Park. ES (01:08:06): Right. SM (01:08:08): And they had come really hard down on those people. That is part of the history of that period, but what effect do you think that had on the boomer generation as a whole? Because it was all over the news. ES (01:08:28): It was shocking. Well, first, there had not been large demonstrations by students, political demonstrations like that before, at least that I have been aware of. When I was a student in Berkeley, the only large demonstrations then were panty raid. I do not know if you remember the panty raids, but there were a couple of big panty raids at Berkeley where there were thousands of students gathered, and they would go into the sorority houses and rifle through the drawers and get panties. It was silly, but it was the first time that I saw thousands of people out in the street and then a police presence which followed. When it happened for political reasons it was dramatic, it was exciting, and it was disturbing. I had demonstrated against the Vietnam War, and I was at a protest at the Oakland Induction Center and this club there. But there I saw for the first time that these demonstrations might turn violent. I saw a police car overturned and burned, which I did not care for. I was then so recently coming from the experiences I had with Albert Schweitzer and Reverence for Life, that things should be hurt or killed unnecessarily. And I saw that turning very disturbing. SM (01:10:47): When did the (19)60s begin in your opinion, and when did it end? ES (01:10:51): Well, let us see. (19)60s, about 1963, I would say, (19)64. I know you are not talking about the literal terminology. About (19)63 I think it corresponded in a way with the assassination of JFK. I was a student at Yale at that time that it happened. SM (01:11:38): Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? ES (01:11:42): Yes. I was meeting with a faculty advisor, and his secretary came into the office and said, "The president has been shot and likely killed." This professor says to me calmly, "Well, these things happen." And he tried to go on with our meeting. I said, "Well, let us meet another time." So I remember exactly what happened. SM (01:12:09): And were you one of those individuals watching the TV all weekend? ES (01:12:13): Yes, to the TV then. I think that is when it really started. Maybe a little bit before with the Cuban Missile Crisis. SM (01:12:26): Right. (19)62. When did it end? ES (01:12:32): I think it ended with the Altamont concert. SM (01:12:38): You are not the only one that said that. Some people said they thought it ended with Kent State too, because that was a terrible tragedy. ES (01:12:45): Yeah, and that really dampened the student demonstrations. I know people I have talked to about that, some disagree, but I noticed that after the Kent State shootings, there were fewer demonstrations. Actually, people were afraid, rightly so. But I think it really ended at Altamont, because it was such a terrible scene. I was there. SM (01:13:14): Oh, you were there? ES (01:13:16): Yes. SM (01:13:17): Oh, wow. ES (01:13:18): I wrote about that too. That is also in the book, Natural Food and Unnatural Acts. SM (01:13:24): I got to get that book. Is that book still in print? ES (01:13:26): No. I think you can get it on Amazon or something. SM (01:13:28): Okay. I am going to order it then. ES (01:13:32): I always thought that book was a good history of the (19)60s. It was a terrible scene. It was so ugly. I did not go to a large concert seven years after. SM (01:13:49): I heard stories that the group responsible for getting the Hell's Angels there was Jerry Garcia. Is there truth to that? ES (01:13:57): Yes. SM (01:13:59): And he felt guilty the rest of his life? ES (01:14:03): Yeah, I think so. I knew him. They always had a relationship with the Hells Angels. Hells Angels were fans of the Grateful Dead. And they were asked to do security there in exchange for, I do not know, so many cases of beer. So it was a huge mistake. There was an interview later after that with Sonny Barger, who was then the head of Hells Angels. He said someone kicked their motorcycles, so they were in a rage about that. SM (01:14:52): They killed one person. Did they injure other people too? ES (01:14:55): Yes, there were other people injured. There were other people injured by Hells Angels, no one else killed by it. There was another death there. There was someone who was run over by a car accidentally. SM (01:15:10): Was not the Rolling Stones performing when that happened? ES (01:15:13): Yes. SM (01:15:15): Did the concert end? ES (01:15:17): No. SM (01:15:17): It kept going on? ES (01:15:18): It kept going on. Mick Jagger did ask people to calm down. The part of the problem was that, well, first it started off as a nice day, then it became overcast and gloomy, and everyone was waiting for the Rolling Stones to go on. They would not go on until dark fell. By that time, things were unruly. And the concert had been put together at the last minute. Anyway, that is the site, I think the last minute, it was a kind of frenzy that developed. And then the Rolling Stones would not go on until dark fell. And then Mick Jagger was singing Sympathy for the Devil and doing that. The Hells Angels, during that time, they were beating people with a pool cue. SM (01:16:20): And they were in the front of the stage and to the left and right of the stage, I guess. ES (01:16:23): Yes, and the stage was not high enough so that people could attempt to go on the stage, and they were pushed off and hit by the Hells Angels. SM (01:16:34): Were the Hells Angels drunk? ES (01:16:40): I do not know what they were using. I do not know. I have had various dealings with them over the years. I do not know if you know anything about my current work or not. SM (01:16:53): I do not. ES (01:16:56): I do a lot of consulting with lawyers in both civil and criminal cases, usually about the effects of psychoactive drugs, but sometimes other issues as well. So sometimes lawyers for the Hells Angels have asked me to help in their cases. And sometimes they have been referred to me or their wives for treatment, either for drug abuse or for their other issues. SM (01:17:36): Is there one specific event that you feel had the greatest impact on boomers, that is those born between (19)46 and (19)64? You may have already said it, but do you think there is one event that more than any other shaped this generation? ES (01:17:53): Well, it was not one event, but I think you know that Woodstock epitomized a lot of things that were happening. It involved music, drug use, large crowds at that time being able to get along without a lot of disruptions, a lot of fights. I think that and what it represented was probably. But it was not any one event like that. It was the Vietnam War. SM (01:18:48): Do you like the term the boomer generation? I say that because I have had a lot of different opinions from people. And if not the boomer generation, what would be a better term? Would it be the Vietnam generation, the counter-culture generation, the Woodstock generation? What do you think best applies to this group in terms of terminology? ES (01:19:15): I would say the Woodstock generation, the Summer of Love. Except the Summer of Love, just by definition, specifies one summer. Whereas even though Woodstock generation refers to one event, it really refers to more than one event. SM (01:19:41): You have obviously seen boomers from many different angles over the years. And I know you cannot talk about 74 million here, but do you think that boom generation has been good parents and now grandparents? In other words, have they sat down and shared their experiences with their sons and daughters over the years, what it was like then, get a better understanding of the times? I always get at the term activism, because some people say the generations have followed have not been as activist as their parents. Although only 15 percent probably were active to begin with in that generation. ES (01:20:23): That is right. SM (01:20:25): In your practice, have you had issues where a lot of the boomers feel they have either not been good parents or good parents or kids having issues with their parents? ES (01:20:42): Yes, but kids have always had issues with their parents. You see some things now. I have had several patients who were named Che after Che Guevara, just as during the (19)60s and (19)70s, would name their kids things like Krishna and Sunflower, Willow Wisp, names that they might not use later. But I think to myself, this is interesting. I know what it is like to be given the name that one might not have chosen for himself. I was given the name of Lenin. So when I see people now that are named Krishna or Che, it kind of amuses me in a way. I do not know if there are better or worse parents. I think that those who went through these years have had experiences and have had a different sense of reality and hopefully an expanded sense of realities. Maybe they could be better parents. SM (01:22:15): Let me change. Just changing my tape here. Very good. I am back. Where was I here? ES (01:22:23): You were asking where the boomers were [inaudible] SM (01:22:25): Yes. I want your thoughts. You have obviously lived in the Bay Area. You have seen the Summer of Love. You have seen the protests against the Vietnam War. You saw the Free Speech Movement, for which I think is one of the most historic events ever in higher ed, because that was my career. And when you talk about freedom of speech, you got to talk the Free Speech Movement. But of course, the protests against the Vietnam War and the Love. But I would like your thoughts on, there seemed to be at that time, in this late (19)60s and early (19)70s, a more camaraderie between the movements. The Civil Rights movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano movement, the Native American movement, and the women's movement, and of course the environmental movement and the anti-war. ES (01:23:17): Yes. SM (01:23:17): In fact, in 1970, before they even did Earth Day, Senator Nelson and Dennis Hayes met with the anti-war people to make sure that they were not stepping on their turf. And they worked together, and they supported it a hundred percent. And the rallies, you saw signs all over the place. I do not sense that today. I sense rallies now where it is single issue. It is the issue they are involved in. Do you sense that too? ES (01:23:46): Yeah. In fact, you mentioned the Free Speech Movement. I am distressed by the suppression of free speech now on college campuses. If there is someone who expresses views that some students do not like, they will Mao them. They will shut them down. They will not permit them to speak. It is distressing to me. Whether it is someone from the right or the left, I think freedom of speech and of the press are the most important freedoms that we have. SM (01:24:25): I agree. ES (01:24:25): There is nothing else. Without them all the other freedoms go away. SM (01:24:34): Yeah. I interviewed Dr. Arthur Chickering, I do not know if you know him. He was a great professor who wrote Education and Identity, which was a required text in grad programs in higher ed. We had to read it; it was required. It was the seven vectors of development in human beings. And when I interviewed him about three or four months ago, I just asked him his final thoughts on what was going on in higher ed today. And he said the universities are now controlled again by the corporations, and he was very upset about that. That was what students were fighting for in many respects in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, is that the corporate takeover of universities, and of course research institutions are part of it. And there is good positive things there, but it seems like everything is bottom line today. That anything that threatens the bottom line you cannot have, so that includes controversial speakers. They talk about free speech, but in reality they are fearful of it for fear it could affect the bottom line. Do you feel that is what is happening in universities? ES (01:25:45): No, I was referring to student groups that suppress free speech. SM (01:25:51): Right. Well, I see that too. But you do not see universities doing it too? ES (01:25:56): Yes, and it is disturbing. It is like creeping fascism. It is part of this marriage of business and government. That is how fascism originated. In fact, that is the definition of fascism, really, is corporate government. And the bad things of fascism develop from that. So that when you have corporations controlling government and governmental institutions, including colleges and universities, yes, it suppresses free thought. SM (01:26:50): It is interesting that today the people that run the universities are the boomers too, and Generation Xers, which is the generation that followed. ES (01:26:59): Yes. SM (01:26:59): And so they experienced everything from the (19)60s. And like your thoughts, I sense there is a fear of the term activism on university's campuses. Volunteerism is a safe term. Activism is a scary term, because it is almost 24/7, and it is much more challenging, and it brings back memories of the past. Do you feel that is present? ES (01:27:26): Yes. It is certainly a change, and it is not a good change. SM (01:27:38): There is two basic questions I have been asking every interviewee. One of them is a question that was organized and put together by a group of students I took to Washington DC in 1995 to meet former Senator Edmund Muskie. They were not born at the time in 1968, but they wanted to ask him a question as the vice-presidential candidate about everything that was happening in Chicago that year. This is the question they came up with. Do you feel, Senator Muskie, that we are still having problems with healing due to the extreme divisions that tore this nation apart in their youth? Divisions between black and white, male and female, straight and gay, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not. What role has the Wall in Washington DC played in healing of divisions for veterans? But most importantly, do you feel the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Are we wrong in thinking this, or has 35 years made the following statement true: Time heals all wounds? I will let you know what Senator Muskie said after I get your response. ES (01:28:59): Well, it is true that time heals. The Vietnam Wall alone could not heal the divisions that arose over the war. One thing that I did notice is that whereas the veterans of the Vietnam War, even though most were conscripts, were reviled, you do not see that now with the veterans of the Iraq War. They are volunteers. So I think that is in a way an improvement. Whether those divisions have yet, yes, time heals. It is better now than it was. SM (01:29:51): I think that the students had saw the assassinations of that year, (19)60, and of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Certainly the city's going up in fire in the (19)60s. SM (01:30:03): The cities going up in fire in the (19)60s, the burnings in Watts, and of course the protest movement. They had also seen the Hard Hats in New York City going, wanting to clobber the anti-war people. They had seen all of this stuff when they came to this. The Senator Muskie responded this way. He did not even respond in 1968. He basically said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." I said, " We still have the issues of race like we did back then." The students sat there, and not shocked, but just listened to them because he gave a melodramatic pause for about a minute. It looked like he had tears in his eyes, that we saw when people said he was a weak candidate because people had attacked his wife when he was a candidate. Then he went into a description about 430,000 men being killed in the Civil War. He had just seen the Ken Burns series, almost an entire generation. That is when he went at talking about the lack of healing since the Civil War. I put two and two together, because if you go to Gettysburg, if you have been there, they have this statue of the last living person who was in the Civil War. He died in 1924. I took students there. So a combination of all these things came to that question. The healing is a big issue, because there were so many divisions. But you agree that you think time does heal? ES (01:31:48): I think so. I was thinking what you said about Muskie said, the division since the Civil War. There was a time when, during Summer of Love, during that time, it was right after and during the civil rights demonstrations. There was a time when there were much better relations between Black and white. Then that changed with the rise of the militant groups, such as Black Panthers, which, in an attempt to give Black people pride, turned against whites. But I thought that was not a good time, and I think that persists today, to a large extent. It seemed- SM (01:32:50): Yes. ES (01:32:51): ...there was more integration then, than now. Now you always read about, in colleges, Blacks always being separate from whites. SM (01:33:08): Right. ES (01:33:08): In the (19)60s, did not have that so much. There was a brief period where you did not have that. SM (01:33:17): In your opinion, why did the Vietnam War end? ES (01:33:22): Oh, I think a lot of it has to do with the student demonstrations, the general consensus that it was wrong that we were there. The numbers of people who were killed, well, Vietnamese and American. SM (01:33:47): How do you respond to the people, like the Newt Gingrich's of the world, or George Will, who oftentimes will write in his books, commentary on the (19)60s generation, or that period in American history, as placing the blame for the breakdown of American society based on that time. They are making reference to the drug culture, the freedom of sexuality, the lack of respect for authority, maybe even the beginning of the isms. Just the breakdown of the way it was maybe in the (19)50s. I do not know. But your thoughts? Because those critics are still out there, and they are still making comments. You can see it on the Huckabee's television show all the time. We are going to make a reference to the (19)60s generation, and a lot of the issues that we face in our society today. Problems go back at that time. The divorce rate is another one, the high divorce rate, not having a commitment to a relationship, all these things. Just your thoughts on the critics of that time and era. ES (01:35:05): Well, some of the criticisms are valid, but I think that, overall, good came out of that period of time. We see that in the interest in maintaining, preserving, and improving the environment, in openness to new ideas, and arts and music. Overall, I think was good. Bad things also occurred. The people who were harmed by drug abuse. The change in a reaction to marriage, where it used to be felt that one married, it was forever. My parents married for almost 60 years before my mother died. When I first came out to Berkeley, when I had some roommates and friends at a residence where I was, I surprised by the number of people who came from divorced families. Of course, that has changed more and more. Divorce, that is not a good thing. I still think that when married, you should go into it thinking you are always going to be married. Not with the idea that many people have that, "Oh, you could always get divorced if things do not work out," but that is not a good thing. I think, overall, a lot of good came out of it. And I think these critics are, yes, reactionary. They are looking backwards. They are thinking, perhaps, of a time that did not really exist except in their imagination. SM (01:37:17): One of the other qualities, the second question, besides healing, is the issue of trust. There were lots of reasons why boomers did not trust their leaders, because they saw President Johnson lie about the Gulf of Tonkin. We saw Richard Nixon in Watergate. There were even rumblings that President Kennedy was not above board, with respect to the overthrow of the Diem regime. ES (01:37:42): Right. SM (01:37:42): Vietnam. And certainly even if you really were up on things, Eisenhower had even lied to the American public about you too. McNamara, and all these numbers, where they were giving numbers of the dead, and it could have been a whole pasture cows, and they were including them as well. Trust, or lacking trust, is a quality that many people link to this generation. Your thoughts on how important trust is, and secondly, whether there is truth to that. Secondly, one of my professors once said to us in a Psych 101 class that people who cannot trust others will really not be a success in life, because you have got to be able to trust other people. Just your thoughts. ES (01:38:34): Yes. On the other hand, it is healthy, in a way, to know about these things, these incidents, in which our leaders have lied. Because I think it is good to have a healthy skepticism, especially about politicians. The old joke about how you know when a lawyer is lying, his lips are moving. Most politicians are lawyers, so you have got a double chance of lies. I see a lot of disappointment now, after Obama's election, because he ran on the slogan, Change You Can Believe In. A lot of people are bitterly disappointed to find out that he is, after all, a politician, Chicago politician, who has to act within the constraints of our system. As I said before, people have a need to follow, a need for religion, a need feel that they are following someone who can guide them. And of course, one of the popular songs, it was Beatles or John Lennon, I forget, Do not follow leaders. SM (01:40:27): Yeah. I was a political science major as an undergrad in history, political science. And one of the things they teach you in political science is, it is healthy for democracy to not trust. ES (01:40:43): Yep. SM (01:40:43): Because that is the sign that dissent is alive and well. And if you have dissent, that means you have free speech, you have protests, the right, all these things. That is a healthy thing, not a negative thing. ES (01:40:56): Yeah. That is why that slogan Question Authority was so powerful. SM (01:41:03): Right. When I have asked another question, too, to all the guests, and I have tried defining the boomer generation into words from slogans. There were three, and then there was four, and then there was five. But the three that I mentioned to each person, and then they respond with their own, is Malcolm X's term, By Any Means Necessary, symbolizing the more radical violent aspects of the (19)60s, and early (19)70s, when boomers were young. Then you had Bobby Kennedy's quote, which he took from a writer, which is, "Some men see things as they are, and ask, 'Why?' I see things that never were, and ask, 'Why not?'," which is an activist mentality, a questioning of authority, fight for justice when you see injustice, that kind of thing. Then the more hippie mentality, which was on many of the Peter Max posters of the era, particularly in the early (19)70s. And one of them said, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful," which was a hippie mentality. Then one other person mentioned, We Shall Overcome, which is symbolic of the Civil Rights movement. Others had mentioned Timothy Leary's Tune in, Turn on, Drop out. But are there some slogans that you feel, or do they cover the generation? ES (01:42:35): I think they cover it. I do not like Malcolm X's slogan, By Any Means Necessary, because it connotes violence when necessary, and I think violence should be avoided if possible. It is not always possible, but if possible, it should be avoided. I told you I did not care for... Well, I appreciated the power of Timothy Leary's. I did not appreciate the message, because if you are actually following it, dropping out of school, and just dropping out of society. SM (01:43:21): When you say that, when you look at the Summer of Love, that is really all about counterculture, that is really not about politics, correct? ES (01:43:29): I would say so, yes. SM (01:43:31): Yeah. ES (01:43:31): In fact, it was a big difference. There was some conflict between the political people and the Flower Power people. The difference even was seen in publications, such as the Berkeley Barb, where my newspaper columns first appeared. Very much interested in politics, whereas there was a publication called The Oracle, which had to do with psychedelic art and music. Yes, there was a difference there. SM (01:44:22): You are your books, which I have the list of your four books here, could you at least just, in a couple sentences, describe what each book is about? Dear Doctor Hippocrates, which was Grove Press in (19)69. ES (01:44:35): Yes. It was from newspaper columns, or questions and answers, almost all about drugs and sexuality. SM (01:44:46): Is that book still available, or you got a- ES (01:44:49): It is on online, again, through Amazon. SM (01:44:52): Yeah. ES (01:44:52): I thought they were being used company. SM (01:44:56): Natural Food and Unnatural Acts, Delacorte Press, 1974. ES (01:45:00): Yes. That was from newspaper columns and longer articles that I wrote. As I say, I always thought of that as a history of the (19)60s. SM (01:45:12): Yeah, that is what I need to get, for sure. The third one was, Jealousy, Taming the Green-Eyed Monster, 1980. ES (01:45:20): See, often people would write to me because they were exploring sexuality, freedom of sex, and they would say " I know I cannot own anyone, and I should not own anyone, but why is it that I feel jealous if I see my girlfriend or wife with someone else?" People would very frequently write to me about that, so I thought this be a good book to do, a book about jealousy. SM (01:45:48): Well, that is interesting. Mary Todd Lincoln should have read that book. She was suspicious of everybody that came anywhere near Abe. ES (01:45:58): Yeah. SM (01:45:58): The last one here, the Down to Earth Health Guide, in 1981. ES (01:46:02): Yes. I was asked by the publisher of Natural Food and Unnatural Acts to do a general health guide. At that time, there were not health guides for, actually, it started out for college students, and I expanded for others. It is a general health guide. There is a large section in there about drugs and sexuality, but it also includes other health conditions. SM (01:46:38): Now I am almost done here. The last part is just where I mentioned some names. So some people or terms, and you just give little brief comments. ES (01:46:46): All right. SM (01:46:47): If that is okay? ES (01:46:48): Sure. SM (01:46:48): Sometimes people decide they do not even want that, because the interview's gone a little over. It is a great interview. These are just names, terms, or personalities from the period. Just thoughts. Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. ES (01:47:03): Yeah, Tom Hayden. Tom Hayden, he lived in Berkeley for a time. There was a time when women's groups were coming together, and saying, "We do not need men." They published an anonymous article in the Berkeley Barb about if it had to do with dildos, something like that, and we do not need men. [inaudible] condemned the article. It was anti-women, anti-feminist. I thought he was a true believer, and it was a marriage made in heaven or hell when he married Jane Fonda. I think she is really a dimwit. SM (01:48:07): How about John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy? ES (01:48:13): Well, John Kennedy, of course, represented a new kind of president. He was young, he was vital. He projected optimism. Robert Kennedy, I had some doubts about, because of his early work with anti-communist activity. When he was killed, a lot of the aspirations of people active in politics died as well. SM (01:48:59): How about LBJ and Hubert Humphrey? ES (01:49:02): LBJ was an example of how things can get done, how things have to be done, because he was very important in regard to civil rights legislation. And yet, he was an old style politician. Even Humphrey was an example of how things are not done, cannot be done. He had promised a liberal politician, but he was not as effective as LBJ, interestingly enough. SM (01:49:53): How about Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern? ES (01:49:59): Well, I met Eugene McCarthy one time. Again, he was someone who was not, of course he was in Congress, but he was not as effective. But he did inspire people to be active in politics, the way they had not before. The same with McGovern. McGovern was interesting. I was at Hunter Thompson's second funeral in Colorado, and McGovern was one of the people who spoke there. SM (01:50:42): Wow. ES (01:50:43): Yeah. SM (01:50:47): How about Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford? ES (01:50:51): When I was a student at Berkeley in 1953, Ronald Reagan, I was in the Cal Glee Club. We were asked to sing at a Lions Club meeting in Berkeley, and the featured speaker there was Ronald Reagan. It was the first time that I was aware of his interest in politics, and was surprised to learn of his interest in very conservative politics. I never understood why, do not understand now, why he is so revered by some Republicans. He was the guy who said, "You have seen one redwood, you have seen them all." He also was not the first actor to become elected to national office politics. Was that George Murphy? SM (01:51:54): Yes. ES (01:51:55): And before him. He unfortunately inspired other actors, get involved in politics, like our present governor. SM (01:52:08): Right. ES (01:52:10): You asked? SM (01:52:11): Gerald Ford. ES (01:52:12): Oh, Ford. Ford. SM (01:52:18): Ultimate question with him. When he had pardoned Nixon, did he really heal the nation? He wrote a book on it. ES (01:52:24): I think that was the intent, as well as maybe paying off some political favors. But I do not think it healed the nation. I think it destroyed his reputation. SM (01:52:42): When he ran against Jimmy Carter, I was in San Francisco. They had a big amphitheater there, and they had the big screen with a debate. I will never forget when he said, "They are not communists." I could not believe it. In Eastern Europe. ES (01:52:56): Oh yeah-yeah. SM (01:52:57): That killed him, that did it. ES (01:53:01): He was not very smart, either. SM (01:53:04): Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. ES (01:53:09): Oh. Well, Chris, Eisenhower was elected because he was general in the Second World War. I think his greatest contribution was to point out of the military industrial complex. SM (01:53:25): Yes. ES (01:53:26): Sadly neglected. Every now and then someone will remember it. But very important that he mentioned that, and emphasized that, and that he recognized how important that was. I think that is his greatest contribution, and the importance of that has yet to be realized. Nixon, it was astonishing, to me, when he was elected president. We thought, "Oh, my God, that is the worst thing that could have happened." Some of the most pleasant hours I have ever spent were during the Watergate hearings, then having him resign. Found that very satisfying that finally justice was served, because as he started out as a witch hunter, communist, anti-communist, and built on that. SM (01:54:35): How about Spiro Agnew and Jimmy Carter? ES (01:54:41): Yeah-yeah. Spiro Agnew. Well, it was amusing, I forget the term that he used. He was talking about the journalist. SM (01:54:55): Yeah, hobnobs. ES (01:54:59): Finally, he got his due because of corruption. SM (01:55:03): Right. ES (01:55:04): Jimmy Carter was a weak president. There was some promise. He was interested in, for example, in decriminalizing marijuana, at least through his White House drug advisor. I had some hand in Jimmy Carter's [inaudible], in a roundabout way. I do not know if you remember the White House drug scandal, when his White House drug advisor, Peter Bourne, that is resigned in disgrace? SM (01:55:52): Do not remember that. ES (01:55:53): He had written a prescription for Quaaludes, under a false name for his secretary, or something. SM (01:56:03): Oh, wow. ES (01:56:07): When that was revealed, and Jack Anderson revealed a story that he had been pledged not to reveal unless something like this happened. What that was, was that Peter Bourne was at a conference in Washington, it was a normal conference, national organization. He could reform of marijuana law. Peter Bourne was seen by some reporters in a room there, speeding, snorting cocaine with Thompson and some other. SM (01:56:48): Oh. ES (01:56:50): These reporters, they promised not to reveal this. They told Anderson about it. They promised not to reveal it unless something else happened. Something else happened when Peter Bourne wrote this fake prescription, and that was revealed. Then Jack Anderson revealed the cocaine snorting incident, and that did not help Jimmy Carter. SM (01:57:28): How about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the Yippies? ES (01:57:32): Yeah. Well, I knew both Jerry and Abbie. Abbie, I thought, always had a great sense of humor. But I was there when they were planning the Chicago demonstration. I was at the meeting, and they asked me to provide medical assistance at the Chicago convention meeting. SM (01:57:58): Oh, wow. ES (01:58:01): When they told me what they planned, I said, "You know, people could get killed if you do that." And Abbie said, "Well, what is a few lives lost there, compared with thousands of lives in Vietnam?" Well, I did not think that one could predict things like that, and I thought it was wrong, and I withdrew from being involved in the Chicago demonstration. But overall, I thought, and there was some brilliance in the Yippie tactics, throwing the money, the dollar bills, and the stock exchange, and some of their other stunts. Jerry Rubin, less so. Especially later, became a stockbroker. SM (01:58:54): Right. ES (01:58:54): Interested in that. They were killed, hit by a car, and some of us made wry jokes about he was killed because he saw a reporter on the other side of Wilshire Boulevard, right across the street. SM (01:59:17): Yeah. Well, I have heard he was killed because he was jaywalking, and he was against the law all the time, so he got killed because he was doing something against the law. Chicago eight. The next one is Chicago eight, which is the trial, the eight people. That was a big thing, with Bobby Seale, and Tom Hayden, and certainly Rennie Davis, Rubin, Hoffman, Dave Dellinger, Lee Weiner, and I am missing one person, but just your thoughts on that? That was a... ES (01:59:53): Yeah, that was a travesty. But again, as I just mentioned, I was supposed to have been involved in providing medical- ES (02:00:03): ...supposed to have been involved in providing medical coverage for a Chicago demonstration. So, I did not have too much sympathy with those people because they were deliberately trying to start a riot. They did. There is no doubt in my mind. I know that that is what they intended to do because they told me. SM (02:00:24): How about the women leaders, the Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug the women's movement, because they were at the forefront? ES (02:00:32): Yeah. I am afraid that all set setback progress for a couple of generations. They misled women on their relationships with men. It led to a lot of saying, what was it, slogan, women need men like fish need bicycles. I think that still influences a lot of women. I mean, the good part, of course was in pointing out discrepancies in wages and political power. That part was good. It was good and bad. SM (02:01:23): How about the Black Panthers? There was seven of them because there is Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Dave Hilliard and then the one that was killed in Chicago. I forget his name. Norman, I think, Fred Norman. ES (02:01:44): Well, not all of them were thugs and gangsters, but I think most of them were. SM (02:01:49): Yeah. That gets to this question about, Stokely challenged Martin Luther King in person, saying his time had passed. Malcolm X had actually debated Bayard Rustin, telling him that his time had passed, which was nonviolent protest. ES (02:02:06): Yeah. That set back relations between blacks and whites and that exists till today. SM (02:02:13): Yeah. Well, what are your thoughts on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.? ES (02:02:22): Well, of course Martin Luther King Jr. was a great orator and peacemaker. Was of course, if not the greatest black leader, one of the greatest. I do not know as much. You asked about Stokely Carmichael? SM (02:02:45): Yeah. Stokely was the one challenged Dr. King. ES (02:02:51): Yeah. SM (02:02:52): He was down south in the early years, the Freedom Summer. So, he was doing good things. It is like what happens with the Weathermen and the SDS. I just saw Bobby Seale speak at the Kent State Conference. He kept saying, "We were never for violence." He kept saying that over and over and over again. Police just looked at the Black Panthers as a threat. They threatened him so much that they decided they had to get guns to protect themselves. ES (02:03:26): You know the Black Panthers, when they made a show of appearing at the state capitol in Sacramento, with rifles. SM (02:03:38): Right. ES (02:03:42): Yes, of course it was outrageous that there was discrimination against blacks, including blatant segregation, as I mentioned when I was younger. But the result of encouraging violence and hatred is what we have today. We do not have as much integration now as we did for a period of time during that Civil Rights era. SM (02:04:21): Couple other names here and then we are done, Dr. Benjamin Spock and the Berrigan Brothers. ES (02:04:31): Well, Dr. Spock influenced a whole generation. I was fortunate enough to meet him one time. I guess we were speakers on the same stage once in Berkeley. He was very warm, intelligent. He had a lot of good ideas. I think some of his child-raising ideas were misinterpreted, but I thought he was great influence on a whole generation of people and a good influence. Who is the other? SM (02:05:11): Phillip and Daniel Berrigan. They were part of the Catonsville 9 where they burned the draft records. ES (02:05:19): Yeah. Yeah. Well, they were very influential because they were church leaders who encouraged activism. To the extent that they influenced people of their own faith and other faiths, especially about the Vietnam War, they are very important. They show that it is worth sacrifice to do some things, the sacrifice of being liable to being arrested and jailed. They were not violent. SM (02:06:08): Yeah. The SDS, Students for Democratic Society and the Weathermen. ES (02:06:14): Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, there are people who are most influenced by big thing, explosion, boom-boom. The Weathermen, of course they blew themselves up sometimes, but I thought that that was wrong. Thought it was wrong to encourage violence at that time, at that time and for those reasons. I thought there were other means that were useful to ending the war. I mean, after all, that is why they started their group. Using violence to end violence, it's like using racism to end racism. SM (02:07:13): How about Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson, two of the predominant African American athletes who- ES (02:07:20): Well, Muhammad Ali was a very bright man. He was very funny. His decision not to be drafted I think was very important and influenced a lot of people. At the time he did that, he changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, I mean that was important. I never can remember his though, advocating killing infidels or some of the things that you see now from Islamic extremists. I think he was very influential and a good role model at the time, I mean, even before he avoided the draft way he did because he was such a wonderful athlete. So, very smart, clever and funny. Who was the other? SM (02:08:38): The other was Jackie Robinson. ES (02:08:42): Yeah. Again, of course he was a pioneer in baseball. He always seemed to comport himself in an ethical manner. Was not like some of the athletes we see today, of all races, drugs and gangsters, acting badly. He always seemed to act in a good way. He was very important. Actually, I was interested in baseball because of the various baseball background in my own family. SM (02:09:23): I want to mention a book that I think you ought to go out and read. I am reading it right now. It is a brand-new book on Henry Aaron. ES (02:09:29): Yes. SM (02:09:30): It is called Henry Aaron. It is written by a person on ESPN. I have got several books. In the first 50 pages, the influence that Jackie Robinson had on Henry Aaron, the young guy from Mobile, Alabama is just unbelievable. Jackie talked about getting an education, not relying on your athletic ability. Raise as much as you, can be educated. Yet Hank was the extreme opposite in his attitudes. It is the best book I have ever written on Henry Aaron. I think as a person who is a psychologist or psychiatrist who works with people, I am learning a lot about human beings from this book. I am respecting Hank Aaron even more now that I am reading about his life. Because he has been kind of a recluse, even though he was high up in the Braves organization, but he was not out there making a name for himself. He did not believe in that. He liked being just, put the product out there. Just a couple more names and then we are done. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. ES (02:10:48): Well, I saw the Vietnam Veterans Against the War activists. It was in Miami Beach in 1972. They had the Republican Convention there at that time. As you know, I had grown up in Miami Beach. They were amongst the demonstrators there. I was astounded. I saw something I thought I would never, ever see in my life, tear gas, tear gas floating across the visage of a full moon in Miami Beach. I thought I would never see tear gas in Miami Beach. It was during that time. SM (02:11:34): Right. ES (02:11:35): I think Ron Kovic, that he was there. SM (02:11:41): So was Bobby Muller, I think. ES (02:11:43): Yeah. SM (02:11:44): Yep. ES (02:11:44): Yeah. They were very important also in helping to end the Vietnam War and publicizing the atrocities that occurred. SM (02:11:55): Mm-hmm. Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers? ES (02:12:02): That was also important. He demonstrated how a brave person could help to change things by exposing lies. I think he was important at that time. He surfaces every now and then, now, for other issues, but that was his greatest moment. The associate, what was his name? It started with an R, Russo, I think had some mental problems. SM (02:12:49): I cannot end this without at least having a couple conservatives here, Barry Goldwater and William Buckley. Your thoughts on those two? Because they are major figures in the lives of Boomers. ES (02:13:03): Yeah. It is funny that Goldberg used to be reviled as this terrible conservative. What did he say? That extremism, forget how he put it, in defense of liberty, is no vice, something like that. He is a very important figure. I think he is regarded in a better light now than he was then, even by liberals. SM (02:13:32): William Buckley? ES (02:13:34): Buckley, I met him one time. I was recording something in a studio in New York City, taking too much time. He was impatiently waiting. I did meet him then. He was a very interesting person. He was one of the first national figures, particularly conservatives who advocated the liberalization of laws regarding marijuana. That was very important for the people in the marijuana decriminalization movement. I thought he was a brilliant man. Even though often I would disagree with his political views, at least there were reasons and he was very articulate and clever. SM (02:14:38): How about My Lai and Tet, how important they were? ES (02:14:44): That was very important, very important in finally putting an end to the war. It did confirm the fact that there were atrocities going on. It is still significant today. I think it has certainly had an effect, even in the wars that are being conducted now, that there is more caution being used in the treatment of civilians. I know that there were incidents in Iraq involving civilians, but I am convinced that that more caution is being used now in Afghanistan and Iraq because of My Lai. SM (02:15:36): Mm-hmm. ES (02:15:37): Yeah. SM (02:15:43): Tet? ES (02:15:46): Again, it was something else that helped eventually put an end to the Vietnam War. It showed that we were not just up against a group of ill- equipped, low-trained savages. It was very important. SM (02:16:06): My last two names are Robert McNamara and John Dean. ES (02:16:14): Well, McNamara, finally he admitted he was wrong, I think, but many years too late, 30, 40. He was certainly an architect of that terrible experience in Vietnam. John Dean? Yeah. Well, I think he benefited from end of Nixon because he helped, contributed it to it. But he, I do not know, seemed bigger. SM (02:16:51): He lives out in your neck of the woods someplace. ES (02:17:03): I guess so. I have not heard his name recently. Every now and then he will turn up in the news. SM (02:17:09): The year 1968, what do you think that year meant to America? ES (02:17:17): 1968. Yeah. We were still in the Vietnam War, a lot of turmoil. SM (02:17:32): Two assassinations. ES (02:17:35): Pardon? SM (02:17:37): Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed. That was the year of Tet. That was the year Johnson withdrew to be president, the Chicago convention. Then of course, we had the astronauts going to the moon at the end of the year. That was a positive. ES (02:17:54): Mm-hmm. A lot of turmoil, a lot going on, a lot of talk about revolution, but I never believed that that was going to happen. SM (02:18:12): The last one here is the television of the (19)50s, the black and white TV. What's your thought of black and white television of the (19)50s? When I think of it, I think of Walt Disney and Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy and all these westerns, where Indians are always the bad guy. Very few people of color, except for Nat King Cole in the mid-(19)50s and Amos 'n' Andy, which was slapstick in the early (19)50s. ES (02:18:42): Yep. Milton Berle. SM (02:18:43): Yeah. Well, (19)40s and (19)50s a television, how did they shape the Boomers? ES (02:18:55): Well, it did because it captures... even then, just black and white television captures one's attention. So, whatever was on was influencing those people, kids at the time. They were pre-conventional values. It was not a lot of innovation or questioning about values, moral or political or artistic or musical during that time. It was a time of convention. SM (02:19:43): Symbolize again, do you think the time of symbolic innocence, but at the same time, there was still racism in the south and Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Bus... There were things going on that a lot of white kids did not know about. ES (02:20:01): Yep, that is right. SM (02:20:03): I am not sure if their parents were doing much to tell them about it either. ES (02:20:07): No, it depends on who they were. I mean, of course my parents were different because they had a liberal point of view. So, I knew about all those things. SM (02:20:21): Yeah, I did too. Final question and that is, when the lasting legacy of the Boomer generation is written up in the history books after the last Boomer has passed away, ala the Civil War person, what do you think historians and sociologists and writers will be saying about the generation that grew up after World War II? Keeping in mind also that they are only 63 now, so they have still got another 20 years to still have an impact on society in different directions. But your thoughts on what they might be saying about that period, in particular the (19)50s, (19)60s and (19)70s? ES (02:21:07): It was a time of great change in the United States in many areas. Any area that you can think of, it was a time of turmoil and change, progress, some regression. SM (02:21:26): Is there any questions that... I have asked you a million questions, that I did not ask, that you thought I was going to ask you? ES (02:21:34): No, not that I can think of. You have asked a lot of questions. SM (02:21:37): Well, I guess that is it. I want to thank you for... My tally, you spent two hours and 20 minutes with me. I really appreciate it. I want to let you know that I am going to need a couple pictures of you. You can mail them to me or send it to me through the computer or whatever, sometime during the summer. I will mail you my mailing address. T. Here is a possibility that I am coming out to San Francisco to visit friends in late August, early September. I have interviewed probably 15 to 18 people from the Bay Area. They all are aware that if I do come out, I may look them up to take their picture too. ES (02:22:20): Sure. SM (02:22:22): I have Chrissy Keefer, David Lance Goines from the Free Speech Movement over in Berkeley. Well, there is several others. I got a whole list here of people. So again, thank you very much. ES (02:22:38): Oh, you are welcome. I had a question. What are your plans for this book? SM (02:22:44): I am doing all my interviews. My interviews were supposed to end at the end of May, but now I am extending it through Labor Day. After Labor Day weekend, I am then transcribing them all together over a two-month period, to transcribe them all. Then you will get a copy of your transcript, to peruse through it, edit it and so forth. Then, it will be printed hopefully next year. I got one university press very interested. University presses are interested. I have not done anything with respect to major presses, but I am meeting with two professors at my parents' former college, in actually the next couple weeks, to strategize on the best book company to get for this. ES (02:23:34): Okay. SM (02:23:34): You are the 156th interview. ES (02:23:39): Wow. SM (02:23:39): Each interview has gone in depth. The early interviews, with Senator McCarthy and Gaylord Nelson, they were like 90 minutes. Sometimes they were interrupted. They were mainly talking about Vietnam. Originally, the book was going to be about Vietnam Veterans, those activists who were against the war and historians who have written about this period. But now I have interviewed so many, and since I retired early to write the book, I am spending all my time now on this and it is expanded into seven different sections. The sections include a section on activists, a section for historians, a section for Vietnam Veterans, a section for authors. I got a lot of different categories here, a section for entertainers. I am going to interview Buffy St. Marie, but she has been having some deaths in the family and she goes on world tours. So, I have been almost waiting 10 months for that. Actually, tomorrow I am driving down to Virginia, Alexandria to interviewed State Senator Toddy Puller, who was the wife of Louis Puller Jr., who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Fortunate Son. He was the inspiration for the book because I took a group of students down to the Vietnam Memorial in 1993, in November, two days before the Women's Memorial was dedicated. He spent two and a half hours with six of our students at a bench in front of the Vietnam Memorial, talking about healing. Then, he committed suicide in May the following year. ES (02:25:27): Wow. SM (02:25:30): I had mentioned to Lewis that I wanted to write this book. I had thought about this. He wrote in a first edition copy of the book, "You must do what you are planning on doing to educate the public." See, what I want to do, Dr. Schoenfeld, more than any other process here, is I want this book to be used in high schools and colleges and plus be available for the general public. I am very saddened that so few of our students know our history. It really upsets me. I interviewed Mark Rudd from SDS. I saw him at Kent State last week. We talked in depth about it. I interviewed him. He has got a book out called Underground, which I think is great. He admits the violence was a big, big mistake. He admits it, but you notice that Bernadine Dohrn does not. ES (02:26:27): Nope. SM (02:26:29): I had issues with her. She was at the conference, so I just basically took a picture of her. But at least Mark has the guts to say that what he did was wrong and it ruined the entire SDS. ES (02:26:41): Yep. SM (02:26:43): I just want to do something that will educate people, from the people who experienced it, that have written about it. So, it is a work in progress, but I am devoting my life to it. ES (02:26:56): Yeah. Sounds like. SM (02:26:58): Because I care deeply about my generation and I care about the true stories of the people that I am interviewing. Certainly, Paul Krassner, what a great man he is. ES (02:27:08): Yep. Yep. SM (02:27:09): Rex Weiner, I do not know if you know Rex. ES (02:27:12): No. SM (02:27:13): Well, Rex Weiner was a writer. Rex said, "You got to get ahold of Paul Krassner." So through Rex, I got ahold of Paul Krassner. And then through Paul, Paul gave me a whole lot of names. I think only two people of all the names that he gave me have not responded. One of them is Carolyn, what is her... Oh, golly. ES (02:27:38): Garcia? SM (02:27:39): Yes, Carolyn Garcia. She has not responded. So obviously a couple of people said they are surprised by that, but maybe there is something to do with the fact that she was linked up with two people at one time. Maybe it is private. So, I did not pursue that any further. Then the other one was the Whole Earth Catalog person. ES (02:28:01): Yeah, Stewart Brand. SM (02:28:02): Yeah. He said he is going to pass at this time. He said, good project and everything, but he is going to pass. Everybody else, I have been interviewing. I have got many other interviews. I am going up to take care of my sister's house. I have three interviews, with really three great scholars coming up next week. Maurice Isserman, who wrote a book on the (19)60s, he is a distinguished professor at Hamilton College. I got another professor at Ithaca College and one at Syracuse. So, I am making a lot of different contacts. ES (02:28:41): Oh, good. There are some photos of me on my website. SM (02:28:46): Okay. What is your website? ES (02:28:52): EugeneSchoenfeld.com. SM (02:28:52): Okay. ES (02:28:52): Okay? There is a lot of biographical information there. SM (02:28:58): Great. ES (02:28:59): Information about what I am doing now. SM (02:29:02): Yeah. I think some of the people, when I did the interviews way back... I started this in (19)96, but I was a full-time employee at a university and I did not have any time to really work very hard on this. Then, I had parents who became ill. So, that kind of shot down two or three years. But now devoting full time to this, I am kind of a walking encyclopedia. I am learning. I have learned a lot from you today. I want to apologize for not getting the right number sent to you, so it is my fault. ES (02:29:41): It is all right. All right. Well, give me a call when you are out here, if you want to. SM (02:29:44): Oh, yeah, will do. You take care and you have a great day. ES (02:29:47): All right. All right. You too. Bye-bye. SM (02:29:48): Bye. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Schoenfeld, Eugene, 1935- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Psychiatrists; Authors, American--20th century; Schoenfeld, Eugene, 1935--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld is a psychiatrist, author, lecturer and was a popular underground newspaper columnist. His column "Dr. Hip" was published in many newspapers including the <em>Chicago Sun-Times</em>, <em>Tampa Times</em>, <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em>, and the <em>San Francisco Examiner</em>. Schoenfeld's books include <em>Dear Dr. HipPocrates</em>, <em>Natural Food and Unnatural Acts</em>, <em>Jealousy: Taming the Green-Eyed Monster</em>, and <em>Dr. Hip's Down-To-Earth Health Guide</em>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ND Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.154a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.154b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Has Part A related resource that is included either physically or logically in the described resource. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 149:55 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ed1243d74a2a378dfc0961e886c47372.jpg 2f1ab9748fccaf576b88fab0c04bf250 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ecfb3db1eb4146ec9b8acb072139c113.mp3 960bb9fd7af44df301a42a5c56dfffd7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2002-07-14 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Kenneth Campbell Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text Dr. Kenneth Campbell is a scholar, reseacher and political scientist. Dr. Campbell is a Associate Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Relations at Universtiy of Delaware, and he is the author for several journal articles and a book titled <em>A Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam and the Hard Lessons of War</em>. He has a Bachelor's degree in History, as well as a Master's degree and Ph.D. in Political Science from Temple University.  Dr. Campbell served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War in 1968 and 1969 and received a Purple Heart for his bravery. Due to his expertise in international affairs, he has testified before Congress on the Iraq War. Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam War; Civil Rights Movement, Anti-War Movement, Women's liberation; Baby boom generation; Jane Fonda; Vietnam; Lyndon B. Johnson; David Cortright; Increased use of drugs in the military; Resistance to draft; Vietnamese interrogation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Vietnam War; Civil Rights Movement, Anti-War Movement, Women's liberation; Baby boom generation; Jane Fonda; Vietnam; Lyndon B. Johnson; David Cortright; Increased use of drugs in the military; Resistance to draft; Vietnamese interrogation.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 163:15 Subject LCSH Political scientists; College teachers; University of Delaware; Campbell, Kenneth--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Nancy Cain Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 14 July 2002 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): Okay, here we go. When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? KC (00:00:13): The (19)60s and early (19)70s. Well, I guess it has to be Vietnam if you are going to cover that entire period. The (19)60s growing up, but the (19)70s, and my Vietnam experience being really the division between my childhood and my family and my neighborhood and growing up. And me then going off to becoming an adult and having a much different life, leaving family, leaving home. SM (00:00:46): When you think of the (19)60s overall, because you are coming from not only growing up in the era but serving your country in that era, do you see a difference between the two in your perspective of that era? KC (00:00:59): The difference between the (19)60s and the (19)70s? SM (00:01:01): (19)60s, yeah. Well, the difference between if you had not served- KC (00:01:06): Oh. SM (00:01:06): ... and serving your country during that timeframe. KC (00:01:09): Well, I cannot accurately imagine not having done that because I did do that. I mean, I guess that I would have been quite different if I had not done that, but I think that it was because I am who I am that I did. I volunteered. I was not plucked out of my life. I do not think that there was any question that I was going to go in the military in some way. As to which branch and at what time under what conditions, those are particulars that I think that I could have played with. But I felt strongly that it was necessary for me to not only serve in that sense of civic duty, but also to use it as a vehicle to grow up, to give myself more opportunities to mature so that I felt that I was going to get a lot out of it, not only give a lot. SM (00:02:23): What do you think of those individuals who did not serve? KC (00:02:28): That did not serve? SM (00:02:30): That did not serve during that timeframe, with particular emphasis on those that could have served but used deferments or any other alternative to get out of service? KC (00:02:42): I do not have a problem with those who used whatever devices they could to get out of serving if they had political or religious or moral objections to the military, in general, or to the war, in particular. That, I think, is a defensible position personally, ethically, defensible position to take. But those who either had no feelings one way or another about the war and about military service, and especially those who supported it, but then found ways of getting out of it themselves, I have problems with. I think that it is dishonorable to avoid your general civic duty, and particularly dishonorable to support someone else going off to die in your place. SM (00:03:39): How do you respond to historians or social critics or sociologists who say that the Vietnam War, and the people that served in the Vietnam War, were basically from working class, lower class backgrounds. They were thrust into it. The upper classes really did not serve, or many of the people that would have gone to college did not serve. Is that a description of the military of that era? KC (00:04:07): Well, it certainly seems like an accurate description of the Marine Corps that I experienced. If we are talking about my personal experience, I was in the Marines and enlisted. Not an officer, I was an enlisted person. And the description of working class, lower middle class, rural, poor, farmer, that is accurate regarding the enlisted people in the Marine Corps at the time I was in there. SM (00:04:50): Getting back to some of the criticisms over the last 5, 10, 15 years on television network shows, you will see people, like Newt Gingrich and George Will and many others, saying that the generation, the boomer generation, the people that were young in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, and when I say (19)70s, a lot of people defined the (19)60s going up to 1973. KC (00:05:15): Right. SM (00:05:15): And so, including those individuals, they think that one of the great reasons we are having problems in our society today is because of that generation with the sexual revolution that took place during that time. As I put down here, "The boomer generation of the (19)60s and early (19)70s is being attacked as one of the reasons for the breakdown of American society." Could you respond to this criticism and comment on the period and its impact on present day America? Is the criticism fair? And when this criticism is often directed to the youth of the year, what can you say about the boomers of the (19)60s and early (19)70s as a generation of 70 million? KC (00:05:58): I guess I would have to, first, address the description of the time as being the breakdown, or leading to the breakdown, of American society. I do not think American society has broken down very often in its history. You have to talk about questions of degree, not kind here, for the most part. Certainly, it was under great stress during the (19)60s and early (19)70s, but it did not completely break down. I would define breaking down as actual civil war. And although there were incidents that looked like civil war at times, whether it was a demonstration that got out of hand or an isolated pseudo revolutionary group uprising from the left, whatever, I think, by and large, American society, under great tension, basically held together during that period of time and after. But to address what, I think, is at the heart of that criticism, that the boomer generation is responsible for a lot of the social problems and political problems, and to some degree economic problems, of the (19)70s and (19)80s and (19)90s, and perhaps now, I think that that is horse hockey. Every generation is neither perfect nor completely worthless, and every generation has to take responsibility for some of the problems that follow it. But that does not make that generation any better or worse than the previous or following generation. I think there were, certainly, a lot of committed people, a lot of boomers committed to change, and good change, but there are also a heck of a lot of boomers that, despite what they say today, were not really involved in that change at the time. There is certainly a lot of anti-war stories told- SM (00:08:10): It never happened. KC (00:08:12): ... and exaggeration today, what did I do in the anti-war movement, as much as there are veterans who tell stories, although they never got near any combat. I think it is just a human tendency to want to exaggerate one's importance. From my experience in leadership positions in the anti-war movement of that time, I know how hard it was to get more than a small percentage of people active in the anti-war movement, or any movement at that time, whether it was community movements, student movements, movements against apartheid, or whatever was around at that time, to get more than a handful of people involved, more than a small percentage of people involved. So, I would not credit the boomer generation as a whole with a whole lot of that, and I would not blame the boomer generation as whole for a whole lot of that. I think the so-called damage done is exaggerated, but so are the accomplishments. The accomplishments, I think, sometimes are exaggerated by the historians on the left. I think what was accomplished was great, and through a lot of difficult struggle and sacrifice on the part of some leaders, but the whole generation, certainly. Not even a majority of the generation was involved and had anything to do with that. SM (00:09:50): Good point. Because you read about this era, and they will say that of the 70 plus million that were in the boomer generation, again, the boomers are defined by years. KC (00:10:02): Right. SM (00:10:03): I have a problem with that, too. They say Boomers are (19)46 to (19)64, and now a more recent study by Howe and Strauss- KC (00:10:09): 1946 to (19)64. SM (00:10:10): Yes, 1964. Yeah. KC (00:10:12): As opposed to an age. SM (00:10:13): Yeah, 1946 to 1964. But now, Howe and Strauss have just written a book on the current youth, which is the millennials, who states that the boomers were 1943 to 1961. And if you read earlier books on this period, a lot of the people who were born between (19)42 and (19)46 were upset because many of them were in the lead of the anti-war movement. KC (00:10:37): Yeah. Yeah. SM (00:10:37): So, what I am getting at here, really, the question is this. Another way that people have lessened the impact on boomers is to say that only 15 percent were really involved. KC (00:10:48): There you go. SM (00:10:49): And would you say that is true? KC (00:10:51): I would say that is very true. And I make the same point in my book about Vietnam veterans in combat, that are only 15 percent, and that is probably exaggerated, it is probably smaller than that, were involved in any sustained combat in Vietnam. Few people realize that, whether they are for or against a war, whether they are arguing for veterans’ rights, or just simply trying to study it objectively, few people realize that only 10 to 15 percent of all Vietnam veterans saw any significant combat. Now, that has an impact. That has an importance in certain areas- SM (00:11:32): Right. KC (00:11:33): ... and I will not go into all of that right now, but that is an important figure for people to understand. And as late as two years ago, in 2005, when I got together with some old anti-war hands, some of them which were non-veterans, one of them, when I gave that figure at a public forum, came up to me and said that she was shocked, that she had been around for 40 years in the movement and working in the anti-war movement back in the (19)60s, et cetera. And she never knew that. No one ever said that. No one ever told her that. That that gave her a better appreciation of the intensity of the experience of combat veterans and the isolation that combat veterans feel, even among veterans as a whole. SM (00:12:18): Are we talking here, maybe, about 400,000 Vietnam vets who actually were in combat of the three plus million? KC (00:12:25): Well, I need a calculator. SM (00:12:28): Yeah-yeah. KC (00:12:28): I am not that great at mathematics. SM (00:12:30): Right. KC (00:12:30): But whatever it turns out to be, between 10 and 15 percent- SM (00:12:35): Right. KC (00:12:35): ... because the so-called tail to tooth ratio, meaning those who were in support versus the tip of the spear, or the tooth of the war machine, was six to one. Six people in support for every person out in the bush with a rifle, and that is less than 15 percent. SM (00:12:54): Right. KC (00:12:55): And I have been told by folks who study this even more closely that 14 or 15 percent is still too high. SM (00:13:00): Wow. KC (00:13:01): That when you start subtracting people, like the clerks that worked in the combat units who were back in the rear with the typewriters, and you start doing all sorts of other calculations, it turns out to be closer to about 10 or 12 percent. But I still go with 15 just to be safe. SM (00:13:18): Yeah. Obviously, being down at the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, the people that are on that stage are the people that are in that 14 to 15 percent, obviously. Yeah. KC (00:13:28): I do not know. You find a lot of them there. Some of them are the most committed. But there are a lot of folks who, well, let us put it this way, a lot of Vietnam veterans that I would look critically at that take strong political positions on various issues, putting forth their experience in the war as their credibility, that really did not experience much or any war. SM (00:14:02): You hear that a lot from Chuck Hagel. KC (00:14:03): Is that right? SM (00:14:04): Yeah. KC (00:14:04): Yeah. I would not be surprised. Chuck Hagel is one of my favorite guys. SM (00:14:07): Yeah. He and his brother, and they did serve. KC (00:14:10): Yeah. SM (00:14:10): And I like him too. Yeah, some people would say, "Well, when is he going to run for president?" I do not think he is going to run. I think he's going to stay in the Senate. When you look at the characteristics, could you give some of the positive qualities, just some adjectives to describe the boomer generation in your eyes? And some of the negative qualities? KC (00:14:27): Yeah. I would say innovative in the sense that boomers thought outside the World War II depression experience. Not having that experience, we were able to think outside the box, so to speak. And imagine a world where, perhaps, you did not have segregation, racial segregation. Perhaps, where you did not simply go off to serve and fight for your country because someone in authority said it was necessary to do. Dared to question authority. Asked critical questions. As an educator, I think of that generic quality that we try to develop in students of critical thinking, being able to see contradictions, complexity, variation, nuances. And I think that politically, socially, that the boomer generation, especially those who were in the leadership on contentious issues, were able to have that kind of imagination. Now, it is not to say that the previous generation did not have that imagination, because the previous generation, certainly, was able to imagine well, in at least leadership, in many cases, how to deal with the depression, how to look beyond the state that did not provide relief, that did not provide welfare, that to be innovative when it came time to fighting a war that was necessary under very adverse conditions. But I think the boomer generation had its most impact for its domestic reforms, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement, which was certainly focused at home. I mean, it was focused on a war, but it was focused on changing the system at home and finding out what was wrong with America that got us in there. And the women's movement. SM (00:16:55): Right. I guess you could include in there the environmental movement, too. KC (00:16:59): And the environmental. SM (00:17:00): Yeah. KC (00:17:00): Very good. The environmental movement, since were sitting here in a nice environment. SM (00:17:03): Yeah. And some of the other movements you think of in that era, you think of the Native American movement- KC (00:17:08): Sure. SM (00:17:08): ... and the Chicano movement, too, as well. To get off the order of questions here, the civil rights movement and the practice of nonviolence and the methods used by people in those movements were forerunners to the anti-war movement. Do you think that all these other movements, their teacher was the civil rights movement? I have read that in history books, that the anti-war, women's movement, all the other movements you just mentioned were learned from the civil rights movement. KC (00:17:43): Well, I think a lot was learned from the civil rights movement. I think a lot was learned from the labor movement during the thirties, as well. Twenties and thirties, but the thirties in particular. Peaceful ways of protesting health and safety conditions or inadequate pay or the right to unionize, not having the right to unionize. A lot of ideas and experience were transferred by older folks who lived and worked through those eras, the twenties and thirties and forties, to not only the anti-war movement, but other movements, as well, community movements, et cetera. I remember Saul Alinsky- SM (00:18:43): Oh, yeah. Rules for radicals. KC (00:18:45): Rules for Radicals, Reveille for Radicals, he had established some kind of an institute in Chicago to train leaders on the left, or not on the left. He was not looking for left or right, but just people who were interested in grassroots democracy. And so, there are important links back to earlier generations and earlier movements. But there was a lot of innovation, as well. A lot of thinking beyond that or differently from that came out of the boomer leaders themselves, the generation themselves. A lot was learned from the civil rights movement. But I think there was, also, something that was very American about the anti-war movement in the sense that there is an understanding among many, if not most, organizers in the Vietnam anti-war movement, that the system probably worked well enough, on most days, for most people, that you were better off not using violent forms of protests. That it was unnecessary and, in fact, counterproductive to use violent forms of protest. So, that nonviolence was for a principle that maybe they built their whole life around it. Quakers or Passivists, like Martin Luther King. SM (00:20:25): Right. KC (00:20:25): But for others it was a tactic. It was something that worked better than violence. But if they had lived under a regime, like the Nazis, they might be using violence because they might give up on the idea of peaceful change. SM (00:20:41): Yeah. Right. KC (00:20:42): So, I think that the structural conditions in America, the fact that America was the way it was with a constitution and a long history of rule of law, et cetera, was a major factor, if not a defining factor, for most people in the anti-war movement. Because most people in the anti-war movement were not out-and-out passivists in the sense of never using violence, pure passivists. We're not the kind of people who would have refused to go to war during World War II. SM (00:21:10): Like Bayard Rustin. KC (00:21:12): Right. SM (00:21:12): Yep. KC (00:21:15): Right, right. So, I think that is an important factor, as well. Part of its civil rights experience and leadership, part of it, earlier struggles, but also part of it, the structural context in which all of us was occurring. America as, basically, a law-abiding country, and it is people recognizing that there are non-violent ways of achieving your ends. And if you choose not to use those, then you are probably at least as bad as what you are protesting against, if not worse. SM (00:21:44): Right. Yeah, I think, on college campuses, in particular, I think one of the lessons learned is that protest is still important, and a lot of people think it is outdated, but I think it is still important. However, you learn from the lessons and the mistakes of the past. You do not disrupt the university and shut it down because that really creates a big divide. So, maybe you can still protest, but learn that shutting a campus down and getting parents all upset. I am leading into another question here. KC (00:22:16): All right, go ahead. SM (00:22:18): And this question deals with the millennials, which are today's young people that are in college campuses, and- KC (00:22:23): Is that the term used to describe them? The millennials. Oh, geez. SM (00:22:24): Yeah, the millennials, yeah. Born after 1984. KC (00:22:28): I doubt that they came up with that themselves. SM (00:22:30): No, they did not. And the Generation Xers, which followed the boomers- KC (00:22:35): Right-right. SM (00:22:35): ... which has been written about a lot. KC (00:22:37): Right. They are the tweeners here. SM (00:22:41): Right. KC (00:22:43): The Xers are the ones that were probably born while Vietnam was going on, but did not know anything about it. They were too young. SM (00:22:53): Yep. Yep. And they, also, now make up 80 to 85 percent of the parents of today's entering college students. KC (00:23:01): Yeah-yeah. SM (00:23:01): Where only 15 percent now are really boomers. KC (00:23:04): Right. That is right. SM (00:23:05): And so, here, we have got another 15 percent. KC (00:23:09): But the equivalent to that are those who were born in the, well, not born, but grew up in the late forties and the (19)50s, who are not really boomers- SM (00:23:21): Right. KC (00:23:21): ... but are of the World War II generation. SM (00:23:22): They are the silent generation. They call them the silent- KC (00:23:26): Yeah. Okay. So, there is always a tweener generation- SM (00:23:27): Right. KC (00:23:27): ... in there. It is either the X generation or the silent generation. SM (00:23:31): Well, one of the things that over the years, since I work in a university, and you are a professor, your comments will be important on this. For quite a few years, there was a reaction on generation Xers. They either wished they had lived in that era because then there were great causes that they could be involved in, or they would be the other extreme. They were sick of boomers because they were nostalgic, and they dreamed of all these things in the past, and let us live for the present. KC (00:24:01): Right. SM (00:24:01): And the millennials today have a sense of, this is my impression again, that it is not that they do not care, but I do not know if they want to learn about the history that preceded them. So, I have real concerns, and would like your thoughts on this about the parents of today's college students now, the generation Xers, and the millennials, in terms of how important is history to them? Do they want to learn from it? Or are the only thinking of today and tomorrow, and the past is the past? That is what really worries me. KC (00:24:36): Well, you have to understand. I think that we have to understand that the generation Xers reached the years when the boomers were the most committed, active, and making the biggest impact. That is late teens, early twenties, in a highly conservative period. You are talking about the Reagan era. And Xers really did not have the social context or support that boomers did. The issues were not as burning, and their lives were not directly threatened, either. That is the other thing. SM (00:25:23): Right. KC (00:25:23): There is always a sense of survival driving boomers during the anti-war movement, fear of being drafted, fear of being used, and even the boomers that became anti-war when they came back from Vietnam, anger for being misuse. The Xers did not have that context to drive them or support them. So, I think they have often been criticized and condemned by boomers in an unfair way. And when you add to that the fact that only 15 percent or less of those boomers really were as active as some much larger group of them claimed they were, you know, have to look at the boomers and say, "Okay, do not be hypocritical here. Do not condemn other people for something you did not do either." SM (00:26:21): Sure enough. KC (00:26:21): "Your generation might have, your leaders might have-" SM (00:26:23): Right. KC (00:26:24): "... but not all of you did. A lot of you sat on your ass when that demonstration went down. A lot of you threw Frisbees and smoked dope and did not listen to the speakers when you went to the demonstration." SM (00:26:32): Whereas, one person told me, "I went to Washington only to see bare breasted women." KC (00:26:36): That is right. Yeah, yeah. It became a happening. SM (00:26:39): Yeah. KC (00:26:40): Like a bee and only with a bunch of political noise in the background. So, I think the criticism of the X Generation has always been a little bit unfair to them because they were born in a different age and raised and came to fruition, to maturity, in a different age. And unfair by the boomers, because many of those boomers were not as committed as they claimed, as involved as they claimed, could take as much responsibility as they claimed for the great changes. So, I believe in being fair to people, and we should not be too hard on our sons and our daughters and our little brothers and our little sisters. SM (00:27:24): A thought that applies with the millennials today, too, as well. KC (00:27:26): Yeah, I do. Yeah. SM (00:27:26): Yeah. KC (00:27:27): But I think I have a better handle on the millennial because I think I think better now than I did 20 or 30 years ago about these kinds of things. And I was just thinking about this again a couple of days ago. I think that the millennials are being criticized too much by boomers and Xers for not being active enough against the war in Iraq, when in fact, that just isn't their issue. They view Iraq, as well as Vietnam, unconsciously, I think, for the most part. Unconsciously view it as old school. What to them is current and contemporary, AIDS, especially in Africa, Darfur, genocide in Darfur- SM (00:28:20): Right. KC (00:28:20): ... human rights, the environment, all those issues that connect with globalization. SM (00:28:28): Right. KC (00:28:28): These are contemporary issues for them, and that is where you can find them active. If you look, you find them active, whether they are blogging, whether they are on websites, whether they are holding meetings, whether they are raising funds, doing 5K runs, whatever it is, that is where they are active. SM (00:28:42): Yep. KC (00:28:43): For the most part, it is the boomer generation that is active in the anti-Iraq war movement. Now, there are certainly plenty of exceptions, but I think, in general, that is true. And I think Iraq, created by a boomer generation by people from the boomer generation that never went, chicken hawks, and protested by those who did go to Vietnam. Or those who did protest Vietnam, but are back protesting Iraq now, or those who did go to Vietnam in turned sour on it. This is a within boomer generation war and within boomer generation issue. SM (00:29:24): Wow. KC (00:29:25): In other words, they are saying that this is all politics. Not only should you not have gone to Iraq, that that is wrong, but this whole argument over it is not relevant to us, for the most part. SM (00:29:38): See, one of the characteristics that Howe and Strauss, they wrote the book Generations, they have got the book on the millennials now- KC (00:29:46): Okay. SM (00:29:46): ... they speak at national conferences. They have studied youth. KC (00:29:50): Yeah. SM (00:29:50): Some, like Dr. Levine from Columbia Teachers College- KC (00:29:54): Okay. SM (00:29:54): ... have written some great books on youth of different generations. When we are talking about the millennials, the millennials have been compared to the World War II generation because they want to leave a legacy. And they are thinking about, according to the studies of Sprouse- KC (00:30:12): Okay. SM (00:30:12): ... they want to leave a legacy, but they want to leave it when they are in their late thirties or starting in the forties. What concerns me, as a person who works in higher education with students, is, okay, we have got a generation now of students who do care about other people. They do. KC (00:30:27): Yeah. SM (00:30:27): They do care about the issues like you just mentioned of human rights, but they have got to wait until they are 40 to start leaving their legacy. And the question is, what happens between 22 and 23 and 40? From what I am gathering from the information is they want to raise a family, they want to get a lot of money in the bank, they want to get a home. So, I do not know if there's an issue here that we have to deal with. KC (00:30:53): Yeah. And I think it is the same issue that we keep coming back to, which is the 15 percent versus the 85 percent. Those people that are active, that are active now, not waiting till they are 35 or 40, are within the 15 percent. They are the ones that are really active, though, among the millennials on these issues of AIDS, of genocide, of environmental issues, et cetera, et cetera. And as I said, if you look for them, if you look at the organizations, if you go to the campuses, if you go to the websites, you find them, they are active, they are working. They are not doing the same things that the boomer generation did, but they are a different generation at a different time, and they found different ways of doing it. Just as a boomer generation did things differently than the depression era generation. It was active in the labor movement or the women's movement, women's suffrage, or whatever, twenties and thirties. The 85 percent are the ones, just like the 85 percent and the boomer generation, or whatever, were busy looking after themselves. SM (00:31:57): I think we are- KC (00:31:59): For the most part. SM (00:32:00): I think we are going to take a break here in a minute. I am- want to just mention here, could you comment on the importance of the boomers in respect to the Civil Rights movement and all the other movements, and with ending the Vietnam War? How important were the youth in ending the Vietnam War? And what do you think was the number one reason why the war ended? Then, we will take a break. KC (00:32:21): Geez. I could answer the first one, I think, easier and sooner than the second one. The first one, how important were the young people and the boomer generation in ending the war? An important part. Not a decisive part, an important part. We have to remember, the Vietnamese also contributed a lot to ending that war, to frustrating the United States in its attempt to win a victory in Vietnam. And whether we are talking about the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong or the liberation movement, whatever you want to call it, the Vietnamese, who were fighting against the Americans, contributed a lot to finally ending that war. Now, the home front, along the home front, I do not think. It was- Along the home front, I do not think it was until the movement was broader than just young people that it really became decisive. It was only when broader sections of society and many of them older sections of society whether it was church leaders, some of the liberal trade union organizations. Geez, by the time I became active in the movement in 1970 after I got discharged there was a businessman's organization against the war. I mean, they began to come from all facets of society and fill out any war movement so that it was much broader than just the youth or just the students. I think that is when it began to be recognized as legitimate by that silent majority or whatever you want to call it in the middle. Those who were not on the far right but certainly... Those who were open to the possibility that the war was wrong and they were in the middle as opposed to the far left or the far right. I think that middle ground, they were really the parents of those Vietnam veterans. The parents of the working-class kids, the parents of the farmers, the parents of the kid that went off from the rural area to Vietnam. From which so many of those lives were lost, they're the ones that needed to be won over and they were Nixon's silent majority and they were eventually won over. I think in part by the Vietnam minister turned against the war, acting as a bridge to them and bringing along that stuff. But more generally, the broadening of the anti-war movement to give it legitimacy in the eyes of those folks. SM (00:35:14): Okay. Kind of like the... But some of the history books say it is when the body bags start coming home, middle America responded. KC (00:35:23): Absolutely, yeah. The more body bags, the classic study is by John Mueller who War, President's and Public Opinion. SM (00:35:32): That is the book I... KC (00:35:33): Yeah. SM (00:35:33): Yep. Let us take a break right here and then [inaudible]. One of the things about the boomer generation, and I can say this from personal experience is when I was on a college campus. There is this feeling that we were the most unique generation in American history because we were going to... Well, not me. That the boomers were going to change the world, they are going to make everything better. Going to end racism and sexism, bring peace to the world, love, the whole thing not hate. Your comments on that attitude that boomers had when they were young and your thoughts about boomers over the years as boomers have gotten older regarding that question. KC (00:36:29): Well, and this question I do not see any great difference between the boomer generation and any other generation. It is youthful arrogance taking what is true at its core that is that you have people committed to change and meaningful, important, necessary change and exaggerating. This is a tendency it's not a uniform, it is a tendency many to exaggerate it and think that they are so different or we are so different and so great, so new, move over old people get out of the way. To some degree maybe we can thank JFK and his inaugural speech, go anywhere, pay any price, we are the new generation coming in. Eisenhower and that crew is the old tired, do nothing, lazy... Not lazy but ineffective generation. Geez Eisenhower had two heart attacks while he was in office, he was on a golf course a lot of the time. I mean, there is this whole sense that it was a new, young, vibrant generation and I think that inaugural address really does speak to the boomer generation and the way we saw ourselves. We were going to do stuff that nobody had done before. I think every generation thinks that though, they just think of it depending on the circumstances in different ways. So the oppression World War II generation certainly did plenty of new things. Only concentrated more in the conventional and the more traditional areas and they built newer and bigger businesses. That is how we got the Whiz Kids that wound up in a JFK administration. SM (00:38:33): Yes. KC (00:38:33): Yeah, that is right. Yeah. After all that depression era, World War II generation really created the large middle class in America where most people actually had the American dream eventually of their own home. Home ownership after World War II skyrocketed. So there were very conventional kinds of goals but that earlier generation was committed to doing things beyond which their previous generation... I think every generation does that and every generation tends to think when they're young. When they're in their teens or their 20s they think that they are greater than the previous generation. Well, they may be in some ways but not in other ways and compared to the generation that is going to follow them they are going to be less. So long as we keep improving in general, so long as humanity keeps improving in general. Next generation is going to do the things a little bit better and they will probably in an arrogant way think that they are better than they really are. So, I think it is a human thing, I would not pin it on any particular generation. It just plays itself out differently in different generations based on the circumstances, the larger structural or societal circumstances. SM (00:39:56): This is a very important question that I have asked in each of the interviews, the concept of healing. The Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. when it was built, I loved the goals to pay tribute to those who served, to remember those who served and to not be a political entity. It's about the warrior, it's about caring. KC (00:40:26): Right. SM (00:40:27): So the goal was to heal those individuals and hopefully to heal the nation as Jan Scruggs said in his book. The question is this, have we healed as a nation because of divisions that took place during that era? The divisions were so strong, you mentioned even earlier in the interview about we did not have a civil war here. But the nation was being torn apart and if you looked at 1968 at the Democratic Convention, even the Republican Convention. The threats for that convention that year and you saw the burnings in Watts, all that whole era- KC (00:41:00): We are talking about the worst division since the Civil War in American society but not as deeply as the Civil War. SM (00:41:05): Right. But here we are in 2007, I have been doing these interviews since 96 now so as the years progress. But where are we with the respect to healing on these particular issues? Healing over the divisions that happened in the war, the divisions... All the other issues, all the other movements that took place at that time. There were always barricades in many respects in all of these movements were... In short what I am saying is, has the wall truly healed the Vietnam veteran portion of the boomer generation? Secondly, where do we stand as a nation in terms of healing over Vietnam? KC (00:41:54): I think the wall helped and the wall helped in a big way in that process of healing, I do not think it has been the only thing. There have been a lot of other contributors to the healing that has occurred. But there has also been a real limit to the amount of healing that could occur regardless of what device we are talking about. Using a wall, using movies, using meetings of Vietnam veterans to talk stuff like this out, whatever the device is. Legislation to provide some more support for veterans. Whatever it is, it is meant to help heal. There are limits on it and it is not for lack of trying but because some of these wounds cannot be healed completely. Some of these wounds are so deep and remain so fresh that the scars just never healed, they remained open. Now, we are talking about emotional wounds for the most part. Because for some Vietnam veterans, and I would not want to in this case separate the 15 percent of combat intensive veterans from those who experienced very little or no combat. Because here, even the 85 percent that did not see much combat still suffered psychological damage because of the failure of the war and the cold shoulder of the American society when they came back. I think for some of those veterans Vietnam was the best and the worst of their life. On one hand it represented the worst while they were there for most of them, for 99.9 percent of them. I would suggest that one 10th of 1 percent that loved being there might have needed some psychological help but most of us could not wait to come home. Right? SM (00:44:17): Right. KC (00:44:18): So most of us at the time wanted to get the Vietnam experience over with and forget about it as quickly as possible. But the irony is-is that in later years, most of those Vietnam vets cannot forget about it and do not want to forget about it. They gather as Vietnam veterans, they have reunions as Vietnam veterans. They email each other and have websites which they talk to each other because it was the most important experience in their life. It turns out that everything after that for many of them was anti-climactic, whether it was marriage or their job or having kids, who were traveling or success in their business or whatever it was. Now, that is true among a certain segment. I do not know what that percentage is, it is I think a fairly significant percentage of all Vietnam veterans that have problems like that. I do not know, it is certainly in double digits. I do not know whether it comes anywhere near a third or a half. But on the other hand, there are a lot of veterans who... I think they would probably be in the majority of Vietnam veterans who do not have those scars or they are not obvious. So, they are able to deal with them well enough that they have healed well enough, that they have been able to get over it. I am not talking about locking bad memories in a closet or artificially, where someday they are going to pop out and they will go crazy and kill 15 people in a bar for no reason. I am talking about people who really have, for the most part gotten over it and moved on and had more important chapters in their lives. Right? So that they can look back and not be troubled by that all that much and not have to think about it all the time. For those I think the healing has pretty much occurred, pretty much completed. Not completely but it is that other segment, that still significant segment of those who for whatever reason and there are probably lots of different reasons wound up in the strange contradiction of not wanting to stay in Vietnam. Wanting to get out as soon as they could, wanting to forget... Okay. Put it behind them as fast as they could and then winding up building the rest of their life around that experience. Now they're the guys you see that have the bumper stickers, wear the pins in their hats. The worst of them become professional veterans right? That is all they do and their wives are veterans’ widows. SM (00:47:09): What do you think of veterans who live off the Vietnam War? KC (00:47:15): Live off in what sense. SM (00:47:20): One of the... I am going to put this in the book. But one of the criticisms of the Vietnam Memorial is that Jan Scruggs is... I have heard Vietnam veterans saying he is living off it. KC (00:47:27): Yeah, right. I mean I know what you could be thinking about and I guess I am right. SM (00:47:31): But I know Jan and I know that is not what he said [inaudible]. KC (00:47:36): Those who find a way of subsistence on the issue of Vietnam in some way, whether it is Veterans Affairs in some way or something connected directly to the Vietnam War and the history of it, etc-etc. I do not have any particularly ill will about that, if personally some of those folks are doing it only because they do not want to bother finding another way of making a living. In other words, they are not driven by principle, they are driven by opportunism. Right? I say shame on them, look at yourself and in the mirror and shame on you. But I would not make a big deal out of it, I do not worry about it. The people that I find most reprehensible are those who are so hypocritical in their involvement with the Vietnam War and with Veterans Affairs. That they're prepared to turn their own experiences into a lie in order to continue to profit from it, either financially or politically. Those who are prepared to twist the truth of their own experiences and other experiences in a way in which they get ahead financially, politically, socially, some other way. That kind of opportunity, if they are becoming opportunists by creating more unnecessary bodies or more unnecessary victims. Those are the folks that I potentially dislike. SM (00:49:23): How about the healing within the generation? KC (00:49:27): Yeah, that was the second part. SM (00:49:29): Was there a place to go to the restroom or should I go behind a tree? KC (00:49:39): There is a restroom, of course there is a restroom. Of course, yeah. It is right over here, let us stop this at this point. SM (00:49:43): Talk about the generation regarding the question of healing. KC (00:49:47): Right. SM (00:49:49): Your thoughts on the boomer generations, the divisions of the... Do we still have these divisions today? KC (00:49:55): I think in the fringe wings of the generation, we still have these divisions in a significant way today. That is that they are still deep and they are still bitter, still open wounds. The far left and the far right, I think most folks in between have agreed to disagree if necessary but probably agree more now than they did 20 years ago on a lot of issues. I do not think it is a big problem, I do not think it is anywhere near the kind of problem that it is for a lot of Vietnam veterans. SM (00:50:41): There were several books that have been written in recent years, I know Barney Frank wrote a book called Speaking Frankly. Other books have been written about that, that in 1972 when the nation was really torn apart and McGovern became the Democratic candidate. The divisions were intense even within the Democratic Party and the term liberal- KC (00:51:02): Was pejorative. SM (00:51:03): Well, yeah. Yes. KC (00:51:05): By the radicals according to most activists, if you were a liberal that was pejorative. That meant that you were not prepared to make the kind of sacrifices and engage in the kind of activities that would bring about real change. You just postured that way and you were probably part of the elite and benefiting from the status quo anyway. Part of the system rather than part of the solution. SM (00:51:33): Well supposedly people who were involved in the anti-war movement were labeled a radical fringe and it is stuck with them their whole lives. Do you think there is truth to that? KC (00:51:45): Well, there is certainly truths among those on the right and the hard right that they still think of the anti-war movement as a radical fringe. But I think most people who were involved in one way or another either slightly or intentionally in the anti-war movement. I think for the most part in general American society there is a recognition that the anti-war movement was not just the radical fringe, that it was a bit broader than that. But let me back off from that just a little bit and say that the more time passes, I think the more that myth of the anti-war movement thing, the radical fringe gains ascendancy. Because with passing time there is smaller and smaller space given in history books to that period, and awareness is simplistically deal with it is just to label the war movement a radical fringe and show a picture of a riot with tear gas and students throwing stuff and long hair and etc. SM (00:52:59): Why do you think just the word Vietnam, you just bring it up in a conversation today it creates all kinds of whoa. KC (00:53:10): Well, it depends on who you bring it up among. If you bringing up among folks of the boomer generation, it is going to have that reaction. If you bring that up among the millennials, "Huh? What?" SM (00:53:25): Right. KC (00:53:25): It is not relevant to them. "Yeah, that was my grandfather's war." Well maybe not quite that bad, but to them it is not bad it is a long ways removed. To them the first Persian Gulf War is ancient history [inaudible]. SM (00:53:42): Yeah. KC (00:53:48): As you pointed out, even to some of them 9/11 is ancient history. So yeah, if you are talking about the boomer generation. Sure, there is a sharp immediate reaction to it because of how emotional the issue was then and the fact that it has never been completely settled. In the 1970s, essentially mid to late (19)70s we agreed to disagree in the country as a whole and move on, forget about it. But among those who were the most intentionally involved, either supporting the war or opposing the war. It always remained a sharp issue and an open wound. SM (00:54:33): We had just your thoughts on the word activism. We had for a couple of years activist days at Westchester University, I was asked to politely not to end it. We did it for five years, we brought people like Phillip and Daniel Berrigan to our campus. Elizabeth McAllister, Alan Canfora from Kent State, Tom Hayden. KC (00:54:55): So, it was all left-wing- SM (00:54:56): Holly Near... Oh, no. We did bring Michelle Malkin from the conservative. KC (00:55:01): Okay. SM (00:55:02): So, her activist days of last year, because Republicans they believe that activism is a very important part of what they do, the Young America's Foundation. KC (00:55:12): Sure, yeah. SM (00:55:16): What is it about the term activism that seems to turn people off when we actually want people to become involved? But- KC (00:55:24): Are you talking about students today? SM (00:55:26): Students today. KC (00:55:27): That population? SM (00:55:27): Yeah. Some universities responding to the fact that this is not the era the students they are volunteers, but they are not activists. KC (00:55:36): Right, yeah. SM (00:55:36): There is a fear about that term as I have done some educational sessions that at university conferences on this, and there is truth. There is something out there, and a lot of us within the boomers who are running universities but it is also following generations too. What is it about activism too that scares people? Am I- KC (00:56:00): Well, it might be confrontation. It might be bitter confrontation because they might associate activism with the (19)60s and that kind of bitter, nasty confrontation that they are not interested in becoming involved in. That it became particularly uncivil during that period of time in (19)60s and in early (19)70s, and they feel that they can be more civil. That they can disagree with other people in a more civil way. So that for them to become activists would mean for them to break away from those values. Reject those values and adopt values from an earlier period and an earlier behavior that they think perhaps was not the wisest kind of behavior to engage in. SM (00:56:53): See, the current scholars on the term activism will say that activism is any person who wants to make a difference in this world. KC (00:57:00): You cannot rely on scholars for definitions, they do not even agree among themselves. SM (00:57:06): But even activist handbooks will say that. KC (00:57:09): Yeah [inaudible]. SM (00:57:09): What is wrong with wanting to make a difference in the world? KC (00:57:13): Yeah. There is nothing to the millennials that is wrong with making a difference in the world, but you are not putting it in those terms. If you said to them, we want you to try and make a difference in a world they would probably respond. As a matter of fact, you would not need to tell them that they are already involved and they are already responding trying to make a difference. They just do not particularly want to be associated with the kind of activism that, that word brings up. SM (00:57:43): Good point. When the best history books are written, you being a scholar. The best history books are often written 50 years after an event takes place. World War II books, some of the best ones are being written right now. 50 years after the (19)60s and (19)70s what will historians say about that era? KC (00:58:08): Well, first of all I have a question about your premise here. Who decides which is the best book and maybe it is the generation that lived through that period when they are getting old and awfully as nostalgic decide that the book's written and by their own generation and by them are the best books. How do we know that the books written immediately after the fact, or at the time were not better books? Who judges which of the best books? Well, if you let the generation that lived through that judge the best books they are probably going to judge the ones that they write themselves as the best books. Because that is just a little quiver with that, just sort of a bleak way of thinking of that question. SM (00:58:50): I think historians say that the best books are written 50 years after. KC (00:58:55): Well they probably say that because they believe distance and greater objectivity make for better history books and they may well be true, be right about that. But there are also other historians that believe that perhaps those who were very subjective and very involved in it can also contribute a lot to the history of that. Therefore, things like oral history are written and done. So maybe the best book on depression for instance, was written 40, 50 years later. But I loved Studs Terkel's oral history of the depression, Hard Times. SM (00:59:51): Yeah. KC (00:59:52): That was still written about 40 years afterwards, yeah. But it was all based on oral history and oral history is not objective. It is very subjective, it is the collection of very subjective first-person descriptions about that- SM (01:00:16): And that is in my interviews. KC (01:00:18): That is right, yeah. So, I do not know how to answer the question I guess. I have got a number of possible answers, but I do not know when the best books are written about something. SM (01:00:37): This little section of the interview-interview is just for me to mention some of the names of that period. KC (01:00:41): All right. SM (01:00:42): For your immediate response, does not have to be any long in depth but just quick response- KC (01:00:48): Kind of like a Rorschach? SM (01:00:48): Yes. I am going to start out with Tom Hayden. KC (01:00:53): Jane Fonda. SM (01:00:53): Jane Fonda was next. KC (01:00:54): Yeah. I thought maybe this was the scene from The Dirty Dozen where they were all being asked by psychologist to respond to different names or words or whatever. SM (01:01:07): It is similar. KC (01:01:09): Yeah, Tom Hayden. Jane Fonda. SM (01:01:11): Yeah. KC (01:01:12): Tom Hayden. Well, Tom Hayden to me evokes the era of student protest against the war, although I think he also was involved and may have been a leader in the protest for a free speech in California. SM (01:01:29): It was early on, yep. KC (01:01:30): Right, earlier. Well I think a student protest against the war, I think of Tom Hayden. SM (01:01:35): How about Jane Fonda? KC (01:01:36): Jane Fonda, that is a little more different. A little more personal in the sense that I have a great deal of respect for her for stepping up and siding and supporting Vietnam veterans against the war when she did. I had great regret for her, I feel badly for her that she made a young and foolish decision to sit in the seat of that anti-aircraft gun in North Vietnam. I understand and support her motivations for doing that, which was solidarity with the people that did not deserve to be bombed. But it was not a smart thing for her to do, and especially be pictured in it and be laughing while she's sitting there. But that is a youth... Relatively, she was in her (19)30s at that point. But relatively youthful, inexperienced, and I do not blame her anywhere near the degree that many Vietnam veterans especially the right wing of Vietnam veterans blame her for that. SM (01:02:42): The big selling sticker down in Washington is Jane Fonda bitch, and they have it upside down and they also have a Jane Fonda... Some toiletries or something like that that they sell. KC (01:02:54): Yeah. Jane Fonda toiletry. SM (01:02:56): Yeah, something like that. So, the hate for her is still pretty intense. KC (01:03:00): Yeah. My personal pet theory about that is that that is the macho posturing right wing Vietnam vets that take particular offense that a woman has undercut their experience. SM (01:03:14): Oh, wow. KC (01:03:15): There have been a lot of men who visited North Vietnam and did at least what Jane Fonda did, who have not been singled out by Vietnam veterans the way Jane Fonda has. I think it is particularly interesting it is a woman that they singled out. How dare she? As if she is eviscerated them in some way or cut their balls off in some way and they are going to get her back. SM (01:03:38): Robert McNamara is the other one they seem to hate. KC (01:03:41): Oh, yeah. SM (01:03:41): McNamara and somewhat even when Clinton was president, they hated him too for- KC (01:03:47): Yeah, sure. SM (01:03:47): Yeah. So, your thoughts on Bill Clinton and Robert McNamara. KC (01:03:56): And they hate me too. Robert McNamara, I think that the hatred for him was more than Johnson. That is interesting because Johnson was commander-in-chief, it is not like they hey... Well, Johnson is no longer alive. Who knows? Maybe they'd hate more than McNamara today. I think the hatred for McNamara had more to do with him being so much an architect of that war. SM (01:04:18): Right. KC (01:04:19): At least in terms of the strategy and tactics. That war of attrition, that numbers war, he was a numbers guy, war by the numbers and the impersonal persona. Is that a contradiction, impersonal persona? SM (01:04:39): Mm-mm. KC (01:04:39): But the impersonal image that he presented, although we can learn by looking at his video or his movie that he cries and he is sensitive. SM (01:04:49): Right. KC (01:04:51): But that image that he presented and finally, and I think this is most important. That he actually concluded that the war could not be won long before he stopped directing it and I think it is rightfully in this case felt a certain betrayal, a lack of principle, a certain hypocrisy on his part. SM (01:05:17): Yeah. I remember the six... In Retrospect was the book that came out and my very first interview with Senator McCarthy in (19)96. The book had been out a year or so, and I asked for his comment on the book, and he did not believe him. "I do not believe him." I have that in the interview, and then also- KC (01:05:39): Did not believe that he had [inaudible] against the war. SM (01:05:41): No, he still- KC (01:05:44): There seems to be other I think independent verification of that in the documents now. SM (01:05:48): We still disliked him intensely. KC (01:05:50): Oh, yeah. SM (01:05:50): Then interviewed Bobby Mueller recently in the last year, and Bobby has actually done some things with him. Bobby- KC (01:05:59): With McNamara? SM (01:06:00): Yeah, with McNamara and some programs. So, he would be upset with him, but he's- SM (01:06:03): And some programs and so he would be upset with him, but he has grown to understand him. I am not speaking for Bobby, I get- KC (01:06:08): And not just understand him, work with him- SM (01:06:09): You are right. KC (01:06:10): Too. SM (01:06:10): Yeah. KC (01:06:11): And work in common cause with him on certain issues, maybe the landmines issue. SM (01:06:15): Yeah, I am not quite sure, I have to go back to the interview, but there was not the hatred that I expected and Bobby was to be the first one, I respect him so much. If he's against somebody, he will outright say it and- KC (01:06:27): Sure, but I can understand Bobby Mueller's approach to McNamara because at least McNamara admitted that he was wrong, eventually and has taken a position that is against that kind of wasteful destruction now. SM (01:06:46): What is interesting, why I like Mr. Scruggs and also when Lewis Puller was alive back in... They brought Bill Clinton to the wall and I thought that took a lot of courage on their part to do that, and Lewis would went right up to... With his wheelchair and made sure that he was seen next to Bill Clinton, even though he disagreed with him. Although when- KC (01:07:10): It is also a smart political movement. SM (01:07:12): Yes. KC (01:07:12): Part of Scruggs. SM (01:07:15): Yeah, but also Lewis though, and back in February of 19- KC (01:07:20): Well, wait, you said Lewis? You said was- SM (01:07:21): Yeah, Lewis. KC (01:07:21): Lewis, [inaudible]. SM (01:07:22): Yeah, Lewis was involved in that. And Lewis was up there in the States. Of course, the next year he died, he killed himself, but he had made a point that he was trying to... It was part of the healing process and also I guess in February of that year, some issues between Lewis and other Vietnam vets and President Clinton and promises he had made fell through. So Lewis was pretty bitter, I think, toward Clinton. It was not that same other vets, but I have always found, and I am going to get into the questions here, but what makes the law program so important is they brought some very key people there since 1982, and I think the epitome of healing is to bring the people like McNamara and Jane Fonda to speak there. I think it would do an unbelievable part of Jane Fond and McNamara before he passed away, visited and were there at the ceremony, for example, this 25th anniversary, I'd do anything in my power to bring them to this. KC (01:08:29): I think that if Jane Fonda tried to speak in front of that memorial- SM (01:08:32): I know. KC (01:08:32): There would be some right wings there to try and assassinate her. SM (01:08:36): Well, McNamara too, maybe. KC (01:08:37): Maybe McNamara, but certainly Jane Fonda. They associate Jane, she is the epitome in their eyes of everything that was wrong about Vietnam. SM (01:08:52): Lyndon Johnson. KC (01:08:57): Responsible for Vietnam. Tragic figure. On one hand he did a great deal for civil rights and for the poor in America, but on the other hand, he was so wrong on Vietnam and was... Well, it is a paradox. He is a typical tragic figure. I mean, on one hand, you feel sorry for him. On the other hand, he has to take... I feel anguish towards him too, you just take certain responsibility for that. To some degree, he was a victim of the circumstances, the Cold War. I am not sure any president would have done much differently than he did, so I am not sure we can separate him from any other president, even if Kennedy had lived. I strongly disagree with those historians who say that if Kennedy had... There is evidence, if Kennedy had lived, that he would not have done what Johnson did, that he would have pulled us out or not. Certainly not escalated to the level of using combat battalions and brigades. I disagree, I think that Kennedy was at least as much a politician as Johnson and said different things to different people depending on what he felt they should hear and that he could no more escape the politics of the Cold War than anybody else could at that time. SM (01:10:35): This brings me right in just John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. KC (01:10:38): Yeah, John Kennedy has to share a great deal of responsibility for what Johnson did because John Kennedy, it was on his watch that the overthrow of Diệm, and the assassination with Diệm took place and in my view, the only reason that overthrow occurred, I will separate the assassination out from it because it is possible that Kennedy wanted Diệm to make it to the Riviera alive. Where the emperor Bao Dai was at that point in time too, where most Vietnamese escape wound up [inaudible]. So, I will separate the assassination part of it, that might have been the officers themselves. The Vietnamese officers had decided to do that, but certainly Kennedy wanted the coup to occur, allowed the coup to occur, gave orders for the coup to occur, whatever you want to call it, helped orchestrate that coup through the CIA. The evidence is absolutely crystal clear and credible that the CIA had everything to do with that, and the only reason they would do that is because Kennedy administration and Kennedy having to take most responsibility with the buck stopping there, it's because they intended to carry on the war only with more American involvement, not less, because Diệm at that point in time was an obstacle to them. He did not want the war Americanized. He was digging in his heels and beginning to even desperately talk, he and his brother talk about some neutralization process and talking to the VC and talking to the North, finding some other way out of it in order to keep that war from becoming so Americanized because Diệm was a nationalist. He had plenty of other false... He was all always a nationalist, and he began to conclude that the Americans were simply replacing the French and wanting to control that area, and the war was going very badly under Vietnam and the only way the Americans felt that they could have a chance of keeping the south from going communist was putting American troops in there. [inaudible] was an obstacle, get them out of the way and then put the troops in. So, I think if Kennedy had lived, he would have done what Johnson did. Maybe not exactly the same way at the same time, but I think he would have... The Democratic Party would not have allowed him to do anything differently because the Democratic Party did not want to be labeled as pro-communist, having lost a yet another country, let Vietnam go after China, they wanted the White House. I do not think there is any point in time where one of those two parties says, nah we do not need the White House. We will stand on principle. Uh-huh. They wanted the White House and they would do what they needed to do in the context of the Cold War. This is not the late (19)60s, this is the early and mid (19)60s, and Kennedy could not have gotten it past the Democratic Party, would not have gotten it past the American Electric... The American society, American public as a whole saying, "Oh, we will let Vietnam go south on us, we will let it go to a communist because we do not want to put American ground troops there." Uh-huh, would not have happened. SM (01:13:59): How about Bobby Kennedy? Just a quick thought on Bobby and- KC (01:14:00): Yeah, just Bobby, I did not know very much about Bobby. Bobby died when I was in Vietnam, he was assassinated. I heard about it as I was in Vietnam. I was around Khe Sanh at the time, in the mountains around Khe Sanh and him, and Martin Luther King. I was in the bush when I heard about it, finally. He seemed to... Well, I could say was he younger seemed to be more idealistic than Robert, or not Robert, than John. Robert was more idealistic than John, I think. Probably not as clever and as realistic politically as John Kennedy was. I think John Kennedy was just politically more bright than Bobby, but I am not sure of that. I think Bobby Kennedy turning any war was opportunistic, probably if he was against the war, it might have been before he ever decided to turn against it publicly. I mean, it might not have anything to do with his decision to publicly come out against it. I think he publicly came out against it because he saw that as the best route to the White House. SM (01:15:12): Yeah, how about Eugene McCarthy? Because I was- KC (01:15:14): Eugene McCarthy, I think was more on principle. That is my impression, but again, I did not work with these guys, I was too young, my sense of it is far less direct. My experience with it is far less direct and far less knowledgeable even as a scholar than most of the other questions I have asked so far. I just have not spent a whole lot of time looking at either Bobby Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy. SM (01:15:41): You got Hubert Humphrey in there and you have got- KC (01:15:43): Oh, I got arrested over Hubert Humphrey. SM (01:15:45): Yeah. KC (01:15:46): Hubert Humphrey was running for president in (19)70... The primary in (19)72, and I got arrested as VVAW in Philadelphia here protesting at his speech because he was not anti-war enough. He was still trying to keep one foot in each camp in (19)72, and the government was a clear anti-war candidate, and we supported McGovern and opposed Humphrey, and I got arrested for civil disobedience. That is my immediate association with Hubert Humphrey. SM (01:16:16): Yeah, [inaudible] your thoughts of George McGovern, because we have had him on our campus. KC (01:16:20): Yeah. McGovern is a highly principled, is he still alive? SM (01:16:25): Oh yeah. KC (01:16:25): I think he is, yeah. Highly principled, a good guy, hearts in a right place. He made few mistakes in his presidential campaign just in terms of tactics that alienated them, but now without doing a close study of that, it was an overwhelming victory for Nixon. It is a landslide for Nixon. McGovern only won Massachusetts. There had to be other things that went wrong with that campaign, or perhaps in the McGovern's case, he simply had to be prepared to sacrifice the White House for principal. I think he was, and I think it was only because there was a revolution within the Democratic Party at the (19)72 convention that enabled grassroots people to get leadership pissed off Daley, as I recall, John Daley, because his whole delegation I think was unseated or something at that convention. But they got control of it, and that is the only kind of leadership in a Democratic Party, and it's an anomaly, that kind of leadership that would say, we would rather lose the White House than sacrifice this principle. I do not think they thought that- SM (01:17:47): You see any of that- KC (01:17:49): They prepared to take that risk. SM (01:17:50): You see any of that in the candidates today in the Republican or Democratic? KC (01:17:53): I am a governed kind of approach that it is better to- SM (01:17:55): Yes. KC (01:17:56): No, I do not see any of those candidates that way. None of them stick out to me as being that way. I think they are all more political than not. When it comes down divide between principle and... If [inaudible] gets in a race, I might lean towards him being more principal because I think he has grown a lot and come a long way, but I do not trust any of the rest of them if it came down to a division between principal and winning to go with principal and risk losing. SM (01:18:30): Okay. How about... These are some quick responses to Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers general thought. KC (01:18:42): Some of the most tragic figures in the left and some of the most tragic history. Those with the most grievances and the most legitimate grievances in American society, winding up using some of the worst tactics, embracing violence, seeing violence as the only way to do it. Tragic in that sense that it backfired on them and they suffered personally. The movement, the black liberation movement of that time suffered as a whole and the left suffered as a whole, but... Well, I also have a lot of understanding too. I do not understand it the way a black person can understand it, the way a poor black person can understand it, but I was a poor white kid and I can understand at least some of it, some of the rage, economics, feeling of isolation from the system and the powers at be, opportunities forever closed off or pretty much forever closed off. At least poor white kids had some opportunity, poor black kids had virtually nothing. But the opportunities for poor white kids were nowhere near what it was for middle class white kids. Poor white kids did not know anything about conscientious objection and how to go about doing it. Whereas we're simply getting into the National Guard, or getting into college and getting a deferment that way. SM (01:20:19): Dr. King, particularly with his speech in Vietnam on the go. KC (01:20:23): Yeah see, I did not realize that until many years later how eloquent and how thoughtful he had become on the war. I knew he had turned against the war publicly, not long before he was assassinated, but it was only in later years that I actually read some of the speeches from around that time and saw how truly sharp, at least according to what I read, how truly sharp his thinking and how much courage he had to speak that way regarding in particular America's role in the world at that time. Because to go beyond Vietnam to America's role in the world as a whole was the step that most of the left did not even go because it was focused so narrowly on Vietnam as a foreign policy, as a foreign affair, and King recognized that America had become the greatest purveyor of violence. It might have been even been his phrase, I forget exactly the phrase, but the greatest generator of violence in the world by that point in time. He was essentially saying, we are the bad guys, not just in Vietnam, but in general, in the world, we have to change our attitude about intervention and opposing every indigenous struggle because by calling it communism, whether it's in Asia, Africa, Latin America, I mean, it was pretty far-reaching kind of conclusion he came and a decision he made to say it. SM (01:22:13): He had a lot of courage, I was talking with a couple civil rights leaders on our campus this past year, and no one has written a book on Dr. King in Vietnam. KC (01:22:22): Oh, that is a great idea. SM (01:22:24): There has been a lot of books on Dr. King and his speech is well known. KC (01:22:28): I am going to talk to David Cortright and ask him if he... Do you know who David Cortright is? SM (01:22:28): No. KC (01:22:33): Okay. David Cortright's a former active duty GI leader soldier, Soldiers in Revolt is a well-known book of his from that time. He is now a professor at Notre Dame, and if there was ever a face on the GI movement, it was David Cortright. So, I mean, he was probably the most famous leader of the GI movement against the war, and that is how I first met him, because I was one of the mid to higher level leaders in the- SM (01:23:05): Is he still at Notre Dame? KC (01:23:06): Vietnam vet. Yeah, he is associated with it. There is the Four Freedoms Foundation, and he is the director of it is called, so that is the way he would find them on the internet. Four Freedom Foundation, either the fourth freedom or four freedoms might be the Fourth Freedom, try either one of those. SM (01:23:22): Okay. KC (01:23:22): Or just Cortright, C O R T R I G H T. SM (01:23:29): Okay. KC (01:23:29): David Cortright. And David is a great follower of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and he would be ideal to write this, he just published his memoirs on nonviolence. So, David Cortright did. SM (01:23:42): Oh, really? KC (01:23:42): On nonviolence and the anti-war movement and just in a movements in general. SM (01:23:46): Is that Notre Dame Press or? KC (01:23:48): No, that is paradigm. It is my own press, it is the same press that [inaudible]- SM (01:23:52): That is out now? KC (01:23:54): Yeah, it came out before mine did. Matter of fact, I used his as a model for when I was doing my citation, so I wanted to get the paradigm citation process right, I simply used his as an example. SM (01:24:06): What are your thoughts on the, again, just quick responses, the Berrigan brothers? Daniel and Philip. KC (01:24:11): Yeah. Again, great contributors, highly principled people. They were clearly religious, and it is something that I am not. I was born and raised Catholic, but I lost God in a fox whole. I began doubting a higher being when I looked around me and saw what was going on and all of the myths, religious myths, they became more and more unsupportable to me as I came more directly in contact with the worst of reality. You know what I mean? And plus, that whole Catholic upbringing in a Catholic Church reflected to me and represented to me the rigidness of the conventional life that produced the conventional society, the conventional structure and leadership that produced Vietnam. And I saw many of [inaudible], people like Cardinal Spellman blessing the bombers before they go off for, I do not want to go into great details there. There's some personal connections to include my uncle [inaudible]- SM (01:25:27): Did you become an atheist? KC (01:25:28): Atheist in the sense that I- SM (01:25:31): Or agnostic? KC (01:25:32): Yeah, I do not have a positive belief in God. It is possible that God exists, but if I am wrong about... I do not think it is going to be any big thing, because I think it is most important that you live your life in the best way you can, that you live a good life, that you be good to other people and try and be good yourself, do not always live up to it. But I think that the essence of every religion I accept, which is to do the right thing, that short, sweet version of what is his name? The black film producer, do the right thing. SM (01:26:20): Spike Lee. KC (01:26:20): Spike Lee, in a tradition of [inaudible], just do the right thing. And I think you could gather every serious and sincere religious person to gather around that same thing. Do the right thing, I believe in doing the right thing, that is my religion. Do the right thing- SM (01:26:34): Dr. Benjamin- KC (01:26:34): Of course, I do not always live up to it. SM (01:26:35): Dr. Benjamin Spock. KC (01:26:39): Benjamin Spock, baby doctor? I mean, that is how I associate... Well, I know that through reading and history that he was... And I might, if I taxed myself, recollect, but I cannot trust my recollection that he was connected in the Air War movement. I now know that he was. But no other recollections beyond that. SM (01:26:54): Well, I think this [inaudible], did not it? Yeah, it did. It all is still going. It was... Cannot tell. No, that good click, I heard it. Amazing. Well, it is still in the middle. KC (01:27:11): It is on a very slow speed. SM (01:27:14): Yeah, that is a very slow speed, did not know. KC (01:27:16): Yeah. You wind up, I think with less quality though, when you have it that slow speed, right? SM (01:27:23): Not sure, just something is wrong with this. I think this one comes out fine. KC (01:27:29): All right. SM (01:27:29): Abby Hoffman, Jerry Ruben, the Yippies. KC (01:27:32): Assholes. SM (01:27:32): Okay. KC (01:27:41): Yeah, assholes. Infantile leftist, people who might have had their heart initially in a right place when they decided to oppose things like the war and the establishment, but certainly were silly, stupid, infantile. To me, they were taking middle class tantrums. This was a middle or upper middle class tantrum, carry on the way they did. And they did great destruction to the image of the anti-war movement in the minds of middle America out there. Their thing was to goof on Middle America. SM (01:28:19): They got [inaudible] as the pig to run as president. KC (01:28:23): Yeah, they had no respect for middle America. SM (01:28:25): Malcolm X. KC (01:28:27): Malcolm X, militant, extremist. They are the words I think of first for my oldest, and my oldest recollection of that name from when I was much younger when I was a kid, fear. We in working class white America, row house, inner City America, and the white neighborhoods feared Malcolm X and black militants. In particular, the black Muslims because they were armed and they were fiery and they were angry, and they predated the Black Panthers. I mean, the Black Panthers, as we talked about it, adopted some violent tactics himself. But I have a better appreciation since then, since my earliest experiences listening to on a radio or seeing on television or reading about the black Muslims and Malcolm X, that this guy... Another tragic figure, this guy was attempting to do something for his people who were clearly wronged and perhaps in the most extreme cases, did not use the best approach, made strategic errors. But I do not know a great deal about them, I have never read a biography of them. I have not studied him. So I begin with my sense of him from when I was a kid in a racist white neighborhood of fearing him and fearing that riot that took place in 1964, I think it was in north Philadelphia, which spread up to our neighborhood, it was only a few blocks away. And to the point of better understanding, respect, but also a tragic sense of, it is a shame that he was not able to adopt the methods of a Martin Luther King and strengthened King's movement. SM (01:30:50): Of course, he was changing toward the end of his life. I think there is a direct link between that change and his death. KC (01:30:58): Yeah, sure. SM (01:30:58): Yep. Timothy Leary. KC (01:31:02): Acid, something I never used and never wanted to use because I was afraid I would not be able to control my Vietnam nightmares and my temper and my anger and my violence if I ever took acid. But that is what I associated him with. SM (01:31:16): How bad were drugs in Vietnam? KC (01:31:18): Well, not acid, geez when I was in Vietnam, grass was the thing. (19)68, early (19)69 grass was everywhere. I did not know at the time, I came in a complete novice, a complete virgin to drugs and learned while I was there that grass was ubiquitous and that a significant portion of the guys in Vietnam when they were off duty, downtime in a relatively safe area, smoked dope. And then I eventually got involved with some of those folks and started to smoke myself, that is where I was initiated into. But the heroin that eventually racked the armed forces in Vietnam did not make it is entry until well after I left. It really did not become a big thing until 1970. And those who have tracked that story, who have researched and told that story many years ago, in fact, like Alfred McCoy for instance, in his classic book, the Heroin in Southeast Asia, I think it was called, or was it the heroin Traffic... I forget the exact name. I have a copy of it on my bookshelf. But it showed that, in fact, the big influx of it was almost overnight. The big influx of it took place sometime in 19... It might have been a spring of 1970 now. It was there before then, but it was as well as opium [inaudible], it was pretty much relegated to the Vietnamese or the Chinese ethnic minority in Vietnam. It was not popular among American troops, but Heroin did become popular tragically after about spring of 19- SM (01:33:24): Just in continuing the names here. KC (01:33:26): Yeah. SM (01:33:28): Ralph Nader. KC (01:33:30): Just [inaudible]. I do not have much to say about that. SM (01:33:36): Daniel Ellsberg. KC (01:33:38): He is one of my heroes with the Pentagon Papers, former Marine. I have to be sympathetic to the former Marine. A guy that certainly did his time in Vietnam as an advisor, and then worked in the Pentagon and got access to the papers and based on conscience, the people who follow their conscience I have a lot of respect for, who do the right thing, put the principle over personal advantage, and he is one of them. I have a lot of respect for him. SM (01:34:13): Now, you have mentioned a couple people that had that conscience to the effect of Daniel Ellsberg, can you just list some other ones from that era? For who you think [inaudible]. KC (01:34:22): Martin Luther King, certainly George McGovern, Bobby Muller, certainly. SM (01:34:27): Oh yes, definitely. KC (01:34:32): People who followed their conscience and risked a lot or maybe even sacrificed a lot to do that. Yeah, they are my heroes. I do not want to waste your tape sitting here, trying to think of more negatives, but I could come up with more if it was necessary. SM (01:34:50): George Wallace. KC (01:34:53): Never liked his politics, certainly he was a racist, but he was coming around at least to some kind of a conciliatory politics near the end of his life. Just he represents a negative image in my mind. SM (01:35:08): Richard Nixon. KC (01:35:10): Oh boy, tricky dick. I harbor more dislike... Hate. Okay, hate for Richard Nixon than I do for LBJ. Richard Nixon, as far as I am concerned, was far more responsible for prolonging that war than even most people understand and did absolutely everything he could to not only keep the war going, but hurt those who were legally and morally trying to oppose it back home. He was absolutely vindictive, absolutely. Vindictive is the word I could think of that would most associate- SM (01:36:00): Was the enemy's list as real as we... As it stated it is real in the history books? KC (01:36:08): Yes. He went after people and he had his executive branch bureaus and agencies go after people. So, it is well documented, whether it is IRS people he used, or military intelligence or CIA. I mean, it does not matter. And he used them illegally. I mean, the records clear on that. SM (01:36:42): This gets into the whole issue of the imperial presidency, there has been a book... Well, I cannot forget who worked with him now, the imperial presidency. KC (01:36:52): Oh, it is Schlesinger. It is Arthur Schlesinger. SM (01:36:52): Arthur Schlesinger. KC (01:36:52): Yeah, classic. SM (01:36:53): When did the imperial presidency begin? And where would you rate Nixon in that? KC (01:37:01): Well, I think you have to look at the 20th century as the era of imperial presidency. SM (01:37:09): FDR on? KC (01:37:10): No, even earlier than that. I would start with Wilson because of World War I and then FDR following him because of the Depression first and then World War II. It's the whole sense of national crisis and the need to centralize power in a national crisis. The willingness of the American society as a whole to defer in a special period and an emergency period and a period of real national crisis to a smaller and smaller group of people to make decisions so that they are able to do it quickly and with authority and with unity and all of those aspects one needs to have when dealing with an emergency. If there are 18 of you in a lifeboat and you are out there in the middle of the ocean, you cannot have 18 leaders. You have to figure out some way of pointing the boat and come up with somebody to make a decision. So, if there is a real national crisis, whether it is a world war or a great depression, the natural human, and in our political system, systemic tendency, and I do not think it's just in our political system, I think it is in any political system, the tendency is for a very frightened national population to want something to be done quickly about it. And the only way you can do that is by streamlining, even if it takes some temporary tweaking of the system legally to streamline the decision making so that decisions can be made effectively and quickly. Now that- KC (01:39:03): Well, that I think is not only natural for human beings to do and for political systems to do in general, but it is necessary, because you are talking about survival here. If it is a true national crisis, not a manufactured one. The problem was that, is that when the crisis lets up, you have to go back to normalcy, and you have to let loose those, peel back away those emergency powers that you have, the society has temporarily allowed the executive to take, the president in this case to take. And you have to be, and this is even more important, doubly on guard that some individual president, some president does not manufacture a crisis for you and usurp that authority and scare the hell out of the public with a pretend crisis. SM (01:40:02): Which the Gulf of Tonkin was, was not it? KC (01:40:05): Well, that is what I would say. Sure, yeah. Yeah. It was the creation of a national crisis. So, I think that is where the imperial presidency went wrong. I would not fault either Wilson or FDR for the powers they drew to themselves and used in those two world wars or the Depression, in the case of FDR, economically and socially, and during the Depression. Even in the areas where they overstepped their constitutional rights, because in those circumstances, the public was at least sympathetic, if not outright support of the president doing it, taking the actions he did, he took, and most of Congress generally agreed and did not, so that if you have got the public and Congress not objecting, the president can get away with it. And the President gets away with it, because, gee, it is a real crisis. And we have to survive. But once you are out of that crisis mode, and the Cold War was the structure that enabled fake crises to occur, you have abuse of those powers. And you have the runaway imperial presidency. SM (01:41:21): I know Tom Eagleton, he just passed away recently. He wrote a book on the role of the president to declare war. And it is a really good book. And the question always gets to me is we all knew about Wayne Morse, and I think the Senator from Alaska who- KC (01:41:41): Yeah, [inaudible]. SM (01:41:41): [inaudible] KC (01:41:44): It begins with a J. SM (01:41:46): They were against the war, but the other- KC (01:41:48): Gravel. SM (01:41:48): Yeah, but the other- KC (01:41:49): Was it Gravel? SM (01:41:50): No, not Gravel. KC (01:41:51): Oh, I am thinking of someone else. SM (01:41:52): Yeah, they were against the war. But the other (19)98, it was Wayne, because then of course you had Senator Fulbright and his challenge, and we all know what happened to him when he challenged President Johnson. And then Gaylord Nelson and that whole group. But why it took so long for Congress to... I guess- KC (01:42:13): Well, Congress- SM (01:42:14): Congress should have done more. KC (01:42:16): ... Congress is the sackless branch for no small reason. It does not have a backbone, in general. The exceptions or the principle, ones that will sacrifice their political careers for principle. But in general, just the way Congress is made, just the way it is instituted. It has meant to follow public opinion. It has meant to follow the electorate. It was the one that most closely represents the population, and it has meant to be a check on the tyranny of the executive. But that has a downside. The upside is that, yeah, it checks the tyranny of the executive. The downside is you cannot lead with 535 people trying to represent their constituencies, so that Congress defers in periods of crisis. And Congress defers because it knows its own constituency wants Congress to defer in a crisis, in a true national crisis. If it turns out to be a fake national crisis, first of all, Congress has to be convinced it is fake. And they generally give the benefit of the doubt to the executive, which the population does. And even if they have the evidence that they, Congress have as elites, and they are elites, have evidence that it is a fake crisis, they still will hesitate, because of opportunism, they want to keep their political careers, to go against the President, so long as the people yet do not know that it's a fake, have not arrived at the conclusion it is a fake crisis. And they may even hesitate to inform their people to let the secret out of the bag because they are afraid of what it might do to the system and to their nice state seat. So, there is a lot going against principle here. SM (01:44:16): Maybe- KC (01:44:16): There is a lot of structure, a lot of history, a lot of just human character going against principle here, so that I do not think we should be surprised. We should not accept it, that we still should be surprised that Congress is a sackless branch. SM (01:44:35): Wow. Yeah, it is interesting. Just bringing up, there should be some sort of test given to every leader that goes into Congress, the profiles and courage test. KC (01:44:44): Oh, sure. Yeah. Absolutely. SM (01:44:46): Require them to read the book. And if you do not pass this, you cannot be our senator or our Congressman. KC (01:44:50): Absolutely. That is right. And any elected official presidents too should be required to read that book. I was tempted to write a book not long ago called Profiles In Cowardice. SM (01:45:04): That would be an interesting thing, because I think students need to see the other side, because students do want- KC (01:45:10): And give clear examples of when you had people who should have stepped up, and did not. SM (01:45:15): Yep. Yeah. KC (01:45:16): The causes of that. SM (01:45:17): Yeah. In fact, I know that Caroline Kennedy wrote another follow-up book to her dad, which is a very good book, of people that she felt, and they give the Profiles In Courage award up at the Kennedy Library every year. And I remember reading the one about the congressman from Alabama, I forget his name. He wrote a book. He has passed away since, but I had never heard of this guy, and he got the award, so I wanted to, I never heard of this man. And then, he lost his seat because he was a man of conscience, and he has unheard of. And he got the award. He was in a wheelchair. KC (01:45:52): Yeah, very-very rare case. SM (01:45:53): Right. He was a Southern congressman who lost everything. And he was, yeah, Republican just does not act that way. KC (01:45:56): Yeah. SM (01:45:57): So, Spiro Agnew. KC (01:46:04): Spiro Agnew, what a reprehensible guy. What was that term he used? Effete snobs or something like that? In describing at least the leadership of the left. Well, of course, he... I say of course, because I know better now. Of course, he was right to a limited degree that the leadership of the left was pretty much upper class and to some degree opportunistic. But there were a lot of people in the leadership that worked, of the left, that were not. And I am sure the vast majority of people who followed the leadership were not effete snobs. So yeah, this guy was a... Agnew was, I put him at the level of the gutter. SM (01:47:05): He was [inaudible]. Let us see, some of the other, Gerald Ford? KC (01:47:10): Tragic kind of guy. He was a caretaker. Gil Scott Heron referred to him many years ago as Oatmeal Man on a... part of a record he called, Pardon me, Mr. President, a great rift he did. And I could not forget that. Could not help remember that when they were doing all of these eulogies honoring Ford after he died. And I kept thinking, "Boy." It's not that he was a bad guy, but he was not all that good. He was brought on because he was neither. He was as bland as you could be. And the system produced that. I mean, and the system needed that at that point in time. They needed somebody to follow in the heels of Vietnam and Watergate that would not divide the country further. And the country was so divided that they had to find somebody that the Democrats and Republicans could support, because after all, you are talking about somebody who was not elected either to vice president or to president. And that is the other anomaly. It is not just the end of Vietnam and Watergate, but it's also making somebody president who was never elected to either of those offices, president or vice president. And they knew when they brought Gerald Ford in as vice president, that the president was not going to be around for very much longer. I mean, they were pretty much sure of that. So, they knew that he would be, so that is why they chose him. He was a tweener. He was a bridge. He was just, in that sense, he had a strength in that he could accommodate both sides in a principled way. I think he was probably a pretty principled guy, but he was tragic in a sense that he got to clean up after all that. SM (01:48:56): How about Jimmy Carter? Because when Jimmy Carter came in, he- KC (01:49:00): Oh, Jimmy. SM (01:49:00): ... pardoned all the... KC (01:49:01): Yeah. SM (01:49:03): Does he play into any of this? KC (01:49:04): Well, that was a good move on his part, and that was courageous of him. But his courage was limited. Carter's idealistic side has always been overplayed since he has left office. We tend to think of him now as the kindly human rights, Habitat for Humanity, healing, elderly statesman. And everything he has done in those realms is good, and I will give him credit for that. But he also has to take responsibility for some of the nastier stuff he did, which was to become a born again warrior, Cold warrior when he heard the footsteps of Ronald Reagan getting closer and closer in 1979 and 1980. Because we have Jimmy Carter to thank for the B-1 bomber, for registration for the draft, for increasing the size of the military, for much of the militarization that Reagan then launched into was begun by Jimmy Carter, who finally, "Saw the light," in his words of the Soviet bear after 1979, 1980, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a crushing of solidarity, that kind of thing. You have a guy, who for a short period of time, becomes the most saber-rattling warrior that, just as bad as any one of the Cold War presidents for a very short period of time, because then he loses the election, and he has to leave office. But it not only coincides with increasing of crises with the Soviet Union. If one were to be overly kind, one would say, well, he got that way because he actually saw what was going on around. But I think more tellingly coincided with the poll numbers getting closer and closer between him and Ronald Reagan. He tried out to out-Reagan Reagan, and nobody does that. SM (01:51:13): Yeah. You lead right into Reagan, because Reagan has got a history here too, as the governor of California, disliked by students at Berkeley and a lot of students around the country. He seems to be a voice that symbolizes the establishment. And then, of course, with being president. And then that whole issue, even when George Bush is vice president, when he came in, I think it was George Bush Sr. who said, "The Vietnam Syndrome is over." KC (01:51:41): Yeah. Well, he said that when he was president. SM (01:51:43): Oh, he did say that as president? KC (01:51:44): Yeah. He said that at the end of the first Gulf War. SM (01:51:46): Yeah. KC (01:51:47): "We finally kicked the Vietnam Syndrome," that is the quote. SM (01:51:49): Yep. KC (01:51:50): Well, he was full of crap on that issue. He just did not understand it as well as some of us who have spent so much time looking at it. But in fact, that that experience that he was summing up, that first Gulf War in 1991, reaffirmed the Vietnam Syndrome. It did not undercut it at all. At least it reaffirmed that, certainly among those in the military who believed that they learned lessons from the Vietnam War, which was to sort of the Powell Doctrine approach, which was to make sure that not only you have sufficient military strength to go after your enemy, but you win over the public, you win over Congress, that there is a real national commitment, yada, yada, yada. All of that was strengthened by the Persian Gulf War, so that, and historians now looking back at that period have come to a consensus that in fact it did strengthen the Vietnam Syndrome, because it was still around during the 1990s. It did not go away during the 1990s. SM (01:53:03): That is why when you talk about Vietnam period and why people have such an alarming reaction, obviously, is all the activism and all the other things. But so many lessons can be learned about how we deal with people, how you build trust, the concept of serving your country and what it truly means. KC (01:53:26): Yeah, and a lot of them are bad lessons. SM (01:53:28): Yeah, a lot of bad lessons, but a lot- KC (01:53:30): I mean, in the sense that you have a lot of contradictory lessons. SM (01:53:31): ... You learn a lot about human nature. Yeah. KC (01:53:34): As you know from my book, that it depends on who you ask as to what the set of lessons are. And they often conflict with each other. There are too many lessons of Vietnam, and they contradict each other. SM (01:53:44): What are your thoughts on Barry Goldwater and the conservative movement, the Bill Buckleys, and American, some of the things that really upset a lot of conservatives in the last couple years, so, I interviewed Lee Edwards and a couple other people, is that they have been totally left out of the anti-war movement. The Young Americans for Freedom were against the war. There were conservatives that were against the war. KC (01:54:10): I did not realize that. SM (01:54:10): Yeah. And- KC (01:54:11): They were probably Libertarians, right? Are you talking about against the Vietnam War or against- SM (01:54:14): Against the Vietnam War. KC (01:54:15): Yeah. Yeah. I did not realize that. Perhaps they were against it because they thought it was not being fought properly. Perhaps they were against it because they did not think enough force was used. SM (01:54:25): How important was Barry Goldwater in this era, though? Because he- KC (01:54:28): Oh, he was critically important in the sense that he was what Johnson feared on the right. Johnson feared the left, and Johnson feared the right, and tried to split the difference. And Goldwater was his fear on the right, so that in Johnson's mind, it seems to me, gradually escalating with ground troops beat the hell out of dropping the nuclear device on Hanoi, which he thought Goldwater, or some people thought Goldwater wanted to do. But it also was a hell of a lot more acceptable than just saying, "Well, we will give up Vietnam. We will withdraw." And in Johnson's view, that is that world, Munich appeasement lesson that you do not accept peace at any price. You have to take a firm stand, or sooner or later the Red menace will be in Isla Vista or Long Island or somewhere like that. SM (01:55:30): What about Muhammad Ali? KC (01:55:33): Muhammad Ali. SM (01:55:33): Cassius Clay. KC (01:55:34): One of my heroes, and I remember when he was Cassius Clay, I followed. As a young kid I loved... I paid some attention to boxing, and I loved Cassius Clay. I loved Rubin Hurricane Carter, Cassius Clay, and Benny Kid Paret, who was a Philadelphia fighter who died in the ring, yeah. SM (01:55:52): He died. Yeah. I did a paper on him in college on against boxing. KC (01:55:58): Cassius Clay, yeah. I certainly did not understand his whole black Muslim conversion and his refusal to accept be drafted, because again, I was the kid and a teenager in a white working class, largely racist neighborhood that was afraid of any militant blacks. Anybody from a black community took not only a firm stand, but a firm militant stand, who was willing to fight, and that was my sense at that time. But that is a gap in between my admiration, beginning with Cassius Clay and then carrying on after I got back from Vietnam, of course, and turned against the war. But also just as a boxer, his comeback. I would listened to the radio in 1976 to that Zaire fight. SM (01:56:55): Oh, yeah. KC (01:56:55): You could not watch it on television, but I listened to the round by round summary of it when the radio broadcasted summaries of it from Zaire. I just loved that, that rope-a-dope thing. I was a big Cassius Clay fan. SM (01:57:14): Do you think- KC (01:57:14): [inaudible] Muhammad Ali fan. SM (01:57:16): When you look at his stand against the Vietnam War, boy, some people go after him, but some admire him when he would fall into your conscience? KC (01:57:28): Well, I admire him now because I have a different take on the war now than I did when I was a kid, when he was, I think it was in (19)67, was not it? That he refused to go to the draft? SM (01:57:40): Yes. KC (01:57:42): And I was a senior in high school, and then in bootcamp, and then preparing to go to Vietnam. That was my whole 1967. And my only impression of Cassius Clay was from the neighborhood and from my family background, from the social era, social milieu that I was in. And I was very apprehensive and put off by Clay's... I was disappointed in him. I thought that a great fighter like that, I could not understand it. It was just too much for me to grasp. SM (01:58:25): But when he beat Sonny Liston, I know, I thought nobody beat Sonny Liston. That guy was a- KC (01:58:29): Yeah, he was huge. I remember seeing Floyd Patterson knock out Ingemar Johansson, and the film reel at the movies in between, and I will never forget it, and out cold on the floor. His foot shook. He had those tremors or whatever they call them. I was a big fan of boxing. SM (01:58:56): We cannot, been just mentioning men, but people like Gloria Steinem. I have only got about 10 more minutes. Gloria Steinem and the leaders of the women's movement. Your thoughts on... KC (01:59:07): I think first of people like Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan. They, to me, were the earlier ones. And Gloria Stein probably was around or right after them, or right, maybe the later part. That was also something that I had trouble grasping, understanding, did not get on a visceral level or a gut level or an immediate reaction level at first, but all of this was taking place in the context of me becoming anti-war. And I began to adopt the politics of the left in general, and have a far more open mind there to some of the things I did not immediately get, and therefore became acceptable and tried to understand and incorporate that in the way I lived and the way I understood the world. But it was not on the same sort of gut level as Vietnam. SM (02:00:05): What are your thoughts that some of the women complain about of that era, is that in the anti-war movement and the Civil Rights Movement, women were secondary figures? That men were male dominant, and they put women in secondary roles, and that is a lot of the reason why the women went out on their own to create the women's movement, because the secondary rules in both of those movements. KC (02:00:29): Well, I think it is true in general, and it is true in particular in most organizations, but that is not the end of the answer, because it was more or less true with certain organizations in certain periods. I think that if you are talking about (19)66, (19)67, you're going to find a lot more of that. If you are talking about (19)70, (19)71, you are going to find a whole lot less of that, because women were being far more assertive and taking leadership roles, if not on a national level, at least on a local and regional level, a lot more. And it depends on the organization too. For instance, resistance, which was based in Philadelphia, resistance to the draft, and they had the Omega as the sign [inaudible]. SM (02:01:14): Oh, yeah. Right. KC (02:01:16): And Vietnam Veterans Against the War were very close. They supported us a lot because they worked with active duty GIs. That was their specialty at Fort Dix, at the Naval Hospital, other military bases. They did GI organizers, and they knew that the better they got to know us, the better they could speak to the GIs. Or perhaps they just knew by working with the GIs how to relate to us when we came back. And we actually shared offices together, we socialized with each other, etc. And that was a largely women's organization, all women in leadership there. SM (02:01:48): Very good. KC (02:01:49): And they actually taught us a lot about how to deal with women in the movement. I mean, I was not familiar with women who did not shave their legs and did not shave their armpits until I met women from resistance and did not wear bras. By that point, most young women were not wearing bras. SM (02:02:07): Right. KC (02:02:07): So, that became fairly common in the culture at that time. SM (02:02:11): Right. KC (02:02:12): But what was not common in the culture was having really hairy legs and really hairy armpits. SM (02:02:18): You see that over in Europe and Germany. KC (02:02:20): That is right. It was very European- SM (02:02:21): Yeah, very European. KC (02:02:23): But it became strong among women who were strong and on the left in America. SM (02:02:30): We have a professor. I will not even mention her name. I'd better not. KC (02:02:34): Yeah. Okay. Not on tape. SM (02:02:35): Not on tape though. Finally, the Watergate Committee people, Sam Ervin, Baker Thompson, even Weiker, the Watergate Committee- KC (02:02:47): Yeah, I know them well. SM (02:02:48): Just your thoughts. John Dean and that whole situation there. KC (02:02:52): Well, I am so happy Congress stepped up and took a leading role in that case. It may sound as though what I just said contradicts something earlier, that the Congress cannot lead because they are the sackless branch, 535 them, etc. But there are exceptions, and again, national crisis, but in this case, created by an imperial presidency creates the room for Congress to be that exception. Does not mean that Congress will automatically step into that vacuum, but the vacuum and real leadership in a crisis, because it is clear to much of the nation, most of the nation, the president's taking the wrong direction, Congress has to step up and fill in that vacuum, because there is not no other branch to do it. The Supreme Court by its very nature is passive and waits for cases to be brought to it, and cannot play that kind of leadership role. So, it has to be. If the imperial executive is leading in the wrong direction, and not only manufacturing a national crisis that was not there, but creating a national crisis because of the imperial presidency, then Congress had better step up. And in this case, the Watergate Committee and much of the new leadership and that, old leadership and new leadership, the Joe Biden and so forth, that were brand new coming in, and that Vietnam generation that came in, they stepped up and they played a good role, but it took also others, like good leadership among some principled, courageous journalists to do that. And it took the conditions of the American public being prepared to support that too, being not only ready but overripe for that kind of thing. Because again, Congress, the limit, even in a national crisis created by an imperial president, the Congress is still going to want to make sure that they have their asses covered in some way before they step out there, and the coverage is to have public support for it. SM (02:05:02): When did the (19)60s begin? When was the magic moment when the (19)60s began? By the way- KC (02:05:07): In my view? Or history's view? SM (02:05:09): By the way, my book's title is going to be The Magic Moment. KC (02:05:14): Yeah. Are you talking about in my personal view or in history? SM (02:05:16): No, in your personal view, what do you think was the beginning of the (19)60s and when did the (19)60s end? Was there an incident? Was there a happening? KC (02:05:28): For me, the (19)60s began as the (19)60s that we know and love or hate, depending on what their perspective is, in 1965, when I first sat around late at night listening to a Bob Dylan album, as people around me were drinking and smoking dope and talking about controversial issues. I forget whether it was about the war or civil rights, but clearly had a non-establishment, if not an anti-establishment attitude. And that occurred at a Benedictine seminary. SM (02:06:09): Oh, my God. KC (02:06:11): My uncle's Benedictine seminary. It was a monastery, but they trained seminarians there, Benedictine seminarians in Hingham, Massachusetts. My uncle was the abbot. SM (02:06:24): Oh, my God. KC (02:06:24): And I was up there with my brother as guests for their annual picnic, and after the picnic was over, and after everything was cleaned up, and people were going to bed, some of the young seminarians asked if we wanted to join them in the tower, which they had this big tower. They still have it there, big stone tower. You could hang out in the tower, and just talk and hang out. Well, they were playing Dylan. I mean, I was Motown all the way or-or classic rock or whatever you want to call it, and they are drinking, and they are passing joints around, and they are talking about social issues. And in a clearly critical way, as their attitude. I mean, this blew my mind. Now, after that, left and went right back to my own very conventional working-class situation. That did not change me, but that was my first peek at it. That was my first peek at an alternate, alternative lifestyle. Let us put it that way. If I were to pick anything, that is the one thing I can think of, the very first glimpse of an alternative lifestyle. And after all, that is what the (19)60s was supposed to be about. SM (02:07:51): Right. It is like my brother, when he got married in 1985, the priest that married him was young, and his music he played in his office was Led Zeppelin. KC (02:08:06): Oh, Jesus. SM (02:08:06): My brother said, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" He was a legend. KC (02:08:11): By the way, if my uncle ever had gotten wind around, he would have had a stroke. Honest to God. We never told anybody about that. My brother and I just only recently talked about it again, and see, I did not realize. I do not think I remember. I cannot clearly recall seeing the dope being passed around, but my brother, who was two years older than me told me, "Oh yeah, they were passing around marijuana. They were smoking marijuana." I am not sure my brother ever smoked marijuana before, so it is not like something that he would make up, but I know they were drinking and playing Bob Dylan and talking and acting in alternative ways. These were seminarians. I do not know how many of them remained in there, but actually several of them did because we met them many years later. SM (02:08:56): When did it end? KC (02:08:58): When did it end? SM (02:08:58): For you? KC (02:09:01): I think (19)70, '72 was the end, the loss of McGovern's campaign, the overwhelming reelection of Nixon. The war was over for all intents and purposes. The war was not over for the Vietnamese, but the American involvement was over. After that it became... I mean, the war for me is the most direct connection to the (19)60s, the most, I guess the brightest characteristic. And yeah, one of your very first, if not the very first question about what is it about the (19)60s? It's the war, right? SM (02:09:38): Yeah. KC (02:09:39): Well, the war was... That was the last I was active in 1972 because I figured it was pretty much all over. It was time for me to move on and do other things. I mean, I still remain very active in an alternative sense, but not with the war. SM (02:09:56): What did that helicopter flying off the rooftop- KC (02:10:00): That was (19)75. SM (02:10:02): ... In (19)75, how did that strike you? Just seeing that on the news? KC (02:10:05): Well, I felt it was much too late. SM (02:10:08): Yeah. KC (02:10:09): This should have happened a long, long time before. There would be hell of a lot fewer deaths. We should not have gone in the first place, and it is happening much too late. I did not feel a kind of loss or anger or alienation that I suppose some veterans did. But for me, it was a good thing that that last helicopter was finally leaving so the Vietnamese could have their own country back. And I thought it should have happened a hell of a lot earlier than that. SM (02:10:48): We are going to end with, I got about 15, 16 words of an era or an event. Just very, very quick responses. KC (02:10:57): All right. SM (02:11:00): Number one, Woodstock. KC (02:11:03): Oh, I think of my time floating around in the Mediterranean, still in the Marines and on a ship, and reading about Woodstock in August of, or September of (19)69, as we got the latest Life or Look Magazine, whatever it was in. And I am thinking how cool that was. I wished I had hair that long at that point. I had side, high and tight cut of the Marine Corps, and you're only allowed two to three inches on the top in the middle of your head. I just could not wait to get out. I was back from Vietnam by that time, so I was done with that, but I still had time to do the Marine Corp. I could not wait to get out, could not wait to join them. SM (02:11:44): Black power. KC (02:11:46): Frightening at first. Understandable, eventually tragic in the end. SM (02:11:52): Communes. KC (02:11:53): Commune? SM (02:11:53): Communes. KC (02:11:53): As in commune? SM (02:11:55): Communes. KC (02:11:55): Like a commune? Like a hippie-dippy commune? SM (02:11:59): Yeah, communes. Yes. KC (02:11:59): Yeah. Attractive for a while in my most- KC (02:12:03): Attractive for a while in my most hippy-dippy phase, but then too idealistic. I never could bring myself to trying to live on something like that because I did not think it could survive. And I thought that life in established American society would inevitably take over, would engulf it and swallow it up and make it disappear. SM (02:12:30): Hippies? KC (02:12:30): Hippies. I think I was one. Sometimes some of my old friends tell me I was not because... Well, I must have demonstrated too many of those old establishment or conventional, not establishment, but conventional traits. But I enjoyed it the two or three years I think I was a hippie, with few cares and few resources, little money, living cheaply, hitchhiking. I hitchhiked across the country several times. You could do it then safely with long hair and a beard. Hung out with people in lots of different places. I enjoyed that. But sooner or later, you have to grow up and take responsibility. SM (02:13:20): Yippies? KC (02:13:21): Yippies. Assholes. SM (02:13:24): Counter-culture? KC (02:13:28): A good idea for a while, until you jarred the prevailing culture, and there was a sense of necessary change. But after that, it becomes less and less relevant. SM (02:13:43): Pentagon Papers? KC (02:13:45): Loved them. Great thing that they came out. SM (02:13:49): Chicago Eight? KC (02:13:51): Heroes to some degree, in a sense that they took a stand and suffered through that trial and the fear of long prison terms. But they were, other than that, a pretty diverse group. That is my sense of them, that they were not a close-knit group of people. They were all snatched up together doing the same thing. They were very different people. Dillinger and Bobby Seale are tremendously different people. SM (02:14:23): Oh yeah. And Tom Hayden- KC (02:14:25): And Redman and- SM (02:14:28): The Rubin and Hoffman. And they got the lesser known John Froines and yeah- KC (02:14:31): Yeah, not Redman. Not Redman. I guess Redman was not part of it. Who was Redman in, SDS or something like. I forget. Anyway. SM (02:14:36): Oh, Mark Rudd. KC (02:14:37): Mark Rudd, yeah. SM (02:14:39): He was in SDS at Columbia. John Lennon? KC (02:14:41): John Lennon, fellow atheist, imagining a world without God. SM (02:14:53): Good movie out. US Versus John Lennon, which just happened recently. KC (02:14:57): Yeah-yeah, yeah. He was a good guy. I think he probably was a little temperamental and could not get along as well as he probably should have tried to with his buddies, but he was part- SM (02:15:11): How about the Beatles? KC (02:15:12): Just the Beatles. Yeah. I love The Beatles, but they are not what I consider to be my youth's music. Motown. SM (02:15:26): Oh, yeah. KC (02:15:27): City kid dances, fuss times, dating, listening to music on a radio, slapping on that English leather. Motown. SM (02:15:37): Motown, because that is the music of the year. Because when you think of the music of the (19)60s, you think of Motown, but you also think of- KC (02:15:44): The Beatles- SM (02:15:45): Woodstock, all the rock bands, the folk singers. KC (02:15:47): Well see, Woodstock was after I went to Vietnam and after I came back. So that, to me, I am an adult. That is no longer my safe home, comfortable, great carefree time of shelter to some degree. We were living in a poor working class neighborhood. You're exposed to some bad stuff, but nevertheless, you still have a family, a house, a neighborhood, kids you go to school with. There is a normalcy there and a carefreeness, because your parents, you are not having to work. I had to work part-time, but you know. You know what I mean? SM (02:16:19): Yep. KC (02:16:20): You do not have to take adult responsibility yet. By the time Woodstock happened, well, I was hippie-dippy. I am still not taking adult responsibility, but I took responsibility to lead politically. I did do that. And I took care of myself. I managed to pay the bills. SM (02:16:34): Kent State and Jackson State? KC (02:16:36): Kent State, Jackson State. Triggers for my radicalization. The first trigger was of course the invasion of Cambodia. That son of a bitch, Nixon led. And then Kent State and Jackson State were reactions to that. And then my reaction to Kent State and Jackson State were, because there were demonstrations within days of the invasion of Cambodia, and were protests against the war because of the Invasion of Cambodia. And I am at home, not politically astute at all, not involved in any way. Could not even conceive myself involving any war movement. I am out of the service only a couple of months, and I see this stuff on television, and I cannot believe this war is not ending. I had a gut level of revulsion against the war because I did not think it was worth anything. It was stupid. It was a lie, I knew that much, because the leaders, my leadership, military and political leadership were telling lies about what we were really doing there, and what the people there actually thought about our presence. But I had no political consciousness as an activist yet. But boy, that me pissed off, the Cambodia, and then went right on into Kent State and Jackson. Mostly Kent State, because of course I could relate to the white kids more. SM (02:17:52): See, April 30th, to me, is a big day that we do not ever think about that much. Particularly the boomer generation. KC (02:17:58): What was April 30th? SM (02:18:00): April 30th was the invasion of Cambodia. KC (02:18:02): I always thought it happened around May first, but definitely April 30th. SM (02:18:04): May 4th was when the killings took place. KC (02:18:05): That is right. SM (02:18:06): But April 30th was also when the helicopter went off the roof. KC (02:18:10): See, I was not traumatized by that. SM (02:18:13): April 30th was also when- KC (02:18:13): Good enough. Close that chapter. SM (02:18:14): FDR died. KC (02:18:15): Is that right? SM (02:18:15): What is amazing is that April 30th and Kent State had so much bearing on me because I was a senior at SUNY Binghamton, and I broke my arm. I was in the hospital, had a very bad arm break, and I went to my graduation at SUNY Binghamton on May 17th, but May 7th was when the Grateful Dead were coming to our campus. I was looking forward to it. KC (02:18:37): Oh, boy. So, you are two years older than me. I just did the math. You were graduating from college in 1970. SM (02:18:43): I graduated college in 1970. KC (02:18:44): So, you graduated from high school? SM (02:18:45): (19)66, yeah. KC (02:18:45): So, you are one year older than me. I am sorry. SM (02:18:45): Yeah, (19)66. KC (02:18:49): (19)67, I graduated. SM (02:18:50): Yeah. But Kent State was just unbelievable. It has affected me my whole life. Because even when the tragedy of Virginia Tech took place, and they talked about the worst tragedy ever around the... It was terrible, all the killings and everything. But we seem to forget the four students who died at Kent State, the seven who were wounded, and the two who died at Jackson State. We cannot forget them. Universities pay tribute to the Montreal, the women who were killed in Montreal in (19)89, and they had the Women's Center paid, and we have ceremonies, and it happens all over the country. KC (02:19:27): And the women were killed for what? SM (02:19:29): The doctor who came and killed the nurses. KC (02:19:31): That is right, yeah. SM (02:19:32): So, Montreal (19)89. And so we paid tribute to the tragedy of the women dying. But you could not even bring up paying memorial service to the ones that died at Kent State. It is activism again, it is bringing up all the past. KC (02:19:44): Well, it is because it is politically controversial, and universities do not like political controversy. It makes their trustees nervous because it makes the potential donors nervous. SM (02:19:55): Yeah. When I think of, I went to the Remembrance ceremony at Kent State 35th, and I went there and I spent the entire four day... There is no question to me that when you look at Sandy Scheuer and Bill Schroeder and Jeff Miller and Allison Krause, that they were destined to do good things. You look at their background, their families, what their majors were and everything else. The tragedy is that we lost those four, and then we lost the two at Kent State. And I do not know about one of them. I mean, Jackson State. But to me, that tragedy sticks with me because it is part of the Vietnam War. When I go to the wall in Washington, I know they did not die in Vietnam, but I see them all the time there. Here is some names, just quick responses. President Q? KC (02:20:50): Sleaze bag. SM (02:20:53): The other one, I forget. KC (02:20:54): Key? SM (02:20:54): Yeah, General Key? KC (02:20:56): Yeah. SM (02:20:56): We almost brought him to Westchester. KC (02:20:58): Yeah. A better dressed sleaze bag. He always used to wear an Ascot. SM (02:21:05): William Westmoreland. KC (02:21:07): Oh, God. War criminal. SM (02:21:13): How about Creighton Abrams? Neighbors found him. KC (02:21:19): Probably tried to do the best he could with a bad situation. SM (02:21:23): The two ambassadors, Ellsworth Bunker and Henry Cabot Lodge? KC (02:21:28): Bunker, I do not know much about Bunker, other than he was largely ineffective in dealing with the Vietnamese. Cabot Lodge was far more effective, but in a sneaky CIA way. SM (02:21:45): Dwight Eisenhower? KC (02:21:51): A president that was seen as very inactive in the Cold War, that actually was very active in covertly making sure that the dirty deeds were being done covertly by the CIA. SM (02:22:14): Do you think Vietnam went all the way back to Truman, when he rejected the letter from Ho Chi Minh? Because Ho Chi Minh had written a letter when we first became president, and he did not even acknowledge it because he was a communist. KC (02:22:27): Well, I would trace it back to Truman, but not for that reason. You could reject the letter and still not get yourself involved in Vietnam. America became deeply involved in Vietnam. That is why we are here. America's involvement began under Truman, with Truman's winking and a nod to the French using American equipment, to American money, American equipment, American uniforms, rifles, to win the front door of France for the purpose of solidifying France as a bulwark against the Soviets rolling into Europe, going right out the back door to Indochina. Truman knew all about that and increasingly supported the French effort in Indochina covertly. So, he takes the initial blame and everybody else gets in line after that. SM (02:23:22): It is a long line. couple other final ones here. The beats? KC (02:23:28): Oh, the beatniks? What do you mean, the beats? SM (02:23:30): Yeah, Marilyn Young, the history professor at NYU said that she felt the (19)60s began with the beats. KC (02:23:37): Yeah. See, she might be a little older than me. Yeah. The beats were... SM (02:23:42): Kerouac and Ginsburg. KC (02:23:44): I know who they are in history, but they were not real to me at the time. To me, the beats were what I saw on television. People in berets going, "Hey man..." SM (02:23:56): Maynard G. Krebs. KC (02:23:56): Maynard G. Krebs. That is right. Dobie Gillis. That is where I associate, that is the beats as far... Or the TV show called Bourbon Street Beat. SM (02:24:07): Cannot remember that one. KC (02:24:08): Yeah, that was not a long-lived one, but anyway. SM (02:24:11): (19)62 Missile Crisis? KC (02:24:14): I thought I was not going to live very much longer. I thought that was going to be pretty much it. We all certainly went to church a lot more, or synagogue, or wherever our beliefs led us, fearing that the country would go up any day in thermonuclear disaster. SM (02:24:37): The astronauts. 1969, Neil Armstrong. KC (02:24:40): The astronauts, yeah, pride, but not as much pride as the Europeans had, because I was in Europe when that hurt happened in (19)69. And when we went ashore from the ship, whether it was Spain, or France, Italy, that is all the people we're talking about around that period of time, how great this was. "You Americans had put somebody on the moon." And we said, "Oh, that is cool, and then give us another beer." We thought it was cool, but we did not take it as that big of a thing. But then again, all of us had been to Vietnam, so our own risks, to us, were more immediate, more memorable, and in some ways more direct than what we thought the astronauts were. They had, I think, a better chance of surviving that trip than many of us did going into combat Vietnam. SM (02:25:37): How about that Cold War, and we know that the Cold War was started right after World War II, but Cold War and Vietnam? KC (02:25:44): Well, some trace it all the way back to the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1917. And World War II was just a temporary break, a marriage of convenience between Stalin and FDR and Churchill, and that we went right back into our anti- Soviet approach after that. But one has to point out the exception, it was FDR that recognized for the first time, formally recognized Soviet Union in 1933 when he came into office. So he was at least willing to deal with them. But Cold War, what a huge mistake. I probably differ from a lot of other of your respondents in that sense. So, I think the entire Cold War was a mistake. SM (02:26:27): John Wayne? KC (02:26:30): Great movies, but certainly not like real combat people. SM (02:26:37): He played all those roles. KC (02:26:42): Played all those roles, and all of us who watched him developed all these myths about what combat really was like. SM (02:26:46): Cannot think of anything else here on. Make sure I covered it. Well, the generation gap, too. What is interesting today is there is obviously, I like your thoughts on the generation gap during the (19)60s, but comparing it today with the generation Xers, and even some boomers and their kids, they have never been closer. They are involved in students’ lives, and there does not seem to be any generation gap between generation Xers and millennials, or even the older boomers and millennials. What is happening there? KC (02:27:16): I think it is there, but it is more subtle. Unless you define gap in a certain way, that it takes a real qualitative aspect to it. That is, we are not talking about degrees here. We are talking about something in kind. One could say that, yeah, there was a generation gap among many during the (19)60s, of those boomers with their parents, but not all. I mean, again, we would have to sit down and say, okay, in reality, what percentage of boomers were truly alienated from their parents? And if I had simply come back from Vietnam and did what so many other Vietnam veterans did, there would have been no gap. I would have just simply come back to the life I led. I would have gotten a job or continued to go to church on Sundays with my family, and there would have been some differences because I have been in a war, certainly. But the gap would not have been there. I think the generation gap is most clearly evident between those who took, certainly that 15 percent who took leadership or acting role in a sustained way in the movements of the (19)60s and their parents. But for the other 85 percent, I would take a hard look at that before I would judge that as a gap, because I know a lot of people just simply went home and lived their own lives, and there was never any real gap. SM (02:28:34): What is your perception of the media's role in coverage of the Vietnam War, and coverage of social issues in that timeframe comparing to today? Some people think it is irresponsible that today's media is basically being controlled. That favoritism, for example, access to the White House, is that if you are in with the White House, you are favored, you get access. Has that always been the case, or has a Woodward and Bernstein type of a mentality gone? Investigative journalism? KC (02:29:02): Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Because we still have it. Seymour Hersh is still writing good stuff. Nobody's thrown him in jail. Nobody's tapped his phones lately, that I know of. Well, I am sure the NSA is busy tapping everybody's phone, tapping their cell phones and intercepting their email. But he does not seem to be singled out on anybody's enemy list or anything like that. You can still do investigative journalism to some degree. You do not have to anymore to some degree, because it is just not necessary because there is so many media organizations, outlets, forums, whether it is in cyberspace or print media or whatever, that there is a great deal of competition to constantly expose stuff. The Bush administration cannot keep it secret for God's sake. As powerful as they became in their most powerful years, the earliest years, when the neocons were truly on a roll, and they were doing some truly what I considered dastardly stuff. They still did not have full control, even over their own people, let alone everybody else. So, it has been a lot of stuff. A long list of books have come out critical of this war. Tell-all books from the administration itself, whether you are talking about inside the intelligence community, inside the military, inside the White House. Wherever you are talking about, there has been a lot of stuff uncovered that is been uncovered faster and in a broader way than ever happened during the Vietnam period. And I just think it is a difference. It is a difference in the technology. It is a difference in the times. We did not have cyberspace back then. We did not have the internet back then, so you are going to have differences. So I think the media plays pretty much the same role now as they did then, only in a much different way, because their communications facility, their communications tools in an information age are much different and much better than they were back then. The media plays just as good and just as bad role as, say, other institutions like Congress in these political controversies. Congress waits until they are absolutely sure public opinion is at least turning to their side, if not on their side, before they will act. The media is the same way. The media did not turn against the war first and public opinion followed. It was vice versa. Public opinion according to that polling figures that John Buehler and many others have come up with show that the public opinion swayed against the war before Walter Cronkite ever stepped out and said, "I think we have a stalemate here. We better think about new ways." So that the media does this. Why? Because the media has to sell those papers, sell that airtime, sell those advertisements, and they need to, as a responsible institution, be careful before they go out on a limb. They are careful. So, they are careful that the public has already turned against them before they start, as a mainstream mass turned against you. Of course, among the public, you have a fringe that turns against it earlier, and you have a fringe in the media that turns against it earlier, The Nation, or Ramparts, or something like that. So, I do not fault the media. I do not honor them for doing great things, and I do not condemn them for doing bad. They are doing what they are supposed to do. I cannot condemn them any more than the desert for being hot or the wind for blowing. SM (02:32:22): I keep coming up with questions here and we are going to end this, but I keep going back to Dr. King about one of the statements he made in one of his speeches that the Vietnam War had a disproportionate number of African Americans who served in that war. And when you got down to the wall in Washington, there is a disproportionate number of African Americans who were on that Wall. KC (02:32:43): How do you know? SM (02:32:44): See, I do not know. But then of course, this Dr. King, he died in 1968, and there were other people that died after (19)68, through (19)73. The question is this: the role of minorities in the Vietnam War, and you have made reference already that they at many times did not have any choice but to go through service. Some of it did it to better their lives, because they did not have any other alternatives. KC (02:33:11): Probably because they were drafted, probably because they did not have a job. SM (02:33:12): What was it like when you were there in terms of, we have already talked about drugs, but in terms of black, white, Latino, white, Native American, we have heard about, there has been some things written about Native Americans being thrown to the point because they were natural and- KC (02:33:33): Good trackers. SM (02:33:34): Good trackers, and then a lot of them died because of that. KC (02:33:36): I do not know about that. SM (02:33:37): But Asians, In terms of what was it like, and secondly, just being there, how strong was the anti-war movement amongst the troops? KC (02:33:47): Okay. That is a lot to answer in a short time, but I am going to try and do it briefly. SM (02:33:50): Do it short. KC (02:33:55): The area where there was clear and obvious tension between troops in Vietnam was between black and white troops. That is not to say that there were not racial tensions between Hispanics and whites, Hispanics and blacks, Asian, but I do not remember any Asian Americans in the units that I was in, but certainly Native Americans here or there. I do not recall anybody being singled out and put on point because of any of that, whether they were Native American or black or white or what. But I do recall that there seemed to be a higher concentration of black troops in grunt units, combat units, than in the Marine Corps in general. And I have heard and read and seen figures, I do not know how hard they are, that indicate that that was true in the Army as well. But then again, I have read since I started doing research on the war, that those figures are soft, and that the real story says that blacks did not die in any higher proportion than whites. So, I do not know what the actual figures are, or whose figures to use, but my personal experience tells me that there was a higher concentration, a disproportionate concentration of black troops in the grunt units. They still were not the majority. Whites were still majority of grunts, but if blacks were making 10 to 20 percent of the population up around that time, there was probably 30 or 40 percent of marine grunt units. When I was there in (19)68 and (19)69, they were blacks. Now the tension between there was manifested mostly when one was in the rear. The further in the rear, the more tension. The closer to the bush, the less tension. Because the closer to the bush, the closer to the danger, the more you needed each other. And the bush, you did not let those arguments get in the way. And you were your brother's keeper. And back in the rear, there was a luxury to take on political questions like that in that sense, social questions or whatever. And people could start to congregate among the cliques and shun others. And actually, at the worst times, get into fist fights, gun fights, knife fights, that kind of stuff. So that that is... And then either in Germany or Japan or back in the States, it was even worse. So the further got away from combat in Vietnam, the more the hostility. Because by (19)69 and (19)70, the hostility, you could cut it weather nice. It was so thick. It was really bad. At Camp Lejeune, we were getting ready to go on this med cruise after I was back from Vietnam, getting ready in August of, July of (19)69. And had a big going away party, I did not attend the party, but for the battalion, I was part of the battalion going away. They had a fight in the enlisted man's club after the club let out, and two people were killed, and a bunch were seriously wounded. And it was a racial fight. And by the time we had to leave the next day to go embark for Spain. But by the time we got to Spain, they were waiting for us. The Criminal Investigation Division with witnesses and a motorized, this box of wheels that had only a slip of everybody to get off the boat, single file, and picking out people that were part of this fight. They got shipped back for a trial. And that was a really bad scene. You could not go around a military base without several other people for fear of being jumped, knifed, robbed, maybe just simple robbery, drugs. I mean, the military was coming apart. There's no security on the military base. That was a bad scene. SM (02:37:37): Any final thoughts that you'd like to mention here, or anything that I maybe did not ask that you were expecting me to ask? KC (02:37:43): Yeah, Mỹ Lai. Why no Mỹ Lai? That is my question to you. SM (02:37:54): That was on my list here. I did not read it. Mỹ Lai. Yeah. KC (02:37:55): Well, on a much smaller level, much smaller level, far more typical in Vietnam, that is that killing innocent civilians, purposely killing innocent civilians, two or three or four at a time was not all that uncommon in Vietnam. Sometimes 10 or 20 at a time. Mỹ Lai was unusual that it was four or 500. That is what made it unusual. SM (02:38:15): And that it was Kelly and Medina, the names. KC (02:38:15): Yeah, sure. SM (02:38:15): Kelly got off, and they... KC (02:38:15): They got pardoned by Richard Nixon. SM (02:38:27): Okay. And Medina, whatever happened to him? KC (02:38:29): He was found innocent. Acquitted. SM (02:38:32): We had Country Joe McDonald on our campus a couple of years back, and Dan [inaudible 02:38:35] were in a dinner. KC (02:38:35): An old friend of VVAW. SM (02:38:35): No, he is a good guy. And he said that, Jan, did you want to tell Steve and everybody else in the room why there were no prisoners of war on the other side? They were only talking about on this side. And he wanted me to tell, and he was kind of making a reference to that there were no prisoners of war on the other side, that Americans took them. They gave them to the South Vietnamese troops, and the South Vietnamese troops summarily killed them all. KC (02:38:59): Well, they kill a lot... From my understanding, from my evidence, I did not experience it firsthand. I certainly had experience with prisoners of war, but they got passed on and I did not know where they went. But I found out later they did get turned out in South Vietnamese government, but not always right away. Often the Americans, usually Americans are targeted first, and then South Vietnamese, and it was not all that unusual for those detainees, those Viet Cong suspects or confirmed VC during the interrogation to somehow die, or certainly be seriously injured. And there were various ways of doing this with, field telephones, or water torture, or half a chopper ride. SM (02:39:42): Yeah. I heard the story about how they took them up in the helicopter. KC (02:39:45): Yeah. You never wanted to throw out the important one. You threw out the one that you knew did not have any information, to intimidate the important one. But again, I did not have any firsthand experience with this, but I certainly have been among enough Vietnam veterans, and some of them took pictures of this stuff. I mean, that is what sealed it with Mỹ Lai. If it was not for the journalists taking pictures, and then those pictures by other journalists being distributed through Life Magazine, Mỹ Lai would have passed largely as no big thing, because you would not have had the pictures. We thought we were out. The pictures make it. The stories can occur, but they only go so far without pictures. You got pictures. SM (02:40:17): That is a very sensitive issue for Vietnam, that Mỹ Lai. KC (02:40:18): Absolutely. SM (02:40:19): That labels them all as baby killers. And they all come back at you- KC (02:40:22): That is the 15 percent. That is a figure that is really important. When I first brought that up to you, I said, it's relevant in certain ways, but I won't go into it. This is the connection. And I do not delve deeply into it, but just point out that those of us in the anti-war movement who were Vietnam veterans, who began to talk about, and I did, as a young man, began to talk about what we saw or did ourselves, that were either possibly or probably war crimes, did not take care enough, did not understand and know and take care enough, to make that distinction between the 15 percent that were in combat, and 85 percent that were not. So that it looked like we were saying all Vietnam veterans. And what we were saying was not that... We were also saying that we do not hold most Vietnam veterans responsible, directly responsible for this. We hold their commanders, and especially the people in Washington who created the conditions for this to happen, like free fires on a body camp, all those things to put pressure on the uses of the Geneva Convention, who looked the other way, et cetera. But what I understand today that I did not understand then, and can tell people about, is that most Vietnam veterans deny that that ever happened because they never saw it. And they did not ever see it because they were never in a position to see it. You had to be part of the 15 percent to have a chance to see it firsthand. So, when a Vietnam veteran says, "I never saw anything like that." Well, 85 percent of them certainly did not see anything like that, because they were never in a position. And of the 15 percent who did some of those did not say anything because their particular commander did not let them do that. None of them. It has been buried among the commanders, too. And the time you were there, a lot of more about the early part of the war than later in the war. SM (02:41:47): Back in 1974, my very first job at High University of Lancaster campus, outside of Columbus, there was a Vietnam vet that had an office there. And I can remember that when they were hiring at the university, we were talking about affirmative action for African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Vietnam was not even an issue. KC (02:42:00): There was for Vietnam veterans, yeah. SM (02:42:00): Vietnam veterans are having a hard time sometimes getting a job because they were labeled. KC (02:42:00): They are still federally considered protected under federal law. Still protected. Equal opportunity protection. So those Vietnam veterans who absolutely deny the atrocity stuff you have to ask him, "Were you a grunt?" If you were not a grunt, you're probably not going to have had a chance to see any of this stuff. Well, they are sure did not happen anyway, but they wanted [inaudible] prior to the Vietnam war. SM (02:42:00): He was a little older. He had been in the service and very close to he and his friends. And I remember he was joking. Tell them the real story, how there were no POWs. And the POW stories and other issues, there is a brand-new book out now on POWs, that it has been a conspiracy all along that [inaudible]. America knows darn right that there are people over there. There are still people filing out. [inaudible]. KC (02:42:00): Always a ton of stuff coming. SM (02:42:00): How can you say there were no POWs [inaudible]. KC (02:42:00): I suspect it is horseshit. That does not sit right with those right-wingers. How can anybody want to say [inaudible]. SM (02:42:00): Thank you very, very much. KC (02:42:00): You are welcome. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Kenneth Campbell Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Campbell, Kenneth ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Political scientists; College teachers; University of Delaware; Campbell, Kenneth--Interviews Description An account of the resource <p>Dr. Kenneth Campbell is a scholar, reseacher and political scientist. Dr. Campbell is a Associate Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Relations at Universtiy of Delaware, and he is the author for several journal articles and a book titled <em>A Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam and the Hard Lessons of War</em>. He has a Bachelor's degree in History, as well as a Master's degree and Ph.D. in Political Science from Temple University.  Dr. Campbell served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War in 1968 and 1969 and received a Purple Heart for his bravery. Due to his expertise in international affairs, he has testified before Congress on the Iraq War. <br /><br /><br /><br /></p> 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 2002-07-14 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.10.2016.183a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.183b 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. 163:15 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/f904cd28f6fa6c08c389e0540fe5a0c3.jpg ca65acf60dc747a7d737dcdb774a156d https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a93884fd63c45cab873e3c6e6d3be1a5.mp3 ef38146f33475123de975a394f10f5b2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-03-16 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Michael Donnelly Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text Michael Donnelly is an environmental activist, author, and one of the founders of Friends of Opal Creek. Donnelly has been writing on environmental issues and stories focused on Native American and indigenous peoples in the northwest. He is a member of the American Indian Movement. Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; Vietnam War; Kent State shootings; Cultural changes; Shift away from religion; Michigan anti-war march, Environmental Movement; Native American/ American Indian Movement; John Trudell; Yippies; Students for a Democratic Society; Weathermen; Peace Corps."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Dr. Martin Luther King Jr; Vietnam War; Kent State shootings; Cultural changes; Shift away from religion; Michigan anti-war march, Environmental Movement; Native American/ American Indian Movement; John Trudell; Yippies; Students for a Democratic Society; Weathermen; Peace Corps.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 136:34 Subject LCSH Environmentalists; Authors, American--20th century; Indigenous peoples--United States; Donnelly, Michael--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Michael Donnelly Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 16 March 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): Testing one, two. Could you give me some background in terms of where you were born, your early influences in terms of the people who had the greatest impact on you, and any role models or heroes that inspired you when you were young? Because I know you are a very important activist on the environment. MD (00:00:27): Okay. I was born in Flint, Michigan, and I grew up in Flint, Michigan. And I guess the biggest important influence on me is the Catholic Church. From an Irish Catholic family, and went to Catholic schools through 12th grade, and I was in a Catholic seminary in Detroit, Michigan for 9th and 10th grade or seminary. And a lot of my early influences were people in the church. And I have the whole clan structure of our family. I had a lot of great influences, my grandparents and aunts and uncles and so on. And my dad was a huge influence on me. And he was a junior college English instructor and baseball coach who got his doctorate degree and eventually became president of the college and was pioneer of community colleges in the country. And he was, I guess you could call him a Roosevelt liberal type. SM (00:01:41): How did you end up going from Michigan to Oregon? MD (00:01:49): At Michigan State University I met my wife in grad school there. And she had gone to undergraduate school at Lewis and Clarke College in Portland. Before that though, when I was a junior in college in 1970, my dad was hired to set up the community college system for the whole state in Nevada. And so that was the first time. Yeah, he set up five colleges in seven years there. Now they have more students than the whole rest of the college system in the whole state. And so, the first time I ever saw the West was when I caught a plane, which was rare back in (19)70. I never caught any planes. But at Christmas break in a blizzard in Canton, Michigan... And then went off in Reno. The first time I had seen the West, and I loved it. So then when I met Nina, my wife, was [inaudible] college, she-she had grown up in Marin County, California, and we had come to Oregon. My God, Oregon. SM (00:02:53): Well, obviously this is the (19)60s and the (19)70s. MD (00:02:58): Yeah. SM (00:02:58): We are talking about here? And again, I got really a lot of specific questions, but there is also some broad ones too, and this is one of the broad ones. When you think of that time when you were in college, those experiences, I think you graduated from a community college and then you went off to Michigan State and then you were off to Oregon. Do you remember about those times? Was there something in those times that inspired you to become an activist or you just started seeing things with a bigger lens? MD (00:03:31): When I was young, I was growing up in inner city Flint, as it shifted from being white neighborhood to [inaudible], and that had a huge impact on me. And I got involved early on with the Urban Coalition, which was an attempt to bridge the racial divide in the area. I was one of the youngest people involved in it. When I was in the seminary, Dr. Martin Luther King came to Detroit and gave a speech, fabulous speech. SM (00:04:02): And you saw it? MD (00:04:03): Yeah, I saw it. SM (00:04:03): Oh, wow. You are live. Wow. MD (00:04:04): Yeah, so all of us seminarians, we made signs and we rolled out and joined all the neighbors and everybody, and we all walked downtown to see the speech. And that was pretty moving to me. I saw my first [inaudible]. SM (00:04:15): What year was that? MD (00:04:16): It was in (19)63. SM (00:04:17): Okay. MD (00:04:18): Three. Oh, no, it must have been (19)64. Because LBJ was president and Nicholas Katzenbach was the attorney general then. SM (00:04:29): Yes. MD (00:04:30): They were protesting though. And so that had a big impact on me. I grew up, part of my Catholic upbringing is being pushed into athletics. So athletics was really... For anything about athletics, the best thing about it was it broke down a lot of race barriers. [inaudible 00:04:52] A young guy, he wanted to play with the best athletes and did not matter to us what color you were. So I got involved that way. That was my first. SM (00:05:03): That you are the third only person of all the people I have interviewed outside the politicians who met him, but actually you saw him speak. How close were you to the stage or you were up in the audience someplace? How long did he speak? MD (00:05:20): He spoke I think at least an hour. And he was speaking from the steps of a church. And the crowd was just surrounding all the blocks all around there. I was probably a half a block away. I could barely see him, but they had speakers set up and you could hear. SM (00:05:40): Oh, so you heard the speakers then? MD (00:05:42): Yeah, I basically heard speakers. I could not really see any expressions. I could just see little tiny people up there. But it was incredible. SM (00:05:52): Yeah. I know about Flint because when I was at Ohio State, I went through Flint on the way to Oakland University. I think I had a friend there, that worked there, and I remember being in the bus station downtown Detroit and Flint, and I believe that is where, what's his name? Earvin, the great basketball player came from there. MD (00:06:17): Oh, Magic Johnson? SM (00:06:18): Yeah. Magic Johnson. Yeah. MD (00:06:21): He was from East Lansing. SM (00:06:22): Yeah, he was from the area. Okay. Now you are an athlete, you are in a Catholic school, now you are in a seminary. You saw the differences between black and white, which was one of the biggest issues of the day. And of course, Dr. King. As a young person, were you one of the youngest people that was as a white person involved in this? MD (00:06:42): Probably. Certainly when we set up the Urban Coalition in Flint, I was the youngest. I was certainly the youngest white person, and there were not that many white people at first you know. SM (00:06:53): What was the purpose of the Urban Coalition? MD (00:06:55): It was to try to try to just deal with the race disparity, calm things down. I mean, it was a rather dangerous time to be a teenager, whether you were black or white in a situation like that, because there was a lot of stuff going on. That is why I got involved in it, mostly cause of that. And then try to get local businesses to hire some of the young black guys in the neighborhood because there was just no jobs for most teenagers. And if you were black, you did not have a chance. SM (00:07:29): Right. We all know what happened when Dr. King was assassinated. All the things that happened in the cities was pretty sad. MD (00:07:40): We kept a [inaudible] on that. We had a huge memorial, and rally, and a march. And rioting did not break out in Flint. Then it did during the same time as Detroit Riot, though, so it got pretty scary then. But yeah, I think it worked out. SM (00:08:01): What were your thoughts at that time on the Vietnam War? Were you one of those individuals like I was? And the many that were subject to the draft? Or your number was high, or how did that work out? MD (00:08:14): Well first, when I first started hearing about Vietnam, it was actually, I was hearing about Laos because some of the older guys I know were going into the service and they were going to be sent to Laos. So, it was like, I did not know what Vietnam was at first. Then by the time I graduated high school in 1967, it was a pretty well-known thing. And then I went off to college and some of my friends enlisted, and a few of them came back wounded and had all kinds of stories. And then I was in the first draft lottery that year, 1970, and my number was number 32. SM (00:08:53): 32? MD (00:08:54): Yeah. SM (00:08:55): That is not good. MD (00:08:56): No. So I immediately got drafted, and so I applied for conscientious objector status at that time and still got drafted. And then I went through about, oh, from about mid-1970 to the end of (19)72, where I was just in the back and forth battle with the draft board. And I had to appear before the draft board. My argument [inaudible] any type to begin with. And then after about, I was, what did I call it? My draft status went to 1AO. 1AO. Objector. And they kept telling me that they were going to find a spot from me to where I could work alternative service, dealing with finding wounded guy's hospital facilities near their hometowns. And about two or three times that was getting it and started in the process, and that just never happened. And then all of a sudden out of the blue, they just discharged me. SM (00:10:10): Wow. MD (00:10:11): I guess it was they had enough of me. One of my uncles, my dad's brother, Dr. Bill Donley, he was a pediatrician in Pontiac, Michigan, and he was one of the people that, he was a role model to me because he was involved in the open housing movement in early days. [inaudible] suburban pediatrics practice. So he just opened up an inner city one. But he also, he was a World War II Navy officer, and he was totally opposed to the war, and he was involved with the people that put on the moratorium, and he was also involved with the bunch doctors that were helping people get medical deferment. SM (00:10:58): Oh, wow. And yeah, the moratorium, I think was (19)69, I think, if I remember. MD (00:10:58): Yeah. He had been involved helping on that. He was a great guy. And my dad too. My dad was one of the first college presidents that telegraphed LBJ to end the war. SM (00:11:14): Well, that is something I want to hear about. Because your dad was involved in the community college system in Colorado? MD (00:11:22): Nevada. SM (00:11:23): Nevada. And he was the president of what now? MD (00:11:26): Well, he worked his way up from being an English teacher and baseball coach. He is another World War II vet that used the GI bill to further his education. And then he became the president of Flint Junior College. And then that was at the point when community colleges were being invented. And he and Charles Stewart Mott. Know who he is? SM (00:11:52): Charles... No, I do not. MD (00:11:54): He was the top shareholder in General Motors. He has got foundations that have outlived him, and he was a very instrumental guy. He was a person that is a role model. He's one of the greatest philanthropists ever in my mind. And he was totally loyal to Flint. He served as mayor for seven years, and he had an instrumental role in getting the sit-down strike settled peacefully. And the union being recognized, and General Motors being the top corporation [inaudible] over 40 years. But he also, he and a friend of his, Frank Manley, are the guys that invented community schools. And it started in Flint. And so, when [inaudible] community colleges, [inaudible] called Mott Community College, donated the land for it, and shook down all of his industrial cronies for money to build the college. And he and my dad were partners on that. And then in 1970, Nevada wanted to get a college, [inaudible]. Howard Hughes knew CS Mott, so CS Mott recommended my dad. Howard Hughes gave a $250,000 donation. And that is how the community college system in Nevada got started. SM (00:13:07): Oh my gosh. That was around the time he was, was that when he was kind of hibernating? And the whole... MD (00:13:12): Oh, yeah. My dad never, ever met him. He went through intermediaries. But these industrial philanthropists saw the potential of community college. Then my dad, because of that... He was the President of the Association of Community College Presidents and helped get them accredited all over the country. He traveled the country getting community colleges set up. SM (00:13:40): Wow. That is a very important phenomenon during the time when boomers were young. Because I actually went to a community college for two years, Broome Community College in Binghamton. And then I went to Binghamton University to get my history degree, and then I went off to Ohio State. But I know how important community colleges were because it was an excellent education for less money. MD (00:14:06): Oh, yeah. SM (00:14:07): Now your dad sent a letter off to the president. Did he ever get a response? MD (00:14:14): I do not think he did. He sent a couple different tele... the only reason I know that, is there is this famous incident when students took over his office, the president's office about the war. And my dad just opened up his door and he said, "Hey, look, I have already sent the telegrams. Here you go." But he was ahead of them. SM (00:14:38): Now, obviously you are an activist today. We are going to get into that about the environment and the forests and everything. But now you are not an activist yet. You are a very involved person. You are working together, bringing people together, and then going off to college and everything. What did you think of the anti-war people that you saw on your college campuses? MD (00:15:04): At the community college there was not a whole lot of activity, though the Chicago Convention, sure amped that up. The (19)68 convention. And quite a few of the people that were active in the anti-war movement were people that I'd gone to Catholic school with. And so I liked them and they were able to reach me pretty easily. But when I went off to Michigan State, it really got amped up. Because Kent State happened during that time and all sorts of stuff. The invasion of Cambodia. I should say, that also was a very interesting event in Flint that I went to. The SDS, the Weathermen, when the Weathermen broke off from the SDS, they held a thing called the War Council in Flint, right before they went underground. And they rented this place in the inner city, one of the black clubs, and they had this event. So I and a few of my friends went down to it. And that was an eyeopener. That was something totally different than any of us had ever thought about. SM (00:16:08): Explain what happened there. MD (00:16:11): They basically ranted and raved and ranted and raved and called for armed insurrection. That is, it basically. And I do not know, I am way too much of a pacifist for that. I was completely shocked by that. SM (00:16:30): That was Bernardine Dohrn was not it? She was the president, I think. MD (00:16:34): Yeah, she was there. I think Mark Rudd [inaudible]. SM (00:16:37): Yeah, and Mark Rudd. And there were... MD (00:16:40): Quite a few people there. SM (00:16:41): Her husband too, I think was in that group. Bernardine Dohrn. MD (00:16:45): Yeah. It was very strange. And I remember that one of the more radical inner city churches, Sacred Heart Church, allowed all these people to sleep in their gym and this and that. Anyway, so that was the way more radical fringe as an anti-war movement. And then I went off to Michigan State. There was a very big movement, but there was a lot of infighting going on because of the, you know, you had your Marxist wing, you had your pacifist wing. I had gone to a few organizing meetings for demonstrations, and I just could not deal with it. I do not know what it was. It was just too much of an intellectual exercise and a lot of people making points and self-aggrandizing and so on. I went to these major anti-war rallies that were going on during that time. And then the student strike in 1970 took place there, and there were thousands of students out the street. Took over the main thoroughfares and cut off traffic, and fought it out with the cops there too. The people did. And there was a lot of tear gas craziness. But by that time, things were getting pretty polarized. It carved out strong positions on the war. And of course that was before I got drafted. But by the time I was drafted, I was thoroughly opposed to the war. SM (00:18:20): Now you were there through (19)71? MD (00:18:23): Yes. SM (00:18:24): It is interesting because I was at Ohio State in (19)71, (19)72, and I remember one of my friends at Ohio State's best friend was in grad school at Michigan State. And we drove there, and as we were coming into the campus, we were asked to get out of the car. They thought we were infiltrators, right? MD (00:18:41): [inaudible] SM (00:18:42): And that was in the (19)71, so it was still happening there, and the students were on the streets protesting and everything. MD (00:18:50): Yeah, it was a big deal because Michigan State University has a huge police science academy there, and they were training [inaudible] for the South Vietnamese for a while. And so people really wanted to shut that down. So, I think it was pretty polarized. SM (00:19:08): These interviews are all about you and all the people I interview because I get into the basic questions that I ask everybody, but it is the personal stuff that is most important to me. During your years there at Michigan State, whether it was two years or whatever, you obviously saw the protests and went to the protests, but were there any great speakers who came in to address the campus that you saw? Any programs that you went to that had really an impact on your life? MD (00:19:38): Yeah. Senator Wayne Morse came to the Michigan State. SM (00:19:41): Big time. MD (00:19:42): And he was one of the only two people to vote against the war. So we made all these signs, Wayne Morse for president, and we went. He was... That was highly impressive to me. SM (00:19:54): He is from Oregon. MD (00:19:55): I know. Maybe one reason I came here, I do not know. That and Ken Kesey. SM (00:20:01): Right. MD (00:20:01): And my wife, of course. So, I think Wayne Morse was probably the greatest speaker I saw at address the war. SM (00:20:12): Did he speak in a gym, or in a room? MD (00:20:18): It was a, like a theater kind of performing arts hall, probably 3000 people. SM (00:20:26): Was it an evening or daytime program? MD (00:20:27): An evening, yeah. SM (00:20:29): Was it tense? MD (00:20:29): It was right by my dorm, so it was pretty easy. SM (00:20:32): So it was packed? Was he the only speaker? Did he have a Q&A too after he spoke? MD (00:20:42): No, he did not. But another time I saw Dick Gregory speak, he did have a Q&A after. SM (00:20:47): Oh, he is another big one. MD (00:20:48): And he was another really good one that influenced me. I was really impressed by him. SM (00:20:54): And what was, if you can remember, it has been a while, but I remember all my speakers too in college. What was the main thrusts of Senator Morse's speech? MD (00:21:06): Basically that the war was illegal and needed to end immediately, and it violated all American principles and democratic principles. And he just laid it out simply that I think he's the first person I heard ever say that, that Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese had used our constitution as their model. SM (00:21:33): Which is true. MD (00:21:35): Yeah, I believe that is true. I have always been told it was true, because I heard Senator Wayne Morse say it was true. SM (00:21:41): And also he admired Thomas Jefferson. He was a big Jefferson fan. MD (00:21:46): Oh, yeah. SM (00:21:47): Truman missed an opportunity there. MD (00:21:52): Yeah. SM (00:21:53): How about, were there any bands or performers that you saw during those years at Michigan State that were? MD (00:22:00): Oh, yeah, there was. I saw all kinds of musicians and performers that were in that time. But I think the ones that were the most political were, I saw the Jefferson Airplane and John Sebastian. Along with a number of other groups in an outdoor concert. And they hammered away at it. They had a decided anti-war platform they were putting out. SM (00:22:30): When Kent State happened, your school was still in session, correct? MD (00:22:34): Yes. SM (00:22:35): How did you guys find out about it? MD (00:22:38): Oh, it spread like wildfire through the dorms and to the college. Lots of misinformation too. I mean, the misinformation had police getting killed and all sorts of stuff. So it took a little while to figure it all out. First we all went and hit the TV to find out what was going on. And I think it was almost just immediately there was a huge protest. Calls for [inaudible] strike. SM (00:23:07): And did your school shut down early because of it? MD (00:23:12): The school kept going. The student’s kind of forced the strike. SM (00:23:16): Okay. MD (00:23:17): Students took over the administration building. The police came. It was a wild time. I think it was more of a voluntary, it was voluntary. Whether you abided by the strike or not, the school kept going. SM (00:23:32): Who was the president of Michigan State then? Do you remember? MD (00:23:35): I cannot remember. SM (00:23:37): Because that person [inaudible] MD (00:23:40): Right. I cannot believe I cannot remember his name. He was the first black president, you know? I could undoubtedly look it up. SM (00:23:51): Yeah. But those were sometimes, I will tell you. What do you think when you think of the (19)60s? And again, I say the (19)60s went right until about (19)73, (19)74, because... What do you think were the watershed moments that, in your opinion? When did the (19)60s begin in your eyes? MD (00:24:18): I think they probably began with the assassination of President Kennedy. That opened up a lot of peoples' eyes to hey, things are not quite what they seem. SM (00:24:29): And when did you feel personally in your life that the (19)60s had ended? MD (00:24:40): I do not think they have, in the sense that, I think the major contribution of the (19)60s was a rise in consciousness. A willingness of people to challenge the dominant paradigm, and to figure it out on their own without some authorities interpreting. And being the middle man and what reality is, and I think that was blasted out forever by the (19)60s. That was a big peak. SM (00:25:12): Is there one, you have already mentioned quite a few that could have had an impact on you. Is there one event that had the greatest impact on you personally when you were young? MD (00:25:33): Yeah. The funny thing is, I think it is LBJ's resignation. SM (00:25:38): Explain your reasoning for that. MD (00:25:41): Because I felt it was the first time that the government was held accountable. That [inaudible] the government was acting badly, and the person behind it all was going to take the fall for it. It was something that all of us really wanted to see, and it actually happened. SM (00:26:03): What do you think, when we are talking about boomers, at least one third of the people I have interviewed are not boomers? They were born before (19)46. But when you think of the 1950s, we are talking now about the (19)60s, but in the (19)50s, the boomers were really in elementary school. Well, they were in... Post-war, of course, they were in diapers in the first five years. And then because in the (19)50s, they were in elementary school or beginnings of junior high. Your thoughts on, what was it about the (19)50s that created the (19)60s in your view? MD (00:26:49): Oh, maybe rock and roll. I mean, things were starting to shift. There was rise of... The cultural stuff was changing. Rhythm and blues was happening. Black culture was getting more play. It existed. The big part of it, I think, I think there was a cultural shift that was starting in the (19)50s. So I was kind of completely ensconced in the Catholic Church. I still feel that the reverberations going on around that things are starting to change. SM (00:27:33): Well, you're talking about going to the Catholic Church. You know, the (19)50s, one of the observations we find is that many of the boomer children are going to church, synagogue. They were going every Sunday. And then as we got to the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, that was not happening anymore. Many were not going. They went inside themselves more. Like the spirituality changed. And that was part of the communal movement too. But your thoughts on just, if you're devout Catholic, just what happened to the attendance and why it all of a sudden, fewer were going to church as they got older? MD (00:28:19): Well, I think the Catholic Church got on the wrong side of the two greatest moral issues of the day. And one was population, and the other is the war. I think they were on the wrong side of it, and I think they lost a lot of credibility. I do not think they ever recovered. I was taught, when I was applying for my conscientious objector status, I met with Monsignor Sheridan, who had been my pastor all my life. He pushed me into the seminary and everything. And while he agreed with me that I was a conscientious objector, he was going on and on about, "But do not you realize we're over there in Vietnam defending the Catholics from the north?" And then he closed with a rant about abortion. It was like... I mean, it was clearly, there was a shift that took place that the church was on the wrong side of. When I went into the seminary in the early (19)60s, John Kennedy was President, a Catholic president. John Paul the 23rd was Pope, a very popular Pope. Church was in a heyday. And there were 242 guys in my freshman class. And four years later, only 14 graduated. And a big shift took place right there in the middle of the (19)60s. And I think that the church was not very forceful on civil rights either. They should have taken a much bigger lead than that, I think. SM (00:29:45): Yeah. I can remember my grandfather was a Methodist minister, so we went every Sunday. And then I went off to school and it was more logistics than anything else for me. But there was something about the messages also within the church. This is just my thoughts on your thoughts. The messages in the (19)50s within the churches was... They were just moral messages or they were more simple messages. They were not worldwide messages. And Dr. King was such a rare breed because he was talking about, the black ministers were talking about justice in their churches. And I am not sure if the white churches were, or the synagogues. I do not know what they were doing. And so, the social conscience became part of the message of many of the religious leaders as we go into the (19)60s. And at the same time that was happening, more and more young people were not going to church or synagogue or... I find it ironic that that was actually happening. Just your thoughts on that? Is my observation, right? MD (00:30:59): Yeah, but I think the individual ministers and priests and rabbis were... there was the Berrigan wing of the Catholic Church. But then you have your right-wing wing too, that was sporting the status quo. And social justice did not really matter, even across the radar. And it became, to me, it just seemed like it was exclusionary and elitist that the church became. That all this stuff was going on that had a huge real-world impact. There were very moral issues and the church was not addressing them, or if it was, it was getting on the wrong side. And that is what blew me out of it. SM (00:31:47): The one minister that seems to have been a constant through all this was Billy Graham. He seemed to be an important voice no matter when, throughout the last 50 years. So, he is one of the rare constants. The boomers have been thought of as also the TV generation. Were you influenced by TV? It certainly brought the Vietnam War home in the (19)60s, but what were your thoughts on the TV of the (19)50s? The black and white television shows? MD (00:32:17): I was not so much into TV, and I think it might have been because of the sports. And I did not watch a whole lot of TV. I cannot remember. I'd watch Soupy Sales when I was a kid, and the cartoon shows, and the Three Stooges, things like that. SM (00:32:33): You were not a Musketeer fan? MD (00:32:36): Nah, not really. Did not watch much of that. I do not know. My parents were, they were fairly strict around that stuff. I could not watch stuff like Gunsmoke or anything like that. SM (00:32:48): Oh, okay. Yeah. All the westerns. MD (00:32:50): Yeah, they would not allow that. And so I never watched much on TV other than sports. And then I really started getting into watching the news. Walter Cronkite I really liked to watch. [inaudible] SM (00:33:04): Yeah. Was that back, you mentioned that important event where Johnson decided not to run as being the probably the most important events in your life. Well, Walter Cronkite, he made a comment about Walter Cronkite. "Well, if Walter Cronkite's against the war, so that is all over for me." Or something like that. MD (00:33:26): In fact, I watched that. Johnson's basic resignation speech with my dad. And my dad, it really bothered him because Johnson had been so good for community colleges. He was so good on so many things, the great society programs and everything. And the war just undid him. SM (00:33:46): I am asking, where were you when you first heard John Kennedy was killed? MD (00:33:51): I was in the seminary. I was in class. All of a sudden, we got told that we had to go to assembly in the main assembly hall. They did not tell us why. And then everybody went over there and they began with a prayer. And then one of the priests came up and said that the president had been shot and he was in the hospital and we were going to pray for him and so on. And then even before that assembly got over, we were told that he was dead and that they were arranging, calling our parents to come and us take us home for a few days. SM (00:34:21): All right. Do you remember where you were when you heard about Martin Luther King's death? MD (00:34:31): Yes. Yeah, I was in Flint. I was at home at the time. That is when I was in, yeah. SM (00:34:41): Did they break into the TV or just radio or? MD (00:34:45): Yeah, I heard, yeah, it was all TV. It just came out all over the TV. SM (00:34:52): And how about the Bobby Kennedy assassination two months later to the day? MD (00:34:57): I was watching TV when that happened. I was watching it. Yeah, I was... MD (00:35:03): I was watching it. Yeah, 1968 probably was the most influential year in my life. I have to say that. There's so many things happened. I mean, you had Dr. King, Robert Kenned, you had the Chicago convention and just everything just blew up. SM (00:35:23): Ted was that year, too. MD (00:35:29): That is what happened. It was mind boggling. I mean, it was such a shift from the quiet 50 and growing up in Flint. SM (00:35:37): Did you ever think, some people have said that outside of the Civil War, this was the most conflicted period in American history, that we were close to a second civil war. Some people made those comments. Do you believe that? MD (00:35:54): Yes, I do believe that. And I mean, there was the racial tinder box that going on, and there was just, like I said, you had these radicals on the anti-war side that were willing to blow stuff up, had people on the other side who were awful, and there were movies that were glorifying the people who were pro-war and opposed all the poor hippies and stuff. And then of course, we had Merle Haggard song, Muskogee, even though that was the satire, some people took it seriously. So it was polarizing things. There was intentional polarization going on. And one of the things I witnessed that really had an impact on me is when I was at Michigan State, and I think it was 1969, there was a big anti-war march down to the state capitol in Lansing. And some guy driving, they had three lanes blocked off with the marches, and they were trying to get the traffic on the other lanes. And some guy just went crazy. And he just drove his car right into the crowd, even hit a motorcycle cop that I just was talking to, right by me. And I know I was just in shock. I was broken down in tears on the side of the road. I did not believe that. SM (00:37:17): Were any students really hurt? MD (00:37:19): A number of people got hurt, nobody got killed. The cop had a couple broken legs and a few other things. And then of course, some people just went crazy and started pounding and beating on the guy's car. And the police came and dragged him off. SM (00:37:33): Was he drunk or was he just did not like the protestors? MD (00:37:36): Did not like the protest. He just lost it. He snapped. And so, I could see where it has been real close, the people being pushed to start a civil war. There was always people that were, "We got to get guns, we got to get weapons, we got to be prepared and that." There was that whole faction always, but most people did not take that seriously. Yeah, I do not know. But I do think that people intentionally polarized the situation. SM (00:38:10): This question oftentimes is difficult to answer, but we are talking about 78 million people here who are the Boomer generation in which you are one. One of the criticisms, there's actually been a couple, but one of the criticisms of the generation is that, well, only 15 percent were ever involved in any kind of activism. 85 percent, just like anybody else, they did not do anything, just went on with their lives. But when you look at the 15 percent, that is a pretty big number out of 78 million. But just your thoughts on the Boomer generation, and maybe I am commenting on the 15 percent of the activist because it's hard to generalize on everybody. What do you think were some of the strengths and weaknesses of your generation? MD (00:38:58): Well, I think the greatest strength was the willingness to challenge the dominant paradigm, the accepted definitions of reality. And I think that goes on through today. Willingness to step outside of the status quo and take some risks that way. That I think that is probably the greatest strength of the whole Boomer generation. I think we had a more collective view, a collectivist view of the world that we are all in it together, it is not just me against the world or you and me against the world, and we are all in this together. I think that came about. I think the boundaries of community went from the local neighborhood to the state, to the country to encompass the whole world. And I think that brought about in our generation. That was a big strength, actually. SM (00:40:05): I know that politicians like Newt Gingrich and commentators like George Will, oftentimes when they get a chance, they take a shot at the (19)60s generation or that era in the (19)60s and (19)70s is the reason why we have a lot of problems in our society today. I know Newt Gingrich talked about this when he came into power in (19)94. He may run for president again, by the way. There is rumors that he may run against Obama. MD (00:40:32): Well, there is one of the problems with our generation. There is a lot of self-absorbed self-promoters. And I see that as undermining a lot of the good our generation has done. SM (00:40:46): Can you give some more examples of that? MD (00:40:49): Oh yeah. The whole nonprofit sector is just filled with people who are self-promoters. They attach themselves to a cause and it is not necessarily that it is their deep-seated beliefs in the cause of the matter. It is just a way for them to rise their star. And I have noticed that dramatically in the environmental movement. I have written about that a lot. And I think it kind of permeates non-profit culture, which is something that pretty much is a child of our generation too. Did not really exist until this much. And I do not know I what you do, I have been fighting that forever in the environmental movement with a lot of people, is how do you keep the issue being the main focus and not people's personalities and their need to lead or at least pretend that they are leading some movement and this and that. And that was going on in the peace movement too. And I just do not know. I think that may be our greatest weakness as a generation is we have not figured out how to deal with the self-promoters that undermine us. SM (00:41:58): You raised a good point here because obviously when you think about the environmental... I see that in other issues beyond the environment and also about politicians who latch onto an issue. And that is why Senator McCarthy is always in question. He was obviously deserving of what happened in 1968, but then all of a sudden he just dropped out. I know Bobby Kennedy was killed. But your thoughts on in Earth Day, which was a monumental happening on the 22nd of April in 1970, were you at the first Earth Day? MD (00:42:32): Yeah, I went to something at Michigan State University. There was some kind of tree planting ceremony and people playing Frisbee and flying kites and so on, and talking about the environment. SM (00:42:43): Well, I know the Earth Day in Washington it was just unbelievable. I know Dennis Hayes, who I have interviewed for this book, and of course Gaylord Nelson, he's passed away, but he was the former senator of Wisconsin. They were the two leaders of Earth Day. I think it was actually Gaylord Nelson's idea. And of course, he sat down with the anti-war movement to make sure that we are not challenging your anti-war movement, so there was a working there. But your thoughts on people like Dennis Hayes, who has been involved in this for his whole life, and certainly Gaylord Nelson, who was the senator who is the father of Earth Day, and he has done unbelievable things in Wisconsin. I went to his funeral and I cannot believe what he did there for the environment in Wisconsin. He seemed like the real deal. MD (00:43:36): Yeah, I really liked Earth Day. I wish we would get more in tune with the rest of the world. But the UN on the spring equinox is coming up this weekend, northern hemisphere, and the fall equinox in the southern hemisphere. I wish we were more in tune with the rest of the world on that. But obviously Earth Day is a great event and overdue. And of course it needs to be Earth Day every day. But I personally have some bad feelings toward [inaudible] so I do not know if it should go into that. SM (00:44:08): Me, I got to turn my tape here too. Can you hold on one sec? Individuals. I respect everybody's views. And of course I know Rachel Carson was another one, even though she's passed on. She was kind of a God. And I read her book and I do not think she was into self-promotion. She was just a great writer. MD (00:44:32): No, Rachel Carson was one of my all-time hero. Without a doubt. Her book influenced me a lot. My thing with Hayes, back in 1993 after Clinton was elected, and I was one of the people that was instrumental in starting the ancient forest protection movement. And Clinton was coming out here to hold a forest summit, as he called it. And so obviously there was going to be only a few people that had been on the summit. If there were thousands and thousands of actors that we had actually mobilized in order to get that issue made into a national issue. Which is one of my piece with institutional environmentalism today, they think that mailing lists and sign on letters constitutes activism. To me, it is mobilizing people. So it came to me. We had a big meeting of activists down the national park that when this happened, Portland, we need to throw a free concert and rally and get people there. And so, I drew up a plan for that. I started to shop. I was the vice president of the Oregon Natural Resources Council at the time, which was the statewide coalition. And so I drew up the plan, the proposal, and started shopping around everybody work, get the money to do this. And then I know some musicians, Baby Boomer musicians. So we contacted Carol King and Kenny Loggins and Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Brown. And I said, "Okay, are you guys into this? You are willing to help, da-da-da-da-da." Okay. And finally, Dennis Hayes, through the Bullet Foundation, got involved. And I got pitched overboard as well as most of the activists. And when the final day came, 70,000 people showed up. It was the biggest political rally in the history of Oregon. They surpassed this recently when Barack Obama came during the campaign. And it was incredible. And Neil Young, all sorts, David Crosby. SM (00:46:39): Oh, wow. You got them. I know how difficult they are to get anywhere. MD (00:46:43): Oh, I know. They were on our side. And so, then I have a friend who is, he is now the editor of Autobahn Magazine. At the time, he was one of the editors at Time Magazine, David Seidman. He had written a book about our efforts at Opal Creek called Showdown at Opal Creek. And so he came out to the rally and got to interview Neil Young and everybody. But Dennis Hayes went up and spoke to the people about the issue, which he was not really involved in. And then he actually had one of his minions tell David Seidman that the whole idea for the concert had come to him in a green dream that he had. And I am telling you, there is a paper trail as to where the idea came from. And so, David, of course, told me that, could not believe it either. So, part of me wonders what poor hippie Dennis Hayes stole the Earth Day idea from. SM (00:47:43): Well, I think it was Gaylord Nelson. MD (00:47:44): I know. SM (00:47:45): Yeah. Because Gaylord was the one that really came up with the idea. But he was also big anti-war. And he knew it could cost him his senatorial position, and he lost his senatorial position. MD (00:47:58): Well, anyway, that that is the sour taste in my mouth. And the fact that Clinton came out here and he restarted ancient forest logging, we had it stopped with an injunction and he got it be going now was the upshot of his. Well, the whole thing is in the history of our activist context, it is not that great. SM (00:48:18): But you are, when you hear the Gingrich's and the Wills make those comments about the Boomer generation, because he is referring to the increase in the divorce rate, the drug culture, all these negative things that he thinks had been gone into society. And even Barney Frank wrote a book called Speaking Frankly, and he was Mr. Democrat, who said that the Democratic party and McGovern had to get away from those kinds of people if they wanted to survive as a party. And he wrote that in the early (19)90s. Just your thoughts on those kinds of comments. They happen all the time. MD (00:48:56): Well, like I say, there are a lot of self-promoters that have had fairly free reign. There does not seem to be any way to check and balance them. So, I can see where there is a legitimate criticism there. The things that you were talking about specifically, Will bringing up the rise in the divorce rate. Well, I would say the dominant paradigm around relationships has totally shifted in my lifetime. It used to be that people got together and they stayed together even if they hated each other. SM (00:49:29): That is the (19)50s. MD (00:49:31): And then now you have this serial monogamy thing where people are with someone until death do your part. But that means the death of the relationship. And I do not know. I see a lot of people are not satisfied that either. So, I think we are still working on that one. SM (00:49:49): What are your thoughts? A lot of the Boomers thought they were the most unique generation in American history. When you hear people say that, what are your thoughts? MD (00:49:59): Oh, I just think that... SM (00:50:04): Because they were going to change the world, they were going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, bring peace to the world. That was the communal, the community feeling back. MD (00:50:15): Yeah. I feel like we had great ideals. Often, we were not very practical or pragmatic in carrying them out. And then a lot of times I think that we're up against such an established order that it is pretty hard to carry any of that out. I think that any of the positive changes that have happened have happened because of pressure. I do not think that power changes without pressure and cultural things do not change either without pressure. I always thought that it is a conceit that we are somehow the most unique generation. I mean I look at what my parents and my in-laws, that generation, the World War II generation was phenomenal. You look back, how about the people of the time of the Civil War. I mean, some it is apples and oranges things too. Each generation has to react to the challenges that happen during their lifetime. And some of them have. SM (00:51:24): What are the things that we have to admit though about this era? The times that Boomers, when I say they are young, I am talking about really the (19)50s, the (19)60s, the (19)70s, and the (19)80s. I mean, I am talking about people in their 20s, 30s, and early 40s, because people are still young then. When you look at the period of all the movements, because obviously the civil rights movement was ongoing from the (19)50s. And the other movements learned from that movement, including the anti-war movement. And I have talked to people in the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano movement, the Native American movement, Blacks movement, Black power movement, and certainly the environmental movement. These are all very important. And there seem to be a sense of community within these groups so that if, for example, an environmental protest was happening, these other groups were there. The winds movement too. And I do not know if there is a camaraderie anymore between these groups. They all still exist in some way. But what has happened to the movement? MD (00:52:34): There has been more fragmentation there. And some of that I attribute to identity politics where people were so tied to their own identity thing that they cannot jump out of it enough and keep the connection with people in other things. And sometimes that just gets stirred. I have been involved with the American Indian movement too all along. I forgot to mention that. And so that is a huge part of the environmental movement still. SM (00:53:12): Did you go into that relationship, because I talked to Paul Chaat Smith on Washington. He wrote a book on the American Indian movement. And the American Indian movement heyday was (19)69 to (19)73. Those are four very powerful years. But I think it is very important, just what you said, the linkage between the Native American movement and the environmental movement. Expound on that, please. MD (00:53:34): Okay. Well obviously, there is some romanticism toward Native Americans and they live in harmony with the land and everything else. But in reality, most Native American cultures have a spiritual and social viewpoint that you do treat the earth as primary. So that fit right in. Some of my friends in the American Indian movement, John Trudel and Calvin Akaka and others clearly have an environmental views and have always been there and been on the side of the environment. It is always there. It is still there. The Native American movement, of course, that had a heyday and it kind is not officially any movement anymore. But people were there. And a lot of the people, some Boomers too, we are all same. And I think that is always been there. The threat of the land based on Native lands that Native people will control. And sacred lands that are now public lands that are being... So there's this natural symbiosis. There's an environmental law conference called the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference at the University of Oregon. It is the oldest one in the world, was out of Europe. And always there is a huge contingent of Native Americans that come and speak and are welcome. And I heard a whole gathering of Native elders talking about all the problems on the reservations and what's going on. And they are actually using the term extinction now to describe what's happened to their culture. I have never heard that used that before. SM (00:55:22): This is in the last couple years? MD (00:55:24): Just in the last couple years. SM (00:55:25): That is sad. MD (00:55:29): Yeah, I know. So that bond is there, that connection is there. It is tough because it is a different culture. And my grandfather's half [inaudible], and so was his mother and his father. And even though I was not raised in that culture at all, and my great-grandmother got forced to move to Oklahoma when she was a kid, but I did get to know her because she lived to 99. And so, I have an interest in it that way, but I am not from that culture. But maybe it's because I grew up being a minority in the minor neighborhood. I do not have that much of a problem. I can understand the various different cultures, but there is a lot of ways where white people just despite being just unconscious and insensitive, are awfully to Native people, even when they are on the same side. So, there is that friction, but the movement is there. The other movements involved, that I see the connections with, the radical environmental movement has been fragmented by the identity politics stuff. People who, for them being transgendered or the bisexual, gay, lesbian or even some other identity, whatever they got, hardcore women's movement, this and that. And they want to bring all the social justice issues to the forefront of the environmental issue. And it hamstrings the movement when you bring the movements together. And then the one movement only will participate if their cause is primary. SM (00:57:16): Yeah. You mentioned too, and I read something on the web that even groups like the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club are who are, well, for the environment, obviously but they're afraid of non-violent protest. MD (00:57:32): Yes. SM (00:57:33): Even if the goal is nature. now, that is amazing because Gaylord Nelson was a lawyer for the Wilderness Society for many, many years until he passed. Could you say a little bit, why is it that these I guess the main line or mainstream environmental groups have issues with this? I think they would be praising. MD (00:57:57): I think it boils right down to the fact that they are preachers of the Democratic party and of the foundations that kill their coffers. And those entities are status quo entities. And so, they do not want to risk their access as they call it. Whether meaningful or not, they want to have access to politicians. And they also, of course do not want to risk their bottom line of their grant portfolios. So, it is one of those things follow the money, follow the power. It has been going on a long time. There's numerous books written it. There was an article in the Nation just last week about it. Jonathan Hari, H-A-R-I. SM (00:58:38): Oh, I subscribe to the Nation now. I think I have the issue. I have not read it yet. MD (00:58:42): Okay. It is called The Wrong Kind of Green. And Counterpunch has been writing about it for years. Jeffrey St. Clair wrote a book called Been Brown So Long It Looked Like Green To Me. SM (00:58:57): Oh wow. It was interesting because Gaylord Nelson was a lawyer at Wilderness for golly, God in a long time. But I took students to see him and all he talked about was the environment with the students, all the other issues... He kept saying, "Okay, we got problems between different cultures and different races, okay, but none of us would be here if we do not have an environment." Now, Gaylord Nelson to me was such a rare breed. And when he came to our campus twice, he talked about the fact of overpopulation. He kept saying this overpopulation is a big issue. And I am not sure if a lot of people were listening to him. He was kind of a guy out there... MD (00:59:43): Oh, you cannot get the big environmental groups to touch overpopulation with a 10-foot fall now. SM (00:59:49): That was one of the central pieces of his life. MD (00:59:53): Yeah. Yeah. I think what happens is these organizations, once they get, as a friend of mine once said, once an organization gains a life of its own, it will go down hard just like any other life form. And they become ossified. They have to maintain their empire, an empire building. The interest of the institution become primary over the cause. SM (01:00:20): Right. MD (01:00:22): And then that is the drawback in [inaudible]. SM (01:00:23): Did you have a generation gap between you and your parents? MD (01:00:28): I had a little bit of one. SM (01:00:30): What were the main issues between... The main issues? MD (01:00:34): Oh, mine were probably around the Catholic church. And I mean we were pretty much in agreement on the war. We were definitely in agreement on race. We were one of the last white families in the neighborhood. Everybody just disappeared. And my parents were not about to do that. So I guess the gap was more social stuff. Of course I was into experimenting with pot. After I was done with my athletic stuff. I was one of those classic your body is your temple. I did not even drink anything until I was 21. SM (01:01:16): Did you see amongst your friends that they were having issues with their parents? MD (01:01:20): Oh yeah. A lot of them were just totally at odds with their parents. SM (01:01:29): Yeah, obviously that was one of the main characteristics of that period. What are your thoughts, I know you cannot talk about 78 million people, but the Boomers that you have known in your life, do you think they have been good parents and good grandparents? And I say this, number one, have they shared the experiences of when they were young and do you think their kids were listening to them? And number two, have they kept their idealism or have majority of them you think moved on like all other generations? They go raised families, make money and survival and security's number one over ideals. MD (01:02:11): I think we may have been a more indulgent generation as parents in that we hover around kids more, are more protective. When I was a kid, I was outside all the time, running up and down the streets doing whatever, carrying on. And then I see my generation being way more protective of, was the other kid. Of course now with their grandkids. And I do not know, I think there was more of that kind of my generation, people who get a kid and they treated was the first child born in the Western world. There was too much of that in our generation, I think. And that can lead to self-absorbed people. SM (01:03:03): It is a term that I love and that is the word activism, but it is just me. I have this perception that universities did not learn from the activism of the students from the (19)60s and (19)70s, just like maybe they did not learn from the students of the 1930s that were very active on college campuses. As someone said to me, no matter what era, they are always going to be afraid of activists. But do you feel that the universities are afraid of student activism today on university campuses for fear that it may be similar to what transpired in the (19)60s and early (19)70s or where there was disruption? And of course, in this day and age, there's so many things wrong with our society that money's the bottom line that they cannot have activism because it could threaten the money flow. MD (01:04:03): I definitely think that is part of it. I was talking about that public interest environmental law conference at the University of Oregon. It used to be way more activist oriented and now it is more about collaboration with industry. And a lot of that is tied to big donors and corporations in the state leaning on the president of the university to tone it down. And they did. So, I have seen that work. It's hard to know. I know quite a few young people in their 20s that have come out of the university system that are activists. So, I think it is still happening, educating people and people making the right choices and trying to make change on the world look better and trying to keep having a collective view of the planet. But I do think that university has got scared off a bit. And I know I go to the universities now and it is all about building the buildings and it is all that kind of stuff. SM (01:05:14): But see, volunteerism is very important. I would be one to say that probably over 90 percent of college students are involved in volunteer of some sort. Some has required within fraternities and sororities and certain organizations. But then a lot of them do it on their own. MD (01:05:33): Well, I think that is key. SM (01:05:35): But see, that is volunteerism. But I have always been a believer that activism is the step beyond volunteerism, which is activism is more 24/7 or as volunteerism might be two to four hours a week or something like that. Your thoughts on that thought? MD (01:05:51): Well, I think that real successful activism is carried out by volunteers, people that are volunteering to do something because it is something really special to them. And it may be 24/7, and it involves a lot more organizing with people. It is one thing to be a volunteer, or be an activist that shows up at a rally. It is another thing to plan that rally and get other people out. And so that kind of activism... And I feel that this goes back to the whole thing of the big bean groups getting ossified stuff. Because I think they lose track of the fact that... David Brower had the statement that he felt you had to have at least 1000 members to justify one paid staff. And when he was strict this year, and I think that people gotten away from that. And the way I think it needs to work is you have to have a mass base of volunteer citizens who are active to jump and then you have to have a paid staff to carry out the will of the mass base. But that is been turned on its head. And now you have people who, because they have a paid job, they feel entitled to make decisions top down for the movement. And that does not work. I just see it never gets the good. Whereas volunteer citizen activism, maybe even involving non-violent direct action will get the good occasionally. But I have really seen that. So I think that volunteer citizen activism is the key. It is great that there is volunteerism going on and people are getting the taste of it. But yeah, you are right. It needs to be if you are going to be an activist it is 24/7. SM (01:07:38): Yeah. Yeah, I reflect a lot on my university experiences because the people that run the universities today are Boomers and generation Xers, the young generation. And what's interesting is that the Boomers experience the (19)60s and they know what it's all about in the universities and the generation Xers overall never really liked the Boomers. And so this is like, well, we're going to do it our way kind of mentality. So, I see a little bit of both. I have a question here too. And this is on healing. I took a group of students to Washington, DC quite a few years ago to see Senator Muskie. Of course, he was the vice-presidential running mate for Humphrey in (19)8. And the reason why we asked this question was similar to the one we were asking you about whether we were headed toward a civil war. And he responded to kind of unique way. But here is the question. Do you feel that Boomers are still having problems with healing due to the extreme divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth, divisions between black and white, between men and women, division between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not? Do you feel the Boomer generation will go to its grave, like the civil war generation not truly healing? Are we wrong in thinking this? Or has 35 or 40 years made the following statement true? Time heals all wounds. And then of course then we ask, has the Vietnam Memorial played any role in the healing process, not only for veterans, but the nation as a whole? Your thoughts on whether the Boomer generation, whether we are talking the 15 percent that were really activists, the people who served their country, Vietnam veterans, anti- war, all these movements we are talking about, even the conservatives that were young Americans for freedom, that we have a problem with healing as we head into old age. MD (01:09:44): Yes. I think there is a problem with the healing. But I think it is more of an institutional thing that there is people that have a stake in keeping the divisions going and sowing fear. Personally, I am very good friends with people that. SM (01:10:03): I am very good friends with people that are Vietnam veterans, and they do not hold anything against me for being a conscientious objector. I do not hold anything against them. In fact, I am saddened and angered about what happened to my brothers and sisters that had to go over there. I feel that, I think it is tragic. I do think the Vietnam Memorial has helped a lot for all of us. It is an incredibly moving place. I have been there. I have a brother who works for the Pentagon. I have good friends that are in the military. My father-in-law was a retired Air Force colonel. My father, my aunt, all my uncles are Vietnam, I mean, World War II vet. I do not have any problem with it, but I think there's an institutional thing [inaudible] keep us polarized that way in order to maintain power. It is the same people that are sowing fear all the time, maintaining power. I think there's, got a lot stacked against us as far as being able to pull that off. MD (01:11:17): Could you, you said, yeah, we have not healed. Could you be a little more specific on what are the areas where we have not healed? SM (01:11:27): Oh, I think it is incredibly hard still for people with different races just to be with one another, just to be. Just to be themselves and not have that be an issue. And politically. Whether you are a pacifist or whether you support the government, it is hard to get beyond that. I mean, I have, even within our families, [inaudible] and I think it is going to be very difficult and maybe to heal all that. There is a lot of acrimony that went on too. MD (01:12:10): I find it is interesting that even though President Obama, he tries to make a point that he is not a member of the Boomer generation. Yet he was born in, I think, (19)62, so he was only two years old. But a lot of people criticize him as being, well, this is the return of the (19)60s generation. They look at him as the return, and of course he denies that he has anything to do with it. So, you got to, denial, and then you have got people saying that he is carbon copy. SM (01:12:45): Well, I know if it was not for the (19)60s generation and the changes that happened, he had have never been elected. MD (01:12:50): Right. SM (01:12:51): Well, I just see him as another Ivy League elitist myself. MD (01:12:59): Well, I got to give him more time, but he cannot keep giving in. That is the only thing. If it means his election, then that is the way it is. The politicians, if they believe in something that they fight to the end, and if the vote voters throw them out, then they throw them out. But one of the, Senator Muskie said something interesting. His response to that question, because he was not well, he just gotten out of the hospital and he said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." He did not even comment about the (19)60s. And he went on to mention that over 400,000 men died in the war. Almost an entire generation passed away during that war. So, he talked about that the Civil War generation had not healed. So that is how he responded. And I think there's, what are your thoughts on that? You still have-have not healed since the Civil War? SM (01:13:57): I do not know. I think things were pretty unified after World War II. People were, it is pretty unified, and the center in American politics in an American culture was, it is certainly not where it is now. There was a lot more civility, and people, they had a shared, they just had a shared destiny that went on. And I think it got exacerbated during the (19)60s. I think the rise of the US as a global empire and all that that meant really kind of blew that out. MD (01:14:37): Did the college students play an important role in the war in Vietnam? And why did the war finally end, in your view? SM (01:14:45): I think college students played a huge role in ending the war. And I think it ended because it became obviously untenable. The internal contradictions just came to the surface, and it was bankrupting the country. And I think that it certainly had a huge role in ending the draft, which may have had consequences, too. I mean, now that college students do not have their lives on the line, they are less likely to speak out against the war. But I think what went on in the college campus was highly instrumental. I think all the demonstrations collectively helped lead to ending the war. And ultimately, and part of it was just a pure financial decision by the government. They just could not maintain it anymore. MD (01:15:47): It is interesting that the protests going on right now in California. I kind of admire the students because this is a pocketbook issue, just like the draft was an issue. And when they see something directly linked to them, and actually they are willing to pay a heavy price for their protests. So, I do not believe in the violence aspect, but I do, I admire them for speaking up and fighting 17 percent increases in tuition. One of the other issues that is very important is the issue of trust. I feel, my perception is that the Boomer generation is a generation that does not trust and did not trust for a lot of reasons, because so many of the leaders lied to them, whether it be Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin, whether it be Watergate with Richard Nixon. I remember even when Gerald Ford was going to pardon Richard Nixon, no one trusted him. They thought it was behind the scenes deal. Even Eisenhower lied on the U-2 incident. And even President Kennedy, they questioned whether he was involved in the coup to overthrow a Diem, even though he gave the order to do so. But he was really upset when he found out they were killed. Your thoughts on, you know being a student of that period that the Boomers did not trust university presidents, they did not trust governors, they did not trust politicians- SM (01:17:08): [inaudible]- MD (01:17:08): They did not trust anybody in the positions of leadership, no matter who they were. You think? This is a very negative quality for the generation, and have they passed this on to their kids and grandkids? And I preface this by saying that any good person who majors in political science is taught in political science 101 that not trusting your government is healthy because it is a sign that dissent is alive. SM (01:17:37): Yes. There is certain costs. When our basic trust was taken away from us by all those incidents over and over and over again, being lied to and misled, at one point, it is healthy because at least you are not naive. It gets you out of your naivete and gets you thinking more in the larger scale of things actually going on. I mean, that is how it worked with me. It was quite an eyeopener. And all of a sudden, I realized, wow, that does not make sense. That is not true, and that is not what ought to be happening. So, there is a positive aspect to it, but deep down, I would like to be able to trust more. But I think that wounded me. Probably I will go to my grave having doubts and distrust of people in positions of authority. And when I myself am put in position of authority, I am really-really-really careful. And that is another good part. I take those real seriously. MD (01:18:46): Were you influenced at all by the Beat generation, those writers in the late (19)50s, like Kerouac and Ginsburg? Because they were the precursors to the anti-establishment attitude of the (19)60s. Were they an influential at all on you? Did you read it or any of your friends read them? SM (01:19:03): Yeah, I did. Ginsburg, Kerouac, yeah, they were instrumental in my [inaudible]. There was kind of a, I do not know, as I got into my late teens, there was just a required reading list that you ended up reading, and they were part of that. But then I actually met and got to know a few of them, like Hugh Romney, Wavy Gravy. MD (01:19:30): Oh, you did? And you also knew Ken Kesey, did not you? SM (01:19:33): Yeah. I barely knew Ken, but I know Wavy from, I helped plan Rainbow Gathering. MD (01:19:39): Explain what that is. SM (01:19:41): Well, from about (19)71 to about (19)81, and Wavy was always involved in that. And so was Ram Dass. Ram Dass was another- MD (01:19:51): Yes. SM (01:19:52): ... good guy. He was an influence on me. And then of course, Ken is a friend of theirs. And... MD (01:20:00): Now what was, you helped organize this for 10 years? SM (01:20:03): Yeah, there is a whole crew of people that would get together and be the planning council and plan it for the year in advance and make sure everything worked. And then- MD (01:20:11): Where did it take place? SM (01:20:13): Well, they take place on National Forest Land every year on the 4th of July for a week. Called the Rain [inaudible]. A huge counterculture event. And still goes on. It's gotten huge, tens of thousands of people now. MD (01:20:32): Does it never come east? SM (01:20:33): Yeah, it has been in Michigan a couple times. MD (01:20:36): Oh, shoot. July 4th... When is the next one? SM (01:20:40): It will be this 4th of July. MD (01:20:42): I mean, where? Do you know where? SM (01:20:45): I am not sure where. You can go online, even have a website on it now. MD (01:20:48): And some of the people you worked with again were Wavy Gravy and Ram Dass? SM (01:20:53): Yeah, they were involved in the Rainbow Gathering. Wavy was the emcee for many years. MD (01:21:03): Oh my gosh. And Ram Dass, my God, his writings are so [inaudible]. SM (01:21:06): Yeah. And Ram Dass I got to note through that, plus Breitenbush Hot Springs out here in Oregon is an old hot springs resort that a group of friends of mine and I restored and run as a, it is an intentional community that Oregon allows you to have a worker-owner cooperative corporation. That and about 30,000 people a year coming at the- MD (01:21:31): Wow. SM (01:21:32): Kind of a conscious thing. You have everything from navel gazing exercises to workshops on massage and yoga. MD (01:21:39): Are they mostly Boomers or young? SM (01:21:42): Getting a lot younger, but- MD (01:21:47): Well, that is good. SM (01:21:47): Started out mostly boomers. It has a website too. Breitenbush, B-R-E-I-T-E-N-B-U-S-H. MD (01:21:53): Okay. I have got to check that out. SM (01:21:54): Yeah, you can check that out. Ram Dass is very good to us all along. He would come and hold big events there. 200 people would show up and they go on for a week. So yeah, I got the, basically, it is on the new age [inaudible] that I got to meet everybody. MD (01:22:16): Wow. SM (01:22:16): [inaudible]. MD (01:22:16): I have read quite a few of your articles. How did you get involved with Counterpunch? Because, and Alexander Cockburn, is he the kind of guy, I'd love to interview him. Would he be available for an interview, do you think? SM (01:22:28): He might, yeah. MD (01:22:28): How do you get ahold of him? SM (01:22:28): I will send you his email. MD (01:22:37): Okay. Yeah, because now I am reading those all the time. SM (01:22:39): Okay. MD (01:22:39): Because I find you are a very good writer, in my opinion. And I like the one you did on Carrie, and I like this one I just read recently where you talked about criminalizing dissent. SM (01:22:53): Yes. MD (01:22:54): Where you talked just briefly about, well, you had mentioned about the Wilderness Society of Sierra Club, but then you talked about the rat inflation. You compare COINTELPRO to what happened in the (19)60s to what is happening now with the environmental groups with Operation Backfire. SM (01:23:11): Yes. MD (01:23:12): And please explain that. Please, people that are reading this do not know a lot. So, you will be reading these interviews. First off, explain what COINTELPRO is in the (19)60s, and of course I know what it is. And then how you see the link between the environmental activists of today. SM (01:23:34): Okay. So COINTELPRO in the (19)60s was an FBI undercover operation where they were planting operatives in all the progressive movements of the day. And famously doing stuff like writing letters between the Black Panthers and other groups disparaging each other, phony letters. One of them led to a famous shootout at the UCLA campus, even. And they did stuff like that. They would plant this information, they would plant people who had snitched on people, and they would also plant agent provocateur. I know that some of the famous incidents were ROTC buildings were burned during the (19)60s, that those were actually agent provocateurs of the government that set those up and did those. MD (01:24:23): Think that was Kent State, too? SM (01:24:25): I do not know about Kent State, but I am pretty sure the University ROTC and the Michigan State University ROTC were agent provocateur led. MD (01:24:35): Okay. SM (01:24:35): There were always people that were trying to get people to be more radical, more violent, more this and that in order to dispute [inaudible] movement. And a lot of that came from within the government itself. And then now in honor days, we have an active radical environmental movement where people are willing to go out themselves with bulldozers, blockade roads, do whatever, to try to stop degradation of the environment. And then all of a sudden it took a little bit more of a violent wing and people started burning stuff down. And then when it came out, finally, and who was behind all this? There were agent provocateurs from the government involved. There were undercover officers from the government involved, egging people on, breaking them to do more violent stuff. And it just smacks with COINTELPRO. COINTELPRO also infiltrated the American Indian movement and famously planted the false information that Anna Mae Aquash was an informant, which got her killed, American Indian movement. So, I see a real similarity there that anytime anybody's advocating radical change that challenges the status quo and the financial interest of the government, the government is going to put undercover operatives in, and one of the things they do is to try to get people to, people are upset and they are angry and try to get them to do something crazy and more violent. MD (01:26:08): Well, I know they were involved in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement, and I think in some respects, even the women's movement. SM (01:26:17): Yeah, it is a way to sow dissent and bring movement down and get people, everybody looking over their shoulder and being suspicious of their comrades and other allies. MD (01:26:30): I was really, in reading some of the literature that the two most investigated people with the FBI files, well, actually there is three, but Martin Luther King- SM (01:26:44): I know one of them. MD (01:26:44): Huh? SM (01:26:44): I know one of them. MD (01:26:44): Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of them. Eleanor Roosevelt had the second largest FBI file. Can you believe that? SM (01:26:51): I can believe it. MD (01:26:53): And John Lennon. John Lennon had a big file. Those three I know are man of files. SM (01:26:59): My friend John Trudell has a 17,000 page [inaudible]. MD (01:27:03): He has a what? SM (01:27:04): 17,000 page FBI file. John Trudell. He was the chairman of the American Indian Movement. MD (01:27:10): Oh my God. SM (01:27:11): And he was involved when they took over Alcatraz. MD (01:27:13): Yeah. Let me change my tape here. Hold on one second. Yeah. One of the questions I have here, too, is the music of the period. Obviously, the music of the (19)60s and (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s was very influential because of the messages within the music. What was the most important music to you? And when you talk about the environmental movement of today, are they using music? Because music seems to be very important in sending messages. Just so I am talking about music from the (19)60s' influence on you, and then whether the movement is using music today. SM (01:28:06): Oh, huge influence on me. And of course, I still listen to the same music. I get accused by my younger friends never changing it. But yeah, Stevie Van Zandt gave a great speech last night at the inducting the Hollies into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And he totally touched on that, the power of the music of the (19)60s. MD (01:28:28): That was in Cleveland, was not it? SM (01:28:36): I do not know where the- MD (01:28:36): Yeah, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland. SM (01:28:36): Yeah. I do not know where they hold the ceremony, but- MD (01:28:38): The Hollies- SM (01:28:39): ... I saw Jackson, Jackson was there. He was inducting David Geffen in, and then Iggy Pop got inducted, which is great. MD (01:28:49): Oh, that is great. SM (01:28:50): But yeah, the (19)60s movement music was... Growing up a kid in Flint, of course, Motown was the type of music I listened to growing up. And then all of a sudden, the stuff that, the song that shifted my perspective on music was For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield. And that really impacted me. MD (01:29:18): What was that song? The words? SM (01:29:20): Oh, the one. There is something happening here- MD (01:29:23): Oh- SM (01:29:23): ... exactly clear. MD (01:29:24): There is a man with a gun over here? SM (01:29:25): Yeah. MD (01:29:26): Yeah. That, okay. SM (01:29:26): Yeah, it was about protest down in LA that took place. So yeah, those guys impacted me immensely. And then Woodstock. It was a cultural, spiritual, and political event. I passed up on a ticket to go, I could have gone, but I never did. But it was an incredibly moving event. And so there was this cultural just flashpoint that took place, even though things were, it seemed like the darkest hour with leaders being assassinated and the war going on, there was this music that was speaking to a larger perspective, a commonality of humanity and how we could get through it all together and how we are all in it together. And it was a huge shift. It was not just a, oh, boy, girl, boy, girl, love you till the end. Oh, broke up, the stuff of... Marvin Gaye put out the album What's Going On. MD (01:30:30): Oh, yes. SM (01:30:30): It was staggering to me. Occasions of that. MD (01:30:34): 1971. SM (01:30:36): Yeah. And I mean, things were really shifting. Questions were being asked, and they were being asked by the best musicians of the day, too. So they were getting the airplay. Joni Mitchell, and there were some incredible musicians that were addressing the stuff that mattered to me. They were speaking the stuff that mattered to my generation and to me. MD (01:31:05): When you think of the period, there are often quotes or famous lines that were used that signified a period. I want you to react to something that I have been asking about the last 20 people. I did not do with some of the early ones. And that is that there are three, and then someone told me a fourth, there are three well lines that I think kind of exemplified the Boomers. The first one is Malcolm X, when he says, "by any means necessary," which kind of defines the militant activism, the black power, possibly the onset of violence. Then you got Bobby Kennedy's using Henry David Thoreau's quote, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not." And that symbolizes the activist mentality, the questioning act that you talk about in the environment movement and elsewhere, that activists taking a stand on issues from justice and what they thought was right in our society or wrong in our society. And the third one was a Peter Max painting that most people had not heard this quote, but it was very popular on college campuses in 1971 when I was at Ohio State. And on the poster it said, "You do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful," with symbolized a more kind of a hippie counterculture mentality. And the fourth one that was brought up to me was the civil rights, "we shall overcome." And then someone mentioned, John Kennedy's "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Those are the kind of four, three, four five, that kind of symbolize the Boomer generation. Are there others that might have had an influence on you? Other quotes? SM (01:32:51): Oh, I like those quotes. John Kennedy had one that I really like, first. And that is that "War will be with us until the day when the conscientious objector has the same status as the hero," or something to that effect. And of course, he had some thereafter, but that was a great- MD (01:33:11): That was Robert Kennedy, right? SM (01:33:12): No, it was John Kennedy. MD (01:33:13): Oh, John Kennedy. SM (01:33:15): Yeah. MD (01:33:15): Okay, I did not know that one. SM (01:33:17): I will look that up and email that to you, too. MD (01:33:18): Okay. SM (01:33:19): Great quote. But yeah, I like all those quotes. By any means necessary one is a little threatening to me because I think people can justify all kinds of being- MD (01:33:30): Right. Then of course, Eisenhower had the military industrial complex, which was- SM (01:33:35): Right, that one. MD (01:33:36): That was right on too. There are pictures. Pictures are often say a thousand words. There is three that came to mind with me, but I am not going to mention them. When you see the pictures of the first say, 40 years of the Boomers' lives, what are the pictures that come to your mind that really, if someone were to look at them, they would say, yep, that was that era. SM (01:34:00): Oh, photos? MD (01:34:02): Yep. Pictures that were in the news. SM (01:34:05): Oh, I would probably say a real big one was pictures of the atomic bomb test in Bikini Atoll. There is the picture where the South Vietnamese officer executed the guy on the street. That really had a huge impact. And then, I do not know, for me, almost any of the pictures of Woodstock, especially the ones that of just people holding themselves together and going through that. Those are pictures that impacted me. MD (01:34:42): The three pictures that I had picked was the girl running down in Vietnam with a burn. SM (01:34:50): Oh, right. Yeah. MD (01:34:50): And then the girl over the dead body at Kent State. SM (01:34:53): Yeah, that is another one. MD (01:34:54): And then the three athletes in with the black power fist, Tommie Smith and John Carlos. SM (01:35:00): John Carlos, those guys are heroes. That really impacted me. MD (01:35:08): I have got some other things here. I am just trying to make sure, before I go into a section where I just ask your opinions on names and personalities. Make sure I got all my questions here. Robert Reagan, in 1980, when he came into power, he said, "We are back." And I think he was making a reference to, we are beyond the (19)60s and the (19)70s now and all that stuff. And the breakdown of the military. We're back. And then George Bush in 1989 when he became president, he said, "The Vietnam syndrome is over." And those were two Republican presidents back to back. Your thoughts on Reagan and Bush and their thoughts on, because now the Boomers are in their (19)40s, and just your thoughts on those two and what they said. SM (01:35:58): Well, I think that the Imperial presidency in the US's Empire was fully under underway when Reagan got elected. And so I just see them as basically the emperors that were Imperial policy. And so I think they felt the need that they needed to put to rest a lot of the issues that were raised by Vietnam. But I do not know, the Vietnam syndrome to me seems contrived. And I think the same stuff is still going on. Same Imperial overreach is going on, the same corporate takeover of the government. All that is happening. And I think they were trying to diffuse that, trying to push that aside and become more ascendant with the corporate Imperial stuff. MD (01:36:55): If you are a Boomer and you are in a conversation and we get involved in a confrontation in any part of the world, when you bring up the word Vietnam or the word quagmire, it seems to always get a reaction. And I get a feeling like, please shut up. We're living, the reaction I feel when I bring it up or others is, come on, this is the year 2010. Quit talking about something that happened back in 1975, Vietnam and the quagmire, that is past history. So I feel guilty, and I wonder how many other Boomers feel the same way. It is like we do not learn history's lessons, so if we bring up history, they do not want to be reminded of it. I do not... SM (01:37:40): Oh, I can understand why they would not want to be reminded of it. But to me, that is all the more reason why you need to bring it up more so that it is not lost and the lessons are not lost because the same mistakes are being made over and over again. So if you can, one good way not to learn from history is to suppress the history. And so, I think there is institutions that have a stake in suppressing it, so they have conditioned people that way. No, but I can understand why younger people might want to say, "Oh, I am tired of that. That happened way back then, and let us deal with what is going on now." But I also run into a lot of younger people that really want to know, they want to know more of the history. MD (01:38:25): Well, the millennial students are the ones in college now, and we did programs on bringing Boomers and Generation X together at my university in the (19)90s, and Generation Xers, I cannot speak for them all, obviously there are good ones. But they had problems with the Boomers in many ways. And of the two panels that we had made up of university and regional faculty members and the college students of Westchester is that they responded in two ways. Either I am sick and tired of hearing about what it was like then and quit talking about it and move on with your life. And the other ones would say, geez, I wish I had causes like you had. We do not have any causes or issues today. And that was the kind of reaction that Generation Xers had. And Generation Xers did not seem to get along too well with Boomers. I do not know if you have noticed that in your life. SM (01:39:24): Well, I think it might be that 15 percent, 85 percent lifting again, and basically in all generations there is going to be 15 percent that really do have an altruistic view and want to do something outside of self. And I find them, I have got a number of friends in their twenties now, close friends, partly through my association with Breitenbush, and I really like them. And they are, by and large, are the ones that are trying to expand their conscious and reach out and have a larger worldview. And so we have very much in common. I do not even feel like the age difference matters. MD (01:40:05): That is good. Could you talk- SM (01:40:06): I think it is just going to, there is going to be a percentage of every generation. It is just like I was honored in my life to know some people who were part of the original Red Scare that were called before the House on American Activities Committee. There was a certain percentage of people in that generation. So, I think every generation has, and then a lot of people are just, they do not want to rock the boat. The whole idea of rocking the boat and challenging the dominant paradigm is scary to them. So, they just assume not hear it. MD (01:40:41): Your- SM (01:40:42): One more thing, I can understand some of the antipathy toward the Baby Boomers because the Baby Boomers are now the bosses. They are the people that own, they're in charge of your job. So the younger people have to deal with that. And so that is always going to be a friction. And I do not think it relates specifically to Baby Boomer generation. It is just whenever you have an older generation and those kind of [inaudible] power, I think that that kind of disparity will always cause a little friction. MD (01:41:14): I think what has happened is that sometimes when the Generation Xers and who are now also in power, just like Boomers, they are also bosses now, too. If they are going to blame Boomers on things, they need to blame themselves, too, because they are now in leadership as well. Yeah, before I finish up here with these names, could you talk to how important it is for the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front, and to get a better understanding for people that read this, how important these activist groups are? I admire you for the comments that you have made, that you do not like terrorism and violence, and you have already brought that up into your articles because that often sends wrong messages, just like Black Panther Party and the Weathermen did in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. Your thoughts on how important those two movements are today? SM (01:42:11): I think those movements are important in the fact that they are kind of like the gateway movement for getting more younger people involved. If there is a lot of passion in those movement, so a lot of younger people get involved. At the same time, I am appalled that there is some glorification of violence that goes on, and partly because I do not like violence, plus I challenge the efficacy of doing that, do not see how that ever works. But at the same time, they are important parts of the activist movement, certainly in the environmental movement. I understand the frustration of people in both those movements. I know some of the people, I know people that are in prison right now because they acted upon their beliefs there. They did not make the right choices. But I understand their position, and I think they are right. I think we have to get away from our anthropomorphic, anthropocentric viewpoint, I guess you would have to call it, yeah, anthropocentric viewpoint and look on the world as being one part of a larger hole. I think those are the people that are onto that. So yeah, I think it is a way for, I do not know, there is a lot of young people that are angry about looking at the future, the future of the Earth that is going to be here as they get older. MD (01:43:49): What are your thoughts of Al Gore and the Inconvenient Truth? SM (01:43:52): Well, part of me thinks that Al Gore's a profiteer profiteering on the corpse as it goes down with all his carbon cap and trade and carbon credits. I mean, buying carbon offsets to me is like the church in the Middle Ages selling indulgences. So, I do not particularly like that, and Al Gore is making a lot of money off of it, but I am completely in agreement that the level of carbon in the atmosphere is at a dangerously toxic level. And it is going to really change things if we do not get our act together and do something about it. So, I guess I like the message more than I like the messenger. MD (01:44:37): Yeah, because somebody says he flies in a private plane. I do not know. SM (01:44:41): Oh yeah, I know, he's cut to Utah. I mean, my friends Jeff St. Clair and Al Cockburn wrote a book called Al Gore: A User Manual back in 1998, and I think they nailed it. MD (01:44:55): I like his story, though, because as a Boomer, as a young man in Harvard, he was influenced by a professor. That is a very good start. SM (01:45:01): Yeah. MD (01:45:03): And I- MD (01:45:03): That is a very good story. And I also liked, from reading one of the books, about how he challenged President Clinton in a meeting after the second year. It was monumental, first time they had ever had friction, and where he told him, "You are doing absolutely nothing on the environment." And boy, he got mad. And of course, I do not think there is any love lost between those two now. SM (01:45:27): Yeah, I just kind of wish that he was not such a cartoon figure, because it allows the other side to discredit the message. And that he was not also making so much money off of it. In each case, it allows them to discredit the message. MD (01:45:45): Good points. SM (01:45:45): But yeah, I think he is right on. Level of carbon in the atmosphere is a huge, huge threat. It is a fact, existential threat. MD (01:45:52): I am at the part, which is the last part of the interview, which is just to respond to either terms, events, or personalities of a period. You do not have to go in any in depth. SM (01:46:03): Okay. MD (01:46:04): What do these mean to you? What does, again, the Vietnam Memorial mean to you? SM (01:46:14): It means to me, oh, I cannot even think about it without even crying. And I think it cost our generation enormous, Vietnam did. And the memorial is a huge step in trying to heal that. But... MD (01:46:32): What does Kent- SM (01:46:33): We lost a lot of really, really fine people, Vietnam. MD (01:46:38): Yes. We did, 58,000. And one of the things we learned from that war, too, is we must care about those on the other side, 3 million dead. SM (01:46:48): I know it. MD (01:46:48): That is very sad. What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? SM (01:46:53): Well, it means an end of innocence for me. That really shocked me out of my college jacket, intellectual, innocence, those events. MD (01:47:09): What does Watergate mean to you? SM (01:47:20): Oh, it means that it just shows how corrupt the government was. But at the same time, I think it was overplayed. I think Nixon committed far more crimes than that, far worse ones. That seemed to be the way that they could get him. MD (01:47:31): What does Woodstock and the Summer of Love, two different events, one in (19)67, one in (19)69. SM (01:47:37): Right, the Summer of Love. I had no idea that it even was going on, because I was in such a cocoon, back in school in Flint. MD (01:47:42): Right? SM (01:47:44): But when I look back on it, I see that that is a remarkable awakening in our culture. And I think Woodstock as well. I think those are incredible cultural events. Hopefully there is a future in a hundreds of years from now, people will be studying them. MD (01:48:00): What does the term counterculture mean to you? SM (01:48:05): Oh, it is a grab bag term that describes people that wanted to see something else other than the work working for the establishment as being your future. 2.3 kids, and a dog, in a house in the suburbs, there was an opportunity to do something else. MD (01:48:26): What do the hippies and yippies mean to you? SM (01:48:30): I think the hippies to me were less political than the yippies. The hippies were more the cultural wing of the movement, and the yippies were more of the political wing of the counterculture. I like both entities a lot. Hippies and the yippies. MD (01:48:58): What does SDS and The Weathermen, two separate things, even though they became one? SM (01:49:04): Right. Well, I think SDS was a remarkable organization. The founding principles were fabulous, and I think it really did shift the politics on the campuses around the country. I think The Weathermen was going a bit too far. I think The Weatherman, people just got so frustrated, and angry, and they went over the line. And I think that The Weathermen was a reason for the government to use the backlash against the counterculture. MD (01:49:40): How about the Vietnam veterans against the war? SM (01:49:44): Oh, one of the great organizations ever founded. Yeah. MD (01:49:51): How about the Young Americans for Freedom? I do not know if you knew that group. SM (01:49:54): Yeah, I know who they are. I actually caught a couple of their lectures at college. I knew, Rockwell, was that his name? MD (01:50:01): Yeah. SM (01:50:03): Yeah, he came to college when I was there, at the junior college, the community college. I thought they were rather racist, and elitist, and did not have much of a collective consciousness, that is for sure. Or a democratic consciousness. MD (01:50:24): How about the Black Panthers and Black Power? SM (01:50:29): I thought the whole Black Power Movement and the Black Panthers, they certainly had a point. But at the same time, once again, I think they went overboard. And being someone myself who was highly involved in Civil Rights Movement stuff, I think one of the out growths of the Black Panther, the militancy of it, was that people like myself who had the wrong color of skin were kind of driven out. And it became unsafe for me to be as involved as I had been. MD (01:51:03): What did you think of the enemy's list? SM (01:51:07): Oh, Nixon's enemies list? MD (01:51:07): Mm-hmm. SM (01:51:09): Oh, I figure that they always existed. I think they probably still do. And I think that it was an incredible evidence of the amount of paranoia that occurs in an empire. MD (01:51:28): How about My Lai? SM (01:51:28): My Lai? MD (01:51:28): Mm-hmm. SM (01:51:28): Oh, just awful. I do not know, one greatest injustices of all time. MD (01:51:37): Tet? SM (01:51:37): Ted? MD (01:51:40): Tet, T-E-T. SM (01:51:41): Oh, Tet. MD (01:51:42): That really began (19)68. SM (01:51:44): Right. Tet is very amazing to me, because it was a case where the National Liberation Front lost the battle and won the war. And it just showed me that all the other rules of wealth warfare did not apply anymore. MD (01:52:09): 1968, I think you already made comments on this. SM (01:52:12): Yeah, I think 1968 was, certainly in my lifetime, is the watershed year. MD (01:52:20): Okay. Now these are personalities, and again, just quick responses. Tom Hayden? SM (01:52:28): Are you hearing a buzz on the phone? MD (01:52:28): Yeah, I am. It could be the FBI. SM (01:52:30): Let me check. Let me try this other phone. (01:52:37): Hello? MD (01:52:38): Yeah, it is happening here too. SM (01:52:41): Oh, okay. It is in both phones. MD (01:52:42): It must be my phone. SM (01:52:43): Yeah, right? MD (01:52:44): Well, I am on the FBI's... I am not on their list. Tom Hayden? Still there? SM (01:52:54): Well, I just see him as a kind of a political gas line. MD (01:52:58): Jane Fonda? SM (01:53:00): Same thing. Yeah, I think that Jane Fonda had a lot of good things to say. And I think she has been unfairly excoriated. MD (01:53:13): John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy? SM (01:53:17): I think they were our last hope. Last great hope. They were, what are the Gracchi Brothers of America. MD (01:53:26): Eugene McCarthy? SM (01:53:29): Oh, I like Eugene McCarthy a lot. I think he had a lot of courage, and I kind of wish he would have stuck it out more. MD (01:53:36): George McGovern? SM (01:53:38): Same thing. I do not know what happened. They stood up for all the right principles and then disappeared. MD (01:53:44): Sargent Shriver and the Peace Corps. SM (01:53:47): Oh, I think the Peace Corps and other great society programs are one of the greatest contributions we have ever made. It is unfortunate it only head start in the Peace Corps and the Job Corps bill exist, but I think all of them collectively were one of the great social justice experiments ever. MD (01:54:03): Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X? SM (01:54:08): Both great leaders. Martin Luther King, Jr. might be the greatest leader in my lifetime that I have known or heard about. Malcolm X, again, I had problems with his religious bent and his militant bent. Other than that, I think he was a great leader as well. Incredible points. I read his autobiography and I was very moved by it. MD (01:54:38): Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford? SM (01:54:43): Oh, Ronald Reagan, I see him as kind of the solidifier of the end of the US being a democratic republic and moving on to being a corporate empire. So, I do not have a lot good for Ronald Reagan. Though even some of his stuff. One of the greatest quotes of all time, I think is his quote, "Trust, but verify." MD (01:55:06): Oh yeah. SM (01:55:07): I totally buy that. I think it is of the great quotes. But Gerald Ford, I have softened a lot on Gerald Ford over time. I actually think Gerald Ford was a good guy. MD (01:55:19): How about Jimmy Carter and Dwight Eisenhower? SM (01:55:27): I like Jimmy Carter. And I like him a lot more as an Ex-president than I did as President. I think he is a great role model. Dwight Eisenhower, another one. The guy was a hero, and he also was willing to take on some of the powers to be. And at the same time, he was part of the whole power structure. But I think Eisenhower was okay. MD (01:55:54): Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew? SM (01:55:57): Oh, okay. Well, Spiro Agnew, I have hardly anything good to say about. I think the guy was a crackpot. But Richard Nixon, mixed bag. I think he is the greatest environmental President. He basically saved more land than any other President. Cast far more environmental laws than any other President. I signed them. At the same time, he was a war criminal and a paranoid war criminal at that. MD (01:56:25): Then of course, LBJ and Hubert Humphrey? SM (01:56:29): Okay. LBJ, socially maybe certainly the greatest President of my lifetime, as far as comes the social causes and getting that part right. At the same time, undone by the war in his inability to control the Pentagon. Hubert Humphrey, part of me sees him as a political hack. Was it Hunter Thompson said he had the greatest case of blue balls for the presidency ever? MD (01:57:04): Yeah. SM (01:57:04): I think he would have done anything just to get elected. I worked for him when he was running. Because while he was the only one running. By that time, in (19)68. And I was just real disappointed when he lost. MD (01:57:16): If he had gone another week, he probably would have won. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the yippies? SM (01:57:24): Oh, a mixed bag. I like them bringing a lot of stuff to the forefront, but I think they were pretty relentless self-promoters. And that eventually detracted from the message. MD (01:57:38): Chicago Eight or Chicago Seven? SM (01:57:41): Yeah, Chicago Eight, that had a big impact on my life. I think all those people were incredibly well-meaning, incredibly good people. They were on the right side. They did everything right, and the government trying to destroy them the way they did was, it focused our generation, or at least the activist part of it. MD (01:58:04): How about the women leaders, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, that group. Shirley Chisholm was in there too. SM (01:58:12): Yeah, there were a lot of great women leaders at that time. Same, has kind of a checkered little history there, being lovers with all these rich, wealthy men, and possibly some ties with the CIA. But the rest of them, I really liked. Betty Friedan was great. Germaine Greer, there were a number of women leaders that, I read their stuff and I really agree with it. Still do. MD (01:58:37): How about the Black Panther individuals, because there unique? There's Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, David Hilliard, and the one that was killed in Chicago, I think it was Norman? SM (01:58:55): Fred Hampton. MD (01:58:55): Fred Hampton. All different and unique. SM (01:58:58): Yeah, some of the Panthers were tireless, self-promoters. And some of them never could get out of the street, like Huey Newton and Cleaver. They kind of became cartoons. But a lot of them were real well-intentioned people, and set up some really good programs, and really helped out. MD (01:59:18): How about- SM (01:59:21): Same bag. You had your mix of self-promoters and people that were really solid on the issues. MD (01:59:27): Communes? SM (01:59:29): Oh, I think the commune movement is one of our better experiments. I was part of the whole Back to the Land movement. Of course, Breitenbush Hot Springs was an intentional community and still going strong. MD (01:59:43): How do you relate to people who say it was a bunch of dropouts, that they went from being we to nothing but me? So that is a criticism of the communal movement. SM (01:59:59): Yeah, I would say there is a certain amount of self-absorption and me first stuff that goes on in the communal movement. But to me, just the fact that people are willing to take the challenge, and take the risks, and try to find something that might work better, is just the experiment itself has value. Whether people stick it out or do not stick it out, I think it is a huge part of the landscape and a huge part of what happened. And I am glad it happened, glad it is still going on. Certainly, it is less than it was. And at Breitenbush Hot Springs, in the (19)80s, we used to have communities conferences, where once a year we would get people from all the various communes in the northwest together, and come and make it... It was a great event. MD (02:00:43): The male liberation movement came out of that too, did not it? SM (02:00:46): The what? MD (02:00:47): The male liberation movement came out of that in the early (19)70s. SM (02:00:50): Oh, the male? MD (02:00:51): Yeah, where men would start taking care of the kids more as a shared. SM (02:00:56): Yeah. Yeah, that is true. In our early days, we required all parents to do a childcare shift a week with all the kids. We did all that, yeah. MD (02:01:05): Yeah. Dr. Benjamin Spock. SM (02:01:09): Oh, Dr. Spock was a great hero. And then, I do not know so much about his childcare rearing books and techniques, but just the fact that he was so forceful on the war, and social justice causes, to me, makes him one of the all-time heroes. MD (02:01:25): How about Daniel and Philip Berrigan? SM (02:01:29): Oh, two of the heroes for me, for sure. MD (02:01:31): I met them both and knew them both. SM (02:01:33): Wow. Way to Go. Being a Catholic boy and stuff, it was always great to have that wing of the church represented. And they did it more eloquently, and they were willing to put their own selves on the line more than almost anybody ever saw. Just a great model of passivism. MD (02:01:52): Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers? SM (02:01:55): Oh, that was one of the most heroic acts of all time. MD (02:02:02): Woodward and Bernstein? SM (02:02:07): I like what they did. I am not so sure over time that they themselves stand the test of time. MD (02:02:14): Does not seem like we have the investigative journalists anymore. SM (02:02:17): Yeah. MD (02:02:18): The original seven astronauts? SM (02:02:20): Well, I do not know, I never quite got into that much. Obviously, they were pretty heroic. And right there, and some of them use the opportunity to speak about the earth and then the fragility of the planet. And I really like that about them. MD (02:02:42): Robert McNamara and John Dean, two different people. SM (02:02:47): Oh, I think John Dean is the hero. And I think he still is. Robert McNamara, I think he is one of the great war criminals and economic criminals in history. MD (02:03:00): Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali? SM (02:03:05): Oh, two of the great towards and social people of all time. Muhammad Ali might be one of the greatest people of our generation. Certainly you go around the world and everybody knows who he is. And he is highly respected. Probably he and Bob Marley are the only two people like that. MD (02:03:24): How about Bill Clinton and George Bush II? SM (02:03:33): I think both of them collectively brought an enormous amount of disrepute on the Baby Boomer Generation. I am embarrassed that they're the first two Baby Boomer Presidents. MD (02:03:43): Explain that. SM (02:03:47): I feel that both of them are examples of what the worst of what we were talking about, the first aspects of the Baby Boomer Generation. They were in it for personal gain and expediency, and they just did not share the deep-seated values of the generation. MD (02:04:11): How about Angela Davis and Timothy Leary? SM (02:04:20): I got mixed feelings on both of them. I think Angela Davis did a lot of stuff, but I think she flirted too much with the violence that was going on, and bought into that. Leary, some of Leary's stuff is brilliant. I think he might be one of the smartest people in his generation. I read stuff that he wrote that was absolutely brilliant. And at the same times I have got all sorts of problems with the way he died and all the things around that. I think that was out of line. MD (02:04:50): How about Attica and certainly George Jackson who was linked to Angela Davis in the prison reform movement? Prison rights. SM (02:05:00): Yeah, I think that prison rights needed to happen, and it is a tragedy that the way it happened with Attica. And I think that the government incredibly overreacted and a lot of people died, both guard and prisoners, that did not need to happen. But it did focus on the whole thing on the prison movement. I think that issue has been put on a back burner and it is nowhere near resolved. MD (02:05:25): A lot of people think George Jackson was set up. SM (02:05:29): Yeah. MD (02:05:30): And he was murdered right there, or killed right there in the prison. John Lennon and the Beatles? I separate John Lennon from the rest of the Beatles, but John Lennon himself, and then the Beatles? SM (02:05:46): Well, I think John Lennon is a hero. The guy never backed down in his quest for promoting peace on the planet. Yeah, peace and love, and a lot of good things that came about because of John Lennon, the music and the way he lived his life. The Beatles themselves, obviously phenomenal, great musicians. And they were some of the first that took it from the boy meets girl, the love forever, into actually speaking about social causes that mattered. And I will always respect them for that. MD (02:06:28): How about Barry Goldwater and William Buckley? SM (02:06:33): Oh, they are two of the conservatives that I would actually listen to. I think they had a lot of integrity, and they could speak intelligently, and they were not just out there fanning the flames of fear, which is what I see the conservative movement has evolved into. MD (02:06:51): The Little Rock Nine? SM (02:06:55): Oh, you mean the students that were? MD (02:06:58): Yeah, the high school. SM (02:07:01): Oh yeah, they are great heroes. Without a doubt. No doubt about it, that took an enormous amount of courage. MD (02:07:08): How about the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in the (19)60s? SM (02:07:15): I am glad it happened. I do not know a whole lot about it. I think it jump started the whole questioning of authority and challenging things. MD (02:07:25): And then of course, the Port Heron Statement, which was the... SM (02:07:28): Right. That is, when I was talking about, yes-yes. If you read that, there is some brilliant stuff in there. That was a brilliant manifesto. MD (02:07:37): And we were talking about the American Indian Movement, and I have not said this to too many people, but when they took over Alcatraz and the Wounded Knee Incident, those were two major events in that (19)69 to (19)73 period. Just your thoughts on that? SM (02:07:54): Well, I think their taking over Alcatraz was a brilliant move. And at the time they did it, it was because they were basically delisting tribes. They were taking away their status, did not exist anymore. And they were able, because of the taking over Alcatraz, got so much attention. And then they did the Longest March, where the American RCC took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters. And they were able to roll back all of that. And tribes were re-certified. And there was a number of anti-native pieces of legislation that were going on. And all of them got defeated after Alcatraz. The Wounded Knee Incident, I think it was a mistake. I think that when people left the BIA headquarters in DC and went to Wounded Knee, I agree with John Trudel, that it was not a surprise move because it was out in the hinterlands, and the media was not there, and they were not able to control the media, and it was just a disaster waiting to happen. At the same time, it brought massive attention to the inequities on the reservation. But it really did not stop the killings of natives there. That is why they started it. In a way, it was not effective in what it set out to do. MD (02:09:16): When the best history books are written, or the sociology books, or once long after the last Boomer has passed away, what do you think historians and writers will say about this period? Because they did not live it. They study it, but they did not live it. SM (02:09:40): Right. I would say that it will be seen as a shift in consciousness, that it was clearly an attempt to take on a more expanded global consciousness among all cultures on the planet. Planetary consciousness shift. I think they will see it as that. And that well-meaning people really tried to roll back the negative impact of our society. And I guess by definition that means they will have succeeded some, if there is a future with historians. MD (02:10:14): Well, one of the great pictures of this period was the picture of Planet Earth. SM (02:10:20): Yes. MD (02:10:21): From the space capsule. And when college students, say a hundred years from now, when we are all gone, look at that picture as one of the pictures from the (19)60s, and they read all this stuff about coming together, and fighting for people's rights, and the sense of community. And then all they hear about are the divisions, will they look at that picture and say... Because the astronauts said that if you look at Planet Earth, we are all in this together. That the Boomer Generation did not understand that in the end. Do you think people will be that critical? SM (02:11:01): Well, I think that if there is people a hundred years from now and they can look at that picture, that will mean that we did succeed. MD (02:11:05): Very good. Very, very good. Is there any question that I did not ask you that you thought I might ask you? SM (02:11:16): No, you covered a lot pretty well. Yeah. I guess the one question is writers, you talked about the people. MD (02:11:26): Oh, yeah. Well, I did not... Yeah, the writers, but also the books. SM (02:11:32): Yeah. MD (02:11:32): Most influential writers. I got so many questions here. Who are the most influential writers and books that you read when you were young? SM (02:11:41): Oh. MD (02:11:41): And throughout your life? SM (02:11:45): And throughout my life. Yeah. MD (02:11:48): And let me change the side of my- Okay. SM (02:12:01): Well, Ken Kesey was a real instrumental writer, and my influential writer. Rom Dass, influencer writer, we talked about them. MD (02:12:09): What did Rom Dass say that was so important? And what did Kesey say that was important to you? SM (02:12:15): Kesey, in his book, Sometimes a Great Notion, basically, he shows how all these tragedies befall this family because they put their individual family above the common good. And that had a big message to me. His other famous book, Cuckoo's Nest, really took apart the thing of the benign institution, where this may hurt, but it's for your own good. How there's a certain maliciousness in that. And brought that out. And I like that about his books a lot. Rom Dass, in his book Be Here, Now was able to show me the connection between what all various spiritual traditions of the past, the connections between what they were saying and how they actually met the same things here and there. And that really helped. MD (02:13:23): What was the name of that book? SM (02:13:24): Be Here Now. MD (02:13:25): Be Here Now. SM (02:13:26): Yeah. MD (02:13:27): Okay. SM (02:13:29): That had a huge impact on me when I was in college. Other books that I read that mattered. There's the classic, On the Road, by Kerouac. There's various books like that, that mattered. And I like a lot of fiction too, with the Kesey books and various other pieces of fiction. Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy gave me a real political perspective on what's going on. Arthur Clarke, he had Childhood's End. MD (02:14:06): Oh yeah. SM (02:14:07): Another great book that really impacted me. Yeah, things like that. Hunter Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail's, one of the best political books I have ever read. MD (02:14:22): Did you ever read Greening of America by Charles Reich? SM (02:14:24): Yes. MD (02:14:25): That was a great book, yeah? SM (02:14:26): That was a really good, that was an excellent book. MD (02:14:28): And then The Making of a Counterculture by Theodore Roszak. That was another good one. SM (02:14:33): Yes. MD (02:14:34): And I think another one that was very popular was that Love Story by Eric Siegel. SM (02:14:42): I did not like that book. MD (02:14:42): Yeah, he just passed away recently. SM (02:14:44): Yeah. MD (02:14:45): Any other books? Any other writers? Any poets? Any... SM (02:14:49): Oh God, I cannot even off the top of my head. I cannot remember. There is a lot of them. MD (02:14:55): Of all the environmental people that you have been connected to in your life, you already said that Rachel Carson was. SM (02:15:03): Yeah. MD (02:15:05): But who are the environmental people that you just truly admire? SM (02:15:12): Well, David Brower. I cannot say enough about David Brower. MD (02:15:16): And what is his position and title? SM (02:15:18): Well, he was the first Executive Director of the Sierra Club. MD (02:15:22): Okay. SM (02:15:22): He got drummed out of the Sierra Club for being too radical. And then he founded the Friends of the Earth. And then he founded the Earth Island Institute. He was just an uncompromising, amazing character. He was a World War II hero, because he invented all these types of mountain climbing, trained all these troops on how to do it. Climbed most of the western mountains first in the United States. And he died about 10 years ago. He was about 90 when he died. Phenomenal guy. And then I actually had, a guy who is not that well-known home, Homer Roberts, who was the founder of the Michigan Audubon Society, and who was involved in the efforts to save the bald eagle, and the Kirtland's warbler, and so on. And he was the guy that first taught me about ecosystems before I ever even heard of the word. I wonder what is going on with my phone. MD (02:16:21): Ah, yeah, there you go. SM (02:16:23): Anyway. MD (02:16:25): All right. SM (02:16:26): Those are the early environmentalists that really impacted me. MD (02:16:30): Well, that is my last question. I will turn my tape- (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Michael Donnelly Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Donnelly, Michael ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Environmentalists; Authors, American--20th century; Indigenous peoples--United States; Donnelly, Michael--Interviews Description An account of the resource Michael Donnelly is an environmental activist, author, and one of the founders of Friends of Opal Creek. Donnelly has been writing on environmental issues and stories focused on Native American and indigenous peoples in the northwest. He is a member of the American Indian Movement. 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 2010-03-16 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.10.2016.184a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.184b 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. 136:34 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/0b810f92fccf6fe3c29a9104d8c32d27.jpeg 86dde76e726d5de064eaca09ef5ea7f2 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/f4101e67cf29a2c46204a4eff75b3926.mp3 6793702ce6c47f383283275059e425e4 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2012-01-05 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Emory Douglas Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Emory Douglas worked as a Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party. He was also the art director, designer, and main illustrator for The Black Panther magazine. His illustrations for the Party's newspaper reflect American history and society in the 1960s and 1970s."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"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}">Emory Douglas worked as a Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party. He was also the art director, designer, and main illustrator for <em>The Black Panther</em> magazine. His illustrations for the Party's newspaper reflect American history and society in the 1960s and 1970s.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Black Rights Movement; Nineteen Sixties; Black Panther Party; Stokely Carmichael; Weathermen; SNCC; Police brutality; Decade stereotypes."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Black Rights Movement; Nineteen Sixties; Black Panther Party; Stokely Carmichael; Weathermen; SNCC; Police brutality; Decade stereotypes.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 134:55 Subject LCSH Black Panther Party; Douglas, Emory--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 Emory Douglas Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Douglas, Emory ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Black Panther Party; Douglas, Emory--Interviews Description An account of the resource Emory Douglas worked as a Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party. He was also the art director, designer, and main illustrator for <em>The Black Panther</em> magazine. His illustrations for the Party's newspaper reflect American history and society in the 1960s and 1970s. 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 2012-01-05 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.10.2016.185a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.185b 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. 134:55 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/75578ef1998f72a143b14bc658419bbf.jpg 69726bd483b567729b1ee94cf0a0ff28 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/9f06e027ab7e6607bc3ccd8e6a8e7699.mp3 6bc70c55ab410f001b4872d4e7ac72e0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2012-01-26 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Barbara Cox Easley Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Barbara Cox Easley is a civil rights activist most known for her involvement with the Black Panther Party while attending San Francisco State University. She worked in the Oakland, C.A., Philadelphia, P.A., New York, N.Y., and international chapters for the Party. She also participated in several survival programs hosted by the Party. Easley continues her dedication to social work and political activism today."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"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}">Barbara Easley-Cox is a civil rights activist most known for her involvement with the Black Panther Party while attending San Francisco State University. She worked in the Oakland, C.A., Philadelphia, P.A., New York, N.Y., and international chapters for the Party. She also participated in several survival programs hosted by the Party. Easley continues her dedication to social work and political activism today.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"March on Washington; Nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Civil Rights Movement; The Black Panthers; Weatherwomen; Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Stokely Carmichael; Music."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">March on Washington; Nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Civil Rights Movement; The Black Panthers; Weatherwomen; Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Stokely Carmichael; Music.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 217:23 Subject LCSH Civil rights workers; Black Panther Party; Easley, Barbara Cox--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Barbara Cox-Easley Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Eden Lowinger Date of interview: 26 January 2012 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 00:01 SM: I got two of them, and I keep checking them every so often. First question, what do you think of the 1960s, and the 1970s? What is the first thing that comes to your mind? And how would you describe the time from your own life experiences? 00:24 BCE: A raising of consciousness? I think the March on Washington was 1963, I think. And that seemed to bring a nationwide attention to the whole question of civil rights, education, that type of thing. I was in California the latter part of (19)63. 00:59 SM: You want to turn that TV off? 01:00 BCE: Oh, yeah. 01:04 SM: Okay. And I check things, every- 01:10 BCE: Give me uh, read that question again. 01:13 SM: When you think of the (19)60s and (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? How would you describe the time from your own life experiences? 01:24 BCE: As stated, the March on Washington in (19)63, was an eye opener. I myself, I was living in, I had moved to California the latter part of (19)63. I was aware of the concept of not being able to get a job because they were not hiring Blacks at that time. But after the March, I applied for a job with the Pacific telephone company, and I was hired immediately. And I always attributed that to Martin Luther King and his group was soldiers, to people who were on the frontline at that time. Now in (19)66, or maybe a little earlier, I attended San Francisco State Community College. And then I transferred to San Francisco State College. And that was the beginning of the student uprising, the Black Student Union at San Francisco State, and it spread like wildfire across this country. And in 1967, early part of (19)67, I was introduced to the Black Panther Party. So, in a matter of seven years, before 1970, I had gone from a nice Catholic girl to a revolutionary-revolutionary comma radical feminist. I mean, my own personal growth was amazing in that period of time, but it was all in connection with the broader social, and cultural environment. And I was very fortunate that I was around people who were the leadership of many of the movements. Yeah. 03:57 SM: How did your parents respond to that? From being that Catholic girl in high school to being- and you went to high school in California? 04:03 BCE: So [inaudible] I was born and raised in Philadelphia. I think it frightened my mother, but I do not think it frightened my father because he had made a statement years ago- because I am a daddy's girl, and I grew up under him- he will never have to worry about me, because he knew I had common sense. He died in (19)69. And let me back to Philadelphia for a few moments. 04:51 SM: Now again, that was from going from Philly to San Francisco. 04:55 BCE: Listen. My father introduced me to a very nice young man who was a soldier. And I had been writing him for one year. And he came back and he made me an offer I could not refuse. He said, "I want to get married, because I do not want to be looking for women out on the streets. But you cannot have children for five years, and you must go back to school." I said, "Okay." So, I thought it was a very good opportunity to leave my mother's house. You know, the [inaudible] fourth [inaudible], that was just amazing. And for five years, we stayed married, and at the end of the five years, we were still friends. To this day, we are still friends. His wife and daughter call me I mean, it is amazing. But he made me go back to school, I started night school. But we were always talking about events that you see on the nightly news. So, besides my father, he was the only other- not only man, but one of the first men in my life to make you a partner in life, you know, educate you, update you. Otherwise, I would have been an empty-headed little cutie. So that was how I got to San Francisco. But at the end of the five years, unfortunately, I had outgrown him as it often happens. And but we thought it friends I mean, I served him the divorce papers. So, you know. 06:48 SM: Yeah, it says here, how did you become who you are? And I mentioned this, I say your growing up years, your high school, your college, who your role models and your mentors. And of course, you already mentioned how you got to San Francisco, Oakland area and, how did you become a female Black Panther- so-so you were right now out in California, and you meet these people who were more worldly than this gentleman. And that kind of- 07:15 BCE: Um. [disagreement] 07:15 SM: -more political more–? 07:17 BCE: It was not more worldly or more political at the time. It was that I had gathered some inner strength. You see, I was not afraid to move out on my own. I never have been, come to think of it. But my sister had moved to California and she was living with me along with several other women. So, it did not strike me as that big a deal. Also, Emily and I had become friends because gone to school together. And he was sort of the first person I knew that was in that Black Panther thing, and– 08:16 SM: He was going to the community college too, or San Francisco State? 08:20 BCE: I think it was community, I would have to ask my sister because she will remember that part much better. But the student movement on campus at that time and the history books, tell some of the story. It was always so busy. But I would go and do whatever I could do. But I was not taking a leadership role, even though there were women there what doing that and I chose to shift my attention to the Black Panther Party. I found them to be, I do not want to use the word exciting, but fast moving, fast paced. You know, they had the newspaper, they were opening up offices. And I also, and we also had introduced me to my future husband, Donald, Donald Cox or DC as they call them. So, I had moved in with DC or no he had moved in with me. That was what the feeling was. And I was kept busy with Panther activity, the breakfast program newspaper, selling the newspaper, political education classes. At one point I had gotten into some trouble, because I was a little petty bourgeoisie. [laughter] And you know that some of that Catholic background coming up, you know, you hear all the stories about sexism and you hear all that. But I was, at one point, I had a 10-point platform and program on how to conduct yourself in my house, on the door! Oh boy, they used to- I used to rile, but at any rate they had suggested I do, I think was a week or two weeks of 24-hour duty. So that means you go to breakfast programs, you go to sell papers, then you come back to the office and you cook, and then you work overnight, doing something. And I chose to do political education places, that meant- 10:56 SM: And what did that entail? 10:59 BCE: Generally, the younger members or new members, you would take Mao Zedong's red book, several of the books that were good, but Mao Zedong was the main book at that time, and even the newspaper, and you would read and discuss what you read, make it pertinent to today, frame of reference so that people could understand. You know, when you talk about Marx and Lenin and Stalin, and [inaudible], you need a dictionary. And many of our members were very young, you know, educated but not. And some of these books and words, they had no experience. 11:53 SM: What was the age of these-this group? 11:56 BCE: I would say 15. I would actually say 15. Because Lumiere for 15, when he joined. 12:06 SM: [inaudible] this book 12:06 BCE: Yes, oh I am in this book too, yeah, I am in here, but that is another story. So, they were like 15. And because youth, even our youth is a very romantic time in your life. Right, you are invulnerable, you are going to live forever, and you are going to accomplish so much. So, the youth made up a large majority of rank and file members. Now, the older members, and I would actually include myself in that in terms of what was I, 25, 26. Life experience had taught me certain things. And if I read something, and I believed in it, that, you know, those were my guidelines. And, however, as my father had told me, many years ago, I never hit you, let no man hit you. So, joining the Black Panther Party did not present a problem to me, because I know you put your hand, I am going to get you. 13:32 SM: So, you were a stronger– 13:34 BCE: I- you could not verbally or physically abuse me. And but because I was associated with Don Cox, and he was to field motion on the Central Committee, 13:47 SM: Right? 13:47 BCE: Nobody ever really bothered me. 13:50 SM: This is an important point is no one was really brought up, because I have seen Bobby speak live, I have seen Bobby speak like four times- 13:56 BCE: Go ahead. 13:57 SM: –from when I was young, and then older, but that most of the people that you were trying to educate and prepare, -and also the individuals that were older than-that they all had a strength within them. You know, they there is this image of this toughness, and, you know, the pigs and all this other stuff. But there is also a sense, I get a sense of self confidence, not arrogance, self-competence, and being proud of who one is. And to make sure that is the most important thing, proud of your background. 14:30 BCE: Well– 14:30 SM: What were you trying with instill in all these recruits? 14:33 BCE: But see, that was the period of the early (19)60s. Black is beautiful, James Brown. 14:41 SM: Right. 14:44 BCE: What was going on, Marvin Gaye, the group from Philadelphia. People getting ready for the train to Jordan. I mean, that whole period of time was- especially for the youth- very much like Rent became back in late (19)70s, okay. Of course, I am not sure it led them-them in the right direction. But– 15:12 SM: Right. 15:13 BCE: But that period of time built up something and a lot of young people, and-and I do not think it was just the Panthers or African Blacks, it was Latinos. Everybody was getting a sense of their history which had been denied to them. So that rapid growth from (19)60 to (19)75, yeah. And it has not gone away. See, it has not gone away. It is still here. But I would say that we were so intent. So, driven by the free Huey movement, we were constantly seeing other activity, whether it was Black, white, Spanish, speaking from this example. And then I think, for me, it was the heroes of not just the civil rights movement, yes, civil rights movement, because Stokely came from there, rap came from there, Fred Hampton out of Chicago came from there. So, Bobby and Huey, who were very dynamic, dynamic– 16:54 SM: Smart. 16:55 BCE: Smart. 16:55 SM: I know he was a smart– 16:57 BCE: And Eldridge [Cleaver], when Eldridge came- 17:00 SM: Yeah, he was smart too. 17:01 BCE: You see, and all of these people running around the country. But they were ours. So yes, we did stick our chest out a lot. And some fantastic things were done. You remember the whole [inaudible] between Jane Fonda, and the French woman- I cannot remember her name-, Leonard Bernstein. A lot of the musicians, if we had a function, maybe they would come, you see. So, California at that time, was-usually the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, but the sun was in the West coming to the East. Now, but on the East Coast, New York with its own fabulous African American Black history that goes all the way back to Marcus Garvey. By the time the Panthers came to the East Coast, they embraced it because they were already there. They were, they already knew history. So certain, you know, other communities. Like they might have liked the leather jacket and the man with the straw, that thing. But and then, too, we were ambassadors. And that, for me became a very good thing because by my husband being the Field Marshal, he traveled all over the country. And every chance I got, but New York, and Philadelphia, and especially Philadelphia. When I came here, that was when I met Amir and the people in Philadelphia chapter, and I also met Merriam and Bill Sadler, who became my bubby and my- Bill was killed right after the split. William Sadler was killed and I was overseas I could not come back because it was too dangerous and I always felt the split was the reason he was killed because wherever I was, him and his wife, they were right, Barbara will get it Barbara do not worry about it. 19:41 SM: Was that (19)82 around? 19:43 BCE: No, the split was-we had the babies in (19)70, (19)71– we tried to go to Germany and we had to wait. That was the early part of us (19)71, he was killed. 20:00 SM: Right here in Philly? 20:01 BCE: Yes. If you put, if you Google William, Merriam Sadler, you will come across. But that was a very hurting thing for me. 20:18 SM: Was it that was around the same time Fred Hampton was. 20:21 BCE: No, he was- 20:22 SM: He was killed in- 20:23 BCE: (19)60, um, Fred Hampton was killed- 20:27 SM: We know he was killed in- 20:29 BCE: (19)69. 20:33 SM: He was probably too much of a threat to oh– 20:35 He was just a brilliant young man. 20:39 SM: What- One of the things I want to mention as an African American female- 20:44 BCE: Yes. 20:45 SM: -in this period from the 1950s, you know, growing up in the (19)50s, even before meeting the Panthers and going out to the California norm. And then of course, being in California, and then your life since- I have tried to break it down. When you think, when you look at the periods of boomers have been alive, it has been 65 years. This is the first, this past year is the first year that the boomers actually reached- 21:08 BCE: Yeah. 21:09 SM: -65. And so, I break it down. What, what was it like I have four periods, or five periods. What was it like being an African American female, between the end of World War II in 1960, when John Kennedy came in, and then that whole period from 1961, to 1970. And then you got into the (19)70s, from (19)71, to (19)80. And then you had the period from Ronald Reagan from (19)81 to (19)90, the Reagan Bush era, and you had the Clinton era. And then you have the Bush Obama era, just from your own perspective, and maybe from not so much as-as a Black Panther, but as an African American female, and even who Kathleen in there, you can clear from a female's perspective from an African American female perspective, how do you define those periods for African American women, in your view? 22:05 BCE: I can only define it for myself. 22:07 SM: That will be fine. That is– 22:08 BCE: Okay. Because I never all, or most. 22:12 SM: I cannot, you cannot generalize. Yeah. 22:16 BCE: I remember the (19)50s because of the Korean War. My uncle was a sailor and a cook on the ship. And he used to come home with souvenirs from different countries. But I remember he used he brought us these dolls, little dolls one inside of the other day. And he was talking about Korea. I did not know anything about Korea. And he told me the military since Truman had integrated the military, you had more Blacks everywhere. He said, but I can honestly tell you that it is very difficult for them. And he talked about- I think it was Germany at the time, because he traveled all over- and he was saying how they would run up and ask you can I see your tail. Now. 23:23 SM: This is 1950? 23:25 BCE: Yeah, he was telling stories, because he has been in the service. So, I am very young. I do not understand it all. But we were protected as young girls. See the community I grew up in, everybody protected children. And I was acutely aware of that, okay. Now think, because I live here (19)63. But the one thing that- I am a daddy's girl, as I told you before- my father talked to us. He took us to see movies and would explain what we were looking at. And I remember several films, that till this day I watch him. One is "Nothing but a Man." And that was the experience of a Black man, wanting to marry the preacher's daughter, the school teacher, and people were not going for that. And integrating the Pullman- yes, see that, he then he explained all that. [inaudible] that cowboy movie and everybody loves and Alibaba with John Derek. But the song was sung by Nat King Cole. And my father said to me, "Do you believe a man can be that beautiful?" [laughter] So, but he did not like any Tarzan movies? He said, "That is not realistic." And James Bond he never liked, he never liked. And I did not I do not like until this day. But that Superman concept, you see? White Superman? No, no, no, no. So, for me growing up, everything was a history lesson. Every experience is valued because we were protected. On the weekends, he would work the bars and he would sit us at the end of the bar with a hamburger and a soda. And tell us, “Never drink when you are out by yourself. If you want something to drink buy it and put your money under the glass, you are not for sale for a drink. You see that woman over there? Do not be like that." So, I grew up with a very strong sense of self, and image. Image. He took us to the gas clubs but I was so young, I missed that. I could not grasp that, you see. Whereas my mother was you know, she worked the factories home buddy. Nice. She taught my sister how to bake- I still do not know how to bake- see I was a daddy's girl and my sister was my mother's daughter. But and then in the (19)60s. As I said my first husband, he made me stand up even straighter. Because he always used to say "If something happens to me, what you going to do." And that was always a thought. But I also had my father's ability to integrate myself into people's lives, make you feel like you knew me forever. Even though my eyes would glaze over, I would still be interested in your conversation. So, I would never, you know you just become that person. And now the (19)70s I returned back to America because I lived abroad about three years. Coming back to America in latter part of (19)73 I found a whole new world, I mean, the turn brothers sister did not mean anything anymore. It was the beginning of the drugs and you know other things. But because of my background I never got into that, stayed away from it. It was not appealing. I did waitress work for two years in the heart of what I would call the drug territory. 28:21 SM: That is in the Bay Area? 28:22 BCE: No right-right here. And but my thing was Hi, hi. Hi. Hi. Because I was not interested in that, and for me, the revolution was still going to come and during that period too I had, my husband was an exile several of my friends were killed or jailed and so I was a woman with a child. I had to make a living. I had to make some decisions. And having a bubby helped. Merriam Sadler, was wow, when she passed that that was hard but no, is a bubby a mommy or daddy? I just know bubby [inaudible]. But so, I made-she sold me a house for $1 at that 20th in Colombia. And I rented the first two floors out for income. Then in 1975 I got a job with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a social worker, and I stayed there 25 years, 26 years. But I liked the job because the job actually paid me to do what I love. 30:14 SM: Helping people. 30:14 BCE: Helping people. So, and through those years, the organizations that I have affiliated with have always been something that evolved around people, and also the Panthers 10 Point platform appropriately. So, for me growing, it was good, because I held on to my past to go into my future. And I recognize that if you are wishy washy, or you change your name midstream, or you become involved with [audio cuts off] 31:04 SM: My next question is in your own words, define Black Power, let me, define the difference and then define the difference between a revolutionary and an activist. So, in your own, define Black Power, and secondly, the difference between a revolutionary and an activist– 31:29 BCE: My own words, define Black Power? 31:37 SM: Mhm. 31:37 BCE: [whistles] I guess we would have to look at the definition of power first. And what does it say? Influence, sometimes by force. So, but Black Power is the (19)60s slogan. Everything meant self-pride, okay, a source of growth. And a change in Gower Black Power, okay. For change. But Black Power, like I said, influence by force or by persuasion. Still working on that. Okay, still working on that. And it is not something that is for me, a local national, it is a world concept. For me, it is a world concept. It does not just belong to those who lived in the (19)60s. It is a world concept. And it has so many aspects, I could not begin to give you details on that. But the difference between a revolutionary and an activist I think it is a mental state. Because I would not you know, I would not call myself a revolutionary in the sense of now, but I would call myself an activist for change. Because the word revolution can be applied to lipstick nowadays if I am not mistaken. [laughs] So revolutionary, this, that and the other. So, revolution is a term I would not use lightly, because now they do not even take revolution. They say things like the Arab Spring, the Arab Spring. 34:07 SM: I think a lot of people that have a problem with the term revolutionary- because I went to a conference just last year at Kent State. Several of the white activists still consider themselves revolutionary. And when you read some of the literature, some people make fun of that term because they are talking on what are you Che Guevara and Fidel Castro? I mean, what are you trying to prove here? Or some leader? [inaudible] on Africa, but are we talking about? I mean, what are you talking about? So how you how the term is used, and what is the feeling I guess? 34:52 BCE: Well, it is also like I said, a mental state of mind because among my intimates I might say, "I have revolutionary thoughts." But I know activism is constant. It is a constant for me. 35:14 SM: It says, my next little thing here is describing any issues, you or your Black Panther, female peers had with the conflicts between Black Power and the so-called civil rights movement or the women's movement. Could you be both? I remember I bring this up because Johnnetta Cole is, she wrote a book called Sister President and in there, I mean, she was so involved in the issues that you were involved in. But then she also got involved in the women's movement. And then there was pressure within the the-the Black Power movement or whatever to what-what are you doing over there? I mean, you got to concentrate on this. Play Dr. King going north. No, you got to stay south, Dr. King, you cannot talk about Vietnam, you are, you are you should be talking about African American issues in the United States. It is like, so- Did you sense that? Did you and your peers, those women, those powerful, self-confident women, that your peers in Oakland, with Kathleen, you and others, Lane Brown, did you feel that there was a tension? Because if you not only cared about Black Power, but you also cared about Women Power, was there a tension here? 36:29 BCE: You have touched upon two issues, all right? Within the organization, women– 36:43 SM: I just have to check one thing, it is not always– 36:46 BCE: That is alright. 36:47 SM: Yeah, especially this one right here okay we are fine. 36:50 BCE: But within an organization, there came a period where women were demanding more, not responsibilities. Well, responsibilities, respect. leadership roles. And for the most part, some of them of chapters and branches across country that was given, that was given because you had women in Boston-I think in Chicago, too, but-but what I am saying is that women were used, instead of just cooking, or selling papers, our intellect was called upon. Okay, now, the bigger feminist movement that came what was it, the early (19)70s, no? 37:49 SM: Late (19)60s, early (19)70s. 37:50 BCE: Yeah, okay. That was a European type movement, if you think about it, Gloria Steinem take off your bra, I want to come out the house. So those issues, were not really something that many African American women focused on. And, and several have testified to that. But there had to be alliances between some women between some thoughts, because we were all after the same bigger picture. So, I myself, and quite a few of my associates, for lack of a better term, at this time, we were open to almost anything. But, of course, as you said, the Party came first. 38:56 SM: This, this is really important, because I asked this to Emory too. And I know over a year ago asked it to Ross and I have asked a lot of people. A lot- it did not matter what color you were and the background you were the mere fact that in the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement, one of the reasons why the women's movement evolved was because that women were placed in second class positions. And, and we know now that there were many women in the civil rights movement, who were down on the South that went on Freedom Summer, getting Casey Hadden and the list goes on and on. So that is not the case, and then we all know Dorothy Height, was the only really female that was on the platform in 1963. It was all men, Mahalia Jackson saying and-and certainly Mary Travers was there with Peter, Paul and Mary– 39:44 BCE: Yeah-yeah-yeah. 39:44 SM: -but the women outside of Dorothy Height, they were not seen at that, at that march. And I think that was very sensitive to Dr. King and most of the civil rights leaders, and certainly the antiwar and the question is like, what I am getting at is within the Black Panther Party, within the-the Black Power movement, were you treated with respect were you given, were you were you not only looked upon the- for your intellect as well, you know that is what I am getting at because a lot of the people went into the women's only because they were treated as second class citizens. How did the Black Panther male– 40:19 BCE: Wait-wait-wait, [inaudible] you are going- they went into the women's movement because they were treated as– 40:26 SM & BCE: Second class citizens. 40:27 SM: In the antiwar and civil rights movement. 40:32 BCE: Well-well let us look at this. As I told you before, when I was in San Francisco State, I shifted to the Black Panther Party because it was more exciting, more driven for me. But the type of individual that I am, that Kathleen is, Elaine Brown, Ericka Huggins, Audrey out of Boston, I cannot think of Audrey's last name. Sasha Core, I think even Fanny [inaudible] at some point. The women were not only in the party, getting beaten and thrown in jail as much as any man. Our numbers was, our numbers were great. Many women, there were a lot of women in the party. Sometimes it was four women to one men-to one man. So, decisions were based on who can do the job. Now, there was some chauvinism. I am not going to deny that, but because I was able to function quite well, and my husband kept me in Philadelphia, the next thing I knew, they was saying, "When you come back with, you better come out of there, we need you around here." Because I worked very well, raising money, influence. But it was also due to the Black Panther party that was here in Philadelphia, they were open to suggestions. They were open to dialogue about, "Let us gather, what should we do." 42:27 SM: And were not threatened by new ideas? 42:29 BCE: No, no. And, well, "Barbara, you are good with all in the peace groups, you to go downtown, you deal with that. You go over there and deal with that." So, the best thing he ever did for me was send me here, because I was like [breathes deeply], so overseas, wherever I went after that, I knew what I had to do. And I would always drag women with me. "Come on, I need to come on." Now, but working very good with men. So, the women who joined if they the weathermen, you know, and the Peace and Freedom Party, okay? Because I remember them. And they were hell raisers. They were great. They were like freedom! Burn the [crosstalk] Oh, so they were like, "Let us do this." And that the civil rights movement, look, it from a church, okay. It started church people. They met- and they were older, and even the student movement of the so many young, Black people and white people that went. 43:56 SM: Yeah. 43:57 BCE: Yeah. They started out voter registration, okay, fine. But you see that? What does Stokely say at some point? Is, "You come in here with a gun, I am going to get a gun." So, you think that elevation and growth of, "No, Daddy, I am not, I am not turning the other cheek. No mom ah-ah, it is not going to happen." So, in my mind, it is like you grow and you develop. So, within the movement, people come in. And I think too the reading material that we have all given the heroes that we worship, foreign and domestic. Yet, things change. 44:50 SM: I think it is interesting. You raise a very good point here because you talk about the church, when Dr. King replaced the minister in his very First Church that Dr. King- that minister was kind of let go because he was a rabble rouser on pardon me, I forget his name I cannot believe. Like, I am really upset that I am going to, but then Dr. King-King came in and gave his first sermon and you remember seeing the movie about that? Yeah. 45:18 BCE: I thought we just going to run [laughs] 45:20 SM: And Dr. King never planned to be what that Dr. King became, he wanted to be a minister. And so. 45:26 BCE: But you cannot help– 45:27 SM: But he went the next phase and then then you have Stokely and HRM Brown coming into the next phase challenging the John Lewis's and the Bob Moses' is in terms of the [inaudible] setting that is going. So, you are seeing that more commonly, would you, could you describe Oakland in 1966? Because that was when the Black Panther Party was founded. What were the reasons behind the formation of the Black Panther Party and what were the living conditions in the Oakland Bay Area or in California where African Americans felt that the civil rights movement, that nonviolent direct-action approach was not working? 46:03 BCE: Well– 46:04 SM: I thought that was a big challenge to Dr. King and Bayard Rustin and James Farmer. Right, [inaudible]. Is that different? 46:10 BCE: Well, I think, a police state, for lack of a better word, and [inaudible] 46:21 SM: Knew it. 46:21 BCE: And I do not think it was up to the West Coast. Because Reza was here in Philadelphia, so we were talking basically a police state and sort of like the Hispanic people. I am not sure, is the correct word Hispanic or Latino now, find themselves in Arkansas. You are harassed simply because you are of color. And young boys are, are more flammable than, say, a middle-aged black man. And, and this is not unique to California. So, you know, oh, he was carrying a gun. That was why I shot him 100 times. So, Bobby and Huey, as they state in many articles and books, said "What can we do to stop the police from doing all these horrible things in the community?" And so here we are, what, 50 something years later? No, 40 years later, right? Almost 40 something years later, and we find ourselves still burdened with police states, the blue line, the code [inaudible]. Then at that time, the other thing that might add to that is that many police departments were not really integrated. No Asian, Latinos or Blacks. So, you know, that whole period of time was ugly. And even though the Civil Rights segregation marches, the pickets and so forth, had come to California, that was the basis of the Black Panther Party. 48:33 SM: Interesting in your thoughts over the years, I know this happened at the [inaudible] house campus, because the students just did not like the cops. And they were white cops that were coming, they were 50 and had a beer gut. And there was, they wanted to create a younger police force and actually one that did not symbolize Bull Connor in the south, which is what happened the (19)70s. But the question is a lot of African American, Latino and Asian American men and women have been hired in the police force, but there still seems to be-I am just me- there still seems to be that divide. You still see the divide even though the police have been integrated? It is almost as if those of those cops are cop outs or something. 49:18 BCE: Well, I have very few police friends, okay. I have very few friends that are ex policeman or whatever. But they only reflect a larger society and in these troubling economic times, it is not even a question. It is a fact. 49:46 SM: Yeah. Who were- I am going to come, I have a question here on names and I got to find my list here but-but who were the original- I am going to read off questions that will come back and one of them these are the questions I want to ask, who were the original Black Panthers? How many more there? What was their background? Where do they come from? Wherever they headquartered, and how did they recruit? I think you have already talked about that. What were the 10 basic points and how many men and women were in the original group. And we-we already did the, were women treated as equals and have the Panther Party spread nationwide, and why were they labeled as threats to America? And what were the main causes? And what did they do for the community? And how were they named in the logo and bringing some also, some questions about that meeting that that your husband had with Leonard Bernstein and the dislike for Tom Wolston in his book, but, and I got the names of I have the names of the people that I want to ask about some of the originals, but yeah, who were the original Black Panther and– 50:55 BCE: Did you answer me, that question? [laughs] 50:57 SM: Yeah, I did, really was not getting it in this and I am going to go right to this point. Because for young people- 51:05 BCE: Yeah. 51:05 SM: I am a history nut, and these people need to be remembered 100 and 200 and 300 years from now– 51:10 BCE: Go ahead. 51:11 SM: For young people who are not aware of the key leaders and personalities and people linked to the Black Panther Party or Black Power movement– 51:20 BCE: Go ahead. 51:20 SM: In a few words, who are these people and why is it important to know something about them? And these are the people that [inaudible] one at a time but Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, 51:32 BCE: Mhm [agreement] 51:33 SM: Bobby Hutton. 51:34 BCE: Mhm [agreement] 51:35 SM: Eldridge Cleaver. 51:37 BCE: Mhm [disagreement] [inaudible] original– 51:38 SM: Ok, um Fred Hampton. I am just throwing the names of Eldridge Cleaver, Katelyn Cleaver, Dave Hilliard, Elaine Brown. Donald Cox, Stokely Carmichael. H Rap Brown. And those are the individuals just a little bit something about them. Oh, those are the originals right there? 51:58 BCE: These are the original. 51:59 SM: I am going to take a picture of this. Because I know we all know Bobby, and we all know who Huey. We know Bob- We know, Bobby Hut- we know about the murder. 52:06 BCE: Big man. 52:07 SM: We do not know about him. 52:08 BCE: Big Man. 52:09 SM: We need to know more about him. We need to know more about him. 52:12 BCE: The Forte brother. 52:13 SM: Yeah. See, the history books have these three. These three. 52:17 BCE: Yeah. 52:18 SM: They do not have these three. So, I would like you to maybe say a little bit something for the book about those six. 52:25 BCE: Oh. 52:28 SM: So why do not we go one at a time. Who was Huey Newton? 52:32 BCE: Okay. Huey Newton was a student at Merritt College at the time, right. And Bobby was also, that was where they met. Okay. Little Bobby Hutton. I am not certain how he got involved with Huey and Bobby. Um, the Forte brothers, Reggie and Sherman. Were and I think and sort of bad boys on the corner. But and Big Man. 53:14 SM: What is his full name? 53:16 BCE: Albert Howard. 53:18 SM: Okay. 53:19 BCE: Albert Howard. Big Man. I do not remember how Bobby said he met him; you know what− 53:28 SM: Are any outside of Bobby. Are they oh, any other? 53:34 BCE: Bobby and Big Man are still here. 53:36 SM: The rest are gone? 53:37 BCE: Yeah. Gone-gone-gone. 53:39 SM: What happened to Forte Brothers? 53:41 BCE: No, wait-wait-wait. Reggie, uh kidney stuff. 53:48 SM: Okay. 53:50 BCE: Sherman Forte. I did not see him when I was out there. I am not really sure where Sherman− 53:59 SM: Let me turn this off until you are back. Because we are just basically describing who they were and why they are important. Huey Newton. 54:11 BCE: Huey was a nice young man, intelligent, very, very smart, a good reader, you know, articulate who also had a concern for Black people. I think that had a lot to do with his background, his parents are from Louisiana, if I remember correctly. Yeah, I think so. But when you look at any of the films and early writings, you could see the concern for Black people in general so and the same for Bobby Segal. The very same for Bobby Segal. And together I think they, there was a killing, a young boy. And the first newspaper was a mimeograph. But if you go on the website all of it is listed and I think that was the first thing that struck them as so wrong, unjust. I just encourage people to look at some of the films because you are asking me about personalities and certain things that I really did not have time to deal with. 55:42 SM: You think it was? I do not want this to be a setup question. But the way he died, he was, he was shot being accused of drug trafficking. Well, what how did, how did the guy with a PhD− 55:53 BCE: Well, that is true. I mean, you know, that was, that was how he died. But I do not- Eldridge. He died. Eldridge died from what was it, a massive heart attack, stroke whatever. How did he go from being the hero to the bum that we did not want to deal with? There is an expression of the good die young. Because you still got a chance to fuck it up. [laughter] And like I said, the- we was a microcosm of society− 56:39 SM: That is a great quote. 56:41 BCE: Aren't we just, you know? I mean, it is business with the Penn State man. 50 years of coaching, and all you going to be, you are not, you are going to be remembered for that. But you are going to be remembered in connection with the [inaudible]. 56:59 SM: They always tell young people too that you do, you could do 100 great things in your life, but they only remember the bad ones. 57:05 BCE: Okay. So, and then I also, my husband had written. 57:16 SM: Yeah, yeah, and who was Donald Cox. 57:18 BCE: Oh, here we go. Cut it off. 57:23 SM: Your husband, who was Donald Cox? And why was he important to the Black Panthers? What was his again, overall, his role, his work? And then of course, I know something happened in Baltimore, and he had to go to Europe. And he lived there the rest of his life. So, who is Donald Cox? 57:40 BCE: Okay, Donald Cox was Field Marshall of the Black Panther Party. He was also a person who had lived in the Bay Area for about, I would say about 15 years or so. Very quiet. Gentlemen belong to NAACP, loved photography. He worked running a printing press in San Francisco. Little shop there. And his cousin Fred Dolan mentioned to him about these gentlemen over in Oakland were talking about carrying guns. And he said, "Really?" [laughter] And he said, "I would like to meet these guys." Well, the one thing that he did when he did meet them, he realized that he knew more about guns because he grew up in Missouri than they did. And he instructed them in the use, the care the buying the selling, how to so they made him a Field Marshal. Which meant you ran all over the country your first task was to make sure that the office was set up in a proper way, certain rules and guidelines were followed and etc., not all people were privileged to his private instructions. Okay, he literally just surface stuff and he was responsible for security because Stealth Lee, Rapper, it is an endless list of names that came through our house. If you came through San Francisco or Oakland, he was responsible for your safety. Now- 1:00:10 SM: Was he in charge of like when Kathleen went off to [inaudible] State, the people that were on the stage was− 1:00:16 BCE: No. 1:00:16 SM: That was all the locals and that was the panthers. 1:00:18 BCE: Yeah, because he was still overseas. He left- was the 1970s, he left? 1:00:25 SM: But when he was doing this role and say, Eldridge or Bobby and Huey and Stokely and H. Rapper going around and Kathleen, were going around speaking, was he, did he go as an advance person to make sure that there was safety or-? 1:00:39 BCE: Not always but you know, what is really funny? Excuse me. Not always, but you can see that− 1:00:54 SM: That is Stokely. 1:00:55 BCE: Yeah. And Angela. 1:00:58 SM: That is, that is a young Angela. 1:00:59 BCE: Yeah. Before she went to jail. And that is me. 1:01:03 SM: Oh, what a great shot. 1:01:06 BCE: And it is me. So, we− 1:01:09 SM: Got a great shot. 1:01:10 BCE: Yeah, and see, this is a poncho. And in the poncho, I had a [inaudible] ranger, okay. This gentleman behind here, always carried a gun. People were carrying guns. You could carry guns back then. 1:01:26 SM: Yeah. 1:01:27 BCE: I mean, I was on− 1:01:28 SM: Yeah, that was to protect you. That was the whole concept of the Black Panther was, "We are not going to shoot you, we are just going to protect ourselves." That was his method. 1:01:37 BCE: Well− 1:01:37 SM: Yeah. 1:01:38 BCE: Whatever. But the other thing, young, romantic. We did not know it all. We did not know how dangerous the beast could be. [laughs] But, and Don, he really loved the- he loved the party. He loved the party. He had disagreements with the leadership because he could not, he was not a chauvinist. I think that was the thing they really got him in a little bit of trouble on and off. 1:02:10 SM: Who were the chauvinists? Or you do not want to mention that? 1:02:13 BCE: History will tell. 1:02:17 SM: Okay. 1:02:19 BCE: I do not think Bobby was a chauvinist, because he had a decent side to himself. But he was swaying too often. Some people get swayed. 1:02:36 SM: And the other ones are in that group there. They were the main force, those six. 1:02:42 BCE: These guys were not. 1:02:44 SM: They were not chauvinists? 1:02:47 BCE: Big Man, no. He was too young. He was funny. One night he kicked the door in looking for some guns that Eldridge had left at the house. And it was really funny because what I think that was the night Don- Don was there. 1:03:17 SM: What a great shirt that is, oh wow. 1:03:21 BCE: And June Hager, David’s brother. 1:03:25 SM: Oh, yeah, and that is Don, right? 1:03:26 BCE: That is Don. 1:03:27 SM: And who is that guy? 1:03:28 BCE: Big Man. 1:03:28 SM: That is big man. Okay, and this is who? 1:03:31 BCE: June Haggins. 1:03:34 SM: When was that picture taken? 19- 1:03:36 BCE: (19)69, I think? 1:03:42 SM: Now, the one thing I wanted to ask here is that meeting that he had with Leonard Bernstein, I met the man, you go into the web, and that is all they talk about. 1:03:50 BCE: I know. 1:03:52 SM: Now, he was there raising funds for the 21 in New York. 1:03:55 BCE: Yes. 1:03:56 SM: And, and then you guys ended up really disliking Tom Wolf, because he wrote that book. 1:04:02 BCE: Well, I do not think everybody dislikes Tom Wolfe, but back to the girls− 1:04:09 SM: That was the first days- I will wait. We ended up getting to meet Leonard Bernstein. And I guess it was at the− 1:04:21 BCE: I do not remember. 1:04:21 SM: −same building that John Lennon lived in the− 1:04:24 BCE: Oh, the butcher’s name building. Yeah. 1:04:26 SM: Yeah. 1:04:27 BCE: Well, I do not remember the details. But here is the thing. When the New York 21 got busted, somebody had to come back to New York because the whole leadership was and the rank-and-file members. So− 1:04:47 SM: What year was this? 1:04:49 BCE: New York 21? Had to be (19)69. I can double check, but it had to be (19)69- a lot happened in (19)69. He came back, right? And so, this huge uproar about all these Panthers being in jail. 1:05:17 SM: And those 21 Panthers were the leadership of the New York chapter? 1:05:20 BCE: Yes. And some, yes, rank and file person, young people. I think they just came to the house and took everybody. But here is the other part of it. So, Don comes back, they sent him back with one or two other persons to sort of like, find out what is happening, what can we do blah-blah-blah-blah. Well, the newspapers are running around like crazy. There is a lawyer, lawyer by the name of Arthur Turco. I do not know where Turco is now. But it is Arthur Turco and he, the Nation of Islam, quite a few other Afrocentric groups, and they are all running to the office to show support. You got newspaper people running their- Arthur Turco is representing some of these people, and he is offering his services. So, you just have a multitude of people. Now, I would have to go get Khan's book. To give you some more details on that. Can I get it really quick? 1:06:39 SM: Yep. What did Don do in Europe from the time he went over there to the time he passed? We are talking 30 years- 1:06:47 BCE: Yeah, you are talking 30 years. Well, he was in Algiers, the first six or seven years, but when Eldridge and Kathleen, when we had the international section, so he was over there. And then when that fell apart-you always make friends remember too you always make friends− 1:07:12 SM: Yeah. 1:07:13 BCE: And French person or two said, "Come out of Algiers. Come to France, get over here. If you get here, we can help you." And so, he got there. And he did photography, high fashion photography, because he was a good photographer. He did photography. He married a French woman who had money. [laughs] And when he called me, he said, "I am leaving!" I said Don, "Please do not leave, please stay with this woman. “Friends-wise I like her a lot, but she is a piece of work. But so, they were married about-? Well, I do not know if you remember this, but the French government started clamping down on immigrants. And they started with, must have been in the early (19)80s. They started with Africans with no working papers. So that was a problem because even though you were not an African, you were not a Frenchman, so to speak. So, because he did a lot of rehabilitation of housing, too. So, he decided to leave Paris and go to [inaudible], which is in southern France, the base of the Pyrenees Mountains area. And he bought a little farmhouse there. He fixed that up, started growing, really grew his own food, his own marijuana. And he got into aromatherapy. He was so good at aromatherapy, it was unbelievable. And the house was huge, beautiful place we were trying to sell it now. And he would have, people come from Paris. And like I said, he was not a chauvinist, and at one point he had all these Muslim women come down there to talk about fighting back. Fighting, "How did we get from behind the veil?" 1:09:52 SM: So, what is happening today? 1:09:53 BCE: Heck, some of them may be still there. But the aroma therapy became, that was why when you were talking about books. 1:10:04 SM: Yeah. 1:10:05 BCE: He has got a wall of aromatherapy stuff. And he got noticed in one of these aromatherapy magazines. 1:10:15 SM: Right. 1:10:15 BCE: And he hung with that for years, he would sell. He would take some plants and stuff and squeeze the juice out and sell it to different people to create odors. So, he made a living with that, it was not a lot. But one thing that really blew my mind with him was astronomy. He has got a what is it called, telescope. When I went to move it, ah shit! [laughs] I had to go clean up the house. But if he was sitting here now, and we could look out to the stars− 1:10:58 SM: He knew it. 1:10:59 BCE: He knew it. 1:11:00 SM: So, it was just a hobby, it was an interest, like his photography. But that was professional though. 1:11:04 BCE: Yeah. But the, so you had aromatherapy, astronomy cause the magazines came to the house. And then you had, oh, the French and African slave trade. I got to find someone to speak [inaudible] all those history books that he collected]. 1:11:23 SM: And those six years or six years in Africa, he-he led the main headquarters for the Black Panther Party in Africa, or? 1:11:32 BCE: Well, it was Eldridge, Don, Pete O'Neill. 1:11:37 SM: Stokely went over there too, did not he in the end? 1:11:39 BCE: No-no-no. 1:11:41 SM: Okay. 1:11:41 BCE: That is something else. He went to Africa, but he is not come there. [laughs] I am trying to find the spot− 1:11:50 SM: Again, when you talk about the− 1:11:52 BCE: Oh, he has radical [inaudible]. 1:11:54 SM: Okay. 1:11:55 BCE: I am just looking. 1:11:56 SM: As like, as you are looking here. So, when you were talking about the originals, there were, these were the six originals then, the six originals we talked about. 1:12:04 BCE: Mhm. 1:12:05 SM: And where did they all come from? Did- where did Huey come from? New Orleans originally, he says− 1:12:13 BCE: Louisiana. 1:12:13 SM: Louisiana? 1:12:14 BCE: I am not sure. 1:12:16 SM: Where did Bobby come from originally? Does he grow up in Oakland? 1:12:21 BCE: His family has a southern history. 1:12:26 SM: How about the brothers? 1:12:27 BCE: I do not know the Forte brothers' history. 1:12:31 SM: And then Bobby Hutton, same there? And Big Man? They were all living in Oakland, though at the time. 1:12:36 BCE: Yeah. 1:12:37 SM: Nobody was in San Francisco. They were all Oakland and they all kind of met. 1:12:40 BCE: Except for Emory. 1:12:42 SM: Right. 1:12:42 BCE: Emory is not on there. 1:12:44 SM: Right. 1:12:45 BCE: But he was next in that circle. 1:12:47 SM: Right. And there were no women then in the original. But who were the original first women? 1:12:57 BCE: Matilaba, or Tarika [Joan Tarika Lewis], her name is Tarika now. 1:13:03 SM: How many original women were there? 1:13:06 BCE: I- Huey had a girlfriend named Laverne, Bobby was with Adi. I could not call any names beyond that. 1:13:20 SM: So, they really the beginning was the girlfriend's then? 1:13:23 BCE: Girlfriend or wife. 1:13:24 SM: And that was how Kathleen- because she got to know Eldridge? 1:13:28 BCE: Eldridge had Stokely on one of his trips back East. And he was impressed. And then Katherine and Stokely and some of the NIC brothers came out to− 1:13:40 SM: And how do they spread nationwide? Well, how did the word- I know the Black Panther Paper in Oakland? But how did New York and Chicago and Atlanta and Philadelphia, how did they find out about the Black Panthers originally, how did it just spread? 1:13:56 BCE: Well, here is the thing, the newspapers and the TVs helped, but also people would tell their relatives in different cities. So, if you were interested in it, you had to come to Oakland to ask to form a branch or a chapter. And that was what they did. They came, they came. 1:14:21 SM: And why were they labeled as a threat to America, in your opinion? It is well documented, the police liked to call them thugs. And so, they would use a denigrating term to show their insignificance, but in reality, they were watching them all the time, and why were they labeled as a threat to America? 1:14:44 BCE: Well, why did we call people terrorists nowadays? And what does that really mean? Now we have homegrown terrorists, but I think labeling is part of the first step of disposing of any obstacles, you are you are labeled, then you are set up. You are infiltrated. Like I said, we were young and romantic, we did not realize the nature of the beast. But now, thanks to the internet, everybody knows everything. And, but it still disturbs me. When I see homegrown terrorists, 14, 15, 16 years old in Florida, planning to blow- get out of here. You infiltrate these little young boys or girls and buy some chemicals. And then you got a case against them. Come on. 1:15:59 SM: We all know that he talked about the threat of the police and so forth within the community. But what if someone were to come here today and, what do you think the main sort of misinterpretation of the Black Panthers are? What would you say? There is an interpretation for many that they are no different than the weatherman. They were they were cre- the weatherman may have stood up, but they also believe in blowing up buildings, so they want to kill people. They want to blow up buildings. Black Panthers did not want to blow up buildings. But there is this perception when you talk about radicalism and lack of law and order that Natalie Lee talked about the weathermen that talked about the Black Panthers, why is that? 1:16:47 BCE: Why not? 1:16:47 SM: What is the misinterpretation? 1:16:49 BCE: Well. 1:16:49 SM: What would you like to say to that? What image that is created about the Black Panthers are you most upset about? 1:16:59 BCE: That we dislike white people. That we were racist. And that we were violent. No, no more than anyone else. No, no. And we were a group of young, maybe idealistic, maybe romantic, young people who wanted to see a change. Now, I really did not answer that. Yes, I did, yes, I did. Because 1:17:50 SM: And how were the Black Panthers named? Why were they called the Black Panthers? 1:17:55 BCE: Oh, well, we took that I think they took that from the [inaudible] organization. They had the Black Panther, when they were voter registration. They were using the Black Panther of Lowndes County, somewhere down there. But we were the Black Panther Party for self-defense. And it is very important, for self-defense. 1:18:30 SM: And the Black Panther Party stood for much more than that. What were some of the projects they were involved in? I know, I know, the list goes on. We know about the food program but- Yeah, yeah. Just in a short synopsis. What were the programs that the Black Panthers were involved in that not only were well known locally, but became part of the national scene in all other cities? 1:18:54 BCE: Let us say well, the breakfast program led to feeding kids in America, in schools. The medical clinics, we focused on sickle cell at that time, because that was something that had not been-we had a lot of people with sickle cell anemia. Prison-prison, taking families to the prisons, you know, we saw that as something that needs to be done. And the food and clothing giveaways is of course, were a great success and also the-the image but I like the idea of internationalism that we put out there. 1:19:46 SM: You are known all over the world. 1:19:48 BCE: Yes. 1:19:52 SM: So-so you when you talk about that is why that term revolution when you talk about what was happening in America, revolution, there was a link to revolutions in other parts of the world too, revolutions in Africa. Whether it be Cuba− 1:20:11 SM & BCE: South America. 1:20:13 SM: There was a link there. It was kind of− 1:20:16 BCE: It was, and you well, you know, North Korea, Mao Zedong even Russia, before World War II. But was that in relationship to the word revolutionary versus activism? A state of mind? Because we were not fighting like, in Ireland, the IRA, correct? 1:20:53 SM: [inaudible] 1:20:53 BCE: Yeah, I mean, these people actually sniping, killing bombing. I mean, ongoing, historical situations. But yeah, we were we were revolutionaries. Definitely in our mental states, but not so much in the physical situation. And never got a chance. [laughs] 1:21:22 SM: You know, it is interesting, you know, Harry Edwards. So, who was- Harry, we brought to our campus, and he wrote a book that we were required to read in grad school, to which I think it is one of the greatest books ever written? It is called "Black Students." And it was a brilliant book about activism and it is really defining revolutionary, militant, activist, and anomic activist. 1:21:47 BCE: Anomic activist? 1:21:48 SM: An anomic activist is a person for hire who does not give a darn about anything except, "You just give me the money and I will do anything you ask." And that was the ones that he said people fear the most about. Anomic activist is not the Black Panthers. I mean, I think they were referring kind of to the weatherman there. 1:22:08 BCE: But no-no-no, I do not think the weatherman would "Give me the money and I will do anything." 1:22:12 SM: No-no, that is true. I think what we are referring to here, is he just put that down as a [inaudible] because he felt that a lot of the leaders of the movement were older. And [inaudible] on college campuses, the militants were the-the older ones, who were the role models for the younger activists and so forth. And then revolution [inaudible] another thing. If you have anything more to say on that meeting with Tom- could not find it? Did you find that though, the way America was treating that incident with that situation when he goes to visit Leonard Bernstein these chic Hollywood types? What do they have to do with the Black Panthers? I mean, they were trying to raise money. I know a lot of people make fun of it. 1:23:02 BCE: Well, but-but also that particular meeting was interesting because the things that came out of it. Okay. That was one thing, but then across the country I like the word European, but I got to say white, because it seems to save time. [laughs] A lot of well to do white people came out of the woodworks across the country. It was not just New York. I mean, here in Philadelphia, I was talking about Dill Miller, little Jewish Quaker man, right. And that was how I got this house. [laughs] Well, not from him, but his organization. And because I was living somewhere and I just keep, I came to a meeting to get away from somebody. And he was there talking about building houses around here. [inaudible] Barbara. So, I put my name down. I did not think no more about it, two days later, they going to be, "You want to house, duplex? You want a house?" I said, "Okay." Because I could not beat the price. And Joe knew me from the old days, because when Huey got out of jail, that was where he went was to Joe Millis house. Down on Spruce Street, you cannot even walk through there without money falling from the trees. See, that Bernstein affair. Chicago. I cannot even in my travels every place I go, it is interesting to me, people want to talk to you. Because "I met your husband" which he was a great, great person, but well, you know what so and so did and so and so did and so and so did"- and I be like, I do not want to hear it no more. Because some of is good, and some of it is bad. But there is one thing that I will never shy away from. And that is your pain. If you have pain from those things, I will not shy away from your story. I mean, grown men had just cried [inaudible]. But I know everybody did not come out of that hole, and it was not just about going to jail. It was a mental anguish. Okay. And you have to take time to listen to brothers and sisters. I mean, I was in Washington, DC so Sherry got really freaked out. I am in Washington, DC, right? It is about, how long ago was that? It has been about eight years now. I cannot quite remember what the reason was that I went down there. And it is this white woman. And I know she is a nurse, okay, because I am staying at her house. And we were at this march and all these Black people around and I got her by the arm because I am staying at your house, and I knew you good people, but I do not know who you are. I get tired, I said, "Oh, I want some seafood. Let us let us go back to your house." So, the young lady from New York, myself, and this woman, we stop, get seafood, we go back to her house. And we were sitting at the table. And she goes, I said, "What is the matter?" "Well, you are the first woman I have had a chance to talk to, I got to talk to you." And she starts talking about how she met her husband in jail. And they have been married over 10, 15 years [inaudible]. And then she starts bringing up these weather women. And I am sitting there because I recognize the names. And "You should come and meet Susie." Fuck- I do not want to see Susie! I do not want to see Jane! But I recognize them from California. And I am thinking to myself, "Okay, we help this woman immediately." But the next day, Susie calls on phone and I go, "Look, I am going back to Philly. If you get the Philly, call me." I do not have to wait for Susie to call me because Josie calls me from California! Susie said she ran into- 1:23:46 SM: Well, from him? Yeah. 1:28:07 BCE: So, the-the pain that a lot of people suffered. Whether it was at the hands of a man or woman, because this French guy, he, oh god he was like, I do not understand [inaudible], I do not know, I do not understand either. But so, I continue my role. You know, I continue my role is there some unfairness in the world? He tried to help. He tried to do something. 1:28:49 SM: You find also the pain because of the experiences of COINTELPRO and what they did to people? I really, I think American I think young people and anybody who knows about anybody who stands up in America, freedom of speech and fight for things. What really happened with COINTELPRO- we know it ended at a certain juncture because Andrew Hoover died. 1:29:10 BCE: Do we? 1:29:12 SM: It was gone into another area where he was being watched, but know Hoover was gone. 1:29:16 BCE: Yeah. 1:29:16 SM: But the question is what, within the Black Panthers community- I have already talked to every single movement, people from every movement, and it affected their lives. What was COINTELPRO? And you know, what did they do and how did they destroy lives? That was the question and how did they destroy lives? 1:29:34 BCE: Well, they put you in jail and your mother and father or your grandmother, do not have the money to get you out or they can hold you up in court for years. People sold their houses, whatever they had to help their children. And I think that is across the board. Now also some of the children died. Some are still in jail. And their families are torn to thunder. 1:30:24 SM: What were some of the tactics that they that they used against the members of the Black Panthers? And did you feel at what juncture was the first time you realized you were being watched? Not just police in the community now, I mean, really being watched. And how did it affect how you did things? How did you live day to day, fear? 1:30:44 BCE: No-no-no fear. No fear. Simply. I was in, I went to get my first passport in Philadelphia. And you go snap a little picture, then you go to the downtown. I remember this man walking up and said, "I do not know we going to let you leave the country Barbra." And he walked away. He walked away. When I was in Germany, my son was maybe 13, 14 months old. First time he had seen snow. I am playing in the snow. And they walk up and the [inaudible] walked up. And you know the sun, but then you see the shadow fall. And I looked up, and that was in the German neighborhood, so the fact that you were a German Ma'am, I did not. And he walked up, and he said, "That is a beautiful son you got there, Barbara." That was the first time I felt fear in my life. They know your name. When a friend of mine, freedom of information, shoot me a testimony when I was in Philly. Negro woman named Barbara Easley [laughs] walked with Rosemary Mealy. And it is like, you do not think about it. You are doing something righteous. And you do that. I do not think Rosa Parks felt fear. Because at some point, you are here. And it does not matter whether you kill me or whatever you do. It is there. You cannot, what are you going to do? You either going to go back to church, or you going to go forward, and get your bead bashed in. But you got to do something. [audio cuts] 1:32:57 SM: You mentioned that Free Huey was a very important happening. What was the Free Huey all about? The Free Huey movement? We know, I saw the posters. And then of course, there is that poster of him sitting in that chair that is on a− 1:33:19 BCE: Oh, it is on my refrigerator. [laughter] 1:33:22 SM: But what was the Free Huey all about? What had he done, to free him, that there was needed freedom? 1:33:29 BCE: There was the shooting, a policeman was killed off the fly. And Huey was shot. And this is in Oakland? Yes. And nobody really seems to know too much more than that, the general story. Now. Of course, we took the position that the police set out to set him up. And so, you get some lawyers and you start a case, you form alliances. 1:34:11 SM: Was this in (19068, or (19)67 or− 1:34:13 BCE: Well now they went to the Capitol of Sacramento was- with the guns. Remember that was first, that was first okay. And of course, they were being followed around. And also, I think, you know, newspapers give you a lot of play. And when that went down, all the black organizations in the area ran with us to the police station, quote unquote, "Free Huey" So the rallying call, that became a rallying call and a very successful campaign because Eldridge took it over you see. And yeah, he did not− 1:35:08 SM: And how long was Huey in jail for that? 1:35:11 BCE: Whoa. (19)70, he got out of jail, and it was either July or August of (19)70. You know, it is funny. We were in North Korea having babies, okay. And you take the radio with the antenna and do like this to hear anything. So, all we would hear was what was the military radio station? 1:35:44 SM: Unless you are- 1:35:45 BCE: You know what I am talking about. 1:35:46 SM: Yeah. 1:35:46 BCE: Radio Free America. 1:35:47 SM: Radio [inaudible] Europe or something like that. 1:35:49 BCE: [agreement] So we could hear that. And we could hear that accused cop killer Huey Newton had been [inaudible] in jail. So that must have been August of 919)70. 1:36:05 SM: So you were, let me get this straight. You were in Philadelphia before you went to Oakland. From what years to what years, you were in Philadelphia? 1:36:14 BCE: I left Philadelphia in (19)63. 1:36:18 SM: And then you went to San Francisco. And how long were you there in San Francisco Oakland area? From (19)63 to− 1:36:29 BCE: I would say (19)68 I started traveling, no, (19)69. 1:36:36 SM: (19)69. 1:36:37 BCE: I started traveling. 1:36:38 SM: Now you were in school there for a while but then you dropped out of school. 1:36:41 BCE: Yeah. 1:36:42 SM: What were you majoring in at school? 1:36:44 BCE: Elementary education, like everybody else. [laughs] 1:36:47 SM: And then in (19)69, what- where did you go from (19)69? 1:36:53 BCE: New York, Philadelphia. I was here. I left. Did I go back? I went back to Oakland about April− 1:37:06 SM: In (19)69? 1:37:07 BCE: No, (19)70. But it was really scary. Because David and his brother June, Eldridge was gone, DC had left. Kathleen was gone. Bobby was still in jail, Chicago stuff. So, the things that were being done are things that I was not used to, did not like. 1:37:56 SM: And it was during this time that I remembered, you know, David Horowitz he was with the [inaudible]. And he said the main reason why he changed from being a conservative- I mean, from a liberal to conservative was because he felt that one of his coworkers at Ramparts was murdered by the Black Panthers. I mentioned that too. 1:38:13 BCE: Was that− 1:38:13 SM: And at that juncture, he switched. He blasted the Black Panthers. He said they were a terrorist group and− 1:38:19 BCE: But Jane, the woman, the white woman− 1:38:24 SM: I think so, that worked in the office, and I know he worked with Eldridge at Ramparts. 1:38:28 BCE: Yeah, but you know, something. Where was I, recently? It was in the last few years. 1:38:50 SM: You were in (19)70. And then you went to from Oakland over to Africa? 1:38:55 BCE: Yes. Well-well see. Eldridge was gone, Kathleen was gone, Bobby was in jail. DC had left also behind this Baltimore indictment. 1:39:10 SM: Right. 1:39:13 BCE: So, I was assigned to work in Oakland. I could go back to San Francisco to our apartment and sleep then I would come back to Oakland, but because I no longer felt that I had the protection of the Field Marshal, it was a little scary. And I contacted Miriam and Bill Seidler my godmother. Back in Philly, "I am thinking about coming home, get some money together. Get some money in case I have to come." Well as it turned out. I was also pregnant. My baby was due in July, end of July, first of August, and Eldridge called and I was there. And he said, "Barbara wins your baby due?" I said, "July, August." Said, "Okay." So, he told June Higgins, "Send Barbara over here." 1:40:25 SM: And he was in Africa at the time. 1:40:27 BCE: Yeah. Because Kathleen's baby is due at the same time, send her here. I was like, "Thank you, God. Thank you." 1:40:37 SM: And well, that was where in Africa? 1:40:39 BCE: Algiers. 1:40:39 SM: Okay Algeria. 1:40:40 BCE: Okay. And so that basically got away. And when I got to Algiers, I only stayed one day. And they put me on a plane to North Korea. So, I was there like, June, July, August, October, almost six months. [break in audio] 15 months or so. 1:41:15 SM: And, you were working for the Black Panthers there, the international organization? 1:41:21 BCE: Yeah. 1:41:21 SM: But you still have links to all the [inaudible] people here in the United States and Oakland and- 1:41:25 BCE: Yes, until the split came. That, you know. 1:41:30 SM: That was in (19)82? 1:41:31 BCE: No. 1:41:31 SM: Oh. 1:41:32 BCE: (19)71. 1:41:32 SM: And this term, the split? What does that mean? The split. The split happened. Who were the people that were being split? And why did it happen? 1:41:46 BCE: Huey came out, like I said, must have been August of 71. I came back to, Kathleen and I came back to Algiers, October. So, there had been some questions about the leadership and direction that the Black Panther Party was going to take. And Huey and Eldridge had differences of opinion. And, of course, we did not realize at this time, that COINTELPRO was also instrumental in setting that up, you know, letters and whispers and phone calls that made you suspicious of certain things, you know. And− 1:42:49 SM: So, like COINTELPRO was saying that Huey was doing this, and Eldridge- that was a lie? And− 1:42:59 BCE: Not all of it was lies. Some of it was because you came to Africa. And you told us what happened to you. I mean, there were people who came. Who said, "Look, man. This is going on that is going on. The direction is, it is not going this way, it is going that way." And therein lies the split. You see, East Coast, West Coast alliances to Eldridge, alliances to Huey. So just not the destruction of the party, but the destruction of the Black Panther Party as I knew it. 1:43:46 SM: It survived though till about (19)82, did not it? 1:43:49 BCE: Yeah, just about. 1:43:58 SM: Who ended up, if Huey was no longer in power and Eldridge was no longer in power and they ended up leaving, who became the power source, that David Hilliard? 1:44:08 BCE: David Hilliard, I think Elaine Brown was also in there. 1:44:15 SM: And that is the period that that David Horowitz talks about where the person was murdered. And does not, he did not talk about the period when Bobby and Huey were- he was talking about- and Eldridge, he was talking about this period because they were close friends, he was close friend of Eldridge. Enough said. I, a couple things here. Many Black Panthers, I think I have already gone over this, but many Black Panther stated at the time that they were not racist and to not hate whites. And, and of course, there was some perception over there that the Malcolm X kind of mentality that all white people were devils. That was what Malcolm had for a short time in (19)63. And then he went to Mecca, and he did not think that anymore. And I think that was part of the reason why, you know, we was killed, but that is another story. But your thoughts on that. That is all, that is another misinterpretation of the Black Panthers then that, that, that white people were devil that was kind of a Black Muslim mentality. 1:45:28 BCE: Well, it was also a cultural nationalist kind of thing. But I had to respect it because it goes all the way back to slavery, quote, unquote, I mean, you know, so you have to understand, well, I will say, like, a white woman. One day, I was talking to her, and we were having so much fun. And I looked at her and I said, "You are all right." She slapped me. I said, "Why did you slap me?" She said, "I understood what you said. But do not you ever forget that I am white." And I understood what she said. So, you-you-you see this− 1:46:18 SM: Yes. 1:46:19 BCE: -thing here. And what was it? I do not know if Tom Wolfe said it in his book, but for some reason I am thinking he might have. 1:46:27 SM: Chic, that radical chic. 1:46:28 BCE: Radical chic was that, all these little white kids run around here, they can take a bath, get the haircut and put on a suit and go back home. You cannot. 1:46:38 SM: [inaudible] Emery too, but it is [ inaudible]. You are- this was when Bobby and Huey, well they were not in jail. When the Panthers are, you know people are threatened by them. But-but everybody was really got you know, you were recruiting people. What would be a- you get up in the morning? You go over to Oakland, what was the typical day like, for when you were working in Oakland? And were− 1:47:10 BCE: You did not have to go to Oakland. No matter where you were, it was the same routine. 1:47:13 SM: What was your routine? 1:47:15 BCE: Routine. Yeah, you were up at 5, out the house by six. At the breakfast program, wherever it was. You leave there if you were lucky 8:30, 9:00. You go to the office. You pick up 25, 50 papers you might sit around for a few minutes with a cup of coffee, some Tito's talking for a while because depending on what time of day, it was, because you want to be out there by 11. You had to be out. So, whether you were in New York, Philly, 11 o'clock you out on streets selling their paper, you generally return to the office after you sold all your papers. Or at least by four o'clock. Five o'clock at the latest people come in and go in the word blank-blank-blank. You would eat a meal because somebody would cook a pot of beans or anything, you know. Some people would actually go home and then some people would go to paint the pads, where you would sleep on the bed or you know, an army cot, whatever you know or you would go and stay at the office and sit around and talk. 1:48:48 SM: This is all volunteer, this is not paid. 1:48:50 BCE: No, no money. Your needs were met. I mean, we would buy women's sanitary napkins. We did not buy cigarettes you know but the personal things of a few people who did not have family contacts or any money coming in. But then some of us were like always kept friends. 1:49:22 SM: You what? 1:49:23 BCE: Always kept friends. 1:49:25 SM: Oh yeah. [laughter] 1:49:28 BCE: You know the thing about the Bernstein thing let me tell you before Bernstein came along. When DC got called back to New York for the 20 months. I was like so tired of these Panthers. I am running the Panther pad and they angry at me because I am cock blocking, so to speak [laughs]. And so, I had this girl named Lydia and [inaudible} what was [inaudible] name? Well, he was Jewish, and he was so funny. So, I would go to the house, hang out there. They would buy all my papers- do not put this nowhere- they would buy all my papers. And I would sit there and eat, drink. I would stay a couple hours, I would not hang out all day because they had snorting coke, see, I do not I do not do drugs, no drugs. And was this guy called Goldfinger. He had he had a plain fight with the Turks over Turkey. 1:50:44 SM: He had a what? 1:50:45 BCE: [rustle like Easley is making a gesture] 1:50:46 SM: Oh, yeah. Cause he was a drug smuggler. I mean, these people were, I had no idea how interesting they were until we got to New York. Because they said "Well, where is DC" I said, "He is in New York," "Where you want to go, we leaving tomorrow" "Oh, I cannot go, I got to ask Bobby" [knocking noise] "Bobby, Ron and Lydia want me to go to New York with them" And Bobby said, "You are going to do some work, you better send some money back" right. Whatever I had on, I left San Francisco, it was cold. New York is like 100 damn degrees. The building where they took me, if you thought Bernstein's building was something, this building put it to shame. I mean, the women were like with gloves on. I thought the one woman was the Queen of England, the way she- we go up into this apartment and Jesus Christ Superstar comes out. White robe blond hair blue eyes, you know. Six feet tall. Oh, [inaudible] Panther was there. I said, "I do not do that". But these little girls who are no more than 15 or 17 [snorting sounds] And they were white or Black? 1:51:25 BCE: [laughs] Is not no Black people snorting cocaine? All these white people- 1:52:22 SM: And is this in the hotel or− 1:52:29 BCE: No, this is this fabulous apartment building. 1:52:32 SM: Wow. 1:52:34 BCE: So, I call DC, "I am down here DC with these people." "What have you gotten into girl," because he knew, I always kept friends. He comes the next day. And he does like this, you know [inaudible] for Roger. That was Jesus' name, Roger. Roger is fascinated, so Roger is going to take us for a ride, Lamborghini you follow me. Wait, but he is going with Candice Bergen. But he is also part of this Hell Angel gun running club. So, he takes DC over there, they going to talk about guns. This shit is crazy. I go up to Harlem. I am so glad to get away. So that was- we were over in Algiers, North Africa. And you know, you pick up the newspaper, the International Herald Tribune. And you see Roger. You see Roger. "Hey there Roger." 1:53:06 SM: What does he do for a living? 1:53:07 BCE: Well, I am going to tell you about Roger, because this is when the mind is blown. Roger's going with Candice Bergen remember that? 1:53:17 SM: Oh, she is gorgeous, yes. The guy with a white girl? 1:54:12 BCE: Okay. 1:54:13 SM: Yeah? 1:54:16 BCE: But see Roger's father- this is what was interesting. Roger's father lived in New Jersey. He wanted to meet a panther. So, we told Roger to bring DC up there. DC and Barbara, I wish I had taken you with me. He said, "there are people with money and here are people with real money." He said it was like walking back in to- but anyway, they made generous contributions. This is before Bernstein, okay. But then you got to look at David, Huey and Eldridge, Roger. All of them, attracting white women with money and all this bullshit. We overseas in an International Herald Tribune, it says, Roger- [inaudible] Roger? Our Roger had flown to London with a case of LSD, a suitcase full of LSD. They stopped him at the airport, put his ass in jail. His father to see Richard Nixon, and Roger comes home on the plane. 1:55:38 SM: Oh, my gosh. 1:55:39 BCE: And when you- that is what I tell people- when I come back, and I look back, I go, when I tell you. So, you ask me questions and I tell you, we were a small microcosm of society, we were that big, motherfuckers is crazy. [laughter] However, however, in terms of an overview of the last 50 years I do not think my experience are any, so different from a lot of people in active struggle, okay. It is just that I am one more, and the Panthers are one more link in the chain of human development. Okay, that we have contributed to history, by example. And the fact that we have given strength to other people and their movement is, it is a blessing. And that I have lived to see that. So, I do not get, I regret nothing. I regret nothing. And I still look forward to active participation and change. No doubt in my mind, whether, you know, I always say, what is my favorite little saying? Is- I cannot do great things, let me do small things greatly? So that, you know, it is, it is just that. 1:57:46 SM: Yep. 1:57:46 BCE: And it is always a pleasure to talk about my shit too. [laughs] That laugh– 1:57:51 SM: Obviously, you know, when I interviewed Emory and when I talked to Roz [inaudible] a year and a half ago. And of course, I want, I really liked Kathleen, because I saw her in person- 1:58:04 BCE: I know, I know. 1:58:05 SM: -at a very important time in my life when I was 22 years old. 1:58:08 BCE: Wow. 1:58:09 SM: And, and the fact is that I, she was, she was young, too. She was not that much older than me. And the fact is, that she was a young woman who was standing on a stage, showing strength. 1:58:19 BCE: Yeah. 1:58:20 SM: And for a lot of the women in the audience, and a lot of the men who were young, that meant a lot. And so, if you ever share that with her, tell her I said this, because I was not just some it just some no, nobody person trying to get a hold of her. I really admired her because of that speech she gave, which you could have heard a pin drop. 1:58:43 BCE: Wait, Kathleen came here and gave a speech to the young black lawyers of [inaudible]. 1:58:50 SM: The Temple? 1:58:51 BCE: No, no. 1:58:52 SM: Oh. 1:58:52 BCE: University of Pennsylvania. "Come downtown," they had the dinners. "Come downtown. I want to see you, come on downtown." So, they are going, "Okay, okay." And [laughs]− 1:59:00 SM: Well, she never comes to Philly to visit you [inaudible]− 1:59:04 BCE: Well, you know something. Is she- what is she, well the email the other day, I know she is going to Paris this week, this weekend, and then she will be back. And when am I coming to Atlanta? Never, cause you going to put me to work. [laughter] Well, anyway. 1:59:24 SM: I have a question here. 1:59:25 BCE: Go ahead. 1:59:25 SM: Please describe in your own words, the meaning of Stokely Carmichael his words when he challenged Dr. King and other civil rights leaders saying, "Your time has passed. Your strategy does not work anymore. Nonviolent protest is old school. Dr. King would never support protesters" and I have heard of this, "Dr. King would have never been the kind of person"-neither would Byard Rustin or certainly James Farmer or Roy Wilkins, or Whitney Young or even a Phillip Randolph or even John Lewis− 1:59:56 BCE: Go ahead. 1:59:57 SM: -who would support the protesters with guns surrounding the capitol in Sacramento because they believed in nonviolent, they would think that would be violent. Your thoughts on- you were aware that Stokely challenged Dr. King, there is that famous picture of Dr. King in like this with Stokely, well, that is really not when Stokely said that- a lot of people try to make that, that is the moment. That was not the moment, but it was through words and speeches. So, the question I am asking is− 2:00:27 BCE: What do I think about it? 2:00:28 SM: Yeah, what do you think about that, "Your time has passed", that is what Malcolm told Byard Rustin in a [inaudible] too. 2:00:34 BCE: But that is also what children tell their parents when they rebel. I am the new school, I think he was with the Sydney [inaudible] and guests who to come to dinner, when he had the speech with his father in the room. And he told his father the same thing. Youth has its own growing, you eat the get out of the way, or they push you out of the way. But sometimes if you are very lucky, they will allow you to hang around. But sometimes the contradiction is so great. And at that time, the contradiction was great. So, I could see Stokely saying that. I personally believed in never going against my family, you know, especially my mother and my father. They were- I mean, you call mom before you call God. So, think about it, you know. But in moments of anger or moments of egotism, you say thing. Not necessarily, it does not mean I will not support you. I just cannot go along with your program any longer. 2:02:08 SM: He has not met. When I reflect upon this, I think of Stokely and his commentary about to Dr. King, whether it was in person or through a lecture or whatever it- or through the papers, or an interview, or and Malcolm debating Byard Rustin in 1963, in New York, where he said, "your time has passed," and he said, "your time has passed." But it was not in a disrespe-. And Malcolm did not do it in a disrespectful manner, it just said it is for years moved on. 2:02:41 BCE: But, but also, we all part of this continuation of bringing humanity to mankind. You know, we are- I mean, Barbara Russell did some great things. Martin Luther King, we have to recognize ancestral progress, because you would not be here today. So, you know, come on. But those were flamboyant times. So, what you going to do? 2:03:16 SM: Yeah, and of course, and correct me if I am wrong. It was around this time that Nick was dying. Because, because what the, John Lewis did not want to go the direction of Stokely. 2:03:28 BCE: No. 2:03:29 SM: And neither did Bob Moses and Moses went on- he was leaving anyways. But yeah, but they were the original Snick and Snick was kind of splitting to with the H [inaudible] and Stokely going to more of a Black power. 2:03:42 BCE: Yeah. 2:03:43 SM: And those, and John Lewis and Bob Moses, and others remaining in that same mold. 2:03:50 BCE: Sure, there you go. 2:03:52 SM: Yeah. I have met a lot- I met John Lewis twice. 2:03:55 BCE: Oh, okay [inaudible]. 2:03:56 SM: I had some conversations with him. 2:03:57 BCE: But− 2:03:58 SM: And I just think he is an unbelievable human being. I wish he was in the cabinet. I wish that he would take the next step now and become President Obama's Chief of Staff. I think he needs to go the next step. I think he needs to be close; I think− 2:04:15 BCE: But− 2:04:15 SM: He− 2:04:17 BCE: [Inaudible] How old is he, Louis now? 2:04:19 SM: I- (19)70, maybe. 2:04:20 BCE: Yeah, no-no-no. 2:04:22 SM: But he [inaudible] he was you know he was [inaudible], when you look at the- these are some other questions here- when you look at the boomer generation, that encompasses 74 million people of all races, gender or sexual orientation, political philosophies. What are the characteristics you admire? And what are the characteristics you least admire about this generation? 2:04:40 BCE: About ourselves? 2:04:41 SM: Yeah. 2:04:44 BCE: Well− 2:04:45 SM: I looking, making sure this is, I am going to change this one. 2:04:49 BCE: Okay. 2:04:49 SM: Hold on one second, here we go. 2:04:52 BCE: I admire the fact that. 74 million of us, the worldwide? 2:04:58 SM: No 74 million boomers in the United States. 2:05:01 BCE: In the United States? 2:05:02 SM: Yeah. 2:05:03 BCE: Well, let us knock off 30. Let us knock off 30 million who are lost, okay, in jail, dead, are dying, are on drugs, and let us go with the other 40 million, as you say, who are now in trouble themselves. But I think that since the (19)50s, the boomers have done great things, technology wise, medicine wise. Also, in terms of humanity worldwide, a raising of consciousness of Mother Earth, I am really impressed with those of us who are conscious of world- what is it, warming? What do they call it, you know? 2:06:03 SM: Global warming? 2:06:04 BCE: Global warming, you know. And I think there is about 10, not maybe 15 to 20 million, who are intellectually right wing, and do not give a shit. But then we have this little minority of people who are still active, even though they can collect social security now, but are active and have passed on some traits to our children. And if not, children, by birth, children through education, community, similar interests. So, I am very proud of most of the baby boomers, because done a hell of a job, a hell of a job. And now the grandchildren for lack of a better word that are coming behind us. Not necessarily our children, but our grandchildren. Some of them are serious. 2:07:14 SM: Do you think though, that the-the children, and now the grandchildren for the first time, are they- even in the (19)60s and (19)70s, only about 5 percent may have been activists? 2:07:24 BCE: Yeah. 2:07:24 SM: [inaudible] And-and do you feel that the boomers had really been good parents and from all ethnic backgrounds in terms of sharing their experiences? Number one, what, and are their children listening to those experiences? And secondly, are they carrying any of the characteristics that the 5 percent had, which was to be socially conscious of the surroundings around you, and to care for those who are in need, and not just caring about yourself? 2:07:54 BCE: Well, the (19)70s were the, not (19)70s but the but the (19)80s were the me-my generation, if I remember correctly, that turn, not generation but even some of the baby boomers got caught up in me-mine, and I want money, you know. I think that we have done the best we could, whether it be to education, oral stories, I know quite a few grandchildren, who are more conscious than the generation, their parents, the boomers, children are okay. And if we have another 20 or 30 years, and we are not physically encumbered with illness etc. and our minds are still working, we will still be going, we will still be going, okay. And when your book comes out, they are going to be like, "Wait, who, follow up on that story. Who is that person?" 2:09:06 SM: See, what is happening. I got a publisher, and I have got somebody who is- my main thing now is I got so many transcripts to do. 2:09:13 BCE: You do. 2:09:13 SM: -and to get the final publisher, because I have been doing this all myself. But I already have a commitment from Jan Scruggs of Vietnam memorial, he said, "When you get this book done, in the American History Center, I am going to sell your book." 2:09:25 BCE: Yeah. 2:09:25 SM: American history, and that that, "You are kidding." "No-no-no," I− 2:09:28 BCE: No. 2:09:28 SM: And he is, he does not ever, he is a- he is a rec-, kind of a recluse was but he did say that would be something that I would sell because it is about America. It is about America during the Vietnam War. It is about America. So− 2:09:43 BCE: Well, we the history. 2:09:45 SM: Yeah. 2:09:45 BCE: And they are going to come. Because they come now. I mean, most of my interviews are by high school and college kids. Because they Google me or somebody, they did not want to do something on social program that of the (19)60s, then they find you. 2:10:03 SM: Oh, yeah. 2:10:03 BCE: So, I am feeling good about that. I am feeling good about that. So of course, I hate reality TV. 2:10:14 SM: So, do I. I do not know- 2:10:17 BCE: I mean, how bad is the news and Turner Classic Movies? What the hell is? [laughs] 2:10:24 SM: Yeah, that is the one- that is one of the worries I have about the young people because they got to go and watch reality TV. Well, what about their own lives? I mean, that is reality. 2:10:34 BCE: What, between Twitter and Facebook? I tell my grandsons, the one that is 13 last year. I said, "I tell you what, write me through the mail." Give him envelopes and stamps and my name. Just one page. Just write me anything, what you, read what you did in class. And I will give you $10 for every letter. I am going to be late because I is not paid no money out yet. 2:11:07 SM: Unbelievable, even for 10 bucks! 2:11:10 BCE: So, now but he does his paper delivery and all that other stuff. But in my mind, it is like free money. Okay, what are you going to do? 2:11:27 SM: What is interesting, Derek Bok, now I am getting off the subject here. He, in a recent speech he gave a former president of Harvard, said that college education is supposed to be about preparing young people to be critical thinkers in the world, and to be good writers. And yes, to prepare them for the world to be financially sound to have a, to create a career and all this other stuff. But he is- he thinks that we are lacking in those areas of critical thinking. And in the areas of, and our teachers have to be more creative with students and in getting this out of them. This is not- follows right after, what are your thoughts on the people who blame most of the problems on our society today? Here in 2012, and probably the last 15, 20 years- I am the boomer generation. And on the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Because of the following issues. This was a generation that did not respect law and order. It did not respect authority. It the divorce rate is outrageous. Their lack of church and synagogue attendance really went down into inner spirituality that they were into themselves, this welfare mentality about not being given, being given handouts as opposed to working, this the issue of drugs, of drug culture, instant satisfac- satisfaction and gratification, you know the drugs was about. And even the even the financial crisis we were in because the (19)60s was [inaudible] even Dr. King said, "I am not going to wait any longer." Thurgood Marshall, when he talked about the Civil Rights Act of (19)54 was a gradualist approach that finally took place. And then even then it took a long time after the bill was passed. For equality really take place. Dr. King said oh, I want to know well, that attitude of I want it now, many people believe is part of the reason why we have a financial crisis. They spend, spend, spend, and without worrying about how to pay for it. So, it is a combination of a lot of these particular things. Just your thoughts on those people that criticize the boomers in the (19)60s and early (19)70s for the problems we have in America today. 2:13:33 BCE: I do not think they can put a lot of blame on the boomers. And we, the boomers and I say that term "we." We were not in charge of the World Bank. We are not in charge of Bank of America. The whole concept of raising student loan educations. We did not have an army to go and get the drugs from Thailand and miscellaneous places. We, and we were not masters of deceit. If anything, we were too honest and open and taken advantage of by what Wall Street, the advertising community. But we did not sell out America. We did not we did not sell. I mean you know, take everything overseas. We did not do any of that. And if anything, we were fighting it. We were fighting it. So, during the so called (19)60s and (19)70s, if anything when I look back we were victims of a clever, clever government, institutions, some persons unknown that allowed us like Woody Allen's movie, The Dreamer, allowed us to think we were going to change something overnight. So no, do not go there. And as far as serving institutions even down to it when you mentioned the word religious, I find most boomers a spiritual, not organized religion. And Catholic Church has done its own self in and some of the Christians, my got. 2:16:10 SM: The kinds of sex, drugs, rock and roll was. They point to those three. That is the boomers and the sexual revolution the drugs and− 2:16:23 BCE: But we, I tell you one thing about the (19)60s and (19)70s, we did not have AIDS. Where did that come from, you know. I mean, when that you know, living in San Francisco and I lived in the Haight Ashbury okay, I did see some destructive behavior with LSD, mind alt-, but not with marijuana and coke, nobody could afford it. And nobody really wanted it because if you had marijuana and a glass of wine you was all happy. You know, you had a little music. What was it, sex, drugs and music. 2:17:07 SM: Rock and roll. 2:17:08 BCE: Rock and roll, that was Elvis, we did not have anything to do with that. 2:17:16 SM: The boomers often thought in at that particular time that they were the most unique generation in American history. And a lot of young people that time had an attitude that I am going to change the world for the better we are going to end racism sexism, homophobia, war, save the environment we are going to be different. And the critics will say, "Well geez how is the world different today we have had nothing but ongoing wars ever since and, and now boomers have been leaders for years, we have had the last few presidents have been boomers. And-and now we are not going to have any more boomer presidents. Now we are going into the generation Xers who are going to be president, “What sets them apart from other generations? And how would you compare them to the two generations that have followed the boomers, which is the generation Xers and the millennials that are today's students? 2:18:03 BCE: You know, I read an article in Time from one of these generation Xers as you put it. 2:18:14 SM: They were born any- from (19)65 to 1980. 2:18:18 BCE: Yeah. And I read an article by one of them, and he said that he was concerned about his parents not leaving anything good for him that he wanted to leave for his children. He did not blame it on all boomers. But like I said, maybe it was that 15 to 20 million who never [inaudible] any place but I ever, they never left. But they do control things. So, I am not really but I have a quiet faith that just because I do not see things do not mean they are not happening. I read enough on the internet and magazines to know that there are young people out here who are not into reality shows. Like my son said the other day, every woman is not a falsely, you know? So, every young man once you get past, 22. It is time to give up the silliness. It is time to think about where I am going with this, right. But I just have faith that it is enough people out here to make a difference. And continue. I mean, because if it is not, it was true that 2012 is the end of the damn world. Can I go out and spend all my money now? 2:20:22 SM: You raise a really good point because after King- well, [inaudible] university, the place I used to work at, had their Martin Luther King celebration [inaudible] and I regret that I do not go anymore because I am gone there. But-but I have always felt that even in the celebrations for Dr. King, they were oftentimes missing the point. We are the man, we-service day and all the projects that− 2:20:46 BCE: Yeah. 2:20:46 SM: That is a great thing that he would be loving. 2:20:48 BCE: Yeah. 2:20:48 SM: But the one thing about Dr. King is that he was about "We." Not me." "We." So first off, I do not think he tolerated any of this until he had died of natural causes. Number one, but he had an inherent belief that we all had it within us as individuals to make a difference in this world and did not have to be Dr. King or James Farmer or Malcolm X- 2:21:13 BCE: [agreement] 2:21:13 SM: -or even Bobby sealer. 2:21:15 BCE: Yeah. All- 2:21:16 SM: For you. It is about you. We all have it. And the fact is that when we talk about the unsung heroes, the people we will never know. I often wonder when-when you read when people even talk about the Black Panthers, and we talk about the leaders and the-the-the 30 or 40 names that come forward who were leaders all over the country? How about the Black Panthers who were never in leadership roles? Who may have been in Des Moines, Iowa. 2:21:48 BCE: Thank you. 2:21:50 SM: They contributed too, that is what Dr. King's talking about. I think any leader knows that. 2:21:54 BCE: Well, you know. 2:21:56 SM: They should. [inaudible] A few more here. When did the (19)60s begin in your opinion, and when did they end? 2:22:17 BCE: I do not know why, but (19)65 comes to my mind even though the march was (19)63. So, was the thing-? Kennedy was killed in (19)63, (19)64? 2:22:29 SM: (19)63. November 22, (19)63. 2:22:32 BCE: Okay, and-and then we went into (19)65. I am not sure why I feel that way. But everything exploded. Is that a good way to look at it? It was like, I have to, I am not sure but for some reason, the (19)60s for me began in (19)65. 2:22:59 SM: When did they end in your opinion? 2:23:07 BCE: Close to (19)80. Yeah, (19)75 to (19)80. 2:23:17 SM: Was that the disco era? 2:23:19 BCE: It was but also you look at the age group. People were turning over 35, some 40. And there was a backlash of Ronald Reagan after Reagan, Nixon, the war was over. It was a lot of confusion and also drugs- 2:23:50 SM: And that ended in (19)75. 2:23:51 BCE: Yeah, also drugs, they swept the country, you know. So you are looking at a lot of things that put a damper on fun. 2:24:04 SM: Do you feel I do not know if any in the Black Panther community? I think this came up. I know, Emory mentioned one person but how important were the Beats with respect to their influence on what transpired in the (19)60s and (19)70s? The Beats being Kerouacs the Ginsbergs, the Berlin Gettys the Waldmans the- 2:24:25 BCE: Oh, the Beat yeah, [inaudible] 2:24:26 SM: Gary Snyder, Leroy Jones, I mean all the beats. 2:24:30 BCE: All the Beats, oh you forgot Lenny. Well, Lenny was not a Beat, no he was not. Lenny was ju-, wait okay. But I think they set the stage for some cultural changes, social cultural changes because and they also yes, social cultural change. I think they set the stage for some progressive thought. No doubt. No-no. 2:25:07 SM: Did any of the Panthers read them? 2:25:12 BCE: Oh-oh, let me just think. I do not remember that being on the reading list. I do not remember that being on the student, Black Student Union list any of their works because, no, even− 2:25:31 SM: Not even Leroy Jones? 2:25:33 BCE: No, because he was Leroy Jones. Now on the East Coast, you had another kind of development because the East Coast and especially New York, see New York feeds out. But in California, Hollywood was not a place where people frequent. They, they just made movies, Walt Disney and crap. But no, Leroy Jones- and then if I am not mistaken, he was married to a white woman about then. 2:26:09 SM: Yeah, Hetty Jones. 2:26:10 BCE: Yeah. 2:26:11 SM: And Hetty was a Beat writer too, I have interviewed her. 2:26:14 BCE: But see, no− 2:26:20 SM: Who were, what were the folks that were on that reading list at San Francisco State what were the reading books that were on your list and maybe even the Black Panther list? 2:26:30 BCE: Wretched of the Earth, Black Skin White Masks, [inaudible]. Of course, Mao Zedong. Marx and Lenin's, Lenin's some of Lenin's books 2:26:49 SM: Saul Alinsky? 2:26:50 BCE: Oh-oh. 2:26:51 SM: Saul Alinsky with Rules for Radicals or? 2:26:55 BCE: It probably was to the-the white students who were also rebelling with the- so you did have a mixture of things. Oh, come on, you know that. Well Malcolm X always but uh, oh come on Barbara. 2:27:17 SM: There is Eldridge Cleaver's books, but they became− 2:27:21 BCE: Soul on Ice was the fast read and open for discussion and debate but I− 2:27:26 SM: What about James Baldwin, was he read? 2:27:28 BCE: Yes. Baldwin was read. 2:27:31 SM: Richard Wright? 2:27:32 BCE: Richard Wright, but come on, Don Ali out of Chicago. 2:27:41 SM: I am not sure. 2:27:42 BCE: Yeah, Don Ali, and then you had Sonya Sanchez, you had Don Ali- so it was like an [inaudible] 2:27:48 SM: Maya Angelou too? Was she just starting around then? 2:27:53 BCE: Yeah but Maya- 2:27:55 SM: Nikki Giovanni and her-? 2:27:57 BCE: Giovanni was yes. Maya Angelou so-so because she did come to the Panther school for kids and stuff. I know why the caged Bird Sings, I read that sitting on the toilet, but− 2:28:13 SM: I mean, how about Du Bois? Did you read Du Bois? 2:28:16 BCE: Well, you read Du Bois. [inaudible] you read Du Bois? 2:28:21 SM: And Malcolm? 2:28:22 BCE: Yeah, of course you had to read Malcolm. But everything was a fast learn now I think about it. And it was sort of narrow focus. 2:28:36 SM: And Harry Edward is writing them too. 2:28:38 BCE: No, but Harry [crosstalk] them later. 2:28:40 SM: Yeah. 2:28:40 BCE: Because he came after the Olympic thing with thing with [inaudible] and that. But then you had The Black Scholar, you see, by Nathan Hare. He had people writing articles in his book, so that that was very popular, very popular in the academic setting. 2:29:02 SM: Glazer was another one. Nathan Glazer, Nathan Glazer, then there was so many of them, um. 2:29:09 BCE: Do not worry 2:29:10 SM: I know there was, I do not know if anybody in your group read the Making of a Count- Theodore Roszak's and The Making of a Counterculture, which was a very popular book back then too. And The Greening of America, Charles Wright. 2:29:23 BCE: Now I remember The Greening of America, did not read it. I remember that. 2:29:28 SM: Those are kind of classics. What did the Vietnam War mean to African Americans in the (19)60s and (19)70s? Where did the Panthers stand on the war? And secondly, when Dr. King gave his speech against the war in 1967, at Riverside Church in New York, where did the community in Oakland stand with respect to his views on the war? 2:29:49 BCE: Well, we were against the war, period, and also because it was the oppression of another people, and when King came out against the war, well, that was fine with us. Oh, yeah. Because that, but-but-but you know what was funny about that, when he came out against the war? I remember sitting around with a group of Panthers and saying, they going to get him now. They going to get him, because you cannot do that. Okay. I remember that very clearly. 2:30:27 SM: I had a person I interviewed who was at Michigan State, who saw him speak there in an auditorium and she said, she was close to the stage. This was in the morning. Sure, be given that speech yet. But she said she close to the stage. And she was a sophomore, and she said, "I looked up at him," and the first thing she said "He is too good.” 2:30:52 BCE: [laughs] Oh, yeah-yeah! 2:30:53 SM: He knows the truth too much, he cannot survive. 2:30:57 BCE: And that was the same when-when that, you took that antiwar position. That was our first thought. You are not, you are not going to- they are going get you. 2:31:08 SM: Because even the people, the even people in the administration from LBJ on down, I mean. 2:31:15 BCE: Oh, they were [inaudible]? 2:31:15 SM: An enemy. 2:31:16 BCE: Yeah. So, what was that, was the answer to the question? 2:31:20 SM: Yeah, I think that was the answer to that question. We were up to here, it was on the Vietnam War. Was there a concern within the Black Panther community to about the fact that so many African Americans were in large numbers were going to that war in Vietnam, based on the fact that many of them were coming from the inner city, and they had they could not get out of the war? Because like, so many of the people in college, they had deferments, whereas people in the community, in the cities− 2:31:45 BCE: Well, this was not- one thing. I do remember that we were aware that a large number of African Americans, but because we were working with other groups, Hispanic, Asian, white people we were working with, we were aware that nobody should be going over there. But we were also aware of the fact that deferments were being given to blah-blah-blah Now and that was when we started sending a newspaper overseas, yeah, we started sending. 2:32:31 SM: So, the Black Panther Paper was being sent overseas? 2:32:36 BCE: Yeah. 2:32:36 SM: The were, what part, where? 2:32:38 BCE: We- well, let us start with Sweden. 2:32:42 SM: London? Because− 2:32:44 BCE: London, Germany, wherever there were- 2:32:49 SM: France, Paris? 2:32:50 BCE: I am not su- well, I am sure of this. There were a big man, the Big Man, he traveled to these places, because they were what was called Solidarity Committees. And whoever wanted to get paper, we sent it to them, and they would take it to different spots where the GIs were. So that helps. But that war was bad for everybody, just like this one. 2:33:23 SM: Yeah, the antiwar protests were not only happening in London. 2:33:26 BCE: Everywhere. 2:33:27 SM: They were happening in Paris. And I believe they were happening in Poland. There was some, there was a lot of stuff going on Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and I think even in Japan. There is a question here, can I use your bathroom, just real fast? 2:33:42 BCE: Real fast, [inaudible] 2:33:43 SM: [audio resumes] All right. So, the next question here is, this is a question as kind of a follow up to Vietnam. When John Kennedy gave that speech, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you-you can do for your country," what is an [inaudible] of speech, and the capital. A lot of people have this perception that the boomer generation is a generation of service. They think of a Peace Corps. They think of the volunteers and service to America, they think of giving back to others, you know, caring about others beyond yourself the whole concept of service. And in a book called The Wounded Generation, a book that came out in 1983, there is a panel discussion with Vietnam veterans that included Philip Caputo who wrote a Rumor of War. Bobby Muller, founder of Vietnam Veterans of America, Jack Wheeler the third who was actually murdered this past year in Delaware, who was one of the main founders or fundraisers for the Vietnam Memorial. He is a graduate of the class of (19)66 at West Point. And James Fallows, a writer for Atlantic Monthly and then this conversation, Jim Webb was also in that group who was who was now the United States Senator from Virginia, and he raised something that was very important in the discussion and that is that he felt that this discussion that the boomer generation is a- the generation of service, this- [audio cuts] These are good berries. The generation, what was I saying? The generation of service- he-he-he said that he felt that you cannot label this generation this way because many refused to go to the war. If you are a service-oriented generation then when your nation causes you to go to war, you go. So that that there is a real good discussion of this book on it and this transcribed and so I have been raising this question ever since I raised the book, not in the first half of people interviewed, but this question of, you know, what are your thoughts on that, that his commentary that we are the boomers are not [inaudible] the service oriented generation, yet many times are often labeled as a generation that was inspired by Kennedy's speech and all the Peace Corps and all the others. 2:36:06 BCE: But his comment is narrow. Because he acts like people who went to war, were the only people that count, or no, no, that is why I do not like all or most of- it does not apply. Because just because- you heard the call from Kennedy. Does not mean that others sitting here the same call, and wanted to do it differently. And many did. I mean, I, just-many did, no-no. I− 2:37:00 SM: You know that that could if you even go to the extreme here. 2:37:03 BCE: Yeah. 2:37:03 SM: That is even basically saying, then, if it is not, that the Black Panthers, even though some might consider them. 2:37:08 BCE: Yeah. 2:37:08 SM: A radical group, they do not understand it because they did not. But-but their service to the community of Oakland, which will spread to the service in New York, that was service, service to others. So, he is basic less another extension of the service mentality within the generation. 2:37:26 BCE: Well, you know, the military, any chance to work with, around the military in Germany. [laughs] And they scare me more than a policeman scare me. 2:37:48 SM: Then or now? 2:37:49 BCE: Both because there is- but I have worked. But it is a microcosm of society, I cannot get away from that. 2:38:07 SM: Right. 2:38:08 BCE: No matter, when you are in organizations, institutions, they just reflect some of the bigger society, you know, but unfortunately, even with the party and the military, the police, the internal thing does not always come from the top to the bottom. And sometimes, if top is corrupt, the bottom is going to be violent. So, when we talk about service, everybody got a definition, do not they? 2:38:53 SM: I agree. 2:38:53 BCE: So. 2:38:54 SM: Good point. Kind of a takeoff here, the question I have asked everyone from day one, when I interviewed former Senator McCarthy, when I started this way back in (19)96, when I was working full time. 2:39:09 BCE: Go ahead. 2:39:10 SM: The question is this, do you feel that the boomer generation, like the Civil War generation, will be going to its grave, not truly healed from the tremendous divisions that tore us apart during the (19)60s, (19)70s and early- maybe even in the (19)80s. And then, of course, it is the culture wars spreads it even more, for those who want to go back to the (19)50s, the way it was, as opposed to those who believe that we have made a lot of progress. So, the question is, is healing. Do you feel that a lot of the boomers Black, white, male, female, gay, straight are going to go there because they never healed from the divisions between black and white male and female, gay and straight those who were for the war and against the war? Just a question, do you think we are a nation that has is going to have a tremendous problem healing? 2:40:04 BCE: We will see. You are talking about a group; I can only think individually. And I believe that individually, there are many people who are at risk within their souls. That no, I did not accomplish everything I set out to, but some things were done, and that is all I can do. So, no, I do not want to honor- you know, it is like, the oldest profession in the world. It has been here before the Bible, do not worry about it. Just makes sure that everybody gets health checks. That is all, okay. So, it is like, I am not going to stop that. But look at this. My son married an Asian woman, and I fought the Japanese. I fought the Viet Cong. And now my grandchildren are Asian. You got to make peace. 2:41:14 SM: That is a really good point. Because I think the reason why this question came up originally, was because of the fact that I wondered how the antiwar people, when they visited the Vietnam Memorial for the first time, and they were bringing their children- 2:41:28 BCE: Right. 2:41:28 SM: -and they looked up to their mom and dad, who may have an antiwar and did not serve and got out any way they could, that that they felt guilty that they did not serve. So, I think that is where I was coming from. But it is also about the issue. We asked this, when I went to see took group of students to see Edmund Muskie, the former United− 2:41:46 BCE: Go ahead. 2:41:46 SM: -States Senator and we asked him that very same question, "Did you feel the divisions?" And he-he, the students came up with this question, because they had seen all the divisions of the riots of the cities, the 1968, when the murders of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy and the convention in Chicago and all that, I mean, those and they see and they said, "Man, that is, that is like a Civil War, how can you ever heal from this?" And they asked Senator Muskie who was the vice-presidential candidate at that convention, and he did not even respond in the way, he said, he said, "You know, we have not healed since the Civil War on the issue of race." And then he went and he said, and then he went on and said, "I just." He was in the hospital, he died six months later- and he said, "I was in the hospital, and I was watching Ken Burns Civil War series, and I said, Man.” He realizes 600,000 Americans died in that war, almost an entire generation taken away. And, and for what" and he talked about healing there, and he said, we have not healed in the area of race. And he said, so he did not even mention the (19)60s. And so that that was why I you know. 2:42:51 BCE: I just, but it is like I said, like I said, make sure everyone gets a health check. 2:43:00 SM: How are we doing time wise? Are we okay here? 2:43:01 BCE: Oh, I am fine, you the one got time− 2:43:04 SM: I am going to I got the [inaudible]. The-the question of trust, too. One of the characteristics of the boomer generation is that the younger generation, that trusts very much, they saw their leaders lie. Boomers grew up, I think it did not matter what background they were from. They saw presidents on TV lie, they saw the President and the statistics of the Vietnam War, which we all knew were being, you know, escalated, we saw, you know, what they experienced Watergate, they experienced the lies about Vietnam, you know. 2:43:39 BCE: Yeah. 2:43:40 SM: But see what happened, you know, during that whole period, is that the boomer generation, oftentimes, many of them that were involved in activism, did not trust anyone in a position of leadership, whether it be a president of the United States, president of a university, a head of a corporation, even the head of a church. I mean, they did not trust anybody in leadership roles. 2:43:59 BCE: Well, what was that [inaudible] nobody over 35. 2:44:03 SM: See that, that was from Jerry, Jerry Rubin. And then when they realized they were going to be 30, they upped it to 40. 2:44:12 BCE: But, uh− 2:44:17 SM: Is that a good not to trust people, or is it? 2:44:19 BCE: Well, you know, something? We grew up with that. We bathed in it, we slept with it, we know it. And what is very interesting to me is because of Steve Jobs, okay. The last two generations know it too. And they know it. It is they; I mean, it is unbelievable when you turn that computer on. Like, I usually turn it on in the morning, check all my emails, and I turn it [inaudible] and turn it on at night. You know, I delete a lot because you have to, but no, we really- see, and I am going to use that "we" interesting because for some Chinese Americans, Asians, Japanese Americans on the West Coast, during the (19)40s, the war. They closed their communities when they got out of them damn encampments, okay. Because they saw, what was happening, okay. Like I tell people, Japan on the [inaudible] look at them. Then, you look at Latinos. And even the Black farmers in the south, you know. So, the bombers got a lot of information from their parents. So, but we were more sophisticated in terms of certain things, and now the children, instant. And then they will run your heads out of town based on the fact- I mean, how do you get a satellite to show you my house, from space? You go on your computer, and you go. [tapping noises] 2:46:28 SM: Yeah, you can see your house. 2:46:29 BCE: Come on, you know, come on. So. 2:46:32 SM: Nothing is private anymore. 2:46:34 BCE: Nothing-nothing. 2:46:36 SM: You talk about trusting then, well God who can you trust now? 2:46:40 BCE: Why do you have to trust anybody? 2:46:42 SM: You know, it is interesting, it is the first thing you will learn in political science 101 in college is that the govern- if you, that not trusting your government is healthy. Because, it is healthy in the long run, because that means you are keeping them on their toes. 2:47:04 BCE: Get the movie, V for Vendetta. 2:47:07 SM: Oh, I seen it. Yeah. [crosstalk] 2:47:10 BCE: [in sarcastic tone] People should not be afraid of their government. Government should be afraid of their people. 2:47:18 SM: I noticed that mask was on the occupied people. 2:47:21 BCE: Yes, and when I was in Oakland, I went right down there and joined them. I had big fun, until I realized that somebody thought I was the homeless. [laughter] 2:47:30 SM: The movements, like I am done to my last three questions here. The movements, from the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, there were so many of them, of course, the ongoing Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, the American Indian movement, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian, bisexual, transgender movement and the Chicano movement. You get the environmental movement from Earth Day in 1970. And you had the Puerto Rican, and the Asian Americans were also involved in their own movement and so forth. They seem there, seemed to be a unity back then you could see the groups kind of supporting each other and there would be a protest and they would be, you can see banners from all of them. Now, they seem to be- there does not seem to be any unity anymore, that the women's movement has their banners, the, they are not kind of working together, they become more isolated. They are, they are out there, but they are not working together. And what does that say? Is it, they- in other words, the causes, people care about the causes and other movements but when you have a protest, it does not seem, they do not seem to be there? Am I wrong? They seem to be more divided and isolated than they are working together like they did in the late (19)60s and (19)70s. 2:48:40 BCE: Was not that a most unusual time? See, that was the most unusual time, and its so many factors that enter into why not? As I got older, everybody got jobs. Everybody got families. And I think we spoiled some of our children. [laughs] You know, I think some of the children got spoiled. And I do not mean like after the Korean War or World War Two, no-no-no, I mean, some of these little buggers got spoiled. And also- that is the students you hear next door, the "thump-thump." 2:49:44 SM: Oh, there is students living next door? 2:49:46 BCE: All around me. 2:49:47 SM: Oh, these are all student housing? 2:49:48 BCE: Well, this is my house but all up, all up and down the block. 2:49:53 SM: This is all student housing, this whole structure? 2:49:55 BCE: Except for one other [inaudible] 2:49:56 SM: And your sister lives upstairs? 2:50:00 BCE: Every day they want to buy it though. I am not selling. 2:50:02 SM: Oh, for student housing, right? [laughs] 2:50:05 BCE: Yeah, I am not going to sell it. 2:50:06 SM: Yeah. 2:50:06 BCE: But I do not know, the answer could be placed on one or two things. But sometimes I hear other boomers saying, we stopped working. You know, we stopped working as hard as we used to certain degrees of achievement, because from the (19)70s. The, for me, I looked at the number of Black politicians who were elected across this country. Okay, I mean, locally, city council. And not senators, but representatives, all kind of things, appointments to colleges. Doing (19)70s I think everybody wanted to get as much Black shit in the college as they could. And I saw that as a turnaround for a lot of the Black movement, okay. And then it was a question of acceptability. I mean, when I went to a ceremony for the unveiling of the Malcolm X stamp, you know, when I said, "Oh shit, he is, he is pasteurized. They pasteurized him." So− 2:51:48 SM: Oh, like, Dr. King's. 2:51:50 BCE: Well, no, see, not Dr. King, Dr. King is separate. Malcolm, and I was like "Woa" 2:52:00 SM: Where that statue, where was that put up? 2:52:02 BCE: No, a stamp. 2:52:03 SM: Oh, a stamp. 2:52:03 BCE: Yeah, it should be Malcolm X stamp. 2:52:05 SM: Oh, that is right. 2:52:05 BCE: The post office- and I was like "What the fuck." And his daughter and Dr. King's daughter were both there and nicey cutie booty. Look, who knows. Everybody has some examples that they could give, but I know some things that I saw and during the 80s, the explosion of "Me, my give me" for 10 years or more. And− 2:52:43 SM: Yeah, Christopher Lash when he wrote that book, The Culture of Narcissism which was the 1979 book, he was basically complaining it was boomers, it was not really Generation X because they were too young. He said it was that the-the generation that was supposed to be all into helping others is really only into helping themselves, and that was the culture of narcissism. 2:53:02 BCE: Well, I am just going to− 2:53:06 SM: Yeah. Let me stop this? 2:53:07 BCE: I am coming right back, I am going to see if these are hot enough to eat. 2:53:15 SM: With the culture of narcissism, so. 2:53:20 BCE: It is, it is− 2:53:26 SM: When you look at the- can I get this on here? When you look at the new Black Panther Party today, how do they how are they different from the-the old Black Panthers? I know the criticisms, read all the news about it and they are, some people say they are a racist organization whereas the original, the original group is not. How do their tactics and beliefs differ from the original Black Panthers and how our-man I tell you- how do people like the-the leadership from the past that are still alive, what do they think of these people? I mean, here is- because they are taking the logo and the name, and their-could-should not they have just picked another name? I am just wondering. 2:54:13 BCE: Well, they are. 2:54:15 SM: [inaudible] they have a right to it but. 2:54:17 BCE: It is, you know, they are nothing like us. Okay. They are nothing like us. They are very much so anti-white, anti-Jewish, they make no bones about it. They were paramilitary in their dress. Where even though we bought blue and black, basically we were some of the girls always trying to be cute. And they do a few things that we do, rather we did like maybe a clothing drive, or I have seen a few things. But they offend more than they bring it, okay. And their circle is very small. 2:55:15 SM: How many? How many people are in it? 2:55:16 BCE: Oh, no, I do not know what I am saying the circle of friends. 2:55:21 SM: Not like it was back- 2:55:22 BCE: Oh, no-no-no, nothing is like it was back then even the cultural communities of today are nothing like they were then. So, I think people are able to separate then and now. You know, people can, I have never worried too much about them. 2:55:52 SM: I do not know where they stand on the area of guns. And the do they carry guns or− 2:55:57 BCE: No, please. 2:56:01 SM: I saw the leader that was on TV, he looks well, I do not know a whole lot about him, but supposed to be fairly highly educated. I want to get back here for− 2:56:18 BCE: Re-read it. 2:56:19 SM: Yeah, the-the individuals here, we have gone over them. But in terms of leadership, and when we think of leaders, there are certain qualities people have. 2:56:30 BCE: Yeah. 2:56:30 SM: And I am back to these names again, from the original. Just a few things about the leadership style of Huey Newton. Just-just a couple things. 2:56:42 BCE: Okay. I will be right there with your answer. [audio cuts] Oh, what was it about Huey you wanted to know? 2:56:52 SM: Leadership, his leadership style? 2:56:55 BCE: Well, you must understand that he was not out of jail long enough for it to really develop. Okay, because the Party was formed in (19)66. The latter part of October. So, you figure in (19)67, he was doing a little a little organizing, but it was small groups. And the then the shootout [inaudible] jail. So, I mean, he left a lot on Bobby. And at that time, Bobby was very- 2:57:41 SM: He is the next person, what-what made him a leader? 2:57:44 Bobby? I think people liked him. And he moved very fast. He did not sit still you know that type of thing? He could give some hell of speeches. 2:58:02 SM: Oh, no. 2:58:02 BCE: He could talk about the devil. So- I saw him at Ohio State too. But also, Bobby had a love that came across for whatever he was talking about, how he felt. Yeah, that was the one thing about him is his love for people [inaudible]. And he was a gentle person in a way. But you know, sometimes when you are in a leadership position, so many pressures coming to bear. You tried to escape. 2:58:41 SM: How about Eldridge Cleaver? 2:58:44 BCE: Oh. 2:58:45 SM: What-what made him, what made him kind of special. 2:58:48 BCE: Outside of the fact that he was a tall man? He would be talking to you, because he had great green eyes. And he would always lean back and sort of go [gestures] like the hand was moving, talking. He appealed to the street man because of all his [inaudible] in terms of being in the jailhouse or jail, but he never changed. If he had a position with me, it was the same position he had with you. 2:59:38 SM: He was consistent. 2:59:39 BCE: Yeah, and yeah, that that was the one thing I noticed. But he was really funny, too. He was funny, because he would be sitting there talking and the next thing you know he was cussing [laughs]. 2:59:59 SM: What about Kathleen, what made her special? 3:00:06 BCE: Fiery-fierce. I mean, I used to- do not you repeat this, please- but one thing I noticed in the whole time I was in the struggle. The whiter your skin, the more fierce you were. [laughs] 3:00:25 SM: Really? 3:00:26 BCE: No. But I noticed that about a lot of people because it is a defense, you understand? But Kathleen was very intelligent, real sincere. I mean, I think she was more sincere than Eldridge ever was. So, I mean, she was really− 3:00:43 SM: She was a fiery speaker. 3:00:44 BCE: Yeah. 3:00:45 SM: I wish they had taped it. Because I do not know how many of our speakers, but there is a lot of Bobby's out there but I wish they had one of hers, when she was young. 3:00:57 BCE: She is still goo now. 3:00:59 SM: How about Emory? Emory Douglas, what made him special? 3:01:03 BCE: Sweetness. Kindness. Jovial. Emory's, everything came out in Emory's heart, Emory was just a nice man. And still is, you know, he is, he is a vegan. 3:01:26 SM: When I go out to Calif- I will not go this year, I think I will go next year, I am going to visit him. Because I like to, and I want to take a picture. He has already sent me a picture but, what made I guess, Stokely Carmichael special? 3:01:45 BCE: Well, I guess we have to look at what-what time period in his life are we talking about? 3:01:51 SM: I think probably the periods of the (19)60s and (19)70s. 3:01:53 BCE: Okay. 3:01:55 SM: When he was young. 3:01:56 BCE: Yeah-yeah well fierceness again and in your face, attitude towards the systems, you know, in your face attitude, but he knew, Stokely knew what he was talking about. No, I mean he would not say nothing that- see they were all college educated and most of them were college educated and very, oh just thinking about it now, you know, all those things that make leadership- what is the word when you are attracted to something- cares, charismatic? Yeah. So, sort of like preachers today. [laughs] 3:02:46 SM: How about H Rap Brown, what made him special? He is in jail now for the rest of his life but− 3:02:52 BCE: Yeah, sunglasses. 3:02:55 SM: That made him special? 3:02:56 BCE: Sunglasses. 3:03:01 SM: His brother just died, Heath Charles Brown, did you know him? 3:03:04 BCE: No. But I remember his name. I think Rap- 3:03:16 SM: He gave a great interview. 3:03:19 BCE: Okay, what was it that Rap used to say? Off Whitey, remember those two three phrases? 3:03:30 SM: Oh yeah. 3:03:30 BCE: And then Emmy drew that picture of him. And I was like, "What in the world." But seeing George Foreman was the man. 3:03:42 SM: The Boxer? 3:03:45 BCE: George Foreman. Come on. 3:03:49 SM: He was the, the one from the Civil Rights Movement? 3:03:52 BCE: Foreman. 3:03:54 SM: James Foreman. 3:03:54 BCE: James, did I call him George? 3:03:56 SM: He is from, he is in California, isn't he? 3:03:58 BCE: No, he is dead, isn't he? 3:04:00 SM: I thought he was still alive. 3:04:01 BCE: No, why do I think he is dead but my brain is not working today. 3:04:05 SM: But he was with Snick too, did not he? 3:04:07 BCE: Yeah, but the Master, you ever get a chance to read his book? 3:04:13 SM: I know James Babble was a fiery guy too. 3:04:15 BCE: Crazy motherfucker. [laughs] 3:04:18 SM: He was from Philadelphia here for a long time, he had an [inaudible] 3:04:21 BCE: [agreement] 3:04:24 SM: What made, I guess the other one who I also have here, what made the gentleman from Fred Hampton special? 3:04:36 BCE: The usual. Charismatic, intelligent, always knew what he was talking about. No doubt, no doubt. Yeah, that boy was he was definitely a threat to the system. 3:04:53 SM: Because Bobby Rush ended up becoming a congressman. Did you know, Bobby? 3:04:56 BCE: Yeah, yeah, I know Bobby. 3:04:58 SM: How does a guy become a Black Panther, and then become part of the establishment? 3:05:02 BCE: Well, no, no, he is still very, Bobby is, well, he has just finished. He was here in October, I saw him in October, recovering from cancer. 3:05:14 SM: Oh, I did not know that. 3:05:16 BCE: Recovering. He is, he is doing pretty good. Doing pretty good. Cause he gave a real nice little talk at this dinner party I went to. 3:05:28 SM: Did he come here for treatment or− 3:05:30 BCE: I do not know, did this little group of Panthers that had something, I went to the dinner party. 3:05:39 SM: And how about the, the other people that were the that were on the shirt? 3:05:44 BCE: The Forte? 3:05:44 SM: The Forte brothers [inaudible] 3:05:48 BCE: They could survive in any culture because they were like to Tupac, Biggie Smalls straight out of Brooklyn or Oakland hills. I mean, Oakland is a very− 3:06:01 SM: You want to survive and− 3:06:02 BCE: Oh yeah. And so Forte Brothers had that. 3:06:04 SM: And how bout Bobby Hutton? 3:06:07 BCE: So young, so young. 3:06:09 SM: And was killed, he was killed by a police or? 3:06:12 BCE: Well. 3:06:16 SM: Hold on, let me see here. This is A yeah, and now we go to B, very good. This one is going to end probably. 3:06:25 BCE: Well Martin Luther King was killed April the fourth. And a little Bobby was killed April the sixth. 3:06:33 SM: The same year, (19)68? 3:06:34 BCE: Yeah, was in the same day. I mean, two days. 3:06:37 SM: Yeah. 3:06:41 BCE: That was I think, you remember when Martin Luther King was killed how to cities erupted and same in Oakland and Eldridge and, was it [inaudible] 3:06:56 SM: What were the circumstances of Bobby's death, was he− 3:06:59 BCE: Well, the cops surrounded the house and they said, "Come out." Eldridge took his clothes off. The other boy took his clothes off. Bobby did not take his clothes off. 3:07:12 SM: He just came out with his clothes on, and they shot him? 3:07:15 BCE: Well, I mean, you know? He told me to hold my hands up and [inaudible] drop one. I mean, there was so many bullets [inaudible] that− 3:07:28 SM: Some of the other people here, just your overall thoughts on these people. What were your thoughts on George Jackson? Because we all know he was prison there and died? Who was he and why is he important? 3:07:47 BCE: You have to go to− 3:07:49 SM: And Angela Davis− 3:07:50 BCE: Wait, wait, wait stop, stop. Okay, I just realized. George was in prison. So [inaudible] and there was in the prisons in California, there were Panther chapters. [phone rings] Or affiliate. 3:08:08 SM: Yep. 3:08:10 BCE: I think, so. I know he was one of these in one of them some, some branch or chapter because he was the Field Marshal of some, something that- I do not remember the title. But he had the ability to write. And he had been in jail long enough. And he had read most of the books on the reading list. So, he, he had the ability. And he was a person of note, not because of Angela Davis but because of himself. But when his brother Jonathan, that was 1970, August of 1970 went up in a courtroom shooting and killing and popping and oh god. That brought attention to him, and it was also the time that they were looking for her. 3:09:15 SM: Right. 3:09:16 BCE: But before that, I did not know him because I was already overseas. And I cannot remember if he had written something in the paper. 3:09:32 SM: I remember reading someplace and they were just waiting to get him or something like that. And then there is one other person was killed, or two of them I think and they were coming out together and he was one of them. 3:09:41 BCE: Well, the boy was, I think he died. I do not remember how he died. I do not think anybody was with him. They blamed it on his lawyer bringing a gun, which makes no sense. 3:09:53 SM: Yeah, and Angela was not a Black Panther, but she was certainly 3:09:58 BCE: She was a great supporter in the beginning. 3:10:00 SM: Why should people know about Angela Davis? What was about her that made her special? 3:10:05 BCE: Well, for me it would be the story of Georgia Jackson and her part in that. And that would always lead them back to her younger life before she became a seen that little bit of time in jail. And I mean Russia, every communist in the world wanted this girl out, okay. I mean, it was unbelievable. And I think everybody has a history. But some people have pertinent time zone history. And Angela is definitely one of them. But I like her because of her position on the indu-, military-military industrial complex. And when she talks about history, she is very clear about things. And I think she is safe now. Okay. Very safe. Not like Kathleen. I think that time in jail, and I have never been to jail, so I cannot testify. But some people come out, they straighten up and fly right. And they get a job at the University of California San Bernardino professor of [laughs] Ph. D. of that, this bullshit. 3:12:03 SM: I know Angela is at Santa Cruz, I think was not she- she taught Santa Cruz? 3:12:09 BCE: She is all over the place talking, whatever. 3:12:12 SM: She retired though; I think. 3:12:13 BCE: uh-uh [disagreement] No, she is still working. 3:12:14 SM: No? What did you think of the Tommy Smith and John Carlos and their stand there with the- you know we had, we had Tommy on our campus, but he made it a point, he said, "Do not ever put me with a Black Panthers. I am not a Black Panther. But I believe in Black power." He was emphatic about that. 3:12:30 BCE: Yeah, well I do not blame him, shit. [laughs] 3:12:33 SM: And of course, John Carlos has a book out now, finally. 3:12:36 BCE: Oh, yeah. 3:12:37 SM: They, just your thoughts on their courage in (19)68? I mean, they got, they got hell. 3:12:44 BCE: See, I watched one of the-the one they put a book out in last seven months ago? 3:12:50 SM: That is John. 3:12:51 BCE: And like he said, he said, "We were upset about some things that were happening to them. There. And in Mexico. And when we came out, we put our fists up thinking like, we want to bring some attention to the bullshit, but not to the shit-shit" okay. So, you, you became a symbol, a whatever they became that everybody was, like all Black athletes around the world. And not just Black, see, this is why it is important. 3:13:36 SM: Yeah. 3:13:36 BCE: Because the man who helped him with the book is, was a young white man who was there at the time. And he watched them go through so much shit. And he is Jewish, this, see I found all this interesting. He said that "I was there. I saw how they were treated; I saw how the Jews were treated, some of the Jewish athletes." He said, "You cannot tell-" And the head of the Olympics− 3:14:11 SM: Yeah, I know. 3:14:12 BCE: -was a German, this German [inaudible] or something, right? He said, "Man, look here. You would not believe the stuff that happened to them, me and everybody," but like, a lot of the things, accidentally you get put in history. Because when he was talking, his wife committed suicide. No, you know, he said it was not- I mean, the hardships some people go through, because I volunteered for struggle. He just happened to. [laughs] 3:14:50 SM: Yeah, and what is interesting is a lot of other athletes at that Olympics were doing it too and I remember Lee Evans there was another athlete, the long-distance runner and-and then a lot of female athletes were doing the same thing. But those, but that particular season, George Foreman the boxer refused to do it remember? 3:15:06 BCE: Oh, well. 3:15:06 SM: Yeah, he refused to do it. 3:15:08 BCE: George Foremen, and that is why I [inaudible] kick his ass. [laughs] 3:15:12 SM: Yeah. You know, when you think of the two athletes that stand out betw- is you think of two athletes, when you think of Black power, you think of Muhammad Ali, and you think of Kareem Abdul Jabbar who changed his name. 3:15:24 BCE: And what is his face? Joe Frazier, see− 3:15:28 SM: Well, there is a big difference between Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier though in terms of− 3:15:31 BCE: Yeah. [inaudible] eat a cookie. 3:15:32 SM: And then Kareem Abdul Jabbar I remember coming here into Philadelphia. 3:15:37 BCE: Oh yeah. 3:15:37 SM: Changed his name and he had the big, of course he is [inaudible] well, jeez thanks. I did not expect to be eating, I really want to thank you for this, by [inaudible] 3:15:47 BCE: Well, I saw you with the water bottle, so I said well, "he is not going to be here long, but if he did, I am going to throw them little cakes in there." [sings, laughs] 3:15:56 SM: But, uh. 3:15:57 BCE: Go ahead. 3:15:58 SM: They kind of stood out, Muhammad Ali. 3:16:01 BCE: Yeah. 3:16:02 SM: I know that [inaudible] taking, the even when George Frazier passed away people were really empathetic more toward George Frazier, and who he was as a person and, and some of the things that Muhammad Ali did to him. But what in the community in the Black Panther community, what did they think of the, of Muhammad Ali and like Kareem Abdul Jabbar? Because they stood out as athletes who really were symbolic of Black Power. 3:16:34 BCE: [Inaudible] Of course, they were heroes. But I do not think we made a real big deal of them, you know, in terms of newspaper, because they had enough publicity. And the other thing is, Muhammad Ali was a Muslim under the Nation of Islam. And we had issues because Malcolm was gone. Okay. 3:17:09 SM: Yeah. 3:17:09 BCE: So, it was like, okay, acknowledge, leave it alone. 3:17:13 SM: The same thing with Kareem. He was because he, he had links to with the [inaudible] 3:17:19 BCE: No, no, Kareem was more Eastern. But Black Muslims came after him, [inaudible]. 3:17:31 SM: Harry Edwards was an important person too, because he was on Berkeley campus in the early (19)70s. And of course, he was involved in not only the, what happened in the 1968 Olympics, because he was the advisor there, but at Cornell University in 1969, when the students took over the union with guns. Okay. Was there any inspiration to the Black Panthers from that incident at Cornell? Was there any kind of linking- I know (19)66 is when the Panthers started? 3:17:57 BCE: Well. 3:17:58 SM: But that scene in (19)69, they were not Panthers, they were− 3:18:01 SM & BCE: Students. 3:18:02 BCE: But see, the student movement was still exploding everywhere. Remember, back then, the news was coming from the west to the east, instead of vice versa. And now, there was a lot of support for that. The newspapers gave support. You see, articles were written. But there was an article in The New Yorker. It was about two years ago; I think I got rid of it. And it was the- some anniversary of the Cornell blah-blah-blah 09. And I forget who wrote it, whether it was a student or a faculty member, but I found it interesting, because they said the Black Panthers came up to support the students. 3:19:02 SM: That is right, they did. 3:19:03 BCE: Yeah. And I was like, oh, I guess I do not even know [crosstalk] 3:19:06 SM: Yeah, I lived in that area, I was in Binghamton and-and I read about it, and you have no idea. 3:19:12 BCE: Mm hmm. Yep. 3:19:13 SM: The fear that-that area of New York State there is a lot of wackos. And so, there was a fear that these wackos these hunters were coming, to come out of nowhere and murder the students. And some of the professors that were there were, obviously they were upset with the administration for not coming down harder on them at the time, and in fact, several professors knew, the conservative professors knew that they were going to leave the university at that time, and one of them was Thomas Sol. African American, who's now has written a lot of books, was at Stanford. He was one of the professors who left, I do not know if that was exact incident, but he left and there were a couple other professors who left. I think Alan Bloom might have been one, who took his, when he got in a car took his family, I have done so much reading, and he had to leave Cornell he was really upset with the administration for not coming down harder on this. [Inaudible] that one of those students who led that protest is on the board of trustees right now, who has been very successful person in life. And− 3:20:19 BCE: What is his name? 3:20:19 SM: I cannot remember. 3:20:20 BCE: Did he write a book too? [laughs] 3:20:21 SM: No-no book. He is on a board of trustees, very successful. 3:20:24 BCE: Wait a minute, [inaudible] 3:20:25 SM: I do not know what posi- I just remember knowing that that person had gotten into some sort of position of responsibility with the university. I am not sure if I am correct. I am not sure if it was a trustee position, but in some capacity [crosstalk] 3:20:42 BCE: No, you got you got Cornell West, you got. The other guy, what is the other guy? The one went to the White House to have beer with the− 3:20:50 SM: Oh, Gates, Henry Louis Gates. 3:20:54 BCE: And I look at these leaders and whatever they are, and I go "Mhm," I am take it with a grain of salt. 3:21:03 SM: Well Cornell West and Gates and Dyson, they are um− 3:21:10 BCE: Oh, let us continue. Let us go on, I do not want to− [laughs] 3:21:12 SM: See, the last thing in this particular area is just what did the Black Panthers yourself and Bobby and Healy and not necessarily Stokely because we know what he felt. We have talked about it. What did they feel, what were their thoughts on Martin Luther King and Roy Wilkins and, and James Farmer and Whitney Young, because those are the four, big four? Remember the big four? There they are. 3:21:39 BCE: Yeah. 3:21:40 SM: And I have read, and I have read so much about them since, of course Philip Randolph was the was the old timer, who was still there, he had Byard Rustin helping. So, but that particular group, Jesse Jackson was an up and comer. But− 3:21:54 BCE: Yeah. 3:21:56 SM: And Whitney and Whitney Young, but the key thing is the big four were King, Wilkins, Young and Farmer. 3:22:05 BCE: Yeah. 3:22:05 SM: They had been the leadership and and-and I know other people followed in their footsteps. But yeah, but just what did they think of them? 3:22:12 BCE: Well, it is sort of like where you started with Stokely, "Your time is coming on." But we are moving on. So, you keep doing what you are doing, do what you want to do. But we are going to go and we are going to move on. I do not think it was a, well you remember, you have not even brought this up. But the-the antagonism between the Panthers and other organizations, Maulana Karenga. See, that was an outright disrespect that two organizations had for each other. 3:22:53 SM: I do not know too much about− 3:22:54 BCE: Do not worry, do not worry. But it was a question of cultural nationalism, which means from changing your name to the garb, that clothing that you wear and certain African centered activities. Well, the Panthers were not really a cultural organization, they were more intellect, action. So, there was some friction and people got killed, okay. But if you asked about the us organization, they were in Los Angeles. I would say, "Oh them all bald headed no good and motherbaba duba da." But if you asked about Martin Luther King, and big four as you said, well, they have had their day and I am going to do this that and the other. It was not, put put-put-put down. Now occasionally. We did call you Uncle Tom. 3:22:54 SM: Yeah. 3:24:03 BCE: We put you in the newspaper as a bootlicker, okay. No doubt, no doubt. But I always thought of that period of time as the breaking away, you know, the breaking because you were asked by the establishment press and newspapers, "Well, what do you think of the Black Panthers, oh them ruffians, those-" so you are looking at this and you are saying, "Wait a minute, you do not even know who I am." You know, you know things that, so if-if you diss me I am going to diss you back because you were there to soothe the fears of white America and some Black Americans, but you did not represent everybody. So, there you go. 3:25:15 SM: Music, I made a reference to it earlier, was the African American community-community linked to or inspired by the music of the (19)60s and (19)70s? Or mostly the Motown sound? Who were the entertainers, the artists, the musicians that most inspired the Panthers and the African American community as a whole? And secondly, because we are talking about the bay area here, and you know, when he talked about the Bay Area, you are talking about the Summer of Love and (19)67, which was a big thing when people came from all over the country to San Francisco. And that by (19)68, we knew the drugs took over the town, everybody was leaving. And then of course, 1969, Woodstock was a cultural event. 3:25:59 BCE: New York! 3:26:01 SM: So, you got the Summer of Love and (19)67 and the Woodstock and (19)69. How important were the Summer of Love and Woodstock? Do you see an identity in the African American community, particularly the Black Panther community, to those two particular events? Because there is so- 3:26:16 BCE: We sold more newspapers than ever. Woodstock literally was unbelievable. Unbelievable. Okay. But it was mind boggling at the same time, because of the amount of marijuana you [inaudible] oh shit gas masks [laughs]. But it was also, we sold a lot of papers. So, I mean, 1000s, you know, whatever was that. 3:26:47 SM: What was the- what was the publication every week [crosstalk]? 100,000 or? 3:26:52 BCE: Oh, I cannot be sure it depends on the year, the month. 3:26:56 SM: Yeah. 3:26:57 BCE: But the summer of love. Okay, that was interesting, because it was not, it was not just about alliances, because we went there. Because you said "Hey, I need a little support why do not you sell some papers people." But it was like, what the hell is going on here? Because you had all these for lack- basically, these white young kids. Flower− 3:27:41 SM: Yeah, we are at [inaudible] African American kids. 3:27:44 BCE: [Inaudible] Do not make me feel guilty− 3:27:45 SM: The key thing, it is important because when I talk about I want to make sure that when I talk about the boomer generation, someone told me once when they think of the boomer generation, they think of white kids, ah no-no-no-no-no. Boomer generation is 75 million people from all ethnic backgrounds, I want to make sure, what were, was there a connection between the Summer of Love and the African American community besides just selling newspapers? And being a part of it? 3:28:10 BCE: I know that I was there this last summer. No, it was so new. It was so new. You, I think that- so you have to look at how Black people do drugs back then. They smoked marijuana in the house, in the house. If they shot up, they shot up in the house or in certain little spots. But most African Americans back then were drinkers. Social beings, a beer with a little wine, whiskey. Okay. Now Woodstock, the summer of love both of them in the Haight Ashbury itself. Okay, because I was living there. I moved in at night. I woke up the next morning, I said, "where the fuck is [inaudible]". I had no idea that I had moved at Haight and Trager, the jiggers were- yeah, and the jiggers were my neighbors right. I had no idea where I had moved, because it was [inaudible]. It was like a mind-blowing experience. So, if we were strange to our peers and parents as Panthers and radical Black Student Union children, because a lot of them students got in trouble with the parents, right? The summer of love and Woodstock and Haight-Ashbury, it was like, no clue. You were in the state of shock. Now granted, there were a few Black people in the movement there. Love Power, Haight-Ashbury. The whole hippie movement. But the thing about it was, were they in it for the drugs? Were they in it for free love? Were they already married to a person of another racial group? You never saw a lot of Black people, okay in any of those things. But because I was always like this. But after living in the Haight, I was there about a month. And like I said, the jiggers were upstairs, they were the people that− 3:30:11 SM: Hippies. That is Peter Coyote, did you know Peter? 3:30:55 BCE: I do not know, I got to see. 3:30:57 SM: [inaudible] 3:30:58 BCE: But no, but here, what was interesting. I never felt so safe in my life. Walk down the Haight Ashbury. I would walk six, seven blocks down the Fillmore Divisadero, come home late at night walk up the street, because people were always on the streets. But then it was very beautiful in the beginning, but then LSD really turned it around. 3:31:25 SM: Yeah, (19)68 was a different year they called it the summer of- I forget, there is another term they used for it. But it is, it is not a good term. 3:31:31 BCE: No. 3:31:31 SM: People were getting out of there like crazy. 3:31:33 BCE: And− 3:31:35 SM: Yeah, so when you talk about the music overall, then, you know, I guess what I am getting at here is. 3:31:44 BCE: Oh, music. 3:31:46 SM: So, you know, because the culture we are talking about Woodstock, of course, Jimi Hendrix [inaudible] Woodstock. [crosstalk] Carlos Santana, there was [inaudible] there, but what, the music and I look at the music, too. We know music was part of the generation and of the course, white kids loved Motown. And they love rock music. The question is, did African Americans during that timeframe also like the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, the folk musicians, the rock bands, you know, because, because it is not just, you know, that there is the Chamber's brothers. There is the Isley Brothers, there is the Motown groups. There is Jimi Hendrix. There is Bob Marley. There is Richie Havens. 3:32:31 BCE: No Bob Marley. Too early. 3:32:33 SM: Yeah, you are right on that. But there were, of course, all the Motown groups and the jazz, but just-just thinking about this. 3:32:43 BCE: What− 3:32:44 SM: Did the community like all this music? 3:32:47 BCE: Well, we all liked Janis Joplin. I was not that hip to what is his face, Jimi? Because I went to the Haight theater to see Janis. I cannot remember whether I saw Jimi Hendrix there, or what it was but Janis because she was so earthy, little crazy, I guess, but earthy. And she came across sort of like Tina Marie in later years. But it depends on your cultural, spiritual, educational upbringing, what you liked, but everybody liked Motown because they were safe. And then you got the Philly sound. But then they started recording music to meet the needs of the struggle. You know, Marvin K, what is going on? These boys here in Philly, Gamble and Huff produced a lot of good music. The one I really liked was that wild man, James Brown. 3:34:07 SM: Oh, yeah. 3:34:08 BCE: I am black and I am Brown. 3:34:09 SM: Yes. 3:34:11 BCE: So, you had, between (19)65 and (19)68, everything. It was like trying to keep up with it. Trying to keep up with it. I think. 3:34:28 SM: What is amazing is when I think about it, the music, no matter what ethnic background you were from, there seemed to be something for everyone with a message− 3:34:39 BCE: But it was. 3:34:40 SM: You know, the-the white the white bands had messages. You know, Country Joe and the Fish talked about Vietnam. It is amazing. 3:34:49 BCE: No what was that, Bob Dylan. 3:34:55 SM: Yes. 3:34:56 BCE: Bob Dylan, strange creature that he is. I do not remember the song. And Joan Baez. See, we could play some of their songs, not just Black music. 3:35:11 SM: Peter Paul and Mary. 3:35:12 BCE: You could play the songs because there was that cross connection of, hey, do you know the truth about this? And see, it was a form of intelligence giving, I think now, and that is some stuff I picked up in rap. I mean, I had to listen to rap because my son and his friends rolled around. 3:35:37 SM: And you can get messages in rap. 3:35:39 BCE: And I was like, and then some of the stories were too true, horrifying stories, but no, it was a lot of things cross cultural back then. 3:35:53 SM: Even the (19)70s in John Lennon's music as a- before he was murdered in 1980. Everybody was listening, Give Peace a Chance. I mean, Bruce Springsteen's music, well, he has got a lot of messages in his music. I, it is like everything you listen to. Pete Seeger crosses three different generations 3:36:11 BCE: Yeah. 3:36:11 SM: With his music and Arlo Guthrie and Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell. They are all I mean, there is all messages I-I have listened to everything even I could not believe this the other day the Beach Boys have an album that I did not even realize the Beach Boys. Yeah, it is called Demonstration. I said I got to go find this. And because I never knew there is a song if you go into the web, hit the Beach Boys go all through their material and then come to this one song talks about Kent State, Jackson State, the Beach Boys! Because is there you know, everybody seemed to be making sure that there was messages that were. 3:36:49 BCE: You know, it is funny you should mention the Beach Boys because− 3:36:56 SM: This is going to this one is going to run out, this is ok. 3:36:59 BCE: There was something on TV about a month or so ago, one of them had− 3:37:03 SM: Will we tape this or just? 3:37:05 BCE: No, this is just conversation. 3:37:06 SM: I think we have gone over the fact that you are a little bit more about your life after the Panthers. They broke up in the (19)80s overall. Two questions right here. 3:37:08 BCE: Go ahead, go ahead. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Barbara Cox Easley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Easley, Barbara Cox ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights workers; Black Panther Party; Easley, Barbara Cox--Interviews Description An account of the resource Barbara Cox Easley is a civil rights activist most known for her involvement with the Black Panther Party while attending San Francisco State University. She worked in the Oakland, C.A., Philadelphia, P.A., New York, N.Y., and international chapters for the Party. She also participated in several survival programs hosted by the Party. Easley continues her dedication to social work and political activism today. 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 2012-01-26 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.10.2016.186a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.186b 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. 217:23 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6fbe2d2fd56556b3c9e1fb1fdd4ae7a4.jpg 5564a6886eda460d68d2f68127807c4e https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/f80337dfb556193025186af3ad2b6d97.mp3 c1e8dc7ee92d39745e4c49f80cd31d30 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-06-29 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Michelle Easton Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Michelle Easton is the president and the founder of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. She was appointed a position at the U.S. Department of Education previously served as the President of the State Board of Education in Virginia. Easton received her Bachelor's degree in Development Psychology from Briarcliff College in New York and graduated law school at American University's Washington School of Law. "}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"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}">Michelle Easton is the president and the founder of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. She was appointed to a position at the U.S. Department of Education and previously served as the President of the State Board of Education in Virginia. Easton received her Bachelor's degree in Development Psychology from Briarcliff College in New York and graduated law school at American University's Washington School of Law. </span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Feminist Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Nineteen sixties; Anti-war Movement; Baby boom generation; Free-speech; failures of the Modern Feminism; Civil Rights Movement; N.O.W."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Feminist Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Nineteen sixties; Anti-war Movement; Baby boom generation; Free-speech; failures of Modern Feminism; Civil Rights Movement; N.O.W.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 122:19 Subject LCSH Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute; United States--Officials and employees; Easton, Michelle--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Michelle Easton Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 29 June 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: Well, I have to keep checking this too, to make sure it is going. So, I guess the first question I always ask is, describe a little bit about your upbringing, your growing up years, the influence of your parents, the high school years and the college years. What helped make you who you are, basically, from the early years? ME: I was born in Philadelphia, where my father was attending the University of Pennsylvania. When I was six months old, my father was recalled in the US Naval Reserve and sent to Alaska. And as soon as the doctor allowed, my mother took me and the other two siblings at that point to Seward, Alaska for three and a half years. I was real little. I do not remember much. I think I remember mostly the pictures. But I feel this kinship with Sarah Palin, because when I read her book Going Rogue, her love of Alaska, it was like mom and dad talking. They loved it so much. They would have stayed after Daddy got out of the Navy, but it was not even a state. They did not have schools. It was very, very primitive. But they loved the land and loved the people. So, then we came back to Philly. Daddy got a job in New York City, and I started school in Rye, New York. A wonderful little K-6. What you have to pay 25,000 for now in a private school. It was a time when most parents shared values. There were not all these controversies in school. And the emphasis was English, math, science, history, but a little bit of music, a little bit of art, and a little bit of PE. Life was simpler then. Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, mother was home, daddy worked. There was one more sister after, so there were three girls and a boy in the family. It was the era when dad worked, and mom took care of the kids. Dad continued Naval reserve, so he was gone one or two nights a week for that. He continued his education, getting very close to a PhD at NYU, but in the end, none of his professors spoke English, he could not understand them, and he did not get it. Wonderful, solid, all-American kind of family life. Ups and downs, always, ups and downs. But grandparents coming by once or twice a year, and aunts and uncles, lots of friends. Life centered around school and church and neighborhood. SM: Were there any teachers? I found that some people there is somebody who... You always hope when you are a young person, that there is somebody that takes an interest in you beyond your parents, whether it be a minister in your church or a preacher, rabbi, or whatever, or a teacher that sees you and kind of guides you, inspires you. Were there any teachers in your life, either in high school or at Briar Cliff? ME: Actually, the teachers I remember the most are elementary school. They were these wonderful, for the most part, maiden ladies whose lives back then were devoted to their jobs, and they were very serious about every child learning and being the very best educated they could be. Junior high school, I remember as almost a total waste until ninth grade, when they put children of equal ability in classes, because they took six elementary schools, the children of very widely varying ability and children could not read with seventh graders that were a 10th grade level. This was the modern notion that we will mix all the kids together, and then they will all learn from each other, but it does not work that way. If some children are so far ahead of others, they just have to drag along and do nothing. So that was a total waste. But then by ninth grade, they started to put us into class according to abilities. Went to a good public high school, Port Chester High School, where you could be a serious student if you wanted. Back then in New York State, we had very rigorous Regents Examinations. SM: Yeah, I am from New York State. ME: I remember getting a 90 in English in 11th grade, that was when they gave you English, and being so proud. That really meant that you knew your English. It was before exams were dumbed down and everybody did well. And it was a good high school. There were kids who were serious about school. Some of them were interested in sports. Some were only interested in sports. There was hoods, the bad kids back then. I graduated in (19)68. The hoods. But even then, the hoods did not use four letter words and curse out the teachers, it was just a tougher kind of group. And there was a huge group that did vocational education. They were not going to be able to go on to higher education, so they learned to be secretaries or auto mechanics. It was simpler. It was simpler. And I grew up in a family where my dad said, socially, there is two kinds of girls, those who do and those who do not. You can decide what kind you want to be. And most guys want to marry girls who do not, so it was not so complex. The popular culture was not such a huge influence like it is on the kids today. And then I went off to Briar Cliff, a woman's college. To be honest, I probably would have gone to Colby in Maine, I loved Maine, or a co-ed school somewhere, but my father thought that would be better for me because I would be close to home. It was all girls. It was a good program. And turned out he was right. And since I have learned that a lot of women who later have become leaders in different ways went to all girls’ schools. It is one less thing for girls to be worrying about. You go out on the weekend, and you have your social life, but I am a big fan of single sex education for those who want it. Not everybody. Not everybody. But of course, the government has tried to abolish it at VMI and the boys and the girls’ schools when the government's involved in anyway. SM: When did you know that you were going... We define women sometimes as being liberal or conservative. When did you know you were a conservative? Was there something that was happening in the world or in America that turned you a certain direction? ME: It was when Goldwater ran for president in 1964, and I was 14. It was really the first time my family had gotten involved in politics. My father, having come from a military background, tend to, at least they used to, step out of politics and be sort of neutral. But my mother and father were so excited that here was this man running for president who was articulating the things they felt about too much government taxes, worries about Social Security going bankrupt, worries about us not being strong enough militarily, basically libertarian economic policy and a sensible foreign policy, that is what Goldwater was. And of course, back then you had no talk radio. There were a couple in New York mom used to listen to, but you did not have Rush, you did not have Sean, you did not have Fox News, you did not have the internet, you did not have drudge. And really Goldwater running was the first time for a lot of Americans that they began to hear some of these conservative ideas. The campaign itself was an education. And of course, he lost quite badly, but it was really the start, I think, of the modern conservative movement, which has been most all my personal and professional life since then. SM: I still remember that being on TV, because I was always watching the... Actually, from (19)52 on, I was a little boy, I watched all these conventions. But I remember the battle between Barry Goldwater and Nelson Rockefeller and Governor Scranton of Pennsylvania. You saw within the Republican party the split, liberal/conservative. ME: Right. You did. And it remains in a way today, but not nearly as much. I mean, most Republicans are conservative, or pretend to be. SM: One of the things... I wrote this down here. What was it about your early years where you recognized conservative women were placed at the back burner as opposed to liberal women? What was the magic moment, so to speak of, when you knew that people who thought more conservatively were not getting the ear that liberal women were getting, or the breaks or whatever? Was there some incident? ME: Well, I think it was more cumulative. When I came to Washington in 1973, and it was to work for Young Americans for Freedom, [inaudible] the successors of that now. And I was conservative in a traditional philosophical sort of way, but I started to notice how the media especially, and the popular culture, gave all these praise to women's groups like the National Organization for Women and other groups later, The Feminist Majority, but they did not represent all women, they only represented left wing feminists, sometimes radical feminists, sometimes socialist views. How come they were called the women's groups when here I was, this conservative woman, working so hard? Who represented me? And to this day, you could probably open the Washington Post one day this week, and it will say, " So-and-so is very concerned about women's issues, blah, blah," and then they start to list all these left-wing positions on everything from taxes and daycare and right to life and whatever. That has stuck to this day. So, for me, I think it was going to college, coming to town, beginning to work my professional life, and hearing about the women's groups and what they thought. But it was not all women, it was only liberal left-wing women. SM: Were there any conservative women's groups at that time? ME: Well, there were a couple, but they were not as well known, certainly, and they did not get much coverage in the media. But I guess Phyllis Schlafly had begun her Eagle Forum. SM: The Eagle Forum, right. ME: That was a key one. And of course, there were many religiously oriented conservative groups within churches and denominations, but not really. And so that is how somehow, shooting ahead 20 years after I came here, 1993, when I founded this institute after having served President Reagan and the first President Bush, what is the real need? What is the real need in America? Well, it was to have an organization. And by that time, there were a couple of others that represented and promoted and celebrated these great conservative women leaders, some of whom you have at The Calendar, and used them as role models for young women. When I was in college, there were no conservative role models, except within my family, or perhaps within the church. Clare Boothe Luce was out there, but there is so many outstanding conservative women leaders who were never celebrated, who were never highlighted, who were never given as role models, and still are not in 99.9 percent of the universities, the women's studies programs. Come on, it is not women, it is liberal women. It is feminist women. It is radical socialist women It is not conservative women. They never study any of these women. They do not read the books of Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin, they do not have Bay Buchanan come. That is why we exist. We send them to a campus so that a different point of view can be heard. SM: Just like the Young American [inaudible]. ME: Right. Our focus is solely women, there is-is more general. So, I do not know if that is a magic moment, but it was like, hey, wait a minute, these are the women's groups? They do not represent me. They do not represent the people I know, the people I work with, people in my family, people in my church. How do they get away with being called the women's groups? And it happens to this day. SM: That is a magic moment. Because you realized from your early experiences coming here, and I am going to ask you more questions about the Young Americas Foundation. Not Young Americas Foundation, the- ME: Young Americas for Freedom. SM: Yeah, Young Americas for Freedom. ME: [foreign language]. SM: Because Lee Edwards, who I interviewed a couple years back, said this group has been excluded from the history books in many respects in terms of the anti-war movement, because they were conservative, but they were against the war. And it is all about SDS. It is about the Weathermen. ME: We were against the draft. The service did not believe it. SM: I have some questions about that coming up, but I think it is important that when you were young, you saw something that was lacking, and this is a great experience for young people, and it inspired you to create something. ME: It is really true. And it reflected how lonely it could be as a young conservative woman on campus, and then even coming to town. I had lots of friends and lots of people promoting me in different ways, but not as a woman. The women's groups let you know in every way possible if you want to be successful, and they do this to the girls at school, I think, in some ways, in colleges, you either need to be liberal or you need to be quiet. And when you see the treatment of some of the conservative women, the way they scorn culture, the way they mock Palin, the way they put down Michelle Malkin, the way they sneer at Michele Bachmann, the congresswoman from Minnesota. Not much has changed. SM: One of the things when I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly at the CPAC Conference, she gave me graciously an hour. I know she as very tired, but- ME: Look in the middle. SM: Yep, there she is. ME: She speaks for us sometimes too. She is 85. Look at that. Isn’t that amazing? 85, there amongst the 20, 30-year-olds, holding her own. SM: I think what was interesting is at CPAC she was very tired. I do not know if you noticed it. ME: She was tired. SM: I asked her assistant, said, "Yeah, this has been very tiring for her this time." ME: She had-had an accident about two CPACs ago, and she had fallen right before it and broken her hip. But she recovered very-very quickly. SM: Well, one of the things she said to me, she said, "The troublemakers of the (19)60s and early (19)70s are now running today's universities. They are running the women's studies, Black studies, gay and lesbian studies, Asian studies, Native American studies, and environmental studies." She was making reference that all of these studies are basically run by liberals. You believe that? ME: I do. I believe they are a way to promote liberal and left-wing ideas. And it is the way they use women, women's issues, they use women as a cover to promote left wing and liberal ideas. It does not have much to do with women at all, it is really sort of a dishonest thing that they do. SM: When we talk about the movements, we all know about the civil rights movement that was in the (19)50s and the (19)60s, and it was kind of a role model for all the other movements, and the anti-war movement too. Even Gaylord Nelson, when he was alive, when I interviewed him, said that the civil rights movement was the role model for us in terms of the teachings. The anti-war movement also helped. But what are your thoughts on all these movements that kind of evolved at the end of the (19)60s and early (19)70s? The women was based on sexism, because women were not treated equally in civil rights or basically hardly any of these movements were they treated equally. And are conservative women, and conservatives as a whole, linked, maybe not to now, but in any of these other movements? ME: I guess I would perhaps dispute that the woman's movement was based on sex discrimination and equality and law. I believe the suffragette movement, the original suffragettes, were seeking equality under the law so that men received the same rights as women. And what a tremendous success that has been. But I think in the (19)60s, as I was coming of age, what happened is that original movement for equity under the law shifted. I mean, there was an anti-war movement, there was an anti-government mood, and it shifted this woman's movement from basically what we had achieved, which was equal rights under the law, not that it's perfection, but it is the best place in the world for that, to this feminist, which was a sort of an anti-male, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, anti-American, anti-free enterprise for sure, and that was the liberalism and the leftism and the socialism, and anti-religious, all religious people are hypocrites and bigots. It shifted the original suffragette movement, which was in fact about equity under the law, to this really left-wing movement, which was just developing when I was in college in (19)68 to (19)72. I do not know if you remember, but I remember the early feminists, the radical feminists, the thing was to take off their bras and burn them. Bra burners. Remember that? SM: I remember there was something in a Miss America Contest in Atlantic City. ME: They protested the beauty pageants because it objectified women, as if they are discussing plays like the Vagina Monologues do not objectify women. But beauty pageants were just an absolute no-no. So did the Barbie thing, too. The Barbie doll we were talking about. The Barbie doll, she is just too slim and attractive, and this is harmful to little girl's psyches. I mean, just this absurd stuff. I mean, you hear Sarah Palin talking about the beauty... she said, "Hey, it got me scholarships." She was from a poor family. She had to work her way through college. She was beautiful to boot. But the whole feminist movement shifted from the original suffragette. Just everybody nowadays supports equal treatment without discrimination for everybody, regardless of your sex or your race or your religion. So that is one movement that, to me, just morphed into something that was really not representative of most women, although they did suck a fair number of people into this notion that the most important thing as a woman is to take care of yourself and to worry about yourself. And of course, we want to worry about ourselves, but for lots of women, they want to worry about a husband and a family as well. And they said, "Well, that is really secondary to you and yourself." And for some women, they choose that. But for an awful lot of women, they want to have both the opportunities professionally and the opportunities to have a traditional family life. SM: It is interesting, I cannot remember who I interviewed, because I have interviewed so many people, I have to look at the transcripts, but I can remember one speaker mentioning that growing up in the (19)50s, women, the housewives, really were not fulfilled deep down inside because they gave up everything to raise a family. And even though they never said anything. Some were secretaries or whatever, and then they just went home and raised a family, and they could not use their skills or whatever beyond, so basically, they never spoke about it, and they kept it hidden. So, we are talking about boomers' parents now, who are now in their (19)80s or passing away. ME: Well, I know Betty Friedan wrote about that. What was her book called? SM: The Feminine Mystique. ME: Yes. And how it was so godawful to be home with children, you need to throw off the bonds and go do whatever. I know from my own family, I know my mother, I know both of my grandmothers, I know my aunts, they loved being home. They loved raising a family. Were there challenges? Of course. The notion that they were so totally dominated by the men in their life, I can tell you, they made it appear that the man made all the decisions, but my mother made a huge number of decisions in our family. But it was something that you presented to the world. "What do you think, Glen?" "Well, you decide that one mom," and say whatever. I am sure there were some women who were unhappy, but there were huge, huge, huge numbers of women who were terribly happy. They devoted their whole lives to their husband and their children, and then they would move on sometime. SM: That is my mom. ME: My mother had trouble when my baby sister left. It was really empty nest, because she did not have that many outside interests. But she developed a bridge club and this and that. She got more active in different things. But it was really hard. See, I never had that, because I never stopped working. But this notion that they all hated it is just bunk. Some of them probably did. And for them, good for you, get out and do what you want. But life was certainly simpler for a lot of them, because now you have to choose. You have the baby. And I talk to so many young women and, "I do not know what to do. I love my job, but now I do not know, we are going to have a baby, blah, blah, blah." Choices. Well, this is the freedom we wanted so much. We have got it. SM: One of the things that I am putting down here, what Phyllis Schlafly told me at my interview with her, also, when you look at the (19)50s, it is kind of defined as more of a conservative vera as opposed to the (19)60s and the (19)70s. And obviously a lot of it has to do with Eisenhower, who was the president, he was like the grandfather figure. Certainly, William Buckley was... God and Man at Yale, which I read a long time ago, it is a great book. But he was starting National Review, and so there were conservative things happening in the United States before President Kennedy came in. ME: Russell Kirk wrote The Conservative Mind, which is still read. SM: Right. And of course, you talk about Goldwater and the rise of Ronald Reagan in the (19)70s and the (19)80s. And I interviewed Ed Meese too, because I wanted Mr. Meese to talk to me about his work with Ronald Reagan in California, not his presidency, in California. I learned an awful lot from him about those years, about law and order, against the welfare state, and those kinds of things. Can you talk about what happened? We're talking about the end of the war, we are talking about these kinds of major things still happening, that there were a lot of conservatives, that seemed like a conservative era. I do not blame it all on John Kennedy for the change. ME: Well, remember, I was... SM: ...Blame it all on John Kennedy for the change. ME: Well, remember I was 10 in 1960, so I was not that much into it until about (19)64. So, the question is what happened then in the (19)50s and (19)60s to energize conservatives? SM: Yes. ME: I think it was a mix of things. Again, I was a little girl, but I do think that people started to get disturbed about the growth of government. Even back then Goldwater used to talk about the national debt. Lord, is not he turning in his grave looking at our debt right now? I think that, and I have heard people in my family talk about this, when they had the end of World War II and they split up Europe and you had the communists, I do not think that people at the time thought that was forever. And I do not think, from what I read, it was not Churchill. He did not think that was for decades and decades. It was just a way to set things up post-war. I think that Americans were sort of horrified by the oppression. The oppression in communist nations of so many people. This was supposed to be a temporary fix after the war. I think that Buckley starting the National Review was caught on that in both the foreign and in the country. Eisenhower interestingly was a little bit ahead of his time. Do you know he appointed Clare Booth Luce; the first woman ever named to a major ambassadorial post? He named Mrs. Luce our ambassador to Italy. This was the first time. So that was always sort of interesting to me because you always hear about this guy as not much of an exciting guy, but that was really key what he did. And now you look, and of course the ambassadors, many of them are women. The funny thing was that when she went to Italy, she said the first thing she had to do was hire a wife because the ambassador's wife plays such a critical role in running the embassy and the social. So, she hired Letitia Baldridge, who later became a social- SM: She has done a book. ME: Yes, she has done a lot of books. She loved Mrs. Luce. She is still with us in Washington. And Mr. Luce had by then, sort of semi-retired from time, and he would come and spend six to eight months a year in Italy with her. But she needed a wife. I always loved that. But Eisenhower was smart enough to name a beautiful, smart, philosophically sound woman to a key post like that post-war. I always give him credit for that. SM: Yeah, that is interesting about him. I remember the golfing. He would go to Gettysburg and you see that... You have been there. The little three... The little hole he has there. ME: And Mamie. Mamie people nowadays sort of snicker at Mamie Eisenhower. But from what I have read and heard; she was a power in that family. SM: I always have to check this. What is really amazing about Goldwater too, and this is the thing, I will always remember that here is this man who ran for president in 1964 and got clabbered by Lyndon Johnson, but he was a very distinguished senator. In the end, he and Hugh Scott were the two men that walked into President Nixon's office and said he had to resign. ME: Right. Because- SM: [inaudible] story. ME: ...He had integrity. SM: Yes. ME: He had integrity and that is a rare quality these days. And whether it is people lying about what they are going to do when they get on the Supreme Court or lying about what they are going to do when they are President. They run as moderates, and they come in with these left wing plans. Integrity is a very rare quality and Goldwater did have it. SM: Yeah. Integrity, you raised a very important point because in higher education, Arthur Chickering, one of the gospel books or the Bible books of higher education is Education and Identity. And the seventh vector of development is integrity. Students should always be striving for that ultimate, which is integrity, which is being comfortable with who you are and standing for something. ME: Right. And this is something I teach my kids. I mean, we all make mistakes. You go through life, but you have to show integrity. You have to be honest with people. You have to be honest with yourself. I do not know how you live with yourself when you are a liar. Lots of people are. SM: Well, I am a firm believer that you could pay a higher up. ME: I think you are right. SM: This is very important for me because even though I interviewed Lee Edwards on this and I have had other people talk about it, and I think Tom Hawkin, I interviewed. He was one of the leaders of the Young Americans for Freedom. And I think he has a book coming out pretty soon. He said he has. And he is a Vietnam vet too. But please describe the Young Americans for Freedom in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s. They were activists and they were against the war in Vietnam. How did they start? How big were they? Describe the students and what was their goals and purposes and accomplishments. I think we need to know more. I would like to see a book written about it. ME: Actually. I think Ron is doing one. SM: Is he? ME: It is a detailed one about the history of a former board member, Wayne Thorburn, T-H-O-R-B-U-R-N. Ask Ron. They might even let you see the draft or whatever it is in. It is in that state. SM: It is fantastic that he is doing that because nobody has done it. ME: Nope, nope. He has spent a lot of time on it. Wayne Thorburn was the executive director of YAF when I came to town in (19)73. Also, when Ron came, we both worked for him at Young Americans for Freedom. But I never heard of YAF until about (19)68, (19)69. There I was a freshman at Briarcliffe. I think there was a brochure. Somehow a brochure was on the table, and I picked it up and it described a group that was founded at William F. Buckley's home. And of course, I had been a fan of his from watching Firing Line and we got National Review at home. I do not know what it cost, $10 to join or something. So, I filled it out and sent it in. Before long, I got a call from somebody who wanted to come and see if I was interested in going into this and that. They had different meetings, and I did go. I was personally not ready for leadership then. I was feeling my way. I was learning what I had to learn. I was developing my personality. What happened for me was my junior year, I went to the University of London. This would have been (19)70 to (19)71. This was before Margaret Thatcher. This was Socialist England. Some people are sole learners. I had to see socialism. I had to see how it brought everybody down. I had to see how me, a relatively rich American when I broke my toe, went and got free medical care. Some hardworking ditch digger was paying for my medical care because it was free in England. I had to see it to understand the virtues of our then, anyway, free country, smaller government where people took more responsibility for themselves instead of looking to government always. So that was another magic moment for me, a year abroad in Socialist England. So, when I came back my senior year, that is when I got really active in Young Americans for Freedom. I brought in a speaker to college. I went to the different conferences and events. I read more. And then when I graduated, I was offered a position. My first position after college was at Young Americans for Freedom. So, I did not get that involved until I got back in August of (19)70, (19)71 and so that final year of college. And actually, then the young conservatives had it with Nixon because he had sold out to China, Red China and he was expanding the government incredibly. And so, for that election, we had a group called 72 Youth Against McGovern. What are young conservatives going to do when the presidential candidate is so disappointing? And so, we had Youth Against McGovern, and actually, that is where I was stuffing a mailing down at the New York YAF office on Jane Street in Greenwich Village; that is where I met my husband, and he was going to Fordham grad. We became friends and then he came to Washington then I came to Washington. But YAH was an alternative voice on campuses that were dominated by the left. When I started college in (19)68, that was the year that they shut down Columbia. They were blowing up places. Even at Briarcliffe, there was this ridiculous little contingent who shut it down for a day or so, right around exam time. And I remember thinking, of course, it was great not to take exams, but here we are paying this money and these stupid nitwits, and you are talking about a privileged brunch of young women who went to Briarcliffe shutting down the school and enforcing their views because they know best. And this is so typical of the left of Obama and of many of the feminists, they know what is best for you and we need to shut this school down for a couple of days to make our point about whatever, instead of really listening to what other people have to say. It is a kind of arrogance. In recent times, I remember when they had the healthcare summit and you had President Obama sitting there and you had Republicans and you had Democrats and everything in his body language, in his face, in his tone of voice was I really know best about Americans' healthcare. And to me, that just was so symbolic. SM: Would you say the other Democrats like Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, even Harry Truman, would you put them in the same- ME: Not as bad. SM: No? ME: No. It has gotten really bad. It has gotten really bad. This particular administration, I am certain he is a one-term President, but to me, it typifies what we saw in the left on the college campus at the time that YAF grew so tremendously. It was this arrogance that the left-wing way is the best. We know what is best. We are going to shut this down. We are going to blow things up like it or leave it. Bill Ayers, Obama's good buddy, we are going to blow things up because we know what's best. No contrition. To this day, no contrition out of Bill Ayers. SM: I know that Mark Rudd, who I have interviewed, has written the book Underground. I do not know if you saw that book. He admits some mistakes that were made by the Weather... He is not going to change anything about SDS, but- ME: No. SM: Yeah, going to violence, he has said that was wrong. It destroyed our organization. I do not think the other, Bernadine Dorn, has even... She is married to Bill Ayers. I do not think she has said anything like Mark Rudd. ME: Right-right. But I mean, this is sort of... To me, YAF was the alternative to this arrogant left-wing insistence that they knew best about everything. And then over time, it became a more positive thing promoting conservative ideas. And maybe it was that from the beginning. I mean, as I said, I was not involved until 10, 11 years into YAF. SM: I hope when your husband writes this book about the Young Americans for Freedom, that when he is talking about that particular organization in the (19)60s and the (19)70s that he brings in the important college students that a lot of students were not going to SDS, they were not going to the Black Panthers, they were not going to the women's groups. There were large contingents of students that were... I hope he really does that because when you read the periods, it seems like it is more liberal. It is all about the liberals and the activists. ME: But I mean, do not forget back then, that is all we heard about. Because other than human events and National Review and a couple of conservative talk show hosts, the whole media was run by people who were disagreeing with conservative ideas. They are all still there, but we have different outlets now. They have not changed. Listen to ABC, NBC, or CBS one night. You want to pull your hair out. That is how I feel. I listen sometimes just to get motivated. But now there are other outlets: internet, talk radio, and Fox. So that has changed. They have not changed at all. SM: See, what happens is that in all of these groups here, for example, in the gay and lesbian students or movement, Stonewall, in (19)69, then the Environmental Earth Day in 1970, then you have... Well, you have Black Panthers started and SDS. They all have these starting periods and how important they were and how many people were linked to them. Maybe it is because they are more visible. Were the Young Americans for Freedom they trying to be more invisible, or the media just did not... ME: The media just ignored them totally. They got away with it. They pretty much ignored what Goldwater had to say. They would characterize him as a cowboy. He was going to blow up the world. He had such a wonderful platform. So many good ideas about things that people started talking about seriously. The country would not be nearly in the pickle it is right now. He never got any coverage. It was so dominated by the left. SM: How about when Bill Buckley had that first meeting in the creation of the Young Americans for Freedom was there any kind of coverage for that? ME: I am sure there was not except in National Review, perhaps. SM: Those early students that started coming... I mean, that in itself would be a book. ME: Right. I am sure there was not. I mean, it was total dominance. We have a video on our website of Clare Booth Luce in about (19)64, I guess. I think it was during the campaign. And she is being interviewed by I think Eric Sevareid and some other lefty. And they are just incredulous, astonished beyond belief that she would suggest there was any bias in the media towards Barry Goldwater. You can find it on our website if you want. But I mean that was so typical. Not only did they not cover anybody, and did they pick on unfairly on conservatives, but then they denied it. And some of them to this day still do. She was fighting the good fight. One thing we love about her, she was so lovely, so gracious, so intelligent, and feisty. She would stand up way back then when the ladies were not on TV for the most part. But they just denied that there was any... Oh, they laughed at her. SM: Would you consider her kind of what Eleanor Roosevelt was to the Democratic Party is what Clare Booth Luce was to the Republican Party? ME: I consider her much better. I consider her much smarter, much more articulate, much more influential, and grossly ignored. It is one of the reasons we picked her. Well, partly because there was really no contest. There was nobody that did as much as she did from (19)44 through the end of her life. Well, before (19)44; this was when she did the keynote. Because they never studied her, they never talk about her. The women's studies do not even acknowledge the existence of such an extraordinary woman in that era who influenced so many things. Eleanor Roosevelt, they give her all kinds of credit for all kinds of stuff. Nobody in universities or in most books give Mrs. Luce credit for what she did. SM: The only person that I can remember that kind of stands out in the (19)50s was a female when I was young was Margaret Chase. ME: Yes. And she was a senator from Maine, and she was very distinct. SM: There you go. Yep. ME: We looked at Margaret Chase Smith when it came to the naming the institute because we wanted to name it after an individual woman, somebody that young women of this era could relate to. And she was elected. She worked hard. But her life compared to Mrs. Luce's; she was the playwright, wrote the [inaudible] still being produced to this day. She was an ambassador. She was a congresswoman. She was the editor of Vanity Fair. She had a long marriage to Henry Lewis and I am sure that was a challenge. She had a daughter. She had stepsons. She had a deep spiritual life. She became a Catholic at a certain point in her life actually when her daughter was killed in a car crash. It was terrible, terrible. So, you look at all those dimensions to her life and then you look at Margaret Chase Smith, who was a lovely accomplished woman. There was no comparison. There was no contest. There was no woman like Mrs. Luce in modern American history in the modern conservative movement. There was no contest. So that is why I went to her family and asked permission. The lawyer said, you do not have to ask the family, but smart. So, I did. And her stepson, Henry Luce, who was heading the Luce Foundation was the son of Clare's husband as sort of this gruff fella. And he said, "Well, I do not agree with what you're doing, but she would like it so you can use the name." SM: What would you say... And a lot of people do not like the term boomer, but what would you say that Clare Booth Luce's life meant to the post-World War II generation that they may not even be aware of? ME: Well, I think she was a wonderful role model for a woman who wanted to enjoy traditional life and professional life. And who was proud of her religious deep spirituality, who loved her family, and had this amazing career all at the same time. She is a role model. I mean, that is why we picked her. Now, the truth is you did not hear much about her because the left and the liberals so dominated the media. And that is one of the reasons we talk about her a lot here, especially with the young women because they never hear about her in college. Never. SM: I know a lot of conservative women that are at Westchester University. They graduated and... Actually, a lot of them never even said whether they were liberal or conservative, but- ME: Because it is easier not to. SM: But now they have graduated, you see on their Facebook conservative. They came to everything to learn. But I did not know they were conservative or liberal. But when you look at these periods when boomers were alive, in your eyes, could you define them in your own words? Either through experience or just studying and knowledge of history, what do these periods mean to you? The period 1946 to 1960. ME: I mean, in 1960, I was ten. So, I mean, that was an era when Americans were so relieved that the war was over. I know my own parents started their family. They settled in the Levi Towns. The guys went to college on the GI Bill. It was a time when America was happy at being America without all the questioning. We had won the war. We defeated the tyrant. The settlement was not so great in the way they divided up Europe. But it was a calmer time. It was an easier time. It was a time when schools, the public schools, it was so much easier for parents because people shared values about what it was they wanted the schools to teach their kids and you did not have all these raging social controversies. Not that there was perfection, there were still challenges. There were children who were not well cared for. There were wives and husbands who were not happy. But it was a simpler time. And I think it was post the chaos of the World War people were happy to be safe and prosperous. Taxes were fairly low. Government was reasonably small, although it was starting to creep up there. And so, it was a calmer, quieter time. And certainly, my childhood was probably typical. SM: Well, before we get to the other periods, one of the negatives about the period, two of them, is that the television of the era really hid the racism that was happening in our society. ME: Yes-yes. SM: That it was basically all White people on television except for Amos and Andy in the early (19)50s, which was a slapstick. And Nat King Cole had a program like 10 weeks- ME: That is right. SM: ...In the middle (19)50s. And then the second thing was the McCarthy hearing, which was the fear that everybody was a communist and people... ME: Well, I am just reading about Sandra Bird in the Post at lunchtime, and I mean he led the filibuster to prevent the Civil Rights Act from passing. I do not think I'd have been with Senator Bird on that one. I mean, I was a young adolescent at the time, but there were an awful lot of people in the Democrat party who were opposed to the kind of changes. And of course, the Republican Party came out of the Civil War and the people who wanted to have freedom for the slaves. So, it is interesting how that is all twisted around in some ways, although there are some interesting candidates coming to the fore now. SM: That is the criticism of President Kennedy because if anything, he was a pragmatic politician. Before he ever started linking up with the big four: Dr. King, Jane Farmer, Wilkins, and Whitney Young. It is what kind of effect is this going to have in my Southern Democrats who basically- ME: Right-right. But then the residual effects of that today are absurd like in Virginia, you cannot... When it comes to primary elections, any person can vote in any of them. That is a residual effect of the Civil Rights Act saying that if you had to declare a party, it is stigmatized in a racial way. I mean, it is ridiculous. What happens around here is the liberal Democrats come and vote for the liberal Republicans in the primaries or the more liberal and they skew the elections. And that is a crazy leftover. SM: You can see a direct... I asked this to James Spanos too. Do you see a direct link between what we are seeing today in Congress between Republicans and Democrats and what happened in the (19)60s? Because a lot of those people that are in Congress are boomers from that era. Some are older that are World War II generations. The majority of them are boomers or Generation Xers, which is the group that followed boomers. ME: When you say what happens in Congress, are you talking about the dominance of the liberal and the left? SM: Yeah. Well, no, it is just that they do not talk to each other. There is dislike, there is no trust between the other side. They have these meetings, but it's all show. People are frustrated with both parties. ME: Right-right. Well, I remember when the Republicans took over the Senate whenever that was way back, and they basically equalized the numbers with maybe one or two extra on each of these committees. I was looking at the judiciary committee that is looking at Kagan. I think it is like 12-7 or something. I think that from my observation, the Democrats rarely seek fairness. They seek power. They seek absolute power whereas when the Republican... And then the other thing the Republicans did when they took over is they cut budgets of committees. So, I mean, I do not see equal blame here for the current incivility. I see a kind of arrogance and we are in charge now, Harry Reid and Pelosi, this despicable kind of arrogance. We are running things so we do not have to talk to you, which they both literally said as the root of the problem, not that the loyal opposition is speaking up. They are supposed to speak up. And if you watch this Kagan hearing going on now, you see an awful lot of courteous but hard questioning from Jack Sessions from some of the others. You see a courtesy. I remember when Bork was up and they pulverized him. SM: I remember that. ME: It was brutal. It was personal. It was unbelievable. I do not see that as much on the Republican side. SM: I think Alito had some pretty rough ones too. ME: Yep. I remember they went after... It was the Post, really. But the way Robert's children were dressed, I do not know if you remember that. That to me was the ultimate sneering because they were dressed in pastel colors. It was this little boy and this little girl, and I thought, "This is just too absurd." I mean, this is so uncivil. SM: Well, just your thoughts again on this period between 1961 to 1970. How do you read that period? [inaudible] thoughts. ME: I do not know, 11 to 20. It was turmoil. You saw the left, certainly in the schools and the universities. The anti-war movement you saw that developing big time during the (19)60s. I mean, Goldwater was defeated in (19)64. And then the conservatives started to get together and act more strategically. The left was just loving its power and the anti-war movement. We talked about how the woman's movement at that point shifted more from equality in the law [inaudible] to this hating man, hating America, hating religion, hating faith, and female solidarity. That was the thing. But it was only liberal and conservative female, not conservative female solitary. I remember when one of my favorites is when Kay Bailey Hutchison was running for senate in Texas. Gloria Steinem, the grandmother of the feminist movement, attacked her viciously. She said, " Hutchison is a female impersonator. She looks like us but thinks like them." See, this was the woman's movement that was developing in the (19)60s. You cannot be a good woman unless you were a liberal or leftist. And it ties back to when I had my eureka moment; who are these people? They do not represent me. This was the (19)60s. This is what they grew into. When I was in college, they were sort of burning their bras. They were not running it yet, although most of my professors were liberal. SM: What about the (19)70s? Is that just a continuation of the (19)60s? ME: These are good questions. I mean, I have not thought that much about it. I mean, to me personally and professionally, it was building up to Reagan. It was losing different things. SM: That might be it. ME: Yeah-yeah. SM: Although some people say up to (19)73, it was still the (19)60s. ME: Maybe. Could be. SM: I think those first four years were really the same. ME: I came to town and then we had Watergate. We were working away. We were also discouraged with Nixon. Anyway. You had Goldwater. You had the man of integrity on our side saying you need to resign. In (19)76, I took off work. I went down to Florida, worked for Reagan. We lost big time. Remember two to one, Tommy; he said we were going to win two to one. We lost big time. And Reagan lost at the Republican National Convention by a few votes. But it was sort of in the hands of God because then we had Jimmy Carter and then the nation was ready for Ronald Reagan. So, it is interesting how things work. SM: How about the (19)80s? Because that is... A lot of people say it was Ronald Reagan and George Bush came out at the end of it. ME: We had a financial problem in the country, so we cut taxes and we let the money go into the private sector. And guess what? In a year or two we were out of it. If only Obama could think of that and could see that. And then the (19)80s was tremendous growth. I mean, this area here in Northern Virginia and tremendous growth all around Dulles Airport here. All these computer companies, the private sector, Bill Gates, computers. And I remember early in the Reagan years, I had a big deal job, and I had a computer, and I took a course. But you know what? There was no reason for me to learn how to use that computer because I did not need it at my job. I come here, I start this institute. I got to do the computer. I got to do the word process. We keep all our donor records on it. I mean, there is a huge increase in productivity because of the boom that came with the growth of computers and technology. So, the (19)80s were fabulous growth years. I give credit to lower taxes and the flourishing of business by leaving them alone. Leave them alone. SM: Would you consider the (19)80s bringing back the military because the military had gone really downhill in the... Well, the (19)70s. ME: Yes. Right. The people would spit on the returning Vietnam veterans. But Reagan had a great reverence for the military. And as President, he really was a leader in that sense and he would highlight them and honor the military people, as many Americans had always done anyway. SM: When Ronald Reagan... He did not say in a speech, but it was a feeling. It was ambience. It was just an aura about him. It was a perception of we are back. And that was something that he set up very early in his administration. What did he mean by that? We are back. Was that strictly about the military? Was that pride of- ME: I mean, I do not remember specifically saying it, but to me, it would mean the time-tested values that made America great, which are acknowledging the wonderful productivity of people and businesses left alone, families keeping more of their own money to spend it on their children and whatever they want in the way they do. America becoming a leader in the world, defeating the Soviet Union. We outspent them. We did more military than they did. They could not keep up all those communist nations with those people held captives for all those years with that Roosevelt-Churchill agreement were freed. Well, I went on a cruise over there a couple of years ago. Those people love Ronald Reagan. You go up to anybody in the street. They love Ronald Reagan because they are free now. So, we are back: freedom, families, celebrating faith. He did celebrate faith. SM: Do you think the most well-known quote from him is tear down this wall? ME: It is a good one. When I was president of the Virginia Board of Education, we had standards of learning in history. I got that in there. They may have removed it since, but I had to barter with the Democrats to do that. SM: Just to have that in there? ME: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. See, they dominated. SM: That is part of history. ME: It did not matter. It was so political. These Democrats are so political. We had a board of nine- So they were so political. These Democrats were so political. We had a board of nine, five were Democrats, four were Republicans, at that point. And so, I had to barter. I had to give them some stupid [inaudible]- SM: When you think of the (19)90s, of course, we're thinking of the latter part of George Bush's, number one, and Bill Clinton. ME: That is right. That is right. SM: So, what are the (19)90s statement first? ME: Well, I remember the day he made the announcement that he was going to raise taxes. I was working for him. And I called in the staff, said, "That is it. We're out here." Oh, no. People will understand, blah, blah, blah." No, they did not. They did not. It was breaking faith with the Americans. He said, "Read my lips, no new taxes." And he was a good man. He seemed to have integrity in different ways, but that was it for him. And then we got Bill Clinton, what a grotesque character. But in the end, he put his finger in the wind and he did some things with the budget. Of course, he was living off of all the glorious success of Reagan and Bush and their policies generally. So, the country was still growing. They were able to balance the budget because the military budget was way down, because we had won the Cold War. But on sort of a personal social level, what a grotesque character to be. I mean, people say the certain behaviors of teenagers now, they take it back to Bill Clinton saying, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." These kids are saying, "Well, that is not sex to be doing this to each other. That is not sex." I do not know if it goes back to Clinton. SM: And then of course, the 10s is George Bush, number two. ME: Right. Right. SM: And Obama has been here a year-and-a-half. But [inaudible]- ME: Right. I mean, George Bush, number two, kept us safe militarily. He reacted very well after 911. Nobody was ready before 911 to do the kind of things we needed to do to keep those wicked terrorists out of our country. He spent too much money. He did not veto enough. I think he did his best, but he was a tremendous disappointment to conservatives. And then Obama ran as a moderate. Americans like to give somebody a chance. I cannot tell you how many people I know who are fairly conservative say, "Well, I want to give the Black guy a chance because that shows in America anybody can be president." And now, most of those people have turned against him, totally, because he's not governing as a moderate. SM: I know on Newt Gingrich and the Republicans came into power in (19)94, and I have read, I think it is also in his brand-new book, Newt Gingrich talks about that era when boomers were young, or the (19)60s and (19)70s, and a lot of the problems we have in our society today go right back to that period. And he was making reference to the drug culture, the lack of morality, certainly the divorce rate- ME: Newt is talking about this? SM: Yeah. I know. I know. It was basically he was just making general statements. And George will also, at times in his writings, will make judgements or commentaries going back to that period. But a lot of the reasons why we have had problems in our country, it goes right back to that time. And they were making reference to I think the kind of the countercultural issues that we were going through at that time. ME: Right. SM: Just your thoughts on- ME: I think that some of that is true. I think that this, I remember in the (19)60s it was, "If it feels good, do it." And the reference, of course, sexually. SM: Right. ME: And so, then a lot of folks, mostly educated folks, figured out that was not such a good idea. But a whole segment of society just bought into it. And isn’t it like something, 40, 50, 60 percent of children, urban children, are born without a married mother and father. And so, that I mean, I do not know what it is from. But it seems to me, that it makes sense that it came from that, "Oh, just do whatever you want." But educated people of greater economics figured out, "No, this is not the best for kids or for society." But there is just huge chunks of society now, especially at the lower end economically, who just they have the children without marriage. And the children suffer, and the families suffer. It is a terrible cultural situation. SM: A lot of people, very critical of Lyndon Johnson on that because they say he created the welfare state. ME: Right. SM: Do you think that is a pretty strong statement? ME: No. I think it is true. And I think that at times, some of the rules that rewarded mothers for having more children without husbands, if they had a husband, then they would be off the assistance program. But if they did not have a husband and they had more children, they would get more money. I mean, I think all the incentives were perverse. And I think this whole notion that we help people when they are down, sure. But not for decades, and decades, and decades. You help people a little. And then of course, the government takes so much of our money that although Americans still are the most generous on the face of the earth, privately, people could do much more if they were not paying 20, 30, 40, 50 percent taxes. So, the government steps in, it encourages behaviors which are harmful to children and families by its idiot policies. So, yeah. I mean, I think that Lyndon Johnson and what he meant to do to help people, in effect, it really did not help. It hurt a lot of children, a lot of families all over the country. And the results we still see today. SM: Did Ronald Reagan try to fight that when he was in? Because- ME: Yes. Yes. SM: ...correct me if I am wrong, there were two things that he built his reputation on in California. It was he was going to be tough on students who try to shut down and disrupt universities. ME: Right-right. SM: And number two, was to end the welfare state. ME: Right. And he tried. But who signed welfare reform? It was Bill Clinton. It was a Republican Congress. And in the end, he signed a federal bill that forced states to make people go back to work instead of just staying on welfare year, after year, after year. Now, I feel sure that I have read Obama has changed that back. But it was Bill Clinton who signed welfare reform, which was so interesting to me. He was not nearly as ideological as either Hillary or Obama. SM: People think Bill Clinton was kind of a middle of the roader. ME: Right. But I mean, I think it was not from conviction. It was just whatever seemed to work right. SM: Oh, when did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion? And when did it end? ME: The (19)60s? SM: And what was the watershed moment? ME: Well, for conservatives it was the Goldwater nomination and election, (19)64. Because it coalesced us around a candidate who, well, like I said, in my family, it was the first-time mom and dad said, "Anybody running for national office was really articulating their beliefs about taxes were too high." People have gotten so used to high taxes. And I remember reading Wall Street Journal while I was serving and it said, and it was a few years ago but, "Most women who make less than their husbands, most women, their paycheck goes to pay taxes." Is not that outrageous? Most of what women make in families when the husband makes more than the wife, pays the taxes. Now, this is just wrong. This means taxes are too high. And so, I think Goldwater was talking about this. I know my dad, he worked very-very hard. He would always work against the school bond increases. I mean, he was paying taxes that were just sapping our family. We had four kids. Mother did not work. She took care of the family. So, that was back in the (19)60s. Goldwater was finally a national candidate saying this. And so, for conservatives, yes. Even though we lost, we can have a national voice. And then Reagan and different people. So, that was the watershed, I think for conservatives in the (19)60s. SM: That was the end, when did it end, the (19)60s end? ME: I do not know. You were talking about (19)70s. I am not exactly sure on that, to be honest. I was in school (19)68 to (19)72. I had that year abroad. That opened my eyes to what socialism is. I am not sure I have an answer when it ended. SM: But the beginning of the (19)60s and the watershed moment were Goldwater? ME: Yes. SM: Why did the Vietnam War end, in your opinion? Just your thoughts on that. ME: Why did it end? SM: Mm-hmm. ME: It ended because the Congress did not appropriate the funds they needed. They were winning. They were doing wonderfully well. But they were sick of the war. Americans were sick of the war. It is going to happen in Afghanistan, you watch. We have to choose our wars in a better way. We have to get in and get out. I mean, George Bush understood this. The first George Bush. The second Bush pretty much got into Iraq, and we finished that up. I do not think Obama has a clue about these kinds of strategic matters. I mean, when he announced the big thing in Afghanistan, I remember thinking- SM: That is a year-and-a-half, it is going- ME: What? Nobody ever wins in Afghanistan. The Russians do not win. The invading... Centuries pass, nobody wins. SM: Alexander the Great did not win. ME: That is right. That is right. But I do not believe that Obama has very much breadth and depth of knowledge about foreign affairs. And I think our country is in peril. I think what will happen is he will give up in a year or two. Those people will be in a terrible way. We will pull out like we did in Vietnam. Anybody who helped us, they will send to reeducation camps or kill them. Vietnam was such a disgrace for our country to end it that way. After 50,000 lives. I do not know if you knew anybody that died, but I sure did. SM: Oh, I do. ME: Just young, idealistic men who went to fight the war. We could have won it if we would have had a little more guts. But we never should have started it, and it was LBJ, remember, that greatly increased our presence there, if we were not going to finish it. SM: Yeah. And I have read so many books on Eisenhower, and Kennedy, and [inaudible]- ME: Right. You know what? In my mind, Vietnam ending was the helicopter on the top of the embassy. SM: April 30th, 1975. ME: It makes me emotional when I think about the ambassador. You remember him? He was the last one to get on. And I remember his face was so distraught because we were leaving so many behind, Vietnamese who had helped us. And he could not take them all. And it was the last copter. And I also remember Gerald Ford, who I never liked anyway, that day he was getting off a plane somewhere and he literally ran away from the media, so he did not have to answer questions about this disgrace that had just happened. But I think it was Ellsworth Bunker, was that his name? SM: Yeah, Ellsworth Bunker. Yes. ME: Right. SM: He was, yes. ME: And it was the saddest sight. And all these people on the ground trying to get up there. And we just abandoned them. We abandon the horrors of reeducation camp. SM: I know that the ARVN, which was South Vietnamese Army, they were throwing their uniforms away, hoping that the North Vietnamese would not know that they had been in the service. ME: Right. There was no hope for those people. So, many of them tortured, ruined. What a disgrace. What a horrible thing. I hope it does not end that way in Afghanistan. But I have very little faith in Obama. SM: I have been talking about the boomer generation. But what term would best define this group that was born after the war? Would you say, I just have a couple of them, the Vietnam generation, the protest generation, the Woodstock generation, the movement generation? Is there a term that you would use to define the 74 million that were born after World War II, what they define as a boomer? ME: It is interesting. Because I think you gave five terms, and four of them were for the left. Woodstock. SM: Yeah. ME: The last one was the movement. SM: Yeah, movements and Woodstock. That is a counterculture. ME: Maybe it is dominance. Dominance in expression by a very small number who had their lives in the political world, and in the media, and in the popular culture. Americans, I have always thought most Americans at core, pretty conservative about stuff. But they do get sucked in by Obama types. They do get tired of wars, especially when it looks like we are not winning them. But I mean, it is a great country with great people. And there is a small number of lefties who have had tremendous success in dominating policy. Much, much more than they should based on their numbers or the logic of their positions. So, I mean, I know all those terms. And they are valid. They describe certain groups. SM: Right. ME: But maybe it is the silent majority. Maybe that is what it is. Is that when we talked about the silent majority in the (19)60s? I do not know. It is just the people that just go to work, they pay their taxes, they raise their families. SM: That is a Nixon term, the silent majority. ME: Yeah. Right. Well, that would have been what, (19)68 to whatever. SM: Yeah. And I know the Silent Generation is what they define as the generation before the boomers, which was not the Greatest Generation. ME: Right. SM: It was that five- or six-year period, almost like the Korean War people. But a lot of those people were really involved in the anti-war movement. ME: Right. Right. I mean, the left dominated. But they were not dominant in numbers. SM: I am going to read this. I will get my glasses on here. Because you worked for both President Reagan and President Bush. Within the boomer generation, something about Ronald Reagan. He is revered by some and despised by others. Why? I know in California he stood for those two things that I talked about. And that obviously, people that lived in California at the time knew what he stood for when he was running for president. Just your thoughts of why... I am being impartial on this. ME: Right. SM: Because I am a Democrat. And I am more of a liberal. ME: Right. SM: But I really like Ronald Reagan. ME: Right. SM: And I am not going to put that in my interview. ME: Right-right, right. SM: But I just do not understand why he just draws the ire of so many people when he was basically a decent human being. ME: Right. First off, I do not think he is as widely despised, even by some of the worst despisers now, since his death. I think it was so interesting. He was sick. He was sick for a while, and then he died. And the reporting on Reagan, even from the liberal outlets, was so interesting to me that it was much more positive than I would have thought. Okay. So, I do not think he is as despised now as he was. But I think it is what happens when somebody is so clear, and so plain, and communicating, in this case, conservative ideas. And people just get enthusiastic just listening to him. It is almost like with Sarah Palin, a little bit of what you saw. And the people who disagree in terms of policy are so angry, are so angry at the effectiveness. I mean, Ronald Reagan was the most effective communicator we have ever had in the country. And people just love to hear him and listen to him. And they say, "Yeah. Yeah, that is right." Democrats and Republican. Well, the Reagan Democrats. And I think that just makes sort of the ideological left is so angry. And that is why they despise him because he is so effective. SM: Are you upset with Sarah Palin though? Because I even have read that Republicans are upset with her by saying that she wants to meet Margaret Thatcher to get her support because she was close to Ronald Reagan. And somebody said, "The nerve of her to put herself in the same league with Ronald Reagan." I mean, it is some Republicans are furious about this. ME: There's some people who do not like her. I was talking more about Sarah Palin during the campaign. I mean, what a vicious stuff with her kids. And there's a viciousness towards her. I do not know if it is because she is a beautiful, conservative woman. I do not know that she is ever going to run again, to be honest. She is enjoying the success with her book. SM: Right. Right. ME: Going all around the country. She has got all these kids, this great life in Alaska. People do not want to leave Alaska because my parents did not want to leave it. But I do not see her saying, "I am in the same category with them." But I will tell you, I have been in crowds when she is speaking, and I see a similar enthusiasm for what she has to say. It is a plain common-sense way of articulating ideas that most people believe in, like Ronald Reagan did. She has that ability. She has the ability to get everybody on their feet cheering at a dinner, at a rally. There is not a lot of politicians... John McCain sure did not have it. Obama had a lot of charisma. But I mean, I am not saying she is equal to Ronald Reagan in any way. But I am just saying the hatred, the viciousness, that you saw about Reagan, that you saw about Palin, especially during the election. I think it has to do with anger that they're so successful at articulating these views. And people just want to hear them. SM: I kind of wish, and this is off the cuff here, but I kind of wish that we had the politics of a Tip O'Neill and a Ronald Reagan. And to be able to have a diehard Democrat and a diehard Republican and to be able to be friends. ME: Yeah, it is true. SM: That is what we need in Washington. We need Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill types. ME: But I mean, it has become ugly and bitter. And to have a healthcare bill like that that Republicans did not even see until the day before they were voting on it, I mean, it is insane. That is some kind of a special arrogance. Well, they did not want them to see it because they would get opposition to it. SM: Right. ME: But this is a crazy way to run a family, to run a Congress. SM: We made a reference to Betty Friedan. What is the difference between feminism and radical feminism? I have noticed in my interviews that the radical feminists really do not like or have really problems with Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan because they are not radical enough. They are mainstream feminists. ME: Yeah. SM: And a lot of people believe that radical feminists are running the women's studies programs, not the feminists like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. ME: Right. Right. SM: And basically, what are your thoughts on Betty Friedan, people like Betty Friedan. I got a group here. Bear with me as I read these. ME: Right-right. Okay. SM: Your thoughts on Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Smeal, Kate Millett, Germaine Greer. These are all liberals. ME: Right-right. SM: Susan Brownmiller, Rebecca Walker, Winona LaDuke, Robin Morgan, Susan Johnson, and I think Andrea Dworkin, and Alice Walker. These are people- ME: I mean, you... Go ahead. SM: These are people that are defined as liberals, but they are different in their approach. ME: But I mean, there is so many different strains there. That Andrea Dworkin. I mean, she had an unhappy life with men. And she was basically a man-hater. Lookism, anybody who looked good, this was really a bad thing. There is a lot of different strains in feminism. What I do when I teach the young women workers about it is I just use the words of their leadership. Gloria Steinem, she is a female impersonator. That says it all to me. This is what she said about a conservative woman running. There are some conservative women who call themselves feminist of a sort. They call themselves equity feminist. And that goes back to the suffragette idea of equal treatment under the law. I cannot use the word feminist to describe now. But people say, "What do you mean? You got your, well, you are a professor. You are a feminist." No, no, no. It is like the word gay. Gay is not children playing Ring Around the Rosie anymore. Gay is homosexuals and sodomites. SM: Right. ME: Well, to me, feminist is a word they have taken. I mean suffragette, okay. I am okay with that. But they have taken, and it means sort of this man-hating, this disparaging anti-conservative woman, discouraging anybody who does not toe the line. Anybody who talked about life is totally unreasonably, a million babies a year. No problem. So, I mean, to me, you hate to lump them all together. But most of them are pretty radical to me, based on what they say and what they have written. SM: Yeah. Yeah, and their books are very popular books. Most of them are very popular writers. ME: Right. SM: Some of the younger ones. The two younger ones are Rebecca Walker and Winona LaDuke. I mean, they are power brokers. One's Native American. ME: Yep. Yeah. SM: And I mean, they are very popular on college campuses. ME: Right. SM: The other thing too is that when you talk about the politicians, yeah, the Geraldine Ferraro, the Elizabeth Holtzman, the Hillary Clinton, Tipper Gore, Susan Molinari, Pat Schroeder, Lindy Boggs. Those are people that really define I think the Democratic Party as females. ME: Right. They are hardworking. They are smart. But they are extremely left-wing, every single one of them. SM: What are your thoughts though? I think of the women's studies and certainly Black studies and some of these programs started, they were all challenged in the beginning for their academic, certainly Black studies because it is happening on college campuses, but all of these studies programs were developed because their history was not in the history books. ME: Right. SM: Howard Zinn has written the alternative history. Just your thoughts on that. ME: The fatal flaw to all of these is their lack of intellectual diversity. They do not teach Thomas Sowell. They do not do Clarence Thomas in Black studies. They only teach certain Blacks. SM: They do teach Phyllis Schlafly though. ME: Well. They teach her to ridicule her, in most cases, in women's studies. They do not teach her in a fair and even hand. I have never heard about it if they do. They do not have them read Ann Coulter. They do not have them read Michelle Malkin. They do not have Star Parker, turned her life around. It is a lack of intellectual diversity that makes them all lack integrity. But it is typical, frankly, no offense. But typical of the university environment. I went to four years of law school at American University, graduated in (19)80 when Reagan was elected. I had one conservative professor in four years. That is a disservice to me as a student. All the legal policy issues, we only heard them from a left-wing point of view. All the money we paid, that is a disservice to students. And these programs, that is their fatal flaw. It is a lack of intellectual diversity. SM: It is interesting because I worked with Pat a lot. ME: Yeah. Right-right. SM: And he brought a lot of conservatives to the campus. ME: Right. But this was extraordinarily unusual that a professor would work at the conservative group to have different points of view heard. SM: Well, I love Pat. I said to Ron, I said, "You got a great young man here." Not only because he was at Penn State, but we need more of it. And we need to find more people that are willing to bring in these points of views. Because now it is even more so. It is all about the bottom line. So, if anything is brought in that will threaten the bottom line, I think that is a major issue, even for conservative speakers. So, there is a lot of liberals that are giving money. I mean, if a conservative speaker comes in and it is going to threaten the bottom line and what money's going to be donated, that is wrong. Education is primary. It is number one. ME: Right. Right. SM: It is not about the bottom line. ME: Right. SM: Why did the ERA fail? Because of- ME: Because Phyllis Schlafly got millions of moms who had never before been active to go up and complain and say, "We do not want this. We do not want unelected judges deciding things the state legislators ought to be deciding." And she activated millions and millions of, a lot of them were housewives, just women who had never before been active in a policy debate. And you got to give her credit for that. How amazing. Not only did she beat it back, but she had a number of states rescind their original. I remember in Virginia going and testifying, way early in the (19)70s. I do not think Virginia ever passed it. But it was almost a Ronald Reaganesque to bring people into the process who previously had not been in. And the truth is, Obama did that in a way too. A lot of people, especially African Americans who never voted, who never cared, they got excited about this guy. SM: See, I like Obama. But I do not like the people around him. And I think he had brought into his administration too many Clintonites. ME: Right. SM: And I think it is really hurt him. And I think he has gotten bad advice. A lot of people do not like his body language. And there is a lot of things they do not like about him. And certainly, the Bill Ayers thing. ME: Right. SM: That has been discussed behind the scenes because I have friends over at the [inaudible]- ME: But I mean, whoever advised him on this oil spill ought to be shot. SM: Yeah. And, yeah. ME: The Jones Act was suspended. Have the partnerships, whatever. SM: Yeah. Yeah. I just think, talk about, who was it to talk about firing people? Forget, was it you or Bill? He needs to fire some of his people. ME: That is right. SM: And I- ME: Well, a couple are starting to go, but- SM: ...do not like his chief of staff. ME: No, I do not. SM: I do not like his chief of staff. ME: He is so crooked. He is so crooked. SM: And I think it's hurting him. ME: Here is something else. I probably should not say this on tape. SM: Well, I will be editing all this. ME: Okay. I think Obama is going to be brought into this Blagojevich thing. I think that he was involved. I think that- SM: Well, the governor of- ME: Right. Selling his seat. I think Rahm has sort of taken the fall for it. I think that Obama is corrupt in a financial way. And just Mark, where is that? Take it out of there. [inaudible]- SM: Well, I am amazed though that this guy's still not in jail. But anyways. ME: I know. SM: Might ask also, what were the most important, as a lawyer, the most important legal decisions that have taken place for say boomer women during this time frame? Could be all women. I said Roe vs Wade seems to be the big one. And then cannot take away Brown versus Board of Education, which is for everyone. Would you say those are the two most- ME: I would. SM: ...important legal decisions [inaudible]? ME: I would. And I think that our grandkids and our great grandkids are going to look back on the pro choices with the same scorn that grandchildren of slave owners look back on their grandparents for owning slaves, and Dred Scott, and all that. I think they're going to be horrified at the number of children who have been killed prior to birth for no good reason other than just convenience. Yeah. I think, I will probably be dead, but my kids and my kids' kids will see an incredible scorn heaped on these pro choices, who are any time, any place, anywhere, any how it's fine to kill the babies. Yeah. SM: Yeah. Let us- ME: Those are the two I would pick. Those are the two cases. SM: Yeah. And I interviewed Susan Brownmiller last week in New York City. ME: Right. SM: And she said, "Certainly Roe vs Wade." And she said there were other decisions too beyond just the Brown versus Board of Education. But those two kinds of stand out. I already asked you who Clare Boothe Luce is. ME: Yeah. Amazing lady. SM: Are your thoughts on the best writers of the (19)50s and (19)60s, beginning, I would like your thoughts on the beat writers. The beat writers of the (19)50s were kind of the role models for many of the activists of the (19)60s on the new left because they were anti-authoritarian. That is Ginsberg, Kerouac, Cassidy, Gary Snyder, Ferlinghetti, Ann Walden, Leroy Jones. These were the writers. These were the beatniks, the beats. And some people have told me that the (19)60s really began in the (19)50s when they wrote their books. And Howl, that historic book that Ginsberg wrote in the middle (19)50s that was banned, and on the road, they-they were very influential in creating amongst, at least the red diaper babies, who were the group that many of them became the new left. They were important. ME: Right. SM: Because they were anti-authoritarian. ME: Right. I was a little girl in the (19)50s. And in the (19)60s, I cannot say that I read that many of those. But I think in the (19)60s, if you just listened to the TV, and the radio, and read the papers, you could absorb their liberal ideas, anti-authoritarian, if you will. I cannot say that I have read many of those, to be honest. But I am familiar with the names. And maybe it was some of the writing in the (19)50s, Russell Kirk, Bill Buckley, and others, that brought us to '64 and Goldwater. So, maybe it takes 10 years for books to be ingested. SM: You mentioned Buckley, God and Man at Yale, is a classic. ME: Right. SM: And I have encouraged every student to read it, no matter who they are. ME: He wrote that one, The Unmaking of a Mayor. I think it was like (19)65 when he ran for- SM: I think I have that book. Yeah. ME: ...mayor. What a wonderful book. In fact, I do not know if my husband told you, but that is the book that made him a conservative. Because he had a professor, a high school teacher, who said, "He is the most dangerous person next to Hitler in the history of the world." So, Ron went and read the book and he agreed with everything. He was in Catholic high school. SM: One of the greatest debates I have ever seen, because I have got it on YouTube, is the debate of Malcolm X and William Buckley over- ME: Yes. SM: I mean, and I love Firing Line. And I liked any of those shows because of the fact that he brought on really smart people. ME: Right. SM: And he brought on people that he did not even like. ME: That is right. SM: Philosophically. But they were friends. [inaudible]- ME: But he liked to debate. SM: ...was a friend of his. ME: I know that. I know. He had Clare Boothe Luce on at one point. They had a wonderful discussion. Because she defended feminism, but it was the feminism of the suffragists. SM: Do you have that on tape? And where is Firing the Line? Are they going to be allowed to be shown on public broadcasting? You do not see them. ME: I do not know. I do not know. I am trying to think. I can check on that. SM: Yeah, that would be interesting to check on. Because all you see on YouTube are these snippets of about five minutes. ME: Right. Right. SM: And you do not get a gist of anything. ME: Yeah, it was a wonderful show. And it showed sort of an openness to discussion debate, which is what most of us want, especially at the university. Let us hear all sides. SM: Yeah. Well, we had Buckley on our campus. It was great. ME: Yeah. Yeah. SM: And we had a reception with him. And he signed a million different books. But I asked him about the time he had Allen Ginsberg on, because he thought Ginsberg was- ME: Right. SM: ...kind of a flake. ME: Right. SM: And you could sense he was kind of a flake. And then at the very end, he respected him. Because this flake that he thought was a flake, well, then he answered with really in- Well, then he answered with really in-depth responses, and then in the flight business [inaudible]. ME: Yeah. No, no, no. There is a lot of thoughtful lefties. The other one I remember is when he had Gore Vidal on and Gore Vidal called him a Nazi, and then Buckley we called him a fag or something and it deteriorated, but I do not know if that was Firing Line or some other show, but that was unusual for Buckley. He kept it at a certain level. SM: Two classic books of the period was C Wright Mills in White Collar, which was a book that really explained the IBM mentality of the 19(19)50s and I think a lot of boomers went against that kind of mentality. Daniel Bellow interviewed up at Harvard a couple of weeks ago. He is pretty up there in years now. SM: There we go. SM: There we go. SM: And Daniel Bell wrote The End of Ideology, which I think is a great book too. I do not know if I asked this earlier, but you were too young, but what are your thoughts on the free speech movement at Berkeley, because it happened in 64 and 65, and it was really about the right of free speech? ME: Well, I am all... SM: On the campus itself, and that kind of was the beginning of all the protests really. ME: I am all for free speech, but now it's conservatives that need free speech and in fact, conservatives of some campuses have free speech clubs because they're not allowed to express conservative views for the most part, because it may not be politically correct, whether it's about racial preferences or views about homosexuality or whatever. I am all for civil free speech. We do not have to go after each other personally, but now on most campuses, it's conservatives that are seeking free speech. You go into a woman's studies course and try to have free speech, I mean, the occasional professional might allow it, but most will not. I mean, I hear this from the girls. They do not know ... Most stay away from the women's studies. My own son at Catholic University had a feminist professor for communications course, and so he wrote a straightforward paper about communications. She gave him a C and said, "RJ, you really have to study this more carefully." The next paper I gave him some of the stupid, the Patriarchy is oppressive to women. It was about advertising the car ads, and women are subjugated under their heavy hand. In the paper he wrote this stupid stuff. She does all these checks, " RJ, now you understand," she gave him an A. This is in my own family. He was on a scholarship. He needed the A, so he wrote these idiot papers for the whole semester. She gave him A's. Who needs free speech, huh? SM: Well, yeah. I have been in higher ed for thirty-something years and that... ME: I am sure you were a wonderful professor who welcomed different points of view that were reasoned, but an awful lot of them do not. SM: Yeah. My greatest conversations were in my office over the issues you are talking about. I just say, "Well do what they did in the (19)60s. Protest. Challenge the vice president of student affairs." Anyways, who are the great conservative women that you are talking about? Of course, I know about Clare Boothe Luce. What makes some of these people today... ME: Well. SM: Were there any others besides Clare Boothe Luce and Margaret Chase Smith, this... ME: She had a saying, Mrs. Luce, and in fact, we have it on our newsletter. I should get you one. It is called the Luce Ladder. "Courage is the ladder upon which all other virtues climb," something like that. What makes them great? First off, they are smart, they are beautiful, they are articulate, but they have the courage to stand up and say what is perhaps politically unpopular. That is Bay Buchanan on immigration. SM: I know Bay real well. ME: That is Carrie Prejean. She gave an honest answer. She is not a politician. Her thoughts about traditional marriage, Michelle Bachman, everything. I mean, she is tough. S.E. Cupp, she is pretty new. A star says welfare hurts Black families. Phyllis, we just talked about her, ERA. I mean, it is courage. It is the courage, and this is what we do here at Clare Boothe Luce. We try, not everybody is going to be up at the podium, giving the speech arguing professor, but whatever venue women are comfortable in, we try to give them the courage, the background, the depth of knowledge, the encouragement to stand up and defend their own conservative beliefs. Courage is the key. SM: Well, I think that they need to be seen more on college campuses, because that is what the (19)60s were about. ME: That is right. SM: The (19)60s were about standing up for what you believe in and if you understand the definition of integrity, integrity means I know who I am. I know what I stand for, and I am willing to stand up in front of an audience, become vulnerable and stand up for my beliefs, even though I may be attacked. ME: Right, and I mean, if that is what the (19)60s free speech movement was about, what a sad commentary on where we are now. SM: Yeah. That is what it was about. ME: Yeah. Let us have all points of view. Now, I was not for closing down the university for trashing the professor doing defense research, his office, that kind of thing, but different points of view, sure. SM: I noticed that you had a couple speeches that you give the listings of your speeches, and one of them was the failures of feminism. ME: Right. SM: What are the failures of feminism? What are they just real quick? ME: Well, the modern radical feminist movement, the greatest failures that they do not represent the use of most women. The leadership based on their own quotes and the things they have to say, too often, they mock women who choose to be full-time mothers. Not all of them, but enough of them do. They criticize women who do not toe the line, certainly on the life issue or the choice issue, whatever you want to call it. I mean, they are brutal about that. They do not represent women. A lot of them, I mean, when you go downtown to NOW and you go into the office, National Organization for Women, I will tell you what is going to be on the big table in the front. About a third of it will be about AIDs, about a third of it will be about lesbianism, and then the other third will be about abortions. I mean, they have really narrowed the focus in a lot of ways or go to their website or go to the feminist majority. I mean, lesbianism, AIDs, and abortion. This does not represent women. SM: That is interesting because Susan Broma was almost said the very same thing as a liberal. ME: There you go. SM: She said that she tried to raise the issue of pornography within the women's movement and Feminine Mystique... I forgot her name, Betty Friedan. ME: Yeah-yeah. SM: Would have nothing to it. No, we are not going to be talking about pornography. ME: Yeah. Well, that is interesting. SM: Yeah. I have that on tape, and it got very frustrating, she said. Also, you mentioned here, comment on your speech, "Women's studies, conservatives not welcome." I think you have already gone over that. Did you have any gap with your kids, any generation gap at all with any of them on issues? ME: I had three boys. The biggest challenge for my husband and I was the social pressures on the boys to do things that were not acceptable, but they all turned out okay. They all go to church. My mom and dad lived across the street for years, and I took care of them like you did yours. My kids were so respectful and so helpful to my parents, and that was wonderful for them. They turned out pretty conservative, but we did not really beat it into them. One of them is really an active conservative. The other two are just kind of go about their business. No, I mean, it was the social pressure. It was the drinking. It was all the friends doing marijuana. It was the sexual promiscuity, but we got through it. They are all in their twenties and they are all doing well. SM: That is good. You did not have any generation gap with your parents, did you in any way? ME: No, but some of my siblings did. I loved them. SM: Yeah. ME: I got along with them. When you were a teenager, they would get on your nerves, but my father moved down here and he said, "Do you think I could move across the street?" And I said, "Well, it would be fine with me, but check with Ron," and Ron said, "Sure." I mean, I got along with him, but I know not everybody does. I feel truly blessed to have had him. SM: The other thing, I got just about four more. ME: Okay. All right. SM: The issue of the term empowerment. We had Tom Hayden on our campus several years back, and he wanted to know if the students of student government, what kind of power they had. They were talking about that they were empowered. They said, "Oh, yeah, we can control the budgets and give out money to student organizations," but there is something that Tom said, "No, I am talking about empowerment, where you have a voice and everything." Empowerment is a term that is defined by activist students in the (19)60s, in the early (19)70s, not power, but which term do you like best? Empowerment or power? Because empowerment is really a (19)60s term that came out all the time. Students always said, "I want to be empowered. I want my voice in the decisions that this university makes." It was much more... ME: Aren’t they different? Aren’t they different subjects? The university president has power, okay. SM: Yes. ME: He has a tremendous amount of power to make decisions. The head of your department has a tremendous amount of power. Hiring, firing, or whatever tenure. Empowerment is, to me, it is somebody who feels they do not have power and they want to have a bigger voice. SM: Yeah. That is what the (19)60s was about. ME: Right power, to me, is sort of more absolute. Empowerment is having a little bit to say about this and that and being listened to. SM: Do you like the term empowerment then with respect to women's issues? Like the conservative students? ME: I am for power myself. SM: Well, that is all I need to hear. The issue of healing, and we took a group of students to Washington, DC in the mid (19)90s, and they came up with this question. We met with Senator Musky. ME: Oh, yeah. SM: About six months before he passed away. ME: Oh, yeah. SM: And we thought he was going to respond about the year 1968 because he was the nominee for the vice president. The question was this, that the students came up with, "Due to the divisions that took place in the (19)60s between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who were for the war and against those who supported the troops or were against it. Do you feel the boomer generation, those born between 1946 and (19)64, are going to go to their graves like the Civil War generation, not healing from the divisions of that time?" The question is really, do you think that many within the boomer generation that were involved in the activism are having issues that they have not healed? ME: No. I think most people move on with life and life is what it is. We certainly change our views on different things. I mean, think about when you were 16, and then when you are a parent with your own kids, and it is life that changes and heals you. You are tired of your parents saying this and that, and then suddenly you are a parent, and you have kids. It is a part of the growth and development that we all go through in life that makes us heal because it just moves on. SM: Do you think though, if Safers had Phyllis Schlafly sitting here and Betty Friedan, not Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem is next to her, that the divisions that they have had, that they can heal between their divisions, is that practical or? ME: I mean, does heal mean agree or just be civil? SM: Just be civil. ME: Yeah. I think they could be civil. SM: Yeah, because there is a lot of lack of civility today. ME: Oh, Bay here does TV shows with some of these lefty women, and I will not name names, but she... SM: Yeah, she is really good. ME: She has told me that they will sit in the green room and talk about all the common things moms and wives talk about, and then they go out and- SM: Okay, that is good. ME: But I do think that women, there is always stuff we can talk about. Men too, whether it is sports or whatever, but women talk about husbands, talk about children, whether you are lefties or not. I mean some anyway, so you find the common ground and you do that with your neighbors. You do not talk politics, or we do not. We talk about the kids or the street or the shrubbery or whatever. SM: I think that that war in Vietnam really divided this nation in so many ways and that some people have said, you need to rephrase the question. Those who were against the war and those who went to war, because I think there is still some things going on there that really... ME: Yeah, but I mean, we have had these subsequent wars, and we have had 911, and we have had the fall of the Soviet Union, and even people who may be opposed, the war supported it, these other things have changed them. So healing, yeah. SM: How about the issue of trust? Because a lot of the students of that particular period, I do not even say them, the conservative students too, especially the young Americans for freedom, is they did not trust people that were in positions of authority that were running the war. I mean, a lot of the students of that era did not trust anybody in a position of responsibility, whether it be a priest, rabbi, minister, vice president of student affairs, congressman, senator, you name it, President of the United States. Anyone who is in position of authority, I cannot trust. Do you see that as a negative within the generation, or? ME: No, I think it is a great thing. Look at the tea parties. Believe me, these are people who do not trust those in authority. I think skepticism about government is always a good thing, and people in authority questioning is a good thing. SM: Yeah. That is what political science majors are taught. ME: Yeah. SM: Not having trust for your government is healthy. ME: Absolutely. SM: It means liberty is alive, and well. ME: The founding fathers did not have trust. SM: Yeah. ME: That is why they got all these different protections. SM: Yeah, that is pretty much... Finally, here I have, what do the following mean to you? And these are... ME: Oh, trust, but verify. That was the other one. SM: Oh, trust but verify. Yes. ME: Trust but verify. Okay. SM: Yes. ME: Okay, you can go ahead. SM: There is something else that Ronald Reagan said that I have always kind of lived with. If you are not afraid to let someone else get the credit... ME: Yeah. It is amazing what you can accomplish. SM: Yes. ME: And that is true. SM: It is important. ME: Absolutely. SM: That is a great quote. ME: I do that every day here at Clare Boothe Luce. Give them the credit. SM: What do the following mean to you? What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you? ME: Well, it means the controversy because the architect was opposed to the war, and many people felt that her design was not noble and what it should have been to honor those who lost their lives, but I know a lot of Americans go there and very much appreciate seeing the names of their loved ones. SM: When you went there for the first time, what is the impact that had on you? ME: I did not go. I have not gone. SM: You have not gone yet? ME: No, I do not. I will be-be too emotional. SM: Yeah. I go to about ten times a year. ME: It is like, no, I have not been in the Holocaust Museum. This place would give me such nightmares, I know. Somebody was talking about it the other day. I do not watch movies that are really horrible. It is just my head, the way it is. Stuff goes on and on and on in my head. It is like, life is too short. SM: What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? It was a major event in 1970. ME: It is like, who shot first? What a horrible thing, but there has been some stuff out recently that it was not the soldiers who shot first, but what a horrible thing that should not happen on college campuses. It was such an incendiary time. It was such an emotional time, but if I am a soldier and I am shot at, I am going to shoot back. Who knows who shot first? SM: I know that there is a tape out now that they're bringing a revelation that the National Guard was given orders to shoot. They are revealing that. The March on Washington 63, what did that mean to you? SM: Civil rights? SM: Yes. Dr. King, that great... ME: If only we would have listened to him. "Judge my children not by the color of skin, but the content of their character." Excuse me, what are we calling affirmative action, huh? Aren’t we judged by the color of the skin? If only we would have listened to him. SM: Yeah. I know the purpose of affirmative action. If you talk to an affirmative action director at a university, they will say is that we do not want to have affirmative action. That is the goal, but they still have it as far as... ME: All these years later in the Supreme Court cases. In fact, I have got a black girl as an intern this summer. Vincy Ann, native of Cameroon, now she is a citizen. She said, people come up to her on campus, she goes to Truman State, and say, "Well, you must be for affirmative action." She says it drives her crazy. She is studied, she has worked hard, she has gotten to college. It is such a negative thing for achievement-oriented minorities. SM: It is interesting because Steven Carter, the great professor at Yale who wrote a book on affirmative action and says, in the beginning of his book, every time I go into my law school classes at Yale, I know the students are looking at me saying I got here because of affirmative action and that is real sensitive to him because he earned it because he was smart. ME: That is the downside of it. We had a friend who was at Georgetown, a Black kid, and teachers would come up him, how are you? He said it was so condescending. He was at law school there. SM: What is 1968 Chicago? That convention, what did that mean to you? ME: A bunch of rowdy criminals. SM: Do you believe that happened in our country? It is just like.. ME: When I see this world, the money economic things, sort of like rent a riot, rent a mob, what a horrible group. People that got stuck in those crowds and were afraid for their life. I mean, that is no way to behave. SM: How about Woodstock in (19)69 and the summer of love in (19)67? They get the real counter cultural events. ME: A bunch of people who, I guess liked music but dirty and having sex out on the ground and drinking and drugging and no thanks. SM: How about the hippies and the yippies? ME: Yeah. SM: Hippies and yippies. ME: I mean, not people I especially admire. SM: How about the students for democratic society before they became the weatherman and the weatherman... ME: Before they came radical, they were a point of view. That is a fine thing. SM: And the weatherman need... ME: Right. Blowing things up. SM: Yeah. What about the Black Panthers? Did you... ME: Well, I know this last election, there was a Black Panther standing outside the Philadelphia polling station with a bat to discourage certain people from voting and Eric Calder, our attorney journal, said, no, I am not going to look into this. SM: I know. That is the new Black Panthers. ME: I mean, I think they are violence prone and probably not the best vehicle to promote racial harmony. SM: How about the Vietnam veterans against the war in 1971, they threw their... ME: John Kerry. SM: John Kerry, but he was a mild one compared to most. ME: Right. We took care of him with sweep up veterans. SM: Bobby Mueller was in that group, I know that. I think Ron Kovic was in the group. ME: Right. SM: Actually, Bobby Mueller was not. He made a point of saying I did not become a member of the Vietnam veterans against the war. ME: It is a point of view. It is fine, but I do not think it played too well with the American people. When Carrie... A story was told over and over. SM: How about Earth Day 1970? ME: Everybody loves the earth, the land, take good care of it, but it's become a religion to some of these folks. Especially in the schools with the little kids. Cannot talk about God, but they have this religious fervor about recycling. SM: How about NOW? National Organization for Women. ME: What a pathetic excuse for a woman's group. They are just hostile to anybody who does not toe their line. They do not support the women. Often, they will support the man if he is a more left-winger. Do not call yourself NOW. This is great American conservative women. Say what you are. The national organization for left-wing liberal feminist women. Say what you are. Do not pretend. SM: Wouldn’t it be great to be able to bring these individuals together with the other side and really have a two- or three-day learning experience? This is what I want to do. I have only got two more questions. This is what I want to do, but after my book is done, I want to bring people together. I am going to start something where I am bringing people together. I just talked to James Fallows, the symposium about the Vietnam War with the General Wheeler and Bobby Mueller and Sam Brown and Susan Jacobi. I said, "Wouldn’t it be great to bring you guys back together from after 1975?" ME: I think it would be. Make sure [inaudible] there so everybody can watch. SM: Well, I would like to bring these people together because first off, I have worked with so many different speakers, and this is all about education in our students. ME: It is. SM: This is about the future. ME: Right. It is about hearing all kinds of different ideas. SM: Stonewall, which was the major event for gay and lesbians in (19)69, any thoughts on that? Because that was the rallying crime for... ME: Not really. I mean, the truth is there has always been homosexuals since the beginning of time, and there always will be. In terms of the movement, for a long, long time, what they talked about was people ought to be tolerant. You know what? Most Americans are intolerant, but it has shifted from tolerance to, I want you to affirm what we do, and that is what most Americans resist. Tolerant? Sure. I mean, I do not want to know what you do at night, but then do not get on my face and say, "You need to say that what we're doing is a really good thing," because I am not going to say that, and that is the division, and that is the problem with the movement. SM: I think the one area is the American Indian movement because they were here first, and that is a very sensitive issue. They have always been in... Dennis Banks was... ME: Right. SM: And of course, Alcatraz. Taking over the Alcatraz in (19)69 and the violence at Wounded Knee, but just your thoughts on the Native American movement, because... ME: They are right. They were here first, but go around the world and how many countries where the people that were there first no longer run the show? For American Indians, I mean, if there was ever an example of how the government can ruin a whole group of people by paternalism and over-involvement, it is the American Indians and the reservations and the massive failures that the government intervention has had there and the terrible problems they have. Alcoholism, that, I mean, the casinos, I guess, have helped them in an economic way, but is that a beautiful example of too much government in the lives of a people? SM: Yeah, I know. So, the Latina, everybody thinks the Caesar Chavez, but it's much more than that because the young Lords were kind of copycats to the Black Panthers in the late (19)60s. I know in Newark that was the case. ME: Yeah. SM: The Watergate. ME: Yeah. SM: What is your thoughts on Watergate? Took an administration down. ME: What a stupid thing. Dishonesty, but what I always think about with Watergate is the contrast between Nixon when he was quartered and Clinton. Nixon resigned and it was over Clinton. It went on and on and on and on. He was impeached. He was not convicted, but it went on and on and on. This is the difference, the two men. People love to hate Nixon, but to me, Nixon cared more about the country than Clinton because he just got out. It was over. Was what Clinton did any less bad, lying under oath, blow jobs with the girl in the Oval Office, all that stuff, than Nixon? No, but what they did, the way they reacted when the whole country was in such a turmoil about it, that says something to me. I give Nixon more credit than I do Clinton. SM: Two last questions. The music of the era, just from the experience that you have had with conservative students, not only now, but back then, the music was part of the culture back then, and it was also might have been identified more with the liberals as opposed to the conservatives. When you talked about the folk music, the rock music, the Motown sound, and the messages that were in that music, did you identify with that music? ME: Sure. I mean, I danced. I liked it. I sang. SM: Were you a Beatles fan, like everybody? And how about Bob Dylan? ME: I want to hold your hand. Not as much Dylan. SM: Joan Baez and the [inaudible]? ME: No, not as much the folk. I mean, different tastes. My husband's a Stones fan. I do not know if you know. SM: Yeah, Rolling Stones. ME: He argues they are basically conservative. They think about the tax fan and all that, but I think that the music then was tame compared to some of this rap music about the hoes and raping the girls and all this kind of stuff. I mean, the worst they would get was the leader of the pack and I do not know, going to the drive-in movie and it was sort of tame. SM: What do you think, I know it is very difficult to say this for 74 million people, but when the best books are written on a particular era, it is normally 50 years after an event. A lot of the best World War II books have been written, are being written now. What do you think when the boomers have all passed away? This is a little longer, and what do you think historians and sociologists will be writing, because they will not have been alive when the boomers were alive. What do you think they will say about this baby boom generation that grew up after World War II and the events that shaped them in their time? ME: Well, it is all compared to what, I mean, I think they will say that a lot of us worked really hard, did what we believed in, raised our families, paid an awful lot of money to the government that wasted it in taxes, did our best, the technology boom, we were part of that. Freeing millions of people from communist oppression, and they will talk about the mistakes. And I am not sure what that will be. It probably would be electing Obama is one. Say we repeal healthcare and a couple of other things, which a lot of people want to do. They will talk about those things, and whether it was right or whether it was wrong, but I think that historians will write kindly. SM: Do you think they will say what the issues that we are facing today with the economy, this attitude that many of the boomers had that I want it now, I need it now. The students, these young people, conservative and liberal, grew up in the (19)50s when parents wanted to give them everything. They wanted to make life better because they grew up in the Depression and experienced World War II. Even in the African American community, that was, well, even though it was more stable in the (19)50s than it ever was in the (19)60s. Do you think that want it now mentality, even though in a very analytical way, is a reason why we're in some of the problems we are today? Because the people that run the world today are really boomers and the oldest of the generation X-ers, which is the group that followed them, ME: I am not sure want it now is the reason for the problems we have. I mean, you look through history. The problems we have now, throughout the centuries, people have had it. Different times, different circumstances. I am not sure I would attribute it to the boomers want it now. SM: Do you think that the Susan B Anthony's and the Elizabeth Katie Stanton would, if they were to see what was happening today in America, and the women's movement would be right with your... ME: I do. SM: They would be here... ME: On abortion, they were a hundred percent for life. SM: See, that is something that really should be brought up within the women's studies programs too, so that everybody sees clearly. Is there any questions that I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask? ME: No, you asked a lot. In fact, I wondered what is he going to ask? SM: Well, thank you very much. ME: Well, thank you. SM: Let me at... (End of Interview) Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Michelle Easton Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Easton, Michelle ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute; United States--Officials and employees; Easton, Michelle--Interviews Description An account of the resource Michelle Easton is the president and the founder of the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. She was appointed to a position at the U.S. Department of Education and previously served as the President of the State Board of Education in Virginia. Easton received her Bachelor's degree in Development Psychology from Briarcliff College in New York and graduated law school at American University's Washington School of Law. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.187a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.187b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 122:19 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ae9d2523e20822f41d9ce6801059fc20.jpg 5040c3664b2082ca0f379d96cd80e1bb https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/582f0dc1dfb9726946ed05ea82ddc3ea.mp3 6b22a061da4dc2e6b9b58ae70f29dfba Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2003-08-07 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edwin J. Feulner Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Edwin John Feulner is an author, journalist,administrator, educator, political scientist, government official, and the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation. He was the president from 1977-2013 and from 2017-2018. Feulner received his Bachelor's degree in English from Regis College, his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"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}">Edwin John Feulner is an author, journalist, administrator, educator, political scientist, government official, and the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation. He was the president from 1977-2013 and from 2017-2018. Feulner received his Bachelor's degree in English from Regis College, his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Anti-war Movement; Vietnam; lack of trust; Baby boom generation; Richard Nixon; Lyndon Johnson; Nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Democratic Convention of 1968"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Anti-war Movement; Vietnam; lack of trust; Baby boom generation; Richard Nixon; Lyndon Johnson; Nineteen sixties; Nineteen seventies; Democratic Convention of 1968</span> Subject LCSH Authors; Journalists; Political scientists; Public officers; Feulner, Edwin J.--Interviews Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 65:28 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: Ed Feulner Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 7 August 2003 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): No, not at all. EF (00:00:06): So I think with those you have got to make some differentiations there. In the sense poor Wes Marlin was given an impossible task because his commander in chief was micromanaging the war. Key, and who was the other one you mentioned? SM (00:00:25): General Cao Ky and General... President Thieu. EF (00:00:29): Why do not you just hang on the second because he has come back a couple of times. I want you to kill the interview. SM (00:00:33): Yeah. Okay, all right. There you go. EF (00:00:43): Ky and Thieu, well, patriots, anti-communists, working with a powerful ally again, which was restricting what they could do or what they wanted to do. Playing probably what was essentially a losing game all the way, but tragic basically, the word which comes to my mind for those two. SM (00:01:08): And then I have got two more names here and then we are basically done with one final question. Your thoughts on Ralph Nader. And I do not know if you know too much about Noam Chomsky. What do you think about the Noam Chomsky's of the world because he has been consistent? EF (00:01:26): Yeah right. Well, in a sense you have to admire Nader for sticking to his principles all of these years. Of course, I think he is totally wrongheaded in what he is trying to do. And maybe the word totally is too wrong, too strong rather. What I do not like about Nader is he tends to look always to the government to solve the problem. And I would like to be able to make it a more balanced approach to problem solving and not always look to the government first but look to government, if not last, at least next to last. Chomsky is an ideologue, of course. A man of the left who I think probably would not, even if you presented him with all the evidence in the world, would not change his position if it conflicted with one of his pet ideas and theories. Case in point, Alger Hiss, I am not sure whether he yet still admits that Alger Hiss was guilty of espionage. SM (00:02:53): The Berrigan brothers. EF (00:02:57): Yeah, sort of. Again, minor figures of the day, important at the time, believing they were doing the right thing. But I think probably in the greater scheme of things, I think someone like Thomas Merton is more important than the Berrigan brothers in terms of looking to Catholic models of the (19)60s. SM (00:03:36): And Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock. EF (00:03:40): Right. Should have stuck to his babies. SM (00:03:48): I never asked about Norman Mailer. I will turn this off now. I am here with two questions. I know I said I am almost done but when the best history books are written, oftentimes the best history books are 50 years after the event. Some of the best books of World War II are now. When the best history books are written, say 25 years from now because we are halfway there on the boomer generation, what will their lasting legacy be in the history books? What will they be saying about that? EF (00:04:20): Well, I think they will be saying that it is one of the most influential generations of the 20th century and 21st century. Sometimes for good, but I think more often for ill. SM (00:04:45): And the very last question is this, and it was the last one I asked Dr. [inaudible]. The two events, the impact that these two events had on the psyche of all boomers, whether they were protestors or non-protestors, the events of the Kennedy assassination in 1963 and the deaths of the four students at Kent State in 1970. EF (00:05:11): Well, as I have already indicated, I think you are absolutely right, that became this period of a psychological of depression. This was the beginning of a trauma with the American psyche, with the boomers and with every other American, starting with the assassination. The famous thing that you ask people of a certain age, where were they at 1:30 on Friday on November 22nd, 1963, they will be able to tell you very precisely. So that will always remain with them and it certainly was the most important event. I do not know that the Kent State murders... SM (00:06:03): And I say Jackson State included in there a couple of weeks later too, six students. EF (00:06:07): I do not know that that was the second most important and defining moment of the (19)60s for the boomers. I do not know. I have to think about that. I might be more inclined to say, for example, just for political impact, the Chicago (19)68 convention. Maybe Dr. King's murder earlier that year. I do not know that that Kent State was that... I would not put it up that high. Certainly, if you want to talk about it being in the top 10 events, but not as number two. Certainly I think the Kennedy assassination was the preeminent event and trauma. SM (00:06:55): Is there a person that you thought I might ask about that I did not ask about that may surprise you? I had Barry Goldwater, conservative, I did not mention any other conservatives so to speak. Nelson Rockefeller, obviously, he is another person. He was my governor. Because that convention itself was something in (19)64. I thought that was an unbelievable convention. I will never forget it because Rocky was our governor and then Governor Scranton. That was one heck of a convention. EF (00:07:29): Surely was. Yeah. Well, I just think you probably could give some thought to maybe some other conservative figures of that time although not necessarily were boomers. But after all, you have to keep in mind Ronald Reagan did begin his political career in that decade. If you are looking for somebody who balanced off Herbert [inaudible] and you did not mention would be [inaudible]. Certainly Bill Buckley, that was the decade in which he began both his newspaper column and also his television program, Firing Line, both of which had major impacts of course in [inaudible] everything else that he was doing. SM (00:08:29): Has been on our campus too. I am a big Everett Dirksen fan so when I think of... And Hughes Scott, because Hugh Scott was from Pennsylvania. In fact we had a professor who was writing a... I do not know why he did not finish it. Dr. Meiswinkel was writing a biography on Hugh Scott and was actually going down visiting him when he was very sick. And then he died and he could not finish it. He did not get enough... Do you know if there has ever been a biography done? EF (00:08:55): I do not think everybody has ever written one on him. There have been a couple on Dirksen but I do not know. It seems to me there has been something on Scott but I could be wrong. Could be wrong. SM (00:09:07): He was on there a long time, distinguished senator. EF (00:09:10): There would not have been any Civil Rights Act in 1964 without Everett Dirksen, by the way. He was key to getting the Republicans support in the Senate for that act. SM (00:09:23): His daughter was married to Senator Baker I believe, and she died now he is married to Nancy [inaudible]. And now he is the ambassador to Japan. What a life he has lived. Well, I am basically done, I want to thank you very much. It has been an honor. EF (00:09:36): Very interesting and... EF (00:09:40): [inaudible] that there is a problem, a discussion and a solution all in a 30 second or a 30 minute, back then, time block on television. Now it is down to about two minutes on CNN or Fox News or whatever your choice is. And that is not necessarily the way the world works. I keep telling kids that instant gratification is not necessarily going to happen on your behest. So on the positive side, still a generation, I saw this both when I was in the Pentagon and subsequently on Capitol Hill and even now, young men and women willing to give their all for their country just as the world's greatest generation did in World War II. To use that [inaudible] phrase. And I am not sure it was, but anyway, that is a different question. Anyway, the point is, statistically [inaudible] to prove it but a willingness on the part of the majority, many people to really commit themselves and do what it takes to help others. Again, whether you are looking at the back end in terms of Vietnam or you are looking at the most recent end in terms of Afghanistan, Iraq or as I was two months ago up at the DMZ in Korea. So it is mixed like every generation is. SM (00:12:00): The anti-war movement, those who were involved, I have done a lot of studying of it and I am reading a lot of sociology books and the common term or number used is 15 percent of the boomers were probably involved in some sort of activism. 85 percent were not. And they were talking about civil rights and the women's movement, the anti-war movement and all the other movements that took place in that period. EF (00:12:23): Where do you put the conservative movement? Is that part of it? SM (00:12:27): Yes. I think yes it is because activism, as I define it, and if we try to do this at the university, that it is everyone. It is people who want to make a difference in this world. And that is how I define activism. I like your thoughts on the fact that when you study the (19)60s, the Young Americans Foundation was also an anti-war group and a recent book has been written on the fact that they were involved in the anti-war movement. And some conservatives were very upset that they were kind of excluded from books on the (19)60s talking about the anti-war movement. Your thoughts on the anti-war movement itself and the impact it had on ending the war and also the conservative students and adults who were involved in politics were also involved and very important involvement in the ending of the war. EF (00:13:26): By (19)69 I was working for [inaudible] the then secretary of [inaudible] and there was no question that the Nixon administration was trying to figure a way out of what they had inherited from LBJ in terms of the problems of Vietnam. The whole defense department program toward Vietnamization. The decision by Nixon after long and intense discussion both at the cabinet level and primarily under his I guess domestic policy advisor Martin Anderson at Hoover. SM (00:14:21): Oh yeah. I got his book. EF (00:14:23): In terms of ending the draft was certainly as much a concession to answering the objection that you were sending the children of working men and women to fight a rich man's war in Southeast Asia through the draft. Clearly, you cannot say that if people are there because it was an all-volunteer army. And it was as much, I hate to say it, Ernie and I would probably have a long debate about this, but he would say it was done for philosophical and principled reasons about objections to servitude or something. Well, maybe, but it was also an answer to a political problem that was out there. And so clearly the Nixon administration, both in those tactical responses to Vietnam and Southeast Asia, as well as more strategic, longer range... Changing the draft was certainly [inaudible] answers like opening to China. In effect, changing the subject. Putting America's policy into a broader kind of context. Even Kissinger, in his memoirs, talks about during the peace process, trying to find areas of agreement with the then Soviet Union to move ahead on because... I have to find a specific citation, but I am sure you can. Because of domestic political pressures. So there were certainly pressures there as from my perspective as a conservative, it was tough because again, I needed it from a question more of principle. Did I like the draft? No. Why did not I like the draft? Because I was a male age 27. No I did not like the draft because the draft in fact was based on a faulty premise. That the only way that a free society would defend itself is through conscription. I did not believe that. And so you go from that to a belief based on my first trip to Vietnam, advancing one of the early [inaudible] trips other than Secretary of Defense in 1969 to Vietnam. And seeing the situation and saying, well we got it right. Either Vietnam's got to be given the tools to do the job successfully on its own, or we got to go in there and do a lot more and do it a lot more quickly and a lot more effectively than we have been. Well the second option was instantly precluded by the politics back home. And it turned out that the first option started out and then Cooper Church and the other resolutions that went through the Congress eventually cut the money off so that you could not do it the other way in terms of Vietnamization effectively either. So then you ended up with, I saw on the history channel the other night, replaying the video tape of the helicopters taking the people off the roof of the American embassy in Saigon. SM (00:18:27): April 30th, 1975. Itis interesting when you look at the two dates, April 30th of 1970 was when the Cambodia invasion took place, when the President gave his speech at nine o'clock. And then interesting that five years later, that is to the day. And I do not know if... That was not planned. And the irony, I look at the irony in that and I think about it an awful lot because I was a senior in 1970 and our speaker was representing the United Nations. I was at State University of New York at Binghamton, and of course we had protests all the time. It was a liberal campus. But it was very hard to going into class that year because there was protests constantly and we had a lot of speakers on campus. When you look at the boomer generation, again, getting back to this whole business, the anniversary of Watergate is right now. And then you get the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and young people at that time. And history has shown that that may have been not a real deal there. That may have been made up. Just the thoughts about the whole issue of leaders and trust and the lack thereof. You are in a very important position here with the Heritage Foundation and you work with conservative leaders all the time. I really would respect your point of views on the impact that you feel that President Johnson and President Nixon had in terms of what they did in America and the lack of trust that so many of the boomers had as they grew up and gone on to different kinds of positions and responsibility. Just the whole issue of trust in America. And have they passed this on, this lack of trust to their kids. And by lack of trust I mean trust in all leaders. EF (00:20:25): The complex question so the answer is not simple. Number one, it is always easier to Monday morning quarterback. But based on the knowledge, again, looked at from a low level political appointee inside the Pentagon, when we were talking about Vietnam under Nixon and I was out by the time Cambodia was back on Capitol Hill. We were certainly making decisions and explaining/justifying our actions based on the best knowledge we had. And if somebody was doing it to cover something up or to hide something, it was done at a lot higher pay grade than I had then. And when you talk about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution or even some of the later justifications from the Nixon White House itself on Vietnam, I suppose it is easy today to look back and say, "Hey, how could they have been so wrong? Or how could they have been so deceitful?" Maybe. But I suppose I could also ask the same question about FDR and Pearl Harbor or going back through history at other examples that as a representative democracy we always assume people we elect have got a certain knowledge base that is more than what we have. So you have got to translate that. SM (00:22:31): Right. EF (00:22:34): Anyway, where was I? SM (00:22:38): Talking about trust. Talking about Nixon. Some of the things happening in the Nixon administration. EF (00:22:47): Looked at again, Monday morning quarterback, and you will get this, I think especially from a professional historian like Lee Edwards, the current generation that makes these sweeping criticisms and generalizations probably have read less history than just about anybody, any prior, whoever has in our country's history. And at the same time, because of TV and the internet now, know a little bit about a lot of things, a lot more things than you or I did when we were 20 or 25 years old. So it is kind of dangerous almost, I think to take some of these criticisms of earlier generations completely... Take them without a grain of salt. SM (00:23:58): I think when I refer to the lack of trust it is in reference truly to the boomers who are of college age or maybe just a spec older in the (19)60s and I would say through the mid-(19)70s. Because when you look at the numbers that were given by the Johnson administration and you read history books now and you read what was actually done there, I have a massive collection and I have done a lot of studying on it, but the more I know, the less I know. And that is so true. And the thing is here that I think you are right on track here with some people doing generalizations, but there definitely is a feeling from the peers that I grew up with, went to school with and actually worked with in a university environment, a lack of trust in anyone who was in a position responsibility. And I am wondering, and I say this only because I worry about the young people of today who are being given this information by their parents, whatever background they are, the boomer parents. And in this world, if you cannot trust someone, I know this some psychology. If you cannot trust somebody, you may not be a success in life. You have to trust people. And I worry, I see somebody's lack of trust of... It was very common, and this is not my interview, this is your interview, but it was very common on university campuses in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s that students did not trust university presidents. Did not trust their ministers. Did not trust corporate leaders. Did not trust anyone in a position of responsibility. And the excuse that was given as to the reason why they did not trust anyone, they would go back to Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Watergate. But much more than that, other political leaders too and things that university presidents did. So it is just your overall thoughts on that, the whole issue of trust, because I do not know if this is still happening in America today, but I sense it still is. EF (00:26:02): I do not know. You have a better handle on it in your day to day dealings with young people. We have obviously here, [inaudible] very active interns but they are a self-selecting group in terms that they tend to be right or at least center right and more traditionalist. So we are probably not as exposed to it as you are. What does concern me whenever I run into it is that as I look at the development of society and of both the social order and foundation, the most fundamental underpinning that I have been able to come up with is basically the rule of law. Which means every individual treated the same under the rule of law. And this goes directly to your point in terms of trust. If a large part of the upcoming generation does not trust the older ones, then they probably tend to think they are getting the short end of it. And if they are getting the short end of it, they might as well go for as much as they can for themselves because otherwise somebody is going to screw them down the road. Pardon, vernacular. So if what you are saying is really a generalized truth, then yeah, we got some real serious problems. But again, I do not see it reflected. Adam Smith said in the Wealth of Nations, it is one of my... I am a congenital optimistic in Washington. But he said in the Wealth of Nations there is a lot of ruin in a nation. And when you think about going back to the days of the founding fathers, down through our history of the heartbreak of the Civil War, the losses sustained in the First World War, the depression, we built up a hell of a lot of capital that I would worry that, to a certain extent, we have run down in the last generation. That concerns me. How generalized it is, I just do not know. SM (00:28:48): And that refers back to the boomers then. EF (00:28:49): Yeah. Back to whether the boomers trust or not and whether they have then conveyed a lack of trust to a subsequent generation. As I say, I worry about it if it is as generalized as you might portray it as or as other people might think it is. SM (00:29:08): When you look at the (19)60s and early (19)70s and the boomer generation of all the movements that took place, whether it be civil rights, anti-war, if you were to write a book or write a chapter or an essay to write a movement or an event that really defined the period, what would that be? There is many things, but one that just stood out. EF (00:29:34): I suppose the Democratic Convention in (19)68. That political dimension, a protesting dimension in terms of the anti-war, it was wrapped up to a certain extent, at least in the reaction from Mayor Daley and the police in terms of civil rights. Certainly as a conservative at the time, I remember thinking to myself, the Democrats sowed the wind and now they are reaping the rewards. But the ramifications of course were far beyond the Democratic Party. SM (00:30:29): I remember that so clearly. I remember buying My Life magazine and it was that picture of Hubert Humphrey and Ed Musky. And I have Barry Goldwater when he was with a horse wearing a hat. And I have both of them framed in my office because I am all about the (19)60s no matter who was involved in the (19)60s. You want to go on the other [inaudible] the Vietnam War really did a lot to divide our nation. Some of the people that I have interviewed really felt that outside of the Civil War, which is obviously one of the greatest strategies ever in our country, that we were pretty close to another civil war breakup of our nation back in the (19)60s. And so I would like your thoughts on that particular feeling and whether we as a nation have really healed since that time. I remember I interviewed Gaylord Nelson quite a few years ago one of my first interviews. And he said, Steve, I do not see anyone walking around Washington DC with healing, lack of healing on their sleeve or something like that. And people are... He was making a general comment. But then he said to me, the body politic will never be the same. And I would just like your thoughts on the divisions were so... Have they healed? Is Vietnam still, just the word, the mention of the word Vietnam brings all kinds of feelings to people. And it is not just thinking about the nation, it is what it meant to our country. Have we healed? EF (00:32:22): Yes. I think we have fundamentally healed, partly at least because the scar tissue is both thicker and because again, going back to the point where with the short time horizons of individuals, whether it is... I was talking to a conservative journalist this morning who said, I am so glad Schwartz never vote in the race. And I said, why? He said, because I do not have to hear about that damn Kobe Bryant every day. Until a week ago I did not even know who the devil Kobe Bryant is. And now he is every minute 200 news guys in some place [inaudible] Colorado or Esquire, Colorado, whatever it is called. What kind of trivialization of what is going on is this? And so you get the new cycle, et cetera, you got to fill it. And either you fill it the way CNN did until recently. Every Saturday afternoon, if you turned on CNN to find out what is going on in the world, you get 45 minutes on the latest French fashions or something like that because there just is not enough there, there is always news. So you get Kobe Bryant given this kind of prominence and in effect the same level of prominence as Colin Powell giving a major foreign policy speech to the UN or something. And if they both get 30 minutes of prime time over three consecutive days... Or more likely Kobe Bryant will get it and Colin Powell will not. Things are getting distorted and they are off kilter. And so I think that it is a couple of things. You get trivialization at that level. Then you got a shallow understanding what history is about. So a lot of people talk about Vietnam and well, that is a war that happened a long time ago. There is another place in Asia there too. What was that one called? Korea or something. And they are all kind of about the same time. So yeah, in terms of kind of looked at today, it is all... It is healed, but part of the reason that it is healed is because again, I said it about 15 minutes ago, I think that this generation just does not know as much history and has not read as much history as they should have. This same journalist, the guy we are buying the house from, was giving away a bunch of books and a bunch of college students... He brought them into his office and a bunch of college students they started pouring through them. And one of them came on a book called The Real Anita Hill. And she looked at them and said, who was Anita Hill? This is only 10 years ago. This is not ancient history like Vietnam or Korea. This is 10 years ago. Who is Anita Hill? SM (00:35:52): Unbelievable. I interviewed Dr. Hilty, he is head of the history department at Temple and he was really strong against the boomer. He is a liberal. Big Kennedy liberal. But very condemning against the boomers because he feels that the boomers were the generation that got the greatest education, Master's, but they do not have a whole lot of knowledge. And I never thought of that. I said their lack of understanding... They may be getting the degrees, but their depth of analysis, I am just like, how do you teach today? I am reading books on education, the proper way of teaching. It is not just always getting the high SAT scores and getting your school scores up. How do students think and analyze these things. When you are working with young people and they are reading things, how are they interpreting it and analyzing it? It is not just a score on an SAT question. And so there are some interesting things here and your observation is very good. Your thoughts on the Vietnam Memorial? I think it is one of the greatest things ever. How the Vietnam Memorial, when it was built in (19)82 and the effect this had on veterans and on the nation. Just your thought on the wall. EF (00:37:04): Very moving. Interesting that by the time it was really finished, in place and people saw it-it did what scrubs and everybody else wanted it to do in terms of healing. But during the whole course of it, when whatever her name was [inaudible] divisive, a stab through the heart of America with this black slab and all that. The rhetoric that went up about what it was. But today, to go there and to see some of my friends and contemporaries' names on the list as I have and to think about what it represents. Very moving. So it worked. SM (00:38:11): What would your thoughts be if you were sitting in a room with boomers and they were to say to you, we were the most unique generation in American history? EF (00:38:18): Bullshit. SM (00:38:19): Okay, because a lot of boomers felt that way when they were young. EF (00:38:26): Yeah. They were certainly the most pampered. After all our parents, and here I guess I would put myself in the boomer generation, they had gone through the depression. They vowed basically that we would be able to have more than they had. And this goes to Hilty's point at Temple. In terms of the best education possible. My father barely got himself through high school with a family, then went to college and almost got a law degree at night school. You will not have to do that. He said to me and my three sisters. None of us did. We were well-educated and that was very-very important. And then to have the earlier generation be basically so disappointed, I guess in their offspring as to have them copping out or doing drugs, to whatever extent that happened [inaudible]. That is disillusioning. And to have them just not appreciate what happened and then assume that because they got that again, that the notion of instant gratification is going to work for them and their kids. SM (00:39:54): Your thoughts, you have some fine, outstanding, young conservative youth here that work in the internship program. The sense that I have had and my peers is that when you look at the boomer generation, they again talk about the most unique generation of American history. Also, there is an attitude that we are going to change the world. We are going to make society better for everyone. We are going to end racism, sexism, or homophobia, everything they were going to end at all because they were the most unique generation. And they were also a very involved generation in the vote. But now we see a group of young people today that do not vote. And this is something I just wanted... I do not know if you have thought about this at times, I just sometimes sit in a park and why do today's young people and the boomers themselves, the parents, they do not vote. What is going on here? What have they transferred on to their kids with respect to the sense of empowerment? Their voice counts. They need to be heard. It worries me as a person. I have come up with several worries here in our interview, and that is another worry that I have because I want young people to know that they are empowered, that they do have a say, that their voice does count. So what happened to the boomer parents who were involved in these protests and activism changing things. And a lot of them did good things and some were just in it for themselves, but what have they done to their kids? Just your thoughts on that. EF (00:41:27): Well, you are better off asking them, I guess because our family, at least our nuclear family, in terms of my wife, myself, my kids and their spouses are very much involved politically and I think it has been transmitted. I suppose part of it is that frustration you talked about earlier from the earlier generation, from the boomers, that either they were not heard in terms of their cause. Maybe even it is a little bit embarrassing if anybody ever dares use that word anymore. Some of the excesses going way back when. In terms of the new generation, I would have to look at polls. I know what the broad numbers are in terms of the voter participation, but I would want to look at cross tabs in terms of the ones who are most committed to either a political party or a philosophy or an ideology of government, if you will, in terms of whether those who are most committed are more politically active. I have a good libertarian friend who has a bumper sticker that says, do not vote, it only encourages them. Well, this is a guy who comes at that decision from basically a philosophical perspective and managed to put it on a bumper sticker and you can understand that. That is not the way conservatives think, I do not think, but some libertarians do. And so it is not a case of just disinterest on the first Tuesday of November it is a case of... (00:43:35): In that case it is a conscious decision but I suppose again, you have the usual frustration or I am only one, why does it matter? Well, after Florida I think that is a non-argument anymore. Clearly everybody ought to know that their participation does matter. You can see that in the California recall that happened in October [inaudible] and you end up with whoever it was, Schwarzenegger on one side or the lieutenant governor on the other side [inaudible] being elected with 10 percent of the eligibles or something like that. In the fifth largest economy in the world, the largest state in the nation et cetera, et cetera, being elected by 1 percent of the eligible population. That is not exactly a mandate to go in there and straighten things out, whoever you are. I am not saying that is what happened [inaudible]. So does it worry me? Yeah, because again, and this go back to your earlier point in terms of trust and confidence in our systems. If there is not confidence in the political system, then confidence, again, the most fundamental thing in terms of the rule of law breaks down. Because if there is no legitimacy for the politicians, then there is no legitimacy in terms of what they are doing. Which means that people do not want to be governed by whatever laws they are passing. And that is not good for long term. SM (00:45:20): This is my last question before I get into personalities and that is, what do you think the lasting legacy will be of the boomer generation? When the best history books are written, and we are only 25 years out now from the Vietnam War and the best history books are often 50 years later, after an event. What do you think? How will history interpret this generation, this boomer generation? EF (00:45:41): Now a group of... On the one hand it could be a group of spoiled adolescents trying to feel their way out of a complicated situation by self-gratification. On the other hand, in a deeper sense, the people who did think they could change the world and do it... Every generation thinks it can change the world but here, I think you are on to something. The boomer generation thought it could change the world almost by themselves. Whereas in World War II you did it as part of the army, part of the Navy, you worked for big Bill Donovan at the OSS and later the CIA. Man, you were part of a team. But by the time of the boomers, you were kind of in a do it on your own more or less. So an individualistic way of expressing generally some high moral concerns. For that I recognize my colleagues on the other side of the political arena, but I also recognize my friends on our side who kind of came of political age and said, Hey, there has to be a better way to answer these social problems than the LBJ SDR big government one. SM (00:47:49): I at least remember a poster that I had on my door at Ohio State University when I was in grad school. Peter Max was very popular back then. And I will never forget it. I wish I would kept it, but it stuck in my mind. It basically said, you do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should get together. It will be beautiful. If by chance... EF (00:48:14): We get together. SM (00:48:16): Because it is interesting if by chance. And as a young person, as a boomer, that is sounded great for the time. But when you reflect on it, if by chance you have to work together in this world not hope that we just come together by circumstance. So anyway, I have a list of names here. I would just like some brief comments. These are all people from the period, Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. EF (00:48:50): What do you want, one-word reaction? SM (00:48:53): Yeah, just your thoughts on the... EF (00:48:54): Traitors. SM (00:48:57): Lyndon Johnson. EF (00:49:03): Manipulative, clever and self-righteous. SM (00:49:16): Bobby Kennedy. EF (00:49:25): Cynical with a tinge of idealism. Cynical, going back to his days with Joe McCarthy, the senator. SM (00:49:35): John Kennedy. EF (00:49:39): Idealistic, almost naive... Idealistic, almost naive with a silver spoon, maybe brought on further and faster certainly than he otherwise would have, but maybe even further and faster than he should have. SM (00:50:15): Huey Newton, Bobby Seal on the Black Panthers. EF (00:50:19): In the overall scheme of things, irrelevant. At the time, strange and so far outside the mainstream it was hard to... SM (00:50:32): Go right into the Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. EF (00:50:41): Flash in the pans. SM (00:50:49): Barry Goldwater. EF (00:50:50): An idealistic trendsetter who never admitted to the limitations of politics. Certainly had an impact beyond his electoral politics. SM (00:51:18): Richard Nixon. EF (00:51:24): Deep global strategist with the fatal flaw that prevented him from really effectively doing what he was elected to do. He did not trust the people. Never did. SM (00:51:49): Your thoughts on his enemy's list. EF (00:51:53): Everybody has one, whether they write it down or they just keep it mentally. And his more graphic and in a way, almost more simplistic. SM (00:52:07): [inaudible] EF (00:52:22): A competent administrator of Baltimore County who then was rapidly beyond his level of competence. SM (00:52:31): Timothy Leary. EF (00:52:40): A person whose influence was far beyond what it should have been but who... At the same time, I guess if his intended audience had been better grounded, he would have been as irrelevant as he should have been but he was not always. SM (00:53:13): Martin Luther King. EF (00:53:21): A visionary dreamer who apparently had some personal flaws. But guess we all do. But who also had a big picture in terms of solving some very real problems in a non-violent way. SM (00:53:47): Malcolm X. EF (00:53:54): Malcolm X... Hello. Okay, be with him in a minute. Bye. (00:53:57): Malcolm X. The wrong kind of role model. Malcolm X [inaudible] of Chicago. SM (00:54:10): George McGovern. EF (00:54:18): A man who believed deeply and compassionately about a lot of things but alas, was wrong. But who certainly built a dedicated cadre of followers no unlike [inaudible] George Goldwater. SM (00:54:50): Robert McNamara. EF (00:54:52): A technocrat who never understood that people are not cogs and a big machine. SM (00:55:01): George Wallace. EF (00:55:06): A nasty piece of work without principles or morals. SM (00:55:11): Daniel Elsberg. EF (00:55:11): A man who deserted the truth that he should have known for lesser political interest. SM (00:55:34): Jerry Ford. EF (00:55:38): A great congressman from the district of Michigan, who by accident ended up where he was and tried to do a job that even today is... He was fundamentally decent to people I know. He got thrown a delta, a rough deck when he got to the top. SM (00:56:06): Hubert Humphrey. EF (00:56:09): Idealistic and intellectual, but unrealistic in terms of what human response would be to [inaudible]. SM (00:56:29): Muhammad Ali. EF (00:56:30): [inaudible]. SM (00:56:44): Gloria Steinem and Betty Fordan, and the women's movement leaders. EF (00:56:55): Inconsistent, hypocritical and not clearly thought through in terms of what their real objectives were. SM (00:57:18): I got four more here and that is Ralph Nader. EF (00:57:25): A man who tried to do some effective things but always pushed too far in terms of using coercion to achieve his objectives. So when he got to the point of curbs and things like that and compulsory student fees, instead of battling reasonable things like... SM (00:57:54): Down to our last three. EF (00:57:57): [inaudible] bumpers, et cetera. Yes... I want to apply for a city [inaudible]. I think I told Kathy, anybody from any bank that calls or anything with my mortgage is coming up she better put them through. SM (00:58:14): This is just a generalization now, but the music of the (19)60s. The Jimmy Hendrix, the Janice Joplins, the Beatles, the music, the influence that that music had on this generation as opposed to any other. EF (00:58:26): I do not know if it is the Beach Boys, I like it. If it is the Beatles, I do not understand it. So yeah, it is kind of mixed. I guess it is like all music. But if, like you were saying about history before, let us look back on it in 50 years and see what is still there. SM (00:58:47): Yeah. Cause you got Janet Joplin, when you think of the (19)60s, you think of Joplin, Hendricks and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and the list goes on and on. EF (00:58:54): Yeah, [inaudible] trio. SM (00:58:57): John Dean. EF (00:59:00): A man uncertain loyalty to... Well, just stop there. I never understood him. SM (00:59:08): And I am going to conclude with this. These are just terms of the period and just quick, SDS. Quick response. EF (00:59:26): Yeah. Perverted political agenda, trying to be imposed by compulsory means, which went against what their principles were supposed to be. Never quite understood how they got there. SM (00:59:48): Counterculture. EF (00:59:53): Sad because our traditional culture has got so much to offer why do you need one. SM (01:00:01): The Pentagon papers. EF (01:00:05): So what. SM (01:00:06): The Chicago Eight. EF (01:00:16): Representative of, as I said earlier, that incredible incident in the middle of that time period that tried to unhinge or destabilize a lot of what... A lot of our whole society, so not much sympathy. I do not know what they think their justification was. SM (01:00:47): And the last one is kind of a combination of three people. It is if you can put William Westmorland, President Thieu and General Cao Ky because Ky and Thieu were the leaders of Vietnam and Westmorland was [inaudible] Maxwell Taylor. EF (01:01:10): Man who tried to accomplish a mission without appropriate political backing from the United States' top officials in government. Therefore, without the backing of the US people he tried to carry out their orders as best he could. SM (01:01:34): I want to conclude on... First, I want to thank you very much. I admire what you do. I admire your organization. I am going to see Mr. Edwards next and we will hopefully continue to bring our students down here. The last question... There we go. EF (01:01:53): The Kennedy assassination did not start the (19)60s. The (19)60 election really did because JFK proved that the accepted order of vice president succeeding president was not necessarily the way things are going to go. And I think in retrospect that was almost more profound than the fact that Kennedy was a Catholic and proved that a Catholic could be elected. So I think that was a real turning point. But what the Kennedy assassination did for those of us who were around and affected by it was, it was a shock to the moral order of things that something like this could happen in this day and age. It meant that in effect nothing was sacred. That the highest elected person in the country could be zapped by a crazy guy down in Dallas. It was a shock to the body, I do not know about the body politic, but to the whole American society that had its reverberations for a long time. And I guess probably, in some respects foresaw then what was going to happen with Martin Luther King, with Bobby Kennedy and on and on. Attempted assassination on Reagan [inaudible]. Even I suppose you could, in that respect, almost link it to 9/11 and real traumas to the American system. And in that respect, it shook things up and helped... It made things unglue and we lost our compass for a while. And that one lasted longer than most. Kent State, I guess was I would describe as more a tragedy than a shock because Americans shooting Americans not in terms of stopping a prison outbreak or in terms of going back a hundred years plus then to the Civil War, but in basically a much more peaceful environment that just never should have happened. And I guess my problem to the whole reaction of the Kent State thing is that men are not angels and so we are not going to always do... Men who are in authority. Men who are in authority are not always going to do the right thing. Hopefully most of the time, under most circumstances they will, but not always. And so how do you make it happen more often rather than less often? At Kent State it sure did not. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Ed Feulner Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Feulner, Edwin J. ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Journalists; Political scientists; Public officers; Feulner, Edwin J.--Interviews Description An account of the resource Edwin John Feulner is an author, journalist, administrator, educator, political scientist, government official, and the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation. He was the president from 1977-2013 and from 2017-2018. Feulner received his Bachelor's degree in English from Regis College, his Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, and his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh. 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 2003-08-07 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.10.2016.188a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.188b 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. 65:51 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e346c6dbb9c5700f12b3049719af353b.jpg d3c60a65f11236d381e4412dd6b0b0e5 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/701d506a875c8952152be82530c442cc.mp3 8c263f71197a48cb604d638922da3ede Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 1997-09-12 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dan Fraley Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15171,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,16777215],"9":0,"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","16":11}" data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dan Fraley is a veteran who served during the Vietnam War. He currently is the Director of the Veterans Affairs in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. "}">Dan Fraley is a distinguished Marine<span style="color: #202124; font-family: Thread-00002740-Id-00000072;"> </span>who served during the Vietnam War. For decades he has dedicated his life to serving Vietnam veterans, especially those who were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. He has been on a mission to make sure that these veterans know about their benefits related to this service. He is the founder and the current director of the Veterans Affairs in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. <br /><br /><br /></span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam War; Anti-war Movement; Baby boom generation; College anti-war protests; Civil Rights Movement; Questioning of authority; Emergence of a middle class; Lack of trust; Jane Fonda."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Vietnam War; Anti-war Movement; Baby boom generation; College anti-war protests; Civil Rights Movement; Questioning of authority; Emergence of a middle class; Lack of trust; Jane Fonda.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 125:55 Subject LCSH Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Fraley, Dan--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 Dan Fraley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fraley, Dan ; 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; Fraley, Dan--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dan Fraley is a distinguished Marine who served during the Vietnam War. For decades he has dedicated his life to serving Vietnam veterans, especially those who were exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. He has been on a mission to make sure that these veterans know about their benefits related to this service. He is the founder and the current director of the Veterans Affairs in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Publisher 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 1997-09-12 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.10.2016.189a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.189b 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. 125:55 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/49f575bb176491709a6e8fd3f86d6773.jpg 80eca0362a808d3f67e922541edc76e0 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/d1be25d4aeef2930d2b2feea5fbbb603.mp3 da4962a41031186ebfde001460566a58 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-03-10 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed H. Bruce (Howard Bruce) Franklin, 1934- 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":"Bruce H. Franklin is an American cultural historian and scholar. He has received top awards in American Studies, science fiction, prison literature, and marine ecology. Franklin has written and edited nineteen books, three hundred professional articles, and has participated in several film productions. He was awarded the Pearson-Bode Prize for lifetime achievement in American Studies. Franklin currently is the Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He received his Bachelor's degree from Amherst College and his Ph.D. from Stanford University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13311,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,4884200],"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}">H. Bruce Franklin is an American cultural historian and scholar. He has received top awards in American Studies, science fiction, prison literature, and marine ecology. Franklin has written and edited nineteen books, three hundred professional articles, and has participated in several film productions. He was awarded the Pearson-Bode Prize for lifetime achievement in American Studies. Franklin currently is the Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He received his Bachelor's degree from Amherst College and his Ph.D. from Stanford University.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Propaganda; Anti-war movement; Baby boom generation; WW II; Vietnam War; Richard Nixon; Rock music; Drug culture; Liberation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Propaganda; Anti-war movement; Baby boom generation; WW II; Vietnam War; Richard Nixon; Rock music; Drug culture; Liberation.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 46:50 Subject LCSH Historians; Authors, American--20th century College teachers; Rutgers University; Franklin, H. Bruce (Howard Bruce), 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. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Bruce Franklin Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 10 March 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: [inaudible] again, thanks a lot for agreeing to participate in my book project. The first question I want to ask you is I want to go into detail on what happened to you at Stanford. But what I do not know about you is your parents, your background. Who were your role models and inspirations before you went into the military? Because the material that I read is after that. So how did you become who you are? BF: Well, I grew up in Brooklyn. You know that much, right? SM: Yep. BF: And my father had six months of high school [inaudible]. And we lived in a working class neighborhood. Well, I was born, actually, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and then my parents [inaudible]... We were also talking about Engels. And as far as the work that I do, I would say that Engels' writing is probably more influential, directly influential, on my thinking than Marx's writings, especially Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. I think those are very powerful and important analyses today. Lenin, I think [inaudible] radical opus of communications. But I kind of see Lenin's writings as falling into two categories. One, his analysis of imperialism, which I think is still very, very helpful and insightful. And so, his [inaudible] Marx with 19th century capitalism, the key text was Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, in which he describes the political economy which was dominant in the world during the first couple decades of the 20th century and on through the period of [inaudible] the mid-1970s. But in that period, colonialism as a system was destroyed. And this is what makes the Vietnam revolution so important in 20th and 21st century history, because it was cutting-edge. [inaudible] 1945 and 1949, a quarter of the world's population gained national independence from colonialism. In (19)49, in the Communist revolution, another quarter of the world's population was breaking away from [inaudible] decades of the 20th century. The world that we have (19)75 to 2010 is a different form of imperialism from what Lenin was writing about, although he saw finance capital becoming primary in the system. So that pretty far-sighted to think. The other part of Lenin's writings really revolve around the question of how to do it, or as he put it, what is to be done? And I think that the relevance of that writing in the post-Soviet period has got a whole string of question marks after it. It is not a simple question. I do not think these labels are very helpful anymore. I think that my books and articles speak for themselves. I have developed my own theoretical constructs, which are there in the book. My main work is as a cultural historian. So although if you look at ... If you look at Warstar's... Although I do feel [inaudible] with the relationship between what Marx called base and superstructure of [inaudible] the industry, what Eisenhower had called the- SM: [inaudible] BF: ...military-industrial complex [inaudible] a Marxist. To deal with that [inaudible] the main things I am focusing on really are consciousness issues [inaudible] cultural superstructure. And I do not think you will find much in Marx's or Engel's or Lenin's [inaudible] cultural superstructure. If anything, if there was one figure that was most influential on my approach to this, originally was Christopher Caudwell, C-A-U-D-W [inaudible], who himself was a Marxist and who died defending the Spanish popular government [inaudible]. I think Horowitz is such a fool. He and these other people who are whining about not [inaudible] themselves [inaudible] members of the faculty [inaudible]. The fact is that their work cannot withstand critical scrutiny. [inaudible] It is not well-researched. It is not [inaudible] by any standards. It is just foaming-at-the-mouth propaganda. SM: One of the first questions that I ask on the general area of questioning is the critics of the (19)60s generation blame a lot of the issues in the world today, the problems we have in this country, back to the boomers, the people that were either protesting the war, the 15 percent of the activists, who just could be about as many as 20, 25 million, and the breakdown of the family, the divorce rate, the drug culture, the sexual revolution, the beginning of the -isms, the pointing fingers toward other people for people's problems... And your thought on that kind of... And then secondly, because you have talked about the fact that small numbers of people can really make a difference in this world... And obviously, one of the critics of the (19)60s generation, or the boomers and the activists, is that only 15 percent were ever involved in any part of activism. So they use it as a negative as opposed to a positive, whereas 85 percent were just living their lives normally. I believe subconsciously everyone was affected. I do not care who you were. But how do you respond to people who generalize, again, that this period... And of course, this was when the Democratic Party was falling apart, too. And even Barney Frank wrote a book speaking frankly, where he states that the Democratic Party needs to separate itself from the war people, the anti-war, McGovern people, if it wants to survive as a party. So just your thoughts... And that was in (19)72 and- BF: The Democratic Party did separate itself from McGovern. That is what happened. SM: [inaudible]- BF: Because the people [inaudible] Democratic Party decided they would rather lose the election than lose their party. So they pulled the rug out from under him. The main thing is, who was right, who was wrong, the anti-war movement, or the people who got us into that war and kept us into that war and have kept us into war ever since? The people against the war were right. And in fact, it would be nice if the consciousness had not been largely erased, thus allowing this situation that we are presently in. Here is the way I look at it, putting my life in [inaudible] context. And it must have been [inaudible] 15 or 16 in 1945. I was riding around in Brooklyn. I was 11 years old, riding around in Brooklyn in the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of other kids. And we are all screaming, "Peace, peace. The war is over." The sidewalks are thronged with people, and everybody is yelling, "Peace, peace." And we really believed that we were going to spend the rest of our lives in a world without war, because the fascists and Nazis had been defeated, the militarists had been defeated. Democracies [inaudible]. And the fact of the matter is that I have spent almost the entire rest of my life in a nation that has been almost continually in a state of war. And in fact, while we were celebrating that, the Truman administration was making a deal with France to transport an invasion army to Vietnam, and arm that invasion army, an invasion army consisting of the largest [inaudible] Nazi soldiers. SM: Amazing. I read that. Yeah. BF: Not that we knew what was going on, which is why, I think, people are cynical, people believe you cannot trust the government. People believe the government lies to us and manipulates us, because the government's run in the interests of a few. It is pretty obvious. SM: Are you disappointed? You mentioned nine years old when you were at Stanford ... or I mean, excuse me, when you were in college. The boomers were a lot younger. But I know it is very difficult to generalize about 78 million people, but they have become the leaders. They have become the head of corporations. They run the world now, really, and all of the Generation X-ers who had followed them, their sons and daughters. How do you feel about this generally, this boomer generation? How do you feel about the 15 percent who were activists? And as they got older, did they remain activists? How many lived their ideals? BF: A lot did. There is a whole website [inaudible]. Stanford had [inaudible] the Stanford [inaudible]. And it had a website and archives [inaudible]. And I have [inaudible] because most of the people seemed to me to lead engaged lives, very active in their communities. So the idea that everybody who was active just gave up... corporations [inaudible]... I mean, I guess this is where my analysis and your analysis maybe part ways pretty dramatically, is I do not think of the generation as a very useful category- SM: I have heard that from other people. Yeah. BF: ...because [inaudible] a big chunk of time ... I have three kids who are boomers. And they were born in (19)56, (19)58 and (19)63. So I do not think of them ... My wife and I were talking about this relationship [inaudible]. We have never thought of our children as boomers. SM: Do they think of themselves as boomers? BF: I do not think so. No, I do not think so. It is true. My wife is the same age that I am. We were Depression babies [inaudible] babies [inaudible]. But I think social class, gender, ethnicity have a whole lot more to do with people's behavior. I suppose that as far as I know, the only thing you can really document about when you have a huge demographic bulge like that is that when that bulge reaches age 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, you are very likely to get an increased rate of crime. Historically [inaudible]- SM: Teenagers, yeah. BF: ...because most of what we define as crime, as opposed to corporate crime, most of what we define as crime is committed by people of that age. So when you have got more people of that age, you are probably going to have more crime. And obviously [inaudible], but- SM: Well- BF: ...[inaudible] and then there is all this medical research and everything that is come out, that people [inaudible] 16, 17, 18, 19, there is a core part of their brain that is not fully developed, which has something to do with their judgment. I mean, I look back at myself as a teenager, and what I know about other [inaudible] and I say, "How does anybody ever live through their teens?" They do not have a lot of sense. And a lot of people think they are immortal or bulletproof, or something. We knew some of the stuff that our kids were involved in. We have found out more [inaudible]. SM: Did you have a generation gap with your kids, when you were... because they always say that boomers, they really had a generation gap with their parents [inaudible]. BF: No. I mean, [inaudible] share our values. We are very close [inaudible]. SM: Right. In your view, when did the (19)60s begin, and when did it end? BF: I would say the (19)60s began in 1964 and ended around (19)74. SM: What was important in (19)64, Johnson winning, or... BF: Well, the way I see it, the I Have a Dream speech marked the end of it, the big March on Washington [inaudible], that, and the assassination of Kennedy. And then (19)64 was the first of the long, hot summers. It was the Mississippi Freedom Summer. It was the Gulf of Tonkin. It was the [inaudible] full-scale [inaudible]. And then, of course, [inaudible] was assassinated [inaudible]. I think if you looked at King's (19)63 speech and the April (19)67 speech and you put them together, you will see, how could so much change take place in such a short period of time? SM: You are talking about the Vietnam speech? BF: Yeah, yeah. And by (19)67, he is saying, "The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government. We are fighting on the wrong side of the war [inaudible]." This is the same guy that gave the I Have a Dream speech? He was part of the culture, and the changed situation and consciousness [inaudible]. So by (19)67, obviously, we were really into it. Early (19)65, the first anti-war demonstrations, the teach-ins of early (19)65. SM: And it ended in, you say, (19)74. Was that because the Vietnam War was over, or... BF: Well, (19)74, (19)75, someplace in there. The creation of the prison industrial complex. In some ways, you might be able to take... if you were going a couple years later. By (19)78, it was clear [inaudible]. I mean, [inaudible] emancipation radically changed between (19)77 and (19)78. (19)73, the United States surrenders in Vietnam. (19)75, the war is over. The change in dance styles began [inaudible]- SM: We had disco, yeah. Yeah. BF: It really takes over in the (19)80s. SM: You talked about ... because you are a cultural expert, and I had a chance to talk with Dr. Morris Dickstein, who talked about his book. And he wanted to talk more about culture. And what was it... the boomers often felt that they were the most unique generation in history. When they were young, they were going to change the world, create almost a utopia, end the war, bring peace, end racism, sexism, you name it. And then there was this feeling that they were unique, more unique than any other generally. Your thoughts on that kind of an attitude? Because many of them still feel that at 62 or 63, as they have gotten older. But what I am leaning into is, after you answer the question on uniqueness, what was it about the culture that stood out so different ... I know the music was unbelievable, the art was unbelievable, the theatrical performances. I am fascinated by guerrilla theater, that I do not think ever existed before. All these things that were a very important part of the period, and the movies, and the TV shows and documentaries, and the personalities on TV, there is a lot here. First, the question on uniqueness. BF: Every generation is unique, because every generation... See, I do not even know how... I have to confess something. The way my mind works, categories in general tend to break down. Whenever I started looking at categories, the boundaries of the categories start to come through. So I have a problem even with the concept of a generation. SM: That is okay. So did Todd Gitlin. BF: Yeah. [inaudible] So I can understand gender. That category I [inaudible]. And I can conceptualize class. But when there is a generation, it really seems to be very... the boundaries are so fluid. Okay, after World War II is [inaudible]. But what difference does that make? There were all kinds of other things happening in the world that were affecting people of different generations. And when I think of the anti-war movement, concrete... a lot of the people who were most active were people in the (19)60s, (19)67, (19)68, (19)69, who were in their 50s, 60s, 70s and older. And I do not know by percentage. Now, if you look at colleges, it is true that there were spectacular events at colleges, because it is easier for college students to engage in spectacular activities than it is for people who are working in the factory. SM: You are saying we tend to dwell too much on the college-educated as opposed to those that did not go to college. BF: [inaudible] Well, people, maybe they went to college, but I am saying different ages, different classes. This is not to belittle the college movement. It is wonderful, and I will be honest, [inaudible]. But I think the images that we have are quite inaccurate. When I think of the particular participants who were there year in and year out, a lot of them were older people in the community. But that is not the image. SM: How important were the... I am going to get to the culture question. How important were the college students and college student protests in ending the war? BF: Well, if you listen to the Vietnamese, they were very important. SM: Right. David Horowitz. BF: (19)64 to (19)68 was a period of [inaudible], which probably had a more direct role. But these things are not unrelated to each other, because the people who were rebelling in the cities, a lot of them were people who were going into the military [inaudible] because [inaudible] I think that in the final analysis, it was people in the military whose anti-war activities had great effect in ending the war; other than the Vietnamese, of course [inaudible]- SM: And you are talking- BF: The Vietnamese were going to win. They were going to win, no matter what. SM: Can you talk about that? And I know it is a very sensitive issue. I have brought it up with Vietnam vets who went there, and they may not want to talk about this part of the... I remember Country Joe was on our campus many years back, with Jan Scruggs. And we were eating dinner. And Country Joe is a little older than Jan Scruggs. And then out of nowhere, during the middle of the dinner, he says, "Have you ever wondered why there were no POWs for the North Vietnamese? Because they were all killed," he said. [inaudible] they were all killed. And Jan C., he did not want to talk about it. That is an image that happens a lot, that they just handed them over to the South Vietnamese, and they did whatever they wanted to do with them. And there was truth there, but- BF: Yeah [inaudible] MIA [inaudible] I debated on [inaudible] of the POW/MIA [inaudible] Vietnamese [inaudible]. If you had a choice between being captured by their side and captured by our side, which would you pick? And he was honest enough to move away from this whole area of discussion. SM: Oh, wow. He just very... Spitting Image is a book that comes out. And I have read it [inaudible] read it. Your thoughts on ... you mentioned just some commentary here, it is in the book. But why were the Vietnam veterans or people who fought in Vietnam the reason why the war ended? What did they do besides... I know they ended up writing and the other... BF: Yeah. I mean, it is there. It is documented in Vietnam [inaudible]- SM: Yeah, and we got the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, when they came back. BF: Well, Robert Heinl, writing in Armed Forces Journal, has quite a formative essay called The Collapse of the Armed Forces. And that is pretty accurate, because they were collapsing. And this is why Nixon ultimately had to withdraw the ground troops. The only units that were really capable of coherent playing at the level were [inaudible]. The conscript [inaudible] worse than useless, from a military point of view. They did not want to be there. They were largely [inaudible]. They wanted to come home alive. And you could write off, if you wanted to, the motivation of a lot of the people in the army in Vietnam who were actively against the war [inaudible] confusing [inaudible]. However, after [inaudible] and Nixon decided to switch the strategy to depend upon naval air power, we then had a revolutionary newspaper being published on every aircraft carrier [inaudible]. I cite in the book 1,500 members of the U.S.S. Constellation signed a petition to have Jane Fonda's FTA show brought onboard the carrier. Insurrections on ships, sabotage on ships, to the point that by October 1972, five aircraft carriers and their attending fleets had to be brought back to San Diego because they were unfit for combat, because of the anti-war activity in the fleet. And you cannot write off those guys as just trying to save their skins, because they were not in any danger. So why would they physically have taken action against the war? During the Christmas bombing, there were B-52 crews who refused to fly. Intelligence officials who were doing things like leaking the Pentagon Papers. So the students who were protesting on campus had limited means to really apply leverage. [inaudible] but the anti-war people in the Army, Navy and Air Force had a lot of leverage. SM: Is not it true that what was happening in Vietnam was happening in America, and that is the division between Black and white... there were those who said when they got into battle, that may have been a different story. They would fight to the end. But times when they were not in battle, the tensions of racism were still there, the drug culture. Everything that was happening in America was happening in the service, and that was part of the reason why it was going downhill. BF: But on the other hand, a lot of what was perceived was just the fact [inaudible] was not. A striking example was when a major ship... It was an aircraft carrier [inaudible] San Francisco. And a large number of crewmen refused to go aboard ship to go back to Vietnam. And there is a picture [inaudible]. They had their fists raised, like this. And the captain said, "[inaudible] crew members raised their fist in the Black Power symbol." But then you look at the picture, and a lot of the guys were white. So it was not a Black Power symbol. It was something else. SM: We got just a couple more minutes here. One of the basic questions I have tried to ask everyone... Well, there is two questions here. One is, and you may not want to answer this, because you do not believe in the generation concept, but if you were to define the generation, would you call them the Vietnam generation, the (19)60s generation, the Woodstock generation, the protest generation? [inaudible]- BF: It does not compute in my brain. SM: You said this era was so important culturally, and different than any other. In just a few words, how would you define the uniqueness of the culture during the era of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movements and the evolution of all these movements in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s? BF: Well, if you wanted to think of it in one particular word that pulls a lot of things together, I think it is the word liberation. And it is a word that was widely used then: women's liberation movement, Black liberation movement, People's Liberation Army. So going in many different areas, there was a sense of liberation from something. Obviously, you can see it in the music. Rock was perceived as liberating, whatever. I think a lot of people thought that some drugs were liberating. But then you have to be careful when you are talking about this, because even then, and certainly today, what is America's number one drug problem? It is not marijuana and it is not heroin and it is not cocaine. It was the same number one drug problem that led to... the 18th Amendment? [inaudible] prohibition. SM: [inaudible]- BF: So alcohol. If we want to talk about the destruction of families, domestic violence, violence on the highways, shattered lives, lost careers... But a certain amount of people have looked at marijuana at some point. Other people looking at LSD. I do not think they were looking at meth as [inaudible]. Anyway, so- SM: Were the movies and the TV shows liberating, or how about the media culture, all those? BF: Well, yeah, I mean, whether they were or were not, there is the perception, I think, of that. [inaudible] in a lot of different ways. It was not just people who were involved in the anti-war movement [inaudible] that time, people were being liberated from something about the conformist and oppressive culture that dominated in the (19)50s. SM: Of course, TV was another part of this generation. They saw everything, and they saw the war on TV. One of the questions that our students came up with when we went down to Washington... I think it was like the year before you came to our campus. Senator Muskie was still alive. [inaudible]... This is what they asked him. I have got this right here, or is it here? They wrote it here. We usually have a hard time finding this. Oh, okay. The students wrote this: "Do you feel boomers are still having problems with healing, due to the extreme divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth, the divisions between Black and white, gay and straight, male and female, division between those who supported authority and those who criticized it, divisions between those who supported the troops and those who did not? What role did the Vietnam War play in healing the divisions, or was this primarily a healing for veterans? Do you feel the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? And are we wrong in thinking this way, or has 35, 40 years made the following statement true: time heals all wounds?" Your thoughts on whether we are a nation that cannot heal from all those divisions from that time, that maybe what we see today in our society is a lack of tolerance [inaudible] for other points of view, people do not want to work together. Do you see anything there? And a lot of these boomers are now going into senior citizen status. And I know we may not like to call them a generation, but the Civil War generation, a lot of them... because I have studied Gettysburg, and many of them never healed from that battle. BF: Well, again, I do not see this as being confined to a generation, because I think the chasms did open up in American society during this period in 1968 [inaudible] exposed [inaudible] most divisive events [inaudible]. I do not know if we can put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Certainly, today when we talk about red states and blue states, I mean, this is a pretty new concept, except that if you look at the red states, to a large extent, you are looking at lines that pretty much parallel the Civil War. SM: In fact, Muskie's response was, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And he would not even talk about anything else. BF: Yeah, but we have had a lot of elections since then which were landslides for one party or another party [inaudible] sections of the country voted the same way. You do not see that happening right now, although I think in 2008, it looked like maybe we were going to get out of this mess. Virginia, North Carolina voted for Obama. But since the Republican Party, I think accurately, decided that they had to destroy Obama in order to survive and flourish as a party, and then they kept developing a strategy based on that assumption, that those chasms have become much greater. I do not know if you have gone to any of the town hall meetings? SM: Yeah, with Senator Specter. BF: I do not know [inaudible]. SM: It was not fun. It was like they talked down to him, just like he was nobody. BF: [inaudible]- SM: Whether you like him or not, you do not treat a politician... Boy, it was unbelievable. BF: Yeah. Well, my wife went to one in Montclair, which is a very liberal town. And she said it was really scary, really scary. SM: So as Senator Gaylord Nelson said, people do not walk around with lack of healing on their sleeve, but he said it forever affected the body politic. And that is the way he responded. It has not healed within the body politic itself. BF: But I think the main thing that is going on now is more and more [inaudible]. I do not know what forces there are right now that are going to reverse that [inaudible]. SM: What are your thoughts on the Vietnam Memorial when you see it? Has it done the job of healing the nation in any way beyond the veteran community? What are your thoughts on that? What do you think of it? BF: Well, what I like about the Vietnam Memorial is that it does not glorify war. We have too many statues of people with swords on horseback. I guess it affects different people in different ways, but it is certainly not something which encourages militarism. On the other hand, what was... McNamara's estimate of the number of Vietnamese killed, 325,000 [inaudible] 250,000- SM: [inaudible]- (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with H. Bruce Franklin Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Franklin, H. Bruce (Howard Bruce), 1934- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Historians; Authors, American--20th century College teachers; Rutgers University; Franklin, H. Bruce (Howard Bruce), 1934--Interviews Description An account of the resource H. Bruce Franklin is an American cultural historian and scholar. He has received top awards in American Studies, science fiction, prison literature, and marine ecology. Franklin has written and edited nineteen books, three hundred professional articles, and has participated in several film productions. He was awarded the Pearson-Bode Prize for lifetime achievement in American Studies. Franklin currently is the Professor of English and American Studies at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. He received his Bachelor's degree from Amherst College and his Ph.D. from Stanford 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 2010-03-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.190 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. 46:50 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1268f1e5cac376ef2c72e7244e0b34c0.jpg 8a20a3d68e01509e829bdef1a2e7c0eb https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/fa631efedf8af02f17eff97e12e9f8a9.mp3 e92cb22f082e991fe61d85fd1a44532e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-11-20 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed David J. Garrow, 1953- Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Dr. David Garrow is a historian, educator, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a Professor of Law & History, and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He was the senior advisor for the TV show Eyes on The Prize and a senior research fellow at Homerton College in Cambridge, M.A. He is a regular contributor to the Washington Post, New York Times, and The American Prospect. Garrow graduated magna cum laude from Wesleyan University and then received his Ph.D. from Duke University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Dr. David Garrow is a historian, educator, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a Professor of Law & History, and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He was the senior advisor for the TV show <em>Eyes on The Prize</em> and a senior research fellow at Homerton College in Cambridge, M.A. He is a regular contributor to the <em>Washington Post</em>, <em>New York Times</em>, and <em>The American Prospect</em>. Garrow graduated magna cum laude from Wesleyan University and then received his Ph.D. from Duke University.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; LGBT rights; Black Panthers; Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; SNCC; Democratic Convention of 1964; Vietnam; Black power movement; Malcolm X; March on Selma; Montgomery March."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Baby boom generation; LGBT rights; Black Panthers; Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; SNCC; Democratic Convention of 1964; Vietnam; Black power movement; Malcolm X; March on Selma; Montgomery March.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 126:59 Subject LCSH Historians; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers;University of Pittsburgh. School of Law; Garrow, David J., 1953--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: David Garrow Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 20 November 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) DG (00:00:04): So, my memory now of the different emails and... SM (00:00:07): I have to check these out every so often. Make sure they are [inaudible]. DG (00:00:10): You run them both on the same thing. SM (00:00:11): Yeah. DG (00:00:11): Yeah, we are on exactly the same thing. SM (00:00:11): Yeah. Well the first hundred I did not, and then Charlie Hardy from the history department told me, "Steve, are you getting two tapes?" Because I have had situations where I damage the tape. And then you have got the backup. And I get them on CD's as fast as possible. And then whatever happens to these tapes, end up at the university or whatever and the CD will be there forever. DG (00:00:36): So, okay. Just the one thought I have had in the back of my mind, looking forward to when we were going to get together. I, for whatever reason, have always been deeply, deeply uncomfortable with any and every invocation of boomer generation as a phrase. Now, for some reason I just really dislike the word boomer. SM (00:01:01): You are not the first that is said that. DG (00:01:01): Okay. Now I do not know. And I am not opposed to periodization or generationalism or eras. So, my problem is not with the concept. My problem is with the word. And it may be that my deep dislike for Bill Clinton is what explains this. Because at least in the journalism of the 1990s, Clinton was presented as the personification of the boomer generation. SM (00:01:39): Yes. DG (00:01:45): Now I gave up on Bill Clinton when he mucked over Lani Guinier in about May or June of 1993. And I sort of wrote him off as any political figure, I was interested in [inaudible 00:02:05]. Well this may be completely my sort of anti-Clintonism being transferred to something that is guilt by association with Bill Clinton. SM (00:02:15): What is interesting is that many people have told me they hate the term. Todd Gitlin actually in my interview said, "If you mentioned the word one more time I am going to stop the interview." There has been some issues. One of the main issues is that people that were born between say (19)39 and (19)45 are closer to the boomers, the frontline, the first 10 years. DG (00:02:37): Todd is a good bit older. SM (00:02:39): Well Todd I think is 42, I interviewed him a long time ago. But Tom Hayden and basically all the leaders of the movement were mostly born between (19)40 and (19)45. And when I was in graduate school, I can remember being taught in class at Ohio State that the majority of the militants were the older people, were the ones that were leading the movement even in (19)70. And they were born before (19)46. For me being born in (19)53. Now I have great respect for Todd, though I do not know him personally at all. I do know Tom Hayden, have known Tom Hayden some personally. DG (00:03:20): But they must have football. SM (00:03:23): Yeah, a football game day. DG (00:03:24): Wow. Oh my god. I do not think Tom Hayden is here from the same generation. I mean I do not exactly know how much older than I am Tom is. SM (00:03:39): Tom is 10 years older. I think he was born in (19)42. DG (00:03:44): I think we may want to wait until the percussion session... SM (00:03:45): Yeah, let me go over, turn it off. DG (00:03:54): And start meeting people as a scholar. I first start meeting people 179, 19 80. So, I am 26 at that time. And whether it is Bayard Rustin, whether it is Mike Harrington, whether it is somebody like Tom Hayden. Bayard is certainly more than a generation older than me. But being 26 at that time, both these are good examples to use, because they are so far apart in age. Being 26 at that time, both Bayard and Tom seemed so much older than I am that they seemed to be more from the same generation. The linkage between the two of them seems to be inherently closer than any possible linkage of say, me to Tom. Now, even the youngest of the SNCC people, say someone who is 17, 18 in say 1964 even, not the first generation of SNCC people in here. I am using generation in a four-year increment. But say even someone who was active in SNCC at age 18 in 1964 is still born in (19)46. So inherently for me, in my Civil Rights movement phase, all of those people seem measurably older than I am. Because to someone who is 26, 27, seven years seems significant. Now that I am 57, seven years does not seem very significant at all. So, I think a lot of my ways of looking at people and thinking about generations and thinking about age is the artifact of how sort of unusually young I was when I first got in the interviewing trenches. SM (00:06:03): Yeah, you raised a good point because you kind of are close to that second half of the boomer generation, which had totally different experiences than the first half. So, for them it is like the older brother and the younger brother. And we had many cases of that. And I think part of the process of doing this book, I have learned so much that you cannot put things into nice packages that there is what I call a spirit. There was a spirit that really crossed, was a part of the front-runners of the generation that were linked to some people that were older, maybe members of the silent generation or those born in World War II. That had similar experiences. And that is what Tom Hayden said. Tom does not like the term boomer. Two questions for you. Up through when does your application of the term run? What is your what is the [inaudible] year? DG (00:06:59): Because I am a higher ed person and all my degrees are in higher ed, higher education looks at the boomer generation as those born between (19)46 and (19)64. And then we get into the generation Xer's, which is 65 to about (19)81, (19)82, there is a little discrepancy there. Just two things then, now given what I am now doing with Barack, Barack was born in (19)61, and all the people I am now interviewing in terms of his contemporaries are either his age, or say in terms of his Harvard classmates, since Barack takes essentially five years off, (19)83 to (19)88 before law school. So, a lot of Barack classmates are five years younger than he is in terms of the people I go interview for this. Now, it is interesting when I interview someone who is born in 1966, entering Harvard Law School of 1988, and they are 13 years younger than me. And I am quite aware that they are younger than me, they do not quite feel like they are from a different generation in the sense that my graduate students are, or my wife's graduate students whom we know. So, I think of some of the PhD's, new PhD's, recent PhD's we know at Cambridge. I am just going to say the names that I think about people like Lee and Julia. They are going to be 30 now roughly, maybe early thirties. So that means they are born 1980. Now they are a generation younger than me in a way that somebody born (19)66 is not so clearly. And then the other thing I was going to say to a Civil Rights historian like me, (19)45, (19)46 looms big, because of how totally different the local world, particularly in the South is, once you have got African American military veterans coming back. When the war ends, (19)45, (19)46, Amzie Moore, Medgar Evers, folks like that. So, my predisposition in terms of how I would periodize things is to draw a line some place in (19)45. And then probably, I guess I would begin in (19)46 because if somebody gets home from the war sometime summer of (19)45, fall of (19)45, the first children of the war are born in (19)46. One my first conscious memories, and I may just be slow and not very good, and I certainly have more reasons than most people to have blocked out good chunks, large chunks, huge chunks of my early childhood. My earliest substantive memories are the Kennedy assassination and the Kennedy funeral, which I saw in person. So, for me, I have vague recollections of my father kvetching about traffic problems because of the march on Washington. So that is three months earlier. So, my first political news memories are from being 10 years old. Now, let me say one other thing, and this is really, really central. And if there is anything profound, I have to say, I think this is profound. And I have been aware of this for going on 30 years and I still cannot wrap my little brain around it. Martin Luther King, the whole ambition of King's public life, takes place in less than 13 years. From late (19)55 to early (19)68. Now, when I started out in (19)79, (19)80, at age 26, age 27, the 13 years from (19)55 to (19)68, 13 years seems like a long time. A really long time. Now here is the crux of my problem. I have now been doing this for, depending on where I put the start point, at least 32 years from when Protest at Selma was published. SM (00:12:16): Yes, I have that. DG (00:12:16): Or in terms of when I started, I started my first day of work on what became Protest at Selma was June 1st, (19)74, which I remember quite clearly because it is when I began work on the senior thesis that ended up as Protest at Selma. Now the notion that I have been doing more or less the same thing, permutations of the same thing for 32 to 36 years. I have very clear memories of, I can picture... One of the weird things with my memory is that I cannot tell you a lot of things about my personal life or things that I did or girlfriends or going to meet, did I speak at a conference? When did I last speak in Louisville? When did I last speak at Princeton? Things about my personal life, personal experiences, none of that sticks. But I can picture almost without exception, virtually every person I have ever interviewed and can picture the room, the scene. SM (00:13:33): So, can I. DG (00:13:34): 1979 forward. SM (00:13:35): Oh, wow. That is really a good story. DG (00:13:38): But it is profoundly weird to me that I have been a historian for 32 plus years. And my 32 plus years does not seem very long to me. Whereas King's public life was only 13 years. I cannot wrap... This is about the limits of my ability to be articulate about this. But in making the answer very simple is that the black freedom struggle of that period happened very, very quickly, very, very intensively. And let me do a further extension or parallel of that. Up until (19)65, when Griswold comes down, and indeed really into (19)66, (19)67, this is just parroting from Liberty and Sexuality, nobody with two or three real, real outlier exceptions, no one has ever thought, ever had the idea of a constitutional right to abortion. Now within the space of six years, never mind 13 with King, within the space of literally six years, and then January (19)73, it is actually more like five. Within the space of five years this, being the idea of a constitutional right to abortion, goes from being non-existent to being the law of the land. That at least initially the relatively non-controversial law of land. So, the speed with which Roe v Wade comes to pass is mind-boggling, even compared to the speed of the black freedom struggle. Now lastly, look at where we are today, where we have been the last 6, 9, 10 years with gay equality, gay marriage. No societal change in my lifetime comes anywhere imaginably close in magnitude and scale and depth to how the status of gay people has changed in American society from when I was in high school until the present day. I have a reasonably clear memory of first realizing that there was such a thing as a gay person in I think maybe my junior or senior year of college at Wesleyan, which should be like 1973. Now that is pretty slow, pretty late. Was I aware that Stonewall had happened? I read the New York Times when I was in high school, so I must have read about this. But I did not have the personal awareness, certainly I had no awareness when I was in high school in Greenwich up through (19)71, there was such a thing as gay people. And I cannot remember who it was at Wesleyan, and I do not know the gay historiography, gay identity theory quite well enough to do this competently. But there is, I think no question as a historical matter, as a legal matter, that the speed and degree of progression with gay social acceptance, gay legal rights is directly concomitant to the public visibility of gay people. Because the more visible, I would argue, the more non-gay people become aware of fundamental similarity, fundamental equality. But needless to say, there is no one who is more totally pro-gay marriage than I am. But I view the speed with which gay people have moved from being either non-present or actively widely harassed, humiliated, discriminated against. I view the speed with which this has happened as just remarkable. So, on all of these things, whether it is the black freedom struggle, 13 years, whether it is right to abortion, five or six years, whether it is gay equality, the last, however, we would put a beginning point on that sometime, whether Stonewall or later. I think the speed of change over the course of my lifetime on the things I care about has been just remarkable. SM (00:19:41): Well those, they are beautiful insights. Because when I was a graduate student at Ohio State, and I believe the spring of (19)71, Dr. Johnson, our advisor, we were talking about the war. In fact, it was a legal aspect in higher ed class. At the very end of the class, he asked all the men to stay after, and well, we were going back to study and whatever. It is in the middle of the winter. And he said, "I want you guys to meet Dr. Allen Hurst." DG (00:20:05): I recognize that name. SM (00:20:07): And we are talking about the war in Vietnam, our whole theory, we were talking about Civil Rights and you were talking about women's issues, whether police can come on campus. We are dealing with a lot of legal issues here. And he says, "I want to introduce to you the guy who is going to get the first PhD in gay history, Amal Hurst from the University of Minnesota." I think he was at Minnesota, and we were looking at each other. First off, we were black and white, no Asians, but black and white. And we were in this room, we all looked at each other, none of us knew hardly anything, we knew nothing about gay people. And we did not even know that there were gay people. And we are talking about African American and white males, who are liberal and pretty well-educated. And so, we did not understand why Dr. Johnson did this, because Phil Tripp was another person that asked Dr. Johnson to introduce them. And he just wanted to make us aware that there is another group that is being discriminated against in our society. And you are going to be dealing with this issue down the road if you are going to have a career in higher ed. DG (00:21:14): Right. SM (00:21:17): And he talked, and Pat comes over. He said, "Was not that strange?" We did not dislike the man. He was brilliant when he talked. And obviously he was a front runner. DG (00:21:24): Right-right. SM (00:21:27): But the fact that here we are dealing with the issues of black and white, male and female, war and peace. And here we are talking about gay rights in 1971. DG (00:21:37): Right now, let me take a pause. Just me to get more coffee. Because given my... Given what you are doing, be sure to look, need to think about the date on it, it is going to be April or May of 2000. So, look on the 2000 menu. And it is a long newspaper piece that I had in the Atlanta Journal constitution discussing the experience of the 40th reunion of SNCC, and the sort of implicit tensions between the ways in which the participant alumni wanted to remember the SNCC experience. Versus what we historians believe we know about the SNCC experience. And my sort of gentle polite point is that, and this reflects a broader belief I have, is that people remember happy experiences much better, much more clearly than they remember negative or unpleasant experiences. That people retain what is happy and pleasing and reassuring and discard that which is troubling and unpleasant. And I first realized that principle, not sure it is correct it is a principle, early on when I was interviewing people who had been in Montgomery (19)55, the (19)59, (19)60 doc's time in Montgomery. And I started to realize that virtually without exception, everybody had very clear, sometimes detailed, memories of the year of the boycott, December (19)55 to December (19)56. But the vast majority of them had very little memory about what happens in Montgomery and what happens with the Montgomery Improvement Association 1957 to 1959. Because there is just a lot of internal tensions and disagreements, and some people are sour about all the attention that is gone to Dr. King. And some people are sour that Mrs. Parks has been sort of forgotten and ignored. But very few people in black Montgomery could sort of narrate their way across the calendar of (19)57, (19)58, (19)59, yet virtually everyone could narrate their way from January to March to June to November of 1956. So, you run into this probably just as much as I do, interviewing hundreds and hundreds of people, whether it is for King, for Roe vs Wade, for Barack Obama. The variegation of human memory, the selectivity of human memory, the way in which human memory moves things around across time and gets chronology bodged up, is fascinating to me. And I deal with it. And in the present context, I deal with it all the time with Obama, especially in the 1980s. Which is the heart of it, the Barack Obama circle, at least in some ways. But so, I have become acutely conscious of the importance of getting sort of it documented, where was Barack at different times in the calendar 1984 or the calendar 1985. So that when I hear different people's memories, I saw Barack in LA or Barack went to this conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. SM (00:26:06): They do not have any... DG (00:26:14): So that I have got a sort of calendar skeleton to which I can try to attach the memories in some sort of jigsaw puzzle type of way. Because I think I have always thought right back the Selma book, I sort of organize everything I know in chronological fashion. Every set of note cards, every set of three by five cards. Now this 1900-page, single space Obama notes file that I [inaudible]. Everything is organized chronologically, it is the way I understand the world. And maybe I wonder if sometimes I sound an excessively peavey or tiresome interviewer, because I always try to get people to do it chronologically. I sat with someone last Tuesday who has a collection of Barack letters, and we walked our way through them, sort of reading them out loud in order. But I was very pleased that that person had the same orientation I do. The only way to think about the letters is to think about them in chronological order. SM (00:27:37): Well, the question I wanted to ask you is kind of that way, because I was very sensitive, even as a young person in college when I saw that picture of Stokely Carmichael next to Dr. King. And Dr. King has kind of got his arms and... That body language with Dr. King. And then we had James Farmer on the campus, so he talked about Dr. King in meetings. It was a tremendous session. I really liked them. But the question I am getting at here is, in 1954, Brown vs Board of Education was passed. And of course, that was historic. However, when we had Jack Greenberg on campus who worked with Thurgood Marshall and going through the South and all the things that they had to go through, Dr. King was the next phase. And I can remember he really appreciated that there was a past, however, I want now. Right. Dr. King said, Thurgood Marshall has a more gradualist approach. We are going to be non-violent protest, and when we want it now, then you get the time. And Dr. King's only 36, 37 years old. You have got Stokely Carmichael talking to him, out of respect, and said, "Your time is past." Then you have a few years earlier, the debate with Malcolm X and Bayard Rustin, basically the chain... See, what you are seeing is the seemingly older generation was really in the late thirties and early forties being challenged by the late twenties and thirties. And then of course the Black Panthers. The question I am asking you is just your thoughts about young people challenging the system. The question that comes up over and over again is the Civil Rights movement was predominantly, there were not very many boomers inbound of the Civil Rights movement, it was in the fifties. If you are talking about the youngest boomers were going to junior high school in 1959 and (19)60. So how could they really be involved in the Civil Rights movement, except those early students that went on Freedom Summer and they had to be a little bit older. Your thoughts on Boomer participation in the Civil Rights movement, how important were they both black and white? And secondly, your thoughts on this seeming ongoing chronological evolution of the movement by people saying "Your time is past." Yeah. DG (00:30:14): Docs born in (19)29. Most of the other ministers are a little bit older than Doc, or somebody like Fred Shuttlesworth were measurably older. So the ministers, the adult leadership of the movement. I do not know off the top of my head what year Jim Farmer is born in. God, I say his name, I hear that voice. Best voice ever. SM (00:30:34): Oh yeah. DG (00:30:34): So, King is essentially 26 at the time of Montgomery, which certainly seems young to any of us in retrospect. When SNCC gets going in 1960, I do not know precisely what year. Bob Moses is a little bit or older, because Bob's been out, what, three years maybe got a master's degree, he was teaching. So Bob is a little bit older. Jim Forman is probably a little bit older than Bob. Because Jim was, I think, off the top of my head, find out how much older Jim Forman is than John than say Julian Bond. And it is going to be on the order of 10 years, maybe a little more. So, with a few exceptions, for like Jim and to a lesser degree, Bob, most of the people in SNCC are essentially 22, 21 years old in (19)60, (19)61. So, they were born sort of (19)38, (19)39, (19)40. They were 10 years younger than Doc. Now, there was no doubt whatsoever in the context of (19)60 to (19)65, (19)66, that 10-year gap between King and the members of SNCC. Is 10 years a generation? Boy is 10 years a generation. There is no doubt about that. And the younger people who are tied to Doc and SCLC, Bernard Lee, first and foremost. Now Bernard had been in the military. Bernard like Bob Moses may be a little bit older. Well, did Bernard ever graduate from Alabama State? If so, what year? Bernard's, I am not sure. But if you look at the photos of Bernard with Docketing, Bernard is dressing like King and Abernathy and Andy Young. And so, he is sort of acting older than the SNCC people. Now, to my mind, the geographical distinction within SNCC is probably the most important because you have got people like Stokely and Bill Mahoney, people that have gone to Howard and Washington. People whose experience was not simply the South, or not simply the rural south. SM (00:33:30): And Cortland Cox was not ignorant. DG (00:33:32): Yes, exactly. SM (00:33:33): And E Carolyn Brown, who was H Rap Brown's brother. They were both students at Howard. DG (00:33:37): Okay. Now there is another Brown brother whom I know from Brooklyn. SM (00:33:47): We had E Carolyn Brown, we had both of them at our campus and we did a tribute to Bayard Rustin. We did a national tribute to Rustin. DG (00:33:53): Yes-yes, yes. SM (00:33:54): And we had Norman Hill, Rochelle Horowitz- DG (00:33:57): Oh, I love Rochelle. SM (00:33:58): ... And Walter Nagle, Cortland Cox, E Carolyn Brown. Ernie Green came up and spoke, and John Lewis opened the conference. DG (00:34:09): How many years ago was this? SM (00:34:12): Probably we did that conference in (19)99, 2000. John Damilia was the only one that we wanted there that had a bad back and could not make it. And Dr. Levine from Bowdoin College, the historian. DG (00:34:21): Yeah, I am afraid that is not a book I like. SM (00:34:28): Yeah. And then also VP Franklin, we had him there. So, it was a really good conference. And by the way, those tapes are all in the library [inaudible] They were all there. DG (00:34:40): Oh, great. No, I adored Bayard. I saw a lot of Bayard, (19)84 to (19)87 in New York. Because he died what, August of (19)87? I remember we had dinner with him and Walter. I cannot remember where it was. Sometime early that summer, maybe circa June.... right? Sometime early that summer, maybe circa June. This is another weird thing about being a historian. I remember about three, four, five years ago now, picking up ... I certainly did not buy it, but I might have picked it up in a bookstore, I picked it up in the library, there was a somewhat memoir-ish book that Ron Radosh, a historian who started out as a sort of young communist, and then wrote a very good book on the Rosenbergs, and then became a sort of very, very self-identified, very conservative. And Ron had some account in there of a conversation he had with Bayard at a party at the home of myself and the woman I was then living with, Susan, in West Harlem. This would have been probably in (19)85. I have the exact date of the party someplace. And Radosh had the year of the party off by at least two years. I am doing this from memory, we are on tape. I do not want to be unfair. He might have had it off by four years. And I remember thinking, this was weird to me, both because I was not quite prepared for seeing parties I have thrown making it into the history books. And then I was, at best, bemused by the fact that a professional historian could get the date of something from a relatively recent time period so wrong. Then, about two or three years ago, I was completely freaked when someone said to me, a good nine, 10 months after it came out, I know, it is [inaudible] Don Critchlow, who's a conservative Catholic social historian, Don Critchlow emailed me, and said, "Are you aware of what is in Arthur Schlesinger's diaries about you?" I was completely unaware. SM (00:37:08): About you? DG (00:37:09): Yep. And it turned out that someplace in Arthur's diaries, and I have got to think about the date. What was the date of this? Sometime in the early (19)80s. Could be 1980. The first time I met Arthur, I think he invited me to lunch at the Century Club, old and fancy thing, on 43rd or 44th Street, Midtown. Arthur had been acquainted with Stan Levison. Arthur had published his RFK book by that point, talking about RFK signing off on the wire-tapping, and RFK being briefed about King's sex life, and all this. And so, Arthur and I discussed this thing. Discussed family, and certainly discussed some aspects of King's private life over lunch. And lo and behold, there in Arthur's diaries is a perfectly accurate recounting of our lunch conversation. And I was very fortunate. I was quite happy that none of the people that reviewed the book decided that this conversation about King's private life in the diaries merited comment in the newspapers. But again, I mention both of these, because I think of myself very much, and boy, am I conscious about this now in the Obama context. I think of myself as purely a historian. I have no desire to be at ... The last thing I want to do is have anything to do with the 2012 election. So, I find it sort of weird that I am turning up as a character, however minor and brief, I find it sort of weird that I am turning up as a character in the historical record, rather than simply being a third-party chronicler of it, if I am saying this with any clarity. SM (00:39:08): I ended up getting to know Mrs. King's sister, who taught at... DG (00:39:12): Oh, Edith. SM (00:39:12): Edith. DG (00:39:13): Oh, wow. SM (00:39:16): She liked me, and we tried to get her to come, but she was pretty ill, and I have lost touch with her since I left the university. But one time, I asked her, "What did you think of the books written on Dr. King?" And I mentioned your name, Taylor Branch. And she did not like any of them, because of the fact, I think it is because they dealt with the sex life of Dr. King. DG (00:39:37): Right-right. SM (00:39:40): So, probably just does not know the whole history of the ... She just read the books. DG (00:39:44): [inaudible] I mean, I am super conscious of this. And I am firmly comfortable saying this on tape. And this is arguably the most important ethical decision I have ever made in my life. And it was a decision I made in 1979, and it remains an active, live decision today, 31 years later. I first met the woman whom a number of us King scholars referred to privately as the real wife in 1979. And I saw her any number of times back in the eighties. I have not been in active touch with her for some years, though I know Clay Carson has been in very active touch. I will peacefully say that I do not think ... There are certainly some people, or there is certainly one person who has written a lot on Dr. King, who has no clue about who this person really is, and has gotten it wrong in print, and I have politely sort of indicated that. But leaving that one exception aside, there are a good number of us in the world of King scholars, it is true of me, it is true of Clay, it is true of Jim Cone. We have known this lady, and she knows us. She knows we know, we know she knows we know, for 30 years. And I have always thought that so long as she is alive, it is entirely her decision as to whether she wants to publicly acknowledge the relationship. SM (00:41:27): Right. Yeah. DG (00:41:27): Now, I know Clay has said to her, probably more than once, and this is not an exact quote he was to say, that sooner rather than later, she would sit down with a tape recorder, and make some tapes, and put them in an envelope, and wrap it up, and put whatever future date she wants on that envelope. And that is my belief, too. So certainly, I mean, Taylor did not know what he was doing on this. But all the rest of us, we made a conscious decision that I think this is still right, I still believe it, that we could give an honest portrayal of what was going on in King's life, without having to out her. We have been incomplete, but I do not think it has been, in any way, misleading. And I think the balance of interests has played out correctly. Now, 2020, coming up on 25 years later, that is not the world we live in now. So, there is a little bit of an artifact there. SM (00:42:41): When you talk about Dr. King, because he is such an important figure in the lives of boomers, I do not care, you had to be in a cave not to be affected by him if you are a member of the generation. What was Thurgood Marshall's thoughts on Dr. King's commentary, that he appreciated the gradualist approach, and the passage of the law, but we are going to do it a different way. We are going to [inaudible]. What did Thurgood Marshall think of Dr. King, and vice versa? And secondly, when Dr. King had those kinds of challenging comments given to him by Stokely Carmichael, what was the relationship between those two men? I have a sense. Because here was a man of stature, and he knew who he was, but he could take it like, he could take his part, because you have got to be a thick skin to be in the position there. But, to me, those are very important. A lot of people portray Stokely as this Black Panther that is got ... but he was a smart guy. DG (00:43:41): Yes-yes, yes-yes. Yeah. SM (00:43:41): So, talk about Martin Luther King and Stokely. DG (00:43:41): Sure-sure. Sure. Yeah. Let me [inaudible]. Let me grab a book. Hold on. I just want to grab a book. SM (00:43:52): Because these are all important things. And my interviews, again, are oral histories, based on not only about the times that people lived, but the interesting and historic facts within those times, that are part of boomer lives. And of course, I am caught up in this boomer, I am actually not seeing it that much anymore. DG (00:44:16): Okay. There is no doubt that for King, that both Thurgood Marshall and Roy Wilkins seemed a generation older to him than he is. Now, both Marshall and Wilkins, as I am sure you realize, and the Marshall pieces of it are memorialized in that not very good Carl Rowan book, and in the perfectly solid Juan Williams book. Marshall, for whatever combination of reasons, of both ego, and envy, and strategic disagreement, and commitment to being a lawyer, Marshall's view of King is dismissive, sarcastic, hostile, right from early 1956 forward. Now, part of it is reasonably rooted in the lawyer's perception that the NAACP LDF lawyers always have to clean up the legal mess after some protest campaign. And oftentimes get left holding some sort of financial bag. With Roy Wilkins, the envy, jealousy, hatred of King is, I think, less defensible, less explicable. It is just pure competition, that the NAACP is so self-important, and so full of itself, that it does not want a younger organizational competitor. Now, that is mirrored with Wyatt Walker's reaction to SNCC, because Wyatt has the same sort of my organization first attitude, with regard to SCLC, that especially Wilkins and Thurgood Marshall, too, had about the NAACP. Now, Doc, Dr. King, Doc does not share that, because Doc never buys into the sort of organizational ego model. And that is one of the many reasons why King is most oftentimes always a morally superior leadership figure to the whole raft of everybody else, because he is able to practice a degree of self-abnegation that is unusual. And we can say this to mean, and I say that relative, not just the Civil Rights Movement egos, but to egotistical and selfish behavior in the Pro-Choice movement, where I think it is at least as bad. Interestingly, I would argue that there has been dramatically less selfish, egotistical behavior the last 10 to 15 years, in the legal part of the Gay Rights movement. And I think that that absence of self-seeking, self-promoting behavior among Gay Rights legal advocates, has been a significant factor in why they have been so successful. Now, Stokely, then, and Stokely is a challenger. Keep in mind, Stokely is a challenger within SNCC. So, the John Lewis, [inaudible], et cetera. SM (00:47:55): Yeah. DG (00:48:06): Stokely is a challenger within SNCC, as well as a challenger to Doc. And Stokely is a very, very bright ... Stokely was a very bright, and in many, many respects, a very likable person, who unfortunately had a little bit of a sickness, the profound sickness of anti-Semitism. But Stokely did not have the degree of ego self-control that Doc did, which is why Stokely allows himself to be swung into the damaging media circus of what does Black power mean, in the way that he was in (19)66, (19)67. And Stokely is sort of like a comet passing by. I mean, there is John Lewis, then there is Stokely, then all of a sudden, you have got Rap Brown. And then I would make a fourth generational point here, just to sort of complete it. And they may technically, they are older by dint of age, but it almost seems like a subsequent generation, the sort of Oakland-based Panthers represented by Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale, et cetera, et cetera. And this is only the second thing, I would recommended it, and I will limit myself to two. If you are at all interested in Panther stuff, about two and a half years ago, I wrote a really, I think, first rate, really powerful little historiographical essay on the Panther literature, where I put in some deadly, deadly end notes dissecting bad faux scholarship. It is in Reviews in American History, I think December, 2007. So, it will be on the 2007 page on the website. I mean, the Panthers are a hugely important presence, (19)67 to the early seventies. The quality of the literature on the Panthers is horrible, just horrible. SM (00:50:27): I interviewed Roz Payne now, last week. DG (00:50:29): She is incredible. Roz Payne is a good person. SM (00:50:37): Her photography, and [inaudible] you can read any of this stuff. DG (00:50:38): Roz is ... yeah-yeah, yeah. That is great. But so much of the Panther scholarly, big quotation marks, "literature," is the worst sort of fan-ship stuff. It is like bad early communist party historiography, where the people writing about CP USA, wanted to simply celebrate the importance of communists. And CP historiography has improved measurably over the last 15 years. And I am certain Panther historiography will improve over time, once we get past the fan club devotees. But the Panther historiography is really important, because there are many positive commendable things about the Panthers. And many, many more really despicable, horrible, evil things about the Panthers. And just as I was saying earlier about human memory, and people remembering the good and forgetting the bad, oh boy, do we see that, this is not in bad taste, in spades in Panther material, because both the participants themselves and the fan-ship historians want to talk about breakfast programs, breakfast programs, breakfast programs. And not talk about the frigging thuggery where they are killing people. And I do not mean cops, I mean a variety of innocent, undeserving supporters. So, there is that sort of generational succession from Marshall to King to Stokely to Huey. That is inevitable in the same way that we get a sort of succession within the reproductive rights movement from a Katherine Hepburn senior, to an Estelle Griswold, to a Bob Hall, an Alan Guttmacher, or a Roy Lucas. SM (00:52:42): What is interesting about the Panthers, and I have been asked by people that I have interviewed that you cannot just ... it is like you said in that article about always mentioning the organizations, and the top civil rights leaders. Well, yeah, we would like to talk about Stokely Carmichael, and Huey Newton, and Bobby Seale, but there was Kathleen Cleaver, there was Eldridge Cleaver, there was H. Rap Brown, if they liked him or not. There was Fred Hampton who was killed in Chicago. There was Bobby Hutton, who was killed. There was... DG (00:53:33): It is a very mixed bag of people. I mean, Kathleen Cleaver, that group. Newton, at one point, is something of a positive figure, before he goes way downhill. I cannot be, at any time, as positive about Eldridge. I actually think that much of the best Panther activism happened away from the Oakland epicenter, in the same way that an awful lot of the best of SNCC happened away from the Atlanta epicenter. SM (00:54:04): When we talk about the anti-war movement in the (19)60s going violent, we know the SDS and the Weathermen. We know what happened there. We know what happened in the American Indian movement. There was violence at Wounded Knee. What happened at Alcatraz was fine. And then we see some violence with the Young Bloods, the Puerto Rican group that was following the Black Panthers. So, we see a lot of violence here. And the question is, were the Black Panthers violent? There is a question, "No, they were not." "Yes, they are." "No, they were not." "They are not the Weathermen." DG (00:54:38): The Panthers devolved into an organized crime gang. The Panthers are, what is his name? It is not a fully honest book. The guy who was the security head who is now in New York. He has got a very unusual name. I am blocking the first name. I want to say his last name is Forbes. Forbes? SM (00:54:57): Black Panther? DG (00:54:57): Yeah, Panther. SM (00:54:58): Oh. I only know Dave Hilliard is the guy in charge. DG (00:55:01): Yeah. Yeah. I cannot [inaudible]. SM (00:55:03): Elaine Brown, I think. I think David Horowitz believes that she is the person responsible for the murder of... DG (00:55:11): Betty, the secretary. SM (00:55:12): Yes. DG (00:55:12): I mean, I cannot think of anything positive to say about Elaine Brown, or David Hilliard, or David Horowitz. But on the ... I forget her, I am not going to get her name right, Betty Lou Prader? Pratter? SM (00:55:27): Yes. Betty Van Patton? Was that her name, or something like that? DG (00:55:27): Yeah, something on, yeah. I apologize for not having it right. On that one, Horowitz may have benefited from the Blind Pig phenomenon. I am not good enough ... I do not know the SDS decline well enough to narrate all the splits. I wish that people like Bill Ayers, and I have a lot of respect for Bill in some ways. I wish that people like Bill and Bernadine and... SM (00:56:17): I have been trying to get her to be interviewed, and she just [inaudible]. Well, she does not even say yes or no. She would not even respond. Her secretary said, "I give it to her." She does not even respond. DG (00:56:25): Yeah. I wish the people from that whole world were a little more publicly honest with themselves. SM (00:56:36): Martin [inaudible] has been. DG (00:56:38): Has he? Okay. SM (00:56:39): I think Martin... DG (00:56:39): See, I do not follow with that. The person on whom I have always relied, whose judgment I have always relied upon for that world is Todd. SM (00:56:48): Oh, yeah. DG (00:56:48): Todd is sort of my guidepost for that, because to the extent I know it, and that extent is limited and modest, Todd is the person who gets it right. SM (00:57:03): I do not know how much more time you have? DG (00:57:05): It is more a question of my tiredness. We can go to another five, 10 minutes. SM (00:57:09): Okay, great. And then I will finish it on a phone conversation. DG (00:57:12): Sure-sure. SM (00:57:12): I have got some real quick questions I have put together since you are home. The Civil Rights Movement is so important in the lives of boomers. Again, you would have to be in a cage to not realize it. DG (00:57:25): Right. SM (00:57:25): And it is so important, because we all know that have studied the history of that period, that the Freedom Summer of (19)64, but way before Freedom Summer, people like Tom Hayden and others who went South. DG (00:57:36): Going South. Yep-yep, yep, yep-yep. SM (00:57:37): Casey... DG (00:57:37): Casey Hayden. SM (00:57:38): Casey Hayden, who is going to be interviewed with me. She is always... DG (00:57:42): She is a beautiful person. SM (00:57:42): She does not do interviews anymore, though. DG (00:57:44): Oh, really? SM (00:57:45): No, she is very hesitant. And I guess she is pretty sick. And she has got some very bad back problems, and everything. DG (00:57:51): Oh, okay. SM (00:57:53): But the question I am getting at is, would not you say that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s was the catalyst for everything that followed? Anti-War movement, the Women's movement, the Gay and Lesbian movement, the Environmental movement, the Chicano movement, and the Native American movement. Because they use that, history books have said that it was the model on how to do things. DG (00:58:18): Yep. Now I am quite positive on Sara Evan's book, which is really the book to make... SM (00:58:25): Personal Choices? DG (00:58:40): Yeah-yeah. Personal Politics. SM (00:58:40): Personal Politics. DG (00:58:40): And Sara's book, if I am remembering this right, is 1980, I want to think? SM (00:58:40): I think that is right. I would say that. DG (00:58:46): Now, I think that basic notion is correct to a degree, but to a modest degree. And it varies by movement. The white folks who go South, both early on, like Tom, like Joni, and then the larger group that go South in (19)64, and a smattering of those who go in (19)65.I think if we look at the individual biographical trajectories of those people, and I do not like saying this, but I mean, it is the honest thing to say, they do not turn out to be, on the whole, terribly influential people. Given their pedigrees, they actually should have been more influential. And that raises the bigger question, which you can see on any SNCC email lists or set of exchanges, that participation in something as intense, and emotional, and threatening as the movement, tends to, at least to some measurable degree, to produce instances of personal emotional traumatization of whatever sort. Now, I do not know enough, and I am rusty enough on that Alden from Saint and company, the sort of psychiatric psychological literature of the mid to late (19)60s on Civil Rights movement volunteers, and I have got various ambivalences about that literature that we do not need to go into. But I guess you could make the argument, quite fair-minded argument, as a scholar, that the people who chose to go South, were, of course, not a random distribution. But these were already people who were self-identified as dissenters, or uncomfortable, or outside the norm. SM (01:00:57): And many red diaper babies. DG (01:00:59): Yeah. It is not just ideological. And certainly, I completely agree on the diaper baby aspect of it. So, the fact that these people end up having a post (19)64, (19)65 higher-than-average casualty rate, in terms of their sort of social connectivity, it could be, to some degree, the result of pre-selection, and not just the result of the trauma of being in Neshoba County Mississippi, or wherever, in 1964. Now, I am not sure where, anywhere I was going to go after that. SM (01:01:47): Would not you say, though, that probably one of the most important results of those young people being around the Free Speech movement at Berkeley in (19)64- It looks like the other one here. I am going to be out at Berkeley. They have got a statue out there that they put up for the Free Speech Movement. DG (01:02:14): Oh, okay. SM (01:02:14): I am going to be out there next week vacationing. But I am going to be going to the... DG (01:02:24): Certainly, in terms of Sabio, and the FS, and then Berkeley, yeah, there is a direct line of connection. And there is some direct line of connection as Sara's book very nicely traces out, to many of the early feminist groupings grouplex, especially in New York. When you look, though, and this is where I am switching over to liberty and sexuality, in terms of the actual legislative initiatives and activism around the legislative initiatives, and with the legal initiatives that lead to Roe and Doe, the right to abortion is the product not of the feminist movement, it is the product of a relatively small-sized network of mainly male, or disproportionately male, professionals, doctors, public health people, journalists, lawyers. So, even if this is sort of politically incorrect in some sectors of the planet, I do not see the ... it is incorrect to see Roe versus Wade as a product of feminist activism. It is a product of professional reformers, very impressive, committed professional reformers. Where the doctors are crucial and the lawyers are crucial. Now, some of the lawyers are young women. But just as many of the important lawyers are young men. And you can argue young men are quite committed to the idea of sexual freedom, unsurprisingly. Now, I do not know. I am not good and I do not know American Indian movement history at all. I do not know Chicano history well at all. But I think that we have to moderate and de-limit the notion that everything else flows directly from the Black Freedom struggle in the South. Both because the direct personal linkages are actually relatively modest, though that is a separable question from a sort of, the category of was a Cesar Chavez, was a whomever, inspired by watching King, inspired by watching John Lewis? That, I cannot judge. That is outside of my purview. So, anything else, or are we... SM (01:05:33): I guess we will finish this up at another time. And I thank you. DG (01:05:37): Oh, sure. SM (01:05:37): I did not expect to have this. And I really, it is an honor. DG (01:05:48): No, I wanted to do it. No, I felt ... I spent 98 percent of my life in your position, trying to get former Obama classmates, or campaign staffers, or whatever, to talk to me. SM (01:05:55): Right. DG (01:05:55): So, my sense of the karma is just too overwhelming. SM (01:06:03): Well, what is interesting, Dr. Garrow, is that this is my first book. All these years I have been in hiding. I have been so busy being a college administrator, working with students, I have not had a chance. But this is actually an oral history. This is going to be like a Studs Terkel [inaudible] ideas. But my next venture, I am in my early (19)60s, and I am starting late, but my next venture is something that Lewis Baldwin, the historian, said that I ought to do. And that is something, Dr. King is one of my all-time heroes. And I worked in higher education for 30 years, and I make sure every year we get a tribute to him. And I got heat for it. DG (01:06:42): Right, right-right. SM (01:06:43): I got a lot of heat. Not in more recent years, but in some of the other years. And my dream is that someday do an in-depth look, in-depth, at him and his Vietnam Memorial. Because Vietnam and Civil Rights were two areas that I am closely linked to. DG (01:07:05): You want to, I mean, I hope he is in good health. Up there in years. SM (01:07:09): [inaudible]? DG (01:07:09): No-no, no. Vince Harding, in Denver. SM (01:07:13): Oh. DG (01:07:13): Look up Vincent. Vincent is someone you need to be aware of. Vincent has some contributing role in Vietnam and Speech. I would have to ask Clay or somebody else, somebody, or Steve Fayer, from Eyes on the Prize. Steve would know. But Vincent would be good. Pay attention to that name. Look up Vincent. Vincent is probably older than Doc. So, Vincent is going to be born in the twenties. But Vincent is, to some degree, a sort of lesser male version of Ella Baker, in terms of encouraging the young people across the (19)60s. SM (01:07:52): Yeah, well, one of my first interviews was with Julian Bond, and he said, that was one of my early ones. And I brought Julian into our campus twice, and went down to the [inaudible] Memorial in Washington, and he was thrust into the emcee role, with about 10 minute's notice. But then I had John Lewis, I interviewed him for the book, and we had him on our campus. Of course, Lewis Baldwin came to our campus. And so, I have been involved in this for a very long time. And the final question I was going to ask here, let us see, my golly. That is a very long one. DG (01:08:29): Go ahead and state it. I mean, this is my body clock. SM (01:08:34): Yeah, I understand. DG (01:08:39): I am just starting, [inaudible], and physically, having spoken this morning, too. SM (01:08:41): I guess the last question I will ask, and that is something that you brought up when you mentioned in that article that I read off the web, about the fact that we tend to, as human beings, and as a society, and the media, to always go to the big-name organizations and the well-known names. We did a program on Dr. King at Westchester University, where we invited Linn Washington. I do not know if you know Linn? He wrote a book on Black judges in Pennsylvania? DG (01:09:13): No. SM (01:09:14): And a Professor from Villanova. And we talked about the unknown heroes. DG (01:09:21): [inaudible]. SM (01:09:24): The things that if Dr. King was alive today, he would say it is all the people that have gone and died that we will never know who they were, and what they did. DG (01:09:36): Yeah-yeah, yeah. SM (01:09:36): Because the movement could not have happened without that. Could you say a little bit about the unknown names [inaudible]. DG (01:09:43): You will see King repeatedly over time use the phrase, ground crew. He has got some extended airline metaphor about, it is not just pilots, it is the ground crew. I mean, that is repeatedly inescapably true, locale after locale, after locale. Whether... SM (01:10:03): It is capably true locale after locale after locale, whether in Montgomery, whether in Albany, whether in Birmingham or Selma. Let me just, the one last thing to say on this, sure you know this already, but just to emphasize it, keep in mind that in Birmingham in particular, we have got such a degree of active participation by people who are not yet high school graduates. And so, you have a degree of youth in terms of 15-year-olds in Birmingham in 1963, so that your actual in the streets lead, wedge in Birmingham, James Orange. James Orange is an important name for you. Because James graduated when did James graduate Parker High School? I am not going to get this right. Look up James. I hope somebody has done a good Wikipedia on James. And who was, I am going to, I am rush on this, who was the principal? Was Angela Davis's father, the principal at Parker High School? Angela Davis comes from Birmingham, and there is a lot of, I may have this, I have to send this, who is principal of Parker High School is important, but I may have [inaudible] about the Davis' versus someone else. DG (01:11:31): He was there when the little girl died in the church fire. SM (01:11:31): Yeah-yeah. DG (01:11:31): Yeah. SM (01:11:36): Look up Sheryll Cashin's father too. John Cashin, who was a dentist in Huntsville. Sheryll was a wonderful... DG (01:11:42): How do you spell that last name? SM (01:11:43): C A S H I N. Sheryll was a law professor at Georgetown. Wonderful lady. And she wrote a memoir, published a memoir about two, three years ago, about her daddy. And the daddy was so committed to activism that he was always putting his family in, potentially, dire straits. So, I have not, unfortunately, read it, but it is a memoir about the family cost of activism. And she was a really good person. Great. DG (01:12:20): She was a Georgetown? SM (01:12:20): Yeah. And so, David, Sheryll. S H E R Y L L Cashin. DG (01:12:26): David Coles there, I think. SM (01:12:27): Yes-yes, yes. Yeah. But Birmingham should stand out for you because so many of the young participants in Birmingham are post 45. DG (01:12:36): Yes-yes. SM (01:12:36): Date of birth. So, we should stop, I am, and I will just put it here. DG (01:12:41): Sure. SM (01:12:48): One of the things about Barack Obama, what is interesting is that he tries to not be identified with the boomers, of the (19)60s generation, yet the press keeps saying he is the reincarnation of it. So, is not been that an oxymoron that he was trying to disassociate himself from it? I have read everything that has been written about Barack, at least with any sort of biographical linkage. And I have not seen that or otherwise, have not thought about it. But that may be, again, me tuning out when I see the word boomer. DG (01:13:28): Oh yes. SM (01:13:29): That may be what is going on. DG (01:13:31): I think they say the (19)60s generation. I think that is what they do. SM (01:13:38): Yeah, sure. And again, thanks again for bearing with me here and... DG (01:13:41): Oh sure. SM (01:13:41): Being patient. What was the working relationship like between Dr. King and the other members of the Big four? James Farmer, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young? What was their relationship like? Wilkins, like the NAACP hierarchy in general, including Thurgood Marshall and Wilkins' direct deputies like John Marshall viewed King with the, had a leery view of King from the get-go as a potential threat to the or NAACP's organizational primacy. DG (01:14:34): And certainly, once King formed SCLC in 1957, and then especially once the student movement got active in 1960, the NAACP's disdain, dislike for King became more pronounced. So, the King, Wilkins relationship was never close and was pretty consistently fraught with dislike, disdain on Wilkins's part. King learned to just tolerate it. I think King was significantly more comfortable with both Jim Farmer and with Whitney Young. They were never close, close, nor was King in any way close with Floyd McKissick, after McKissick replaces Jim Farmer, (19)66-ish, King and Young, as is well known, had some tensions after (19)65, because, true, Young was much more directly aligned with Lyndon Johnson and did not share King's opposition to the Vietnam War, had one well-known face off, not quite argument, but disagreeable conversation during the period when John Lewis's head of SNCC. They are, that is a somewhat closer relationship, but it is not as close as I think some people may imagine it, nowadays or in recent time. SM (01:16:45): Is there truth to that story that when President Kennedy was concerned about the March on Washington (19)63, when the group met at the White House, was, actually A. Phillip Randolph was kind of the father figure and all the other civil rights leaders, he was very worried about potential violence in the city, and he was hesitant to support it, but he was very concerned what John Lewis was going to say. And... DG (01:17:13): Mr. Randolph was without a doubt, the presiding elder in that entire context of 1963. The overblown or exaggerated worries about the 1963 March were, I think, shared pretty widely throughout the Kennedy administration, not just on the part of the President. And I do not think the President was as, was any more concerned or worried than a good many people in DOJ and in the White House. SM (01:17:55): When you look at the speech he gave in New York in (19)67 against the Vietnam War, did he consult with any of his other peers before giving that speech? In other words, the other members of the Big Four or... DG (01:18:13): No. SM (01:18:14): Either in other members of SCLC? DG (01:18:16): No. The relationship among the leaders is never at any point, that interlinked. Steven Courier, wealthy Financial Person, Foundation head, who died in a plane crash sometime (19)66, (19)67-ish, I am not sure of the date. Steve Courier had tried to bring all of the African American Civil Rights leaders together in a thing called Cook Roll Count, CUCRL, Council for United Civil Rights Leadership, which was a, sort of, effort to create a regular conversational structure. It never really got anywhere, because really none of them were that interested in giving up their independence to that degree. So, King, the people King consulted most closely with, and this is true from (19)62 onward up to (19)68, are the two circles of one his immediate people around him in SCLC, Wyatt Walker, And he, Wyatt leaves in (19)64. Andy Young, oftentimes Jim Bevel, Ralph Abernathy, and Bernard Lee, in a different, less policy-oriented way. But the people who really had the most substantive political policy and analytical, intellectual interaction with King are really King's New Yorkers, Stan Levison, Clarence Jones, Bayard Rustin, Harry Walk Tell, Marion Logan, a little bit less so. Mike Harrington, a little bit less so, but it really is the New Yorkers who were the Brain Trust, and Bayard and Stan in particular, Clarence, probably third Harry Walk Tell, Fourth, they are in many respects, the most important sounding boards for King, even though he spent a whole lot more time in a day of the week, hours per day, sense with Bernard Lee and Ralph Abernathy. Come Vietnam, there are some other important voices in there too. Vincent Harding, John McGuire, who certainly make contributions to that, to the... SM (01:21:07): Did Rabbi Heschel play an important role here too? DG (01:21:10): Excuse me, I am sorry? SM (01:21:11): Did Rabbi Heschel play an important role in his... DG (01:21:14): No-no. SM (01:21:15): No? DG (01:21:16): No, I do not think there is, there is a little bit of contact there. You could say the same thing for Ben Spot, but no, I am... Thanks to the wiretap transcripts. This is, again, one of the great ironies of the FBI. Thanks to the wiretap transcripts, one can have a real good idea of who King is in contact with, because the transcripts we have with Stan, with Clarence, with Bayard, make really clear who else King is talking with too. SM (01:21:50): Very good. Yeah, because I know there is a lot of discussion out there that he played a major role in that Vietnam speech. DG (01:21:58): Heschel? SM (01:21:58): Yeah. Persuading him to do it, not... DG (01:22:01): Oh. No, I would have to think about how the invitation to go to Riverside comes into being, but no, I would not... SM (01:22:19): Would you agree that March on Washington (19)63, how many people were there? I have heard different numbers. DG (01:22:26): I do not want to do that off the top of my head, whatever. I know I looked at that with a critical edge when I did, bearing the cross. So, whatever I said in bearing the cross would be my own best conclusion about the numbers that were used contemporaneously. Hold on just a second for me. SM (01:22:53): Yep. DG (01:22:53): I want to turn the temperature on the fan up a bit. Sorry, here we go. SM (01:23:10): Is it pretty cold in Chicago? DG (01:23:12): No, actually not. When I came back in, I made it cooler and where I am sitting here, it just blows directly on me. SM (01:23:22): One of the, I think we talked about this briefly at Princeton, but one of the sensitivities about the civil rights movement, is the sexism and the few women were at the leader, in the leadership roles. But I have some questions. I met with Dr. Cohen this past, yesterday, in fact, down in New York City. DG (01:23:44): Oh, Jim Cohen? SM (01:23:45): No, Robert Cohen who wrote, [crosstalk] free speech movement. DG (01:23:46): Oh, sure-sure, sure. SM (01:23:48): And he is writing a new book now on the activism in the South, the African American activism in the South amongst the young students in the early (19)60s, which has not been written about as much, and a lot of women were in key roles there. Your thoughts on what the media has portrayed as a sexism within the movement, particularly when you look at the March on Washington (19)63, you see Dorothy Height there and Mahalia Jackson was there singing, but you do not see there, any other, really, women leaders? DG (01:24:21): No, they went through them. I would not get the entire roster of names correct off the top of my head, but there is a series of quick introductions of other women and did it include Mrs. Parks? Did it include Diane Nash Bevel? Did it include Gloria Richardson from Cambridge, Maryland? Part of what is an issue in the limits on women's organizational participation in the movement, part of that grows out of, in some aspects of the movement, grows straight out of the black church, gender roles, gender structure. Part of it too, simply just parallels what there is in all of the US society at that time, wholly separate from, apart from the movement, but the most important women to name, I always draw back when the first name people use is Dorothy Height, because Dorothy Height was simply someone who was the head of an organization with an office in Washington, period. People like Diane Nash, people like Gloria Richardson, people like Joanne Robinson in Montgomery, people like Amelia Boynton in Selma. One could go on and on at the local level, and one could also do the same thing with people like Ruby, Doris Smith Robinson in women played major roles in most of the locales, most of the organizations Septima Clark, Dorothy Cotton in SCL C, and did not get much credit or appropriate credit until years later in some of the literature. But the question of women's roles should be looked at from that fundamentally local, fundamentally southern lens knocked through a sort of DC interest group perspective. SM (01:26:45): Would you say that, I asked a question to everyone. I think I may have asked it to you, as well, but when did the (19)60s begin and end and many people feel that the (19)60s began at the lunch counters? DG (01:27:00): Oh, yeah. No, I would very much agree with the February 1, 1960 dating. I do not think I am going to cast a vote on when they end, because if I had to choose, I think I would say when RFK is shot in Los Angeles, more so than when Doc is killed. SM (01:27:36): Why did, this is interesting because Bayard Rustin's a big name here. Yeah. He is from Westchester, and we did a conference on this, and I have read in several books, Dr. Levine's book and John de Emilio's book. There is a lot of explanations here, but I would like to hear from you, why did Dr. King not fire Bayard Rustin? He had people... DG (01:27:54): Sorry, in what time frame? SM (01:27:57): In that time frame, I think Jose Williams was one of the biggest critics of Bayard Rustin, and did not really like him. And because he was a gay person, and... DG (01:28:08): Well, I was in the major attack on Bayard is what Adam Powell mounts back in 1960, for God knows what reasons, maybe because he is carrying water for national political party leadership, I think is the most likely answer. And King, as I said, in baring the crosses, other people have said Emilio, too. I mean, King behaves very badly towards Bayard in 1960. SM (01:28:43): In what way? In what way? DG (01:28:43): In contrast, everybody behaves very well, very courageously in 1963 when Strom Thurmond and others go after Rustin in the context of the (19)63 March, and Bayard from (19)63 into (19)66, (19)67, what Bayard and Mr. Randolph are saying about, and Tom Kahn are saying about economic policy issues and questions, is a big, big, big influence on what is going on in progressive circles in the 1960s. And a big, big influence on King. Where Bayard draws a lot of criticism, is in Bayard's reluctance, unwillingness, tardiness, to be critical of the Vietnam War, which seems all the more pronounced, and to some people inexplicable or contradictory, given Bayard's, deep pacifist roots and credentials going back to the 1940s. SM (01:30:00): Would you say though that even when Dr. King went north, I remember he went into the Chicago area and there were criticism within the ranks of SCLC and in other groups, that he should stay in the South, that racism was really an issue in the South and not in the North. DG (01:30:20): I think most of the disagreement within SCLC, was fundamentally, rooted in the fact that the staff were virtually all Southerners, lifetime Southerners, who, understandably, felt much more comfortable anywhere in the South than they would in any northern city, whether Chicago, New York, Newark, et cetera. In retrospect, how much of a mistake was it for Doc and SCLC to come to Chicago? The local movement here that invited them, Al Raby was a vibrant local network, although it was a vibrant local network set in a context where a heavy majority of African Americans were, African Americans who were politically active, were unsurprisingly, tied fairly closely to the Democratic machine. SM (01:31:35): Could you describe Dr. King and Bayard Rustin and then maybe some of the members of the Big Four as well? Their response to black power and to the Black Panthers, as a whole? I say this for a couple reasons. Number one, there is that picture of Dr. King next to Stokely Carmichael, and Stokely may be one of the more respected Black Panthers, but he was in SNNC, and then he went to the Black Panthers as... DG (01:32:03): Yeah, but I would never speak of Stokely as a panther. The Panthers, to me are a very separate kettle of fish from what Stokely and Willie Ricks, and other people from SNCC who really use the black power phrase represent. And the people who put forward the black power phrase ,and the black power emphasis from the Southern movement, I think are a quite understandable product of what black people are looking at in a context like Lowndes County, Alabama in (19)65, (19)66, where in contrast, in huge total contrast, to what Bayard Rustin is seeing at the national level, where Bayard and other national political voices are seeing the Democratic party and labor unions, as the best vehicles and allies for the black policy agenda. In a context like Alabama, the Democratic Party simply means George Wallace. So, there is a really almost complete disconnect between what black activists are experiencing in a rural southern context and what the world looks like to someone like Bayard. The Panthers are largely a San Francisco Bay area phenomenon, who then acquire somewhat spontaneously adherence supporters, enlistees, in a series of varied other locales, whether it is Chicago and other cities, both large and small. I think it is very, very difficult to speak comprehensively, about the Panthers in any, to any meaningful degree, because what the Panthers represented in Baltimore or Boston or Chicago, is not necessarily what they represented in Oakland. The historiography on the Black Panther party is not very large, and today, not very good. And we have got a long way to go on that. SM (01:35:01): How did the, I always remember, even in college, I remember Charles, I think it is Charles Silverman's Crisis in Black and White? DG (01:35:09): Oh, yeah. Yep. SM (01:35:10): A great book that we read in sociology class back in the late (19)60s, which was a required reading. And I will never forget the line in there where Dr. King did not fear the bigot, and he knew his supporters, but he feared the fence sitter, the one that we never know what they think, but he felt they were the more dangerous. And one of the things about after King, is that he was very open and you knew what he was thinking. I often wondered what Thurgood Marshall thought when Dr. King was coming to power. And the Brown versus Board of Education decision in (19)54 was monumental. It was historic, but it was a more gradualist approach to rights for African Americans. Whereas Dr. King said, I praise that decision, but we want it now. And so... DG (01:36:05): No, let me... SM (01:36:05): The time of change. So, he was basically challenging the methods of Thurgood Marshall, your thoughts on how did Thurgood respond to Dr. King, and the style of non-violent protest? DG (01:36:13): Well, Thurgood Marshall was, Thurgood Marshall was a lawyer, through and through, and believed totally in a constitutional, constitutional rights, constitutional litigation through the courts approach to civil rights change. Marshall was very dubious, doubtful, sarcastic, about any notion that people getting arrested and facing criminal charges, could make any positive contribution. So, Marshall's disdain, is a disdain for the entire concept of civil disobedience as a social change strategy? SM (01:37:13): Did that, I often wonder then, Dr. King then when he was in his late thirties, and I know Bayard Rustin's the same way, were challenged by the new ones, the Stokely’s and the, I guess, H. Rap Brown... DG (01:37:27): I actually, I actually believe that the King-Stokely relationship was both closer and more respectful than most people have been willing to appreciate or acknowledge. Stokely and Willie Ricks enjoyed the politics of theater, or theatrical politics of, the theatrical aspects of black power politics, a little bit too much for anyone's good. But I view Stokely as someone who was trying to push the envelope without totally leaving the King frame of reference. SM (01:38:26): Yeah, because then you get the H Rap Browns who was in SNNC, and then he became a Black Panther, and a lot of people thought he went to violence. DG (01:38:40): I do not believe Rap had much of any relationship with Dr. King. And again, I do not think either Stokely or Rap should be discussed in terms of the Panthers, because that is a brief potential organizational alliance that goes nowhere. SM (01:39:00): What did Dr. King think of the Huey Newtons and the Bobby Seals, though, would not he... DG (01:39:06): I am unaware of any evidence that he thought about them much at all. SM (01:39:12): Okay. DG (01:39:12): You just do not see much reference to it at all. I do not think King ever met any of those folks in person that I am aware of. Even passively. I would have to, I think that is the right answer. I just want, I would want to think about that. But... SM (01:39:37): In some of my interviews that I have had, and again, your opinion would be very important on this. When we talk about the student protest movement of the (19)60s, a lot of people will say, well, the boomers were both born between (19)46 and (19)64. I know Dr. King had many young teenagers in his movement, but basically the civil rights movement was older people, whereas the boomers really came to power with the anti-war movement of Vietnam, women's movement and all the other movements in the late (19)60s. So thus, the boomers did not have much of an influence in the civil rights movement. Do you believe that? DG (01:40:14): But it varies by organization and by locale. Now, most everyone who was in SNCC would have been roughly 20, 22 years old in 1960, 1962. You do not, I am not sure you have anybody, you do not have many people in SNCC born after (19)46. Now, at a local level, in a place like Birmingham where you have a lot of high school student participation, though simply at a protest or demonstrator level, if you were 18 years old in 1963, that means you were born in (19)45. So, you would have a little bit there. But then even people who are 22 years old in 1968, in terms of people who are graduating from active and anti-war stuff, only a little bit of people who would be born, say (19)46, (19)47-ish. SM (01:41:30): And this is, just the information you just gave me, shows that trying to pinpoint a generation based on years (19)46 to (19)64 really takes away a lot, because I am talking the spirit, and I have had more and more people tell me that those people born, say between (19)38 and (19)45 are as, are closer to the first generation, the first 10-year boomers than the boomers of the last 10 years. Because it is... DG (01:42:03): Yeah, I would... SM (01:42:04): It is a spirit thing. DG (01:42:05): Yep. I would agree with that. Yes. SM (01:42:06): Yeah. So thus, they are linked in a very important way. Your thoughts on the relationship between Dr. King and Malcolm X? Malcolm died in (19)65. Correct me. I think they liked each other, but... DG (01:42:21): As best we know, they only met in person once that, the well-known photo of it. I think they had a significant degree of mutually shared respect. I think it is, fundamentally, erroneous for people to think of them as opponents or opposites. And I think Malcolm needs to be viewed primarily through the lens of the last 12 months of his life, when he is independent from Elijah and the Nation of Islam. SM (01:43:02): I have always thought, as a person who loves history, I am not as a historian like you, but I have always, history was my major, that there is a link between Malcolm X and Bobby Kennedy, and I have always felt that the link was just what you said, that Malcolm changed, all people were not devils. He saw when he went over to Mecca and he came back, he was a change man, and that is, Bobby Kennedy was the same way. DG (01:43:30): Yep, that is a very good, when you first started saying that, I thought, no, this does not make any sense. But no. Then when you explained exact, you explained the parallel. No, I completely confirm with, because that is a very insightful linkage. SM (01:43:47): Yeah. Because the Bobby that we saw in the hearings for Jimmy Hoffa is not the Bobby that we saw in (19)67 and (19)68. DG (01:43:53): Exactly. SM (01:43:55): And so, I just see tremendous passion in caring for fellow human beings. Overall, what was the relationship between SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference all throughout their history? DG (01:44:08): Oh, that is, I mean... SM (01:44:08): I do not, I... DG (01:44:08): That is book length, yeah. SM (01:44:11): Yeah. DG (01:44:18): SCLC helps give birth to SNCC, by the time of Albany and December of (19)61, especially into the summer of (19)62, many of the younger people in SNCC become somewhat disdain of King's hesitance, as well as King's media stature. The SNCC people are both more impatient and more locally oriented. By the time of the Democratic Convention in (19)64, the SNCC people have a much more critical... The snake people have a much more critical, much more cynical worldview than King and Bayard Rustin. By the time of Selma and Montgomery in the spring of (19)65, the tensions and disagreements are pretty pronounced, and you do have a sort of clear split between the organizations, even though there is still a lot of close personal ties one-on-one. And then ironically, in some respect, the two organizations come together in opposing Vietnam. SM (01:45:55): What some people have written, that when SNCC was breaking up, many went to become Black Panthers. Is that true? DG (01:46:06): No, I do not... I think the Panthers loom rather small in the whole thing. I am not sure there was ever a Panthers operation in Atlanta, for example. I am not sure there is. One thing that has to be kept in mind is that, and some of the more recent literature on the Panthers documents this, that you clearly had people setting themselves up in... I am not sure I would select the town accurately off the top of my head, Omaha, Nebraska, maybe you have people setting, announcing that they are Black Panthers in some city and the official Black Panther party in Oakland does not know anything about them, but the Panthers are as much a media phenomenon as they are anything else? SM (01:47:09): We know the impact that the young students who went south for Freedom Summer and even before Freedom Summer had in terms of many of the students that were at the free speech movement and at Berkeley and (19)64, (19)65, and certainly the influence that the movement had on the anti-war and the other movements in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. Is there a direct, would you say that the concept of participatory democracy, which was in the SDS manifesto, which Tom Hayden wrote, and also what happened out at Berkeley in (19)64, (19)65 with the free speech where they talked about participatory democracy, it all began with SNCC. DG (01:47:54): Yes. Certainly Tom, and I mean this... It has been years since I read and reviewed Tom's book, but I believe my recollection is that Tom's memoir makes it very clear how much he was influenced by what he saw of SNCC when he went south early on. Because remember Tom is in Albany for some chunk of time. I think there is significant direct influence from SNCC to early SDS to free speech movement in Berkeley. Again, my memory on this is a little rusty because it is, so many years have passed. Tim Miller's book- SM (01:48:39): Democracy in the Streets? DG (01:48:40): Yeah, it has been probably 20 years now since that book came out, but I remember that as being really first-rate and very much on target in analyzing those relationships and influences and linkages. SM (01:48:59): How important was Coretta Scott King, her role before and after Dr. King's death and- DG (01:49:06): Very little. Before Doc's death, close to zero and not that significant after. SM (01:49:21): Because I have a question here because we see a lot of her, but what is interesting is that they had four children yet that it was such a dysfunctional family after his death. Not so much right after his death, but certainly as they got into their twenties and thirties fighting over the center and when are they going to sell it and- DG (01:49:40): Unfortunately, the whole SCLC world becomes dysfunctional after Doc's death because you have disagreements between Ralph Abernathy and Mrs. King. You have disagreements between Jose Williams and Ralph, between... Throw Andy Young into the mix, throw Jesse Jackson into the mix. There are no happy stories from (19)68 forward in SCLC in the King Center, there are no happy stories at all. Joseph Lowry is the one creditable survivor who comes through all of that period. It is a sad story. SM (01:50:30): You had mentioned in, when I was talking to you at Princeton about Dr. King had another wife, something of that effect. DG (01:50:42): Oh yeah. We have always used... I mean, there is someone whom we have never, who is still alive and we have never publicly named who is the most significant person in his personal life from (19)63 forward. I mean, that is in Bearing the Cross without a name attached. That lady has got to be, let me think. Well into her seventies now. SM (01:51:15): Was she the type of person that influenced him politically? In his- DG (01:51:20): No, I do not say political influence, no, but I think he draws more emotional sustenance and support from that relationship than from anything else. SM (01:51:37): That whole J Edgar Hoover... Would you think that Bobby Kennedy really regretted that in the end? DG (01:51:49): I think he regretted going along with the Bureau on wiretapping King himself as distinct from wiretapping Stan Levison and Clarence Jones. That would be my... If we were able to know where Bobby's mind was at on that as of early June (19)68, that is my strong instinct as to what he would say. SM (01:52:22): What do you think these files say? I have read that the three thickest files of any American in the FBI is Dr. King, Eleanor Roosevelt- DG (01:52:39): Oh, that is crap. SM (01:52:40): ... And John Lennon. DG (01:52:40): No. SM (01:52:49): No? DG (01:52:50): No, the John Lennon thing is a complete Looney Tunes trip. No, I mean the largest files the Bureau would be on Communist party functionaries that most people have never heard of. And the FBI file on say Elijah Mohamed would be 65 times larger than anything they have on Mrs. Roosevelt, never mind John Lennon. The Lennon thing is the result of one installer with a sort of creative omelet. And even Doc's file, I mean the main... The 1066, 70 file on Doc is large, but it is my now rusty recollection, though no one has ever gotten the file on Elijah, is that Elijah's would be significantly larger. SM (01:53:48): One of the things that in our conference on Bayard Rustin that we learned... Well, we knew that he influenced a lot of young people, but somebody at the conference had documented that he had influenced almost 2,500 people to go into public services in some capacity. DG (01:54:06): Well, it depends. That would depend on how one defines the term influence. SM (01:54:12): Yeah. And of course, a lot of them were at the conference and some of... Quite a few of them were working in the Clinton administration at the time. But did Dr. King have the same kind of influence on young people to follow in his- DG (01:54:28): I think that is difficult to measure because it is... Does one mean one on one-on-one relationships as opposed to people that see something on TV or on film or read something? In a one-on-one sense, it would be very hard to add up significant numbers. SM (01:55:01): We are looking at the boomer generation, of course there were quite a few presidents from Truman right now to Obama. But when you look at the following presidents, just a brief comment on these few, where would you place them in the area of civil rights? In other words, they were really cared about this issue. It was not just being pragmatic to do it or something. John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and Jimmy Carter. DG (01:55:35): JFK changes very measurably for the better in May, June of (19)63. It is a great step forward for him. LBJ cares a great deal about it, clearly, from November of (19)63 forward, though he becomes very despondent, depressed that Black America in the (19)67, (19)68 context does not appreciate him more. Nixon, I do not think ever views it as any different than interest group organizational politics in other settings. Say the civil rights movement to Nixon is another, is say, like the labor movement, another piece on the chess board. I am not sure I could say anything with regard to Jerry Ford when he is in the house. I do not think he ever focuses on it to a significant degree. Ditto for Ronald Reagan. I do not think Reagan had any personal, negative values about it. I just do not think he had ever thought about it or appreciated it very much. Carter in a way, would be the most complicated because he perhaps should have known more and done more coming from where he came from in southwest Georgia. I do not know the Carter biographical literature, but Carter probably is always more distant from it than he might have been. SM (01:57:54): How about the two Bushes? Bush one, Bush two, and of course Bill Clinton. DG (01:57:58): I do not know enough biographically about either Bush. I mean, they are sort of outside my, I have never written about them, so they are really outside my scholarly purview. SM (01:58:18): And Bill Clinton? DG (01:58:19): No, I- SM (01:58:22): He seemed to care about it. DG (01:58:23): I have not read... Some of the political theatrics, I think playing the saxophone or whatever on, what was that Gentleman's TV show? Arsenio Hall. SM (01:58:41): Yeah. DG (01:58:42): I think those sorts of political theatrics can be taken way too seriously or way too importantly by people. SM (01:58:50): And of course, the last two you have written about Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman. DG (01:58:55): Yeah, Eisenhower is a huge disappointment, probably is the one person in the entire panoply of presidents who evidence suggests, did hold discriminatory views. Truman, on the other hand, is a quite pleasant surprise given where he comes from in terms of very modest roots. SM (01:59:20): He integrated the military, did not he? DG (01:59:27): Yeah. Well, I think that is a more complicated story. SM (01:59:28): Yes, I know. Pressures, yeah. DG (01:59:31): Are we about there? SM (01:59:32): We got a couple more questions, a couple more here. Bayard Rustin's. Would you say that Bayard Rustin's most influential person in his life was A. Philip Randolph and that Dr. Mays was the most important influence in Dr. King's life? DG (01:59:49): I think that is correct for Bayard. It is either Mr. Randolph or AJ Musky, though Musky is a complicated, and in some ways unhappy... Ends unhappily, but I would defer to John De Emilio on that. On Doc, with regard to Benny Mays, no. No, absolutely not the most important. Hard to say. I mean, the answer is probably Daddy King in that sense. Yeah. Daddy King is definitely my answer there. SM (02:00:37): This is a question that we asked Senator Edmond Musky, when I took students to Washington in 19... I do not think I asked this question, did I? The question on healing? It is a question that the students came up with when we went down in DC in (19)95, and the question was this. Due to the divisions that were so intense during the 1960s, do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation not truly healing from the massive divisions that tore the nation apart at the time? Students that came up with a question- DG (02:01:17): No. I mean, I do not... I would critique or dismiss the question because I think the people that really suffered the divisions, as you rightly touched on somewhat earlier, are people who are pre (19)46. SM (02:01:37): Yeah. Because Senator Musky, his response was that, "We have not healed since the Civil War in the issue of race." DG (02:01:43): No, I think that varies a lot by local and class and neighborhood. I mean, simple generalizations do not work on that. I mean, whenever I am in a place like this, Chicago, there are so many complexities. I turn away from all-inclusive generalizations on that. SM (02:02:16): Two more questions and then we are done. DG (02:02:18): Sure. Okay. SM (02:02:18): One question on Roe v. Wade, which is, you have written a whole book on that? DG (02:02:22): Right. SM (02:02:22): And how important is this decision? Because there is this constant behind the scenes in Congress that we are going to change this, we are going to reverse the decision- DG (02:02:33): No, Roe will never be reversed in name. No. Roe has been a crucial landmark in acknowledging women's equality. This is a culture that is now much more child conscious than was American society in 1973. And I think that really the greater appreciation, the greater social cultural appreciation of children as opposed to 35, 40 years ago, is why overall American opinion is so much more ambivalent about abortion now than in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s. SM (02:03:43): Now, my question is, where do we stand today in the area of civil rights? In women's rights and all those rights movements that were so important in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s? They still exist, but [crosstalk] DG (02:52:20): Yep. I mean three things, Barack Obama's election as president, irrespective of whether he ends up as a one-term president, will undeniably always be remembered as one of the landmark events in American history since the Civil War, much more important than the election of John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush. Second, women have a degree of equality and equal participation in public life and the professions now that almost no one would have imagined in 1960 or 1965. And then lastly, the greatest change in America in my lifetime, I think without a doubt, the greatest change in America in the lifetime of all of us who are presently adults, is the almost complete acceptance of gay people as equal participants in American society and public life. Look at what Bayard went through. SM (02:53:50): Right. DG (02:53:51): Even as of 1970, it was almost impossible to be a gay person in public without being physically victimized. I mean, that is the greatest change, the best change that has happened during the lifetime of the boomer generation. SM (02:54:16): Would you say that the lasting legacy of the boomer generation may be the rights movement? Because Mario Savio talked about- DG (02:54:23): No, I would not. No, I would not want to... I mean, we would have to break down how much of the credit for what is happened, say with gay rights, goes to people who predate (19)46 or postdate to (19)64. SM (02:54:39): Mm-hmm. Is there a lasting legacy that you would say if you were a historian? DG (02:54:46): No, I have not thought about it in the way you have because I do not think about the generational category or the generational construct. SM (02:54:52): Right. Any other thoughts? DG (02:54:54): Nope. I think we are there. SM (02:54:56): Well, I want to thank you very much for not only greeting me at Princeton, which was an honor to meet you, and- DG (02:55:02): [inaudible]. SM (02:55:02): Meeting me at Princeton, which was an honor to meet you, and- DG (02:55:02): Totally. It was great. I very much enjoyed our conversation there. It was really great. SM (02:55:05): Yeah, and I will... Let us stay in touch, and I will keep you updated on my project. DG (02:55:09): Okay. Please do. SM (02:55:10): And continued success in your working on that book on President Obama. DG (02:55:15): Thank you very much. SM (02:55:15): Have a great day. DG (02:55:15): Okay, bye. SM (02:55:17): Bye. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 3 microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. David Garrow Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Garrow, David J., 1953- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Historians; Authors, American--20th century; College teachers;University of Pittsburgh. School of Law; Garrow, David J., 1953--Interviews Description An account of the resource Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Dr. David Garrow is a historian, educator, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a Professor of Law & History, and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He was the senior advisor for the TV show <em>Eyes on The Prize</em> and a senior research fellow at Homerton College in Cambridge, M.A. He is a regular contributor to the <em>Washington Post</em>, <em>New York Times</em>, and <em>The American Prospect</em>. Garrow graduated magna cum laude from Wesleyan University and then received his Ph.D. from Duke 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 2010-11-20 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.10.2016.191a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.191b; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.191c 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. 126:59