148 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/af9a347cb9b1f4bc60ba4f7899732397.jpg 1a9995d7f99da6c64aa20ccbc2f9bf8c https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a2dfde44a49cbc7dec6867796fcb6f94.mp3 4e7590ec67e961a32cdaa69a4368c2cb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-07-23 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Wheeler, 1944-2010 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15107,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,16777215],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}" data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.&quot;}">John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 153:04 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Vietnam War; West Point; disenfranchised group; \&quot;We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young\&quot;(book); Bobby Muller; Vietnam Memorial; Women's Memorial; Glenna Goodacre; Rhodes Scholar; Jim Webb; \&quot;Touched with Fire\&quot;(book).&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Vietnam War; West Point; disenfranchised group; "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young" (book); Bobby Muller; Vietnam Memorial; Women's Memorial; Glenna Goodacre; Rhodes Scholar; Jim Webb; "Touched with Fire" (book).</span> Subject LCSH Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Lawyers; Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Wheeler, John, 1944-2010--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: John Wheeler Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 23 March 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:07): Sometimes it is [inaudible]. I just clear it away. You stated in that foreign affairs... I am going to make sure I read these correctly because I have some quotes here. You state in a foreign affairs article in the spring of (19)85 that, how our country finally comes to grips with Vietnam will depend on how the Vietnam generation comes to grips with its own experiences. We are in 2010 now, that was (19)85. How would you answer this today? JW (00:00:35): We are doing it poorly because we live inside the human condition. One example is, we still have cases of stolen valor. You have got politicians running for office, making up that they served in Vietnam or that they served in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is just the latest shoot on that tree, but it is the human condition. Humans do not do well at adjusting to war and its effects. That does not mean that writing on the subject and the working on it is not a good thing. It just means it is hard. The debates we have now in Congress, in the Council on Foreign Relations of which I am a member on the current issues, for example, the rules of engagement or on the way the defense department's being run, the Pentagon, all echo for me now just another verse. It is like Dante, almost. Just another big verse and set of couplets out of, I am afraid, it is inferno. It is not the Paradiso. From 1968 to 2010, now we have Robert Gates who is making many of the same mistakes as McNamara. I know that because I was in the building with McNamara and then Clark Clifford, I worked there. SM (00:02:13): Right. JW (00:02:15): The difference is, Gates does not have the depth and breadth of character that Robert McNamara had, and that is a big difference. SM (00:02:30): What were the most important influences in your life? I know your dad and your military background and I interviewed Peter Coyote yesterday, the actor, and of course, he comes from a new left background. Totally different from your background, but when I asked him the question, I said, "When you look at your life up to this point in 2010, what are the specific events? Can you name three to five personalities, people, events, happenings that made you who you are today?" How would you respond to that? JW (00:03:04): Well, it has to be my mom who grew up on a ranch in way West Texas. We are not talking just Laredo and Webb County. We are talking Asherton, Texas. And she is Irish from that part of the state. My dad is an army brat. My grandfather was cavalry from Texas and so those are formative. My brother was formative for me. He died suddenly three years ago. That is a huge loss, helping me realize the answer to your question, how important my brother was. Shared memories and a sounding board through life. We were just barely 20 months apart in age. After that, it would be, I would have to say C.S. Lewis. Increasingly, as we age, we realize that people who influence us are not necessarily close friends. They are people whose-whose spirit or presence means a lot. C.S. Lewis and my uncle John Conley, who received the Silver Star for conduct in that first low-level raid of the B-29s over Tokyo, March 8 and 9, 1945. They were significant. Their memory, what they did and what they stood for. C.S. Lewis, because the way he writes and deals with issues of faith works for me, works for my DNA and my background. Although, and I believe in faith that I will meet him. I am a little nervous about that because he is a big gruff Irishman. I am not sure how we will get along. You know, he died the same day, and I actually calculated, the same hour as John Kennedy. SM (00:05:05): November 22, (19)63. JW (00:05:06): Yeah, the same hour, actually though, it is interesting, when you account for the time change between London and Texas. It was just interesting. SM (00:05:14): How old was he when he died? JW (00:05:15): He was 63. SM (00:05:17): Young. JW (00:05:17): He was young. Help me, one other guy died that day. You got to Google it. Three, and they were all Irish. I think all three were Irish. Anyway, Jack Kennedy and of course, Jack Lewis' nickname was Jack, happened to die that same day. At West Point, the Kennedy assassination was significant. Little did I know that also, at that same hour, another Irishman named Jack was taken and Google and find that other third. There were three significant personalities died that day. That is a good way to answer your question. West Point is significant. It is significant for everybody that goes there in different ways. SM (00:05:58): Yeah, yeah. I have actually known people who have gone to West Point. We had a couple of our students that went there and I do not know, they got in after they finished two years of college, but they wanted to go to West Point, so they got in and they graduated. One of them was the mayor of West Chester, Pennsylvania's son was at West Point. I know he served in Iraq, but duty, honor, country was something, even when you, in this book where there were differences of opinion about the war, even amongst the veterans of the Vietnam War, even there was still, no matter what the differences may have been and the frictions that took place over politics, no one ever lost that. The feeling of... There was a sense that that was something so important. How important has that been in your life? Just those three words, not only from your service in Vietnam, what you have done since Vietnam, but going into Vietnam West Point and serving for four years. JW (00:07:02): They are as important for me as any other man in my West Point class or for the women now, who go. It is important to note that it was in June, actually, May of 2005 that the 10000th woman graduated from the five Federal academies, and do not forget that James Webb and I parted company over that issue. The women going to the academies. That was his article November, 1979. Washingtonian women cannot fight. Now, he tells people when he runs for office that, "Oh, he has outgrown that article". Do not you believe it. Webb does not change much. I know him well. I edited his book, A Sense of Honor. SM (00:07:53): Yeah, I have the book. JW (00:07:54): About West Point. Have you seen it? SM (00:07:55): I have not read it. JW (00:07:56): Did you look at... Do you have the book? SM (00:07:58): Yeah, I have the book. I have read the Fields of Fire, but I have not read it. JW (00:08:00): Have you opened up... Have you opened the book up? SM (00:08:02): No. JW (00:08:02): Have you looked at the frontispiece? SM (00:08:04): Yes. JW (00:08:05): So I am in it. Are you aware of that? SM (00:08:08): No. I guess [inaudible]. JW (00:08:09): All right, here is what you are going to do. By the way, it is 14:30 and we are going to have to come to a hard stop, so I want to make sure we go through your questions. Let us answer them crisply. Then you can come back. SM (00:08:19): Right. JW (00:08:20): What I would like you to do, sir, is, go to a Sense of Honor, open it up, go to the frontispiece and look at the dedication. SM (00:08:31): Okay. JW (00:08:31): And I want you to email me back and tell me what the green bench is. SM (00:08:35): The green bench? JW (00:08:36): Yes, sir. I want you to do that. SM (00:08:39): Okay. JW (00:08:39): You are going to have to work a little bit to find out what the green bench is. SM (00:08:42): All right. I shall do that. You said in the same article that I just mentioned up briefly- JW (00:08:47): Anyway, I edited for Webb. I know the man. SM (00:08:50): Yeah. I tried to interview him before he became senator, but he was busy running for the Senate and then I was never able to interview me. So you said in the same article that the events of one generation shaped the attitudes of the next, and you brought up examples in your book about the results of the harshness on Germany in World War I and how it shaped many of the Germans and their attitudes and due to the reparations and the tough stand that was taken against Germany. How does that apply to Vietnam in terms of the effect that maybe what happened in World War II affected the Boomer generation? JW (00:09:33): Two ways. One is, the intellectual and story level, which happens in every culture because of a war. There were so many of us that went into Vietnam. The generation was roughly 30 million women, 30 million men, roughly. Roughly 60 million in all. When you count, not just technical baby boomers, but also those born a little before because so many youngsters born in (19)44 and (19)43 fought in Vietnam, but you do not count all the baby boomers born late in the (19)50s because they were just nine years old during the Vietnam War. So you use 60 million. Well, that is 30 million women and 30 million guys, and so the children grow up knowing that something happened and they pay attention. They listen and they learn like any youngster does in a family. Regardless of what the parents were doing during that period, it was significant for their parents. That is one way, story and culture, family. But there is something more significant. Everyone who fights in a war, goes through trauma, and now, in the year 2010, we understand what PTSD is. By the way, my own West Point classmate, Jim Peak, who was Secretary of Veterans Affairs, uses this term post-traumatic stress dash normal reaction. Now, he is a doctor, an MD, first MD to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. My point is, Jim is saying, that is what happens in war. And do not forget, Jim was an infantry platoon leader in combat in Vietnam, then he went to medical school. Then he becomes in many years later, secretary of Veterans Affairs. Post-traumatic stress, normal reaction. My dad had PTSD. By golly, I hope he did. I mean, that would be normal. Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge. SM (00:11:45): Right. JW (00:11:47): He was at Remagen when they found the bridge was still standing. He fought all the way to the liberation of the death camp at Nordhausen. It was a hard fight. He had a little, that small Sherman tank, fighting Panzers. That was a very risky thing to do. I am saying that that effect on those fathers, there were so few women that fought in the Vietnam War or were even in the military at that time, compared to the number of men. For example, there is only eight women on the wall. There is eight nurses. That had to hurt the children. That hurt the children. It hurts the children in every generation. Those are the two effects. Let us march on. SM (00:12:41): I have a couple of other quotes here from these two books. One of the quotes from you is, "I think the challenge that lies before us is not to forget ourselves, set up in some kind of super minority, one more special interest group, but instead, to figure out what it is we have to offer". Now, I say that because today, in our society we have a lot of people who criticize special interest groups, particularly, different minorities. You have heard the whole politics of... The year of special interests and everything. But Vietnam veterans, I know, when I worked at Ohio University in my very first job, a lot of them could not get jobs, and we had Vietnam Veterans affairs officers at Ohio University because of getting jobs and the way some of them were being treated upon their return, they were not going to be hired. So they became part of the affirmative action plan. So I just wanted your thoughts on, you made this statement about being a special interest, but in affirmative action, they became a special interest because they were being discriminated against on their return. Just your thoughts on that. JW (00:13:54): Well, there is two thoughts. One is, there is a sense in which all of us became a nigger for a while. Everyone who came back from Vietnam became for a while, a nigger. That means we became a disenfranchised group. We became someone whose particular story was not... Society did not want to hear our story. And we were stereotyped, as if we knew what stereotype was. I mean, back in the (19)40s when I was born, who used stereotype, man? But we understand what all that means. Or in another sense, we were the (19)50s housewife women sent out for coffee. What I am saying is, we were a disenfranchised group. Our fathers and our forefathers, the Civil War vets, the World War II vets, the Teddy Roosevelt era vets, they were esteemed. We were the opposite. We were disesteemed. We spent a while being niggers. I am using the term to make a point. SM (00:15:15): Yes. JW (00:15:17): But what it did, was give us great empathy. It gave many of us great empathy, actually. We did not know it when we were building a wall, but it became a fulcrum on which our country turned so that our period in that particular silo, in that particular disenfranchised condition ended. We did not know that. We were just kids. That is why that book, Hal Moore's book, We Were Soldiers Once- SM (00:15:49): Great book, with Joe Galloway. JW (00:15:51): But the last part of the title, it is not in the movie title, and young. We were young. The wall would never have been built if we were not so young and we could take a licking and keep on ticking, so to speak, when we were young. But it gives great empathy to the guys who served in Vietnam. There is no anger, and by the way, there is no big sense of entitlement. Bobby Mueller is a minority among Vietnam veterans. Most Vietnam veterans have a great sense of personality and self. They actually know where they were and what they did. That is not all. They know that and they know two other things. They also know who their fathers were and their grandfathers and that they kept faith with them. And that gives you a pretty deep keel. They know something else. It is kind of like the funnies or the cartoons because every once in a while someone pops up and says, "I was in Vietnam", when they were not. Well, why do they do that? I am going to tell you why. Have you read the book, Vanity Fair? That is okay. SM (00:17:15): No, I have not read it. JW (00:17:16): Do you know anyone who's read it? Do you know somebody who has read it? Well, sure you do. Think of the really best English teacher, probably a really good woman at Ohio. Professor at Ohio. SM (00:17:25): Right. JW (00:17:27): Anyway, anyway. There is a line in Vanity Fair, was written by William Makepeace Thackeray, "Bravery never goes out of fashion." SM (00:17:44): The one thing that I think upsets me more than anything else that I have seen in the last, is the imposters. The people who say that they were in Vietnam. It is really interesting, and this is still part of the interview because there was a book that was written about this and there was a professor up at Harvard- JW (00:18:06): Stolen Valor. SM (00:18:07): Yeah-yeah. Stolen Valor. JW (00:18:09): Jug Burkett. SM (00:18:11): Yeah. And there is others that have actually, when it was not popular to be a Vietnam veteran, and then when it becomes popular, then they come out and say that they are one. Many of them made money off it. To me, it is a crime. It is a crime. They will have to face You Know Who, above. JW (00:18:36): Do not get excited about it. It is okay. They are just dogs chasing the bus. It is okay. SM (00:18:42): Remember the professor at Harvard that did it? And I forget his name. The Long Gray Line is a great book. I read that quite a long time ago. I have not read the rewrite. It was probably 15 years ago. 806 people were in your class, and how important were Kennedy's words, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", as well as, "Pay any price, bear any burden". How did that affect the 806? JW (00:19:20): There are two big effects at West Point. One of them is, ideals expressed by our fathers or by our spiritual fathers, so to speak, like Kennedy. I want to give you one concrete example of a guy for whom that quote meant a great deal, and that is Frank Rybicki, R-Y-B-I-C-K-I. He is in the book, the Long Gray Line. You can look Frank up. He was killed. He was one of the first in our class killed in the Rung Sat Special Zone in 1967. Infantryman. That quote meant specifically, a great deal to him. So he is an example of how that imprinted on some of us. That is not what forms you at West Point. Far more important is the second thing. On July 2nd, 1962, from my West Point class, we all reported in and Uncle Sam issued us to each other. SM (00:20:35): Some of the statistics here, which you well know, you were part of the first class at West Point that took the full impact of the Vietnam War. What I gather, the information I have here, is that 30 of your classmates died in Vietnam. I never got- JW (00:20:50): They did not die. There is this great line in Mash, it is where Hawkeye is talking and someone says, "Oh, sir, they died". And it is Alan Alda. He says, "They did not die. Old people in hospitals die. These men were killed." SM (00:21:09): Very important. That is a magic moment in this interview for me. I have never thought of it in those terms. Do you know how many of your classmates were wounded that survived? Because I do not... I have never seen that statistic. JW (00:21:24): Here is what I can tell you. My West Point class, the class of 1966 was decimated. One in 10 either lost his life or a part of his body. I went through the entire register of my class, and for every Purple Heart, that meant they were either killed or wounded. I did not count all the wounded. I counted those who were wounded in a manner that significantly altered their life. So one in 10, which means... The number is 83 or 87, were killed or lost a part of their body. Which, if you convert that back to the legions and what the effect of those wounds would have been in Roman times, my class was literally decimated. Decimation was levied on allegiance as a form of punishment. My class was not punished, but it was literally decimation. That is what I know about that. SM (00:22:35): You were involved, obviously, in building something. I did not even know this, that you were involved in building a memorial to Southeast Asia at West Point. JW (00:22:46): Yes. SM (00:22:47): And that was one of the main reasons why you were picked to be the leader of raising funds or building the Vietnam Memorial. JW (00:22:54): I was chairman of the board for the Memorial Fund. SM (00:22:58): Could you tell me, we know about the wall, but I do not know anything about what happened at West Point. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? And- JW (00:23:07): It was an idea I had in... It was my idea. It was just on the eve of our 10th reunion, 1976, and I said, "Why do not we build a memorial at West Point for everyone killed?" And the reason I did it is because we were disenfranchised and our country did not know about us. What we would do for our fellows, and their next of kin and widows and kids we had to do for ourselves. With that thought in mind, I went to Wes Clark, Jeff Rogers. This is in the book, the Long Gray Line. SM (00:23:44): Yes. JW (00:23:45): And Matt Harrison, and we met right here in town at Matt Harrison's house just down the street. Wes Clark and Matt and I met, Jeff was up at West Point. We called Jeff. At our reunion, we all together presented the idea to build a memorial at West Point. It would take money, some money, and we would have to get permission to use land. We worked together to get the land from West Point. That was a good drill for getting land and wash it and in order... We were all very young, right? In order to have some money, my solution was to unite the 10 classes of the (19)60s. That is how it got built. SM (00:24:33): It is unbelievable. And then, correct me if I am wrong, but then many members of the class of (19)66 were involved in working on the Vietnam Memorial as well. JW (00:24:43): Yes. SM (00:24:44): And how did you meet Jan Scruggs and I think Bob Dubak and [inaudible]? JW (00:24:47): Again, that is in the long line, the details. SM (00:24:50): Right. JW (00:24:51): So you could look it up there. I met Scruggs because it is actually a chapter that begins in the book The Long Gray Line. But I read an article... So, look it up there. SM (00:25:00): Yes. JW (00:25:01): Save us time here. But I went and I read an article that he raised, whatever it was, 200 and some dollars. The exact sum is actually Rick Atkinson has the exact sum, and people were kind of making fun of him on national television, but we were on the cusp of finishing the memorial at West Point. So this is the summer of 1979, and I made a point to call him up when I got back to Washington. He came over to my home. It was a day like this. It was kind of a hot day, summer day. And I listened to what he said, and I said, "I got a Rolodex. You can do this." I said, "You can do this." And then he paid me a compliment, which is what a soldier can do, and he is a soldier. He said he trusted me and there were all these reasons not to trust me. I went to West Point. That is a good reason. If you have been a trooper in the one 99th, you learn that these officers with good ideas can get you hurt, no matter how good their ideas. It may be brilliant, you can still... Just like Afghanistan. General Petraeus may have a great idea, but someone is going to get hurt. SM (00:26:20): Yeah. JW (00:26:20): I am only half kidding. I am saying that he learns to be wary. He trusted me, even though I went to West Point. He trusted me, even though I was an officer and I have been to these Ivy League schools. That was really... I mean, who would... What sense does that make? So he asked me to be chairman. That is how it happened. The greatest compliment that the field soldier will ever give you is to trust you, period. SM (00:26:58): And it is important because Jan has done a great job [inaudible]. JW (00:27:04): Yes, he did. SM (00:27:05): And under a lot of criticism too, from God knows how many people. JW (00:27:12): They were not there during the fight and it was a fight. SM (00:27:16): Right. Talk about your work with the wall and your beliefs with respect to helping the healing process. One of the questions I have asked everyone from Senator McCarthy when I first started this back in (19)96 part-time, to my full-time work of last a year and a half, is that the students that I worked with at the university, when we used to go on these leadership, on the road trips, we always talked about healing. And we took a group to see Senator Muskie in 1995, 6 months before he died. And the question we asked, the students came up with is that, due to the divisions that were so intense in the Vietnam generation or the boomer generation, the divisions between those who served and those who did not, the divisions between those who supported the troops and did not, the divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight. The burnings within the cities, the riots and so forth and certainly what happened in 1968 with the assassinations. Is this generation, the Vietnam generation, going to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? I have a quote I am going to read from this book that you wrote, but what is your thought on the healing process and the role? And the second part of the question is the role that the wall has played, not just for veterans and their families and the people who lost loved ones, but the nation? JW (00:28:51): You got to read the quote first. What did I say? SM (00:28:54): There is a quote in here. Where is it here? It is on page seven and I... Page seven, and it is bottom paragraph. "Bonded by the heritage of World War II in the electronic media and profoundly shaped and divided the freedom rights, the Peace Corps, the women's movement, and the Vietnam War, the 60 million Americans who came of age in the (19)60s are healing their divisions through remembrance and dialogue. This work is vital since we will be the leaders of our national institutions in the year 2000, we are the century generation." So you were talking back when you wrote this book about the healing process, and you were very confident that it was happening. Just your thoughts now in the year 2010. JW (00:29:51): Well, there is three things about that. I always check those pictures. Three things to answer your question. First, it is in the nature of life, like a large tree, to take a wound in the trunk or a whack, but still grow and the bark heals around it and could still be a pretty sturdy tree. So that is natural. That is just natural for a human tribe. The effect of the wall was some healing. It was worth the effort, not just for its main purpose, to remember those who were killed or for the deeper remembrance, which was really for the next of kin, particularly, the mothers. Sometimes I thought, there were a number of years where I thought, we really did it for the moms as I thought about it. But there was also healing. And by striving for healing and using the word and putting the thought into. JW (00:31:03): Using the word and putting the thought into consciousness. It added materially to what might have been the slower process by nature. In particular, it accelerated the process of freeing the Vietnam veteran from disenfranchisement and being almost taboo because we were walking remembrance of things that were taboo. One of the biggest taboos is healthy manhood, that the idea of healthy manhood has 10,000 volts in it. Actually, it always does. That does not change in human culture. Probably will not change for another couple of thousand years. 800,000, I mean, that is in our genes not going to change much. The idea of healthy manhood, it has to do with stolen valor. Of course, it is a badge of healthy manhood to go out as a war fighter. But the third process goes back to CS Lewis. It is grace. I am at a point in life now where I can say not just asserting it, but affirming as CS Lewis did when he was in his (19)50s and near his own death. And that is the wall got built by grace and there has been healing by grace and our country, as do all countries and tribes of humans walks in grace. So think about grace. SM (00:33:01): You are okay. It is okay I got the main one there. Yep. Yeah. I tell you, when I go to that wall, and I am been honored to be at over 30 times on Memorial Day and Veterans Day events now. It just touches me every time I am there and I am not a veteran, and I sit usually after the ceremonies and I just sit there and reflect on, I knew a lot of Vietnam vets. I know two people on the wall, and to me, it is one of the greatest things that is ever been done in my life. JW (00:33:38): Well, it was built by grace. SM (00:33:40): Yeah. JW (00:33:40): It was not built by, I will tell you this. It was not built by a bunch of ragtag soldiers. SM (00:33:45): Yes. JW (00:33:45): I mean, which is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, our team. Let me tell you something John Warner said, and you can still ask him. God bless him. He actually might even be in the club. We are at the Metropolitan Club, so he could be here right now. He comes here often, and I will tell you what he said. He said, "I know how that wall got built. You were," and he was talking to all of us. We were young men. And then this was decades later, so we were not so young. But he said, "You were in God's hands." He actually did not say that. He said, "You were in God's hand." That is John Warner. "You were in God's hand." Go ask him. SM (00:34:41): That was, I loved him. I know he retired. JW (00:34:45): He said it. SM (00:34:46): That is Unbelievable. The wall that heals is a follow up to that question is Dan, when he wrote the book to Heal a Nation, I think you have already said it, but where does the nation stand with respect to healing from all the divisions in our society? How did, I have not had a chance to even interview Dan. I sent him a letter once and he did not respond, so maybe he does not want to-to be interviewed. But how does he feel, do you think, with respect to the nation part? I know he- JW (00:35:17): Dan has to speak for himself. SM (00:35:19): Yeah. JW (00:35:19): I will say that if you read with Carol, hear all the references to [inaudible] in this book, Touched With Fire in the Long Gray Line, and then the books he has written and go to the website for vvmf.org and read his stuff, you will get a take on his attitude. SM (00:35:38): Right. JW (00:35:38): It is a solid and faithful soldier's attitude. It is all one could ask of the American soldier. SM (00:35:47): Yeah. Well, we brought him to Westchester for our Wall that Heals. I did not mention, we brought the traveling wall and we had over 6,000 people who came and quite a few veterans after midnight. The Women's Memorial, obviously, Diane Carlson Evans has played a very important role. Again, I have gotten to know her too. I interviewed her for the book. But a lot of the movements from the (19)60s, whether it be the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-war movement, women were put in secondary roles, were women thought of when the original Vietnam Memorial was built. Because it is my understanding, Diane had to really battle to get that in the beginnings before Congress to even get them to think about building the Women's Memorial. JW (00:36:34): Right. In the book Touched With Fire, you will find the first part of the answer to that. Several women have written, and you can Google this idea, out of the anti-war movement came the women's movement. The idea of standing up came, as women, came out of the anti-war war movement. SM (00:36:54): Yes. JW (00:36:54): That is 0.1. That is actually grace from Vietnam. There is a sense in which women came to the front of the bus and the war fighters were put in the back of the bus for that to happen in a great and poetic cultural sense, and that is great. That is okay. We are fine. I mean, you take the war fighters and say, "Go back to the back of the bus." We were disenfranchised. They were treating us like, but we were still back there remembering how great it was in Vietnam and what were they going to do. Send us to Vietnam, the bus was still air conditioned. I am just, I am making a joke. But in a sense, we went to the back of the bus while they got to the front. That is what the women were doing. In large. It was a good thing. Second, it was women were absolutely key in getting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial built, and the women will tell you they were not at the back of any bus. We were out there in the slot wrestling with Webb. But the real efficient, practical work was done by the gals. Sandy Forio is one. She could tell you about the other women on the Memorial fund, but she was our lead fundraiser. I mean, the gals were, and do not forget, it was a woman who won the design, all the productive work. SM (00:38:13): Not Linda Goodacre? JW (00:38:15): The women did. No, not Linda Goodacre. The Women's Memorial was Linda Goodacre, but Maya Lynn designed the Vietnam. I am just saying, if you look at it, the guys were out there. We were like pigs and slop doing whatever with inefficient things there. We were just basically keeping the barbarians at base. So the women actually did the productive, effective work of fundraising and designing it. Did anybody notice that the creative and sustaining work? I mean, I am just saying if you unfold the memorial story, by the way, they gave as God as they could. I mean, the people, when Sandy Borio was speaking at meetings about what Webb and Perot was doing, we had to restrain her man. She was all set to go hurt him. So I am just saying, right. If you want women's liberation, I mean, it was happening right there. That is just, it is a good part of the story. Absolutely. However, to his great credit, and everybody should be proud of this, the minute the women came, James Gregg said, "We will help you." And I did too. And then a lot of people wanted to burn us at the stake and beat us over our head and shoulders, but we did not notice any difference because we already were already being burned at the stake and beat around head and shoulders because they did not like the design to begin with. So the fact that we were helping the women with the statue, we could not tell. The pain threshold was beyond noticing the difference. I am just making a soldier's joke, to his credit, James supported it. So did I. SM (00:39:49): What is amazing is that- JW (00:39:50): And we testified you could go hear our, we went and testified together. SM (00:39:56): From knowing Lewis in that timeframe when Bill Clinton came to the wall with the bringing kinfolk to the wall, and all the speakers that have been brought in, the entertainers that had been there. To me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and the people that were involved, the wall have been the greatest advocates for healing in this entire nation, because I have witnessed it as a non-veteran who sits there and watches it. And I had conversations with Lewis about it. He was really pushing for Bill Clinton to come because he felt it was important, and he was also the reaching out to Vietnam and helping the warriors in Vietnam. JW (00:40:35): But is there a question here? SM (00:40:37): The question is, to me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund seems to be one of the leaders in the healing within the nation, period. JW (00:40:46): It is not the fund or the wall. SM (00:40:48): Well, the group in bound in the. JW (00:40:52): It is grace. SM (00:40:54): Okay. JW (00:40:54): That is the better door to go in through, I think, because we are just human beings. But it is grace. From a scientific point of view, that is an anthropological point of view. The wall is a liminal place, L-I-M-I-N-A-L. It is a liminal place. It is a phenomenon that happens in human tribes. It is a way of saying it is a sacred place. I will give you an example. At the dedication. Dan and I were alone after the speeches. We were alone, by the way, president Reagan had not come to the dedication. It was too controversial. He came two years later when we dedicated the statue, but he did not come to the dedication of the wall. We were alone in a sense. So what? We were alone in Vietnam too. Do you know what I mean? We were soldiers and young, so to speak. Anyways, what Dan and I both noticed was even though there were maybe 112,000 or 150,000 people around us, we were walking along the top of the walls. We could look over to our right. It was almost as silent as the room that we were in, with 150,000 people. And Dan turned to me and said, "When we die, there is going to be a heck of a party." My wife saw it on TV. She saw everybody going to the cathedral to read names. John Walker, the Bishop of Washington, gave us permission to do that. It is in the book, The Long Green Line, and my wife was watching that. She is an Episcopal priest. My wife at the time, not my current wife. This is my wife Lisa. There was a divorce because the wounds in the family that went with my daughter's birth defect and my selfish dedication to the wall, I took myself away from my family, ended the marriage. I did not have a family meaning saying, "I am going to do this." I did not give them a vote. That was selfish. But when we were married, she looked at the names being read at the cathedral, and she said, it was just out of the blue. I was not even paying attention because I was so tired. Matter of fact, I was so tired that week I could finally de-stress from a hard three years. And I did not know that I had seven more years of fight to go because Jim Webb and Ross Perot and John McCain were going to spend the next three Congress was trying to sneak through changes of the design. Yes, they did. But the manager here made me a sandwich. The club was closed. But- SM (00:44:34): You can eat it. You can- JW (00:44:35): No-no. I will get it. But I am just saying it was the same thing. He went, himself and personally made it because the whole town was filled with veterans, and I just came here to be alone, just like we are now. God bless him that manager. I lost my train of thought. I was talking about my wife. I was so tired I [inaudible] past three, my wife turned to me and I was almost, I could not go to sleep. You know sometimes you are so tired, you cannot go to sleep. I was just zoned down out, and she was watching the reading of the names, which was very moving. I was grateful for it. And the president went, finally, just, the president grabbed the first lady and they went to the cathedral. I was so grateful to John Walker and God bless him. He died too young. And so what I am saying is that in this mood, just out of the blue, she says "You are going to heaven, Jackie Wheeler." SM (00:45:58): You are going. No, just you are. Because I know personally the effect that it had on Vietnam veterans in my community, two in particular, WHO until we brought the traveling wall, when Dan came, they had never had the courage to even go to Washington. And they told me point blank, they were not going to even walk over. But the day that Dan was there, we had our greatest crowds in the evening because OF classes. But we had the ceremony outside with the president of the university and the mayor, and we had Vietnam veterans and their kids speaking, and Dan spoke. We had country Joe. But over in the corner, along the wall, by the science building. I saw both of them. They were emphatic that they were not ready yet. That is as close as they came. They did not walk up to the wall. But that is another thing. When I left the university, one of them thanked me for the wall. But Dan Scruggs and what you have done is just, to me, the most important thing within the generation, the boomer generation. To me, it is the most important thing that is ever happened within the boomer generation, because you cannot define, in my opinion, the boomer generation without talking about Vietnam. As Paul Critchlow says, it was the watershed moment in everyone's life. But Paul said to me, he said, "I felt I wanted to be part of the most important happening in my lifetime, that watershed moment." That is why he served in Vietnam. And even the anti-war people and all the other things. The war is the center core. So I do not ever have a chance to say thanks to Dan Scruggs and all the people that were involved like you, but to me, in my life, as a non-veteran who deeply cares about Vietnam veterans, it is the most important thing that is ever happened in my life. And I am not even a veteran. JW (00:48:29): Understood. SM (00:48:30): I come to the wall and I bring students to the wall because I know how important it is. And when you see those names, it is just unbelievable. I read books and every time there is a Vietnam veteran whose name is mentioned, who passed away in this book or that book or that book, I go to the wall and look the name up. There must be a couple hundred names that I do not even know who they are except the fact they were in books. JW (00:49:03): Okay. SM (00:49:04): So one of the conversations that I think this book is tremendous, I wish they would reprint this book. In fact, I mentioned to James Thalas when I interviewed him. I said, what would be great is to bring all these people back together again from the, that are in the symposium? And he said, and James Thalas said, "I would be willing to do it." And I know Bobby Mueller real well, and I know actually Phil Caputo, he is out in Arizona right now. But what I am getting at here is I would like your responses to some of their commentaries back in when this was written, this came out in (19)81, and you make a comment. You make a statement to, a quote here that I think is very important because you praise James Thalas, "And there are too many guys in our generation who do not understand how the war shaped them. Unlike Jim Thalas." And I said this to Mr. Thalas when I interviewed him, and you praise him and others that he admitted he was wrong. He admitted that he was a coward to obey the draft the way they did it, and not protest against the, it is not like protesting against a war. It was evading the draft. And he feels guilty about it, and he does not, I do not think he feels guilty now, but he was. JW (00:50:30): It was an article what did do in the class war end. Yeah. But he did. He stood up to it. Right. Manfully. SM (00:50:36): Right. And your thoughts on, did you think that many within the generation did that? Or was he still a rarity? JW (00:50:43): Jim? Jim is exceptional and a rarity. SM (00:50:47): Yeah. Too many did not. JW (00:50:48): Yeah. He is one that the Rhode Scholar people got, sometimes they miss, but they got it right. When he became a Rhode Scholar. He makes that program look good. You know what? You can knock Jim Thalas, just do not knock him around me. SM (00:51:01): No. Yeah. He respects you. I am telling you. And he actually respects Jim Webb too. He mentioned that the, and I have a comment from Jim Webb. JW (00:51:12): Well, that is right. You better respect Jim Webb and you better watch out for his right hook. SM (00:51:18): Right. He mentioned something when we were talking about that, when you look at the Vietnam generation, it is a generation of service. It was a generation that went in the Peace Corps. It was a generation of Vietnam veterans who went to serve their nation. It is a generation that went and volunteers in Service to America. It is a generation. And then he said, "Hold it. Hold it. I think one of the weaknesses of the boomer generation is that they are not a generation of service because they avoided the war." And he brings up the reasons why in his own-own way. So when you talk about the (19)60s generation as the generation of service, yet Jim Webb challenges that idea what do you think of Jim Webb's thoughts? JW (00:52:21): Could you restate the question? Just- SM (00:52:24): The question was- JW (00:52:24): Closer. I mean, just- SM (00:52:26): I think what Senator Webb was saying at the time is that we all look at the (19)60s to the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and the boomer generation that grew up at the World War II as a generation that was really inbound in service. It is one of the characteristics, the qualities, whether it be service by serving in Vietnam, or serving in the Peace Corps, or volunteers in Service to America, or alternative service, or at least for those who were, is objectors doing alternative service for two years in a very hard way. A couple of my friends did in Newfoundland that would have qualify. But he says, "Too many avoided the war through avoiding the draft and what a so and generation has such large numbers avoiding service, and they should have fought in the war." Is what he is really saying. Response on that? JW (00:53:38): First, Jim is right. You still got a wide shot for his right hook. I am just pulling your leg. SM (00:53:45): Yeah. JW (00:53:46): It is a combative statement, but he is right. That is the first thing. Second, he is touching on something fundamental. The people who lost the most from not going into service, as Jim said, were those who have made that choice themselves. Those good things they could have done, people they helped, did not benefit from their service, but they themselves suffered most. That is why I used this quote and why this is called Touched with Fire. SM (00:54:38): Just right there in the front. JW (00:54:43): You do not have to read it. I am just pointing to this quote. You either enter the action of your time or there is a sense in which you have not lived. So the real loss was for those who made that choice. By the way, not all of them made some kind of selfish choice. Many had no choice to make. Many were drafted. That was not choice. And yet they stood too and served with their fellows. A lot of them are on the wall. There were many women who were treated like women in the (19)50s were, they did not have much choice. That is cruel. Our society in ways was cruel to women in the (19)50s. Thank God for Catherine McKinnon and the women who did lead and still lead the women's movement. So we were, many people did not have a choice. We were so fortunate, those of us who could go to West Point or Annapolis to be able to choose. Then there is something deeper, and I will tell you who taught me this, was Elliot Richardson, God bless him. SM (00:55:54): Died of [inaudible]. JW (00:55:55): Yes. It is the, you must read the essay, the Moral Equivalent of War. Google it and read it. SM (00:56:07): He wrote it. JW (00:56:08): No, it is a classic. SM (00:56:10): Okay. JW (00:56:13): It is not Holmes, but I am embarrassed. It is a classic. You read it. SM (00:56:18): Okay. JW (00:56:19): The Moral Equivalent of War, Google it, turn of the century. Elliot pointed me to it because war evokes the deepest signatures of grace actually, and of sacrifice and of those things worth not just dying for, but living for, of any human experience. Maybe even more than birth. Maybe more than birth, because war's death. “You must read the, think about what Elliot was saying, just like I think about it. You figure out what he was saying." He said, "You read that Jack, Elliot Richardson, God bless him," and his name was on, I put his name on the back of the wall. You know there is names on the back of the wall. SM (00:57:10): No, I did not know that. Yeah. JW (00:57:11): Well, you go, if you look in The Long Gray Line, there is a set of names. I thanked everybody that was significant in getting the wall built. I called Jay Carter Brown and said, "I want to do this." But I said, "If I have to ask permission, it will never happen. It will become public." He said, "This is Jay Carter Brown, God bless him." Jay Carter Brown on the telephone, chairman of the Fine Arts Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts. He says, "Oh, I think it is like putting the builders name on a cornerstone of a building, do not you think? Comma Jack?" And I said- SM (00:58:03): Yeah. JW (00:58:04): "Well, sir, yes." And he said, "I think it would be perfectly routine." And I said, I was chairman of the board at the morning front. I said, "Yes, sir." And he said, I was on the phone. And he said, I said, "So there would not be a need for a hearing?" "I would not think so, would you?" And I said, " No, sir," I make things up. I am not making that up. SM (00:58:36): Elliot Richardson, we all know him in history because he resigned because of- JW (00:58:41): That is why I am making the point. Okay. SM (00:58:41): Yeah. JW (00:58:43): Got that, got that. That is you go, you go do that work. How we doing? It is 3:20. SM (00:58:50): I got a few more questions and you can eat your sandwich over here. Bobby Mueller, in that same discussion, talked about how disappointed he was in America, that the leaders had let us down, that he went into service. And I wonder how many people who served at that time thought like Bobby with respect to, upon the return to America, there was a thinking that when you went to Vietnam, that America was always the good guy, but now that America's the bad guy? JW (00:59:32): Bobby was reacting, but we were young. We were all overreacting. That is the way Bobby. That is the way Bobby, God bless him, overreacted. It was a little too much. There was some truth in what he said. A sense of alienation was understandable because we were alienated. I mean like a good marine, since we were alienated, he figured out that he was alienated. But you overreact. It is a little bit much to ask a guy who was 25 years old or 31 years old at the time, to have a sense of growth, maturity and history. Especially when you have had the wounds he had. SM (01:00:18): Right. JW (01:00:18): So he was putting his finger on some real truth. It is just that there was surrounding truth. Bobby sees it, I think, in a larger context now. Was he right? Yes. Was it a little overstated? Maybe. God bless Bobby. SM (01:00:36): Bobby was at my retirement party. I invited him and he came and it was an hour and a half in there. We actually met him a couple times. What is interesting, I will never forget [inaudible] telling him at the extra room at this session that you were in, he said, "Bobby, you have a temper." I do not know if you remember that. He has said, "Bobby, you have a temper." It seems like today that there are efforts by the right and conservatives to divide our nation by making references to the (19)60s and (19)70s for creating all the problems in our society today with respect to the counterculture, the new left, the activists of many movements for creating the following, the drug culture, the divorce rate, the breakup of the family, the irresponsible behavior, the welfare state, dependence on government, dissent mentality, which actually what Mr. Webb talks about in the book. Special interest, controlling ideas in universities where various studies programs are being taken over by the troublemakers of the (19)60s. Phyllis Schley and David Horowitz said, but in the two, talking about that "Universities today are run by the troublemakers of the (19)60s because they run all the studies programs from women's studies to gay." SM (01:02:03): Because they run all the studies, from women's studies to gay and lesbian studies, environmental studies, Native American studies, black studies. Your thoughts on- Actually, the people that made these comments some of them were people like New Gingrich and Governor Huckabee and George Will in some of his writings and others. JW (01:02:28): It is all as American as apple pie. If Ben Franklin and Abigail Adda, I would rather talk with Abigail before I talk to John Adams. I just think I would rather spend the afternoon having a tea with Abigail more than- SM (01:02:45): A couple of biographies done on her recently- JW (01:02:47): Oh, she is pretty good. Abigail is pretty good and John, he could come along. My point is, if the Adams' were here and Ben Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, they had listened to everything you just said. The question you just said. And, they would say "Well, it is working out. What do you think Tom" and Tom said "Well, it is working out. It is working out." Of course, they are all sitting there knowing that Tom has got this thing going with Sally Hemings, but they are not going to mention that. No one is going to, I mean you know. I am just saying they are all human. We are all human. And, they would say "Well, it looks like it is probably the Republics, looks like it is working out. What do you think?" And, they would say "Yeah." Dolly Madison, I would love to talk with Dolly Madison as well as James Madison. I am saying they would look at everything and say "This is Americans apple pie, Chris. Who knew what apple pie was and what America was?" But, I mean, that is how they look at it. Everything you have just said can be transformed by a mathematical formula so that it is the right [inaudible] while they are beating us up from the left and it is all working out. It is all just mud wrestling. And, it goes with the system that was set up. Here is the biggest thing to remember about the very healthy condition that you defined. I see it as healthy, just slinging mud at each other. What the founding people did, some of the guys being well advised by their wives, and I am talking about Dolly and Abigail, just to start with, Betsy Ross too. God bless her making the flag. Molly pitcher, God bless them. Seriously that the whole generation that fought the revolution. The condition of controversy, it is just built into our republic and it tends to work out okay. What they did in order to keep an envelope around everything, like a rocket ship has a steel shell or a metal shell, do not pierce it the oxygen will leak out in the space and we will all die. I mean, we are a big rocket ship actually. As Buckminster Fuller says, we are on a spaceship, it is called Earth. Be careful. Do not leak the oxygen out of our planet. There is some truth in that, but I am trying to make this point. What holds it all together is how they balanced. In our republic, the branches of government, executive has some powers, everybody's got some power. But, here is my point. We assume once we get the idea, do not leave. Do not take your eyes off the blackboard too quick. What we are learning, you got to pay attention to it. They were not balancing each other's virtues. They were balancing their vices. What I mean is pride and ego on one side will be a very effective antidote for pride and ego on the other side. You do not have to worry about the good impulses of one side being balanced by the good impulses of the other side. Actually, good impulses tend to work together. It is the human condition on one side, a little bit of pride, a little bit of ego, a little bit of illicit sex going on. We are shocked. We are all human. I am just saying. I am just trying to exaggerate a little bit to make a point that what they did was balance, not virtues, but balance, weaknesses or vices, so to speak. That is the genius. So, you got- I am going back to your question. Oh my God, they are calling us rascals. Well, we called them rascals. Oh my God. You never ever forget the vitriol. Just to be clear level that Abe Lincoln or Tom Jefferson or FDR. It is just we live in an envelope of life that is short. Even if we are 65 or 85 years old. It is a short envelope. A little more perspective and we could see things the way Abigail and Dolly too. SM (01:07:31): You give a good perspective there because some people may look at this and say, well, what those students were saying about the divisions and the lack of healing in the nation is just continuing with these. We see it in Congress today that no one talks to each other. Everybody has got the right answer and what other people's answers are, they are totally wrong. So, those kinds of things. And, you have a great quote here too. And, I think this is on page six, and I am not going to go over any more quote this the last one, but- JW (01:08:04): Oh, the cruelest thing you do to someone is read their book, Adam. Oh my God. SM (01:08:08): I want you because this is important. I thought of this too, growing up in the (19)50s, our generation. See, you see things- I think that is what the wall does too. You see things in terms of commonality as opposed to things that divide. You think of things that unite and you say it in this paragraph. "Our generation shares the features of common experience, background and power. We grew up in the (19)50s and (19)60s in a country united by electronics, radio, television, and many shared attitudes. For example, we watched John Kennedy's inaugural address. We watched Disneyland. Davy Crockett with S Parker who just passed away last year. We know what Conrad and civil defense drills mean. We danced together. We turned rock and roll into cultural force. Such similarity was unique in history among so many young people at one time." What you are doing there is you are doing something very positive. You are showing- Instead of always talking about the divisions, what are the commonalities that make us want, try to understand each other better through our shared experience. JW (01:09:18): That had not changed. SM (01:09:20): Yeah. JW (01:09:21): How are we doing? I am having trouble, because I know we were budgeted to four, but for various reasons I only got five hours sleep last night trying to hold my family together with what we are dealing with. SM (01:09:36): Wow. How much time do we have here? JW (01:09:37): Well, it is only 3:30. SM (01:09:39): Do you have enough time? JW (01:09:40): Yeah, I have got some more time. If we could do some more questions. SM (01:09:44): These are real [inaudible]- JW (01:09:45): Also, you can come back on the phone. I mean you can adjust this and maybe talk even on the phone tomorrow. I am just having trouble. SM (01:09:55): In your feeling. When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion? When did it end and what do you feel was the watershed moment of the (19)60s? JW (01:10:06): First, it is talking about the people. That is why I come up with the 60 minute. I say, let us not talk about baby boomers per se because that does not capture the social energy and the social framework. The social framework, and that is the question you are asking. What is the- What are the bookends socially? And then, we can talk about the human beings that were caught in that. That is 60 million, not 76 million. It is 60. SM (01:10:31): The front edge of the so-called generation is more from 46 to 56 basically. JW (01:10:34): No. SM (01:10:34): No? JW (01:10:38): No-no. I am going to be very clear on that correction. You got to go back to (19)43 or (19)42 even because you want to talk about people who were young and malleable and shaped by the events. So, forget 46, it is too late. You got to go- I am 44. I know I am in this group. So, let us first talk about the markers and then talk about the human beings in it. That is why this baby boom thing is... It is stupid. It is not measuring the right elements. It has got the bulk of them right, but it leaves out too many important people. Those born before (19)46. I mean there is- You get my point. SM (01:11:18): Oh yeah. Many people have brought it up to- JW (01:11:21): So, let us first talk- So forget baby boom. Baby boom was a label put on a bunch of human beings that were born [inaudible]. Let us talk about events and then talk about who's framed by them. Let us talk about the valley and then we will talk about the people who live there. The valley is on one side- Well, 64 let us start- When the number of funerals at West Point began to get pretty significant. That would tell you when the war was on us. That will be (19)64. Because, we are talking about either life or death. That does not mean- I am not saying West Point, I am just saying there is an indicator and that is when the funerals began to get numerous. And, how do I know? Because I marched. I was on funeral details. I know. So, it would be (19)64 when awareness of war and the simultaneous coming of age of a pretty united group of people and self-awareness among the group. Because, we were all just in college, (19)64. So then, the era would go on, has to go through (19)75 at least, which would be when the war ended with the helicopter leaving (19)64 to (19)75 would be pretty good. Now, who were the people who were 18 that is newly liberated from home, and newly empowered as young humans at that time? Well, it would be the freshman in college, would not it? So, you want freshmen in college or people in college in (19)64. Not necessarily just in college, many were not in college. But, I am saying take people who were 18 and older in (19)64 or who turned 18 in... You are going to be in college in (19)64 if you were born in (19)43. So, it would be Americans born in (19)43. And, this is how I came up with the 60 million, going up to Americans who would be... In 1975, they would be... You got to be aware in (19)75 you got to be an aware human being. So, if you were born in (19)43, you are going to be an aware human being, 18 or so, come (19)64. But then, you are going from (19)43 up to (19)50, (19)55. You add 20 years, you get 75. So, it would be 57, 43 to 57. But, that arbitrary, and that is how I gets 60 million. You go to that 40, you- and I define it in the book. That is actually defined in your book. I go through the numbers, whatever I say there is the how I got the 60 million. But, my point is (19)46 to people born as late as (19)75. That is bullshit. SM (01:15:20): 64 is- JW (01:15:20): Oh, (19)46- SM (01:15:22): (19)46 to (19)64. JW (01:15:24): Oh, so you were born in (19)64 then in 1974, you were 10 years old. You were not affected by the events of the [inaudible] of the greater world when you are 10. That is an exact example of why that whole construct of looking precisely at a baby boom like a social engineer and saying that has anything to do with cultural interpretation is bullshit. SM (01:15:59): And, you know I [inaudible]- JW (01:16:00): You are not going to say that someone who was 10 years old was really affected by that. Do you get the point on- SM (01:16:04): Yeah, yeah. And, Todd Gitman, the person who was with SDS and actually was the second leader of SDS, was born in (19)42. So, I was the leader of SDS and [inaudible]- JW (01:16:18): All I am saying is the first 10 pages or 20 pages of that book, I answer that question. How are we doing? SM (01:16:30): Okay, just three more. Three more. What was the watershed moment? Was there a watershed moment in this period, when you talk about the period? JW (01:16:35): In what sense, for who? SM (01:16:36): To you, what was the watershed moment of- JW (01:16:39): In what period? SM (01:16:42): I mean in the period we are talking about here, when the (19)60s began and when it ended. Was there such? Was there a watershed- JW (01:16:50): Yeah, it was coming back from Vietnam when I realized. I was in a different culture in a different place and the first thing I realized it was my home. My real home was- At first I thought it was in Vietnam. Well, it was really, and then I thought, well, it is really West Point. And, it was in a way, but that is not really it. My home was those that I fought with and served with. It was those guys issued to me as I was issued to them by Uncle Sam for my environment, in my world on July 2nd, 1962. But, because I had left the military, left the army I was floating alone. I was a stranger in a strange land to use a biblical phrase. And, it was disorienting. My brother had to hold me by the hand and help me figure out how to talk, so to speak. It is not that I was not culturally aware. I mean, I got a good job. I had been to good schools. For me, the watershed was understanding that my country and culture was a ship that had left me and I was not on it. And, people did not want to hear about where I had been or my classmates or know about Tommy Hayes and how he got killed. They did not want to talk about sacrifice and valor and there were three words- There were at least four words that were just heaved out the window. One of them was the idea of healthy manhood, let us throw that out the window. Oh, healthy manhood? No, we are all going to be laid back and have ponytails and that is okay. I am trying, in a poetic sense to say the idea of healthy manhood went out the window. Suddenly the motto of West Point became really old speak. It was okay if it were on [inaudible]. It very disorienting time. One reason when I went to Yale Law School, I was kind of depressed and thank God for the faculty there who fished me out of the water. God bless them. SM (01:19:49): What do you think were the, two more, in your opinion, what was the greatest mistake ever made in Vietnam? And, the thing is that, and I preface this by saying that in my opinion as a person who did not serve, but has read a lot. A lot of presidents deserve some sort of blame for our links to Vietnam from Eisenhower to Kennedy to Nixon Johnson and obviously Ford, we left after Ford, but then he was criticized heavily to leave for us leaving. So, in your opinion, what was the greatest mistake ever made in Vietnam? JW (01:20:34): Well, we now know that topping the Christmas bombing was stupid. By that I mean in the context of fighting a war to win, I want to be very careful. There are people who say that was not a war worth fighting. So, winning did not make sense. It is going-going to be a very productive conversation to explore anything with a person who says we should not have been there and we should not have been trying to win. Okay, and I understand that. Okay, but here is how I am answering the question. I am saying from the point of view of this being a war, which was to be won and for which my class was decimated in combat. From that point of view, the biggest single mistake was stopping the B52 bombing of Hanoi because we now know from general job that they were close to caving. SM (01:21:40): What year was this, the exact year? JW (01:21:42): 73, 74. We knew 72. That is how close we were. They were close to crumbling. We now know that it was a big mistake. It would have made a huge difference on what they settled for in Paris. A huge blunder. Now, wait a minute. Other people at the table will then go bananas and yell and scream and say "No, the mistake was we should not have ever been there." Well, okay, you can have that conversation. That is a different conversation. You could say it was not worth winning. You could say it was immoral. They could say, oh, you baby killer. You know, you can go nuts. And, Abigail and Dolly would say "The tea is not going to do. You got to get some bourbon. Tom" Jim, Mr. [inaudible], Dolly's husband [inaudible]. Jim [inaudible] go get some bourbon. Tea is not going to do for this crowd, they need a drink. Okay. All I am saying is I want to answer your question as a war fighter. And, as someone who is aware that we had sent soldiers to fight and win from a war fighter's point of view, given we were there, given the lives sacrificed, given the war, the fact of war, given the idea that in war there is no substitute for victory, the biggest single blunder was not pushing Hanoi past that point of caving. And, they were ready to do it, Job has said. We were being pounded toward the table and toward making big major compromises and agreements to get out of this thing. We were just being hammered. That was the biggest blunder. And, the prisoners of war who came back said, we heard the bombs. Some of them could have killed some of us. We wish you had not stopped because they were scurrying around, really scared kitty cats at that moment. This is the word from the POW's. I am really tired. I am sorry man. You have one more question and then maybe you could re-look at the stuff I asked you too. We could tag up with maybe another hour on the phone or something. SM (01:24:08): That would be fine. I appreciate this and one last question that is kind of a follow-up. When Ronald Reagan became president, you mentioned our already that it was too controversial to come to the opening of the wall. To me that is inexcusable as President of the United States- JW (01:24:27): But, I am not saying that. I am saying I understood. We were just too hot. SM (01:24:30): But, the thing is when he became president- JW (01:24:33): Because, do not forget, Perot and McCain and Webb were [inaudible] hell at us. And, Webb was close to Reagan. It is okay. SM (01:24:42): Well, President Reagan, when he became president made a comment over and over again. We are back, we are back, we are back. And then, President Bush, who was his vice president later in the late (19)80s, early (19)90s, said the Vietnam syndrome is over. That is just my last question. Could you comment on what do you think Ronald Reagan meant by we are back? The perception was that what happened in the (19)60s and the (19)70s where law and order is back. We are not going to have these student protests anymore. We are going to get the military back to the way- JW (01:25:24): Okay, let me respond to that question. First of all, God bless Nancy Reagan. I will tell you what about Nancy Reagan, as the first lady of California, she went out to meet planes coming back and coming back at the various airports. There were several places in Vietnam and rather in California, where planes would come back. And, because she was at Sacramento, she could go to Travis Air Force base and meet a lot of planes and there would be guys that would land, it would be early morning and it would be a little bit of rain and they would see a woman with a little detail of California state police with her if she was meeting a plane. And, people can make up stories why they do not like Nancy Reagan and they can do that. Just do not do that around me. Yeah, I love her for that. She was there and it is not like there were a crowd of people meeting any of the planes. SM (01:26:37): You knew from publicity. She did it because she cared. JW (01:26:40): She did it because she cared. God bless her. Now, it is not like 800 people could come to Travis Air Force base to meet the planes. I am making a point about Nancy Reagan first. Do not ever forget it. That is important. Second, what President Reagan was saying was, at the dean's level, there are things worth dying for still. And, I want to hand a compliment, and I would ask you, when you write as you do or however you put your work together, there is someone who deserves and has earned a really good compliment for the way President Reagan spoke when he came to the time when we conveyed the memorial to the United States in 1984, the statue was done. We were going to build the women's statue. That is okay. But, we conveyed it to the United States and he came, and he spoke wonderfully, and the person who wrote that speech was terrific, and please write down her name and say so. This is a bouquet of roses for her. And, that is Peggy Noonan. Now, she may not be your- I mean, all I am saying is- SM (01:28:05): I know all about her. I got a couple of reports. JW (01:28:09): I am just saying, it is like Nancy Reagan, you can knock Peggy, do not do it around me. SM (01:28:12): I am not going to. I am not going to. JW (01:28:14): I am just saying. She wrote that speech and she is terrific. SM (01:28:19): And, that is the one Ronald Reagan gave at the- JW (01:28:22): When we conveyed the memorial to the United States- SM (01:28:27): 1984. JW (01:28:28): It was Veterans Day in 1984. SM (01:28:34): Is there any way you get a copy of that speech or? JW (01:28:36): No, you can get it. You will google it or contact Peggy. Call Peggy up and say "God, this guy wants to give you a bouquet of roses. You know that?" SM (01:28:46): She lives in California, I think- JW (01:28:48): I think she lives in Manhattan. Anyway, that is your homework. Do not tell me your problems. Go do your damn work, man. I do my work. You do your work. You want to be a journalist, go P one. You want to go work mean go get your- SM (01:29:00): Well, actually, I am a college administrator [inaudible]. JW (01:29:03): I do not want to hear you telling me your problems. What I want you a college administrator. When did you get into sadism? I am just kidding. Masochism. Here is what I am saying, just you find Peggy. Tell her about that compliment. It is not-not a compliment. It is like she did it. I want to say one last thing about West Point and soldiers. It is true of the military now because it is a volunteer meal, military. It is always been true of West Point and the five service academies. West Point is just one of five. But, because we have a volunteer military, it is actually true of everybody in the US military. We are trusted by our country to defend our country. It is privilege. Citizens pay for us to be able to do that. They pay for us to develop the skills we have and the gratitude goes first from us whom they trust to the citizens. I am saying thank you. It is a trust. It is not the other way around. I mean, many people say humans do not do well at adjusting to war and its effects. That does not mean that writing on the subject and working on it-it is not a good thing. It just means it is hard. The debates we have now in Congress, in the Council on Foreign Relations of which I am a member. On the current issue, for example, the rules of engagement or on the way the defense department is being run the Pentagon. All echo for me now, just another verse. It is like Dante, almost just another big verse and set of couplets out of, I am afraid it is inferno. It is not the Paradiso from 1968 to 2010. Now, we have Robert Gates who is making many of the same mistakes as McNamara. I know that because I was in the building with McNamara and then Clark Clifford, I worked there. The difference is Gates does not have the depth and breadth of character that Robert McNamara had, and that is a big difference. SM (01:31:51): What were the most important influences in your life? I know your dad and your military background, and I interviewed Peter Coyote yesterday, the actor. And, of course he comes from the new left background, totally different from your background, but when I asked him the question, I said "When you look at your life up to this point in 2010, what are the specific events? Can you name three to five personalities, people, events, happenings that made you who you are today?" And, how do you respond to that? JW (01:32:25): Well, it has to be my mom who grew up on a ranch in way West Texas. We are not talking just Laredo and West County. We are talking Asherton, Texas, and she is Irish from that part of the state. My dad is an army brat. My grandfather was cavalry from Texas, and so those are formative. My brother was formative. I mean, he died suddenly three years ago. That is a huge loss. Helping me realize the answer to your question, how important my brother was- JW (01:33:03): ...me realize the answer to your question how important my brother was. Shared memories and a sounding board through life. We were just barely 20 months apart in age. After that, it would be, I would have to say CS Lewis. Increasingly as we age, we realize that people who influence us are not necessarily close friends. They are people whose spirit or presence means a lot. CS Lewis and my uncle John Conley, who received a silver star for conduct in the first low level raid of the B-29 is over Tokyo, March 8 and 9, 1945. They were significant, their memory and what they did, and what they stood for. CS Lewis, because the way he writes and deals with issues of faith works for me, works for my DNA and my background. Although I believe in faith, that I will meet him. I am a little nervous about that because he is a big gruff Irishman, I am not sure how we will get along. He died the same day that... and I actually calculated, the same hour as John Kennedy. SM (01:34:24): November 22, (19)63. JW (01:34:26): Yeah, the same hour, actually, though. It is interesting when you account for the time change between London and Texas. It was just interesting. SM (01:34:33): How old was he when he died? JW (01:34:34): He was 63. SM (01:34:34): Young. JW (01:34:34): He was young. Help me, one other guy died that day. You got to Google it. And they were all Irish, I think that all three were Irish. Anyway, Jack Kennedy and of course Jack Lewis, his nickname was Jack, happened to die that same day. At West Point, the Kennedy assassination was significant. Little did I know that also at that same hour, another Irishman named Jack was taken. And Google and find that other third, there were three significant personalities died that day. That is a good way to answer your question. West Point is significant. It is significant for everybody that goes there in different ways. SM (01:35:16): Yeah. I have actually known people who have gone to West Point. We had a couple of our students that went there, and I do not know, they got in after they finished two years of college, but they wanted to go to West Point, so they got in and they graduated. One of them was the mayor of Westchester, Pennsylvania's son, was a West Point graduate. I know he has served in Iraq. But duty, honor, country was something, even when you... in this book where there were differences of opinion about the war even amongst the veterans of the Vietnam War. There was still, no matter what the differences may have been and the frictions that took place over politics, no one ever lost that. The feeling of, there was a sense that that was something so important. How important has that been in your life? Just those three words. Not only from your service in Vietnam, what you have done since Vietnam, but going into West Point and serving there for four years? JW (01:36:19): They are as important for me as any other man in my West Point class, or for the women now who go. It is important to note that it was in May of 2005 that the 10000th women graduated from the five federal academies. And do not forget that James Webb and I parted company over that issue. The women going to the academy. That was his article November 1979, Washingtonian, "Women cannot fight". He tells people when he runs for office that, oh, he is outgrown that article. Do not you believe it? Webb does not change much, I know him well, I edited his book A Sense of Honor. SM (01:37:09): Yeah. I have the book. JW (01:37:10): About West Point. Have you seen it? SM (01:37:11): I have not read it. JW (01:37:12): Did you look at... do you have the book? SM (01:37:13): I have the book. I have read Fields of Fire, but I have not read the right. JW (01:37:16): Have you opened up, have you opened the book up? SM (01:37:18): No. JW (01:37:18): Have you looked at the frontispiece? SM (01:37:20): Yes. JW (01:37:21): So I am in it. Are you aware of that? SM (01:37:24): No, I... JW (01:37:25): All right, this is what you are going to do. By the way, it is 2:30 and we are going to have to come to a hard stop, so I want to make sure we go through your questions. Let us answer them crisply. Then you can come back. SM (01:37:35): Right-right. JW (01:37:35): What I would like you to do, sir, is go to A Sense of Honor, open it up, go to the frontispiece and look at the dedication. SM (01:37:45): Okay. JW (01:37:46): And I want you to email me back and tell me what the green bench is. SM (01:37:50): The green bench? JW (01:37:51): Yes, sir. I want you to do that. SM (01:37:54): All right. JW (01:37:55): You are going to have to work a little bit to find out what the green bench is. SM (01:37:58): All right I shall do that. You said in the same article that I just mentioned it briefly – JW (01:38:02): Anyway, I edited for Webb, I know the man. SM (01:38:05): Yeah. I tried to interview him before he became Senator, but he was busy running for the Senate and then I was never able to interview him. You said in the same article that the events of one generation shaped the attitudes of the next, and you brought up examples in your book about the results of the harshness on Germany in World War I and how it shaped many of the Germans and their attitudes and due to the reparations and the tough stand that was taken against Germany. How did that apply to Vietnam in terms of the effect that maybe what happened in World War II affected the boomer generation? JW (01:38:47): Two ways. One is the intellectual and story level, which happens in every culture because of a war. There were so many of us that went into Vietnam. The generation was roughly 30 million women, 30 million men roughly. Roughly 60 million in all. When you count, not just technical baby boomers, but also those born a little before because so many youngsters born (19)44 and (19)43 fought in Vietnam. But you do not count all the baby boomers born late in the (19)50s because they were just nine years old during the Vietnam War. So you use 60 million. Well that is 30 million women, 30 million guys, and so the children grow up knowing that something happened and they pay attention, they listen and they learn, like any youngster does in the family. Regardless of what the parents were doing during that period, it was significant for their parents. That is one way, story, culture, family. But there is something more significant. Everyone who fights in a war goes through trauma. And now in the year 2010, we understand what PTSD is. By the way, my own West Point classmate, Jim Peak, who was Secretary of Veterans Affairs, uses this term post-traumatic stress-normal reaction. He is a doctor, an MD, first MD to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs, my point is, Jim is saying that is what happens in war, and do not forget, Jim was an infantry platoon leader in combat in Vietnam. Then he went to medical school. Then he becomes in many years later, secretary of Veterans Affairs. Post-traumatic stress, normal reaction. My dad had PTSD. By golly, I hope he did. I mean, that would be normal. Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, he was at Remagen when they found the bridge was still standing. He fought all the way to the liberation of the death camp at Nordhausen. It was a hard fight. He would have that small Sherman tank fighting panzers, that was a very risky thing to do. I am saying that that effect on those fathers, there were so few women that fought in the Vietnam War or were even in the military at that time, compared to the number of men. For example, there is only eight women on the wall, there is eight nurses. That had to hurt the children. That hurt the children. It hurts the children in every challenge. Those are the two effects. Let us march on. SM (01:41:54): I have a couple of other quotes here from these two books. One of the quotes from you is "I think the challenge that lies before us is not to forget ourselves, set up in some kind of super minority, one more special interest group, but instead to figure out what it is we have to offer." Now, I say that because today in our society we have a lot of people who criticize special interest groups, particularly different minorities. You have heard the whole politics of the era of special interests and everything, but Vietnam veterans, I know when I worked at Ohio University in my very first job, a lot of them could not get jobs, and we had Vietnam veterans affairs officers at Ohio University. Because of getting jobs and the way some of them were being treated upon their return, they were not going to be hired. So they became part of the affirmative action plan. So I just wanted your thoughts on, you made this statement about being a special interest, but in affirmative action. They became a special interest because they were being discriminated against on their return. Just your thoughts on that. JW (01:43:05): Well, there is two thoughts. One is there is a sense in which all of us became a nigga for a while. Everyone who came back from Vietnam became for a while, a nigga. That means we became a disenfranchised group. We became someone whose particular story was not, society did not want to hear our story. And we were stereotyped as if we knew what stereotype was. I mean, back in the (19)40s when I was born, who used stereotype man, but we understand what all that means. Or in another sense, we were the (19)50s, the housewife woman sent out for coffee. What I am saying is we were a disenfranchised group. Our fathers and our forefathers, the Civil War, that is the World War II vets, the Teddy Roosevelt era vets, they were esteemed. We were the opposite. We were disesteemed. We spent a while being nigga's. I am using the term to make a point. But what it did was give us great empathy. It gave many of us great empathy actually. We did not know it when we were building a wall, but it became a fulcrum on which our country turned so that our period in that particular silo, in that particular disenfranchised condition ended. We did not know that, we were just kids. That is why that book, Helmore's book, We Were Soldiers Once – SM (01:44:57): Ah, great book with Joe Galloway. JW (01:44:59): But the last part of the title, it is not in the movie title that is, "We Were Young. The wall would never have been built if we were not so young and we could take a lick and keep on ticking, so to speak when we were young. But it gives great empathy to the guys who served in Vietnam. There is no anger, and by the way, there is no big sense of entitlement. Bobby Mueller is a minority among Vietnam veterans. Most Vietnam veterans have a great sense of personality himself. They actually know where they were and what they did. That is not all. They know that, and they know two other things. They also know who their fathers were and their grandfathers and that they kept faith with them. And that gives you a pretty deep keel. They know something else. It is kind of like the funnies or the cartoons because every once in a while someone pops up and says, "I was in Vietnam when they were not". Well, why do they do that? I am going to tell you why. Have you read the book Vanity Fair? That is okay. SM (01:46:23): No, I have not read it. JW (01:46:23): Do you know anyone who has read it? Do you know somebody who has read it? What is your- do think of the really best English teacher. Probably a really good woman at Ohio. Professor at Ohio. Anyway, there is a line in Vanity Fair was written by William Makepeace Thackeray, "Bravery never goes out of fashion." SM (01:46:50): Now, the one thing that I think upsets me more than anything else that I have seen in the last, is the imposters. The people who say that they were in Vietnam. It is a really interesting, and this is still part of the interview, because there was a book that was written about this and there was a professor up at Harvard- JW (01:47:12): Sterling Valen. SM (01:47:13): Yeah-yeah. Sterling Valen. JW (01:47:14): [inaudible]. SM (01:47:17): Yeah, and there was others that had actually, when it was not popular to be a Vietnam veteran, and then when it becomes popular then they come out and say that they are one. Many of them made money off it. To me it is a crime. It is a crime. They will have to face you know who above. JW (01:47:42): Do not get excited about it. Okay. SM (01:47:44): And they are- JW (01:47:45): Just dogs chasing the bus. It is okay. SM (01:47:47): Remember the professor at Harvard that did it, and I forget his name, The Long Gray Line is a great book. I read that quite a long time ago. I have not reread it, it was probably 15 years ago. 806 people were in your class and how important were Kennedy's words "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, as well as pay any price, bear any burden". How did that affect the 806? JW (01:48:25): There are two big effects at West Point. One of them is ideals expressed by our fathers or by our spiritual fathers, so to speak, like Kennedy. I want to give you one concrete example of a guy for whom that quote meant a great deal, and that is Frank Rybicki, RYBICKI. He is in the book, the Long Green Line, you can look Frank up. He was one of the first in our class, killed in the Rung Sat Special Zone in 1967 [inaudible]. That quote meant specifically a great deal to him. So he is in the example of how that imprinted on some of us. That is not what forms you at West Point. Far more important is the second thing. On July 2nd, 1962 from my West Point class, we all reported in and Uncle Sam issued us to each other. SM (01:49:38): Some of the statistics here, which you will know, you were part of the first class of West Point that took the full impact of the Vietnam War. What I gather, the information I have here is that 30 of your classmates died in Vietnam. I never got the- JW (01:49:53): They did not die. There is this great line in mash, it is where haw guy's talk, and someone says, "Oh sir, they died, and it is Alan Alda". He said "They did not die, old people in hospitals die, these men were killed." SM (01:50:12): Very important, that is a magic moment in this interview for me. I never thought of it in those terms. Do you know how many of your classmates were wounded that survived? Because I have never seen that statistic. JW (01:50:26): Here is what I can tell you. My West Point class, the class of 1966 was decimated. One in ten either lost his life or a part of his body. I went through the entire register of my class and for every Purple Heart that meant they were either killed or wounded. I did not count all the wounded, I counted those who were wounded in a manner that significantly altered their life. So one in ten, which means the number is 83 or 87 were killed or lost a part of their body. Which if you convert that back to the legions, and what the effect of those wounds would have been in Roman times, or my class was literally decimated. Decimation was levied on the legions as a form of punishment. My class was not punished, but it was literally decimation. That is what I know about that. SM (01:51:36): You were involved obviously in building something, I did not even know this, that you were involved in building a memorial to Southeast Asia at West Point. JW (01:51:47): Yes. SM (01:51:48): And that was one of the main reasons why you were picked to be the leader of raising funds or building the Vietnam Memorial- JW (01:51:57): I was Chairman of the board for the Memorial Fund. SM (01:51:59): Could you tell me, we know about the wall, but I do not know anything about what happened at West Point. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? JW (01:52:07): It was an idea I had in, it was my idea. It was just on the eve of our 10th reunion, 1976. And I said, "Why do not we build a memorial at West Point for everyone killed?" And the reason I did it is because we were disenfranchised and our country did not know about us. What we would do for our fellows, we and their next of kin and widows and kids we had to do for ourselves. With that thought in mind, I went to West Clark, Jeff Rogers, This is in the book of Long Gray Line, and Matt Harrison. And we met right here in town at Matt Harrison's house just down the street, West Clark. And Matt and I met, Jeff was up at West Point. We called Jeff at our reunion. We all together presented the idea to build a Memorial at West Point. It would take money; some money and we would have to get permission to use land. We worked together to get the land from West Point. That was a good drill for getting land in Washington. We were all very young, and in order to have some money, my solution was to unite the 10 classes of the (19)60s. That is how it kept up. SM (01:53:32): Unbelievable. And then, correct me if I am wrong, but then many members of the class 66 were involved in working on the Vietnam Memorial as well. And how did you meet Jan Scruggs and I think Bob Dubak and those guys? JW (01:53:49): Again, that is in the Long Gray Line, the details. SM (01:53:49): Right. JW (01:53:50): So you could look it up there. I met Scruggs because I, it is actually a chapter that begins in the book Long Gray Line, but I read an article, so look it up there. Yeah, saves time here. But I went and I read an article that he raised, whatever it was, 200 and some dollars. The exact sum is actually Rick [inaudible] that is the exact sum. And people were kind of making fun of him on national television. But we were on the cusp of finishing the Memorial at West Point. And so this is the summer of 1979. And I made a point to call him up when I got back to Washington. He came over to my home, it was a day like this, it was kind of a hot day, summer day. I listened to what he said and I said, "I got a Rolodex. You can do this. So you can do this". And then he paid me a compliment, which is what a soldier can do. And he is a soldier. He said he trusted me. And there were all these reasons not to trust me, went to West Point, that is a good reason, if you have been a trooper in the one 99th, you were that these officers with good ideas can get you hurt no matter how good their idea is. You, it may be brilliant. You can still, just like Afghanistan. General portrays, we have a great idea, but someone is going to get hurt. I am only half kidding. I am saying that he learns to be wary. He trusted me and I went, even when I went to West Point, he trusted me. Even though I was an officer and I had been to these Ivy League schools, that was really, I mean what sense does that make? So he asked me to be chairman. That is how it happened. The greatest compliment, that the field soldier will ever give you, is to trust you, period. SM (01:55:55): And [inaudible], it is important because Jan's done a great job in [inaudible]. And under a lot of criticism too, from God knows how many people. JW (01:56:08): They were not there during the fight and it was a fight. SM (01:56:12): Right. Talk about your work with the wall and your beliefs with respect to helping the healing process. One of the questions I have asked everyone from Senator McCarthy when I first started this back in (19)96 part-time to my full-time work the last year and a half, is that the students that I worked with at the university, when we used to go on these Leadership On The Road trips, we always talked about healing. And we took a group to see Senator Muskie in 1995, 6 months before he died. And the question we asked, the students came up with is, due to the divisions that were so intense in the Vietnam generation or the boomer generation. Divisions between those who served and those who did not. The divisions between those who supported the troops and did not. The divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, the burnings within the cities, the riot and so forth. And certainly what happened in 1968 with the assassination. Is this generation, the Vietnam generation, going to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? I have a quote I am going to read from this book that you wrote, but what is your thought on the healing process and the role? And the second part of the question is the role that the wall has played, not just for veterans and their families and the people who lost loved ones, but the nation. JW (01:57:43): You got to read the quote first, what did I say? SM (01:57:48): There is a quote in here. Where is it? Here? It is on page seven and it is bottom paragraph, " Bonded by the heritage of World War II and the electronic media and profoundly shaped and divided the freedom rights, the Peace Core, the women's movement, and the Vietnam War. The 60 million Americans who came of age in the (19)60s are healing their divisions to remembrance and dialogue. This work is vital, since we will be the leaders of our national institutions in the year 2000, we are the century generation". So you were talking, back when you wrote this book, about the healing process and you were very confident that just your thoughts now in the year 2010. JW (01:58:44): Well, there is three things about that. Three things to answer your question. First, it is in the nature of life, like a large tree to take a wound in the trunk or a whack, but still grow and the bark heels around it, it could still be a pretty sturdy tree. So that is natural. That is just natural for a human drive. The effect of the wall was some healing. It was worth the effort, not just for its main purpose, to remember those who were killed or for the deeper remembrance, which was for the next of kin, particularly the mothers. Sometimes I thought there were a number of years where I thought we really did it for the moms as I thought about it. But there was also healing. And by striving for healing and using the word and putting the thought into consciousness, it added materially to what might have been a slower process by nature. In particular, it accelerated the process of freeing the Vietnam veteran from disenfranchisement and being almost taboo. Because we were a walking remembrance of things that were taboo. One of the biggest taboos is healthy manhood, that the idea of healthy manhood has 10,000 volts in it. Actually, it always does. That does not change in human culture. It probably will not change for another couple of thousand years. 800,000. I mean that is in our genes not going to change much. The idea of healthy manhood, it has to do with Sterling Valen. Of course, it is a badge of healthy manhood to go out as a war fighter. But the third process goes back to CS Lewis. It is grace, I am at a point in life now where I can say not just asserting it, but affirming as CS Lewis did when he was in his (19)50s and near his own death. And that is the wall got built by grace. And there has been healing by grace and our country- SM (02:01:50): Yeah. I tell you, when I go to that wall and I have been honored to be at over 30 on Memorial Day and Veteran's Day offense now, it just touches me every time I am there and I am not a veteran. And I sit usually after the ceremonies and I just sit there and reflect on, I knew a lot of Vietnam vet, I know two people on the wall. And to me it is one of the greatest things that is ever been done in my life. JW (02:02:19): Well, it was built by grace. It was not built by, I tell you this, it was not built by a bunch of rag keg soldiers. I mean, which is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, our team. Let me tell you something, John Warner said, and you can still ask him, God bless him. He actually might even be in the club, we were at the Metropolitan Club so he could be here right now, he comes here often. And I will tell you what he said. He said, "I know how that wall got built..." and he was talking to all of us. We were young men. And then this was decades later, so we were not so young. But he said, "You were in God's hands". He actually did not say that. He said, "You were in God's hand" as John Warner, "You were in God's hand". Go ask him. SM (02:03:22): I would love to, I know he is retired. JW (02:03:25): He said it. SM (02:03:26): Unbelievable. The wall that heals, as a follow-up to that question is Jan, when he wrote the book To Heal A Nation, I think you have already said it, but where does the nation stand with respect to healing from all the divisions in our society? I have not had a chance to even interview Jan. I sent him a letter once and he did not respond. So maybe he does not want to be interviewed. But how does he feel, do you think, with respect to the nation part? I know he- JW (02:03:56): Jan has to speak for himself. I will say that if you read with care all the references to Jan Scruggs and- JW (02:04:02): Read with Care, all the references to [Jans Drugs] in this book, 'Touched With Fire', 'The Long Gray Line', and in the books he has written. Go to the website for vvmf.org and read his stuff. You will get a take on his attitude. It is a solid and faithful soldiers had to. It is all one could ask of the American soldier. SM (02:04:25): Yeah, well, we brought them to Westchester for our wall that heals. I did not mention we brought the Traveling Wall. We had over 6,000 people who came and quite a few veterans after midnight. The Women's Memorial, obviously Diane Carlson Evans has played a very important role. I have gotten to know her too. I interviewed her for the book. But, a lot of the movements from the (19)60s, whether it be the Civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, women were put in secondary roles. Were women thought of when the original Vietnam Memorial was built? Because it is my understanding, Diane had to really battle to get that in the beginning before Congress to even get them to think about building the Women's Memorial. JW (02:05:11): In the book, 'Touched with Fire', you will find the first part answers that. Several women have written and you can Google this idea. Out of the anti-war movement came the women's movement. The idea of standing up as women came out of the anti-war movement. That is point one. That is actually grace from Vietnam. There is a sense in which women came to the front of the bus and the war fighters were put in the back of the bus for that to happen in a great and poetic cultural sense. That is great. That is okay. We are fine. I mean, you take the war fighters and say, "Go back to the back of the bus." We were disenfranchised. They were treating us like niggas, but we were still back there remembering how great it was in Vietnam and what were they going to do, send us to Vietnam. The bus was still air-conditioned. I am making a joke. But in a sense, we went to the back of the bus while they got to the front. That is what the women were doing. In large it was a good thing. Second, it was, women were absolutely key in getting the Vietnam veteran memorial belt. And the women will tell you they were not in the back of any bus. We were out there in the slop wrestling with Webb. But the real efficient, practical work was done by the gals. Sandy Oriole is one. She could tell you about the other women on the Memorial fund, but she was our lead fundraiser. I mean, the gals were, and do not forget it was a woman who won the design kind. All the productive work. SM (02:06:48): Yeah, Linda Goodacre. JW (02:06:50): The women, no, not Linda Goodacre. SM (02:06:52): Glen. JW (02:06:53): The Women's Memorial was Linda Goodacre, but Maya Lynn designed the Vietnam one. I am just saying if you look at it, the guys were out there. We were like pigs in slops doing whatever with inefficient things there to, we were just basically keeping the barbarians at base so the women actually did the productive, effective work of fundraising and designing it. Did anybody notice that the creative and sustained work? I am just saying this, if you unfold the memorial story, by the way, they gave as God as they go. I mean, the people, when Sandy Foreoll was speaking at meetings about what Webb and Parole was doing, we had to restrain her man, and she was all set to go hurt him. So I am just saying, if you want women's liberation, it was happening right there. It is a good part of the story. Absolutely. However, on to his great credit, and everybody should be proud of this, the minute the women came, [Janus Greg] said, "We will help you." I did too. Then a lot of people wanted to burn us at the stake, beat us over our head and shoulders. But we did not notice any difference because we already were already being burned at the stake and beat around the head and shoulders because they did not like the design to begin with. So the fact that we were helping the women with the statue, we could not tell the pain threshold was beyond noticing the difference. I am just making a Walter's joke. To his credit he supported it. So did I. SM (02:08:21): What is amazing is that... JW (02:08:22): We testified, you could go hear, we went and testified together. SM (02:08:27): From knowing Lewis in that timeframe when Bill Clinton came to the wall with the bringing Kim folk to the wall, and all the speakers that have been brought in, the entertainers that have been there, to me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and the people that were involved in the wall have been the greatest advocates for healing in this entire nation. I have witnessed it as a non-veteran who sits there and watches it and I had conversations with Lewis about it. Even again, he was really pushing for Bill Clinton to come because he felt it was important. He was also reaching out to Vietnam and helping the warriors in Vietnam. JW (02:09:06): Is there a question here? SM (02:09:07): The question is, to me, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund seems to be one of the leaders in the healing within the nation, period. JW (02:09:17): It is not the fund or the wall. It is grace. That is the better door to go in, I think. Because we are just human beings, but it is grace. From a scientific point of view, that is an anthropological point of view, the wall is a liminal place. L I M I N A L. It is a liminal place. It is a phenomenon that happens in human tribes. It is a way of saying it is a sacred place. I will give you an example. At the dedication. Jan and I were alone after the speeches. We were alone. By the way, president Reagan did not come to the dedication. It was too controversial. He came two years later when we dedicated the statute, but he did not come to the dedication of the wall. We were alone in a sense. So what? We were alone in Vietnam too. You know what I mean? We were soldiers and young, so to speak. And what Jay and I both noticed was even though there were maybe 112 or 150,000 people around us, we were walking along the top of the wall so we could look over to our right. It was almost as silent as the room that we were in 150,000 people. Then Jan turned to me and said, when we die, there is going to be a heck of a party. My wife saw it on TV. She saw everybody going to the cathedral to read names. John Walker, the Bishop of Washington, gave us permission to do that. It is in the book 'The Long Gray Line'. My wife was in Washington. She is an Episcopal priest. My wife at the time, not my current wife. This is my wife Lisa. There was a divorce because the wounds in the family that went with my daughter's birth defect and my selfish dedication to the wall. I took myself away from my family, ended the marriage. I did not have a family meeting saying, I am going to do this. I did not give them a vote. That was selfish. But when we were married, she looked at the names being read at the cathedral and she said, just was just out of the blue. I was not even paying attention because I was so tired. Matter of fact, I was so tired that week I could finally de-stress from a hard three years. And I did not know that I had seven more years of fight to go because Jim Webb and Ross Perot and John McCain were going to spend the next three congresses trying to sneak through changes of the design. Yes, they did. But the manager here made me a sandwich. The club with clothes. SM (02:12:59): You can eat it. JW (02:13:00): No-no. I will get it. But I am just saying it was the same thing. He went himself and personally made it because the whole town was filled with veterans. And I just came here to be alone, just like we are now. God bless him to that manager. I lost my train of thought. I was talking about my wife. I was so tired. SM (02:13:32): We are good through at four. What time is it now? JW (02:13:40): Yeah, 10 till 10 past three. My wife turned to me and I could not go to sleep. You know when sometimes you are so tired, you cannot go to sleep. I was just zoned out. She was watching the reading of the names, which was very moving. I was grateful for it and the president finally just, the president grabbed the first lady and they went to the cathedral. I was so grateful to John Walker and God bless him. He died too young. So what I am saying is that in this mood, just out of the blue, she says that you are going to heaven, Jackie. SM (02:14:28): You are going. No, just you are. I know personally the effect that it had on Vietnam veterans in my community, two in particular, who until we brought the traveling wall, when Jan came, they had never had the courage to even go to Washington. They told me point-blank, they were not going to even walk over. But the day that Jan was there, we had our greatest crowds in the evening because of classes. But we had the ceremony outside with the president of the university and the mayor and we had Vietnam veterans and their kids speaking and Jan spoke. We had country Joe. But over in the corner along the wall by the science building, I saw both of them. They were emphatic that they were not ready yet. That is as close as they came. They did not walk up to the wall but, that is another thing. `When I left the university, one of them thanked me for the wall. Jan Scruggs and what you have done is just, to me, the most important thing within the boomer generation. To me, it is the most important thing that is ever happened within the boomer generation. You cannot define, in my opinion, the boomer generation without talking about Vietnam. As Paul [Creshlow] says, it was the watershed moment in everyone's life. So Paul said to me, he said, I felt I wanted to be part of the most important happening in my lifetime, that watershed moment. That is why he served in Vietnam. Even the anti-war people and all the other things. The war is the center court. So I do not ever have a chance to say thanks to Jan Scruggs and all the people that were involved like you. But to me, in my life as a non-veteran who deeply cares about Vietnam veterans, it is the most important thing that ever happened in my life. I am not even a veteran. I come to the wall and I bring students to the wall because I know how important it is. When you see those names, it is just unbelievable. I read books and every time there is a Vietnam veteran whose name is mentioned, who passed away in this book or that book or that book, I go to the wall and look the name up. There must be a couple hundred names that I do not even know who they are except the fact they were in books. One of the conversations that I think this book is tremendous, I wish they would reprint this book. In fact, I mentioned to James Fallows when I interviewed him, I said, what would be greatest to bring all these people back together again that are in the symposium? And he said, and James Fallows said, I would be willing to do it. I know Bobby Mueller real well and I know actually Phil Caputo, he is out in Arizona right now. What I am getting at here is I would like your responses to some of their commentaries back when this was written, this came out in (19)81. You make a comment, you make a statement to a quote here that I think is very important because you praised James Fallows. There are too many guys in our generation who do not understand how the war shaped them. Unlike Jim Fallows, and I said this to Mr. Fallows when I interviewed him, and you praise him and others that he admitted he was wrong. He admitted that he was a coward to evade the draft the way they did it, and not protest against them. It is not like protesting against the war. It was evading the draft. He feels guilty about it and he does not. I am not saying he feels guilty now, but he was [inaudible] JW (02:18:46): There was an article, what did you do in the [class war draft]? But he did. He stood up to it right manfully. SM (02:18:53): Your thoughts on that? Did you think that many within the generation did that or was he still a rarity? JW (02:18:58): Jim? Jim is exceptional and a rarity. SM (02:19:02): Too many did not. JW (02:19:03): He is one that the Rhode Scholar people got, sometimes they miss before they got it right when he became a Rhode Scholar. He makes that program look good. You know what, you can knock Jim Fallows. Just do not knock him around me. SM (02:19:19): He respects you. I am telling you and he actually respects Jim Webb too. He mentioned that and, I have a comment from Jim Webb. JW (02:19:26): Well, that is right. You better respect Jim Webb and you better watch out for his right hook. SM (02:19:32): He mentioned something when we were talking about that this, when you look at the Vietnam generation, it is a generation of service. It was a generation that went into the Peace Corps. It was a generation of Vietnam veterans who went to serve the nation. It is a generation that went in volunteers in service to America. It is a generation and then he said, hold it. Hold it. I think one of the weaknesses of the boomer generation is that they are not a generation of service because they avoided the war. He brings up the reasons why in his own-own way. So when you talk about the (19)60s generation as a generation of service, yet Jim Webb challenges that idea. What do you think of Jim Webb's thoughts? JW (02:20:33): Could you restate the question? SM (02:20:37): I think what Senator Webb was saying at the time is that we all look at the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and the gen and boomer generation that grew up after World War II as a generation that was really involved in service. It is one of the characteristics, the qualities, whether it be service by serving in Vietnam or serving in the Peace Corps, or volunteers in service to America or alternative service. Or at least for those who were consciousness objectors, doing alternative service for two years in a very hard way like a couple of my friends did in Newfoundland that would have qualified. But he says, too many avoided the war through avoiding the draft. So the generation has such large numbers avoiding service and they should have fought in the war. Cause what he is really saying. Thoughts on that? JW (02:21:46): First, Jim is right. He has still got one shot for his right hook. It is a combative statement, but he is right. That is the first thing. Second, he is touching on something fundamental. People who have lost the most from not going into service, as Jim said, were those who have made that choice themselves. Those good things they could have done, the people they helped did not benefit from their service, but they themselves suffered most. That is why I use this quote and why this is called 'Touched with Fire.' SM (02:22:44): Pull it right there in the front. SM (02:22:45): Yes. JW (02:22:48): You do not have to read it. I am just pointing to this quote. You either enter the action of your time or there is a sense of which you have not lived. So the real loss was for those who made that choice. By the way, not all of them made some kind of selfish choice. Many had no choice to me, many were drafted. That was not choice and yet they stood too and served with their fellows, a lot of them are on the wall. There were many women who were treated like women in the (19)50s where they did not have much choice. That is cruel. Our society in ways was cruel to women in the (19)50s. Thank God for Catherine McKinnon and the women who did lead and still lead the women's movement. Many people did not have a choice. We were so fortunate, those of us who could go to West Point or Annapolis to be able to choose. Then there is something deeper, and I will tell you who taught me this, it was Elliot Richardson, God bless him. SM (02:23:57): Died about a year ago. JW (02:23:59): Yes. You must read the essay, the Moral Equivalent of War. Google it and read it. SM (02:24:10): He wrote it? JW (02:24:10): No, it is a classic. It is not a Holmes but embarrassed. It is a classic. You read it, the Moral Equivalent of War. Google it, it turned the century. Elliot pointed me to it because war evokes the deepest signatures of grace actually, and of sacrifice and of those things we are not just dying for, but living for of any human experience. Maybe even more than birth, maybe more than birth, because war's death. You must read it. Think about what Elliot was saying, just like I think about it. You will figure out what he was saying, he was saying you read that chapter. I put his name on the back of the wall. You know there is names on the back of the wall. SM (02:25:09): No, I did not know that. JW (02:25:14): Well, if you look in 'The Long Gray Line', there is a set of names. I thanked everybody that was significant in getting the wall bill. I called Jake carter Brown and said, I want to do this. But I said, if I have to ask permission, it will never happen. It will become complex. He said, this is Jake Carter of Brown, God bless you, Jake Carter of Brown on the telephone, chairman of the Fine Arts Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts. He says, "Oh I think it is like putting the builders in one of the cornerstones of the building? Do not you think, Jack?" And I said, "Well, sir, yes." And he said, " I think it would be perfectly routine." I was chairman of the board at that point. I said, "Yes, sir." I was on the phone and I said, "So there would not be a need for a hearing." "I would not think so, would you?" And I said, "No, sir." I make things up. I am not making that up. SM (02:26:32): Elliott Richardson, we all know him in history because he was resigned cause of... JW (02:26:36): Got that, got that. You go, you go do that work. How are we doing? It is 3:20. SM (02:26:36): I got a few more questions and you can eat your sandwich while we are here. Bobby Mueller, in that same discussion, talked about how disappointed he was in America, that the leaders had let us down, that he went into service. I wonder how many people who served at that time felt like Bobby with respect to, upon the return to America. There was a thinking that when you went to Vietnam, that America was always the good guy, but now that America's the bad guy. JW (02:27:26): Bobby was overreacting, but we were young. We were all overreacting. That is the way Bobby, God bless him, overreacted. It was a little too much. There was some truth in what he said. A sense of alienation was understandable because we were alienated. I mean like a good marine, since we were alienated, he figured out that he was alienated. But you overreact. It is a little bit much to ask a guy who was 25 years old or 31 years old at the time, to have a sense of growth, maturity and history. Especially when you have had the wounds he had. So he was putting his finger on some real truth. It is just that there was surrounding truth. Bobby. Bobby sees it, I think, in a larger context now. Was he right? Yes. Was it a little overstated? Maybe. SM (02:28:26): Yeah. JW (02:28:26): God bless Bobby. SM (02:28:27): Bobby was at my retirement party. I invited him and he came and it was an honor to have him there. We actually met him a couple times. What is interesting, I will never forget Phil Pipudo telling him at this session that you were at, he says, Bobby, you have a temper. If you remember that. He said, Bobby, you have a temper. It seems like today that there are efforts by the right conservatives to divide our nation by making references to the (19)60s and (19)70s for creating all the problems in our society today. With respect to the counterculture, the new left, the activists of many movements for creating the following, the drug culture, the divorce rate, the breakup of the family, the irresponsible behavior, the welfare state dependence on government of dissent mentality, which actually what Mr. Webb talks about in the book. Special interests, controlling ideas, and universities where various studies programs are being taken over by the troublemakers of the (19)60s. Phyllis Schley and David Horowitz said, but then the two talking about that universities today are run by the troublemakers of the (19)60s because they run all the studies programs from women's studies to gay lesbian studies, environmental studies, Native American studies, Black studies. Your thoughts on actually the people that made these comments, some of them were like, people like New Gingrich and Governor Huckabee and George Will and some of his writings and others. JW (02:30:14): It is all as American as Apple pie. If Ben Franklin and Abigail Adam, I would rather talk with Abigail before I talk with John. John Adams. I just think I would rather spend the afternoon having tea with the Abigail more than that. SM (02:30:31): Couple biographies out on her recently too. JW (02:30:33): She is pretty good. Yeah. Abigail was pretty good. And John, he could come along. My point is, if the Adams' were here and Ben Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, they had listened to everything you just said. The question you just said, and they said, well, it is working out. What do you think Tom? And Tom said, well, it is working out. It is working out. Of course, they are all sitting there knowing that Tom has got this thing going with Sally Hemings. But they are not going to mention that. I mean, I am just saying they are all human. We are all human. And they would say, well, it looks like it is working with the Republic. It looks like it is working out. What do you think? And they would say, yeah, Dolly Madison, I would love to talk with Dolly Madison as well as James Madison. I am saying they would look at everything and say, this is Americans apple pie. Chris, who knew what apple pie was and what America was? But I mean, that is how they look at it. Everything you have just said can be transformed by a mathematical formula so that it is the right sand. Well, they are beating us up from the left, and it is all working out. It is all just motor wrestling. And it goes with the system that was set up. Here is the biggest thing to remember about the very healthy condition that you defined. I see it as healthy. They just slinging and mud at each other. What the founding people did, some of the guys being well advised by their wives, and I am talking about Dolly and Abigail, just to start with. Betsy Ross, too, God bless her making the flag. Molly Pitcher, God bless them. Seriously, the whole generation that fought the revolution, the condition of controversy is just built into our republic, and it tends to work out okay. What they did in order to keep an envelope around everything, like a rocket ship has a steel shell or a metal shell, do not pierce that. The oxygen will leak out in the space and we will all die. I mean, we are a big rocket ship actually, as Buckminster Fuller says, we all are on a spaceship. It is called Earth. Be careful. Do not leak the oxygen out of our planet. There is some truth in that, but I... (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Wheeler Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Wheeler, John, 1944-2010 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans; Lawyers; Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Wheeler, John, 1944-2010--Interviews Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">John Wheeler (1944-2010) was an Army officer, consultant, lawyer, chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, senior planner for Amtrak, and CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He also was a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, a special assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, as well as serving as a presidential aide to the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. and George W. Bush administrations. Wheeler was a graduate from West Point, Harvard, and Yale.</span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-07-23 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource in copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.122a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.122b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 153:04 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bb1c66b9b4f27dc2a5b9b69e0c3cb5f8.jpg c25897177249e1c126d8a292ba47a827 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b2cc6c25e0a47d6406dd55bf3b33b6d2.mp3 15810a57710ab3d32b8c38dd39096fa9 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 2010-08-19 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tom Wells Language English Biographical Text Dr. Tom Wells is an editor, historian, and author. Dr. Wells wrote several books and contributed articles to multiple books on the Vietnam War and the 1960s. He has also received dozens of fellowships and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other institutions. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 216:23 Keywords Activism; Women Strike for Peace; Nineteen sixties; Anti-War Movement; SDS; Weathermen; Baby boom generation; Counterculture; Radicals; New left. Subject LCSH Editors; Historians; Authors; United States—History—1961-1969;Wells, Tom--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: Tom Wells Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 19 August 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Very good. Yeah. My questions are going to be specific questions. Some of them not directly linked to your book, but a lot of them are. I just, first off, I want to say your book is excellent. TW (00:00:16): Oh, well, thank you. SM (00:00:16): Yeah, because I lived it. I was a college student from (19)66 to (19)70, as an undergrad and I went off to Ohio State in 1970. So, I was on SUNY Binghamton campus and then Ohio State, and then I went right off to Ohio University that had purged a lot of the students out of their campus after Kent State. So, a lot of the stuff that you talk about just brings back all these memories. And we will get to the interview here in a second, but I am going to ask a question later on about Father Hesburgh and what he said about university presidents, which was really tremendous. But first question I have for you, you are a little bit younger, and I know you state this at the beginning of your book but tell me a little bit about yourself. How you became a history professor, kind of what the influences on your life, that drove you to become a history professor and your interest in the (19)60s. TW (00:01:14): Well, I am not actually a history professor. I am... SM (00:01:16): Sociology. TW (00:01:17): Independent. Yeah. I taught sociology individual courses for a while in the early (19)90s, the Bay Area at University of San Francisco, San Jose State in Mills College. But I was raised in Oregon and was not very political or scared, but I was part of the counterculture during particularly the early steps that belong, smoked a lot of pot, done a lot of drugs. And let us edit that to say, "took some drugs." But I was not very political. And I got to University of Oregon in, I was an undergraduate in 1970. 1974 was when I started because I took a year off after high school and I graduated high school. So, (19)74, and I took a class called Crisis in a Capitalist World, from Sir Marcus Gray. That and a bunch of other courses as a sociology major at University of Oregon, had a big impact on me and radicalized me politically. And I have been on the left since then. This was the (19)70s. And University of Oregon had a very political sociology department and a radical sociology department. So, the courses I took there had a big impact on my political views. And like I said, I have been pretty much on the left since then. Have not moved right. Well, let us take a step back. I mean, for a while I considered myself a sexist. SM (00:02:46): You consider yourself a what? TW (00:02:49): I considered myself a Marxist for a while. And this was the (19)70s, right? SM (00:02:53): Yes. TW (00:02:53): And mid-(19)70s and Red Lennon, et cetera. So, in that sense I would certainly, I would no longer consider myself a Marxist, but I am still on the left. So, in that sense, I have not the right word. And then when I was at Berkeley, so I went to Columbia two years as a graduate student and then I went to Berkeley after that, transferred. And when I went to Berkeley, I started getting interested in the anti-Vietnam war movement because I basically missed it, I did not participate. Like I said, I was not paying a lot of attention to it. I see some of the images on TV, but my parents, at least my father was Republican. Remember I mentioned in the book, I remember thinking George Govern was the one who was buying at 72, which is bizarre, because up to retrospect of everything I know about George Govern. He is a very decent man. And Richard Nixon is not, was not, but that is the perception I had. But then I got in at Berkeley, I got interested in the Vietnam War movement and I went to this conference at USC, in roughly (19)83 on the Vietnam board. It was a big conference and they had a lot of people, a lot of journalists, [inaudible], anti-war activist. And it was about some people from the government, I think. And it really had a huge impact to me, in getting me interested in Vietnam because I was just remember coming away from that thinking, "God, how did they get away with it?" Because I was just overwhelmed by the horror in the front and the fact that they did it. And so that really keeps... SM (00:04:26): In your opinion, when you look at the generation born between 1946 and (19)64, better known as the boomer generation, and I prefaced this by saying that I realize after my interview process, that both born between maybe (19)39 and (19)45 had the spirit of the (19)60s because many of them were the leaders. So, even though they were not listed within the boomers but what do you feel are some of the misperceptions that have been leveled at this generation by the media and the critics? TW (00:04:56): I do not know. Some of the perceptions that they are very self-historic and self-indulgent, have all sold out. I think one of the stereotypes, it is kind of partly a looking at Bill Queen, the hysterical helping son of baby boomers, and that sincerity he put forward there. This is the general idea that everybody became totally a naval gazer and then essentially sold out and sent started devalue. I know I think a lot of people did move to the right is my understanding. I do not know the date on the [inaudible] well all, but a lot of people have moved to the right. I think general consensus... SM (00:05:39): Kind of as a shoot off of that question is what are some of the facts that are often left out when criticism is sent toward the generation? Little known facts or deeds with respect to how important young people were in the anti-war movement. I have had people that I have interviewed that say very important without, and then I have had some people saying of minimal importance. Of course. TW (00:06:01): Well, student protest was central to the whole thing. I mean, what was happening on the Campus Central? They were a big part of the sense of a country coming apart at the seams, that a lot of people in the government, public. In some sense, they were a driving force. I mean there were just a lot of young people, activists, a lot of creative ideas and a lot of very artistic. I learned a lot about get some forest. A lot of younger people. I mean, some of the veteran leaders in the anti-war were older. People like Dave [inaudible]. SM (00:06:37): You are cutting off a little bit there. TW (00:06:41): Oh, they were older. But on the other hand, there were an awful lot of young people, very active and very determined. Some of them maybe went a little too far in terms of their tactics and their movement toward believing, that we needed to make a revolution to change things or where in fact we were headed towards the revolution. But nonetheless, a lot of people were very active, young people were very active and very important to the anti-war movement. I mean, I admire tremendously, a lot of people who were the younger people who were engaged by the way, but admired them for what they did, it is not easy. So, all right. Hard to follow. SM (00:07:19): In the same breath. I also ask what are some of the exaggerations on the part of the activists that are listed, as important to them? TW (00:07:29): I think there was too much, some of them... And I think to us, I think the number of people who were carrying NLS flagged by the number of people who were explicitly supporting [inaudible], but they were counterproductive in that sense. They turned off a lot of merits. I think that is exaggerated. SM (00:07:54): Right. TW (00:07:54): But I also think that a lot of this was maybe somewhat crazy, that people did. Some of them were ultra-left. It also played a role and it contributed to this fence in the government, which is a very real stance and worried them across quite a bit. The society was falling apart at the seam and things could get even worse. I mean that this thing could get, that the amount of turmoil could grow and really partake in. They did not like it when there were all these, what they saw as mobs surrounding the Pentagon, or just large mobs marching in the street. They were concerned and they were very concerned that the turmoils, will just get worse. And they did not like the sense that they were in dubious commands, that they knew that some Americans were getting tired of all the turmoil. The war was rising in the streets, and that was feeding into declining public support for the war. So, even some of the ultra-left stuff that people did that is certainly questionable and even somewhat crazy, it did feed into this general sense of society with some sense breaking apart at the seam. Officials did not like that at all. SM (00:09:02): Who were more important in the anti-war movement? We know the big names, the political leaders, the activists, the students who came to the forefront. Many of the Freedom Summer people became leaders later on in the late (19)60s, in many different movements and groups. But the well-known activists and leaders of the time, or the everyday activists who were no names in the movement. I bring this up because Benjamin Barber, Dr. Benjamin Barber has written about citizenry, what makes a strong nation. And his belief is that the stronger the citizenry and the less of a need for a leader, the better the nation is. But we do need strong leaders, but we also need strong citizens. Would you say that the anti-war movement or the war within, is really what Dr. Barber is saying, it is citizens who are really standing up? And Dr. King used to talk about this too, about the importance of we, and it is not just me. We all have the capability within us to be the change for the better in our society. And he talked about it all the time and in the civil rights movement to the, we know that the movement was made up of so many no names, that it would not have been a success without them. So, what I am really getting at here is how important were the people that were not known, as opposed to the people that were on the front pages? With respect to the importance in the anti-war movement? TW (00:10:32): Well, certainly the people who known were more numerous than people who were known. So, in that sense they were very important. But there was a lot of grassroots, anti-war activity that took place, by just everyday people that may in some book has not been covered as much as a more dramatic event. And I tried to convey that in my book. Things like the Quakers. A lot of the Quakers were doing a grassroots anti-activity very early on, before the war began in earnest. And they were lobbying Congress, they were just talking to their neighbors. They were doing very fun for local organizing and a group, I am thinking about when I say the Quakers, the French City on National Service Committee, and then also groups like Women's Strike for Peace, which they had a lot of meetings with their neighbors and I just sat and talked to people and maybe smaller events in their communities. But there was an awful lot of that and an awful lot of ordinary citizens got involved through those sorts of activities. And some of the people got involved with those sorts of local activities, were not particularly inclined to go to Washington for large national demonstrations. But there was a lot of that. And I think in some sense, in some accounts that sort of local grassroots activity by everyday people, have not been covered as much as it might be. SM (00:12:01): You have seen, you have taught college students over the last 20 some years. And I first asked this question back when I interviewed Senator McCartney in (19)96 because the Generation Xers were the group that made up the campus. Now it is millennials. TW (00:12:17): Yes. SM (00:12:19): But you have seen young people over the past 20 years who have either no feelings toward this period, or knowledge, or even interest in a time when boomers were young. In fact, in the early (19)90s there seemed to be two camps of college students. And I noticed this when we did programs at the university where I worked, between boomers and generation Xers. There seemed to be two camps. One camp was, "I am tired of hearing about this, you guys from the (19)60s, all you talk about is nostalgia and what it was like back then. It has no relevance to today." And generation Xers were pretty strong on that. And yet there were others who said, "Gee, I wish I lived then. I wish there were causes today like there were causes back then." So, there were kind of two camps. Am I right on there from your experiences too? These were... TW (00:13:08): What I found in my experience is, going through the (19)80s through to (19)90s is, a lot of the people that do not know much about the (19)60s, if they get interested and they start reading about it, a lot of them are very interested and very kind of taken aback by it and almost want to replicate it. I have seen people, I remember there was a guy, I was involved in an anti-intervention in US intervention in Central America Group at Berkeley, when I was a graduate student. And I remember there was another graduate student who was reading the book, [inaudible]. SM (00:13:40): Oh yeah, I have got a first edition. TW (00:13:42): Yeah, a very good book. And I remember he got really psyched up. I mean, he was ready to... It seemed to me that he was getting more militant as he was reading that book. But I feel that, yeah, there are students that I have talked to that, the ones that are curious about it and they start reading about it, they really find it quite interesting. And it is something to talk about. SM (00:14:08): Did you feel, and this is a strong feeling, that there was animosity between the Boomer generation and generation X? TW (00:14:18): I have never noticed that. I have not seen that. And unless it is just talking about generational conflict than their children, but I have not noticed that just more generally. I think in the way it is innocent, you are talking about. No, I have not noticed it. It is not to say it did not take place. I have not. SM (00:14:41): Right. I know that one of the things when President Nixon came into office, he said that he had a plan to end the war in six in (19)68, yet he kept saying, "We need PE." And then in the very end when the Paris Peace accords were taking place, he used these words that really infuriated Vietnam vets and many who had fought against the war for years, "Peace with honor." TW (00:15:04): Yeah. SM (00:15:04): The exact, and I say here, the exact words used after the Paris Peace Accords were signed. I prefaced this question with the fact that, his overall plan failed because his actions doubled the names on the wall in Washington, if you really look at it. TW (00:15:23): Yeah. I think his plan was to get out as slowly as possible and with his, as he put it, with his teeth going out last. He was still trying to win, but he was very constricted by opposition of the Vietnam War. I mean, he knew he could only take the desolation so far and he could not do everything he wanted to do militarily. And he was also concerned by whether he actually, some of the stuff had actually worked, if affectively Vietnam see enough. But he was going to go out slowly and he was going to [inaudible], but he could not do it. I mean, he got undercut. He was really undermined at the end. He was undercut all the time, I think. I mean, he was certainly inhibited, constricted by the anti-movement all the time. But at the end I think he was really undercut by his declining and authority in Congress as a result of the Watergate. They were going to give him as much as they were to give him if his credibility and his authority had to define his local war. SM (00:16:18): You talk about credibility with President Johnson winning in 1964, that, and as he said very early on, you bring it up in the book, "We are not going to send our boys to fight a war that Asian boys can fight." And obviously that was a big lie. And many people thought that he had betrayed the people that worked for his campaign and many of them were young people. Could you talk a little bit about that? Because that period, (19)64, (19)65 that you bring up in the book, it is like really the beginning of all these, the anti-war movement and with that is very strong. TW (00:16:54): Well, I think a lot of people felt betrayed by him after he escalated the war. And I mean he certainly was not being honest. And at a certain point he decided under the advice of the advisors that he had to escalate, basically because South Vietnam was going to hell. And he faced a real possibility of the South Vietnamese government crumbling and South Vietnamese army crumbling. So, he had to go in there. He was forced to go in there if he wanted to prevent South Vietnam from falling. So, he did. And I think a lot of people that supported him, felt afraid by that, felt betrayed by that. And I think a lot of people were probably fed into people's weariness of Huber Humphrey later in 19... SM (00:17:38): Right. TW (00:17:39): ... days. I think Humphrey had a hard time. And I think he had a hard time distinguishing his sufficiency, John. And I think Nelson did not want him to go too far out. John basically had up on a leash of his fence. But I think that people's feelings, failed by John probably fed in to some extent what Humphrey to do. And I think, so on the other hand, I mean Paul Warnke, who was in the Pentagon at the time, he said that Humphrey was not going to appoint Clifford. I forgot the positions. He said Humphrey was going to appoint him and Clark Clifford and I think more account, I am not sure, but definitely him and Clark Clifford, who were double figures. Later on, he said Humphrey's going to appoint him and Clifford to these high-level positions and they would have gotten out of Vietnam with him. Well, short ordered. Whether that is true or not, I am not sure. But if that is true, then we could have moved quite a bit. SM (00:18:33): You all speculate what? Because she cannot do this because you have to live history. You cannot just guess what might have been. But when President Kennedy was assassinated, depending on, I have read so much in preparation for the book that we have people that believe, well, because he was a cold warrior, he would have proceeded just like Lyndon Johnson in the end. And others who say, I think Sorenson, thinks that he would not have escalated. So, any thoughts on whether, how important... TW (00:19:05): I am not-not a Kennedy fan. I have never liked any of the Kennedy's. I mean Kennedy, like you said, was a cold warrior. So, I have never been particularly optimistic about Kennedy, what Kennedy would have done. He would not have fascinated there. My sense that he was the best swayed, well more like John, but I do not. But just generally, I am not a fan. I mean, he was a cold warrior. SM (00:19:28): When you look at all the personalities on both sides in America's battle over Vietnam, is there one or two on each side that truly defines the best they had to offer, opposition wise? TW (00:19:41): Well, there were a lot of them. The anti-war woman who, I mean talk people. I thought, what if you asked me, do I have any heroes? It is one of my heroes. Anybody who was active in the anti-war, particularly people who are very persistent in... SM (00:19:59): Well, and also, please speak up because somehow it cuts off here. TW (00:20:01): Oh, okay. SM (00:20:01): Yep. TW (00:20:04): I have tremendous admiration for anybody who was active in that movement, and particularly people who really stuck it out and just really dedicated, who were activists. And there were some people, but the problem is, I am probably going to mention some of the leaders who were more visible and maybe got a little more publicity, but some of the leaders were extremely dedicated people. Like I mentioned, Norma Becker earlier from the Fifth Avenue East Grade committee, who played such an important role in New York and also in some of the national mobilization committees. And people like Dave Ballinger, who was very important and very dedicated. And he was someone who had a connection to a lot of the more militant youth. And he was able to maintain, to bring some of the more radical youth into some of the actions that they were involved in organizing. And somebody like Sydney Peck, who was a very-very impressive guy. He was a professor, I think the case, Western Reserve University of Cleveland at the time. He was a sociology professor, and he was one of the main people in the National Mobilization Committee and extremely, extremely impressive guy. But there is so many people like that. I mean, David Hark, who was a Quaker activist and doing a lot of congressional lobbying, but also a lot of kind of Quaker style civil disobedience, a lot of that he was, and he is still active. And then on the government side, I do not know, I mentioned Paul Warnky, who was, I believe he was the assistant secretary of Defense for ISA, I believe. He played an important role in turning Clark Clifford against the war. And Clark Clifford played an important role in convincing Johnson that he had to do something in 1968. That he could not continue on the way they were going, and he certainly could not give, I think, attorney general, earl Wheeler was the chairman of the JF at the time, and he was asking for 200,000 more troops and Clifford and Johnson said, "That is politically impossible." And Johnson, eventually he did a partial farming hold and basically stabilized the ground war and decided that he was not going to run through re-election. So, warranty played a big role in turning Clifford, I think convincing Clifford, but just the war was not politically sustainable. So, somebody like Paul Warren fire a lot. And I know Paul Warnke was active later, I believe in the nuclear. And he is a nice guy. I mean, he is a genuinely nice guy too. He is somebody that stands out. SM (00:22:40): What is really interesting, if people like McGeorge Bundy that you talk about in the 1965 section of your book, when he came back from Plaku and his observations, if he had gone into the president and really pushed those observations on him, that would have been a lot. And also, the thoughts of Maxwell Taylor, who were their ambassador at that time. To me, if Taylor and Bundy, and I would like your thoughts on this, is that they had been more forceful and McNamara later on, that this thing just is not going to work. Do you think they had the ability to persuade that president? TW (00:23:16): Yeah, I do. If they were all taken up that campaign and really press at him. I think your question is a very good question because a lot, well, let us say several of the key players, they certainly noticed very early on this thing with him. And at best it was going to be a very long bloody affair. Very early on, I am talking, McNamara was one of the people I am thinking of, if they were to just went to Johnson and said, "Listen, it is pretty clear that the Vietnamese have enormous staying power and we can continue to escalate it, but this is going to be a long time before we have really a chance to turn this thing around. We may never be able to turn it around." If you had somebody like Rick George, very articulate, very intelligent guy, credentials, McNamara goes in there, McNamara is becoming very emotional about the war by this time. Very emotional. He goes down there and pleads his case to Johnson, some of these other folks. Yeah, I mean that is a very good point. Do not know why they did not do it. SM (00:24:17): See. TW (00:24:18): I do not know, but I think your question is an excellent question. SM (00:24:21): Well, you know what, I will add on to that question because if the anti-war movement knew in this very beginning stage, the feelings that those two men have, and you bring up very well that one of the issues is that they tried to hide a lot of things from the media and the public in general, that if that was known by the Ton Haydens of the world, or the Dave Dellinger's of the world and reach college campuses that were starting to protest, maybe that could have been a major, major influence to put pressure on the president to stop this. TW (00:24:52): Well, it could have also been a major influence on the public. SM (00:24:55): Right. TW (00:24:56): That is incredible ammunition that you could use to convince the public, that this thing is worth right. Saying, "Look, here is what these guys in private are saying about this." SM (00:25:08): Yeah, it is... TW (00:25:08): There is a terrible situation we are in here and the prognosis is horrible. That is what these guys are saying in public. So, I think that could have a tremendous influence on everything. SM (00:25:20): And we talk about as Schlesinger did, about the best and the brightest, and well, they may have been the brightest, but I do not think they were the best, that they did not do these kinds of things. On a scale of one to 10, and this is just, where would you place these groups in terms of helping and not hurting the anti-war protests? Or you could say whether they helped or hurt students for democratic society, before the weather? TW (00:25:45): Hey, very important, very important. I mean, like I said, students generally, were an engine for the anti-war movement and all this activity on college campuses. I mean, I think the younger people had a big influence on their parents and on the public in general. I mean, they were one of the things that led people to start to question the war. And a lot of students were in fact very articulate, very smart, and they learned a lot about Vietnam. And I think the fact that so many young people were protesting the war and were at least questioning the war, had a significant influence on other people generally. And again, they helped create this sense that politically the war was not, I mean, the country was going to hell in it. SM (00:26:30): Right. TW (00:26:30): Going to hell. SM (00:26:32): And also, the participatory democracy. I would like your definition of what participatory democracy is, because also, correct me if I am wrong, the Southern SNCC was based on participatory democracy. So, in reality, some of those people that were involved in going south, brought those ideas even back to SDS. Is that correct? TW (00:26:54): Yeah-yeah, that is true. Because there were a number of people in SDS, including in the leadership within South, the Civil rights department before. SM (00:27:01): Right. TW (00:27:02): So, you are right. That had a big impact. And I think what they were doing in SDS, I guess I would just call participatory democracy, democratic decision making at the grassroots level. Where everybody input at the [inaudible]. SM (00:27:18): The next group was the weatherman. TW (00:27:21): Well, even the weatherman, they did some crazy things. They were fairly nutty. I mean, they lost it, but on the other hand, they were tremendously affected by the war. I think they were extremely angered by what Nixon was doing and looked like John had done before. They were very frustrated that Nixon was still escalating the war at various points. They were very frustrated before that. During the Johnson administration, when the war steadily escalated, they were very angered and frustrated by the bombing of innocent people in Vietnam. Just tremendously torn emotionally about that. They just, again, tremendously frustrated that they did not seem to be having that great an impact in the government because the work continued to escalate. John's administration and Nixon administration first times escalated the conflict, and he was not withdrawing troop nearly as fast they wanted. So, they felt they had to up the ante. And a lot of the stuff they did was absolutely nutty. But on the other hand, the Nixon administration did not like this stuff at all. They did not like the militant protest any more than they liked the large demonstrations in Washington because they created the sense that the country was, that they were in doubtful command, that the country was falling apart. And again, they knew this was affecting other people. They were concerned about how much this would grow. They were concerned about terrorism generally but concerned that the White House could be the next target. They were concerned for their personal safety, and they were concerned for their personal safety during some of these demonstrations in Washington. We had large crowds outside the White House. So, they did not like the militants. They did not like the militants a bit. I mean, I think they liked it when people looked little. I think they thought it was better for them, when some of the protestors looked unsavory and maybe some of the long hairs. I think it was better for them, if you had long hairs, tanning some crazy things, and if you had more mainstream looking people out there, but on the other hand, they did not like it. They did not like it, they did not like these mobs, and they did not like the nortons and they were concerned it was going to get worse and they were concerned it was, for the government and for themselves. SM (00:29:23): How about the Black Panthers and the Young Bloods? I put the Young Bloods in there, the Puerto Rican group. Because they kind of looked up for the Black Panthers and kind of did about the same thing. Were they violent? TW (00:29:34): Well, I mean, I think the Panthers whole thing was in the self-defense and they were going to arm themselves and that they were going to respond at the fact. I think they were certainly part of this current stuff, that we were moving towards a revolution, and they were going to play a role in it. But certainly, my knowledge of the Panthers is not great. But I think they also have a lot of social service programs that they were involved in, local levels in their communities that were valuable activities. But some of their rhetoric I think, was a little nut though. SM (00:30:13): How about the American Indian movement, which was a (19)69 to (19)73 whirlwind? TW (00:30:20): Yeah, well that was certainly part of this old current of National Liberation Movement, ethnic protests and just a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people were learning about the history of this country and the history of their racial oppression in this country. And a lot of people involved in the anti-war movement through the process of being radicalized, or through the process of participating in the Civil Rights movement, felt they should also involve supporting Black people and Native American [inaudible]. So, I think there is part of this whole political way thing, as invited support nationally. SM (00:31:01): How about the Vietnam veterans against the war? SM (00:31:02): How about the Vietnam veterans against the war? TW (00:31:04): Well, I think they had a credibility that maybe some other people did not, because they had actually fought the war. And they had more than one fairly dramatic protest where they were trying to basically bring the war home in a dramatic way, but not in an ultra-left way, where they were doing very specific guerilla theater. They had a very dramatic protest in, I think it was April or May 1971, where they had a series of activities in Washington at the same time there were other protests going on. But they had a very dramatic event where they returned their metals, their war medals to the government. And I think that was a very emotional experience for a lot of vets who return their war medals. And I think that they had a credibility with some people that maybe the other people in the anti-war movement did not. And I know that it was very gratifying to some anti-war activists that finally vets were really coming out, were in full force, because there was a lot of effort in the anti-war movement to organize active-duty service persons. SM (00:32:14): Yeah, they were not treated very well on college campuses upon their return. TW (00:32:21): Veterans? SM (00:32:22): Yeah, veterans. And Ron Kovic comes to mind as a very vocal member of that particular group. I think Bobby Muller was in that group as well. TW (00:32:31): Yeah, he was. SM (00:32:33): But boy, Kovic was a national person regarding the efforts of VVAW. How about the Young Americans for Freedom? A group that has not really talked about that much. A conservative group that was against the war, but their influence as conservative activists. TW (00:32:52): Oh, I did not know the Young Americans for Freedom were against the war. I thought they supported the war and I thought that... I must be wrong. But I thought that that is one of the conservative youth groups that the Nixon administration was supporting and fostering their activity. I know the Nixon administration was working with the College Republicans and the Young Republicans and other conservative youth groups in Detroit as part of its effort to basically surface pro-war sentiment, try to politically isolate the anti-war movement. And I thought Young Americans for Freedom was one of the sort of groups that supported it. SM (00:33:35): Think that Tom Hawkins was one of the leaders of that group. TW (00:33:38): Yeah, I remember the name. SM (00:33:40): And I interviewed him. He has got another book coming out. He wrote a book about the Vietnam War. But that is Buckley's group, and they started basically at his home, I think. But when I interviewed Lee Edwards, Lee Edwards said that people who write about the anti-war movement always exclude the YAF, because they were against the Vietnam War. TW (00:34:06): I did not know that. And there was an organization, Tom Huston, who was a Nixon aide, an ultra-conservative Nixon aide, and was pushing for the more oppressive stuff the Nixon administration talked about. I thought, "Who was that?" I thought Young Americans... I may be getting mixed up with another group. SM (00:34:22): Well, I think there is a book coming out on them. So actually, it is, Ron Robinson is writing a book on the Young Americans for Freedom. TW (00:34:29): Oh, are you are sure that they opposed the Vietnam War? SM (00:34:34): According to Lee Edwards. The other ones did not. Tom Hawkins, he was just in the group. But Lee Edwards is the historian in Washington, and I believe he is at the American Enterprise Institute, and I believe he is the one that says when they talk about the Vietnam War, they always exclude the YAF. And then he said, I have it on the interview, that they did not support that war. TW (00:34:58): I did not know that. SM (00:35:00): So, the other two groups are the National Organization for Women and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Those two groups. TW (00:35:07): Yeah, I probably would not be your best source on either of those. I know something about them. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was not [inaudible] involved in that? SM (00:35:20): Yes. TW (00:35:22): Yes. And I think James Bevel was involved in that. And I think there were other leaders from that organization that were active in the anti-war movement. And of course, it was such a big thing when Martin Luther King came out against the war in 1967. That was a big step for the anti-war movement. SM (00:35:39): You bring up in your book a really good quote that I had never heard before. It was about H. R. Haldeman's thoughts on protestors. And if you could explain a little bit more about it, here is the quote, in your book, "H. R. Haldeman thought of protestors as people who want to get excited about something and they really do not give a darn what it is they are excited about." But then you bring up, or someone else brings up, I have got a quote here, that "Haldeman failed to grasp the essence of a working democracy. That a good many people do indeed want to get excited about something because they have the audacity to think that the government is theirs." TW (00:36:18): Yeah, I think that might have been Todd Gitlin's quote from the introduction. SM (00:36:20): Yes. TW (00:36:23): See, the Nixon administration, like the Johnson administration was very concerned about the anti-war movement and very concerned about student protests. And they were putting their heads together, so to speak, and trying to figure out what was going on and what were the sources of all this protest. And they came up with various theories. And they really misread the roots of protests. I mean, they had various theories, like Haldeman, they just want to get excited about something and they do not care what it is. Or Waskow had a theory that a lot of the protestors came out for what he called the soft subjects. And then these people in the hard subject of sciences, they did not have the same trouble fitting in, but a lot of people in the soft subjects were having hard time fitting into society, were challenged by it. So, they felt challenged by the complexity of society. And because they could not handle it, they were rebelled. And a lot of people felt that this whole movement was being supported, funded, and in some cases even orchestrated by communists, so to speak. And they felt that Moscow was behind a lot of student protests. But they had a lot of theories about protests, Kissinger had theories that permissive child-rearing practices were partly responsible for the protests. That they were self-indulged and that they had been raised by overly permissive parents. SM (00:37:56): Dr. Spock. TW (00:37:58): Yeah. And so, they had a lot of different theories about it, and partly because they spent an awful lot of time discussing this and sending memos back and forth about what people in the Nixon administration called the youth problem. And they came up with these theories. And a lot of people thought it was strictly draft protests, that basically kids were protesting because they're afraid of dying in Vietnam. They did not want to go to Vietnam. So, they had a lot of theories. But the fact is that the motive force of the anti-war movement was potentially oral opposition to what the government was doing in Vietnam. And because the government felt that what they were doing was right, that is not an explanation that is going to resonate to them. It is not the kind of explanation they're going to embrace over some of these others. SM (00:38:46): The one word that always comes out when I see these things and throughout your book, and all the other books I have read about the anti-war movement, is somehow on the side of the politicians or the government or whatever, is they just cannot believe that people were genuine. I use that word. I mean, that is really them. They really believe the war is unjust. And so, is this part of the problem here that they always thought that there must be another motive, that these people were not truly genuine when they were protesting the war? TW (00:39:23): I think they were maybe too eager to look for sinister and unsavory and unattractive impulses. And I think you are right. The fact that they were so convinced it was a just cause. And Nixon felt, "I am getting out of here, I am getting out of Vietnam. Do not they understand that? What is wrong with these people? Do they take too many drugs?" I think there was a real generation gap there between people in the government and the people outside, the young people. And I think Nixon had his aides feed him articles on student protests and even on deadly arms used on student protest. He wanted to read about this stuff, and he did not understand it. But I think he was frustrated by the fact that there was this big gap, that so many young people did not like him. I think he was very frustrated by that. And that was probably one of the reasons he went out that one time in the early morning hours before one of the protests in Washington, he cannot sleep at night. He goes out there to the Lincoln Memorial where the protesters gather, and he tries to relate to these young kids. And I got this one picture in the book... SM (00:40:43): Yeah, I saw, and he looked... TW (00:40:44): See them looking at him like, "Who is this asshole?" SM (00:40:49): His facial expression is pretty bad too. TW (00:40:51): Yeah, he looks... But I think he was frustrated by that, at least according to some of his aides, that he was not able to connect with young people. But at a certain point he concluded. But it is amazing how much attention they did pay to what they called the youth problem. And how much effort they put into trying to understand the roots of it and why students were protesting, what was behind all the following. SM (00:41:19): I have always thought, and I would like your thoughts too, that here we had a president in Johnson that had two daughters who were boomers. Or one might have been a little older than a boomer. And then we had Nixon who had two daughters and a son-in-law who were boomers. Did they ever talk to any of those five about their thoughts on the war, and it is like they are in the shadows? TW (00:41:47): It is funny. That is true. Because I do not remember hearing anything, really. I remember hearing about Nixon's daughter and certainly associating them with not protesting, not being countercultural in any way at all. It has been projected from the photos of them. And then Johnson, I do not remember anything about his kids, but there were a lot of government officials, in both administrations, Johnson's and Nixon's, who had kids who opposed the war and went out for protests. A lot of them did. That was a problem. I mean, to have their kids questioning the war. And Robert McNamara's son was strongly opposed to the war. SM (00:42:29): Yeah, I am trying to interview him. I just sent him an email. TW (00:42:33): Oh, well you should because he is good. It is amazing to me in retrospect that Craig McNamara, he was in prep school, I think he was 15, say in (19)65. And so, he was not that old. So, I think his father could probably, might have, to some extent written him off. Because he was too young to know better, so to speak. But I think it was also very painful for Robert McNamara that his son, his only son, was so strongly disapproving it what his father was doing in Vietnam. And I remember later, Craig McNamara... You really should talk to him, at this point. SM (00:43:17): I sent him an email to him and to Michael Fervor. I have not heard from him. TW (00:43:20): Oh, well he is good too. And they are both nice guys. So, he will probably... I do not know what, they are both nice guys and I hope you can talk to both of them. But Craig McNamara, Robert McNamara is going crazy there because the thing is it is not working out. And he had no idea that the Vietnamese were going to beat his plan, and all this bombing did not seem be doing anything. And he is getting criticized left and right for all the people who are getting killed as a result of his policy. He has got various liberal friends have turned against the war and are disapproving. And his own son. And not only his own son, but he had one or more daughters who were opposed to the war too. So, talk about a sense of speech. But there were a lot of other government officials, I mean a lot of them, who had kids opposed to the war and would come out and protest, that were active in protest. I remember Paul Nitze was a senior Pentagon administration official, pretty conservative. SM (00:44:19): Correct. TW (00:44:20): Real cold warrior. A quintessential cold warrior. Right. Paul Nitze. And he told me he was the mastermind for the planning of the defense of the Pentagon during the big protest at the Pentagon October of 1967. He had three or three of his kids out there, Nitze's up in the Pentagon. He has got three of his kids out there in that crowd protesting. But there were a lot of kids. I remember I was really struck by a guy named, just briefly, Marshall Green. He was a senior State Department official guy during the Nixon administration. And he was very emotional talking about his kids, his son, being opposed to the war. And after the invasion of Cambodia in 1970, his son, Green's, comes back from something. He comes back from Oregon, Green's son just condemns him and condemns his government's policy, administration's policy. He says, "I do not want to see you again." He just took off, and to think that he was literally driven to the brink of suicide. You really were. So, he was really emotionally wrought up over what the war was doing to his side of the camp. SM (00:45:29): Yeah. He is involved in the environment in California too, I think. Craig, he has got a really nice farm. Walnuts and vegetables and educating people about quality food. And I am not trying to link up with him. Maybe some people just do not want to talk about it anymore, but... TW (00:45:51): I just remember when I contacted him, he is the kind of person that is worth pursuing and he is a decent guy. And I remember he did not respond the first time. I sent him a letter and he did not respond. And I called him, and then once I got him on the phone, he was fine. And then I went out and interviewed him. But he was one of the people I had to call. If memory serves right, and I did not know about your experiences, but my experience with interviewing people for books, with a huge number of people. You got to call them, they do not respond to letters, and you get them on the phone. SM (00:46:20): Yeah-yeah. I have got some that respond. I do all mine in emails, but some respond. But they all say, "Well, geez, I just happened to see your email. I only look at it once every six months." Oh, my goodness. And then you cannot get ahold of them again after they have read it the one time, they say yes. I have got something here. Really what you have been talking about here is that Nixon and Johnson both misunderstood the antagonist, really. TW (00:46:46): Right. SM (00:46:47): But I remember that from the book. And they attributed the anti-war people to sinister external forces like the Communist Party, I think. TW (00:47:00): Yeah. SM (00:47:01): And character flaws. I remember that you said too. TW (00:47:04): Well, I remember Johnson one time said, he referred to some FBI reports that a lot of protestors had previously spent time in mental institutions or something like that. Yeah, how seriously can you take something like that. But they had some pretty wild ideas, but they were just very reluctant, I think, to acknowledge the primary motivation behind it. SM (00:47:27): Well... TW (00:47:27): The protest was simply moral opposition. SM (00:47:30): I want to ask a question to you because I think, again, you bring it up in the 1965 chapter. But the importance of the (19)50s played in shaping a lot of the boomer kids, or I would say young adults, particularly a quote here, and I want to put this on the record, if it is okay? And whenever I do this, I make sure you are going to see the transcript, as everybody will, that I interviewed, but you are talking, and his name is Doug Dowry, a Cornell University professor? TW (00:48:02): Yeah, he was great. SM (00:48:03): Yeah. And I want to read this, just for the quote, "Like other radical organizers who had gone through the political deep freeze of McCarthyism, he was basking in the warmer political climate." And I am just reading this for the record, if it is okay." All of a sudden it seemed to me that what I always thought would be impossible, namely a large-scale movement against a war that your country was in, began obviously to take hold. It seemed to me that was absolutely amazing. I was teaching at Berkeley during the Korean War. Jesus Christ, you could not get anybody to say anything against the Korean War. Everybody was scared shitless to identify themselves as being against the war because it meant quite obviously that you must be a ranking member of the Communist Party. In fact, I was accused of exactly that. So, to me, 10, 12 years later and the anti-Vietnam thing, all of a sudden it just seemed obvious that something was happening that was absolutely brand new. And I began to feel very different about the possibilities of the politics of the mid (19)60s. I really can remember that it was though spring had arrived after a very, very long fucking winter." TW (00:49:10): Yeah. I think that would certainly be true of a lot of the older activists, that had gone through the (19)50s. But I think it was very inspiring, invigorating to suddenly be part of something so big. And I think Doug there was partly talking about the spring of 1965, where protests and the teaching movement just spread, mushroomed, spread from campus to campus. And basically, the whole of campuses across the country were just alive with debate on Vietnam. And I think then the first national demonstration against the war, of course, at the same time, and SDS organized it. So, I think it was very invigorating and very just overwhelming for a lot of people. That when they saw the anti-war would take off like that, that so many people suddenly getting active. I think a lot of people saw a lot of potential at that point. Very exciting. SM (00:50:07): He also said, "So all of a sudden you get all these young guys, and a lot of it was fraudulent and a lot of it was in fact self-defeating. Nevertheless, their exuberance got sucked into everybody's spirit. It was a time of real anger, but also real hope." And I would like your thoughts on this, because I think even today, and people that have been outspoken against the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan, particularly when they make references to the Vietnam era, are really criticized. And this is something that again, he says about when he was a professor, "By the time when the mid-(19)60s came along, I had been at Cornell for a dozen years or more and had been very, very unpopular there because I was sort of outspoken. I used to give a lecture on why socialism was necessary in the United States every year, and everybody thought it was kind of loony. All of a sudden at Cornell in the mid-(19)60s, I was no longer a strange person. I was either someone who was being involved with a lot of other people moving in that direction, or I was a hated person." Do you feel that people that have been speaking up, because you have not only written about the (19)60s, but you are a professor in a university. And you have taught that today, people that were speaking up during the Bush years against the Iraq war early on, felt like that? TW (00:51:28): See, there were some tremendously large demonstrations that began. The first Iraq war, and we could go back to the Gulf War in (19)91. There were huge demonstrations. And a number of these, very large demonstrations, that I think people tend to forget that. And I am sure that was just tremendously satisfying, invigorating, and exciting for a lot of people involved in that. I think part of it was that in Iraq, first off, it did not drag on. It was over quickly. The first call for it was basically bomb the shit out them, then go in there and mop up. And Americans of course did not die in anything close to the numbers they died in Vietnam. So, I think it is different situations than Vietnam. And I think the second Iraq war, which is still going on, but also has not involved American deaths on anywhere near scale. SM (00:52:35): 4,000 plus. TW (00:52:39): Not the scale of what took place in Vietnam. And I think it is as much there is no draft, right? SM (00:52:47): Um-hmm. TW (00:52:48): No draft. So, I think it is a much more difficult situation to sustain that kind of movement. Plus, you are talking about all these factors that fed into the student protests during the 1960s. But you're probably much more well versed than I am at this point. But all these different factors that could say, I mean, wait a second. Just like the fact we had a baby boomer generation and all these people in institutions of higher education. And all these people in a place where they can learn stuff which would lead them to protest. So, you did not have that demographic later on, too. SM (00:53:21): It seems to me, one of the questions that I asked Jack Wheeler III, who wrote Touched with Fire, he is one of the veterans that was written about in the Long Gray Line book, the class of (19)66 at West Point. Let us see, I just lost my train of thought here. It was a question. Oh, Steve, what were you thinking? I will get back to it. I lost my train of thought. I do not usually do that. I got off my questions here and I am got an order here and I do not know.... TW (00:53:55): It has come to me recently; it is kind of like... SM (00:53:57): Yeah, I have my questions here, but I was thinking of Jack Wheeler and... TW (00:54:01): Is something about it wrong? SM (00:54:05): No, oh, it was about the generation gap. And the fact is that there is a book called, it was a book that came out around 1980, and they had a symposium in which Phil Caputo, Jack Wheeler, James Fallows, Susan Jacoby, they were all involved in this panel. And they talked about the generation gap. And I would like your thoughts on this. The generation gap was not as strong as people said between the parents, the World War II people, and their kids. And they brought up, I think it was Senator Webb, he was not a Senator then, Jim Webb, who said that the real generation gap was within the generation, it was between those who served in the war and those who did not. TW (00:54:59): There is both, I would think it would have been very depressing for a lot of parents when their kids are suddenly growing their hair long and are criticizing their government's policies and experimenting with drugs. And then there is some music that their parents are not into, I think that would be, I am sure it was very perplexing for a lot of parents. And somewhat frightening for some parents. And probably contributed to a lot of distance between parents and their children at that time. But I am sure there were also plenty of relationships between parents and their kids. But they just had close relationships. But they were able to talk through a lot of this stuff. And a lot of the parents, I mean, I say a lot, but certainly some of the parents were influenced by their kids and maybe participated to some extent themselves in various alternative lifestyles. So certainly, some of those, one of the themes among younger militant youth was questioning your parents, maybe rejecting your parents, and rejecting the whole establishment. So, there were a lot of divisions and a lot of distance, a lot of perplexity. SM (00:56:19): What are your thoughts though, of the generation gap, as Jim Webb said. That the (19)60s’ generation is often defined by what John Kennedy used to talk about, "Ask, not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." So thus, there is an expectation amongst many who served in Vietnam that one of your duties is to serve. When you are called to war, you serve. And then there is also the Peace Corps and Vista and alternative service. If you did not believe, if you are a conscientious objector, you still did alternative service. And he said he believes that when you talk about the (19)60s' generation, you are really talking about a generation that really did not believe in service. And history books will say, well, it was a very service-oriented generation because of the Peace Corps and all the things Kennedy was talking about. Your thoughts on that? TW (00:57:12): Well, I do not think the government ever had a problem in getting enough young people to serve in Vietnam. So, there is certainly plenty of people who were willing to serve. But I think if you think that what we are doing in Vietnam is a moral abomination, the idea of serving your country... SM (00:57:28): Hold on one second, I have got 30 more minutes here. I am going to turn my tape, there you go. All right, go right ahead. TW (00:57:48): Well, like I said, the government never had a problem getting enough young people to serve in the military during Vietnam. The protests never prevented them from having enough folks. But on the other hand, if you think that what we are doing in Vietnam is a simple mass murder, and is a moral abomination, then the idea of serving your country in the military is ludicrous. So, the idea that the younger generation during the (19)60s, there were none who were willing to serve their country. It was flat out wrong because there were plenty of young people, there were a lot of them, who supported that war. And a lot of people who entered the military service. So, there were quite a large number who believed in military service, [inaudible] the troops. And of course, you have people who joined the Peace Corps, who maybe you were talking about a different type of young person who's probably [inaudible]. SM (00:58:51): One thing that I did not realize, there was a great anecdote, when you talked about Robert Lowell, the poet, who actually Senator McCarthy always looked up to. I think Senator McCarthy always wanted to be a poet. And when I interviewed him, he kept talking about Robert Lowell a lot. But you bring up the fact, in this little section, a very small section though, about artists against the war. You talk about Robert Lowell boycotting the White House Festival of the Arts. And how Johnson called them "Those sons of bitches who were boycotting and who had turned the culture of celebration into a platform on Vietnam." And then you had the Dwight McDonald situation, I forget who was really upset with him, somebody in the cabinet. But in the end, there was an FBI clearance after this for anybody who got involved or came to the White House. Just your thoughts, and the fact that artists are oftentimes attacked. That is writers, entertainers, are often, sometimes, are attacked for doing protests against war. Sean Penn comes to mind. And people are very critical of them saying, "Just go back to what you are doing. You have no right to make commentary here." TW (01:00:17): Yeah, I have never agreed with that at all. I do not see why just because they are an actor or an actress or a well-known artist, why that should prohibit them from speaking out on political issues. I disagree with that completely. And I think one of the things that the Johnson administration people were concerned about with somebody like Robert Lowell, they were well aware that when prominent people like that came out against the war, that those prominent people could easily influence other people. And I think that made them very nervous. So, they did not like that at all. SM (01:00:54): Of course, the most obvious one is Jane Fonda. Your thoughts on her? TW (01:01:03): I admire the fact that she played a role in opposing the Vietnam War. Now all I know is when she went to North Vietnam, the media really focused on, I believe she probably made a foolish judgment to pose next to a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft battery. But a lot of people went to the North, not a lot, but there were a number of people in the anti-war movement, particularly leaders who traveled to North Vietnam during that war to see what was going on, to get a firsthand sense of the war in North Vietnam. And I do not criticize her for going to North Vietnam. She had a right to go there. I think any American had a right to go there to try to get a better sense of what was going on there. I do not think she should be criticized for that. And she was also active in... I admire what she did. And she was also active later on in, I believe, when she was with Tom Hayden... I believe when she was with Tom Hayden in a group called the Indochina Peace Campaign that was involved in a lot of congressional laws towards the end of the war to get Congress to cut off US funds for the war, US supports for Thieu in South Vietnam and Lon Nol in Cambodia, and to pressure South Vietnam to release their political prisoners. I believe she was involved in that with Hayden and then everybody else in the Indochina Peace Campaign and other groups that were doing that the later part of the war. So, I admire her. I admire her. SM (01:02:34): Yeah, the musicians, they were all, well, not all of them, many of them were, in their songs, talking about the war and about civil rights and women's rights. TW (01:02:46): That is all part of the insight. That is all part of the movement. SM (01:02:56): Yeah. Part of the counterculture. The importance of teach-ins is... Teach-ins were very big when I was in college, but I did not realize that the very first teach-in was at Michigan. TW (01:03:02): Yeah. SM (01:03:03): And Carl Oglesby, you bring up his name, and he has written some pretty good books. And then they had the big one at Berkeley with Jerry Rubin and one other person when they were grad students there. Could you talk to how important teach-ins were? Because many people were really involved in them and historically the teach-ins' link to Earth Day is also very important. TW (01:03:29): Well, I think what they did, I mean once... You first had that teach-in in Michigan, and you had the big one at Berkeley, and there were teach-ins at campuses all over the country. And I think what they did is they got a lot of people interested, focused on Vietnam and the Vietnam War. They educated a lot of people to the history of US involvement in Vietnam, how we got involved and what we were doing there. And I think they mobilized a lot of younger people, and faculty members, professors against the war. And I think they were just a tremendous impetus to the growth of the anti-war... The debate about Vietnam just spread like wildfire during that period. And I think they were, well, they were a great source of concern inside the Johnson administration. Because Johnson wanted a quieter war. He did not want all these people out there talking about the war and protesting them on campuses. And they knew very well that this was a bad situation. And suddenly the campuses, all these students were talking about the war, and turning against the war as a result of participating in teach-ins and other people. So, they were very concerned about it. And initially, they sent some government officials out there to the campuses to participate in the teach-ins to have debates. But the government officials did not do so well at the teach-ins. They did not convince so many students of what the government was doing in Vietnam. So, they eventually withdrew them. They stopped sending people out to campuses because they realized [inaudible]. And there were some cases where high-level officials like [inaudible] participated in teach-ins, but they said a whole bunch of [inaudible]. They were not willing to go out there and get [inaudible] SM (01:05:29): Yeah. And I interviewed Senator Nelson many years ago, and if you read on the background on the preparations for Earth Day, he sat down with the... He and other organizers, I think Dennis Hayes, they made sure that it was okay to go ahead with Earth Day. They did not want to spend the anti-war movement. And they actually consulted with them in preparation for Earth Day. And they were very impressed with teach-ins. TW (01:05:52): Oh, for this 1970s? SM (01:05:53): That was 1970. The SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, those early activities from (19)60 to (19)64. Then you got Freedom Summer in (19)64. And then you had the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in (19)64 and (19)65. Could you say how important they were as events, in terms of shaping the leadership of the anti-war movement? TW (01:06:22): Well, I think that a lot of people got part of their political education from the civil rights movement, and learning about grassroots organizing and talking to people, going out and talking to people. And I think that was also just the general part of people's political education, in terms of learning about American society and the injustices in American society and probably radicalizing a number of people too. So, more than a few of the early anti-war leaders had been active in the civil rights movement beforehand, and in the Bay, Area were active in the free speech movement. So, you had a lot of leaders, even leaders early on involved in the anti-war movement. I think they learned a lot from their prior experiences. I think it helped the anti-war movement quite a bit, to have those sorts of people with those sorts of experiences getting involved. SM (01:07:23): Would you say those experiences, particularly of SNCC and Freedom Summer, where they went after voter registration after they were trying to have equal housing and all the other things, would you say that this is the epitome of what Dr. Barber was saying about the stronger the citizenry, the lesser need for a strong leader? Because here we had citizens who not only were not known to the public, but they just felt it was their duty to go south to help those who were in need of help at their own risks, and they were not after a lot of publicity. TW (01:08:04): No, I could not put it any better than you just put it. In the Barber quote I think that is exactly what he is talking about. SM (01:08:13): How did the new Left differ from the old Left? And what separated them and what united them? TW (01:08:20): Partly, it was cultural. The new Left was countercultural, much more likely to... The new Left was more likely to be countercultural, far more likely to be countercultural than the old Left. They were more likely to be militant tactically. The old communist party and the Socialist Workers Party, probably the two most prominent old Left groups were fairly conservative tactically in the anti-war movement. They were not into militant civil obedience, anything approaching "mobile tactics". But people in the new Left were much more open to that sort of thing, and much more, in terms of lifestyle, were inclined to be countercultural in all the various facets of countercultural lifestyle, participate in those. The new Left was much straighter, probably the organizations, much more intellectual, self-disciplined organizations. I do not know if they were talking about practicing democratic centralism, but probably, I guess. But in both of those two groups, they'd come up with a line, the Social Workers Party or the CP, which, by the way, hated each other, they would develop a line, they'd have a political line in the group, and members of those groups were expected to promote that line in the anti-war movement. New Left was more decentralized, much looser, younger, generally, and again, more countercultural. SM (01:10:04): We made reference to this earlier on because William Buckley, I guess, was the founder of the Young Americans for Freedom. They met at his house. How important were conservative student groups in the (19)60s and (19)70s? Because we do not hear a whole lot about them. TW (01:10:21): They were not nearly as important as the anti-war [inaudible]. When they turned out at protests, say as a counter protest or a pro-war protest, generally, which both governments, Johnson and Nixon administrations were involved in organizing and fostering at various points. They were much smaller. Their numbers were much smaller. Their active visible presences were much less significant than the public presence of the anti-war students. There were an awful lot of young people who supported the war, but in terms of the activists, the active conservative young people were, they were insignificant compared to the protests. SM (01:11:13): One thing that is not discussed very much is the friction between what we call the intellectual students and the fraternities and sororities on campus. There was a lot of tension. And so, many times when there was an anti-war protest or students would block recruiters from coming on campus, the ones that were on the other side were mostly fraternity and sororities and sometimes athletes. How serious was that division on college campuses, say in the mid (19)60s to late (19)60s, between fraternities and what I call the more... And do not forget, I advised a fraternity, and there is a lot of smart intellectuals in fraternities and sororities, but there was a perception that was written at that time, it was called the non-conformist intellectual as opposed to the conformist fraternity and sorority brothers and sisters and athletes. How serious was that? TW (01:12:16): Well, my guess is you know more about that than I do at this point. And I would think there was a lot of shouting matches, but I do not know at what point the anti-war organizers and activists generally just decided to write those people off, to talk to other people. I am sure in 1965, the [inaudible] movement was taking off, they were trying to reach everybody they could. I am talking about the anti-war activists and organizers. They were trying to reach their fellow students generally. And there has been a huge amount of, a lot of debate and a lot of arguments, a lot of animosity, and probably a certain amount of fights between the two sides. But I would imagine at certain points, and again, I am sure more about this than I do by this point, that they said, the anti-war people said, "We are going to talk to other people. We are not going to waste [inaudible]." SM (01:13:15): Well, the anti-war people had a tremendous influence on a lot of presidents and administrations in terms of banning recruiters on campus. That was somewhat successful. And now you read that it is so popular to have recruiters on campus. It is a difference of night and day. TW (01:13:34): Yeah, that is my understanding too. I think, actually my son, he is just starting high school, but I think we had to sign something to say we did not want... Yeah, I agree that there's much more access, but I think they can call people and I think they [inaudible]. SM (01:14:00): The part here on statement, I made reference to it earlier, is about participatory democracy. And they inferred someplace within the document that they feared that this generation would be the last generation on earth. Would you say that was more of a fatalistic approach to take regarding democracy and liberty in the future, or were they just expressing the fears of many of the youth of that era based on what they learned in the (19)50s and early (19)60s because of the society they grew up in, which was with the bomb, the threat of nuclear war, the fear of speaking up a la McCarthyism, the hidden realities of race and poverty in America that were exposed in Freedom Summer and the SCLC experiences? Just your thoughts on that. TW (01:14:50): Well, I think there were a number of people who were involved in the (19)60s who had been active against the bomb, like you said earlier, which would have fed into some of that. And I think a lot of people were very, during the Vietnam War, a lot of activists were very concerned that this wound really get out of hand. They did not know how far the government would take this. And they were pretty cynical about the people in the government. So, they were concerned that this could lead the World War III. And there was a certain amount of apocalyptic thinking, I think, which took place. It was a heady time. A lot of stuff was going on, and not only in the United States, but in other countries. And there was a certain amount of apocalyptic thinking, and so there were certainly people who were concerned that this could really bad [inaudible] nuclear conflict. SM (01:15:53): One of the things I try to... I have not asked too many people, but I wanted to ask you in more detail is what was the impact of the war within or on the university campuses in the (19)60s and (19)70s? Bear with me, I am going to throw these all out, and then you can answer as you want to. The questions are this: how did universities change due to dissent? Number two, were the changes permanent? Number three, students challenged the multi diversity and the knowledge factory mentality, were they successful? And have universities today forgotten the lessons learned via what I consider amnesia about what happened back in the (19)60s and (19)70s? And I think we learned a lot because of the experience of Tiananmen Square in 1989, that when school started in the fall of (19)89, no one was hardly talking about that event. TW (01:16:52): Well, I think in terms of the universities changing, that probably affected the course offerings quite a bit. More critical courses on American society and various aspects of American society. And I think there were more much student-led courses, student [inaudible]. I think a lot of university, like you mentioned Ted Hesburgh earlier, there were a lot of university presidents who got pretty nervous and concerned that there is building occupations and other form of student developments were just going to get worse and they were going to lose control of their place. And I do not know how that played out in terms of policy for its students, but my guess is it led to certain [inaudible], they were really going to lose the control of the place. SM (01:17:47): Yeah. I think when the Free Speech Movement, when Mario Savio spoke, he talked about, the issue was ideas. The university is about ideas, not about the corporate mentality in our society. And I interviewed Arthur Chickering, one of the educators who wrote the book Education and Identity in the (19)70s that I studied in graduate school. And he is a conservative, but he said at the very end, I said, "Is there any criticism you have of today's universities?" And he says, "Yes, the corporations have taken control again." And that is what the students fought against in the (19)60s, is the corporate mentality, the knowledge of... Knowledge is important, I am not talking about that. But when they talk about the knowledge factory, the assembly line, everybody come out the same, no questioning, just accept everything. I am starting to see, and I do not know if you see it, some trends that, as if the (19)60s never happened. TW (01:18:57): Well, you probably know, but my guess is there were a lot fewer people decided who were business majors at that time and a lot more people [inaudible] liberal arts. So, I am guessing it had a big effect in the curriculum at universities. But I do not know that. SM (01:19:17): Could you talk a little bit about, I brought up Father Hesburgh, and to me, it's one of the best six to eight pages in your book, when you talk about what happened, his revelations that he did not think (19)64 was... He thought it was an isolated incident at Berkeley, and that the Columbia Rebellion really turned his head. And then he said he looked at the pad and in the pad over 100 presidents had been fired for one reason or another. TW (01:19:54): He was the president of Notre Dame, and he had, earlier in the war, had been a war supporter. And he was very upset by student protests on his campus, and how far they were taking things. And he was not just upset, he was unsettled by it. And he noticed that a lot of his fellow university presidents were basically fighting with that. They were being forced out. They were either being forced out because of whatever they did to respond to student protests, or they were resigning. And he felt he was one of the few of his colleagues who was still there. But he just said that the anti-war youth really had a big influence on him in terms of leading him to question the war a lot more. And my understanding is he initially took a fairly hard line toward student protests. And he spent a lot of time talking to the students. He was out there with the kids. And they had a big impact on his attitude towards the Vietnam War. I believe he said something to the effect of, the young people really turned the tide on this one. They influenced from [inaudible]. He was very upfront about the fact that the youth had a big impact on his views on Vietnam and played a big impact on the clinic and the war. He is one of many influential people who were affected by younger protestors, by the end, and leading them to question the war more. There are a lot of other people. John Oakes at the New York Times was the editor of the editorial pages of the New York Times. He was very forthcoming [inaudible] that the protests had a big impact on him and on the New York Times editorials before and getting him to question the war more. And the clinics were also concerned again about what protests was doing for American society and causing society to fall apart. So, Hesburgh was one among many influential people who were affected to some degree by anti-war protests. SM (01:22:15): Do you think those students, and again, I was on [inaudible] campus, I saw this, they would have demands, and then if those demands were met, they would come up with more demands, knowing that none of these demands could totally be okayed by them. It was a strategy they were using just because they were frustrated with anybody in any role of leadership anywhere. There did not seem to be any trust in any person of responsibility back then. And whether you were a president, or even the vice president of student affairs, or the mayor of the city, or the congressperson, or senator, or even your rabbi, or your minister, or priest. Anybody in a position of responsibility was looked down upon for a variety of reasons. Do you think that is why the attacks on this generation at times, I use this word genuine, many of the them continue to be genuine, like Tom Hayden was genuine, but those that win into these tactics really hurt the image of the movement overall, and thus people nowadays, when they look back, they can criticize the entire group based on the antics of a few. TW (01:23:28): Yeah, I think that is true, that some of the more, we say the more way-out youthful protestors, it hurt the overall protesters public image. That is undeniable. But on the other hand, again, I do not know that the people in the government made a lot of distinctions between these different forms of protests. I think to them it was really just part of one ball of wax. And all of that stuff fed into the government's perceptions that the Vietnam War was not sustainable, and this could even get worse. All of that stuff played a part turning around [inaudible]. But on the other hand, yeah, they... But some of the stuff, people might have been turned off by some of the more outlandish public displays of some of these protesters, but again, with the public too, it's all part of that phenomenon out there, which is causing a lot of people to start to think about Vietnam, whereas they would not have otherwise. SM (01:24:31): Right. Do you believe Black Power was a good thing? TW (01:24:35): Yeah, I do. Because why should Black people have more control over their lives? SM (01:24:46): What are some of the myths of the Vietnam War, the myths that are out there about, as you call the war within, and the myths of the war from without or outside the war? TW (01:25:03): I do not know. As we were talking about earlier, I think a lot of people are not aware of just how early on senior people in the Johnson administration realized that they were up against it, and that the war was maybe unwinnable, just how early they were coming to that conclusion. I think a lot of people are unaware of that. Other myths about the Vietnam War, that it was a good cause. SM (01:25:45): That is a myth. How about Ron Reagan says it was a noble cause. Is that a myth? TW (01:25:48): Yeah. I do not think we had any business being there in the first... No, I think that was not a noble cause. I think we just did not have any business... I am just generally of the view that we should stay out of other country's affairs. SM (01:26:03): Right. Can you go a couple more minutes here? TW (01:26:08): Yeah. I am going to meet a friend for a beer at 4:00. That is okay. I can call. I will get off the phone. I can call. SM (01:26:15): Yeah. I think about 30 more minutes. Is that okay? TW (01:26:19): Geez. God. Steven, can... Let us see, I have got about... I would probably have to leave here no later than a quarter till. SM (01:26:33): Oh, that is only 12 minutes from now. Okay. I bring up- TW (01:26:34): I am sorry. I just already set it up. SM (01:26:35): That is okay. We all know about things like the enemy's list of President Nixon and the COINTELPRO and McCarthyism, the rise from leaders, the infiltration within organizations that were against the war, where they tried to destroy character and careers. Speaking up, why is it that in a country that claims that we are a democracy and we go to war and die for liberty, which is all the freedoms that we know, but people who speak up, people who we do not become a yes man, people who challenge the system, people who see wrongs and try to right them, people who believe everyone is equal, and people who have the belief that we are all somebody, why is it that these people oftentimes are hurt the most? TW (01:27:37): Because the government does not like the spin against their policies, particularly when that dissent seems to threaten the policies, and because the government is often hypocritical. Government officials are often very hypocritical when they talk about, we are fighting, or we are fighting for freedom. It is so much empty sloganeering. It does not really mean that, unfortunately. So, it is not surprising that they will try to undercut their [inaudible] SM (01:28:18): Yeah. As I hear, what do these realities say about America, that Boomer youth experience, is this typical of the American way? Big Brother is watching us, especially if we are dissenters? TW (01:28:35): Well, I think it might have been of a larger scale during the Vietnam period than it has been fair in terms of the amount of government attempts to undermine the protest movement in all the different ways. They would send in undercover agents or try to stimulate infighting among the protestors through various means, [inaudible] pen letters or whatnot, and tapping telephones, and even breaking into some protest groups' offices. I think it was on a larger scale then, because of scales of dissent was a lot larger and quite a bit seemed to be at stake at that time, because, again, they were not sure how far this was going to go. Some people in the government were pretty concerned that this was going to grow to such an extent, you are talking about the threat of something really major, like insurrection or something. So, I think the stakes were higher at that time, and again, the scale of dissent with a lot greater. And I think that people are more aware of that now too, those [inaudible]. People learn how far the government will go to try to undermine the dissent during that period. So, people are more aware of it now. SM (01:29:54): Do you think we as a nation now, now this is two main questions I had for everybody since Senator McCarthy in (19)96, that we are a nation that has a problem with healing, particularly the Boomer generation? I took a group of students to Washington (19)95 and we met Senator Muskie, and the students came up with a question, because he had been the vice-presidential candidate in 1968, and they saw the videos of other disruptions, they knew about the assassinations and the so forth. So, this was their question. Due to the divisions that took place in the Boomer generation when they were young, divisions between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against it, those who supported the troops and those who were against them, that this may generation is going to go to its grave like the Civil war generation did, not truly healing. TW (01:30:48): I do not think that is true. I think a lot of people who were involved... I can just speak for myself. I am much less inclined to, I do not want to contest somebody's political views that I disagree with now than I was back in the (19)70s, (19)80s. I am much more accepting of other people's political views and just basically of the feeling that this friendship is not worth getting [inaudible]. Whereas in the (19)70s, I would not have said that at all. I would have wanted to argue it out almost all the time. And I think a lot of other Baby Boomers would probably have the same sentiment, that they are much more accepting and honor other people's political views. And again, a lot of those people, of course, they are more [inaudible] anyway. But I have changed a lot in that regard, and I am quite sure that is true of a lot of other [inaudible] SM (01:31:50): Well, Senator Muskie, they thought he was going to talk about 1968, he did not even mention it. He said, we have not healed since the Civil War and the issue of race, and that is what he- TW (01:32:00): Oh, race, that is a whole different animal. SM (01:32:03): Yeah, that is what he talked about. Honestly, you are well-read, and you read a lot of books that came out in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, what were the books that you liked the most, the books that were written about the period of the (19)60s and (19)70s? TW (01:32:19): Well, I loved because Patrick Sale's book on SDS. That was really inspiring. I am looking at my bookshelf here. I like this collection of Greetings on the Weatherman, was interesting. There was another earlier book, early SDS, Democracy is in the Streets by James Miller, which you have probably read. I read a lot of various stuff on student protests, some of which is good and some of it is not. I am trying to get down to look at... I basically read everything I could get my hands on, on student protests. I cannot see half of my bookshelf. SM (01:33:03): Did you- TW (01:33:03): And that is where... I am afraid I cannot see how [inaudible 01:33:03] my books though. SM (01:33:03): Did you think that The Greening of America by Charles Reich and The Making of a Counterculture by Roszak were good books? TW (01:33:11): I did not read the first one. And the second one, I remember I read. I am hesitant to even say anything, but I did not really like Roszak's book. I do not remember. SM (01:33:19): Erik Erickson wrote some pretty good books too, and so did Kenneth Keniston. TW (01:33:23): Yeah, I have got several of Keniston's books. Those are some of the ones I read. But I have basically got four bookshelves full books. SM (01:33:26): Yeah. Strawberry Statement by James Kunen and- TW (01:33:34): [inaudible]. SM (01:33:34): ...The Student as Nigger by Jerry Ferber. Or Farber I think. TW (01:33:38): Yeah. SM (01:33:40): And Harry Edwards' Black Students was a great one. There is a lot of good ones. Do you like the term, Boomer? TW (01:33:50): It does... It is never bothered me. It is the biggest generation in history. American [inaudible]. Boomer and it was a boom. Boom and burst, right? SM (01:34:01): Yep. TW (01:34:01): Is that what we are talking about? SM (01:34:05): Yeah. Some people have had a problem. That do not like the term. And they do not like any terms that define a generation. TW (01:34:11): Oh. Well, that does not bother me. SM (01:34:17): Do you... I am looking here before my last question here. How important were the Beats in the... For the (19)60s? TW (01:34:27): You had some. I think they were... Were they not a precursor to the later counterculture? SM (01:34:34): I think so. Yes. TW (01:34:35): Yeah. And you had... They were a literary group, right? A literary countercultural group and a bunch of pretty smart guys. So, they were certainly a precursor for later counterculture. I am not sure how much they influenced the later counterculture. SM (01:34:54): When I took sociology class in the '60s. Well, I took it in (19)67 from Dr. Lee. I still remember we had to read See Right Now, The Organization Man- TW (01:35:03): Right. SM (01:35:04): ...and some of those books. The Lonely Crowd by David Reisman. They really talked about the (19)50s and... Or post World War America leading up to 1960. And you learned a lot about the era and why the (19)60s may have come about. The last thing is... TW (01:35:24): I am sorry. Go ahead. SM (01:35:24): Yeah, go ahead. You are sociologists. Are those important books to you? TW (01:35:33): Mills was read by a lot of the student activists at the time. And Marcuse. Herbert Marcuse. Go ahead. SM (01:35:38): Yeah, this is... Since you only got a couple minutes here. Just what do these mean to you? These are real fast responses. What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you? TW (01:35:50): Recognition of all the people who lost their lives in an immoral and senseless war. SM (01:35:57): What does Watergate mean to you? TW (01:36:03): The lunacy of the underside of the Nixon administration. SM (01:36:06): What does Woodstock mean to you? TW (01:36:12): Counterculture. SM (01:36:12): Yeah. And what does counterculture mean to you? TW (01:36:14): Long hair, music, and a more liberated lifestyle. SM (01:36:18): What do the hippies and the yippies mean to you? TW (01:36:22): Well, the hippies are somewhat different because the hippies generally I think were more politically active. And they were politically active in a creative way. In some ways it maybe was not always that productive, but I associated a good sense of humor with the Yip. Yeah. Funny. SM (01:36:38): How about 1968? The year? TW (01:36:42): Well, a lot of stuff seemed to be coming to a head at that time for a lot of people back. SM (01:36:47): The free speech movement. Berkeley (19)64, (19)65. TW (01:36:51): Well, I think a lot of people at Berkeley found their voice. SM (01:36:56): Kent State and Jackson State in 1970. TW (01:37:05): Pouring fuel on the fire. SM (01:37:06): [inaudible]. TW (01:37:12): No. Illuminating. Horribly illuminating. SM (01:37:15): Tet. TW (01:37:19): Turn around. SM (01:37:21): Earth Day. TW (01:37:21): That was a whole different scene. SM (01:37:26): The Black Panthers. TW (01:37:26): Militant. SM (01:37:31): Yeah. And of course, one thing I have had someone... Several people have said, "You cannot use the term straight Black Panthers. You got to talk about the personalities." And of course, they are referring to Huey Newton, Bobby Seal, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael. They are... He said they are all unique personalities. TW (01:37:54): Well, I think you might find some people, probably including myself even, are hesitant to criticize the Black Panthers. Which was true at the time because you were concerned about other people perceiving you as racist. I think there was a lot of that going on at that time. A lot of it. Some of it still. SM (01:38:10): Stonewall. TW (01:38:12): Gay liberation. SM (01:38:13): American Indian movement. TW (01:38:18): Russell Means and what is the guy? Banks? SM (01:38:20): Yes. TW (01:38:21): Yeah. SM (01:38:22): The National Organization for Women, which is Betty Freidan and- TW (01:38:25): Gloria Steinem. SM (01:38:25): ...Gloria Steinem. TW (01:38:25): Yeah. SM (01:38:34): And why do you feel... I will end with this. Why do you feel of all... Of the people in the... These are the people that I think when you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s were the most disliked by the anti-war people or anybody on the left or anybody in the end. These are the ones that really set fires going. Left or right. And these were the names. Jane Fonda, Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Spiro Agnew, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and William Westmoreland. There is something about them that really stirs people when you mention their names. TW (01:39:14): Well, I went... When you say both on the left and the right, I do not know if the main premise says everybody on the left. But I would just pick out the most visible architects and prosecutors of the war. Most inclined stuff to elicit that kind of reaction. SM (01:39:36): Are there... My last question. Are there any character? I know one of the things that they said. Only 15 percent of the Boomer generation was involved in any kind of activism. TW (01:39:46): Oh. Huh. SM (01:39:46): Some people felt that is even high. It is really more 5 percent. TW (01:39:51): Oh, really? Yeah, I do not know. SM (01:39:52): Yeah. See... TW (01:39:52): I am curious. SM (01:39:54): Huh? TW (01:39:55): I would be curious. Because I know it was always a minority and there were plenty of conservative students out there. But again, it was both. Conservative students. Because they act just the same. SM (01:40:09): Well, sometimes people used that to lessen the impact of a generation. That it was a minority. But it was a large minority, if you consider there was 74 million people. TW (01:40:23): Activists were always a minority. SM (01:40:23): Right. TW (01:40:23): In fact, I just... Briefly, I will tell you before I leave. When I got a bunch of these government officials to talk to me for that book, I spent a lot of time trying to phrase out my letters to them. And I decided I had better describe the anti-war movement as a vocal anti-war minority. SM (01:40:35): Say that again? TW (01:40:38): I decided after talking to several people that I better describe the anti-war movement as the vocal, anti-war minority. To try to get the government officials from Johnson and Nixon administration to talk to me. Particularly because I was a graduate student at first. SM (01:40:52): Right. TW (01:40:52): I was trying to come up with a way that would make them less likely to perceive me as a just Berkeley guy. SM (01:40:59): Wow. Yeah. And when you were trying to get people to be interviewed, were you getting one Yes and one No. Was it 50-50? TW (01:41:09): No, I was astounded in that. You mean the government people? SM (01:41:12): Oh, no. All the people you tried to reach for the book. TW (01:41:16): No, it was a definite majority. A substantial majority. I was... Yeah, it was a small minority that would not talk but it was... It was one of the most exciting times in my life. Getting responses from the Johnson and the Nixon people. That was exciting. I remember one day I got a positive response from Richard Helms, Dean Russ and somebody else like [inaudible]. Same day. That was exciting. SM (01:41:41): How would you even reach those people? TW (01:41:42): Oh, I tracked them down through Who's Who in America mostly. Now it is a lot easier with the internet, but it was mostly Who's Who in America. And then the anti-war activists, I called them all by phone. I just screwed up my courage, and I would get on a roll and call a bunch of people at once. SM (01:41:57): Well, so you were calling them. And so sometimes they did not respond to letters, but they responded to calls. TW (01:42:04): Well, I am talking... Actually, I am thinking more about my other two books in terms of not getting a letter. Not responding to a letter then having to call them. Because I was sending letters to almost everybody later. But yeah, I just found a huge number. In terms of what you are going through now, I think you are probably going to have to call a bunch of people and even keep pestering them. Not in a... In a nice way. But there were people I had to leave messages a bunch of times before I would find them. But I just did not give up. It is kind of the way I am. SM (01:42:32): Yeah. Well, I was getting just about everybody in the beginning. And now that I am almost completed, I have all these names. I do not know. They know who I have interviewed, and I am not getting as much of a response to some of these. TW (01:42:46): Oh, really? SM (01:42:47): Yeah, because I... TW (01:42:48): I think email is bad. I think email generally is probably not the best because some people get... There are people out there, maybe you are one of them, they get a huge amount of email. SM (01:42:56): Right. TW (01:42:57): And I think it just gets scary. And they are dealing with so much that I think it is much easier... I think you are going to have to call and maybe write letters and then it's... I know it is time consuming, but it is... I give up sometimes just because I do not feel like screwing my courage up to get on the phone. Keep the contact to somebody through a letter or email first. But third point, it is like, "Okay. If I really want to talk to this person, I got to try." SM (01:43:17): I am surprised how many people have never seen the email. TW (01:43:21): Oh, really? SM (01:43:22): Yeah, they get the email, but... TW (01:43:24): Well, that is... SM (01:43:25): Yeah. Some people do not even read their emails very often. TW (01:43:29): Yeah. SM (01:43:29): So, there is a lot of that. So probably the phone call is important. TW (01:43:34): Yeah, I think it is. I think there is probably... You will probably have to do more of that. SM (01:43:35): Yeah. All right. TW (01:43:35): I better go. SM (01:43:42): Yeah. The last. What do you think the lasting legacy will be of the Boomer generation, when the best sociology and history books are written 50 years from now? TW (01:43:49): The (19)60s. SM (01:43:56): The (19)60s will be the legacy? TW (01:44:00): Well, I see... Like I said, I am not really a student of the Baby Boom generation. When I think about the Baby Boom generation, I think about the (19)60s. About that- SM (01:44:09): You are part of it, though. TW (01:44:11): ...and the universities. SM (01:44:11): Yeah. You are part of it though. Because you were born in what? (19)55? TW (01:44:17): Yeah, but I do... I was in the middle of the... Essentially the middle of that demographic. SM (01:44:19): Right. TW (01:44:20): On the other hand, I really was not part of the (19)60s protest. When I graduated from high school... I am 73. SM (01:44:27): Right. TW (01:44:28): So, I was not part of it. SM (01:44:29): So, any other things you want to say or basically that is it? TW (01:44:33): No, I actually better go. In fact, I got to call my friend and tell him. SM (01:44:36): Okay. TW (01:44:38): Hey, thanks very much Stephen. I enjoyed it. SM (01:44:39): Yeah, somehow, I got to get two pictures of you. TW (01:44:42): Okay. Two? SM (01:44:44): Two pictures. You can mail them to me. That is the best thing. TW (01:44:46): Can I take one on my computer? SM (01:44:48): Yep, you can do that as well. TW (01:44:50): Okay. SM (01:44:51): Thanks. Have a good day. TW (01:44:51): Yeah. Nice talking to you. SM (01:44:53): Same here. Bye. (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 Tom Wells Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Wells, Tom ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Editors; Historians; Authors; United States—History—1961-1969;Wells, Tom--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Tom Wells is an editor, historian, and author. Dr. Wells wrote several books and contributed articles to multiple books on the Vietnam War and the 1960s. He has also received dozens of fellowships and grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, among other institutions. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. 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 2010-08-19 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.10.2016.121a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.121b 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. 216:23 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/f42946497b4ccd14e4f3f3cdf303d1d0.jpeg f0db2db354631aa8008da3ccdd0cb2ae https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ba464a1b2da686cd2cdb84d0a10e2aeb.mp3 e51ac5c9396f824557fb64615dd72540 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 2010-03-19 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rex Weiner Language English Biographical Text <span>Rex Weiner, a native of Brooklyn, New York, is a writer, editor, publisher, and journalist based in Los Angeles and Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, MX. Weiner began his journalism career in the underground press of the late 1960s and is a co-founding editor of <em>High Times</em> magazine.&nbsp;His articles have appeared in <em>Vanity Fair</em>, <em>The New Yorker</em>, <em>Los Angeles Review of Books</em>, <em>The Paris Review</em>, <em>LA Magazine</em> and <em>Capital &amp; Main</em>. He is Executive Director and co-founder of the Todos Santos Writers Workshop, where he teaches creative writing. With Deanne Stillman, he is co-author of <em>The Woodstock Census: Nationwide Survey of the Sixties Generation</em> (Viking Press).</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 171:44 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Paul Robeson; New York University(NYU); Students for a Democratic Society; Communism; White Panthers; Jerry Rubin; Abbie Hoffman; underground press movement of the Nineteen sixties; Radicals; Yippies.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Paul Robeson; New York University (NYU); Students for a Democratic Society; Communism; White Panthers; Jerry Rubin; Abbie Hoffman; underground press movement of the Nineteen sixties; Radicals; Yippies.</span> Subject LCSH Authors; Editors; Publishers; Journalists; Weiner, Rex--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. 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Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Rex Weiner Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 19 March 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): Testing. 1-2-3 testing. Very good. And again, some of this is basic information. I got a whole lot of questions. The interview itself is some general questions, but a lot of them are questions that I never ask anybody but you, based on your experiences. Rex, the first question I would like to ask is about your upbringing. I read your book, but the only thing I know about you is the great career you have had beyond the Woodstock Census. Could you give me a little update or upbringing? What was your upbringing in New York City? What was your was your life like when you were in elementary school or high school, and your college years before you ever got out to California? Just a little bit about yourself. RW (00:00:52): Okay. Born in Brooklyn, East New York, Brownsville. Parents, first and third generation, Russian-Hungarian Jewish. My father was a decorated war hero, Air Force guy who grew up poor in Brooklyn, was in the CCCs, the Civilian Conservation Corps, cutting timber in Idaho in the dark days of the (19)30s. Never finished college. My mom went to Brooklyn College, got a degree, became a teacher. My dad went on to become a journalist, a business journalist. And I have a younger brother, five years younger, who grew up to be an artist, an illustrator, lives in Minneapolis. We lived in Brooklyn up until the 1955. I am a mid-century man, born in 1950, so. We moved upstate about 50 miles north to the farthest reach of the suburbs in a rural area of northern Westchester near Peekskill. SM (00:02:34): That is where my grandfather was a minister. RW (00:02:36): All right. SM (00:02:37): Yeah. My grandfather was a minister in Peekskill from 1936 to 1954. RW (00:02:44): So was he around when they threw rocks at the- SM (00:02:49): He must have been because he died in 1956. And I was very young. I only remember going there to the church to see my grandmother and grandfather. My dad grew up there. Then he went off to college in World War II. So my dad was not around. He was married and raising kids at that time in Ithaca. So. RW (00:03:10): Do you know the story of- SM (00:03:13): Bayard Rustin. Not Bayard Rustin, Paul Robeson. RW (00:03:16): When Paul Robeson came up and they threw stones at the buses and called them communists and so on. So it was the Hudson River Valley. And from (19)55 to the early (19)60s, that is where I grew up. But went back to the city as soon as I could. I graduated from high school in three years, gained entrance to NYU. And let us see, I guess that is when I got back to the city in 1967. The area where I grew up was just crazy (19)60s suburbs, cars, girls. And before even marijuana made its entrance, for some reason speed and heroin came to town. So I had a friend working in the local pharmacy who got us bottles of all kinds of pills. And so I grew up in a crazy teenage scene doing lots of drugs. And when I went down to the city, I continued doing that. SM (00:04:37): At NYU were you an activist student there at the college? RW (00:04:42): Yes. I majored in striking and chanting. SM (00:04:46): A lot of us did. RW (00:04:52): And I sort of hung out with a group of SDS street gang organizers who called themselves Up Against The Wall Motherfucker. And this was in the days when Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were doing the Yippies, and there were the Diggers and all of that stuff. Up Against The Wall Motherfucker was a much tougher brand of things, combining street smarts with the leftist ideology. And so I joined up with them. I mean, there was no joining. You just went and hung out at the forefront. SM (00:05:31): What year was that? RW (00:05:33): That was 1968. SM (00:05:40): Yeah. After what happened at Columbia. Yeah. RW (00:05:43): Yeah. And yeah, these guys were out of Columbia. And so we did things like took over the Fillmore East. I think that was the night that Bill Graham got cheese whipped up on stage. SM (00:05:59): Oh God. RW (00:06:00): We did some crazy stuff. And these were heavy times (19)68, (19)69, (19)70. In (19)70, one of my best friends from my hometown was killed in Vietnam. And I just decided having a student deferment was cowardly. Either you stand up for principal, and become a conscientious objector, or you fight against the war, do something. So I dropped out of NYU after three semesters, much to my parents dismay. I had a professor of Marxism, one of the few classes where I did really well. And I went to him, I said, "So what do I do? Give me my assignment. Oh, communist master." And he said, "Well, there is a group of kids out in Brooklyn who need your help. They are putting out an underground newspaper called the New York Herald Tribune." And basically that paper, that official paper had gone out of business a few years earlier, and these guys just took the title and thought it would be funny to put out a paper called the New York Herald Tribune. It was a high school radical paper, and these were high school kids in their last year at the top high schools in the city, Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant. And they were all militant and intellectual and interesting. And I was the oldest guy there, and there were a lot of cute young girls there. So I sort of became their mentor. I took over a storefront on St. Mark's Place, made it headquarters for the group, and then we became somehow affiliated with the White Panthers in Ann Arbor, and John Sinclair became a good friend. And so it was the White Panther headquarters, New York, and we were armed. I grew up with guns and have no hesitation about them. Knives, all this stuff. We had stuff in there. We had tons of dope. I mean, it was just a crazy scene out of high school, kids floating through there. And it was a fun time. We stopped putting out the New York Herald Tribune and joined up, a few of us with the East Village Other, which at that time was the oldest underground newspaper in the city. And I realized, you know, I am a writer. I have always been a writer, and journalism has been in my family for a couple of generations. So we went to the East Village Other and became part of that scene. And I wrote some of my first articles. Actually, my first journalism experience was in the press room of a county newspaper in Mount Kisco called The Patent Trader. I worked in the press room there and watched as the technology went from hot type, that is linotype machines, hot lead slugs, to what they called cold type or offset printing, computerized type setting. And I witnessed a change in technology that has always impressed me. Because when the technology changed from very expensive forms of printing to a technology that anyone could afford, offset printing, that made the underground press possible in this country. And A.J. Liebling famously said, "Freedom of the press belongs only to those who own one." Today with the internet, we all own one. That is terrific. But in the late (19)60s, offset printing was the new technology. It was the internet of its day, and that is what made the so-called Underground Press possible, which started as a political counter-cultural movement. And that is where I found my home. The East Village Other was in its last days, and it folded. These papers were never meant to be a business, but they had served their purpose. And we went on. We took the staff, myself and a colleague named Bob Singer, who's known as on as Honest Bob, and we created a new paper called The New York Ace, and this was the first of what would come to be called the alternative papers. So we were still radical in outlook, embracing the counterculture, but we were also all about the editing and the writing, the design, the layout. So we were among the first to publish writers such as P.J. O'Rourke. And we had great illustrations by some of the great underground cartoonists. We always had a brilliant cover page, sort of an LSD version of the New Yorker perhaps. And in fact, we did a year's worth of issues. Somehow we cajoled John and Yoko, John Lennon and Yoko Ono to underwrite the cost of the paper. They gave us simple page ads, and I guess Apple Records footed the bill. And really, we made our mark. The New York Magazine article that they did on us helped a lot. SM (00:12:42): You were really into not only design, but obviously you sound like you were into substance too, combining the quality of the writing with the quality of the look, and the combination of the two brought substance. RW (00:12:56): I would not be surprised if we were the only paper of its kind where a copy of Fowler's English Usage and Strunk and White were prominently on every desk. SM (00:13:07): Do you have copies of all of them? Did you keep copies of every one? RW (00:13:12): Well, yes, we have copies of those. And they are also included in the Bell and Howell microfilm collection, the underground newspaper collection that was really initiated by a friend of mine, Tom Forcade, Thomas King Forcade, who was administrator of the Underground Press Syndicate, which was an organization, a loose organization, of all of the underground paper at the time. It essentially dissolved the copyright between the members so that anybody could reprint from any other member paper. And each paper sent two copies to our office. I also helped administrate the UPS office. And those copies were sent to Bell and Howell. They were microfilmed and put into a collection, which exists to this day. SM (00:14:15): When I was at Ohio State University. There was an excellent underground paper there too. I was there in (19)71, (19)72 to (19)76. RW (00:14:24): All right. SM (00:14:26): They were in the Ohio Union, and I went to Binghamton University. Did your underground papers ever get to any of the state universities in New York state? RW (00:14:36): Well, I would not be surprised if people, students passing through New York City picked up a few. We did have subscribers, but whether they got the papers or not. SM (00:14:51): I remember... In fact, there is a historic scene in Woodstock where Abbie Hoffman comes on stage, and I think he says, "Free John Sinclair," was not that? And Pete Townshend said, "Get off the stage, or I will club you with my guitar," or something like that. Made him really mad. RW (00:15:06): Well, he did hit him. SM (00:15:07): Oh, he did hit him. I know he was threatening to do it. RW (00:15:10): Now, Abbie was on LSD at the time and suffering from delusions of grandeur. A lot of us at that time, much to our chagrin today, were very almost Calvinistic about the entertainment aspects of our culture. If it was not about politics, if it was not for the benefit of the Black Panthers or some imprisoned colleague, comrade, then it was not really important. I think we would laugh at our... As Dylan said, "I was so much older then, I am younger than that now." But that is how things were. So Abbie at that time at Woodstock decided that this is bullshit. People here are not talking about the issues of the day. And he got up there and got himself hit. SM (00:16:14): It is interesting about Abbie too. From what I read about Woodstock for four days is the fact that he was also in charge of the medical area? Somehow he had been given responsibility for people who were sick or had OD'ed on drugs or whatever, that he was very good at that. That he was the man in charge. RW (00:16:34): No, he was not in charge of anything. Nobody was in charge of anything. SM (00:16:40): But were you there? RW (00:16:43): No, I was not there. SM (00:16:44): Well, a question I want to ask you is how did you get from New York to California? Because I know in your book, I reread the last couple weeks, Woodstock Census. I read it years ago, but I reread it. But how did you get to California and then what led you to write this book? But most importantly, how did you get to California? And maybe I do not want this to be, as you said in our first conversation, all the stories about and making it all look great. But what are three anecdotes or experiences that you had in California that you would like to share that people might have interest in? RW (00:17:25): Okay, so it was the summer before I was due to enter college at NYU. It was the Summer of Love, and I was not going to miss that. 1967 in August, I headed west to San Francisco. I had a beatnik uncle who was living there just off Golden Gate Park. That was my destination. And so I hitchhiked across. I have hitchhiked, I have been back and forth across this country, not lately, but in the old days, in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, I crisscrossed the country many times. But the first time was in 1967 in August where I headed west and got to San Francisco. My uncle lived just off the Haight. And there I was for the latter half of the Summer of Love when things sort of turned bad, as they say. And yeah, the streets were heavy and there was a lot of speed and a lot of weird shit going up. But I had a good time. But here is an anecdote. So as I am coming into San Francisco, I took a train from Chicago. The train is going slowly across a road crossing, and all the cars were backed up, and we were coming into California. And I saw a long-haired biker waiting for the train to pass. So I shoot him the peace sign, and he shot me back the one-fingered salute. And I realized, "Hey, it ain't all Summer of Love." There I was being a hippie, and he was being a Hell's Angel or whatever he was. In the Haight at that time, there were people handing out free food, the Hare Krishnas. You could go there and get rice and some kind of vegetable stew. The Diggers were handing out kind of spoiled rotten vegetables and fruit and whatever they could scavenge from supermarkets. But I remember eating brown rice for the first time and thinking that this was very exotic. And let us see, went to the Avalon Ballroom, heard the Electric Flag. Prior to that though, I have to say that I had experienced LSD, mushrooms, peyote even. And one of the ways I got to do that was my high school girlfriend and I would skip class, hop in my car and head north to Millbrook, where Tim Leary had his League of Spiritual Discovery ensconced in a huge mansion. And as we pulled in there, this was in (19)66, the sight of this glorious Hudson River Victorian mansion, the facade painted with a sort of Hindu God face. When they say, "It blew my mind," yes, that blew my mind that you could fuck up a house like this in such a glorious manner. And I had a friend of a friend who was living there at Tim Leary's place and sort of allowed us entree. So we did some mushrooms there, my girlfriend and I. Got to know some people there. We went there a few times, and that is where I first met Dr. Timothy Leary. I had read a lot about him. Who had not? Heard a lot about him. But then there he was when I first saw him outside the house, fixing a lawnmower, trying to get it going, and trying to get his son to cut the lawn, just like my old man tried to get me to cut the damn lawn. I thought, "No, this is real life here behind the fame of (19)60s radical." So coming into Haight-Ashbury in the Summer of Love, I had already had some experience with that kind of mind-expanding stuff and some vaguely semi-criminal activities, scoring dope, and bringing and entering and crap like that. Stealing cars, I knew how to do that. SM (00:22:55): Obviously. When you mentioned you had met Abbie, you knew Abbie, and you knew and you met Dr. Leary. Are there any other personalities of that period that you actually got to know? RW (00:23:06): Well, yeah. I met Abbie when I was at the East Village Other. He would come into the office every now and then. I met Jerry at that time as well. At that point, Tim Leary was in Algiers. He had escaped from prison with the aid of the Weatherman. And I would sometimes pick up the phone and there would be Tim Leary calling from long distance from Algiers collect. And of course, I would accept the charges and hand it over to the editor, Yakov Cohen, who was sort of an advisor to Tim. So Tim and I were to cross paths many times, and I will catch up with that too. But yes, Jerry, I got to know Jerry Rubin. I got to know Abbie. And my association with Tom Forcade brought me closer into all of this. Because Tom, have you heard of him before? SM (00:24:13): How do you spell his last name? RW (00:24:15): It is F-O-R-C-A-D-E. Thomas King Forcade. SM (00:24:22): No. I do not know him. RW (00:24:23): Key figure of that time. He went on to become the founder of High Times Magazine, and I was one of the co-founding editors. SM (00:24:31): Okay, yes. Because I read that about you. RW (00:24:35): But he was instrumental in the whole underground press movement. And he was an antagonist to Abbie and Jerry. He had a much tougher attitude. He was an ex-Air Force guy. He was not afraid of guns either. And he was basically a disruptive element within the counterculture, someone who was not about peace and love, not afraid to get into a fist fight with somebody if he felt strongly about something. And so he and I kind of fell together. And when it was time to create High Times Magazine, he called together a sort of inner circle. I was part of that and was a contributor to High Times up until the time of Tom's death, which was a suicide. Tom was a controversial figure, and I was helping. He had helped Abbie create the publishing structure for Steal This Book. And then they had a dispute, over money of course, and Tom was threatening to sue Abbie. So I was friends with both of them, and I said, "Why go to the establishment legal system where they will both look at you like you are mutants? Why not create our own little arbitration system and work this out?" So you will find an article in the New York Times in 1970, (19)71, something like that, (19)72, where we created a counterculture court. I constituted a jury of their peers, and I served as bailiff handling the evidence and procedures. SM (00:26:34): I think I saw this on a YouTube. RW (00:26:39): Oh, yes. SM (00:26:40): Yeah, I think I saw this. And you were on YouTube talking about this. Yes. RW (00:26:47): Yeah, yeah, I am talking about it. Yeah. You saw that there. And there was a New York Times piece, an editorial actually criticizing us for going outside the established legal system, which we were very proud of that criticism. Because actually I had modeled it on the ancient Jewish courts of the Middle Ages of the Sanhedrin. But in any case, at that time, I got to know people like [inaudible] of The Thugs. I played a little music at that time too, had a little sideline. So the recently deceased, Alex Chilton was a good friend of mine. He had nothing to do with the counterculture, but this is the guy who sang biggest hit of Summer of Love. "Give me a ticket for an airplane." SM (00:27:41): Oh yes. RW (00:27:42): The Box Tops. Alex was a neighbor of mine at that time. I got to know a wide variety of people. Let me see who else? John Sinclair, Abbie, Jerry. I would attend meetings of people at which people like Dave Dellinger would be there, Rennie Davis, people like Leslie Bacon, who was charged with bombing the Capitol, various members of underground organizations who today would be termed domestic terrorists. It was a heady mix of people. At one point, we took over a rock concert that was staged on Randall's Island, just off Manhattan. It was the Young Lords, the White Panthers, Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers, Yippies, a whole coalition of radical groups. And during that concert, yeah, I said hello to Jimi Hendrix, but whether he was enough out of his heroin days to say hello to me, I cannot remember. There he was. SM (00:29:21): When I interviewed Richie Havens about two months ago, Richie gave me almost two hours. And Richie said, he said what was unique about Woodstock. Well, we do not know all the story about how he had to keep playing and playing, and he was not scheduled to be the first act. But he said, "What made it so special is that they finally recognized us." And that is what he said. I said, "Please explain that, Richie. They finally." Yeah. Because he said, "I was in the village in the early (19)60s when Bob Dylan was there, and Mary Travers was there, and even little Jimi Hendrix kind of kind of walked in. He had been in the military." But he said, "Finally the country and people were recognizing that the students and the young people of the (19)60s, they were finally being recognized." So that is why he said he thought the (19)60s, I mean, Woodstock was very important. Because the musicians were getting the recognition that they deserved. RW (00:30:20): Oh yes, the musicians as well as the audience that followed that music. And there were many kinds of music at Woodstock. I would say that the music is the most important portal through which you can see the movements of those times coming together. And just to diverge a bit into my theoretical stance, but the (19)60s did not spring full-formed from the head of Zeus there. The (19)60s are part of what I call the ongoing-but-interrupted revolution that is essentially what America is all about. And you see that the business of human rights and women's rights and the business of desegregation, African American integration into society, all of these things, you can find their trace elements in the documents of the Founding Fathers who, because of circumstances were not able to instantly create the society that they visioned under the influence of the Enlightenment. But they created a structure... loose, spunky, unruly, chaotic... that would have enough structure, but enough looseness to evolve, but sort of institutionalize these movements. And so over the years, you see the women's suffrage movement. You see the abolitionists. You see even the sort of psychedelic culture, the spiritual elements in William James. All of these things are threads in our society from the beginning, including the communalism. That was the way this country survived its earliest days on the frontier. SM (00:32:58): I looked a lot of articles up that you have written, and you have a paragraph in one from a year ago that I think is beautiful. One of the questions that I have been asking all the guests is when Newt Gingrich came into power in (19)94, he always loves to attack the (19)60s generation or the period when boomers were young as a lot of the reasons why we had the problems in our society. And George Will, through his writing throughout the years, will always take shots at that period for breakdown of society, whether it be the divorce rate, or the drug culture, or lack of respect for authority or the beginnings of these different studies programs at universities, political correctness. They blame all this stuff back on then. But then you write, and these are your words, but this was the article you wrote in a year ago talking about Woodstock Consensus. And I would like to expand on this after I just read this: "The truly aberrant behavior belonged to their tormentors, those flag-waving ranks of ideologues, staunch segregationists, rabid commie hunters, and free-speech smothering censors bent on preserving their own quaint period of privilege, even if it meant radical measures. They were the un-Americans, the subversives undermining the principles that make America great, refusing to rise to the challenges set forth by our elite, longhaired founding fathers who created an imperfect union knowing it would be a struggle, but also knowing a day of reckoning must come. And come it did. It was called the (19)60s. And now even Newt is cool with it, speaking out on environmental issues and pushing green conservatism. Welcome to Yasgur's farm, Newty. See you at the hemp store." That is in a nutshell, you wrote. That is beautiful writing. RW (00:34:56): Well, thank you very much. SM (00:34:57): And really. I mean, I really am into this kind of stuff, and I thought it was so well-written in so few words. SM (00:35:03): I really am into this kind of stuff. And I thought it was so well-written in so few words that you hit it right on the target there, because he does make things. I tried to interview him for my book, and I have tried to do it twice, but he was always too busy. And then I hear rumors he may run for president. So. RW (00:35:16): Yeah. The thing is, and by the way, I want to give credit to my longtime colleague and co-conspirator Deanne Stillman. She actually looked over the piece, and added that last line about duty. SM (00:35:30): Well, I am interviewing her on Monday. RW (00:35:32): Correct. So make sure you tell her I give her credit for that. SM (00:35:35): Okay. Will do. RW (00:35:37): That very witty way to end my essay. But again, to expand on that, I tend to see American history as a continuum. And anyone who says feminism started in the (19)60s does not remember the women's suffrage movement. And even Abigail Adams saying, "Remember the women," all of the feminist occurrence from the earliest days of the Republic. Anyone who says environmentalism and tree-huggers were a product of the (19)60s, does not remember Teddy Roosevelt. SM (00:36:14): Oh yeah. RW (00:36:15): Remember John Muir. Does not remember all of the great efforts from the beginning to preserve this country instead of the spoil it. Anyone who thinks that the move for spiritual discovery, self-awareness is something born in the (19)60s does not remember that this country was founded by very self-centered people looking for religious freedom and organized as cults, called pilgrims or Quakers or Shakers who lived communally. And certainly the major theme of liberation in our country has belonged to African Americans who have been here longer than most people, have a longer history in this country than most recent immigrants. And their music is what ultimately, from West African chants, to blues, work songs, folk music, eventually rock and roll. This is the music that really, along with blue jeans and Bugs Bunny, this is what really brought down the Berlin Wall and dissolved the Cold War because these are things that everyone responds to. The idea of self-liberation, of joining with others, of the big embrace, and everybody in the world wanted to be part of that. SM (00:38:35): Where would you [inaudible]? RW (00:38:36): So that is why the music is so important. So when Richie Haven says they recognize this, yes, they certainly did, but it is even bigger than that. Our music, our call to action, to self-liberation, which requires the liberation of others. That was a cry that was heard from Prague during the Velvet Revolution, to Moscow, to Beijing and continues to be the liberating force in the world. SM (00:39:15): Where would you place the Native American movement, although it was kind of a (19)69 to (19)73 happening at its strength. And then the gay and lesbian movement, which oftentimes looks to the Civil Rights Movement as its guide and then the Latino Chicano movement because some people will say that movement is fairly new because of the fact that they are fairly recent immigrants. So it is kind of a phenomenon in the second half of the 20th century. RW (00:39:44): Yeah, if you look at the styles of the (19)60s, you will see that the trappings of the Native Americans was symbolic of the sort of spiritual, close to the land sensibility that people were cultivating at that time. I think that the biggest influence of the Native American movement has been on the environmental side and on the spiritual side. It is the one true native religion that Americans can look at for inspiration. The other movements have all been rooted in long in history. I live in a Mexican city called Los Angeles, which now also has elements of Central America and South America. Somebody who does not speak Spanish here does not know how to even pronounce the city's name or the names of streets and the Chicano movement and all of the Latin American movements from the Southwest are now spreading throughout the country. So there is not a restaurant in America that does not have a Mexican in the kitchen. Even Italian restaurants. So the thing is that the city, this country's cultural heritage, is one of its treasures. And as this plays through this out is it is we are coming into our own. Those who resisted and keep talking about, we want this country to be what we had when we were kids or our parents had, they are against the current of history. They are on the wrong side. The young people of the (19)60s who really came into their own in the (19)70s are the inheritors of the melting pot, but they were not intent on melting it and creating a sludge. They were interested in really finding and defining what was special about everybody and everybody's heritage. And I think so all of those movements come together. SM (00:42:36): I wanted to ask you, I have read the book, and I know that there is lines in there as your ultimate goals and why you did it, but why did you, first off, I do not know how you met Deanne. RW (00:42:49): Deanne, she will tell you, she read about me in New York Magazine. She was out in Cleveland or something and said, "Oh, here is a guy saying New York is like Paris in the thirties. I want to go get some of that." So she came and... SM (00:43:06): Well- RW (00:43:07): Publicity works, man. SM (00:43:08): Yeah, I guess it does. RW (00:43:09): You [inaudible] man. SM (00:43:12): Yeah. You met her and you decided to write this book. I would like to know what your ultimate goal was in this book. You state yourself that you only wanted activists in your survey. RW (00:43:23): Well, no-no-no-no. What we wanted was anyone who... In order to do this survey, to find out what the (19)60s meant to people who experienced them, you had to find people who defined themselves as (19)60s people, not necessarily activists, but people who say, "Yeah, that was my time. I experienced it. Let me tell you what it was about." So it was a self-selected audience on purpose. Deanne and I decided to do this book because after the underground press kind of puttered away, we both became journalists at the time of the new journalism, and we were writing for various magazines. I wrote for Penthouse, and I do not know, a lot of magazines. And we were paying attention to the media at that time and noticing that there was a backlash in the media against the (19)60s. People were saying, "Ah, look at Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman. They have put on suits and now they are corporate." Or they seem to be saying that because people got older and took on jobs and cut their hair, that somehow the (19)60s had failed. And that was the first wave of conservative undermining of the (19)60s message. They were trying to say that activism cannot succeed, that anyone who tries to push for progress is doomed to failure and using the (19)60s as some sort of example, or the (19)70s. And we thought that that was a very dangerous message. And so we sought to quantify exactly what it was people were talking about when they talked about the "(19)60s." SM (00:45:41): Rex [inaudible]. All right, go ahead. RW (00:45:48): Yeah, what were the (19)60s? So let us define the terms and then we can debate. So that was what we tried to do with the book to create an entertaining study of what exactly the (19)60s meant to the people who experienced it. So for instance, we had to define what people meant by the 1960s in terms of years. And so according to our survey where we asked in one of the questions in the questionnaires, when did the (19)60s begin for you personally, and when did they end for you personally? And again, we emphasize personal, not the popular idea, but the personal idea. And we also asked for anecdotes describing what it was that made that defined the beginning or the end of the (19)60s. And so the personal, very personal answers added up to really, for most people, the (19)60s did not begin until the late latter half of the decade, (19)67, (19)68, (19)69. And the (19)60s did not end for most people until really well into the (19)70s. So you have these popular media definitions of the (19)60s as being a cut and dry decade from 1960 to 1970, or the media saying, yes, the (19)60s ended without Altamont, that terrible concept. These were media constructs. But for people personally, the (19)60s really opened up late in the time, late in the calendar-defined decade, and continued well past the point that the popular definition of the (19)60s. So we kept coming up with answers like that are reasonable. It is rational, but that is the way it should work. Cause the way the word spread about popular culture in those days was much slower than it is today. [inaudible]. SM (00:48:19): Interesting about what I am trying to do is I am trying to work on the people that were born between (19)46 and (19)64. Yet during this whole process, the people that lived during that first 10 years are so different than the people that lived in the second 10 years. RW (00:48:34): Yeah. SM (00:48:34): It is a difference between night and day. Some people do not like labels of generations. I have been finding that out. They do not like boomers, generation X or any of this stuff. So I found a lot of that. And then one of the things too, because one of the criticisms of the boomer generation or the (19)60s generation or Woodstock generation is that really only five to 15 percent of the young people were ever involved in any kind of activism or maybe [inaudible]. RW (00:49:03): That is one of the things our survey tried to measure. And in terms of what we mean by the (19)60s, a lot of different things are meant. But in terms of the experiential nature of it, it is true that for the most part, the (19)60s meant nothing more than long hair, bell-bottoms, and a certain preference for rock and roll music. And beyond that, a lot of people had never marched in a protest, never participated in drugs or things like that. So the vast majority of people, I would say, in the country, let alone people who define themselves as (19)60s people, really experience the (19)60s by watching TV or reading a newspaper or something. And then later it seemed to them that the country was in turmoil, but they had never been in any sort of tumultuous situation. You see what I mean? SM (00:50:23): Yeah. RW (00:50:24): And in terms of the actual activist quotient, a very small percentage really organized or hand-lettered a protest sign or physically participated in the activist movement. If they saw a peace march going by and joined in, forever afterwards, well into their (19)50s and (19)60s today, they will say, "Oh yeah, the (19)60s, I was there. I remember that." But maybe they just walked a few blocks with a protest, but that is okay. That is fine. They were part of it. If they actually were part of the Freedom Riders, for instance, that is a very small number of white people, but the influence that they had was tremendous. So a person sitting in some small town in the Midwest who could never hope to participate in these things, but watching those protests on TV could not help but feel part of it somehow, either pro or against it. And so the decade really, it involved people emotionally, but whether it actually involved them physically and personally is a question. And how much, if you were in sympathy with the anti-war movement, but never carried a protest sign, never went on a march, does that still qualify you to be a... Well, I would say it does, if you lived your life in a way that contributed to peace, maybe voting for McGovern, maybe taking a pro-peace stance in an argument with a coworker at the factory. Whatever happened to you in that time sharply defined your identification with it. But what was troubling to Deanne and to me and to a lot of our friends in the late (19)70s was what they call a trope now, a repeated notion in the media that somehow the (19)60s, older, sadder, and wiser, the people of the (19)60s have now joined the "establishment." And everything that they did before was just a youthful whim, which isolates the activism of that time and the real gains of that time from the continuum of American history. And in fact, today, it is a widely held belief that the environment is worth saving. It is a widely held belief that it is not right to discriminate for reasons of race, creed, color, sexual orientation. It is a widely held belief that you can wear whatever you want to wear and not feel like you are ostracized. Many of the widely held beliefs of today that probably young people just think always were there, were hard fought for in the (19)60s and part of a continuum of struggles from the very beginning of this country. SM (00:54:32): When you look at, you talk about the late (19)70s, then you are talking about the (19)80s with Ronald Reagan and his very strong stand, we are back, which was really an explanation in his mind that we are going to go back to the way it was in the (19)50s, or respect for authority, spending more money on the military, that kind of an attitude. And then we get into George Bush at the end of the (19)80s. George Bush Senior, says the Vietnam syndrome is over. So there is all these little thoughts, again into Bill Clinton in the (19)90s, and then we have George Bush in the tens. Throughout this period, I think there is still that feeling that some people that are traditionalists and conservatives or have problems with that period, no matter what time in history, will deny exactly what you are just telling me. RW (00:55:28): Exactly. The word conservative means to conserve, to preserve something, and radical means something divergent. And so as you pointed out in my essay about the Woodstock Consensus, the consensus in this country is for certain underlying American principles of inclusion. And those who propagate the notion of exclusion are outside the current of American history. They are the true radicals diverging from the ideals that this country was founded upon. So how you can... There is no going back in history. We will not have restricted whites only country clubs anymore. We will not exclude women from the mainstream of American life, whether it be social, cultural, or commercial. These are things that have been ongoing since the beginning and will continue. And you cannot roll that back. SM (00:56:56): You say in that same article, I broke it down into sections here, because every single paragraph had something I thought was very important. RW (00:57:03): Thank you. SM (00:57:06): You say that I, well, second, you say that your respondents were motivated less by ideology than by finding a common cause with like-minded folks, the feeling of not being alone. There was a common spirit. That seems to be a quality found in human nature. And the thing is, and we always tell college students that they join clubs because they have similar interests and people join the Black Student Union because they are African American first. Their issues. I put a but here, because I have interviewed a lot of conservatives too in this process. Were the boomers that identified with the (19)60s weakened by not having more young people who disagreed with them. Since both individualism and community seem at odds, because there was the period in the (19)50s where segregation went to integration. And now on university campuses, we have seen to be going back to self-segregation. It was only through crises that we have seen to bring people together, whether it be 9/11, the Rodney King crisis in the (19)90s, or tragedy of Virginia Tech. These things bring people together because of their common humanity, but then they go back to their small groups. Do you think, and as some of the concerns have told me, these same people who were identified with the (19)60s who may have been activists and maybe not activists, but they identified with that period always talked about tolerance, but it was in effect, they were showing intolerance because as Phyllis Schlafly said to me, you know Phyllis Schlafly, she called them, "The troublemakers of the (19)60s are now running today's universities, and they have no tolerance for established points of view from the past, only their points of view." RW (00:58:59): Well, so we should have tolerance for people promoting bigotry. We should have tolerance for people saying society should be segregated. We should have tolerance for people who deny individuals their rights, merely because they happen to see the world a certain way. That is what people like Phyllis Schlafly are doing. And today's Tea Partyers are turning the ideals of the (19)60s upside down in order to impale the promoters of American ideals on their own [inaudible], which is ridiculous. You cannot say... Our society does allow Nazis to march in the street. All right? This is our tolerance, but you cannot restrict the club to exclude black people. If it's a public club. We will not include exclusionist. That is not what America is about. They can stand up on any street corner and say what they want. They can publish their own books, they can have their website, they can do whatever the hell they want, but they cannot exclude the inclusionists and inclusionists exclude. You know what I am saying? I am getting mixed up here, but basically they are saying, "I know I am, but what about you? So are you." It is a high school trick that they are using and they are using it to rewrite history, like Karl Rove in his book. These people are shameless, and basically everything they say is a coded message or exclusionist politics and cultural proclivities. These people hate the fact that America now has a big population of Hispanics who insist on speaking their own language, hate the fact that even though a woman like Phyllis Schlafly is out there as a powerful woman, she would put down a feminist saying, I am not a feminist, but she would not be here if it was not for feminists who fought for the right women to participate in the political process to vote. These are shameless hypocrites who want to deny that America is about inclusion and they just want to preserve their own white skin privilege. SM (01:02:10): We have people like David Horowitz and Peter Collier who have written a book called The Destructive Generation. You probably are aware of them. And he was one of the leading writers, both of them, of Ramparts Magazine. RW (01:02:24): I know. They did not write that book about the 1920s when there was another great surge of so-called radical movements. These were actually unionists and multiculturalists, Bohemians, they were called in the twenties and in the thirties, the IWW. This country has a long history of troublemakers and troublemaking generations, including the famous Boston Tea Party, which was really... They dressed up like Indians just like the hippies did to protest an authoritarian structure. Today's Tea Partyers, they pretend to adhere to the teachings of Saul Valinski. He would disavow them instantly. Every generation in this country has been a troublemaking generation. It is just that those in power have sought, more or less successfully, to suppress them. And in the (19)60s, you will see the stirrings of it in the (19)50s. You will see the people who... The reason why people long hair for the first time in this country's history was out of style was because if you had a crew cut in the early (19)50s, it proved that you had done military service. And it had been 10 years since anyone had let their hair grow. A crew cut was the common haircut. That was the style. And it seemed to be, at some point people forget the way things used to be. SM (01:04:19): Crew cuts and flat tops. RW (01:04:21): Yes. Well, flat tops. And anyone with long hair in the (19)50s was looked at as a weirdo or sexual pervert. But they forget that when you see a picture of General Custer, for instance, one of the great heroes, so-called, but he had long hair right down to his shoulders. Most of American history men had long hair. So why was there such a big fuss about long hair? Well, that is what it was. SM (01:04:54): In your opinion, because you asked the question to over a thousand people back in (19)77, (19)78, (19)79. When did the (19)60s begin in your opinion? And when did the (19)60s end in your opinion? RW (01:05:10): Well, again, if you are asking when did it begin for me personally, that is one thing. SM (01:05:15): Yeah, That is what I am after. You personally. RW (01:05:24): In 1959, when I was nine years old, I went to California for the first time with my parents. Went to Disneyland a year after it had opened and went surfing. It was a summer vacation, but my beatnik uncle was already out here having a good time. He picked us up at the airport in a Cadillac convertible with the top down and took us to our hotel. And then at some point during our time in LA, he took us to go visit a friend of his up in Topanga Canyon. Have you ever heard of Topanga Canyon? SM (01:06:08): Nope. I lived in the Bay Area. I did not live in the... RW (01:06:12): All right. Well, Topanga Canyon is just before Malibu. It is a- SM (01:06:16): Well, I know where Malibu is. RW (01:06:21): [inaudible] of the city where a lot of Bohemians went to live, and it is a beautiful area. But he had a friend there named Bob Dewitt, and Bob Dewitt, he lived... You had to cross a bridge over a creek. You parked up the road, and you crossed this bridge. And he had this shack, a sort of rambling shack. And he had three or four daughters running around barefoot, kind of ragged and dirty. And he had a beard and he was a potter. He made ceramics, pottery, and he was a hippie before there was the word hippie. He was a beatnik without calling himself that. He just lived a sort of free lifestyle. And I was just blown. I thought, this is how, I thought this was fun. I saw the young girls running around barefoot, not caring about anything, and that is a cool way to live. I said, "I want to live like that." And so I would say that would be the beginning of it. But the other part of that beginning was that after we left there, my dad made some cutting remark about Bob Dewitt-less. SM (01:07:43): Yeah. RW (01:07:47): Bob Dewitt-less, he says, putting him down. Well, as it turns out, years later, I found out that Bob Dewitt-less was not so weightless. He actually slowly acquired much of the land in Topanga Canyon, which grew in value immensely over the years. And he was able to sell off that land and buy himself a nice spread in Hawaii and lived a very nice life. But the point is, I experienced both a counterculture that was apart from the nine to five commuter life that my dad had constructed for himself and for us, as well as the backlash against it, which was a kind of envy, a kind of jealousy, a kind of bitterness that here was a life that my father and others like him had fought for during the war. And it seemed that people like this beatnik in Topanga Canyon were throwing that away or somehow casting doubt upon its values. And really in this country, that is where the (19)60s begins and ends. The people who wish they could live a life that is freer and hate, the ones who are able to do that, because it really undermines the value of their spiritual and cultural real estate. Their belief system is cast into doubt. So someone who says, "Your country club life is not for me. It is worthless. And it is even wrong because you do not admit certain kinds of people." People who believed in that strongly, who fought. RW (01:10:02): Believed in that strongly who fought during the war to attain that measure of success. Sure, they felt threatened, they felt offended, and they felt angry because somewhere deep down they knew that they had lost something. That the promise of the good life that they had fought for and believed in, and maybe on that island in the Pacific, or the Battle of the Bulge, or on the beaches of Normandy, that promise never was fulfilled, and never could be fulfilled personally unless all of society's promise was fulfilled. So how could you be a happy person in the suburbs watching TV in 1956 or (19)60 and watching black Americans being hosed down and bitten by these dogs? How could you feel secure in your own life if you knew that a part of society was not able to enjoy the freedoms that you yourself... There was a hypocrisy. People knew it. And how they reacted to it marked by the beginning of the (19)60s or the end of the (19)60s for them personally. Because either they got involved and did something about it or they did not or they fought against it. At the end of the (19)60s, they either realized some measure of self-liberation, but they did not. SM (01:11:54): That is a great answer by the way. And I know this has been a very difficult question for others because we were talking 78 million boomers here that were born between (19)46 and 1964. And I just read this recently, that there are now more millennials than there ever were boomers. There is almost 81 million millennials. So the boomer generation is no longer the largest generation in history, and that is a little shocking to some boomers. But is there any weight from the people that you know, and it is only based on your experiences now, because like I mentioned, there were 78 million, might all have different stories, of what you would consider positive qualities or negative qualities within the people that you knew that were defined by the (19)60s? RW (01:12:49): Can you rephrase that? SM (01:12:51): Yeah, if there are some negative qualities that you saw in some of your fellow boomers and some of the positive qualities you saw in the boomers. RW (01:13:03): I do not think any of the positives or the negatives are specific to the generation. If you want to talk about self-destructiveness, certainly we can talk about the drugs and suicidal behavior that many people in the (19)60s fell to. But then you would have to look at the same thing in any generation, drinking themselves to death, driving too fast, or behaving in an unhealthy manner. Even smoking cigarettes, which was so common in this country in the thirties, (19)40s, and (19)50s. That is pretty self-destructive, we know now. And the millennials too have their own self-destructive bent, beginning with Kurt Cobain, who was not a (19)60s person, would not identify I think with anything hippy. There are enough rock stars, and actors, celebrities of today's generation who are falling prey to self-destruct behavior. SM (01:14:34): Some of the people that really stand out from the (19)60s or for the boomer generation. I remember when Phil Oaks committed suicide and I was just shocked by it because he wrote those great songs. He was very committed to the end of the war, and then he did himself in. RW (01:14:54): Well, today we know more about bipolar conditions. Abbie Hoffman. SM (01:15:00): Yes, and that was sad. RW (01:15:02): Was very much prey to that. And my friend Tom Forcade was heavily bipolar and he also fell prey to that. But then you get somebody like Heath Ledger. SM (01:15:13): Yes. RW (01:15:14): And there are several musical stars who in the past few years have been self-destructive as well. So I do not see it quite that way. In terms of positives, those two are attributes. There was a certain... Because there was a prevailing notion of a party going on, if you will, there is more of us. We were all linked. And whenever there was the idea of let us do something together to improve the world, you were more likely to be joined in that effort than ever before. In the (19)50s, the theme of the (19)50s was alienation. You read J D Salinger. That is the way it was before the (19)60s. Angry, alone, weird. You thought you were the only one who thought like that. You thought you were the only one who felt like that. In the (19)60s, people felt freer to share their emotions and feelings and to join together in those. And that continues to this day. Saw the outpouring of expression and the money for Haiti, for We Are The World. All of these things were born in the show of numbers, the show of hands at Woodstock. So when Richie Havens says they recognize us, yes, they recognize, we all recognize one another. And what had once been a lonely identity, and it was the rage in the (19)50s to... What was it? The Lonely Society? SM (01:17:19): Yeah. It was The Lonely Crowd by David Riesman. RW (01:17:22): Yes, The Lonely Crowd. The theme of alienation gave way to a theme of a celebration of like interests. And that continues to this day. Today, no one will tell you that they were part of the crowd in high school. Today everybody says, "Oh, I was a weirdo in high school." Right? SM (01:17:48): Yeah. RW (01:17:51): Everybody is a non-conformist today and that is a good thing. We recognize our individuality, but at the same time, we recognize our unity as individuals and we are not afraid to join together as weirdos and idiosyncratic beings in common cause for something that is obviously important. So I can tell you that my mom, when she organized a cooperative kindergarten in our small town in upstate New York, she was labeled a communist and her car vandalized, including with anti-Semitic expressions. That would never happen today. Everything is cooperative. Everything is collaborative. SM (01:18:47): And I know that Phyllis Schlafly, when I interviewed her, we were talking. Somehow, we got under the environmental movement and she said, "Yes, they are all former communists." RW (01:19:01): The United States is a former communist country because it was started by communalists. So these labels are so meaningless. People like her, they would rather divide people into categories than to find what unites us. And if there is anything that unites the United States of America, it is our national parks are the first. There were never national parks in the entire world until we created them. And our recognition that the environment is a sacred treasure and a national heritage. Does she want to say that that is a communist idea? SM (01:19:52): It was just a quick response to a different movement. She did not go into any detail. I spoke to her, she was very nice. She has always been nice and she gave me the time. RW (01:20:00): Well, they are all very nice. But they do not realize the toxic nature of what they say. So in other words, Theodore Roosevelt was a communist for starting our national park system. These are deeply dividing, divisive terms. There has never been a left in this country in the same way that there has been a communist movement in Europe, a socialist movement. There has never been a right in this country in the same way that there has been a fascist movement in Germany and other places. SM (01:20:40): I can remember reading some place that critics... I like Teddy Roosevelt, I learned a lot from him, great quotes on leadership. But he was heavily criticized for killing animals in Africa. And until you found out more in-depth information as to why he was killing those animals, because we did not have zoos then and museums. And he was sending the bodies back to be used in museums. So he was not just killing them for the mere fact of killing them. He was killing them for educational reasons. People love animals. I can understand where they are coming from, but they do not tell the whole story about why he was doing it. RW (01:21:23): Yes, and the thing of it is those were different times. But certainly he was thinking in a direction that has benefited the country. And I think we need to abandon these notions of left and right, think in more five-dimensional. There are people who are following major themes in American history as described, as posed in the original founding father's documents, and those who are trying, digging in their heels and trying to slow that sort of thing. I think if you view current issues like healthcare and education and even taxes within the context of all of American history, I think it is quite clear that anything that embraces people and their welfare is where we need to go one way or the other. There are people in this country who say that taxes are an invasion of privacy and a violation of individual freedom. And I would hope that they never use a highway, never turn on a water faucet using the public water system, never use electricity, never use a telephone, never use anything that requires the cooperation of large numbers of people across state lines. Because if they do not want to pay for that stuff, call an ambulance, a cop, check into a hospital, if they do not want to use that stuff, that is fine. But do not deny others the right to. Taxes, you might say that is a socialist idea, but it is an idea that everyone contributes according to their... People are not debating these things within the context of America. They are debating it in terms of what is left and what is right, and that is not an accurate construct for debates to take place. SM (01:24:06): Did you have a generation gap with your parents? You already told me about that experience with the beat in California when you were very young. But did you have a real strong gap with your mom and dad during that time? And secondly, this is a general question, but obviously you are a dad and you are a boomer dad and you are raising kids. Have boomers been very good parents or even grandparents with respect to sharing what it was like then? The learning lessons that were important for the boomers, have they shared them with their kids? Because the question I ask as a person who has been in higher ed for over 30 years, obviously I do not see the activism we saw back then and- RW (01:24:54): That is a mistake. Again, that is one of the things. We never got to put that in our book, but we did want to. One of the themes of the end of the (19)70s about the (19)60s was that activism is over. Activism is more widespread today than ever in the (19)60s. And it has to do with not just the narrow definition of radical activism, but activism of all kinds, whether it is protesting campus budget cutbacks, or bunch of moms uniting to get a streetlight at a dangerous intersection, or collecting money for any particular cause, or volunteering to help nonprofits. This is much more widespread today and nobody thinks a moment about it. In the (19)50s, in the post-war period, anyone carrying a picket sign was automatically labeled a subversive because of the McCarthyistic nature of those times. People, they do not think twice about protesting or organizing to accomplish something, whatever it might be. So activism is one of those principles of the (19)60s that was anchored in all the previous years of American history that was dormant in the (19)50s and now is part of the fabric of our society. In any case, my son who is 21 and a college student and a rock and roll drummer and a very smart kid with his own idiosyncratic way, who knows what he and his crowd are going to be up to? But he recognizes, he has taken the time to go through my record collection so that he understands that the music of today is rooted in the music of previous generation. He is not like us. I thought the Rolling Stones, all that music, that that was theirs, they invented that. And then when I got down to it, I realized, "Oh my god, they are doing songs by Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf." And then where do they get their music? We had to discover it because that history had been suppressed. Today that is commonly acknowledged and much more accessible. SM (01:27:56): One of the things you mentioned early on here is the words. When you define the (19)60s generation, we use the words us and we, feeling a [inaudible], a camaraderie, a sense of community and ideas, ideals, shared experiences. But in later years, and Christopher Lasch wrote The Culture Of Narcissism, which was a very popular book in the (19)80s, actually it was the late-(19)70s. He said that us and we went into me. And so what was we became so into themselves, it was like the religious experiences of the (19)60s, what happened after the war ended, and then with the increase in violence, and that people burned out, they went into an inner spirituality where they believed in not necessarily a god but someone. RW (01:28:57): I will tell you, there are these generalities of burnouts and what a generation is doing at any one time. Let me change my- Very good. People make these statements, these generalities about what any particular generation is doing at any one time. One thing that you can say for sure is that people are born, they are young, they grow older, and they die. And along the way, people tend to follow certain paths. And statistically across a large population of people, you could say that a generation tends to act in one way or another. Certainly when you are young and in college and have no family obligations or job obligations, you can take the time to be an activist and protest and be somewhat reckless in your life. Certainly as you grow older and have to get a job, you will be more restricted in your activities. And as you grow even older, you will cut down on even more reckless behavior. And you may even start to look askance at such behavior in younger people. These are common human traits and behavioral tendencies. And it is not uncommon for people as they grow older to start questioning things and to seek spiritual answers. And America is nothing if not a religious country, or a spiritual country rather. And so naturally, as they entered their thirties, the generation that was most populous during the (19)60s tended to question and look for spiritual answers, which is part and parcel of the spiritual search that was part of the (19)60s counterculture, the Harry Krishnas. Look at The Beatles going to India, transcendental meditation. These are mainstream currents of every human life and very much part of American life. Spiritualism, the quest for spiritual answers, you can read that all through the literature, beginning all the way back to Nathaniel Hawthorne questioning the religious principles of his time. There was a huge spiritual movement in this country, spiritualist in the late-1880s and early-1900s with Madame Blavatsky and a lot of hucksters trying to contact the spirit mediums and so on. This has always been an American trait. So to narrow, to take the telescope and turn it around and focus so narrowly is at once a mistake, but it is also very correct. Yes, people tend to become more spiritually inclined as they grow older. So what? So what does that mean? They are selfish? Does it mean that the (19)60s never happened? That activism not only was a failure but was wrong? No. These things continue along with the spiritual quest. And it is not as if what is happening today invalidates what happened yesterday. What it does do is provide people like Christopher Lasch with a book topic that they can sell and go on talk shows and do interviews about. The (19)60s provided a lot of fuel for the popular definers of the age. Everyone wanted to define the age in which we live. Meanwhile, people live normal lives. They go through phases. And nobody says that because they are the way they are in their (19)50s, that somehow that makes their lives when they were 20 and 30 somehow invalid. SM (01:34:00): You make good points. And one of the things too is the kids of the boomers, because the first kids were the generation Xers. They were born after (19)65. And they overall did not get along very well with boomers in many ways. But they were the ones being attacked as being the yuppies. Remember? They were trying to make lots of money before they turned 30 on Wall Street. So what kind of parents were the boomers if they raised these kids who became yuppies? RW (01:34:31): These are easy terms to throw around and easy ideas, flap upside somebody's head. But in fact, because we enjoyed the affluence of the post-war period, what does that mean about our parents who struggled through the thirties and the warriors of the (19)40s? Did it invalidate who they were or what they did? They fought so that we could enjoy peace and comfort. And why hold it against us that we did? In fact, the notion that somehow we took for granted what had been hard fought, hard won is contrary to what actually happened, which is that the young people in the (19)60s were not satisfied with the situation. And they did try to extend their peace and prosperity to other people. And that should make people sit up and take notice. Yes, the greatest generation to call fought for our freedom, but is not it equally as great that the next generation was not content to sit and be satisfied with that wealth and prosperity and that peace, that instead be agitated? We became troublemakers in order to share what we had with everyone because it was not... There was a saying, "None of us are free unless all of us are free." And certainly as a young person traveling in the South in 1966, as I did with a friend of mine. We stole a car and headed south to go visit a guy I had met the previous summer who said he lived in New Orleans. He had some good pot. So me and my friend, we skipped school one day, stole a car, took his brother-in-law's credit card, and headed for New Orleans. Go visit our friend Pino and get some good dope. So we head down there to New Orleans, driving through the South in 1966. In about this time, springtime, when the red earth of Georgia was just breaking open and you could smell the Mississippi delta. We arrived in New Orleans, we go to the address that Pino had given me, and it is this little shotgun shack down in the Lower Ninth Ward. Woman answers the front door, sees these two white kids. And she was kind of coffee-colored. We said, "Hey, is Pino home?" And she said, "Oh, sorry. Pino is in the parish county jail." So we said, "Oh, we will go visit him." And we went and bought a carton of cigarettes because that is what prisoners like. And we went to the parish county jail and there was a sign outside that said white visiting hours so-and-so, colored visiting hours so-and-so. Well, I had never thought of this guy Pino as white or colored or what. I could not tell what she was. I know now she was Creole. But we were so ashamed and embarrassed to have to ask somebody if our friend was white or colored and which visiting hours that... My friend and I, we went over to the banks of the Mississippi, sat there, smoked a few cigarettes. And without a word, we got up, jumped into our stolen car and headed back north, defeated by a situation that we had no knowledge of, no part in. And no way to do anything about it because we were 16 years old in a stolen car and wondering what this was all about. And of course, in ensuing years we learned very quickly. And some of us tried to do something about it. But the point is that we witnessed a time in this country that was very different from now. And the way things are now are directly a result of people who were not satisfied with the way things were in 1960s and did something about it. Whether I did it or somebody else did, it does not matter. Somebody did something about it. And I am so proud to have been born at that time. I can sit here now and say I wept openly when an African American was elected president. Said to myself, like so many others, "I never thought I would live to see this day." And quite frankly, if a lightning bolt had come down and struck me dead at that time, I would have died with a smile on my face because I have lived to see the realization of much that was only distantly promised and so difficult to imagine becoming a reality. And today, my son and his friends enjoy this stuff and so they should. And if they want to continue to struggle with all of the issues that are remaining, and there are quite a few, then that is fine. SM (01:40:54): Yeah, it is interesting that we have African American- RW (01:40:56): That is my favorite story of the (19)60s by the way. SM (01:40:59): You see, that is a magic moment, Rex. That is what I mean, these things that come out in an interview. I am not saying I am going to use it for the book. It will be in the interview, but on the book title. But see, that is what I meant. Things that I did not expect that may have come out in interviews. I cannot believe some of the things that have come out in my interviews. And I have only had one person in 100, you are my 142nd person, and only one person said, "You better not put that in print." And that was a person who is very close to the Kennedy Family. And he admitted that he could not stand Bobby. And he says, "I cannot have Ethel know that." RW (01:41:47): My dad wrote speeches for Bobby Kennedy. And he could not stand him either because he finally met him and thought he was a jerk. Put that in the book. SM (01:41:56): Yeah, he changed that. The last couple of years, he was different than he was early on. You are a boomer. And as a boomer, just looking at a decade, you do not have to give me any in depth explanation, but boomers are now into their (19)60s. And they have lived through the (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s, (19)80s, (19)90s, and what we call the tens, the Bush, and now Obama. If you were to go from the (19)50s and for each of these decades, just a few words as a boomer, what do you think of these decades? You do not have to go into any depth of what they mean. But if you were just coming in from outer space or something like that and you wanted to tell someone in a few words what the (19)50s was, what the (19)60s was, what the (19)70s was, what would they be? RW (01:42:51): Well, I would say that the (19)50s, the country was locked in a post-traumatic stress syndrome after the war, struggling to emerge. The (19)60s, we emerged and realized we needed more therapy and treated ourselves to a good time and a worthy time. (19)70s, we matured, paid attention to the demands of maturity. The (19)80s, we indulged ourselves in our success at every level. (19)90s, we got a little tired. And we continue to lapse into senility. But in everyone's life cycle, there are predictable phases. And all of them have been very predictable considering the circumstances. And looking at the times that we have been through, through the lens of knowledge that we have now about what happens after wars to people, what happens to people who are oppressed, what happens to people who emerge from difficult situations and are allowed to indulge themselves, what happens then. These are all predictable phases for most people. But within that, there are times, extraordinary times when. RW (01:45:02): ...times, extraordinary times when people show great courage and are emboldened to acts of bravery because they see everyone around them being supportive or there is a necessity for it. And I think the (19)60s were a time when all of the previous currents of American history came together at the same time that we enjoyed enough comfort and security to be able to turn ourselves to the task of the unfinished revolution that America started with. SM (01:45:59): In your book, you talk about in a section there about the heroes. Some of the people that are certainly defined who they are by their time in the (19)60s with names of people from the (19)60s and the (19)70s. I found as a college administrator since probably around the late (19)80s before I left a year ago, is that many of the Generation X students and Millennial students do not pick well known personalities, politicians, musicians, they pick their family members, they picked their father, their mother, their uncle, their aunt, a teacher, a minister. Have you found this to be true? RW (01:46:47): Well, yes. SM (01:46:47): Somehow heroes have changed from those that were in the news to people who are not known. RW (01:46:54): That is an interesting aspect. I do not know who my son's heroes are. And certainly they do not hold them up to such a high degree as we did. But I think in the (19)60s, the personality posters, having a poster of Che Guevara or Malcolm X on your dorm room wall, a poster of Bob Dylan, it was a way we had to sort of overcompensate for a lack of definition of who we were and what was going on. The (19)50s tended to enforce conformity and reduce the individual's profile in society. Perhaps as a reaction to the grotesque hero worship of the warriors. When having a picture of Hitler on the wall was compulsory or picture of Mussolini. So in the (19)60s, we sought to define ourselves by personalities like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez music and JFK as well, Bobby. Right now, I think people have won the right to be their own heroes, to not have such iconic beacons of selfhood. I mean, it would be embarrassing today to have a picture of Bob Dylan on your wall or Kurt Cobain, or God knows. I mean, my son would never do anything like that. He and his friends, they are their own heroes. They are heroic every day of their lives. We won the right for them to do that. So now they can be non-conformists like everybody else, and they define themselves. SM (01:49:15): What term do you feel best defines the Boomer generation? Because you use Woodstock census, and then you have Woodstock consensus. And of course there is many terms for this generation, Vietnam generation, the Woodstock generation, the protest generation, the love generation, the movement generation. The list goes on and on. RW (01:49:37): Yeah. I would- SM (01:49:37): Which one do you feel most comfortable with? RW (01:49:39): Yeah. Well, let us start with what I would reject. I would reject the protest generation because there was more protest in this country going on in the twenties and thirties than any other time. And certainly if you go back to civil war days, there were anti-draft protests, riots. This country has a tradition of protest and it did not start in the (19)60s. So I would reject that. I am happy with Woodstock generation because it is true that it was emblematic of our unity, our counter-cultural sensibility. The music was extremely important as a unifying factor and as a way of recognizing the contribution of African-American culture to our society. I think the Woodstock generation is apropos, but Boomer is slightly derogatory, baby boom. Yes. We were all a product of the peace and prosperity and therefore the fertile activities of our parents following the war. It is a common occurrence after war for a society of experience of a wide increased birth incidents because, hey, the soldiers are home. So was there a boom boomer generation after the First World War? Probably. So it does pay tribute to our accomplishments or activities. Because really the number of people who participated in the (19)60s as opposed to those who identify with it, those are two different things. I would say that I would hate to really define it literally. I am much more interested in those who identify with the American... Those who identify the (19)60s with American mainstream currents, historical currents. I am much more interested in them. And I am also interested in those who resisted those currents then and continue dangerously to resist them now. SM (01:52:30): So you would not have a problem with the Vietnam generation then? RW (01:52:34): Well, that is difficult because then you are calling into question your participation as either someone who served in the military during that time or somehow served in the anti-war movement at that time. That is a much more controversial and divisive way to define our generation. Certainly in Vietnam, there is a Vietnam generation and people seem to forget that. SM (01:53:18): Yeah, I am actually interviewing the top scholar in America at Harvard, June 10th. She teaches Vietnamese history and I am getting it from her side. RW (01:53:30): But what I want to know is what about the people who spit on the little black kids who tried to integrate schools in Mississippi and Alabama? What about the people who beat up the freedom rider? What about the people who excluded blacks from their country clubs? What about the people who sought to exclude hippies with long hair from what about the principals and teachers who threw kids out of school for having a Beatle haircut? Where are those people today? Are they listening to a muzak version of the times they are changing as they go up the elevator? Are they confessing to the fact that they really, during the (19)60s resisted and hated hippies and long hairs? [inaudible] confess to that today because they are the traitors. They are the ones who betrayed this country by not following the ideals and principles that the country is founded on. SM (01:54:45): This leads right into the... There is two big issues here that I have tried to do with each interview. One is whether we as a nation have a problem with healing. And I have gotten many, many different responses to this. Let me preface this by saying that I took a group of students to Washington DC about maybe 12 years ago. Senator Edmund Muskie was retirement and he was not feeling very well. He was working in some sort of law firm. And I got this meeting due to Gaylord Nelson, a friend of his former senator from Wisconsin. In fact, I am interviewing his daughter tomorrow on the phone. But the question was that our students asked him is, do you think that we are having a problem with healing from all the divisions that took place in the (19)60s, the division between black and white, between those who supported the war, those were against the war and all the other divisions that we saw throughout that timeframe, or as some people say, "Time heals all wounds," that we really do not have a problem with healing in this nation. And Muskie responded in this way. Everybody thought he was going to talk about 1968 and all the clubbing of the students and the police and the brutality in the divisions of the country and the assassinations and everything else. He did not even mention it. His response was simple. He said, "I just got out of the hospital. I saw the Ken Burns Civil War series," and he said, "We have not healed as a nation since the Civil War." And then he went on for 10 minutes to talk about why. RW (01:56:23): Yes, I was going to give the same answer. It has taken 100 years to recover from that. And we still find people who say the South should have won the war, and they fly the old Dixie and sing the song. And they are unrepentant and refuse to see the reality of what happened then. And we may not ever outlive that, but it is true. And then you also think, I think if you see things from the African-American point of view, people tell them, "Get over it. Slavery is over. The civil rights movement is over. Get over it." And then you realize that the Jewish people have been talking about their time in slavery in Egypt for over 3000 years and have not forgotten that. These are deeply traumatic wounds that take a long time to heal. SM (01:57:38): Yeah. Well, I bring up... The Vietnam memorial's done a pretty good job of trying to heal the veterans and their families. Although I go to the wall and boy, they still have a lot of healing. And then I have often... Some person asks, "Are you just basically talking about those who were against the war and those who fought in the war? Because I can answer that question." Some would say. And I have often wondered, when boomers who did, were in the end anti-war movement, go to the wall and the young kids ask them, "Dad, what did you do in the war?" And whether they say anything or they were against the war. I think about these kinds of things. And you just made a very important statement with all those people who kicked students out of classes, who the Bull Connors of the world who put hoses on African Americans and beat them up. Like John Lewis to me, is one of the heroes of America because he took it and never fought back. He just got beat up. Your thoughts? Do we have a problem as a nation with healing? RW (01:58:45): Well, yes. And this goes to another theme of mine that I will expand on in some other venue. But I do believe that we are a nation that lives comfortably under illusions and delusions of who we are and our denial of the great sin of the genocide of Native Americans. Our denial of these things, of the crimes that we have committed does not allow us to heal. No one wants to talk about the roots of 9/11 in the overthrow of Mosaddegh in Iran in the (19)50s, the first democratically elected government in that part of the world. Our CIA overthrew him. And no wonder they hate our guts. Our overthrow of democratically elected governments in South America because our corporations needed to maintain their share of profits from those places. We have committed huge crimes as a nation meanwhile denying that these things are crimes. And even today, people were telling Obama not to go around the world apologizing. Well, it would do us good if we did, but it would do us more good if we admitted to the truths of our history and repented. Now I am a badass motherfucker and I would love to see a truth and reconciliation committee set up. It will never happen and probably divide the country even worse. But I am really pissed off at those people and I do not think they are ever repent, and I do not think they will ever be sorry. And I think the Phyllis Schlafly's of the world continued to lie to themselves and everyone else about who we are as a people and who they are as people. Phyllis Schlafly, does not she have a gay son? SM (02:00:57): I think she does. RW (02:00:58): Yeah. I mean this miserable cunt, I would slap her upside the head physically if I saw her. That is who I am. But it is probably a bad thing to do, the wrong thing to do. But people have committed crimes in this country that have gone unpunished and they walk around today and I just wonder what is inside their heads. SM (02:01:27): Rex, you are really bringing something up here and maybe you ought to pursue it because I would certainly support you on it about the... Because we have seen in the last maybe 10, 15 years, some of those people that were let off Scott free for the atrocities they committed in the South are now being brought to justice and being put in prison even if they are 75, 85 years old. RW (02:01:50): Well, yeah. SM (02:01:51): Part of it is happening, particularly the ones that killed Goodman, Schwerner and Cheney. I think they have been brought to justice, and I am not sure if they ever found the ones that blew up the church. I do not think they ever found them. But you raise a good point. But I am a firm believer that they are going to... If you believe in the power above, they are going to pay a heavy price in the power above. RW (02:02:17): Well, that is good to know. And I am with you on that. But I am thinking even the quieter crimes, the people who in their everyday behavior denied justice to somebody or some people or participated in the mobs that harassed or blocked civil rights or just behaved in a way that restricted someone else's freedom and liberty that was in a way, traumatic for that other person. So the principal of the school who threw a student out because he insisted on having long hair or had a poster of Bob Dylan on his wall or something. SM (02:03:03): I am a firm believer as a nation we have a lot of soul searching to do because things have come out since World War II regarding the Nazis and how some of the... We are not talking about the leadership, but we are talking about the underlings who committed some of the most worse atrocities in the world, worse than Eichman were brought into the United States and went on to live comfortable lives. And the government knew they were here and there were their information for whatever. There is a lot of hypocrisy going on here, and it is very disturbing. Another question is the issue of trust. The boomers have often, and the (19)60s generation, the boomers is not a very trusting generation for obvious reasons, because they saw leaders lie constantly, whether it be LBJ and the Gulf of Tonkin or Watergate with Richard Nixon. Certainly nobody trusted Ford at the point that he was going to pardon Richard Nixon, even though they said he healed a nation by doing so. And then you had issues with the U-2, with Eisenhower lying on black and white TV and a lot of experience, the lies that McNamara gave to the American people about the escalating numbers, all the things. And I can see why many boomers did not trust their leaders, but you experienced it as I did. Boomers did not seem to trust anybody in a position of leadership, whether it be a rabbi, a priest, a minister, a university president, a corporate leader, anyone who was a leader. Just your response on that. And as a political science person, I was a history political science major, and we were taught early on that not having trust is actually a good quality to have because it means dissent is alive and well. So just your thoughts on the boomers or the (19)60s generation just did not trust people? RW (02:05:10): Well, yes. I think there had been a tremendous betrayal of trust in the years leading up to the (19)60s. And there was the reality of what we were experiencing diverged from what the leaders were saying. And the famous credibility gap of the Johnson years epitomized what was going on. But this is not to say that JFK did not lie to us or that he was not similarly under some illusion or in the control of powers that continued to manipulate our history to their benefit while mouthing patriotic platitudes. I do believe that there is a secret history of the country that has yet to be acknowledged. Our victimization of not only our own citizens at home, but of other countries, other people's economies. And this may never be acknowledged. And given that circumstance, I continue to define myself... How should I say it? It is what I identify with about the (19)60s is the willingness to resort to methods, unconventional methods, shall we say, to either protest or force a change. And I reserve my right and my resources and my experience to take that with me to the grave if necessary, but certainly to impart that to the rest of the world and say, as we said back then, if it comes to it, let us pick up the gun. And I am not afraid of that. It would be a terrible thing. But there are forces still alive in this country, part of the secret history of the country that want to turn the clock back, but they cannot do it. And that is what makes them so dangerous. SM (02:08:16): So as someone who may be different from you, I mean, your stand is correct in what you believe, but the fact that Students for Democratic Society went downhill after they started committing violence, even Mark Rudd said it is the greatest mistake he ever made in his life. Bernadine Dohrn has not made that admission. And then the American Indian Movement, they even realized when they started going violent at Wounded Knee, that was a big, big mistake. The gay and lesbian movement, when the Harvey Milk was murdered in (19)78, they committed violence. They regret the violence that happened two or three days later. The protest was okay, but the violence never went any... And of course, the Black Panthers and the Black Power- RW (02:09:05): It is all very regrettable and it is a terrible thing and people do get hurt, and when it is happening all around you, it is terrifying. I just happen to be in San Francisco during the protests when the sentence came down in the Harvey Milk. SM (02:09:28): Yeah, I lived out there. I lived in Burlingame. RW (02:09:30): All right. Well, I was there with my friend Paul Krasner and a bunch of- SM (02:09:34): Oh, I have read... He is a good writer. RW (02:09:37): You should be in touch with Paul. He would be a good interview for [inaudible]. SM (02:09:40): I do not even know how to get ahold of him. RW (02:09:43): I set one of the police cars on fire during that time, just because I could. And I will admit it now. Come and get me motherfuckers. SM (02:09:50): Oh my golly, I know the chief. No, only kidding. RW (02:09:55): You know what I mean? I just think that one of the things about America that is very American is it is violent nature and that is something we cannot deny. And I was never a peace and love hippie. I was a... What can I tell you? But in any case, I think that just as the NRA says, we all have a right to go around armed. I say, yeah, and I want to be armed against you guys because you are the ones who are the craziest with your crazy ideas. I mean, you never really hear of left-wingers shooting places up. It is always people with strange, strange sort of... I do not know. SM (02:10:57): What other things here? We only got about 10 more... You have gone way overboard with me and I want to thank you. RW (02:11:02): All right. SM (02:11:03): Time wise. Trauma is something.... I am very lucky. I am going to have an interview with Robert J. Lifton in July. He has written a lot of books on trauma, certainly amongst the Vietnam veterans. I am going to ask him about trauma regarding the boomer generation and a lot of the people on the other side as well. But you have already talked about all generations in American history have gone through trauma. Certainly when Lincoln was killed back in the Civil War as the North was getting so close to winning that war, and they won the war, but we went through so much with Kennedy and the other Kennedy and King and the riots, and then the Vietnam. (19)68 looked like the country's going apart, Kent State and Jackson State. Then in the (19)80s, we had the AIDS crisis where the president did not even care as probably half of the male population that were gay may have passed away. Certainly what happened with Harvey Milk and Moscone in (19)78 and John Monon in 1980? The only reason I bring these up is that whenever there seems to be some sort of hope or people who lead, who conspire, people that hope reigns eternal, that good things can come through persistence and hard work and believing in justice and equality and no man or woman is better than anybody else. And then there is murder or there is something. And of course, I always live by the philosophy like Dr. King is, you may kill dreamer, but you cannot kill the dream. That is the way I have lived my life. And I think if you asked any of these people that died, they would say the same thing. But I have often wondered, and maybe you and I are on the same wavelength as boomers. I have wondered what my fellow generation, I think about these things, what this trauma has done to them personally in their lives. And it is thinking beyond yourself kind of mentality. It is trauma, just your comments on trauma. RW (02:13:16): Yes. Well, there was the trauma of the Second World War that was inflicted upon our parents after the trauma of the Depression. And so we came into a world of traumatized Americans. They tried to shield us from that in the hopes that we would never experience anything like it. But the greatest generation created the Vietnam War. So there we had to go through it again and in a worse manner because some went and some did not. And it was just a completely traumatic time. The war alone just overshadowed everything. And I could not have the education that my parents struggled to provide for me because my own conscience would not allow it. So think about that kind of trauma. All of society was afflicted by matters of conscience there. The Civil Rights Movement or the Vietnam War, or so many of the issues of the time, we were traumatized by having our conscience provoked. We were forced to feel, forced to think instead of sinking into comfort and peace and comfort. Let me... All right, go right ahead. SM (02:15:26): So I think being forced to act as a matter of conscious being forced to feel and think these things felt traumatic because it was our right not to be afflicted by these things, I think. RW (02:15:45): The pictures often say of a million words. When you think of, I would say the first 30 years of boomers lives, (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, maybe the early (19)80s, what are the pictures, the photographs that were either on fronts of magazines or within magazines or may have been shown on TV that really, if someone had never read a history book of this period, but looked at these pictures, they would understand? SM (02:16:14): They do not understand? RW (02:16:16): No, they would understand. SM (02:16:18): The pictures give meaning to the period. RW (02:16:21): Well, the photo from Kent State of the young woman kneeling, that shows the extent to which white people went to protest the war. Any of the photos from My Lai or any of the war photos of the terror, of the young men of fighting for what they believed in or thought they believed in. Certainly the photos from the Civil Rights movement, certainly the photo of the Great Mall during the Civil Rights... When Martin Luther King gathered everybody together in Washington. The photo of John F. Kennedy and his kids, which epitomized the ideal, the glamour to which we aspired, to be graceful under pressure, to have a great vision, to believe in ideals. These were things that he sort of epitomized. And never for a moment did you look at JFK's family and think that these were uninvolved people. He was the essence of activism and the essence of the interrupted revolution. SM (02:18:16): Two other pictures that I think stood out were the athletes at the (19)68 Olympics, which is Carlos and Tommy Smith with their Black Power fists. RW (02:18:26): Yes, there is certainly that. SM (02:18:28): And then the Vietnamese girl in running down who had just been burned, Kim Phuc, that was another one too. RW (02:18:35): Sure. And we forget that that (19)68 was a time all over the world where youth politics and culture were united. And in Paris, I had friends who participated in the street demonstrations there, and the great slogan in French to translate this, "The more I make revolution, the more I want to make love." To me, that was a very French interpretation of what we were all very much about. And certainly the photo of Woodstock and so many people gathered together there, naked smoking dope, sharing bottles of wine. These are all- SM (02:19:28): Yeah, that one picture of the two hugging each other with a blanket around them when it was raining, that was a classic one. And certainly the pictures of planet Earth by the astronauts. That was another one that is- RW (02:19:41): Right. And there is a photo that was on the cover of Life Magazine of a couple ecstatically dancing. The guy in that photo was a guy named Bantusi, who I have known for since probably 1970. SM (02:20:00): Wow. RW (02:20:01): And we continued to meet- SM (02:20:03): Wow. RW (02:20:03): We continued to meet up from time to time, but I was privileged to get to know people like Abbie Hoffman and to participate in events that were in the sort of electric current of the moment, riots and demonstrations. I played my own very small role in these things. I felt it was the least I could do considering others of my generation- SM (02:20:42): The- RW (02:20:43): ...Were risking their lives in some far-off jungle. But I never wanted to get to the age that I am in now and not be able to say, "Yes, I took part in that and I believed in what I was doing." SM (02:21:00): You stood for something. RW (02:21:01): I am pretty happy With all of it. SM (02:21:02): Yeah. You stood for something. RW (02:21:03): Yeah. SM (02:21:04): Yeah. The slogans from that period, and I have mentioned this, I did not mention it in the first half of my interviews, but I have since, particularly since I left the university. I felt there were three personal slogans that really defined the Boomer generation. Then a couple of people led me on to maybe two or three more. I felt that Malcolm X saying, "By any means necessary," symbolized the more radical elements within that period. Then you had Bobby Kennedy taking the Henry David Thoreau quote, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not," which symbolizes an activist, the more questioning role that people had in all those different movements. Then you had a Peter Max statement from his posters that were very popular on college campuses in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. This was actually hanging on my door at Ohio State. It said, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." Which symbolizes a hippie mentality. RW (02:22:11): Yeah. SM (02:22:11): Someone said to me, "We cannot forget, we shall overcome," because that symbolized the civil rights movement and what was going on. And then the only other two that have been mentioned are John Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." And then of course the Leary's, "Tune in, turn on and drop out." RW (02:22:29): Yeah. SM (02:22:30): Are there any that you have that I did not mention that really inspired you that I am missing here? RW (02:22:38): Well, I just want to say that the Peter Max thing sucks because there were people doing their thing that did not allow me or other people to do their thing. So hippie ethics was a bunch of bullshit. I would have to think about that one. SM (02:23:06): Okay. That is pretty inclusive I would say. I only have- RW (02:23:11): I do kind of like Che Guevara's thing about, "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, I would like to say that every true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love." I like that. It is sentimental and tough at the same time. That is how I like to see that time. SM (02:23:47): By you saying that, I want to recommend a book to you. I do not know if you are ever into Bertrand Russell. RW (02:23:52): Oh yeah. SM (02:23:53): Okay. Well, his biography, when I interviewed David Mixner, I asked him, "What was your legacy? What would you like your legacy to be?" He said, "Read the opening paragraph in Bertrand Russell's book, his biography, and that is all I have to say." Try to get it. It is great because when that man old age lived a life where I wanted to make a difference, and what he said about, and he brought in the concept of love is one of the three things that he wanted to be remembered for. One of the things that we are getting down toward the end here, and thanks again for going overboard. The sexual revolution, your section on it, I thought it was great. RW (02:24:41): Thanks. SM (02:24:44): One question I wanted to ask you, have you kept in touch with any of these 1000 and so people? RW (02:24:49): No, not really. We keep all of the original questionnaires somewhere and we are holding onto this stuff. SM (02:24:56): I wonder how many of these people are still alive? RW (02:24:59): Well, I wonder, I am still alive, but.. SM (02:25:04): The question I am asking, dealing with sexual revolution of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, particularly in the (19)70s, that even though a lot of the things happened in the late (19)60s, a lot of people look at the sexual revolution as that early (19)70s period. I have always felt that the (19)60s ended in (19)73. I think, because when the war ended and everything, I cannot see much of a difference between 1967 and (19)72. But the question is the AIDS crisis, which was the biggest crisis of the (19)80s and the loss of so many people, and certainly in the San Francisco area, in New York. I have made sure in the book process that I have interviewed gay and lesbians, I have interviewed African-Americans, Native Americans, Latinos, the only group I feel guilty on is Asian-Americans, but they really did not... It is the boat people, I am trying to get to interview some of them. But do you think that the sexual revolution led to the AIDS crisis? RW (02:26:06): Well, in our book Woodstock Census, we came to the conclusion that the sexual revolution was a lot of noise, but no real substance. It was not that people were fucking more or climbing into bed with strangers any more than in any other time. What was really at the root of the seeming wildness of it was that women were coming into their own and people were having the very unusual and sort of wild experience, guys mainly, of having a woman call the shots, having women controlling the sexual situation and being more frank and honest about their bodies and themselves to quote a book title. The women themselves becoming empowered to the point that it altered forever the relationship that men have traditionally had with women in this country from the beginning. That affects everything from the way women dress at work to their earning power, to their role in the home and to their roles in bed. That is what the sexual revolution was really about. Your question goes to the left or the right or above or below the real substance of what it was. It was not an increased licentiousness that made the (19)60s seem so sexually free. It was really the empowerment of women through the women's movement that made everything seem so radically new and sometimes pretty wild. SM (02:28:20): Very good. I got a quick question here about your career because I- RW (02:28:26): I have got a question about my career too, God damn it. SM (02:28:29): Well, your writing career is amazing, your work with Variety and of course High Times, and I did not even know about the underground newspapers. How did your writing career lead you into writing movie and TV scripts? The key question I have here is do your books and your plays and your scripts, are they linked to a sort... I cannot read my writing here. Is there some sort of a message or meaning that is some way connected to the times when you were young? Do you try to put messages in all of your work? RW (02:29:09): I really wish that that were true. If it is, I may not know it. I think I work to keep working is basically... I write to keep writing. That is my personal motivation. The piece of writing that took me from New York to California, to Los Angeles is an exercise in fiction called The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, which is purely a literary exercise in sort of detective noir writing. It seems to have no relationship to my activism or my (19)60s sensibility whatsoever. That has led me, at the time I wrote it, I was sort of at odds. I did not know what direction I was going in, what I was doing. I wrote that and became editor of Swank, the magazine for men, for a year. SM (02:30:29): Wow. RW (02:30:30): Got a call from Hollywood saying, "Let us make a movie based on these big stories." They did not make the movie for about 10 years, but in the meantime, I did a stint writing for Miami Vice, writing a few other things. The one movie that does contain political activism is one I did called Forgotten Prisoners, the Amnesty Files, which is based on the true stories from the files of Amnesty International and had their official imprimatur. SM (02:31:04): Ron Silver was in that, right? RW (02:31:06): Yeah. SM (02:31:07): And he passed away this last year, I believe. RW (02:31:09): Yeah, and Hector Elizondo, but the director is Robert Greenwald, who continues to be an activist director. That is the one piece of movie business work. The Miami Vice episode I did is related to my expertise developed during the High Times days of the underworld of marijuana smuggling. There is that. I would say, on the one hand, I regret not having a constant politically involved writing career. On the other hand, that could be very restrictive, and I am very pleased that I have been able to do widely divergent pieces that I have done, even if it does not have the sort of consistency that I would prefer my career to be defined by. SM (02:32:14): When you think of the (19)60s and the Boomers, throughout your life, what were the best movies that really defined the times when Boomers were young, and also any books that you read that really influenced you during that time, and any artist or artwork, because most people really are limited in terms of art and what they know about the era, even if they grew up in it. They know about Andy Warhol and they know about Peter Max and Lichtenstein, but they do not know a whole lot others. RW (02:32:47): [inaudible] SM (02:32:47): [inaudible] the ones that had the most meaning to you? RW (02:32:53): Yes. Well, I would use the literature of the (19)50s and early (19)60s, the beat literature, Kerouac, Ginsburg, going back even further to Kenneth Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. These were the true literary lights of our time of the (19)60s. I mean, certainly Philip Roth captures beautifully the sensibility of the (19)50s and (19)60s. Norman Mailer, who I was very pleased to meet and hang around with, and Mailer's son, John Buffalo is a good friend of mine now, so I am very happy about that. The iconic writers, such as, what is his name? Tom Wolf, Pynchon and so on. Everyone has their favorites. Even cowgirls Get the Blues. That writer. These books inspired people and freed them from the restraints that they thought that they were alone and thinking that way. So those were all good things. SM (02:34:19): Did you read The Greening of America by Charles Reich? RW (02:34:22): No. Those are the books that I would flip through it and say, "Oh my God, how tedious." You would get the idea just from the review what his point was. At that time, you did not really need his examples. He had a point, and these were all pointing in the same direction that America was trying to free itself of past strictures. In terms of movies, the great movies of the (19)60s really came about in the (19)70s. You had Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces, and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I did meet Kesey as well. There was a great outpouring of popular literature in the (19)60s that I do not see today, which is regrettable, but it is all happening on the internet now. To discover an author and to pass that dogeared paperback copy of Salinger to somebody was a way of turning somebody. It was like handing them a joint. It literally changed people's lives to read some of those books or to see some of those movies. The usual pantheon of literature and art, I do believe that the most radical artists of the times were in music like Bob Dylan, for instance, was true. Even though he evolved from so many familiar sources, he really did change the paradigm of what it meant to be a popular artist and to go through phases and to have an impact on people's lives. But also, Andy Warhol, I would say, was one of the most radical artists of that period. He really had an impact on the way people did everything and many these are commonly accepted themes and methods, but in their time, they were so truly, truly radical in the sense that they diverged completely from any tradition, turned things on their heads in a way that made us see differently. I think he was probably the iconic artist, the visual artist of the time. SM (02:37:16): Where would you put movies like The Graduate, Bob & Carroll & Ted &Alice? The Sterile Cuckoo was another one. RW (02:37:26): Well, here is the thing. Since I have come to Hollywood and gotten to know the movie business inside and out, I know how Hollywood works, and I know that the people who made those movies and who allowed studios to finance them and distribute and market them, were all seizing upon what they saw as an audience for these ideas that were in the media, in the news, on TV. They were really looking to sensationalize or capitalize on these. They were looking to sell tickets, and there were ways that people could participate in the (19)60s without actually being in an orgy or actually being alienated or feeling only a little alienated. They could identify with Dustin Hoffman in the Graduate and yet not have to go through what that character- SM (02:38:35): Yeah, I think I learned a lot about post-traumatic stress disorder and a lot of things that happened in Vietnam vets through Taxi Driver. RW (02:38:44): Yeah. SM (02:38:44): Then of course you have criticisms of Apocalypse Now and... RW (02:38:49): Yes, well, you notice that these movies came about in the early to mid (19)70s, and that is the time lag. If you decide that something that happened in the news today is worth making a movie about, that movie will not come out for at least two years. It takes a long time for a movie to get made and for everybody who's there to say no to finally say yes. The (19)60s in cinema did not happen until the mid (19)70s. That is just the way Hollywood works. People forget that in the (19)60s, you had the Rock Hudson, Doris Day movies and a lot of crap out there that did not really reflect what was going on, just an attempt to capitalize on the surface material. SM (02:39:50): I got three more questions. I am not going to ask this section, because we have gone really long here. That is all the names and personalities and terms. I am not going to go into that. I only wanted you to respond to two, and that is, what does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you personally? Secondly, what did the tragedy at Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? Those two. RW (02:40:17): Okay, well, I will take the latter. Kent State and Jackson State, I was in the streets at that time and they tore the cover off and allowed me to engage in the closest thing I could say to domestic terrorism. I mean, I was out there in the streets battling cops hand to hand and throwing the tear gas canisters back at them and breaking windows and setting things on fire. Those things meant that the array of official violence facing us required more than just peaceful protests. And that is what it meant to me, rightly or wrongly, and sorry if I heard anybody, but fuck it. And then the first one, what was the first one again? SM (02:41:14): Vietnam Memorial. RW (02:41:16): Okay. Well, to tell you the truth, I have not been to Washington DC since the protest days. SM (02:41:23): Okay. RW (02:41:24): I just have no reason to go. I never liked Washington DC. I cannot bring myself yet to go see the memorial, but I will probably one of these days. At the same time, my son, when he was in middle school, he and his class went to Washington DC on a class trip and I sat him down and told him the story of my high school best friend and gave him the name. I said, look at it, when you go to the wall, look it up and do a rubbing and bring it back. He took it seriously and went there and he brought back my friend's name from the wall. SM (02:42:13): What is your friend's name? RW (02:42:15): His name was Cuall K Lawrence. SM (02:42:18): Okay. RW (02:42:19): C-U-A-L-L K Lawrence. SM (02:42:22): How did he die? RW (02:42:24): Well, let us keep talking a bit, because I will tell you. SM (02:42:39): Yeah. RW (02:42:41): But there is a phrase that they use. SM (02:42:44): What year did he die? RW (02:42:46): What is that? SM (02:42:47): What year did he die? RW (02:42:48): I will tell you in a minute. But- SM (02:42:52): He was your best friend in high school? RW (02:42:54): Yes. SM (02:42:55): Did he go right into the army after school or the Marines? RW (02:43:00): Yeah. Well, there was a period of time when we all just went off into different directions and he ended up... Let us see here, wait a minute, here we go. Hang on. Private First Class, 8th Cavalry, 1st Cav Division. November, 1970. SM (02:43:45): Wow. RW (02:43:47): And he was said to have died from... Let us see. Non-hostile, died of other causes, ground casualty. The casual detail was accidental self-destruction. SM (02:44:10): So like, yeah, maybe bomb went off or, yeah. Or else it could have been friendly fire. Well, no, who knows? There is a lot of terms they use. RW (02:44:23): Accidental self-destruction was often used for people who shot up too much dope, or God knows what he did. Just maybe. SM (02:44:34): Did you go to his funeral? RW (02:44:37): No, I did not. As soon as I heard this, I went down to the city and just, that is when pretty much everything started falling in place as far as my activism. SM (02:44:53): When the best history books are written about the Boomer generation, the (19)60s generation, the Vietnam generation, that is those individuals born after the war and through the period I mentioned. After the boomers have passed on, the 78 million are no longer on this planet, what do you think the historians and sociologists are going to say about them? Because they obviously did not live during the time, but what do you think they will say about that period and about that generation? RW (02:45:29): Well, what do we say about the generation that fought the Civil War? What do we say about the 1920s? Oh, the roaring (19)20s. These things get simplified over time, boiled down into a phrase or an idea. I think the (19)60s will always be known as a time of turmoil and a time of testing and a time of triumph when it comes to the basic movements, the basic goals that we went for at that time. So civil rights, did we win on that? Yes. Women's rights? Yes. We won on that. Ending the war. Well, the war did finally end, whether we ended it or not, but a lot of effort went into ending it, not as a successful ending, but an ending that had to be brought about. I think that the simplification is those troubles, the term tumultuous (19)60s and the subhead is a time of protest, and hopefully they will conclude that the victories were won more than were lost. SM (02:47:01): That is really amazing that when you think about young people today in college, how little history they know, not only about the time that we live, but in any time. Let us hope that the quality of teaching changes, so that is not the case after the Boomer generation is gone. My very last question here is, what is the one thing you want to do in your life that you have not done yet that could be linked to your time, to the Woodstock generation, or just because you want to do something different? Is there something you want to do that you have not done? RW (02:47:53): Well, there are a couple of girlfriends I would like to see again, but only if they look the same. I think that I have been very lucky in being able to travel the world, and I have been to all kinds of places and done so many things and been witness to more history than anyone could ever want. SM (02:48:28): Is there one question that you thought I was going to ask that I did not? RW (02:48:32): That is the one question I was wondering if you would ask. SM (02:48:35): What is that? RW (02:48:37): "Is there one question?" SM (02:48:39): Oh, okay. RW (02:48:39): That blew your mind, man. SM (02:48:43): Yeah. Well, Rex, thank you very much. I will be interviewing Deanne. I think it is Monday. RW (02:48:52): Good. SM (02:48:52): I am calling her in the afternoon. And if there is anybody that you think of that you would think would be good for this project, you mentioned Paul Krassner, but I think he is almost impossible to get ahold of. RW (02:49:05): I call him all the time. I will send you his email. You can talk to him. SM (02:49:09): Yeah. If there is anybody else, you mentioned one other name, I forget what it was. You mentioned another name here. You have known, you said for years, and he was in that picture. RW (02:49:19): Oh yeah. Well, he will just give you a bunch of hippie bullshit. SM (02:49:23): Is there anybody else? Well, you think about it. RW (02:49:27): Did you interview Rennie Davis, by the way? SM (02:49:29): Oh, yeah. I interviewed him. RW (02:49:30): What's he got say, is he still with the 13-year-old guru? SM (02:49:34): Oh, no, was he with a 13-year-old girl? RW (02:49:38): That never came up? SM (02:49:39): No. RW (02:49:41): Are you fucking kidding me? You better, you better. Yeah. You are not doing your homework here. He- SM (02:49:44): No, he is with an older woman now that writes. He was very successful in the corporate world or technology, and he made a lot of money that way. He is into spirituality and he is very good at that. RW (02:50:01): Well, at the height of the sort of- SM (02:50:06): This should be off the record, I should not be taping this, should I? RW (02:50:09): No, you can. SM (02:50:09): Okay. RW (02:50:11): He very famously became a spokesman for the guru, Maharaji. SM (02:50:15): I remember that. Yep. RW (02:50:16): Known in our circles as the 13-year-old fat bastard. He totally left the activist world, sort of renounced it and became part of this cult. SM (02:50:35): Well, I knew that. RW (02:50:36): Oh, okay. Well, so that is- SM (02:50:38): I thought he was having an affair with a 13-year-old or something like that. RW (02:50:41): No-no. SM (02:50:41): Okay. RW (02:50:44): Guru Maharaji, who lives in Malibu now, has a helicopter and a private jet and is a pain in the ass to his neighbor. SM (02:50:51): Yeah, Rennie, even the person he lives with, I do not know the whole story. I know she is also a very good speaker. I forget her name. He was traveling around the country giving speaking engagements on spirituality. He is really good at it. He is in demand everywhere. So he is driving all over campus with her and they do presentations together and individually. He was very successful in technology for a while, I guess. Then he sold his company, and I guess he is fairly well-to-do. RW (02:51:29): Oh, good for him. But one of the few survivors of the Chicago trial. SM (02:51:38): Yeah. He and Tom Hayden. RW (02:51:41): Right. SM (02:51:41): And I tried. (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 Rex Weiner Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Weiner, Rex ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Editors; Publishers; Journalists; Weiner, Rex--Interviews Description An account of the resource <span>Rex Weiner, a native of Brooklyn, New York, is a writer, editor, publisher, and journalist based in Los Angeles and Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, MX. Weiner began his journalism career in the underground press of the late 1960s and is a co-founding editor of <em>High Times</em> magazine.&nbsp;His articles have appeared in <em>Vanity Fair</em>, <em>The New Yorker</em>, <em>Los Angeles Review of Books</em>, <em>The Paris Review</em>, <em>LA Magazine</em> and <em>Capital &amp; Main</em>. He is Executive Director and co-founder of the Todos Santos Writers Workshop, where he teaches creative writing. With Deanne Stillman, he is co-author of <em>The Woodstock Census: Nationwide Survey of the Sixties Generation</em> (Viking Press).</span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-03-19 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.10.2016.120a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.120b 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. 171:44 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/36863aef1daa1f3e22da69d6c4bab09b.jpg a1db53d2fde9ad3455d94f2cef04e609 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c0cf0b87bbfc3f8ed6fc9136fdf0e54f.mp3 b4fdc42fad586b1a671dc00a41a3d7d3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-04-16 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Michael Walzer Language English Biographical Text Dr. Michael Walzer is a political theorist and professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics in political theory and moral philosophy. Dr. Walzer has a Bachelor's degree in History from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Activism; Generation X; feminist movement; Ronald Reagan; Baby boom generation; Red diaper baby; Brandeis University; Montgomery bus boycott; Freedom Summer; Fred Shuttlesworth.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Activism; Generation X; feminist movement; Ronald Reagan; Baby boom generation; Red diaper baby; Brandeis University; Montgomery bus boycott; Freedom Summer; Fred Shuttlesworth.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 89:50 Subject LCSH Political scientists; College teachers; Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N.J.); Walzer, 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>. 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. Michael Walzer Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Walzer, Michael ; 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; Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, N.J.); Walzer, Michael--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Michael Walzer is a political theorist and professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. He has written books and essays on a wide range of topics in political theory and moral philosophy. Dr. Walzer has a Bachelor's degree in History from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard 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 2010-04-16 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.10.2016.119 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. 89:50 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c986bbc9f8507f01010a9be28783a4a6.jpg 0dcb95c11dd293433541cb77e5d38fe1 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/0aeef811ca40176640522667e5a2e6ae.mp3 368b9cd38b6e74e6ff50bbd9cd7b54dd 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 2010-01-07 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Wayne J. (Wayne Jacob) Thorburn, 1944- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Wayne Thorburn is a politician, educator and author. He served as the executive director of the Republican Party of Texas from 1977-1983. He is the author of A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement. Dr. Thorburn is a graduate of Tufts University and Penn State and holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Maryland. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7043,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,5855577],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Dr. Wayne Thorburn is a politician, educator, and author. He served as the executive director of the Republican Party of Texas from 1977-1983. He is the author of <em>A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement</em>. Dr. Thorburn is a graduate of Tufts University and Penn State and holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Maryland. </span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Ethnic church; Religion; Economy; WWII; Great powers; Soviet Union; Free speech movement; Corporate control; Environmental movement; Vietnam War; Student protest; Welfare state; Baby boom generation; Sexual revolution; Consumption society; Gay and Lesbian Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Discrimination; Black Panthers; Black Power.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Ethnic church; Religion; Economy; WWII; Great powers; Soviet Union; Free speech movement; Corporate control; Environmental movement; Vietnam War; Student protest; Welfare state; Baby boom generation; Sexual revolution; Consumption society; Gay and Lesbian Movement; Women's Rights Movement; Discrimination; Black Panthers; Black Power.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 220:20 Subject LCSH Politicians—United States; Educators; Authors; Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- )--Texas; Thorburn, Wayne J. (Wayne Jacob), 1944--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: Wayne Thorborn Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 7 January 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:02): Testing one, two. VT (00:00:07): And others of the left of that period of time, which I rightly so have made it into college libraries and public libraries. But as you indicated, there is only two that were kind of, one of which was a professor from Pennsylvania, John Andrew, who now passed away, who was at Franklin and Marshall wrote the Other Side of the (19)60s, which really pretty much ends with the Goldwater election. He does not really go into much beyond that. The other book, Cadres For Conservatism, is a little more extensive in the period it covers, but it basically says, well, the organization died in (19)85. SM (00:00:53): Oh, wow. WT (00:00:55): Rightly so. It was not strong from that point on, and in fact, I kind of say by the (19)90s, the mid (19)90s, it went into at least hibernation. It did not maybe die, but it went into hibernation. SM (00:01:11): Right. WT (00:01:11): But anyway, those who were active in the somewhat revival of the organization in the late (19)80s and in the very early (19)90s, they were just all upset and wrote scathing reviews on Amazon and everything else. How could he say this, the organization died in (19)85? And it is true. I mean, he was wrong, and so that have marred his history of the organization, which I thought was otherwise pretty good. And so, the bottom line was I felt there had to be something else that maybe libraries would purchase that would be on the shelf 10, 15 years from now when somebody's doing a study or research on what happened in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, if they would not only have the Tom Hayden and Richard Flax and the Kirkpatrick sales version, but they'd have a counter saying, "Well, wait a minute. There was another group of young people doing other things at that point in time." It stands to reason. SM (00:02:12): Yeah. I read the book. What I normally do is when I read a book, I read it through once and then I start reading it through where I start underlining it and all the other things. So, I really need to get a second book because that is what happens when I get involved in books and I am in the process now of I have read it, but I am reading so many books from my book project that- WT (00:02:36): Sure. SM (00:02:37): This is a good one, and it is well written, so I am ready to go if you are? WT (00:02:44): I am. SM (00:02:44): Okay. One of the things I have done is, it is actually the first 50 people I interviewed, which when I started this project back in the late (19)90s, I did not ask too much about their personal background, but the last 150 I have, and so I think it is important. How did you become who you are, that strong, conservative leader who grew up in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s? WT (00:03:09): Well, that is a good question. I think I came from a lower middle class working class family that was very traditional and conservative, not in the political ideological sense, but in the norms, values set. My father was an electrician. Much of his life, worked for other people, but then, well, the last 30 years or so worked for himself. So, I would not even call him a small businessman because he was himself, he never had any helpers or anything. My mother, after working very briefly, well before I was born, was a stay-at-home mother. And I grew up, I have one brother who is really a totally different segment. He is 15 years older than I am, and so it is almost like being two only children because by the time I was in the elementary school, he was off college and all that stuff. So, I grew up in a place called Somerville, Massachusetts, which is very much of a working class, inner suburb of Boston right between Cambridge and Medford, if you are familiar with it at all. SM (00:04:36): Oh, yeah. Yeah. WT (00:04:39): And so they were Baptist. Because I sometimes, and I am probably going to go on too long, so cut me off if I go on too long. SM (00:04:50): Okay, that is fine. WT (00:04:52): I grew up in what I now refer to as an ethnic church because in that area they were Irish, Italians and transplanted Canadians. Basically, the old wasps from colonial days were living in much more wealthy communities, so where were the wasps were basically transplanted Canadians and the church I grew up in, I would say 90 percent of the people there had relatives still living in Canada. And they, because of being Protestants, they were Republicans. And I think that is the motivation in the days that you are talking about, particularly the (19)50s and post-World War II. If you were Catholic, odds were very-very strong that you were going to be a Democrat, and if you were Protestant, odds were very-very strong that you were going to be a Republican. And ideology meant very little because you had very liberal Republicans and conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats, and conservative Democrats. There was ethnicity and class and other factors were what chose your party. So, I started in that environment and I think the first thing that really hit me was picking up while in High School, Barry Goldwater's, Conscience of a Conservative. SM (00:06:18): Yes. WT (00:06:19): And then after that, starting to get introduced to Buckley and Up from Liberalism. I think his first book, God and Man at Yale, was really before my time and really did not make an impact on me. It was the second, well, not his second, but his late 1959 book, Up From Liberalism. And so, I started reading those in high school, and I guess it was the values from my family that started me in that direction. SM (00:06:54): Did you read his book too, which was another classic on McCarthyism? WT (00:06:59): Not really. I mean, I obviously have since, but it did not make an impact on me. SM (00:07:03): Yeah, that is a classic. WT (00:07:05): McCarthy was an unknown person to me in those early days. I am sure some of the people you interviewed, oh, their parents were real backers of Joe McCarthy and all? No, it was not that. We seldom really at any depth discussed politics at home. SM (00:07:22): What was it like going to high school in the (19)50s or the late (19)50s, early (19)60s? WT (00:07:28): It was the late (19)50s and I graduated from high school in (19)61, so I think I am pretty well overworked, in kind of meaningless work, but traditional. At the high school, again, because of where I grew up, was very much a working class. A very, very small number, small percentage, of the graduates would go on to college. Some might go to a technical school or a secretarial school as they used to have them in those days, but most of them were high school graduates who then went on to work in clerical positions or truck drivers or working for the city or something like that. So, I worked part-time, and as most kids did in those times, I was able to purchase for $125 an old (19)54 Ford in until my senior year I had this broken-down car that I would drive to school. And there was not any one teacher who had an overriding influence on me. I was involved in the debate club, but we really never really got into very many debates and church activities and things like that. SM (00:09:02): When you drove that car, did you look like James Dean? WT (00:09:06): No, I was not quite the rebel. SM (00:09:09): Yeah. I often am interested in terms of one's college years. Could you talk about how you picked the college you went to? What was it like to be a college student during those years, and was there any activism at the college in those late (19)50s, early (19)60s? WT (00:09:30): Okay. Yeah. Basically I ended up applying to two colleges and one was Wake Forest. I really cannot tell you why. I never went to North Carolina. Never made a visit. The campus. It was in those days a Baptist college, and that might have had some reason for applying there. And then Tufts University, which was around the corner, a 15-minute walk from home. The reason I guess I applied there is because it had a very good reputation academically, and my brother had graduated from there, again many years earlier. But I guess in that there was a minor legacy you might think. So, I got into both of them and for various and sundry reasons, because there were no scholarships that were being made available, it just seemed, and my parents were not wealthy, but they were going to have to pay the tuition, it made sense to go to Tufts, which was really the academically better school, and I could walk to campus, live at home. Which is what I did. So. that is how I ended up going there. I guess one other part of your question, how did I come in contact with YAF? SM (00:11:02): Yes. WT (00:11:04): That is a transitional one because what happened was after I got accepted at Tufts, I was able to get a summer job that they had, I guess for students and incoming students, working with the grounds and building department. And in those days, the kids would leave their dorm room a mess and anything they did not want, they just trashed and left there. Knowing from my daughter's experience, nowadays, they come around and monitor and you have to have everything out there and cleaned up. But in those days, they had just left the places a mess. And so, one of the first assignments at Grounds and Building was to go into the dorms and take all the trash, get all the trash out of the rooms. And in so doing, I came across this rather amateur looking publication called The New Guard, and nosy that I was, reading through this and saw that it was a conservative youth publication by an unknown group to me called Young Americans For Freedom. And so that is how I came in contact with YAF, just by chance coming across a publication that a kid had left in a dorm room. And wrote off and sought information and tried to find out if there was a chapter at Tufts, things like that. SM (00:12:29): Wow. Yeah. One of the things I want, again, I have read this, but the people that will be reading these interviews, they will not have read your book and all the people I have interviewed, they have not read the books, but it is the personalities and the basic information, it is a different venue to reach people. When you talk about the Young Americans for Freedom, it is mostly college students. There is no high school students involved here. Correct? WT (00:12:53): At that point in time, there were very-very few, as time went on into the (19)60s, even as (19)62, (19)63, there were high school students involved, very much so. And there is a couple examples of people like Al Della Bovie, who is the chairman or president or whatever of the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York. He got active and was the head of a chapter in New York City of basically high school students. So, yes. And then from that point on, there was maybe not at the original founding, but by the early (19)60s as the involvement, particularly in the Goldwater campaign began, there started to be a number of high school chapters, some of which were allowed on campus, but many times we are not campus high school chapters, but might be City High School chapter. SM (00:14:04): The number four question here, which is basically divided the 65 years that boomers have been alive in six different periods, and basically when I have asked this question to all of my interviewees, it is some have said, it is almost impossible to talk about a period, there is too much, but what first comes to your mind when you see these six periods? Like say that first one, (19)46 to 1960, when you think about America and what, just the period? WT (00:14:40): Yeah. I guess to me, first of all, it is childhood. But in terms of the broader picture, I guess it would be staid, culturally established, not much radical change. SM (00:15:04): And then that period (19)61 when John Kennedy comes into office to 1970 when Kent State happens. WT (00:15:11): Right, right. Well, I would argue there is two different periods that are drastically different there. The period up until, I guess if you really want to look at one event, maybe the March (19)65 Johnson expansion of Vietnam being the end of the first period. Which I think still, there were rumblings of change in society with the civil rights movement with some of this campus activity mainly on the West coast, but it started out as a very conservative kind of period. I relate to, I was a freshman in (19)61, and so I still remember the beanie that I had to wear as a freshman on campus. I still remember that there was a curfew for female students. I still remember that there were obviously separate dormitories, but there was, even at Tufts, there was a separate women's college called Jackson College, just like there was Harvard and Radcliffe and all the administratively distinctive women's institutions within the bigger institution. I remember that even by 1965 when I was a senior, what I, and many of us did, is we bought these blue blazers with a crest on it, with the year 1965 and the seal of the college and would wear them around. SM (00:16:45): Wow. WT (00:16:46): And we would get harassed as a freshman, if we did not have our beanie on. So that first period of time, I think, was still socially very conservative, even though the rumblings were there of the start of some of the other things. And then the second half was quite different. That is when social morays are changing and when the music is making much more impact on society, and of course you get Woodstock and all that other stuff. So, I think you cannot really just solely talk about the decade of the (19)60s. It is really two different groups that hit there. SM (00:17:31): Right. How about that period, (19)71 to (19)80, which is the some might say is through at least (19)73, (19)74 is a continuation of the latter half of the (19)60s, and then you get into the disco era and the music changed. What were your thoughts before Ronald Reagan became president, just your thoughts on that period? WT (00:17:51): Right-right. Well, there was a period, again, as you said, of a lot of malaise. There was a lot of discomfort in society. There was all the problems with Nixon and Watergate and Agnew. What would In effect was the defeat and withdrawal from Vietnam. There was the energy crisis that came in. There was inflation with the Jerry Floyd and his whip inflation now. And then of course, looking back on that period, you come across the picture of Jimmy Carter sitting with a sweater in front of a fireplace talking about the malaise that we were in. So, it was rather, I think in many ways, a kind of a depressing decade that had a lot of negative things associated with it. SM (00:18:54): How about that period, 1981 to 1990 that many say is the era of Reagan? WT (00:19:00): I think that was for me, and actually for many people, much more optimistic. I think Reagan came in and was able to re-enthuse the American people about the possibilities of the country and its role not only in the world, but its role in time, and what was happening. As the theme in the (19)84 election that "It is morning in America", kind of summarized it. It was a sense of optimism. Now, there was the down period of the Iran Contra and near the end of it, but I think pretty much that whole decade was one of much more economically, we were doing better, and I think inside, psychically we were doing better by dealing. SM (00:19:58): How about that 1991 to 2000 when President Bush and President Clinton- WT (00:20:05): Excuse me. That too, is not a bad decade. I think if one looks back historically on the Clinton administration, but Clinton had a lot of personal problems, as we all know. We do not have to get into those, but I think as a president and as a period of time, yeah, it was a very positive one. When you look back, whether you want to give some of the credit to the Republican control of Congress or the President or both, or whatever. It was the last period that we, after many, many years, of continual deficit, that we were running an annual budget that was not in deficit, and the economy was doing fairly well. So, I think it was a pretty positive time. With also starting at the beginning with really the downfall of the Soviet Union and taking away the threat of an any day impending nuclear disaster. It was before we got to realize that the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries, and maybe even movement in our countries could become a serious continuing threat to us. We had focused for so many years on the Soviet Union, and it was gone. That, I think, it started the decade where it started out very positively. SM (00:21:43): And then of course, the last decade, 2001 to now 2011 with President Bush and President Obama. WT (00:21:51): Right-right. Exactly. Again, early on, reality sets in that the world is not a wonderful and beautiful place with 9-11. I think that really set the tone for much of American's attitudes towards the rest of that decade is that threat from a non-governmental force of a group of extremists who were under the color of religion, were attempting to advance their ideological position and work at virtually no respect for human life and would involve anyone civilian, the non-governmental officials or what have you, in bringing down what they saw as the enemy. SM (00:22:47): You know what is really interesting? WT (00:22:47): I think- SM (00:22:47): Go ahead. WT (00:22:47): Economically, you had stuff down. SM (00:22:54): It is interesting when you look at this whole period, when you think of the 1972 Olympics and the terrible thing that happened with the terrorism that Olympics, the killing of the Israeli team, and then all throughout the (19)80s, the takeover of airplanes and pilots, and then of course leading up to 9-11, seems like that Terrorism has been around here for quite some time. WT (00:23:18): Yes, it has. True. SM (00:23:20): Yeah. Wow. It's been around half the lives of all the boomers, especially the front runner boomers. When you look at the generation, which, whether it be 74 or 79 million, I always see different numbers, but when you look at the generation as a whole, can you give some characteristics that you think are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the generation? Is that possible? WT (00:23:48): Yeah, and again, I am a Casper at best. SM (00:23:54): Yes. WT (00:23:54): I was born in (19)44, so I am just beyond being able to call myself a baby boomer because I think the true span is (19)46 to (19)64 at birth years. But having said all that, I guess a couple of things would be number one, growing up at a time of economic and political growth of the United States of America. I mean, the economy has changed and strengthened so much from after the World War II period in which the first ones were born. And politically coming out of World War II, there were only two great powers, and then eventually with the fall of the Soviet Union, only one for a period of time. And economically, the United States' strength internationally has grown tremendously. So I think it's been one where the generation has had great advancement. Almost every one of them have economically done better than their parents and have been able to look to the future with positive projection. The downside of that, of course, is maybe the over-emphasis on security and the anticipation and expectation that everything will be either given to you or easily obtained, which kind of leads maybe to a sense of entitlement that is beyond what should be. I guess that in a nutshell is probably the way I would describe it. SM (00:25:46): In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end, and what was the watershed moment? WT (00:25:51): Okay. Well, I think we have talked about that a little bit. I think there are two (19)60s. The (19)60s that is, I think you are referring to, I think probably began with Johnson's move in 1965 to enhance US involvement in the Vietnam War, and that probably was the pivotal event that activated many people on the left on college campuses, and by then the music and drugs and other things were starting to impact the community. So, that would be the watershed moment I think. The (19)60s as described that way rather than chronologically probably started to fade out by 1973 in the withdrawal of American troops, and the fact that their hero McGovern got so resoundingly defeated the left's hero, the left hero, Montgomery, got so resoundingly defeated the (19)72 election, and so that movement, if that is the (19)60s, kind of goes from (19)65 to (19)73 in my mind. SM (00:27:16): Yeah, that is excellent. Number seven is a little bit detailed here. I just picked these out myself, because they seem to be important either right, statements, slogans, or events or personalities that really affected college students, and I was curious what the Young Americans for Freedom were doing on college campuses when they happened. And the first one is, and again, it is just if your perception as person who not only was a leader for of the organization is, I believe it is executive director? WT (00:27:51): Right. SM (00:27:52): Yes. For 7 years? WT (00:27:54): No, no. I was only there... I was involved. I joined in (19)61 and basically got out by (19)75, so that is only 14 years, but I was executive director only from (19)71 to (19)73. SM (00:28:08): Okay. Very good. How did the young Americans for Freedom respond to Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."? WT (00:28:19): Sounds good, but not realistic because individuals ought to be looking out for themselves, and I think it ran counter to the individualistic strain in modern conservatism. That rather than having a loyalty to the country as primary, your individual concern and in taking care of yourself ought to come first. SM (00:28:49): Then we have the Bobby Kennedy quote. It was actually a quote from another writer from the 1900s- WT (00:28:59): Right-right. SM (00:28:59): But, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see-" WT (00:29:03): I think that would be one that they would grumble as to who was being quoted, but they would agree with that. That was really an attitude that they had. SM (00:29:16): That is a positive attitude then? WT (00:29:18): Absolutely. SM (00:29:19): Then Muhammad Ali, who was one of the primary athletic figures of the boomer generation, we all remember during the Vietnam War, "I will not fight in Vietnam and kill you yellow babies when we have black babies dying in our cities every day." WT (00:29:36): Yeah. I think they would say, Oh, he fails to understand the challenge of communism and how communism is going to kill yellow babies, black babies, white babies, regardless, and it is going to try to control all of the world, and that what we are fighting in Vietnam is international communism and an effort to take over a country, and we are not there to be killing little yellow babies. SM (00:30:02): Malcolm X is by any means necessary, one of the biggest slogans of the year. WT (00:30:08): Yeah, no, they would disagree with that and say that there is the rule of law and there are right appropriate ways to do things and not any means necessary. SM (00:30:21): Timothy Leary was the epitome of the counterculture, "Tune in, turn on, drop out." WT (00:30:32): There is where you get a little division by the late (19)60s into a couple of movements. Some in the organization were enthralled with parts of the counterculture and probably would agree with that to some degree, and that is the movement that gets described is the more libertarian element in the organization. But most would say that, no, this is totally wrong, that you have to become involved, stay involved and change society. SM (00:31:05): Peter Max's posters really often defined the hippie culture in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, very popular where I was going to school, and one that really stood out was this slogan, "You do your thing and I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, that would be beautiful." WT (00:31:28): Well, I think that, probably most of the actors would totally agree with, especially that would really reflect the more libertarian element in the organization and the sense of individual freedom. Yeah. Some of the more conservative ones would say, "Well, that is not quite true. You have to take consideration of society in the larger picture." But I'd say that most would agree with that. SM (00:31:56): And of course, the big- WT (00:31:58): Yeah. SM (00:31:59): ...slogan, "Hell no, we will not go. We will not fight-" WT (00:32:01): No, they would be totally opposed to that. SM (00:32:02): We will not go. We will not fight it. WT (00:32:02): No. They would be totally opposed to that. Yeah. Was very sparling in support of the American effort throughout almost all the period of time. Only when we get into the (19)70s, and Nixon has his Vietnamization aspect of the war, did some less emphasis on that. And really then the emphasis shifted to concern about the POWs. So, no, this is something that they would totally reject. SM (00:32:33): Then the Call of Civil Rights was the uniting force was, "We Shall Overcome." That was the song, voices and- WT (00:32:44): Well, can I go off in two directions with that? SM (00:32:45): Yes. WT (00:32:46): One is, I think one of the big problems of the conservative movement in the (19)60s was its inability to support the legitimate goals of the civil rights movement and the breakdown of segregation. And so, that ended up hurting conservatives and more specifically Republicans by becoming too associated with segregationist in the undying south and discrimination, wherever it was in the country, by not identifying with the Civil Rights Movement. So in a retrospect afterthought, I think a number of conservatives now recognize that that was a very serious problem for the movement for us as individuals. But if taken out of that context of civil rights, the We Shall Overcome, is certainly an attitude and an approach that most [inaudible] would agree with and could be reflected basically after the defeat of Goldwater in 1964. Their rededication to the cause and the movement, We Shall Overcome, would be an accurate description as they went on to say, "Well, yeah. We got trapped, but we are not going to go away and take our marbles and go home. We are going to rededicate ourselves that we shall indeed overcome." SM (00:34:22): The Free Speech Movement and I have talked to a lot of people about this, the one from (19)64, (19)65 with Mario Savio and Jack Weinberg and Bettina Aptheker, that group, some historians even on the left have said that the historic history has not done justice to that event because of the fact they isolated it in (19)64, (19)65 from all the other protests that took place in the late (19)60s. But then other books say that was the precursor and the drive for protests on college campuses. What was YAF? That you have written extensively in the book on this, but this is a very important thing because it's about free speech. And the basic central thesis was, and I remember Mario Salvio talking to about it, there is a brand-new book out on Mario Salvio by Robbie Cohen from NYU. And that is that ideas, the university should be about ideas, not about corporate control on universities. And so, they looked upon this. They were not planning to do protests, it just seemed to happen because the administration denied their right to hand out literature off campus right near Sayer Gate. And what happened is that you unified even the conservative students, when the students were told they could not do something, it was an amazing mistake on the part of the administration at that time. But your thoughts on The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and YAF's response to it. Are you still there? Hello? [inaudible] You still there? What? Shit. [inaudible] just asked you a question about the Young Americans for Freedom's response to The Free Speech Movement in (19)64, (19)65 at Berkeley. WT (00:37:33): Right. Divided and when it started out for the local YAF chapter at Berkeley was supportive of it. The whole movement began over distribution of political literature on campus. And the administration had ruled that you could not distribute any political literature on campus because it was state government property and there was no solicitation allowed on big government property, like an office building or something. And so, they expelled a guy who thought, questioned, he was really on the border apparently, whether he was on campus or off campus at this point nowadays, they expelled him. They had him in the car ready to take him away, and the students all just surrounded the car. And eventually, I think he and a policeman were in there for 24 hours or something like that before they could rescue him. And that is what started the whole thing. And so, in that context, the YAF chapter stood with the, yeah, I think we call it the [inaudible]. Other groups opposed. As it got on, it became not so much free speech for everyone, but free speech for us, but no speech, right? For anyone else. And therefore, when people wanted to debate issues, there was no debate because there was only one right side, left side. So, from that point on, it became not a question of free speech on campus, but really who is going to control the campus? Whether to let the student activists or the administration [inaudible] control. And at that point, yeah, on almost every campus, yeah, I do not want to say they were defenders of the establishment, but in effect they were defenders of order on campus. SM (00:39:50): How about the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg? Because he was big. He was actually speaking on college campuses and there was a lot of- WT (00:40:01): Yeah. SM (00:40:01): That was big. WT (00:40:03): Yeah, it was. And I think the only thing I could say is that they would, yeah, it would have been YAF would have been opposed mainly because he was perceived and rightly so, as part of an anti-war leftist movement that was against the war in Vietnam. And less concerned about the issue of disclosing information as contrasted with just him as the spokesman for the left. SM (00:40:35): How about the Chicago 8 Trial? Which is these names here that I have on my list are the eight defendants, and their two main lawyers. So, they were well known left activists, all of them. WT (00:40:48): Yeah. YAF would have been opposed to every bit of that and their actions and their efforts to defend themselves. So yeah, that was an issue that certainly was talked about after the 1968 Convention where all that writing took place. SM (00:41:10): Now I get kind of in particular here in some of these other ones, what was the Young Americans for Freedom's thoughts on the American Indian Movement? A lot of West Coast colleges were really linked to this, California, Oregon. And so, the takeover of Alcatraz in (19)69 was pretty big. And then of course the tragedy Wounded Knee in (19)73. And then where was YAF on the aim? WT (00:41:41): I do not think actively involved. Not actively involved. It was not a front burner issue for the organization. And if they actually took a stand on it, I cannot recall it. SM (00:42:00): Some say the very big major last protest, 1969 in Washington, the Moratorium? WT (00:42:07): Right. SM (00:42:07): Where was YAF on that? WT (00:42:10): Totally opposed. Organized against it. That was the occasion of the start of what was referred to as the Tell it to Lanoy Movement with distribution of literature and speakers on campuses, not on the date of the big rally in DC but surrounding it from the board some after. The message that YAF was saying is, "You're talking to the wrong people. Tell it Lanoy. If you want to stop the slaughter and the murder of children and the bombing and everything else, tell it to Lanoy, which is the force that is trying to overtake the Soviet government. SM (00:42:53): And then two other real strong activist groups. WT (00:43:00): Okay. Yeah. SM (00:43:01): Yeah. Earth Day in (19)70, the Environmental Movement, and of course the Gay and Lesbian Movement from Stonewall in (19)69. They all evolved and took their lead from. WT (00:43:12): Well Earth Day, I think was a concern that, and the movement and the environmentalists were trying to restrict and limit the American business and the capitalist system. At that point in time, I think that was more the concern and the focus on the issue itself. Stonewall, fully oblivious to it, I think as an organization. And if social security is the third rail of American politics, to a large degree at that period of time and throughout the (19)70s, and I am going to say almost all the (19)80s, in the organization, homosexuality was probably the third rail of the Conservative Movement. And this is a period of time when virtually all homosexuals, female or male were, as the expression goes, in the closet. It existed. There were a number of gays who were involved. I do not know of any lesbians per se, but a number of male gays who were involved in the Conservative Movement through that period of time. And it was not an issue that was discussed with any extent. I think it was predominant probably in the organization what was culturally the accepted mode of the time that homosexuality was not something that was accepted as, I do not want to use the word normal, but as the norm and one's sexual orientation was not discussed in public. So, what happens later on in the organization, and by that, I mean by late, early (19)90s, is the strain comes in that is very anti-homosexual and start talking about sodomites and all of this stuff, which certainly not anywhere [inaudible]. SM (00:45:46): I know that in some of my interviews, because I have interviewed some major gay leaders and activists, and their dislike of Ronald Reagan is so intense because of the AIDS crisis. And when you mentioned the word, and these are the activists, these are the gay and lesbian activists of then and now, he is despised because he would not even talk about the issue, would not even recognize it as an issue. So, when you're talking about AIDS around (19)81 to (19)85, that is a serious issue for them. WT (00:46:20): Yes. You are right. And I do not think, and it probably was overlooked in the [inaudible] and regarded as, "Well, if you shut down the bath houses, maybe there would not be AIDs," kind of, which was an emotional and irrational reaction to it. SM (00:46:43): How about the Women's Movement and the formation of the National Organization For Women? WT (00:46:49): Right. SM (00:46:49): It became very powerful. And there has been many offshoots of that group as well, but that particular- WT (00:46:55): Well, this is again, I think sort of like we talked about the impetus of the free speech movement at Berkeley. This is similar. I think at the beginning of the Woman's Movement, there was a good deal of support, but not just solely among females in the organization, but in general for what the objectives were of equal treatment and opportunities and non-discrimination against females. And I go in the book to a discussion of that in the early (19)70s, there was a number of articles that were written pro and con, and letters pro and con on the Woman's Movement. And I think the one thing in YAF was the use of the Women's Movement by the political left as an organizing tool. They were opposed to, in distinction, to the objective of the Women's Movement, which was equal treatment. There were even some, the Equal Rights Amendment came up about the early (19)70s period and associated with this. And while most in the YAF were against that for amending the Constitution, there were a few supporters, particularly some female leaders in the organization saying that, "Well, this is the only way you can guarantee that there is equal treatment of females." So, there's a little bit of diversity on that issue. SM (00:48:28): And my talks with some of the women feminists, many look at Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan as mainstream. And of course, Bella Abzug is more out there in the extremes. This is a very sensitive area, the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets. The whole issue of black power with, as someone said to me, when you start saying Black Panthers, you better define who you're talking about. Because there were so many different personalities from Huey Newton to the two Cleavers, Kathleen and Eldridge, Bobby Seal, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael toward the end when he left SNCC and certainly the death of Fred Hampton and Dave Hilliard and Elaine Brown, the list goes on and on. Angela Davis was not a Black Panther. So, your thoughts on what did YAF think of the Black Panthers and the Brown Berets from the Chicano Movement? WT (00:49:28): Yeah, okay. Certainly the Black Berets, the Black Panthers or sorry. There is the two. Very much opposed to them, wrote a lot against them, excuse me, felt they were part of the Left Wing Movement on campuses and in communities, were using violence, like the Malcolm X, by any means necessary. And so, were totally opposed to their methodology. In terms of their objectives, some of which they might have supported, which was empowerment for Black community and entrepreneurial opportunities. But it was certainly their methodology that was totally opposed. Brown Berets, the question might be directed best to somebody who was in California or Arizona or the West Coast. They were a non-entity for us who were then living on the coast. And so, I do not think there was much. Later on, there is reaction against Cesar Chavez, the great boycott and the United Farm Workers Union, but that is different from the Brown Berets. SM (00:50:51): Did they support that? WT (00:50:51): No, not at all. SM (00:50:54): See? The Brown Berets are awful. They are also very strong in Newark and New York City because that is where Puerto Rican and they're a very strong group and they really admire the Black Panthers. WT (00:51:10): Yeah and that certainly... No, YAF did not have any real involvements or attention directed towards them. SM (00:51:19): That whole, "I have a dream," speech in '63 because it really brought forth most of the civil rights leaders of that time and Dr. King and Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph and the list goes on and on. Where was YAF when that major march was happening in '63? And then even as years later, Dr. King went against the Vietnam War and he was criticized heavily even within the African American community, but what were the thoughts on Dr. King, SNCC, SCLC, CORE? WT (00:51:55): I think that, "I have a Dream," speech was one that even YAF certainly since then, most conservatives have said that is a great speech and that our children should grow up in a society where they are based upon the [inaudible] their character and not the color of their skin. All of that has been recited by conservatives nowadays. But I think even back then, most conservatives would have been and the YAF would have been, "Yes, we agree with that." The march on Washington more in terms of geez, this is the right way to go about it in a society based on the rule of law. At that point, it did not [inaudible] their turn. And certainly, when he gave the Vietnam War speech, that was something that YAFers would have turned against him. SM (00:52:54): How about the whole concept of non-violent protests? Because the Civil Rights Movement in the early (19)60s through right probably up to the time Dr. King died, and even in maybe with the other leaders too, like Ralph Abernathy has said, "Go ahead, disrupt. Non-violent protest, Gandhi, go to jail for your beliefs," that kind of thing. Where would the YAF stand on that? WT (00:53:19): Probably supporting the methodology to some extent, although they would not have been supporters of both [inaudible]. Non-violent protests would be something that they would still be in favor of certainly. SM (00:53:36): And I think we have already talked about the student protest because when you think of student protest, you do think of Columbia (19)68, Harvard Square, Kent State in (19)70. The tragedy at Wisconsin, Berkeley, and I know in all the SUNY systems and all the Ohio colleges, Ohio University for one, a major protest for years. WT (00:54:01): And the YAF stood against all that and was organizing as much as possible on campuses using a couple approaches, one of which was what was called Majority Coalition, which was the distribution for blue buttons, stood for peace on [inaudible]. Taking the position that students had a contract with university and education classes should be held, campuses should not be shut down. And a few instances, YAF leaders actually sued administrations for the loss of tuition by virtue of closing the campus early and/or suspending classes for a period of time to go along with the- SM (00:54:48): Which happened a lot after Kent State- WT (00:54:52): Yes. SM (00:54:52): Yeah. The other group is the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which really became strong in the early (19)70s. And Bobby Muller is a very well-known Vietnam Veteran who, when he went to war, he was gung ho. But when he came back, he said with a lot of Vietnam Veterans Against the War said that he realized that America is not always the good guy. And he has actually been saying that his entire life in all the things he's done. And of course he was paralyzed for the service. Your thoughts on what YAF thought about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and that mentality that Bobby had? WT (00:55:34): Well, two things. I think, number one, we thought that they were wrong on the position on the war. And that the war was a legitimate war against communist aggression from the north. And that we were right to be aiding our allies in South Vietnam and with all kinds of agenda to it like maybe they ought to be more involved. Maybe they ought to be more Vietnamization. Maybe we ought to relying more on both Vietnam itself to carry the war and non-American soldiers, but still to be supportive of that effort. So, we would have disagreed with the whole approach or the whole position of the organization's approach. SM (00:56:19): Let me turn my tape here- WT (00:56:21): And I think we would also, YAF would have also feel that in the vast majority of cases, nothing being absolute, America is the good guy, and America stands for certain values, but are applicable not only in North America or in a geographical territory [inaudible]. SM (00:56:42): Right. I know Bobby Muller and Ron Kovic were two of the leading anti-war activists. I know we talk about John Kerry, but he was not even in the same league with those two. Hold on, I have to turn my tape over. Hold. Yeah. We're almost under these vote sections here. And was YAF inbound in prison rights, too? What did they think about there were a lot of happenings in the (19)60s about what happened at Attica with the Prison Rights in (19)71? And certainly Angela Davis made the news with the George Jackson situation at San Quentin. Where did YAF stand on all the Prison Rights issues? WT (00:57:28): Nowhere. I do not think it was something on their radar or their attention span. Though I do not think there was any position on that. SM (00:57:44): The whole- WT (00:57:44): On Angela Davis who was described as a communist and if they were in opposition, anything, pretty much anything she did, virtue of right knowledge. SM (00:57:53): Did they ever have any thoughts on George Jackson because he had kind of symbolized the inmates at the time? WT (00:58:04): Not that I am aware of. SM (00:58:07): Yeah. The whole thing, the concept of what the Young Americans of Freedom thought about the hippies, the Yippies, the counterculture, Woodstock, the Summer of Love and of course the tragedy of Altamont, where were they on all those kinds of cultural things? WT (00:58:24): Divided. There was an element, particularly those who consider themselves more libertarian who closely identified with that. And the expression of individual freedom and individual rights that they associated with that. And then there was a more traditionalist element to well, they might have liked music and things like that, felt that it was going too far. So, it was really divided. SM (00:58:59): Yeah. I get right into the music here, because you cannot talk about the (19)60s, early (19)70s without the music. I mean, it was a very political force. It was a cultural force. It was a... Well, just a pleasure force for many and you're talking about the rock musicians of the period, the folk music, the Motown sound, even country in Western was really evolving at this time. Where was YAF? And were they listening to all this music? WT (00:59:28): Yes. Very much so and I think that you get different music reviews actually in the magazine of some of the art at the time and trying to interpret politically some of what the artists were expressing. Certainly the Beatles song Revolution was one that was very much listened to and in depth was endeared to that song. They had a poster with the people on it of [inaudible] because it was an anti, if you recall the word though, it was anti-revolt message. Yep. [inaudible] SM (01:00:17): How about John Lennon's Give Peace A Chance and Imagine? WT (01:00:23): Yeah. Those two would be exceptions to what I just said. SM (01:00:24): Oh, okay. WT (01:00:27): I think they would have been politically not agreed with. Maybe Imagine a little bit, but certainly not Give Peace a Chance. But not even Imagine. I mean, they would listen to it, but the words, they would tone two-note probably. Yeah. Watergate, Ford Pardon, Carter Amnesty. Young Americans for Freedom divorced itself from Richard Dixon in 1971, along with many other conservative politicians, individual, and was not supportive of Nixon well before Watergate ever broke. They were involved in the movement for trying to nominate John Ashbrook as a protest to Nixon in the 1952 primaries. When the 1972 election came along and McGovern was Democrat's choice, they were certainly opposed to McGovern, but they did not like Nixon. So, what the YAF formed was local clubs on campuses called Youth Against McGovern, indicating that we really could not come right out [inaudible] Nixon because we did not agree with him and without giving [inaudible] a bad name. But we were certainly an opposed to governing the way he [inaudible] the country. The Ford pardon? I do not think we really had a position too much on that, but Carter's Amnesty, we were opposed to. Well, opposed to [inaudible] those two had gone [inaudible]. SM (01:02:13): I added these last two. Obviously, they probably did not like Black students with guns at Cornell Campus, but the historic event of the (19)68 Olympics with Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists. They were not Black... We had Tommie on our campus. They were not Black Panthers. They get upset when they mentioned that they do not even like the Black Panthers. It was Black power to them. And just, that was a major event in (19)68 along with all the other things, but- WT (01:02:44): Yeah. I think like everything else, it symbolized left on campus and the Left Movement in America. Probably no focus on them individually too much or what they did. Although it was... SM (01:03:01): That meeting at Sharon was very historic in 1960. For the record, I know it is all in the book and I know you are a lot of things, but who was present? Whose idea was it to meet? Who were some of the personalities that were present and who went on to greater fame and other organizations? And why was there a feeling that student activists needed to organize this group on college campus around the country? WT (01:03:35): Yeah. I will try to summarize this succinctly again. The late 1960s, excuse me, late 1950s there started to be a little bit of an organization of a conservative orient individuals. Started with, I am going to say the National Student Defense Act and the program- And the program of giving scholarships to certain students and also grants to certain universities for science and other things, kind of... I guess kind of a reaction to the US realization that technologically we were not quite as advance as we should be. And part of that was the loyalty of that. Students who received funding, had scholarships to study on, had to sign an agreement that they were to defend the constitution and support the constitution and that they were not involved in any organizations they advocate to be of the government. There was a movement from the left... Oh, a number of campuses and college presidents said, "oh, we cannot do this because this is in denial of academic freedom, cannot make them sign it". And so there was a movement in Congress led by John F. Kennedy to repeal the loyalty of provision. And this was like 1959. And a few students led by two people, David Frankie and Doug Caddy, who were then students at Georgetown. George Washington and Georgetown respectively. Started organizing national students for the Loyalty Oath and made contacts primarily, I believe, through what was then the young republicans on college campus across the country lined up one or more individuals on 120 campuses and wrote congressmen and testified on Capitol Hill. For various unknown reasons the repeal never went through. I think it passed in the Senate, but never got a hearing in the house or something like that. Anyway, that was the impetus. That was followed up quickly by the 1960 Republican Convention in Chicago where a group of young, who were enamored of Barry Goldwater and his then just recently released The Conscience of Conservative, came together to organize youth for Goldwater for Vice President push at the Chicago Convention to nominate him. There was a subsidiary of that that was also supporting Walter Judd, who at that time was keynote speaker and was a congressman from Minnesota as Vice President. Marvin Leman, who was kind of an impresario of the right and organizer of many paper organizations of Frank. Basically underwrote the funding for both youth for Goldwater for Vice President and youth for... Well, Judd kiddingly said "the only time in history, that two candidates’ for Vice President were both funded with same American Express card." SM (01:07:32): Oh my gosh. WT (01:07:32): So, these people got to know each other first through mail, I guess because we did not have any other, and telephone on the loyalty of issue. And then physically came together in Chicago to try to organize this way. At the end of that, there were two meetings at the end of the convention. One Goldwater came by and thanked the youth for Goldwater people and said that he had made a speech on the force, said, "conservatives grow up. If you want to take back this party, and I think you can just get organized". But then he came and he met with the youth for Goldwater people and said, "I think you ought to form a permanent organization, and if you do, I will support you". Likewise, the next day there was the... Marvin Leman had a meeting with both of the... from the leadership, both of those gentlemen. And that is where the discussion focused around, "we ought to form an organization. Well we have got to have a meeting, where will we have it?" And somebody, I think it was Leman, somebody said, "well, why do not we ask Bill Buckley if we can have it at his family upstate?" And that was the purpose for the meeting. Buckley family, his mother actually, it is her house, she agreed to do it. And then Caddy, who was working for the McGraw-Edison company, was given the time to organize and send all invitations that went to, I believe 120 college and undergrad graduate students, law students and others inviting them to come to the meeting at Sharon. This would have been... The convention was in July of (19)60, this would have been in August. They were invited at their own expense to come to a meeting in September 9 and 11 in Sharon, Connecticut at the Buckley family at Bay. Some 95, 96 people showed up, none of whom were over the age of 27. And I think, I do not know if there was a high school, there might have been one or two high schools. The rest of them were undergrad, grad and law school, or a very small number of 15 or so who were young professionals. And that is the meeting where the organization came into being. Buckley and Bill Buckley himself was there, along with Bill Rusher, who was there at the publisher, Marvin Leman Vic Milione, who was the president of Intercollegiate Society of Individualists, now known as Intercollegiate Studies Institute. SM (01:10:49): Oh yeah. Right in Delaware. Yep. WT (01:10:54): And Frank Pousel, who was Buckley's brother-in-law, had been the ghost writer for [inaudible] conservatives. Those five guys were all regarded as too old as senior mentors. And they were all, Buckley at that time was 35. The others were all in their 30, but they were too old. I mean, this is how young the conservative movement was at that time. That these guys, none of them would reach 40 with an outer state movement. And who were they? There were a couple who became Congressman, Bob... No, Bob [inaudible] John Kolbe from longtime congressman from Arizona Was there, there were a number of writers, other individuals, the list they [inaudible]. SM (01:12:00): What and what were their ultimate, were their main goals when they left after that meeting. What were the main goals they wanted to accomplish? WT (01:12:08): Number one, organize. And come together so they could network and share their experiences and try to advance conservative principles on college campuses and in community. And as a secondary goal, as a more specific one, was to advance the possible candidacy of Barry Goldwater. SM (01:12:34): Yeah, that is important because I am going to skip 9-A here for a second. I want to go right to 10 because this is something... Even if it is just general knowledge, people who do not read a lot of history but know basic information, and I have heard this a long time, that the 64 Goldwater Miller campaign has often been somewhat misunderstood with the respect to its importance in American politics in the last half of 20th century. In the years following the election, people remember how one side of the election was, Goldwater was basically destroyed by Johnson in the election. However, it was a major step in the creation of the conservative party and weigh it's influence in American politics that had gone unreported. Why is... When we think of that election, we think of that great quote from Goldwater, that we think of... and we think of the pick the person that no one really knew whose daughter has gone on to become a pretty good political commentator herself. And then of course that he was a good senator, but he should not have been running for president. Yet. He was so important. WT (01:13:49): Yeah-yeah, exactly. SM (01:13:51): And so, people downplay this moment because he got creamed. WT (01:13:55): Yeah-yeah, yeah, exactly. SM (01:13:57): Your thoughts on anything there on that? WT (01:14:00): Okay. All right, let us go back. In the early (19)60s when YAF was founded after the 1960 presidential... YAF was founded just after the presidential election. Well, let us go beyond that election. Kennedy's elected. Goldwater is the hero of the right, particularly among young conservatives. And there a growing number of them on college campuses to a large degree in that period of the early (19)60s, there was a radical movement on college campuses. It was of conservatives. Conservatives were the outspoken advocates. There is a quote I have in the book from one student at University of Wisconsin and he says, "when I walk around campus with my Goldwater button on, you feel the thrill of treason". And I think that summarizes to a large extent the attitude of people who were in YAF, who were backing Goldwater is we are doing something that is against the establishment that is going to change society. And here is the guy who can lead it. Conscience of a conservative became through its paperback edition a tremendous seller on college campuses and an influence. So, Goldwater became very much the leader and the political, I mean Buckley was somewhat the ideological leader, philosophical leader, but Goldwater was the political figure around whom everyone in the organization and on the right really identified, but there was no one else. And what was building up in our minds and in Goldwater's mind and in many people’s, mind was a clash of philosophical and ideological importance in 1964, when Kennedy would defend liberalism and Goldwater would defend conservatism in America would have the great debate over which way the country ought to be moving. Goldwater and Kennedy is... From Goldwater's perspective, at least in the books and things that I have read, was felt a friendship with Kennedy. And they were individually liked each other, but obviously disagreed on philosophical positions. And Goldwater had this, whether it's a totally optimistic idea or not, but he reports that he had talked with Kennedy and they had even discussed the possibility of these are just the early days before a lot of securities concerns now that they would go on a plane from city to city and debate probably never would have come into being, but that is at least what he said or has said. But that is indicative of the way he was approaching that 1964 election and many people were. Then comes November of 22nd of 1963, the tragedy in Dallas, which results obviously not only in the assassination of the president and to the White House of Lyndon Johnson. But in the media at that time, a black mark on conservatives, the blame is, even though there's obviously a reason for it, and Lee Harvey Oswald was who he was, that somehow conservatives because they were strong and in Dallas were responsible for all this. You still there? SM (01:17:39): Yep, I am here. WT (01:17:42): Okay, because I am getting bleeps on my phone. I do not know what is going on. SM (01:17:47): Oh, I hope your power is not going out again. WT (01:17:49): Oh, hold on for just a minute. SM (01:17:50): Yep. WT (01:17:52): Oh, it says low battery. Hold on, let me... SM (01:17:57): You have your regular phone? WT (01:17:59): Pardon? SM (01:17:59): Do you have your regular phone landline or? WT (01:18:03): No, this is the landline. Hold on, see if I can get another one. SM (01:18:06): Okay. WT (01:18:06): Maybe, hold on, [inaudible]. (01:18:07): Are you there? SM (01:18:20): Yep, I am here. WT (01:18:21): Okay. All right. Okay. There is going to be this great debate and then comes Johnson and Johnson's totally different guy and Goldwater is totally demoralized. Probably does not want to run for them at that point, but he says, and I quote this in the book, "they came to me and they said there were all these young people who wanted me to run and were encouraged and developed all across the country". And so, I said, "okay, I will go". That is probably kind of a little bit of literary licensed by Goldwater there and his motivation. But anyway, it does stress how important the youth movement across the country was in backing Goldwater and motivate him to run. SM (01:19:15): Well. I am glad. WT (01:19:15): And that is it. SM (01:19:17): Yeah. Well, I am glad you present this because, when people are reading these oral history interviews, I want them to learn and I... It is like, for example, when Harry Summers, I do not know if you know Colonel Summers, before he passed away, we had him come to Westchester University to talk about the Vietnam War and he said the one thing that they never teach in courses on the Vietnam War, on the university campuses, is the military point of view. And so we had Harry coming and then he got very sick and then he died. And so same thing, certain things are left out, I do not want things left out. WT (01:20:02): Yeah, exactly. And that is it. So, it was from that Goldwater movement that so many people who were active in the (19)90s and the early part of the 21st century in conservative movement really got their start. Whether they were high school students, many of them were, or college students or young adults. And the important lesson, I guess also, that I would emphasize is, and I think this is a message for some of the people who are involved in the Tea Party perhaps, although a different outcome there, is they did not give up after that defeat, which was a resounding defeat. They said, it is time to organize and keep fighting and went on in the ones in California elected Reagan as governor in (19)66, and then in New York in (19)70 elected Jim Buckley and were involved in Reagan's presidential campaign. SM (01:21:02): That goes right... I am actually going to do questions 11 and 12 before 9-A. And that is that, when Ronald Reagan came to power in California, he took on two issues, which was obviously the law and order issue to stop the student protests and the destruction of the classes, and particularly against the free speech movement and the people's parks situation (19)69. And then he fired the President Kurt, for not being tough enough with students. And then of course he wanted to end the welfare state. He was against the system of welfare and he hoped to stop it. And he used those two issues. Also, law and order and welfare when he ran for president, yet became connected to Ronald Reagan in (19)76 and (19)80 and beyond. How important was their role in his election as governor in California? And then of course his election as President of the United States? WT (01:21:56): Very important in, let us take (19)66, the first election, it was people who were associated with YAF who were head of the students were Reagan [inaudible] and went on... As a matter of fact, YAF was able to recruit at that time, there was a guy by the name of Sam Yorty who had been the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles. SM (01:22:22): Oh yeah, I remember. Yep. WT (01:22:22): Democratic Governors nomination, the leader of the youth for Yorty, the leader of youth for Christopher. There was a former San Francisco mayor by the name of George Christopher who ran against Reagan in the Republican Party and both of their youth leaders joined YAF along with the people who were involved in the Reagan campaign and all backed Reagan in the general election. Who were some of these people? Sean Steele, who is now the Republican National Committee man from California and is the former Republican state chairman of California, was the head of high school students for Reagan. And later on, the national board of YAF. Dana Rohrabacher, who's a congressman from Orange County since the last 20 years, I guess. SM (01:23:16): Yes. He has been on TV a lot. WT (01:23:21): Yeah. He was one of the high school leaders for Reagan in 66 and went on to be very involved and eventually ended up being a speech writer at the White House when Reagan went to president, prior to being elected to Congress. Bill Cinosino who is a very active political consultant in California was also a leader of the youth for Reagan. I think he just started at USC then. So those were a few, there were a number of others who were very active in his election. And it came to the point where as Cinosino and others said from that point on, YAF and Reagan were tied at the hip, and whatever Reagan did as governor was reflective of YAF, and somewhat vice versa. When YAF got into some ideological disputes at its 1969 convention, and some of the more libertarian members were going off doing things like advocating the legalization of marijuana and draft resistant, a few other things like that. Some of them were removed from the organization, but Reagan was very much concerned about what was happening to the organization. In my book, I cite some correspondence... SM (01:24:49): Yes-yes. WT (01:24:49): ... From Bill Buckley about this and indicative of how closely the two were associated for YAF, whatever Reagan did was a reflection on YAF, but vice versa, whatever YAF did was a reflection on Reagan. And Reagan was obviously looking to his 1970 reelection. SM (01:25:10): Yes. WT (01:25:11): And concerned about what was this youth group doing, that might embarrass him. But not that he wanted to divorce himself from it, but he wanted to be concerned to make sure was on the right track. So that is it. SM (01:25:25): Yeah. You do a great job in the book of explaining that in 69 when students from Democratic Society was having their issues in terms of the direction they were going, and of course they went the wrong direction with the weather men, and then many quit SDS, this same time was the timeframe that these battles were going on for the conscience of the young Americans for Freedom. WT (01:25:54): Exactly. SM (01:25:55): And so that... See, that is an important part of history that also has to be known. WT (01:26:00): Right-right. I agree. SM (01:26:03): I have always wondered your thoughts on the press because, and many people that I have interviewed for this project say, the press always loves to sensationalize the bad and not really talk about what is the good. When you, please describe the press in the (19)60s and early (19)70s and white groups like SDS, the Weathermen, the Panthers, AIM, Vietnam vets against the war, Brown Berets, now, all these other groups, environmental groups, received greater press than YAF. Why was YAF shut out, so to speak, and what was their stand? Well, why was the press not talking more about the Young Americans for Freedom? WT (01:26:41): Well, it depends. There was some discussion, not as much national, but I think I cite a few things in my book, a couple articles in Parade Magazine, there was an interview with Philip Appaloosa at the time was college director at [inaudible] Playboy, and there was some coverage and some local news, but mainly the coverage occurred when we were having counter demonstrations or rallies in opposition to the left. I do think that the left caught the attention of the media because of the kinds of activities they engaged in, the more drama that is associated with or takeover or protests of one sort or another. And admittedly, those things, perhaps bad news is more reflective in the media than good news. And that is just kind of the way it is. People do good deeds every day, but they do not get in the news. SM (01:27:53): What was their stand on the Vietnam War it's my understanding that they oppose the war, but received little coverage. WT (01:28:00): Now, who opposed the war? SM (01:28:02): The YAF. WT (01:28:05): No. No. SM (01:28:05): That is not true? WT (01:28:07): That is not true. I do not know of anyone of substance in the organization that opposed the war. As we get into the (19)70s, there is a discussion in how important that ought to be pushed as an issue, and some people in the organization are getting very depressed about the outcome of the war, but I do not think they... And they said we ought to downplay our involvement in support of the war, but not that they were opposed to the war. SM (01:28:44): Do you like the term boomer generation? Is there a better term that you feel describes this, 74 to 79 million born between (19)46 and (19)64? WT (01:28:57): No, that I think it is fine, and I think it is the reflection of population patterns that occurred after the World War II. So, no, I do not have any problem with it. SM (01:29:12): I am going to get to 9-A eventually here, but I want to mention also about the fact that Dana, I have worked with the Young Americas Foundation for many years when I worked in the university with Pat Coyle and... WT (01:29:21): Oh yeah. SM (01:29:22): I got to know Ron Robinson just in the past year, and I had Michelle Easton on our campus. But what is interesting is, and I have had some conversations with Pat about this several years back, and that is that, I am an activist and he is doing organizing activists who are conservatives. And I have always had this feeling that when, this is my question here, when one thinks of activists, oftentimes some people think of liberals, not conservatives, but activism is no political boundaries. Everyone can be an activist. And so it is. Do you feel as a former leader of YAF that groups like YAF are not considered activists by the media because they are conservative, not liberal? It is just something that I have always had a question on. WT (01:30:10): No, I am not sure that is true. I think it probably was true during the period of time that we were reflecting on mainly here. But I think if we look at the time today, the media portrays the Tea party as activist, and indeed they are. And so, I am not quite sure. I think it's just that they did not give that much coverage to what YAF was doing. It is not that they did not regard them as activists, but I may be wrong on that. SM (01:30:44): We already talked about number 15, so we do not have to go over that again before we get 16. I want to read this for the record. This is a question I have asked everyone from day one. This is just a question now, it is an observation. The extreme rank, and I am going to read it for the record. The extreme right and conservative forces like to blame the generation that grew up after World War II for many of the problems we have in American society today due to the sexual revolution, the breakup of the American family, loss of church and synagogue attendants, extensive drug culture, the rise in the divorce rate, the "I want it now" mentality that some say caused the current financial crisis in America, i.e. A consumption society due to the fact that they were oftentimes spoiled as kids. The creation of the welfare state mentality where people ask for handouts or expect something for doing nothing or no sense of responsibility, lack of respect for people and authority, people and authority from all types of professions and leadership, lack of law and order due to student citizen protests in the (19)60s, (19)70s, and in some (19)50s, too many led to violence, arrogance, " we are right and you are wrong" mentality, extensive rights, complaints, indoctrination over education in our schools over higher learning. How do you respond as a fellow conservative to these criticisms? Sort a generation of 74 to 79 million who grew up after World War II and challenged the way they were brought up in the (19)50s via actions in the (19)60s, (19)70s, (19)80s, and beyond. And I end by saying, many people believe that this is really about the culture wars, your thoughts, knowing we went through a period in the late (19)80s, (19)90s and beyond where political correctness was used every day. I saw it every day in the university. It's less so today, leaders who have made negative comments about the excesses of the (19)60s and (19)70s include Newt Gingrich in (19)94. George Will and many of his columns over the years, David Horowitz, who went from an extreme leftist to extreme member of the right governor Huckabee on his TV show, Fox Channel, and people like O'Reilly, Beck on Fox, and of course Limbaugh on Radio. Your thoughts. WT (01:33:08): Wow, that is a tough one. First of all, I think you have obviously cited a number of the issues that have changed in American society. I think some for the good and some not for the good. And it has been, in a sense, a growth of individual expression in many ways, and a breakdown of the social barriers and mores that listed before. But I think there were all kinds of people who came out of this generation, and I do not think you can face a blanket responsibility on them. So yes, there have been some negatives, but there has been an awful lot of positives that have come out of the period of time in terms of our ability technologically and otherwise to communicate and to operate. Certainly, during this period of time, the downfall of the Soviet Union and international communist, certainly a positive, the internet, the technological development that are the [inaudible] So there is pluses in the minuses, and I do not think you can divide an entire generation. So. SM (01:34:36): Do you think that a lot of this is, we are still going through culture wars from that period, and we see... WT (01:34:42): Yeah. Yeah. SM (01:34:42): We seem to not be able to get over the (19)60s and (19)70s in just about anything. WT (01:34:47): Yes-yes, yes, that is true. And I think we are, and we are still fighting some of those wars, and these were issues that were not present when YAF was created. And through it is first period of time. We sometimes overlook, and I think I mentioned this in the book, I will just cite it here, that it was not until 1962 that the Supreme Court in (19)63, the Supreme Court came out with the prohibition on prayer in the public schools and Bible reading the readings prayer position, and then Ingovit versus Patali did not come out after YAF was founded. Of course, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act came after that. And Roe versus Wade was not until 1973. So, in the early years in the formation of the organization, there were the so-called social issued were not a factor, and even later, as I talked about the connection to the women's movement in the [inaudible] there were divisions and diversity opinion... [inaudible] diversity of opinion. One of the founders at Sharon is a guy named Richard Cowan, who has devoted his life literally to legalization of marijuana, on an individual's right, I am an individual so I do whatever they want with their own body kind of libertarianism. Within the context yeah within the organization's history, social issues were not a dominant factor. Admittedly, again, as I indicated earlier, by the late (19)80s and on they had come with the remnant that is still around of what remains of the organization, they did become more of a rallying call. SM (01:36:52): Wow. The next question is detailed, broken into many parts. What were some of the issues that upset the Young Americans for Freedom students on a college campus in the (19)60s and (19)70s? How did they protest, how successful were they? And of course, we have already gone over they were upset with what happened at Columbia, Berkeley, Harvard, and Kent State and People's Park and college protests. But what were their tactics? How big were their numbers? Were they successful? Did they fail in areas? Of course, I know these are probably the areas and correct me if I am wrong, you have mentioned in your book that in areas where the left organized teach-ins, campuses being shut down, buildings taken over, classes disrupted, faculty use classrooms to discuss current issues not the material being studied, taking over offices where administration was centered, including presidential offices, faculty uniting with students, not allowing ROTC military recruiting on campus, empowering students to be part of all university decision making if such decisions were linked to the war, research money's coming in for research linked to the war, many church students tried to stop this, bringing controversial speakers to campus who encouraged increased protests and challenging the system. Where was YAFF on these situations and were there times when SDS and YAFF or other liberal groups united toward a cause like Vietnam and the draft? There is a lot involved in this question but... WT (01:38:37): Yeah. Okay. Back to how did they react, how did they protest these kinds of activities that were happening starting with the Berkeley and then Columbia and on? A couple different tactics we used, one was the creation of Majority Coalition. That is to try to unite other students and other organizations on campus as much as possible in opposition to the left takeover of the building, to the left's attempt to close down the universities and the violence that was occurring. Probably a good example of that was Columbia in (19)68 and then on. Majority Coalitions were then advocated throughout much of the (19)60s, (19)68, (19)69 period, as the approach to advising YAFF chapter to take. The main thing was "let us unite with whoever is with us for order on campus." And an outgrowth of that came from California, which was the Blue Button Movement and that is to distribute simple buttons were just blue, no words on them, to reflective of order and peace on campus and encourage students to wear those. There was some reaction in the organization to the Majority Coalition approach by saying, "Wait a minute, we are doing all the work why are not we getting any of the credit? We ought to be doing this as the YAFF chapter and not allow ourselves to be sucked into doing all the work for something amorphous like the Majority Coalition." In some places it was the YAFF chapter that actually did do this, organized meetings, had demonstrations, counter demonstrations and things like that. In the book I talk about some of the counter demonstrations at Columbia, at Kent State, at Ohio State and other places. They obviously were in favor of continuing ROTC and military recruiting, Dow Chemical recruiting on campus and expressed positions on that. The draft is an issue that YAFF, from 1966 on wanted to eliminate the draft. Yes, could be some common cause with organizations on the left, not necessarily SDS but other organizations on the left on the position of abolishing the draft. However, as I indicated before, YAFF was for peaceful efforts to get the draft abolished it was not in favor of violence or demonstrations [inaudible]. SM (01:41:37): There seemed to be something happening in the late (19)70s and it was not disco. There was something happening in the late (19)70s that was leading toward Ronald Reagan being elected president and I think young conservatives were a very important part of this. And maybe it was the conservatives were coming back into power and there was burnout from what had happened previously since John Kennedy became president. Since that election major... This is my perception and correct me if I am wrong, since that election in 1980, major conservative actors rose to power. And organizations like Young America's Foundation, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, college Republicans have always been there. The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute seem to become a much more major force in our society. Please give me a list of some of the personalities who begin. Well, you have already done that but is that true? Did they really... Is this their era when they really came to fruition? WT (01:42:43): Yes, yes. And I think that not only... Probably started with the 1976 campaign of Reagan to Oppose Gerald Ford to the Republican nomination. And personally I was a delegate to Reagan I was living in Arkansas teaching political science at that time and organized for Reagan in the Republican primary in Arkansas and then got elected to delegate Kansas City. And so many of us, there were, I think in the book I cite there were 85 or 90 Gaff members who were either delegates or alternates to that convention all of whom were pledged to Reagan. And then that built through the 1980 when Reagan was really start, excuse me, starting to be the heir apparent within the party and in his election. And then when then Benning gets [inaudible] and so many of these people were the people who took key staff positions in the administration. And either those who did not do that were involved in some of these extra governmental organization by cited who were after their service there went to Heritage American Enterprise [inaudible] Institute and other places like that. SM (01:44:17): Would you say that... I am into this really magic moment period and anything in history. And to me, the rise of Ronald Reagan first came about... I am a young guy and I am watching TV in the fall of (19)63 and I see him for a half hour speaking on national television on black and white TV for Barry Goldwater. WT (01:44:41): Yeah. Fall of (19)64. SM (01:44:43): Yeah. There was something about that moment I knew there was something happening here. WT (01:44:49): Yes, exactly. Exactly. SM (01:44:51): He was a great speaker, number one. But it is the way he talked, it is the way he presented I said, there is something going on here. WT (01:44:58): And the message. SM (01:44:59): Yes. WT (01:45:00): And the message was important at that time too. Yes, exactly. That is the impetus of the whole movement for the remainder of the 20th century in many ways. SM (01:45:11): Yeah. When President Reagan came to Power East stated, "We are back." What did he mean by that? WT (01:45:18): I am sorry. SM (01:45:19): He said we are back. Was he talking about... WT (01:45:23): Yes. Okay. What did he mean by that? He meant by that the country was back as a force in society and the American people were back. We had come out of the period of Lyndon, of Jimmy Carter and the malaise, the sense of America has limits, we cannot do everything, we have... We're living in an era when American power has to be looked at in a limited and we have to tone down our expectations for the future. And what Reagan was saying "We are back." Meaning that no, that is not the case, that we are still a shining city on a hill, that there is a future, there is optimism and we are still going to be a force for good in the world. SM (01:46:16): And then when President Bush came to power, he said, president Bush won, he said the Vietnam syndrome is over. And most people laugh at that because Vietnam is still in all of our discussions on foreign policy. What did he mean by that? WT (01:46:33): Well, I think he was hoping that it meant that our role in society and in the world... That first of all that we were not divided domestically anymore and that our role in the world was much stronger than, we could take a more active role in the world. And I agree with what you said, the Vietnam syndrome was not over I think it is still present with much of the boomer generation. SM (01:47:08): One of the things and I have interviewed several scholars at conservative think tanks and I remember one person, it will be in his interview, said that I am here because it's hard to survive in a predominantly liberal culture in today's universities. Do you agree with what he said? Many of the scholars, they could be at any university and they can probably be very successful be teachers but because they are conservative scholars or thinkers. It is hard to survive in what they consider a predominantly liberal culture. WT (01:47:46): Okay. SM (01:47:47): You believe that? WT (01:47:48): Let me try to answer this a different way. Number one, I think you have to take into consider consideration individual personalities. Some people who would be conservative in that kind of environment would get a thrill out of it because they want to be different, they want to be the outspoken individual and they might actually thrive in that kind of situation. And I think if you look at a number who are on college campuses, you might find that. I think a Robert Fork or a Judge Scalia would thrive in that because they like being that kind of a person. Others might because of their personality that they are being isolated out, they are not getting the appointment to the right committees, they are not being moved up from associate to full professor, et cetera, et cetera. I think that is more an individual's response to the situation in which they find themselves. Now, as to me personally, if we want to just spend a minute on that, I taught at Arkansas State full-time for three years. I was in an environment that was most hospitable. The chairwoman was a Democrat but I'd say probably a fairly moderate conservative Democrat. The department had 10 members there were probably five of us who voted Republicans so it was [inaudible], that environment I taught as an adjunct and at so what was then called Southwest Texas State University and they brought the southwest Texas State University now, for four years. The chairman, I have no idea what his politics were but he and I got along fine and I got along fine with the other people and I did not feel any animosity there so personally that did not hit home. But I know as you have indicated, there are others who have said that was... SM (01:50:02): Yeah. Well, when I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly actually was at the CPAC conference this past year because she was going to be in the Washington DC area and she granted me an hour and I know she was very tired so I really appreciated it and then David Horowitz has been on our campus several times. But in their writings and conversations, they have stated that they think that the troublemakers of the (19)60s and early (19)70s are the people that run today's universities and control many of the academic departments. Do you believe this to be true and if this is true, where is the young Americans for Freedom, the student organizations on campus fighting this? And I emphasize that one of the contributions that many people say that has, of the boomer generation is the fact that in the studies departments at all universities, whether it be gay/lesbian studies, women's studies, holocaust, black studies, peace studies, Asian American studies, Chicano, black studies, women's studies, that this is one of the positives that came out of the boomer generation. And so, there is no question that one of the results of the (19)60s and (19)70s is that these areas became a reality in higher ed. Your thoughts on that is a contribution from the boomer generation and the number two, the troublemakers question. WT (01:51:35): Yes, one could say that is a contribution in that period of time and an outgrowth of the first question of the troublemakers being now in charge. And I say contribution not in a positive sense but I think all these are fake studies in many ways and they are so specialized that they do not really belong in a Liberal Arts environment. But yes, they are a contribution of that much of the people from the left in the (19)60s and the (19)70s had went into academic careers, hold many departments and that part of it I think is true. And we [inaudible]. Bernadine Thorn and her husband, Bill, whatever his name is... SM (01:52:36): Bill Airs. WT (01:52:37): Yeah. Airs, yeah. As classic examples. Angela Davis is teaching on a college campus in California so there's many and many who are less identifiable names were of the left who were all across the country. Part of that I think, is that there was... SM (01:53:00): Hold on, can you hold? (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 Wayne Thorborn Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Thorburn, Wayne J. (Wayne Jacob), 1944- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Politicians—United States; Educators; Authors; Republican Party (U.S. : 1854- )--Texas; Thorburn, Wayne J. (Wayne Jacob), 1944--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Wayne Thorburn is a politician, educator and author. He served as the executive director of the Republican Party of Texas from 1977-1983. He is the author of <em>A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement</em>. Dr. Thorburn is a graduate of Tufts University and Penn State and holds a PhD in political science from the University of Maryland. 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 2010-01-07 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.10.2016.118a l McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.118b 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. 220:20 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c9c0d40036b678d32dad60d2f9a59089.jpg 2320bb017dc38600ace3196f9e04ea9e https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/30f6e2e5d09aff5bc84f779de2e62cb3.mp3 8567c1f0459af79c352ba82a8e66e80c 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 2004-08-26 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Thi Dieu Nguyen, 1951- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Dieu T. Nguyen grew up in An Giang during the Vietnam War, is a professor of History at Temple University and a writer. Dr. Nguyen completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the Sorbonne and the University of Aix-en-Provence. 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She is the author of <em>The Mekong River</em> and <em>The Struggle for Indochina: Water, War, and Peace</em>.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 70:38 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Vietnam War; French War (Vietnam V. 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If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Dieu T. Nguyen Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nguyen, Thi Dieu, 1951- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; Temple University. Department of History; Nguyen, Thi Dieu, 1951--Interviews Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-08-26 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.10.2016.117 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. 70:38 Description An account of the resource Dr. Dieu T. Nguyen grew up in An Giang during the Vietnam War, and is a writer and professor of History at Temple University. Dr. Nguyen completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the Sorbonne and the University of Aix-en-Provence. She is the author of <em>The Mekong River</em> and <em>The Struggle for Indochina: Water, War, and Peace</em>. https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ab52f3d3537f62afbc56dd07e85d4279.jpg b6b9a04e9ede7b5b9f66bc6e11a78efc https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/fa3f8e9cce21515954c8ba249d4ac772.mp3 ccd05cd64cb90bcf4c65173fa74c9781 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-06-11 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Hue-Tam Ho Tai, 1948- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Hue-Tam Ho Tai is a professor of Sino-Vietnamese History at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of modern Vietnam. Dr. Tai is the author of Passion, Betrayal, and Revolution in Colonial Saigon: The Memoirs of Bao Luong, Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution, and Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:6915,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,16777215],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,3355443],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;\&quot;Arial\&quot;,sans-serif&quot;}">Dr. Hue Tam Ho Tai is a professor of Sino-Vietnamese History at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of modern Vietnam. Dr. Tai is the author of <em>Passion, Betrayal, and Revolution in Colonial Saigon: The Memoirs of Bao Luong</em>, <em>Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution</em>, and <em>Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam</em>.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;College campuses; Brandeis University; 1968 Olympics; Vietnam War; Harvard University;Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; Social Revolution; North Vietnamese;&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">College campuses; Brandeis University; 1968 Olympics; Vietnam War; Harvard University; Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; Social Revolution; North Vietnamese.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 92:07 Subject LCSH Vietnam—History—20th century; College teachers; Harvard University; Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, 1948--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Hue Tam Ho Tai Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, 1948- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam—History—20th century; College teachers; Harvard University; Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, 1948--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Hue-Tam Ho Tai is a professor of Sino-Vietnamese History at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of modern Vietnam. Dr. Tai is the author of <em>Passion, Betrayal, and Revolution in Colonial Saigon: The Memoirs of Bao Luong</em>, <em>Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution</em>, and <em>Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam</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 eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.116 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. 92:07 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/753dc953383c2071f455c2a16802a0e8.jpg 6d2b4459676c295482e0a2f5e6c6bed9 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/d3f6cb215188b88dbd5f2556c0b70aee.mp3 83a5d98ed0b7c8487deb28f018d9a939 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-09-10 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Marvin Surkin Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Marvin Surkin is a scholar, author, and specialist in comparative urban politics and social change. He worked at the center of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. Dr. Surkin is the author of Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7043,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Dr. Marvin Surkin is a scholar, author, and specialist in comparative urban politics and social change. He worked at the center of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. Dr. Surkin is the author of <em>Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution</em>. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University.</span> Digital Publisher BInghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; TV in the Nineteen fifties; Segregation; \nCivil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Summer of Love.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:515,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,11791078],&quot;12&quot;:0}">Baby boom generation; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; TV in the Nineteen fifties; Segregation; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Summer of Love; Dwight D. Eisenhower; Republicans; Vietnam War; Detroit Riots; Dr. Martin Luther King; Black Power movement; Detroit in 1960s; Black Manifesto<br /></span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 106:59 Subject LCSH Scholars; Authors; Social change; Metropolitan government; Surkin, Marvin--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Marvin Surkin Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Surkin, Marvin ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Scholars; Authors; Social change; Metropolitan government; Surkin, Marvin--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Marvin Surkin is a scholar, author, and specialist in comparative urban politics and social change. He worked at the center of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit. Dr. Surkin is the author of <em>Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution</em>. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York 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 2010-09-10 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.10.2016.115 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. 106:59 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/30994d02e6875d72713dff14b60d6c00.jpg a9d67373b3936d15690bfde83bb7f256 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/f74a1e0d5f279f93122ea3d56e585f5c.mp3 0cfde04994fa806bbb2d71f383e508cb 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 2010-06-05 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Michael Simmons Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 142:16 Keywords Baby boom generation; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; TV in the Nineteen fifties; Segregation; Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Summer of Love. Subject LCSH Simmons, Michael--Interviews Biographical Text <span>Musician, writer, filmmaker and activist Michael Simmons was dubbed “The Father Of Country Punk” by&nbsp;<i>Creem</i>&nbsp;magazine in the 1970s. He was an editor of the&nbsp;<i>National Lampoon</i>&nbsp;in the ’80s where he wrote the popular column “Drinking Tips And Other War Stories” and won an LA Press Club Award in the ’90s for his investigative journalism for the&nbsp;<i>LA Weekly</i>. He&nbsp;has written for&nbsp;<i>MOJO</i>,&nbsp;<i>Rolling Stone</i>,&nbsp;<i>Penthouse</i>,&nbsp;</span><span><i>LA Weekly</i></span><span>,&nbsp;</span><span><i>The New York Times</i>,&nbsp;<i>LA Times</i>,&nbsp;<i>High Times</i>,&nbsp;<i>Artillery</i>,&nbsp;<i>CounterPunch</i>,&nbsp;<i>The Rag Blog</i>,&nbsp;<i>The Progressive</i>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<i>Dangerous Minds</i>&nbsp;and has scribed liner notes for Bob Dylan, Michael Bloomfield, Phil Ochs, Kris Kristofferson, Mose Allison, Kinky Friedman,&nbsp;</span><span>Arthur Lee &amp; Love</span><span>&nbsp;</span><span>and Paul Krassner</span><span>. He wrote and co-produced the documentary&nbsp;<i>The Real Rocky</i>&nbsp;about boxer Chuck Wepner.</span> 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: Michael Simmons Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 5 June 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) MS (00:00:03): Michael Simmons. SM (00:00:08): Michael, could you give me a little bit, just like in the interview you had with, I think Light in the Attic there, a little bit on your background. Where you grew up, who your mentors were in those first... Say you are in high school, the influences early in your life, maybe a little bit about your parents and your schooling before you really got into music? MS (00:00:35): Well, I was born in New York City in 1955. I am the oldest son of two basically, secular Jewish liberal Democrats, Stevenson, Kennedy liberal democrats from New York. most of my childhood, beginning of my teen years were in the (19)60s. Okay, you asked me a lot of questions at once, so why do not we take each one at one at a time? SM (00:01:22): Okay. MS (00:01:22): What do you want to know? SM (00:01:24): Your beginning years when you were in junior high school and high school? What was going to school like? MS (00:01:29): I would not say those were my beginning years, but my consciousness started to form way before then. Well, I will tell you something. I always knew that I was different, And it just so happens that I was born into that generation. And of course it meant a lot to me that I came of age in the (19)60s. But I would have been an outsider if I had been born 20 years earlier, 20 years later. I will tell you a funny story. My early heroes, when I was a little kid, aside from Bug's Bunny, because he was a troublemaker and he was funny, were, I loved juvenile delinquent movies. And I am talking about when I was four or five years old, I used to watch them on TV. I adored anything about juvenile delinquents. My first week of first grade, there was a cute little blonde girl in my class, and she became my girlfriend of sorts. As much as, I do not know how old a first-grader is, 5, 6, 7 years old, something like that? And she and I planned a bank heist. Here are these two first-graders planning on knocking over a bank. I was enamored with criminals. Because they were the first people who represented people that did not want to be part of, had no interest in being part of the square world, the society in general. And from there, being raised in New York, I grew up very quickly. And I was thinking about this the other day, because I was looking on the Village Voice website, and they have some things archived from the (19)60s, the (19)50s and (19)60s on the site. I started reading the Village Voice, I think, in 1965 or (19)66, when I was either 10 or 11. I mean every week. And so I did not know who these people were, all these painters and poets, but they fascinated me and I got it. I got that, again, they were outsiders, and that the Village Voice was the newspaper for outsiders. Within a year or two, the East Village Other would begin publishing. Or actually it may have started (19)65, I do not remember exactly, and they were even edgier. But I was always drawn to Bohemians. I remember being at camp in the mid (19)60s, summer camp, and at the end of every year in summer camp, we would have something called Color War, which was they would divide the camp up into different colors and they would have different competitions. There was one group of counselors, one of whom I remember in retrospect, I had no idea at the time. But in retrospect, I know that he was gay. And another counselor, a woman was the arts and crafts teacher. And so there was this little crew of counselors who really vocally disliked this concept of color war. Now, what I figured out later is that this little group were beatniks, basically. I mean, we are talking before hippies. By a couple of years, not long, but you know what I mean. There were hippies, but they were not called hippies yet by the media. And I loved them, they were my favorite counselors. So I have always been drawn to the outsiders. I have always been drawn to the Bohemian, and I have always been drawn to the artsy people. Did that answer your question? SM (00:06:08): Yeah. Were you fans of the Kerouac's? The Cassidy's? The Ginsburg's? MS (00:06:13): Well, yeah, but that came later. SM (00:06:14): That came later. Yeah. MS (00:06:17): I am trying to think. I do not remember when I first read On the Road. I began learning who they were. One of my first heroes was Ginsburg. Now, I did buy Howl at a precociously early age, like 11 or something, which would have been (19)66. SM (00:06:35): And that came out in (19)55. MS (00:06:37): Right. No, but I was born in (19)55. SM (00:06:42): So you probably were an Elliot Ness TV fan then, right? On television, because he was... MS (00:06:47): Robert Stack. SM (00:06:48): Yes. MS (00:06:49): That show you mean? SM (00:06:50): Yes. MS (00:06:51): Sure, used to watch that. SM (00:06:53): But that was real big in the (19)60s. And of course, the Cosa Nostra was big in the (19)50s, the underworld. One of the things, I was looking, and I have got a lot of questions from some of the interviews and some background information I have on you, is you have been a musician most of your life, and of course a writer as well. And you call yourself oftentimes a hippie, but you love Country and Western. Could you define what a Country and Western hippie is? MS (00:07:21): Well, these are just words used to give a people a general idea of who I am. I mean, there is no such thing as a Country and Western hippie per se. I guess a Country and Western hippie is somebody with hippie values and perhaps appearance who digs Country music or plays Country music or both. I mean, there is no hard and fast. For instance, I was reading some of your questions that you had sent to Pete Seeger. And I do not know if you saw some guy wrote after that interview I gave for Light in the Attic, criticizing me for being "a Boomer exceptional." SM (00:08:16): Yeah, in fact, I have that right here. MS (00:08:17): And my attitude is I am not a Boomer, nothing. Yeah, technically I am a Baby Boomer according to sociological demarcation. But I do not want to be stuck in a box like that. It is kind of uncomfortable. Well, we can get into the (19)60s later, but Country and Western hippie. In the late (19)60s, I was already a musician. I started playing guitar. I was one of these kids who fell in love with the Beatles in 1963, 64. And I wanted to be a Beatle. I wanted to be a rock and roll musician. And I got a guitar for my 10th birthday, and learned how to play it and started a rock and roll band at a very young age. And by the late (19)60s, a friend of mine was into hardcore Country music like Hank Williams and Merle Haggard, people like that. And he turned me onto it, and I loved it. And I knew that this is what Dylan and the Byrds and people like that were listening to. And hence, certain albums like Nashville Skyline by Dylan or Sweetheart of the Rodeo by the Byrds, the Country was influencing rock. SM (00:09:48): Well, what is interesting is through all these interviews that I have done, different angles, different perspectives, and I have had no one talk about Country and Western, because everybody talks about rock and Motown and folk music and pop vocals. And I have a question here. When we define the music of the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s and beyond, we think of rock, Motown, folk, protest music and music with messages, pop vocals, but rarely Country unless one mentions the big names like Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Loretta Lynn. However, there is a history of Country and Western, as you explain via your connections with Kris Kristofferson. Explain the linkage to the (19)60s and (19)70s mentality that was present in Boomer youth, even in Country during this time? Because you made some great observations in the interview when you talked about Kris Kristofferson, but then you were talking about the music as a whole. MS (00:10:53): Yeah. Well, I am not sure exactly what your question is, but... SM (00:11:03): What was Country and Western going through during this timeframe? MS (00:11:07): Oh, I see what you are saying. Well, Country was the music originally of the South and of working class southerners, and hence reflecting them. It was basically politically a fairly conservative music. What happened in the late (19)60s, mid to late (19)60s is that these cats started showing up in Nashville, like Kristofferson and others who were more literate. Some of them had college educations. They would read Shakespeare and William Blake, and at the same time, being younger, they also were not afraid of long hair and the counterculture and rock and roll, they dug that. Because that was also part of their world. Cats like Kristofferson being the most notable, obviously. And so Kris helped loosen up Nashville, and he dragged it kicking and screaming, I should say, into the (19)60s. SM (00:12:30): Would Willie Nelson be part of that too? MS (00:12:32): Well, yeah, Willie, he was, but quietly. Willie was not nationally known until the (19)70s, probably early to mid-(19)70s. So he came a little bit later. I mean, he was in Nashville in the early (19)60s writing songs. He wrote Crazy for Patsy Cline, for instance. And he was smoking grass, and he was definitely his own man. He thought for himself, he was an individual. But very few people outside of Nashville or Texas knew who he was. So he did not have an effect on the larger culture until later on. SM (00:13:25): But Kristofferson and Johnny Cash did, because they were pretty big names. MS (00:13:31): Well, Cash had been a big name since the- I guess, earlier to mid-(19)60s or so, or actually since the (19)50s, I am sorry. Folsom Prison Blues. And I Walk the Line and stuff like that. Johnny Cash in many ways came up with the Sun Records, early Rock and Rollers, like Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Roy Orbison, people like that. So Cash had always been a little bit hipper than a lot of the Country artists. SM (00:14:10): He wrote some great protest songs too, against the Vietnam War. Some classic ones. MS (00:14:16): Yeah, he did a whole album of protest songs about the plight of the American Indian, actually. Which was a pretty bold thing to do in Nashville in the (19)60s, given how conservative the town was. And he got shit for it, too. People claimed that his wife at the time, before June Carter, was part black. And they spread all these rumors about her and him. And so some of the more conservative elements went after him for being a free thinker. But he did not let it affect him. But Cash was definitely, he was one of the early ones. SM (00:15:13): Where would you place Buffy Sainte-Marie in here too, because of her music, as part native? She is Native American, but she is from Canada, I believe. MS (00:15:24): Yeah, she is Canadian. SM (00:15:24): Yeah. And in recent years, particularly in the (19)80s, Bill Miller, who is a pretty good entertainer as well, he is Native American. There are not too many Native American singers. MS (00:15:36): Right, right. Well, Buffy Sainte-Marie, although she did record a Country album, I think it is called, I Want to Be a Country Girl Again or something. What? Hold on one second. I have a Buffy Sainte-Marie Best of sitting right here. Where is that? Anyway. Oh, here it is, it was called, I am Going to Be a Country Girl Again was the name of the song and the album. But that she recorded in Nashville. I think it was, let us see, 1968, pretty early. But she was really more of a folkie. She was part of the folk boom. SM (00:16:18): Could you describe a little bit more of the culture you identify with? Were you part of the counterculture? A lot of people have given me a lot of different definitions of the counterculture. In your words, what is it? MS (00:16:33): Oh God. Well, first of all, there is more than one counterculture. There are all kinds of countercultures. But for the purposes of what we are talking about here, the counterculture... It is so difficult to try to cram into a box. The Beats were a counterculture. The hippies were a counterculture. Counterculture is the term used to describe any form of culture that is outside the mainstream. Now, the so-called (19)60s' counterculture, it has got all the clichés and long hair and leftist politics and rock and roll and communal living and things like that. The (19)60s counter culture has its own identifying markers. But there are many countercultures. Some would argue that, for instance, the Tea Party, which is the polar opposite of anything that I would ever be a part of, is a counterculture of a kind as well. Now, in terms of me being part of a counterculture, yeah, I was more or less what people refer to as a hippie. In fact, I still am. SM (00:18:07): But a lot of people, when they talk about the Boomer generation, of course, is defined as people born between 1946 and 1964. And even Todd Gitlin, when I interviewed him, he hates the term Boomer generation, and there are others who do not like it. And he said, the people in the Boomer generation between (19)46 and (19)56 are totally different than the Boomers between say, (19)56 and (19)64, because they did not have the same experiences. MS (00:18:39): Well, the big one being, I will tell you, because when I did look at some of those questions you sent to Pete Seeger, the big one that separates those two halves, and I am the tail end of the first half, is that we experienced the Kennedy assassination. Whereas of course, the younger ones did not. Either did not, or they were too young to know what was going on, really. And the Kennedy assassination, of course, was a one of the most powerful events that the country lived through in that time in the early (19)60s. So in terms of being a young person in that time and living through, I mean, all the clichés, the loss of a young vital president who represented change and youth and vitality and all that. It was like enduring a punch in the stomach, a blow to the solar plexus. It took the air out of an entire generation. And it kind of sets people of my age and slightly older up for a change, we wanted a change after that. We did not want the same old death culture that America seemed to represent to us. Does that make sense? SM (00:20:19): Yeah, that is very good. Would you say in your life, that is the one event that shaped you more than any other? MS (00:20:27): I do not think I can say that one event shaped me more than any other, I do not think I can choose just one. But I think it was the first event outside of my personal experience that had a profound impact. SM (00:20:49): Do you remember the exact moment where you were when you... MS (00:20:51): Absolutely. SM (00:20:52): Could you explain that moment? MS (00:20:55): Yeah. I was in, I do not know, third grade, second grade, something like that? And it was the end of the school day. So it was around 2:30, three o'clock in the afternoon. And I was walking out of the school yard, and some girl came up to me and said, "Somebody shot President Kennedy." And I went, "What?" I was surprised. I was shocked. I loved President Kennedy. About a year or so before then, my mother had bought me Profiles in Courage and I would read it. And I was reading at a very young age, I think my father said I I was reading by the time I was four, basically. SM (00:21:46): Oh, that is excellent. MS (00:21:47): And I read Profiles in Courage. I idolized JFK. And I remember walking home, and we lived around the corner from my elementary school, in an apartment building in New York, and there was an elevator operator, and his name was Johnny. I remember this. And I said, "I heard President Kennedy was shot." And he said, "Yeah, but he is going to be okay. He is just wounded." And I went upstairs and my mother was not home yet. And I went and I turned the TV set on. And at some point I saw Walter Cronkite come on and give that announcement, where he looked up at the clock and he said what time JFK was pronounced dead. And I obviously was shocked. And I heard the key come in the door and I heard the lock turn, and I saw the door open, and my mother walked in and looked at me, and she just started to sob. And, wow- SM (00:23:07): But did your family- MS (00:23:09): ...To think of it. SM (00:23:09): ...Spend the next four days around the TV, like so many? MS (00:23:12): Oh, yeah. We saw the Oswald assassination as well. We saw the funeral. It was nonstop for four days. And then, I believe the assassination was on a Thursday, they suspended school on Friday. We went back to school on Monday. And the first thing, they had an assembly to try to... I was like a little kid, you have to remember. And I was in elementary school, so they held an assembly to try to explain to the kids what had happened. My parents were very forthright in trying to explain to me the context. So plus I was already a daily newspaper reader. Had been reading the New York Times since I was a little kid. But yeah, that was a heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy-heavy... SM (00:24:16): Getting back to the music, when we are looking at the Boomer generation, we are talking about any time from 1946 through today, because the oldest Boomers are now 63, and the youngest are 47. And so I have got a question here about the music, because music has been so much a part of your life, not only as a performer with your own group and all the experiences you have had as a writer and the people you have met and worked with. I am breaking it right down here, into the decades. What did you like about the music of the (19)50s, the (19)60s, the (19)70s, the (19)80s, and the nineties and beyond? There had to be something in those decades that you liked? MS (00:25:07): Well, I mean, (19)50s, obviously. I remain a lifelong fan of Rock and Roll, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, people like that. But even though we kind of rebelled against it, I also always dug my parents' music, meaning Sinatra and jazz, and Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald, and people like that. By the (19)60s, obviously, to this day, my favorite music is the holy trinity of Rock and Roll, which is The Beatles, and Dylan and The Rolling Stones. And then all the other (19)60s groups like Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, the Band, the Byrds, and so on. I could go on and on, Hendrix, obviously. I could go on and on and on. That is the stuff that really is meaningful to me. Although I love all kinds of music, and all different eras. (19)70s for me, a lot of it was Country, really. And I also got into old rhythm and blues, old jump blues stuff like Louis Jordan, things like that. But really, the (19)70s was my Country decade, I should say. Now, after that, from the (19)80s on, there is music that I like, and there are singers that I like and musicians that I like and songwriters that I like. But I cannot say that I have a passion for post 1980 pop music the way I did for pre-1980 pop music. SM (00:27:26): How about that music from the mid-(19)70s, disco, which is Saturday Night Fever, seemed to be the line of demarcation? MS (00:27:33): Yeah. Actually, at the time, I was not a disco fan, and some of it is atrocious. But recently I have been hearing old disco songs from the (19)70s, I do not know, on radio or here and there. And some of it is not bad. It was that mechanized beat that used to drive me crazy that, "dint-dint-dint", was something a little same about it, kind of. By definition, it is repetitive, but it has its charm. SM (00:28:20): Yeah, and then my next question is a direct response that you gave to this interview, which I think was an unbelievable response, and I would like it clarified even a little further. This was a question, you remember this, "What about Kristofferson appeals to you? What makes him such a timeless artist?" And your response is "You have to understand the mindset of the (19)60s America, it was an us versus them dynamic. On one side, we were freaks, hippies, troublemakers, and activists. On the other side was the rest of America. At the same time, I had gotten into hardcore Country music, while not shedding my hippie heart. The great thing about Kris, he was one of the first people who was all..." SM (00:29:03): Great thing about Chris, he was one of the first people who was authentically country, but at the same time spoke to hippies. And you mentioned a couple of songs like Billy D and the Pilgrim songs about us, my generation and my world at the same time. It was authentic country music. He was ours, he represented our side. He also bridged the gap. He is in arguably one of the greatest living American songwriters. When you put that together, you by saying that, that is very prophetic in my view. Could you ex explain it even a little further? Because I have been a big fan of Kris Kristofferson, but I have never thought of him in the terms like you explain in this question. MS (00:29:46): Well, I mean, for instance, his most famous song is Me and Bobby McGee. If one listens to the lyrics, it is basically the story of a young hippie couple guy and a girl traveling around the country. It captures that kind of wanderlust that young people engage in general, but particularly members of my generation in that time period, you know. People still hitchhiked in the (19)60s. I do not know if they hitchhike anymore. SM (00:30:18): If they do, they are arrested. MS (00:30:21): Huh? SM (00:30:22): If they do, they are arrested and picked up. MS (00:30:24): Yeah. Yeah. You know, the interesting thing is, for all the complaining we did in the (19)60s, America was a much freer place back then. I mean, it was not free enough for us. But the irony is it got less free, particularly post 1980, which is when Reagan was elected, and that was the beginning of the end, as far as I am concerned. SM (00:30:50): What does less free mean? You say, "Less free." MS (00:30:54): Well, there used to be fewer rules. It works both ways. In some respects. There are things have improved, certainly things have improved since the (19)60s for Black people, and for minorities in general, for women, things like that. I mean, as Hunter Thompson used to say, "The (19)60s was a time when you could roam around the country and not worry about some cop inputting your name in a computer and finding out you had 20 parking tickets in California." Let me see if I can rephrase this, I think Orwell's prophecy came true. I think we are living in an Orwellian police state. I think there is a Big Brother. I think the internet is contributing to that. I mean, I think there are good things about the internet too, but I think one of the negative things about it is a lot of these things like Facebook and other things are means to collect information about people. And it is scary. SM (00:32:22): Yeah. We have been telling students for years about, "Be careful what you put on your Facebook because employers can somehow get access to it, and they can even determine your politics based on what you say about a certain thing that is happening in the news." MS (00:32:38): Sure. SM (00:32:39): Is a follow-up to that question, you said some unbelievable things also about his music, and some of the songs and how relevant they are. And you said music that really influenced you and that you loved, or that was that kind of music that had what you said, "Writing hooks." Great melodies, songs that stay in your mind, lyrics that are beautifully honest and songs on of the times. I would like you to maybe mention some of the music from the either (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s in particular, that you feel were fallen there, not just Kris Kristofferson. And I wrote down 10 songs here that I felt fit, that quality, and I would like your opinion. Marvin Gaye's, What's Going On? Simon and Garfunkel, Bridge Over Troubled Water. John Lennon, Imagine. Barbara Streisand, The Way We Were. The Chambers Brothers, In Time, Mamas and Papas, California Dreamin, Michael Murphy's Wildfire. Sonny and Cher, The Beat Goes On. Barry White, Let the Music Play. Frank Sinatra, My Way. Richie Havens, Freedom. And Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone. And I think I got one other one here, if I can find it here. Well, that is basically the group. Yeah. Is that what is you are talking about here? Because those are continually in my head, 30 years after they were performed. MS (00:34:17): Yeah. Well, in terms of songwriting, there is a certain craft to writing a great song to writing what, what is called a hook. I mean, a hook is really just a melodic and/or lyrical line that for whatever reason, stays in people's heads. There is something memorable about it, either musically, lyrically, or both, hopefully both. And those songs, I would not necessarily agree with everyone, but as I said, that is what makes horse races. It is just a matter of taste. But yeah, most of the songs are extraordinary songs, they are memorable songs. They have hooks, they have great hooks. Those are all well-written songs. Whether I personally love them or not, it is immaterial. Those are all well-written songs. Well, I have some theories about why, and I will discuss those in a second. I mean, there are still people writing good songs, not many. And I do not ask me who they are because I mean, I could tell you a few names. But the art of writing great hooks, and which ultimately means writing great songs kind of has been lost. And part of it is with the popularity rather of hip hop and punk rock, two primary influences on contemporary pop music and rock music, rhythm became more important than melody. Punk and hip hop are rhythm driven, they are not melody driven. And the concept of the hook is largely about melody. So if there is no melody or no identifiable melody, your chances of having a powerful hook that people are going to remember is diminished. Does that make sense? Now, whether there are people who disagree with me about this, but it is just my take on it. I saw the rise of hip-hop and punk rock, and at the same time I noticed that fewer people were writing memorable songs. So I tried to figure out, "Why is this?" And all I could figure out is rhythm over melody, rhythm over melody. SM (00:37:30): The people who really love rap, I have been in the university for quite a few years. Some of them are fair, some of the music is halfway decent. But the one comparison where you might see a comparison between the (19)60s and early (19)70s' music, which is music with messages and strong ethics and strong things for people to think about. That is what a lot of rap music is about. The poverty within the inner city, the plight of Black people that Marvin Gaye sang about it in 1971, but now this is a new way of expressing it. Sure. Any thoughts on the messages? Because the message is a very important part of a song. Kris Kristofferson songs had messages to them. If you listen to them, the problem with a lot of the loud music today is you cannot listen to the message, even though the words are there. The problem I have with it, sometimes. MS (00:38:33): I agree with you and I will give hip hop credit for bringing back lyricism and storytelling. Whether I think personally like it or not, is immaterial for the most part. I do not care for it. I mean, I do not hate it or anything, it is just it is not my thing. But I will give rap artists credit for bringing back spoken word. Or I should say the power of the word. It is not just that it is spoken, but the word that these are story songs, essentially. SM (00:39:10): Which- MS (00:39:10): And often as you point out with messages- SM (00:39:12): ...which seemed to maybe have died in the mid (19)70s when disco came. Yeah. Cause that was all about dancing and everything. Could you define something? I think you are working on something called Outlaw Country Vein, is it is a- MS (00:39:29): Outlaw Country, what? SM (00:39:30): You can call it the Outlaw Country Vein, V-E-I-N. You talk about the music. Kristoffer Kristofferson used to say, as you said in the quote from him, "Do not let the bastards get you down." MS (00:39:45): Oh. Oh- SM (00:39:46): The kind of rebellion streak in American spirit. MS (00:39:48): You are referencing that other interview. SM (00:39:51): Yeah. And also what I love it here, when you say, "The rebellious streak in the American spirit", which was so prevalent in the (19)60s and mid to the mid (19)70s. MS (00:40:03): Yeah. So, I am sorry, what is your question? SM (00:40:06): The question is, how do you define outlaw country music? MS (00:40:11): Well, very specific. It was a very specific music of a time. It was these artists in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, notably Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Kristoffer Kristofferson, and then some lesser known people like Kinky Friedman and others. A lot of them from Texas. Steven? SM (00:40:40): I am here. MS (00:40:41): Oh. I thought you dropped out for a sec. SM (00:40:43): No. MS (00:40:43): Sorry. SM (00:40:43): Yep. MS (00:40:48): They grew their hair along. They did not dress like the older country singers. They looked like they were hippies basically. And they were singing music, it was a little bit closer to rock music. It was stark, it was less produced. I should say it was just as produced, but it had kind of a realistic ethos to it. Very earthy, very down to earth. Not necessarily commercial. The irony is that a lot of these artists ended up being wildly popular, like Willie and Waylon. And so people did find it commercial ultimately. But their idea was to break away from Nashville's concept of what was commercial. Hence, this kind of silly phrase, Outlaws, which was a phrase somebody chose to market them. It was a romantic thing. I mean, Americans always had a romance with the West from Manifest Destiny and founding of the United States. You know, we love stories about cowboys. And so these cats kind of adopted that look and that a lot of that sensibility and called themselves outlaws. But what they were rebelling against, they were not knocking over banks or whoever, or Billy the Kid or whoever, but they were knocking over record companies. SM (00:42:46): Let me change the [inaudible]. Okay. I am back. I had an interview with a very powerful Vietnam veteran, and he is actually back in school teaching at a prestigious school outside Philadelphia. And he has a picture on the back of his wall of a musician from the (19)60s who did not sell out. And because somebody wanted to buy his music, so that could be on a serial or something like that. And the basic premise of the article that he had on the back wall for students to see is that many of the (19)60s rock performers are now making lots of money on their music, but through commercial advertisements linked to corporations. So they are not living their idealism of the (19)60s now. It is all about making money. Your thoughts on that, because you have seen a lot of the rock music that is being played every day on television advertisements. MS (00:43:49): Well, there are many musicians and songwriter who have, "Sold out." I do not cast dispersion on anybody who needs to do something, or chooses to do something for money. I find it distasteful, but I cannot judge. I cannot stand in another man's shoes and tell him what to do. However, I do applaud people like Neil Young and Springsteen, by the way, who refuses to allow his music to be sold for advertisements. So there are musicians who will not. Dylan interestingly will, Neil Young Springfield will not. Others will, The Who will. Again, with some of these people, with Dylan, he does control his publishing. So he is allowing it to happen. But a lot of the musicians yet remember, do not control their song publishing anymore. I would have judge it by a case on a case by case basis, because I do not know who owns what songs. SM (00:45:08): Now, you have been a writer for- MS (00:45:12): I am sorry, Steven, I do not mean to interrupt you. But for instance, the Beatles and John, or Yoko I guess, or somebody, got a lot of when Nike began using the song Revolution- SM (00:45:26): Oh. Yes. MS (00:45:27): ...for a commercial. SM (00:45:27): Yes. MS (00:45:27): And they were saying, "How could Yoko do this," and blah, blah, blah. Well, it turned out that Michael Jackson had bought the Beatles song catalog from that period. And it was either he or his business managers who made that decision. Not Yoko Ono, not John Lennon, because he was dead. SM (00:45:48): Well, he is probably turning over in his grave if he knew about it. MS (00:45:48): Probably. SM (00:45:54): You have been a writer for a long time, looking at all the magazines that you have written for and of course you were with Linked with National Lampoon. I mentioned that your dad ran the National Lampoon? MS (00:46:09): He was the head of the company. Yeah. SM (00:46:12): Wow. How important was the National Lampoon as a magazine during that period? The influence that itself had on boomers? MS (00:46:26): Well, huge. Boomers when they were younger read Mad. But as they were coming into adulthood, they required something that was more adult, and something that was hipper, that was more risqué, that was geared for people who were not little kids anymore. And that is what the Lampoon was. The Lampoon was basically Mad magazine for grownups. Admittedly young grownups, but nonetheless grownups. SM (00:47:03): Would you put the National Lampoon and Rolling Stone as probably the Mount Rushmore of magazines that influenced the boomer generation growing up. MS (00:47:13): Well, I do not necessarily buy concepts like Mount Rushmore. I am not comfortable with the metaphor, but I would say the Rolling Stone and the National Lampoon were two of the most important magazines to pick. SM (00:47:28): You obviously have written so many pieces, even in recent years. I read some of your pieces before the interview today, the one you wrote on The Grateful Dead without Jerry. That was very well written. Are there any pieces you wrote during those years in the (19)80s when you were a younger writer that stick out more than any other, that you had really a lot of fun writing it, and doing research on it, and you got pretty good feedback on it? Are there some articles of throughout the years that have stood out above the others? MS (00:48:02): Well, in the (19)80s, the stuff that I wrote that I am fond of looking back- SM (00:48:10): Yes. MS (00:48:12): ...I wrote a column for the national anthem-anthem called Drinking Tips and Other War Stories, which basically was a monthly column about just saying yes. Meaning, that it was about my experiences with drugs and alcohol. And it was written partly because I was quite frankly fucked up through most of the 1980s. And that is what I had to write about. But it was also, I was consciously making a political statement in an era in America, got more conservative. And Nancy Reagan was pleading to asking, pleading for young people to just say no. I was screaming, "Do what you want, but I am saying yes." Whether that was responsible or not, is another story. But I enjoy doing it and I enjoy reading those pieces from that time. I do not think any of them are on the internet. SM (00:49:25): Have you ever thought of having a book done of your writings? MS (00:49:30): Oh yeah. SM (00:49:30): Just your writings? MS (00:49:31): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There will be simple. SM (00:49:35): Very good. How about anything you have written and say the last 15 years, or even for the Huffington Post, something on an article that stands out? MS (00:49:49): Well, there is all kinds of things in the way. I mean, not probably, I know I have, I have written more in the last 15 years than I wrote in the 40 years before that, 55 now. So yeah. I mean, because I was not primarily a writer before then. Most of my life, I have been a musician. You know, I wrote for the Lampoon in the (19)80s, did some writing, music, journalism in the (19)70s, very little though. I did the Lampoon stuff in the (19)80s, and then went into journalism in the mid (19)90s. And most of my writing was written between say (19)95 and now. What stuff that I liked from this period? Is that what you are asking? SM (00:50:54): Yeah. And a lot of it you have reflections back to that period of the (19)60s and (19)70s, because you wrote- MS (00:50:59): Yeah. I mean, I am still trying to figure it all out. SM (00:51:06): Yeah. How do you feel? You are younger than I am. I am seven years older than you, but how does it feel as time passes on the farther and farther we get away from that period and the older we get, we feel like a lot of the boomers when they were young, felt they never feel like that we are mortal, that we are just part of a continuation in a process of whatever, that we just happened to be living in a very unique time. Do you ever reflect on that as time passes? MS (00:51:45): Sure. Like constantly. I mean, when I say constantly, I do not mean every waking minute, but yeah, it is something that, it is some, it is definitely something I think about it. And mortality, I am sure to some degree your experience has been the same. You may have noticed that as you have gotten older, more dead people. In the last two months alone, I have lost five friends, including an ex-girlfriend, and I have a lot of dead friends. SM (00:52:23): What is amazing, I remember, I do not know if you felt the same way with your parents, but as they were getting older, they would read the obituary columns and there would be people dying that were movie stars in the thirties, and the forties, and the early fifties and everything. Now we read the news today or in the last 10, 15 years, just in the last week or so, individuals have passed on. Dennis Hopper, who we all know from Easy Writer, and all the things that he did throughout the years. Even Arthur Linkletter. Yeah. House Party. I mean, these are all people, does not matter the age, they were all influences on boomers. MS (00:53:03): A little side note footnote here. Oh. How old was I? I do not know, seven or eight or something like that. My father edited the magazine called Signature, which was the house organ of the Diner's Club, the credit card. And for the Christmas issue, one year we did a shot of my brother who was five years younger than me. Well, anyway, I do not want to confuse you. I have a brother who's five years younger, and I have a sister who is two and a half years younger, and the three of us were on the cover of Signature with Art Linkletter dressed as Santa Claus. I remember the shoot, I am the- SM (00:54:03): Oh. My gosh. MS (00:54:03): ...I am the oldest kid. So I remember spending the day with Art Linkletter. Oh. Wait, you know what? That was not Art Linkletter. That was another shoot. That was another photo. But I did do something. I was photographed as a kid for a magazine cover with Art Linkletter dressed as Santa Claus. I am confusing two different covers, and I remember spending the day with Art Linkletter around 1962, somewhere in there. SM (00:54:41): Of course, he lost his daughter, I believe, to suicide in later years. And- MS (00:54:44): She killed herself. SM (00:54:46): Yeah. And of course he lived in the (19)90s and he was always very positive. One of the things in that is happened a lot in these recent years is that politicians or individuals had a love to attack the period as the era where we began, the creation of all the problems we have in America, which is the divorce rate, the breakup of the family, the drug culture, the sexual revolution, lack of respect for authority, the beginning of all the isms. People not working as hard as they used to, all the attacks and the attacks are usually leveled against the (19)60s and the early (19)70s and the generation that grew up during that time. In fact, today you can hear it on the Huckabee Show almost on a regular basis. And whether it be Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich, or even columns written by George Will, we are talking conservatives here now, but a lot of average Americans say this too. So your thoughts on the condemnation of the era and the problems that have faced America since that time. And I want to add one other point. I had data to support the fact that the African American family in the 1950s, even though there was poverty, and Dr. King, and the Civil Rights Movement, families were together in the African American community and it all changed during the (19)60s. MS (00:56:24): It is such a broad question. Books have been written about this. Again, it is hard to nutshell an issue that is as broad as this, but from my point of view, freedom has its own problems, but it is preferable over tyranny and it is preferable over a bunch of nonsensical rules that are only in place so that certain people can maintain power. I mean, there is so many issues that you reference, it is hard to give all them their just due in one sweeping, in a few sweeping sentences. But for the most part, I think what the baby boomers of the (19)60s' generation, or whatever you want to call it, what they brought to this country has ultimately been positive. I mean, when I was a little kid, there were still colored restrooms and water fountains south of the Mason Dixon line. I sat and watched- MS (00:58:03): I sat and watched, I will never forget this. Excellent. I sat and watched the news with my mother when, I guess it was (19)64, (19)65, when the march on Birmingham, Alabama, and the local cops sicced police dogs and water hoses on the nonviolent demonstrators. And all they were, were Black, mostly African Americans, some whites who were trying to desegregate the south. So nobody can tell me that we were better off then because I do not believe it. SM (00:58:44): Well, you were born in (19)55, so you really did not start really recognizing television until say, the late (19)50s, real late (19)50s. But that black and white TV set that we all had with the three channels, and occasionally there was a fourth channel. That was a local channel. You did not see very many people of color on any shows- MS (00:59:07): True. SM (00:59:08): ...In the (19)50s. I am not trying to lead the question here, but I want your response and your impact of, because even in the (19)60s, we know that this was the first war that was truly covered on television, the Vietnam War, and had a lot of influence. But in the (19)50s, the only African Americans that were on TV in the early (19)50s, the slapstick Amos and Andy Show, which was- MS (00:59:32): I remember it. SM (00:59:33): Yeah. Which is kind of a, it was- MS (00:59:34): But I remember it- SM (00:59:38): Everybody watched it, but it made them look like buffoons. And secondly, Nat King Cole had a show that lasted for maybe 12 weeks, and that was it until the early (19)60s when all of a sudden Flip Wilson had his show. Diahann Carroll was on a show on nurses. She played a nurse. MS (00:59:55): I remember that. SM (00:59:57): And then of course, I Spy with Bill Cosby. There was a fourth show, I cannot remember the fourth, but that was the beginning of it. And I am just perceiving this as a person who's not very well schooled. I am just seeing it. What are your thoughts on the television? Was television in the (19)50s masking all the problems we were having? MS (01:00:20): Well, yeah. I mean, television was, there has never been an... I should not say never, but has rarely been an honest reflection of what is really going on. It is a yes and no answer. I mean, on one hand there was less reality back then, and yet in some ways there was more truth. To say... It depends upon the show. I mean, I think, for instance, that television journalism had more integrity in that era. People like Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite- SM (01:01:08): Dave Garroway. What is that? MS (01:01:11): Dave Garroway was another good one. Right. Huntley and Brinkley, people like that. You had a sense that these men were journalists and not just entertainers. And notice that I said men and not women, because there were no women. There were very, I mean there were a handful of correspondents, but there were no anchors. Another thing to note, by the way, in terms of how America has changed. SM (01:01:45): The only female correspondent I can remember was Nancy Dickerson, who was on during the Kennedy administration. MS (01:01:51): I went to school with her daughter. SM (01:01:53): Did you? Wow. She was there. And then there was one that was a UN person. I forget. There were very few. The one thing that, the reality that you mentioned too, was the McCarthy hearings were shown on TV in the early (19)50s, and that they were scary. And as a little kid, I did not understand it, but I was scared of that guy. They were scary, but they were being shown on TV. Was there a generation gap in your family? MS (01:02:22): Sure. SM (01:02:24): Explain the gap in your family. MS (01:02:26): Well, it was interesting because my parents, again, as I said earlier, my parents, they were not raving squares. They certainly were not right-wing extremists or anything. They were liberals and fairly open-minded. They had both been in the entertainment world in various capacities. My mother was a singer. My mother's boyfriend before she married my father was Charlie Parker's pianist, Al Hague. SM (01:02:54): Oh, really? MS (01:02:56): So she came up in the jazz world. She had smoked pot before I was born. And so they certainly were not squares, but when the heavy-duty hippies scene came down, they were kind of horrified. It was something that, that kind of openness and that kind of bohemianism was something that was not done in polite company, prior to the late (19)60s. SM (01:03:31): Was there any differences over the Vietnam War? MS (01:03:34): At first, yeah. Although my father, my father is still alive, and he forgets this, but he claims he was always against the war, but he actually supported the war initially. And we had screaming matches because by (19)66, (19)67, I was 11, 12 years old, I had already figured out that I was against the war, largely because people like, well, my heroes like Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsburg were against it. And I would read up on it. I decided I was against it. My parents and I would have arguments, and they would talk about the domino theory. And I would counter that, "This is a civil war in Vietnam, and that all the Vietnamese want is America to go mind its own business." But within a year or two, they were against the war. By (19)68, they were against it. SM (01:04:39): You had already said that there was some good things that came out of that generation. Now remember, this generation is 74 to 78 million. They cannot even figure out the exact number. I am sure the Census Bureau can figure it out. But- MS (01:04:52): Steven, I am sorry, which generation are you referring? SM (01:04:54): The boomer generation. MS (01:04:55): Oh, boomer. SM (01:04:56): Yeah. They were defined as anywhere between 74 and 78 million. And when I asked this question, I have had a lot of different responses as well, is can you state some strengths and weaknesses of the generation? And it is hard to talk for 74 million people, but- MS (01:05:17): Well, that was going to be my... Yeah, I am sorry. Go ahead. SM (01:05:20): The people that you knew that were boomers, it is based on your personal. MS (01:05:24): Well, my friends were hippies so I have a very, to a large degree, I have a limited point of view. My friends all had long hair, smoked dope and dog rock music and dropped acid. And we were the people our parents warned us against, as the famous saying goes. And so that is my perspective. I am the horror show that conservatives talk about to this day. SM (01:06:00): So you say your generation is nothing but strength, and- MS (01:06:04): What is that? SM (01:06:05): So you are saying there are no weaknesses within the- MS (01:06:08): No-no-no. I did not say that. But the problem is that I do not know how to generalize about a generation. I mean, you have to remember, people say, "The baby boomers." People say the (19)60s, and they think that somebody means that every young person had long hair, was at Woodstock. Well, that is not true. Most young people were fairly normal, whatever that means. I mean, they may have had longish hair and everyone loved the Beatles, and they may have smoked pot or not, but they were not raving hippies. Most young people, most boomers. I happened to be one who was. SM (01:06:54): One of the ways that the generation- MS (01:06:54): Sorry, Steven, let me just, I am sorry. Let me just finish this one thought. I did not mean to interrupt you. I am sorry. All I am saying is that to try to stereotype an entire segment, just merely, the only thing they have in common is that they were born at the same time, relatively same time. It cannot be done. They cannot be stereotyped. You know what I am saying? SM (01:07:20): Good points. Because others have said the same thing. And that is, really only between, some people have said only 15 percent of this generation ever got involved in any kind of activism. And 85 percent just went on day after day, may have been subconsciously affected, but did not really act. And then someone told me it is as low as 5 percent. So still, when you are talking about 74 to 78 million, it is a lot of people that did get involved. Your thoughts on this issue of uniqueness? A lot of the people when I was in college felt that they were the most unique generation in American history because there was this feeling, and you may have felt it amongst your peers, no matter what state they were in, that they were going to end war, bring peace, end racism, sexism, homophobia, and change the world. Well, obvious when you look at the world today, some people say, we are in worse shape than we have ever been. And who is in charge? The boomers and the up and coming generation X-ers. So just your thoughts on the uniqueness that many people felt within the generation. MS (01:08:30): Well, did I feel that? Yeah, I definitely felt that at the time. And I did believe in what Abbie Hoffman dubbed Woodstock Nation. I felt that we were going to create a new world, a world without borders based on a kind of hip communism. We were delusional, quite frankly. And also, again, to reiterate what we were talking about earlier, the people who were true believers in that philosophy, including myself, we were relatively speaking, a small percentage of the generation. We were also very loud, and a lot of us were smart, and we knew how to make noise and how to get noticed. SM (01:09:34): Would you also say that, as you say about Chris Kristofferson, a man who has been consistent from the time he was a young man to today with his music, that there is a lot of boomers that were consistent and still are in their lives? MS (01:09:54): Yes, absolutely. It is interesting. There are exceptions, but for the most part, if you look at the people in the (19)60s, and I do not know whether they were technically boomers or not, it would have to be on a case by case basis, because a lot of them were born before (19)45 or (19)46 or whatever the demarcation is. But if you look at the people who were really serious, the leaders, the ones who are still winning, they are still doing the work in one way, shape, or form or another. And I am talking about everybody from the Yippies who are still alive, a la Krassner. SM (01:10:41): Oh, he is great. MS (01:10:41): What is that? SM (01:10:41): He is great. MS (01:10:41): Yeah. Well, I think you got to me through Paul, right? SM (01:10:51): Yeah, I got to... Yeah, Paul. And Paul, man, I wish I had known him when I lived in the West Coast, because he is just a fantastic person. MS (01:10:58): Yeah, he is. SM (01:10:58): And he is an intellect. But he is also funny. MS (01:11:03): He is very, oh, he is one of the funniest men alive. And it is interesting about Paul, Paul really walked the talk. He was not just for a better world, he was for people treating each other in everyday life, he was for people treating each other decently. And it is one thing that Paul has always done is treat his fellow human beings decently. He is one of the truly nicest people I have ever known. In addition to being a great wit and thinker and political commentator and satirist. SM (01:11:48): Really good writer too. MS (01:11:49): Excellent. SM (01:11:53): One of the things too, the Peace Corps people, Peace Corps people that I have known that were in the Peace Corps have gone on with other things in their lives, and they have been consistent in most respects by carrying on that experience beyond the time when they were young. MS (01:12:06): Were you in the Peace Corps? SM (01:12:07): No, but I have interviewed a few people and that philosophy and that feeling of giving back and caring about others beyond oneself and those that are hurting, it has been carried on in their lives wherever they work. So it continues. What are your thoughts? Just basically, because the (19)60s and the (19)70s were all about movements. We had the anti-war movement and obviously the civil rights movement, which was ongoing. And then the women's movement evolved, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano movement- MS (01:12:37): Oh, Steven, can you hold just one second? SM (01:12:39): Yes. MS (01:12:39): I am sorry. I just have to go check something. Hold on. SM (01:12:43): Fine. I am back here with the tape now. MS (01:12:45): Sorry, man. SM (01:12:46): Oh, that is okay. I am talking about the movements. There were so many movements. On Earth Day in 1970, I know they worked with groups, the anti-war movement to make sure it was okay, that they would support the event itself. There seemed to be a lot of cooperation within the movements. Now they are being criticized as single-issue groups, rarely coming together with camaraderie. In other words, the gay and lesbians protest certain things, and they do not have the other groups there. The women's groups are the same way. Native American, earth, the environmental groups. You do not see the posters from all the groups. Are you sensing this too, that what was, in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, these movements that were very important for justice, that they were working together? Now they seem to be single issue and kind of segregated. MS (01:13:51): Well, there was something back then that does not exist now, which, there was a powerful left wing. There was a powerful left-wing political movement overall. And in the process, there was solidarity between groups and different causes. There is no left of any... I mean, to speak of. There is no left, left, I guess is the only way to put it. I mean, there is. There are a handful of commentators who are somewhat left wing, but you are talking about a period where a lot of the older people have lived through, our elders had lived through the Depression. In my family alone, there were Trotskyites and anarchists and all kinds of people who had lived through the Depression and decided that capitalism was the culprit. And there were a lot more people who gave credence to the notion of socialism back then. It does not have the kind of widespread respect that I think it once did. I mean, for crying out loud, the word liberal, which to me is almost a meaningless term, is considered a dirty word. That tells you how far this country has gone in 30 years, in my opinion. SM (01:16:04): Yeah. And it is interesting about President Obama who tries to separate himself from the boomer generation, but his critics say he is the reincarnation of the boomers, or that particular kind of- MS (01:16:19): Well, that is ridiculous. I mean, whatever you want to say about Obama, whether one likes him or does not like him, and I have very mixed feelings about him. I mean, I wish him the best, but I am not crazy about him. I am not crazy about what he has done thus far, is what I mean, although he is certainly an improvement. But that is, anyway, but- SM (01:16:42): It is like that one guy that criticized you said, the guy on exceptionalism said, "You only like the music of that particular period and will not listen to the music of today." He said, "Well, you are responsible for the George Bush." MS (01:16:59): I mean, it is so patently absurd. SM (01:17:01): Yeah. MS (01:17:01): I do not even know how to respond, which is why I did not respond to that guy, because his argument is all over the map, and I did not want to waste my time. SM (01:17:11): Two basic questions that I have asked everyone in this process, there are two issues dealing with the issue of healing and the issue of trust. The issue of healing is a simple question that I came up with students when we took them to Washington DC in the mid (19)90s and one of our leadership on the road programs. And we met with former Senator Edmund Muskie, who was the vice-presidential running mate with Humphrey at the (19)68 convention in Chicago. And the question was this, that is the boomer generation going to go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing due to all the divisions that were taking place in the United States at that time. Some say we were even close to a second civil war. The divisions between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who were against it, supported the troops and those who were against it. These students, again, had not seen or were not alive then, but they saw the riots in the (19)60s. They saw the burnings of major cities, they saw the assassinations of two major leaders in (19)68, and Tet, and the president withdraw all these things, tremendous divisions. Your thought on the boomer generation, whether this is an issue or not? MS (01:18:34): Well, I am not entirely sure what your question is. Are you... I am sorry, what? SM (01:18:40): The question is really, do you think the Civil War generation did go to its grave not healing? And the question is, there were so many divisions, and we seem to see them today in politics. They are just like they were back in the (19)60s, but they are older. Is there an issue with the boomer generation with respect to healing? I know a lot of people are not having a problem with this, but some may. MS (01:19:10): One thing I have learned as I have gotten older is that life is a process. It is not necessarily about achieving, it is not necessarily about seeing, reaching a goal, but it is about trying to reach a goal, if you understand what I am saying. And I should say, when I was young, many of my brothers and sisters in the so-called movements, we thought we were going to live to see Woodstock Nation. Well, it certainly did not happen when we thought it was going to happen. Will it ever happen? I do not know. Do I know what is going to happen before I die? I have no idea. But I know that it is important to continue to fight for what one believes. That is the only thing that matters. I do not mean it is the only thing that matters because obviously we want to achieve certain things, but whether we do or do not is not really up to us, except in so much as that we have to do the best job that we can about whatever it is that we were advocating. SM (01:20:35): Edmund Muskie basically responded by saying... He did not even respond about 1968. He said we had not healed since the Civil War in the area of race. And then he went on to talk for about 10 minutes on that issue. And let me change my [inaudible]. In terms of... Make sure this is working right here. Yes. Okay. So the healing, some people have also said, "Why do not you define this better when you ask this question, and simply say, those who supported the war and those who were against the war? Then maybe you can get some more in-depth answers instead of being so general." Because the wall was built, and I like your opinion on the wall, that was built and put up in (19)82 to heal the veterans and their families. And I know that there is still a lot of healing because I go down there every Memorial Day and Veterans Day, so they still have a long way to go. But I have often thought about the anti-war people and whether when they have come to the wall, whether they have second thoughts about their actions or would have done it all over again. So I think I am, some respects thinking more about those who were for and against the war. MS (01:21:55): Well, I mean, I was firmly in the anti-war camp. In fact, I worked, when I was a teenager, I worked for an organization in New York called the Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee, which was the primary anti-war group in New York during the Vietnam era. And I spent my weekends volunteering at their office. And when we would do big demonstrations, I would leaflet, go out and pamphleteer, and I almost got my ass kicked, [inaudible]. There were people who objected to some snot-nosed little hippie kid handing out anti-war leaflets. But I went to the wall in DC soon after it was built, and I was very moved by it. It is a very contemplative place, as you know. A very moving place. The thing that I think the anti-war movement gets bad rapped about is that we were the ones who were trying to end the god damn thing and keep people from dying over it. And yet, often, from various quarters, we get the rap that we were not respecting the soldiers. Well, that is not true. I think that we had more respect for the soldiers in their lives and their loved ones, we had more respect for them than the pro-war people. These kids, who by the way, were us, were cannon fodder for politicians and political motives, and there was no reason for them to die. There is no reason for these kids in Iraq and Afghanistan to be dying. SM (01:24:11): Yeah. Even the Vietnamese have stated since the war ended that they knew that the anti-war movement would mean victory for them because the United States would not have the willpower to continue if it is not popular at home in the long run. So they, the Vietnamese say that the war was won in America by those who were against the war, and so they did not go full force. And then that is, a lot of the critics have heard that, and they say, "Well, they prolonged the war, and we did not win the war because of the anti-war people." MS (01:24:56): I do not think we should have won the war. I was against us winning the war, whatever that means. I mean, we were on the wrong side. As I said earlier, my perspective has not changed from 1967. Vietnam was a civil war. It really was not even a civil war. It was a war between the Vietnamese and a puppet government created by the United States. It was geopolitical chess playing, but instead of chess pieces, it was the lives of young men. SM (01:25:46): How important were the college students in ending the war? They did a lot of protesting from (19)67 on. MS (01:25:54): How important was college students- SM (01:25:56): In terms of ending the war? What do you think was the main reason why the war ended? MS (01:26:01): The war? As much as I would love for the anti-war movement to get credit for ending the war, the truth is the war took 10 years to end. It did not end quickly. The only thing that is gone on longer is this idiocy in Afghanistan, but certainly college students and young people, a lot of them made sure that their voices were heard, and it had an effect. It definitely had an effect. SM (01:26:43): What did the Vietnam War teach you as a person? MS (01:26:54): What did it teach me as a person? Well, I mean, I guess the bottom line is it reinforced- MS (01:27:03): Well, I mean, I guess the bottom line is it reinforced my feelings that war is usually pointless. I mean, sometimes it is absolutely necessary. I am not a pacifist, but I am sorry? SM (01:27:19): No, continue. MS (01:27:27): But war for no reason or for nebulous reasons or for reason or for geopolitical power plays is immoral, in my opinion. SM (01:27:42): What did the (19)60s and (19)70s teach you? MS (01:27:48): Think for yourself. SM (01:27:50): Very good. Do you like the term boomer? MS (01:27:56): No. SM (01:27:57): If you were to define the generation from (19)46 to (19)64, what term would you use? MS (01:28:03): Young people. SM (01:28:05): Young people, very good. One of the questions, the other question besides healing, was the issue of trust. The generation has often been defined as a generation that just does not trust, and there was obvious reasons why because leaders lied to them for a long time, whether it be LBJ with the Gulf of Tonkin, or seeing Richard Nixon, Watergate. There were so many other instances during the war with McNamara on those figures that were not true about the people that had died. But you know, being a person during that time, that the boomers did not trust anyone in positions of leadership or responsibility, whether that was a university president, the vice president of student affairs, a rabbi, a priest, a corporate leader, a congressman, a senator. Anybody in a position of responsibility, they kind of frowned on him because they did not trust him. Do you agree with that? And because that was very prevalent when I was in college. And secondly is not being very trustful a negative? MS (01:29:26): I think healthy skepticism, and again, it is one of these case by case issues. You have to let your brains and your heart guide you. When I say you, I mean any sentient human. Mistrust is earned or should be earned. SM (01:30:00): Right. MS (01:30:01): And likewise, trust should be earned. I do not go around... I neither mistrust nor trust unless I know something about the person or the situation. I do not inherently mistrust or trust. And maybe, to be fair, there are certain things that perhaps I do inherently mistrust. To try and answer your question, I think I probably do inherently mistrust authority. SM (01:30:46): Well, one of the first things you learn in political science, and I was a history, political science major, is that lack of trust is very healthy in a democracy because it means dissent is allowed and it is alive and well in a democracy. Would you agree with that? MS (01:31:05): Yeah, absolutely. SM (01:31:07): So I think it is a healthy thing, even though some people... I am trying to keep my opinions out of it, but a couple other things here and then I just have some ask you to respond to some names and terms. And then we will be done. I know this might be another one of those general questions. Do you think boomers have been good parents and grandparents? And I say this only... You can only do this from the experiences that you have had with your fellow boomers, but the question I am always asking people is, has this generation ever sat down with their kids and grandkids and shared with them? MS (01:31:45): Well, again- SM (01:31:46): And do the kids – MS (01:31:47): ...such a broad question. I mean, every individual is different. I would hate to paint an entire generation with a brush this broad. SM (01:31:57): How about just the term activism? MS (01:31:59): Sorry. SM (01:31:59): How about just seeing activism, which was a very important part of many of the boomers, do you see it today a lot in others? MS (01:32:08): Do I see activism a lot? SM (01:32:10): Yeah. In young people. MS (01:32:14): [inaudible] amongst activists. SM (01:32:14): Well, no, I mean, do you see it amongst young people today and maybe in the last 20 years? MS (01:32:21): Well, I have seen it, but that is partly because I am an activist and I run in activist circles. If I did not, I am not sure that I would have witnessed it. In other words, because I am an activist, I get to meet other activists and often they are young people. SM (01:32:39): Yes. MS (01:32:40): If I was not an activist, I am not sure that I would witness a lot of activism because it is not like it was, say, in (19)69 or (19)70 where you were constantly seeing, witnessing a dissent. It is not like that anymore. In fact, there is a lot more blind acceptance of the way things are. Although it is interesting, if you read the opinion polls, these millennials or whatever they are called are actually the most progressive politically, progressive generation ever since these kinds of polls have been taken. SM (01:33:28): And they like boomers. MS (01:33:29): They do like boomers? SM (01:33:32): Yes, they do. Because since I am in higher ed, I was in higher ed for all these years, millennials link up with boomers in many ways. They want to leave a legacy. A lot of boomers, when they were young, wanted to leave a legacy. But we talked about this, ending more and bring peace to the world and all the other things. Many may not have succeeded, but they believe in that. Well, a lot of millennials believe in they want to leave a legacy too, but the difference between boomers and millennials is the time they plan to do it. Millennials want to create a legacy beginning around 40. They want to raise families, get a job, do all the things they do, but they are thinking down the road that they want to leave something for future generations. So it is just the timing more than anything else that may be different. I have got some slogans here. Actually these are three slogans that I feel define the generation slogan. Number one is, "Malcolm X by any means necessary," which symbolizes a more radical, maybe even the use of guns, violent aspect to the movement. The second one is the quote that Bobby Kennedy took from I think George Bernard Shaw, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were and ask why not," which is the activist, the mentality of I want to make a difference, bring justice to the world. And then there is the more hippie mentality, which was on Peter Max posters in the early (19)70s. And I had one on my door at Ohio State, which stated, "You do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." That was kind of a hippie statement. And the only other one that people have mentioned is, "We shall overcome," which is symbolic of the Civil Rights Movement. And one other person mentioned, John Kennedy's, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Do you have any slogans that you think define the boomer generation? MS (01:35:53): Again, I do not think that the boomer generation has a singular way to define boomers. I think that what happened with the boomers is, and I know I am not necessarily answering your question because again I am hesitant to paint the entire generation with a broad brush, but what I think happened in the (19)60s basically is for a lot of reasons that could be enumerated but we do not have a whole... Again, it is something that books get written about these things. What happened was that for the first time in history... I guess it could be argued though the Renaissance, the Enlightenment maybe. But for the first time in history, certainly in recent history, meaning the last few hundred years or so, couple hundred, a Bohemian movement went mass, went viral. And you saw a Bohemian movement emerge from the shadows, emerge from the underground and become mainstream. Now, what happened in the process, interestingly enough, is that when that Bohemian movement went mainstream, partly what killed it off because it got co-opted by people whose motivation is profit, mainly Madison Avenue and people trying to sell things. SM (01:37:54): This last part of the interview is just a lot of names. You probably saw that at the bottom, but it says, " What do these events mean to you? And then just quick thoughts." Does not have to be anything in depth, but what do these events mean to you? The opening of the wall in 1982. MS (01:38:16): Oh, the Vietnam Wall, you mean? SM (01:38:18): Yes. MS (01:38:20): What does it mean to... I think it was an attempt by America to come to terms with Vietnam for once and for all, although it may not have worked that way. I think at the very least, it paid lip service or it gave respect to the [inaudible]. And there is nothing wrong with that. I mean, it was a good thing, I think. SM (01:38:51): What does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? MS (01:38:56): Oh, that meant a lot to me. Kent State and Jackson State meant that law and order was more important to the establishment than us, than our lives were. We were expendable. SM (01:39:19): What does Watergate mean to you? MS (01:39:21): Just a symbol of the kind of corruption that continues in everyday politics. It is the same old shit, basically. SM (01:39:36): What does Woodstock and the Summer of Love mean to you? MS (01:39:42): It was an attempt by human beings to create a new reality. SM (01:39:49): What do the hippies mean to you? MS (01:39:51): Hippies were the largest mass Bohemian movement in history. SM (01:39:59): What do the Yippies mean to you? MS (01:40:07): Yippies were hippies who had been beaten up by cops. SM (01:40:13): How about, what does the Vietnam Veterans Against the War mean to you? MS (01:40:18): They were soldiers who had come to the realization that they had been fighting the wrong war. SM (01:40:27): And the next one is counterculture, but I think you have already discussed that. What do communes mean to you? MS (01:40:35): Again, an attempt at creating a new reality, a new way to live. SM (01:40:40): What do the Black Panthers and Black Power mean to you? MS (01:40:48): Well, the Panthers were a group of mostly young Black men and women who came together to reclaim their basic rights as Americans and human beings. SM (01:41:05): And Black Power? MS (01:41:05): Black Power was just an expression of pride in a time when Black people were still fighting for basic human rights. SM (01:41:26): What does SDS mean to you? MS (01:41:30): SDS was the first and largest group of young white Americans of that era, late (19)50s, early (19)60s, coming together and saying, "We have a vision for a different kind of America." SM (01:41:53): What does the National Organization for Women mean to you? MS (01:42:00): Same thing as the Black Panthers, but for women. SM (01:42:03): And how about the American Indian Movement? That would be the same thing. MS (01:42:06): Same thing. SM (01:42:09): Yeah. MS (01:42:09): It was a gay liberation. SM (01:42:10): Yeah. Yeah. And the same thing with Stonewall. And I think we- MS (01:42:15): Same thing. SM (01:42:16): Yeah. What does Attica mean to you? MS (01:42:24): Same. Imprisonments. These are all movements of people trying to reclaim their humanity. SM (01:42:29): What does My Lai mean to you? MS (01:42:36): My Lai was just a war crime that got noticed. SM (01:42:41): And what does Tet mean to you? MS (01:42:46): Tet represented the fact that the American military is not invincible. SM (01:42:57): And then these are just names of people, just quick responses. MS (01:42:59): Which, by the way, we are seeing repeated in Afghanistan and Iraq. Anyway. SM (01:43:04): Yeah. Please respond to these people in or terms, just quick responses. Tom Hayden. MS (01:43:17): Real smart, real committed, honorable guy. SM (01:43:22): Jane Fonda. MS (01:43:30): I think that Jane Fonda's... Well, what do you mean? Jane Fonda, the activist? Jane Fonda, the fitness? SM (01:43:40): Yeah, but the total- MS (01:43:42): There is so many Jane Fondas. SM (01:43:43): There is a new book out by Mark Lemke on Hanoi Jane. I am reading it right now. MS (01:43:48): Yeah. Yeah. SM (01:43:48): It brings up the three different aspects of her. Are you talking about the activist? Are you talking about the physical fitness guru? Or are you talking about the entertainer? MS (01:43:58): Right. Good actress. I do not know anything about aerobics, but I am sure she is a fine aerobics instructor. As far as her activist, I more or less was in solidarity with her. SM (01:44:13): John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. MS (01:44:20): Great men, very flawed. SM (01:44:24): Dwight- MS (01:44:25): Wait a second. Wait a second. But I think that I should say that about JFK. I think that Bobby, had he lived, may have changed the course of American history and may have been the greatest American president, but we will never know that. So it is just a feeling. I had great affection for Bobby. SM (01:44:44): Dwight Eisenhower. MS (01:44:48): Represents an older America that I do not have that much affection for. SM (01:44:59): LBJ and Hubert Humphrey. MS (01:45:03): Well, those are two different people. LBJ is a fascinating man, again, very, very flawed. A great man in many respects and a war criminal at the same time. Humphrey represents a kind of ineffectual, cannot do spirit in America, where I guess his heart was in the right place, but his ass was owned by the establishment. SM (01:45:47): Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. MS (01:45:49): Well, both men who saw that the war was morally wrong and spoke up. SM (01:45:57): Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X. MS (01:46:00): Again, two different men representing two different things, but both, in my opinion, great men, great human beings, great Americans. Again, I think if both had lived, they might have affected more change and accomplished more. Again, I do not know. I am just guessing, but two men I have immense immeasurable respect for. SM (01:46:38): Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford. MS (01:46:43): Well, Gerald Ford is just a joke, but Ronald Reagan is the most overrated president in the history of this country. And furthermore, he was the guy who set this country back and put it on the track back to greed and war and all the bad stuff. And I think when the history books... It always depends on who is going to write the history but in my opinion, Ronald Reagan will not be viewed as a kindly old uncle, the benevolent conservative that he is viewed as in many quarters now. I mean, really, this country started to go downhill beginning with his election. And as he is as revered as he is does not say a lot of good things about this country. SM (01:48:11): Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. MS (01:48:14): Nixon is just a crook. He knew. What he said he was not, he was. Agnew, another liar. These guys are about power. That is what they are about. SM (01:48:35): Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. MS (01:48:37): Again, two very different men cannot really be described in the same breath. Abbie personally is one of my heroes, a brilliant man, very funny, very good writer by the way. I have always thought Abbie's writings were underrated. He had a vision for a different kind of America. But I will tell you something, most Americans are not hip enough to understand where Abbie was going. The thing is Abbie was a hipster. Abbie was like a jazz musician and trying to affect change the way a jazz musician would. And that is not ever going to work because, as I said, most human beings is not that hip. I have respect for Jerry. I do not necessarily view his late in life conversion to capitalism as some kind of betrayal or anything, but he is a complicated guy. He did a lot of good. He also was capable of really making an ass of himself. Very inconsistent man. SM (01:49:58): And I do not know if you had a chance to see the YouTube of him on the Phil Donahue Show. MS (01:50:02): Yeah, I do not know if you know, but I have been working on a documentary about the Yippies for about six years now. SM (01:50:09): I did not know that. MS (01:50:10): So we have a whole... Well, it is not finished, but we have a whole sequence about the Phil Donahue Show. I spoke to Phil Donahue about that, about Jerry's appearance on the very show that you are talking about. SM (01:50:23): And boy, Phil Donahue, for him to just sit there and take what he was taking was something. MS (01:50:29): He was trying to give Jerry the benefit of the doubt, and Jerry just kept making a fool of himself. SM (01:50:36): The Berrigan brothers and Dr. Benjamin Spock. MS (01:50:41): Great Americans, great human beings. SM (01:50:44): How about Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, some of the- MS (01:50:52): Well, again, I cannot characterize them all. They are different women, but Bella I loved. I mean, I am a New Yorker and I am a New York Jew, so I have sort of a soft spot for Bella. Loudmouth, New York feminist, beautiful, beautiful woman. Betty Friedan, visionary. Gloria, she did good stuff. But my problem with what we used to call women's liberation and what later was called feminism, is that it lost its Marxist analysis. And what I am trying to say is a lot of feminists believed that once women gained positions of power, because women were nurturers, that they would bring peace and they would bring understanding and they would bring people together. But we have seen that women... I mean, we are seeing it with this idiot, Sarah Palin now. Women can be as divisive as men. And so I think feminism, the way it has played out, has been a flawed philosophy. But I do not mean to say that I do not basically agree with feminism. I do. I also do believe that men and women are different. SM (01:52:28): How about Phyllis Schlafly? Because she is the extreme [inaudible]. MS (01:52:31): She is just a joke. SM (01:52:33): How about President Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton? MS (01:52:38): Again, two completely different guys. I think Clinton is a phony, never liked him. Was life better under him than under Bush? Hell yeah, but I just do not like the guy. There is something oily about him. I mean, I will never forget watching Clinton on TV before he was elected president, and I had heard or I had read that he had been called Slick Willie in Arkansas. But I did not really know why. I remember watching him give a speech before he was elected president in (19)92, and I remember sitting there thinking, "Man, this cat is slick." And that he knew how to put one over on a crowd. He knew how to manipulate a crowd. And then when the little light bulb went off over my head and I went, "Ah, that is where he got the Slick Willy came from." Obviously, politically, I am closer to Bill Clinton than I am any Republican. I just do not like the guy personally. Jimmy Carter is someone who was not a very good president, but I think he was a better president than he was portrayed as at the time. His post-presidential work has been fantastic. SM (01:54:09): How about George Bush the first and George Bush the second? MS (01:54:14): Well, boy, obviously I have no fondness for either man. But at least George the first had read more than three books. W is by far the dumbest man in my lifetime, the dumbest man to achieve that kind of power. I mean, the fact that he was President of the United States for eight years is one of the scariest realities. SM (01:54:58): How about when you talk about the Black Panthers, you already talked about them, but there is very unique personalities. There is Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, H Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael. All those six are major, major different Black Panther leaders. Any thoughts on them as a group? MS (01:55:22): As a group or as individuals? SM (01:55:24): Yeah, group or individuals. MS (01:55:26): Well, again, I do not like to characterize people. Each human being is their own human, has their own set of character traits and pluses and minuses. I think Huey was a visionary. He was clearly also, to put it mildly, a very flawed man including probably a murderer. Eldridge, very flawed, but a brilliant man. MS (01:56:01): Very flawed, but a brilliant man. Same with H Rep around Stokely. I will say this though, I do believe that all these people, all these cats were driven to extremism, madness, drug addiction, and various other maladies because of the innate, inherent racism of the country that they were born and raised. I think that they were pushed to Matt SM (01:56:39): Even- MS (01:56:41): But I have a lot of respect for the man. SM (01:56:42): Even David Horowitz, who was the head of one of the writers for Ramparts, who was a die-hard conservative now. He will even say that Eldridge Cleaver was a good writer. MS (01:56:51): Right? Horowitz is a brief- SM (01:56:54): Yeah. He was about the only one that he showed any kind respect for Daniel Ellsberg on the Pentagon Papers. MS (01:57:00): Actually, I spent a day with, a couple days with Ellsberg a few years ago in Ithaca, New York. SM (01:57:06): That is where I am from. MS (01:57:07): Oh, really? Yeah. I lived there for a few months in 2004. My sister lives there and I was staying. SM (01:57:14): The Cortland Binghamton area in Ithaca. That is my area. MS (01:57:18): Oh, very good. It is beautiful. It is beautiful up there. Yeah, those waterfalls. man. SM (01:57:24): Oh yes, but Daniel, there is a movie out. You probably saw The Most Dangerous Man in America. MS (01:57:29): I have not seen it, but Ellsberg to me is one of my, he is an American hero. What he did with the Pentagon Papers was outstanding. SM (01:57:39): Timothy Leary. MS (01:57:43): A guy I knew, a guy I knew a little bit personally, a flawed man, a brilliant man, a very charming man, a bit of a con artist. Ultimately, he is on my team, so- SM (01:58:07): Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson. MS (01:58:10): Well, two different, again, two different men, but both of them, great Americans, great athletes, both of them broke barriers. Ali refused to fight a war he thought was immoral and against his spiritual beliefs. Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball, as you know, and took a lot of shit for it, and great American. SM (01:58:40): Woodward and Bernstein. MS (01:58:45): I have complicated feelings about, particularly Bob Woodward, all the presidents’ men in their early reportage for the Washington Post concerning Watergate was extraordinary. Woodward went on to be a bit of a hack. He wrote a book about a friend of mine named John Belushi, comedian, actor, and the book was so full of errors of fact and insinuation and gossipy drug tidbits it after I read it, my respect for Bob Woodward diminished, so capable of great journalism, capable of bullshit at the same time. SM (01:59:39): How about Robert McNamara. MS (01:59:44): A mass murderer cloaked in the cloaked in respectability. SM (01:59:50): Angela Davis. MS (01:59:54): She is on my team. SM (01:59:57): Chicago Eight. MS (01:59:59): Well, again, my team. SM (02:00:03): The year 1968. MS (02:00:06): Oh boy. What do you want to know? SM (02:00:07): Just- MS (02:00:07): That is a long year. SM (02:00:09): That is why some young people who read history think we were close to a second civil war by that because of that year, and everything that preceded it. MS (02:00:18): It felt like it, but we were not. I mean, it certainly felt like- SM (02:00:25): Is there any one event? There is so many that stood out above all of them. MS (02:00:34): It is hard to say. I mean, there were the two major assassinations. First, Martin and Bobby, and then of course, the police riot at the Democratic Convention August. That was a hell of a year. SM (02:00:52): How about the weatherman? MS (02:00:57): Very-very flawed, but my team, and also I understand where they were coming from. They were trying to stop however wrong their methods were. They were trying to stop what they rightfully deemed was an immoral war. And I have great affection for Bill Ayers and [inaudible] SM (02:01:28): Earth Day and the Peace Corps. MS (02:01:31): Again, two different issues, but they both represent that streak of idealism that people my age, people from my generation and older than me too as well, they both the Peace Corps and Earth Day Embodied, that kind of useful idealism. SM (02:02:03): Barry Goldwater and William Buckley. MS (02:02:06): Again, two different guys. I hated Goldwater, but I came to respect him as he got older. He seemed to, these modern-day conservatives make Goldwater look like a commonsensical guy. Buckley, I think he was a racist from what I have read. I think that obviously his politics were different than mine, to put it mildly, but I will tell you something. They were a lot of interesting people back then, and he was one of them, very smart man. I actually interviewed him once for something, and he was very helpful. He was very nice. He was very polite, very pleasant, and I liked him personally. SM (02:03:10): How about John Dean? MS (02:03:11): Well, I think that John Dean was a man who grew up in public, in a sense. I do not mean, grew up from childhood, but he started at Point A and ended up somewhere else. He clearly had an epiphany that he was involved in something that was immoral and went public with it. SM (02:03:49): I am almost, the free speech movement and the Little Rock Nine. MS (02:03:53): Okay. Again, two different things, but I guess there are similarities. The Little Rock Nine, you are talking about the kids going to school? Yes. Okay. Well, obviously that was the beginning of one of the seminal events of the Civil Rights movement, and to think of these kids being at the forefront of any of a human rights movement at all. It is kind of mind blowing. It is young people that is sort of galling about mean young people today is that perennially historic, but young people have always been at the vanguard of political movements, and it is particularly any revolutionary political change, because they have the energy and the enthusiasm and often the blind foolishness to go out and do things that older people are too old to do. Well, it was the Little Rock. SM (02:05:02): The Free Speech movement. MS (02:05:03): Free speech. Well, free speech Movement was one of the things that kick started in 1960s as we know it. SM (02:05:13): And I have down here also the U2 and the Cuban Missile Crisis. MS (02:05:19): Okay. Francis Gary Powers. SM (02:05:23): First time I saw President Lie to the American Public on TV. MS (02:05:26): That was approximately what I was going to say? One of the first indications that America was not the flawless place that they told us it was U2. What was the other one? SM (02:05:41): The Cuban Missile Crisis. MS (02:05:45): Cuban Missile Crisis. Interesting. That was the first time I realized, one of the first times I realized that we could all die in a nuclear holocaust. My parents were in Florida, and that happened, and I will never forget them, my mother calling us back in New York City and her crying, are you your kids? Okay? You are all right. I think my grandmother was taking care of us. Well, my parents were away, and I realized what this was. Well, I was only seven, I guess it was actually two. I realized that I realized the gravity of the situation, and I used to have dreams. I used to have dreams of the world ending in the nuclear Holocaust. SM (02:06:48): Did you think your mom and dad might not come home? MS (02:06:51): I was wondering whether anyone was going to survive, whether we are all going to die. I will tell you something. I will tell something in the story. An interesting story when I was in was Ithaca once having dinner at my sisters, and they had some friends over, my sister is two and a half years younger than me. Her husband is about 3, 4, 4 years younger than me. There were friends, one of whom was a college professor at Cornell, was about five years younger than me, and they were having to talk about politics in general and history and different things. So I was the oldest person at the dinner table, and I went around the table and I said, so let me ask everybody this. I am curious. I said, did anybody at this table ever really believe that the human race could perish in a nuclear attack? And every single one of them all were younger than me said, no, and I realized that that is the difference. Before you said that there were early boomers and late Yes. I think that is the difference between the early boomers and the late boomers. The first decade, the (19)46 through (19)56, is that what you said? I mean, I am generalizing here, but these are all generalizations, but I think we were the ones who really understood what was at stake. I do not think that the kids younger than us had the same kind of tears. SM (02:08:46): President Obama is a boomer. MS (02:08:49): What year was he born? SM (02:08:50): He was born in (19)60. Well, he was two I think, so that would make him, he is 49 now, so I do not, that would make, well, 49, and he was just like a baby, but he is still a boomer. Right. For the terms McCarthy hearings, I already mentioned them, but what makes them important in the early (19)50s is the red diaper babies and the way they treated and the scary, the people that were communists, and it was a scary kind of a personality there that later years. Did you ever think about that man and what he did? MS (02:09:28): Sure-sure. My father, well, not a communist, was a liberal Democrat and was horrified by McCarthyism and would actually, he edited a magazine, as I told you earlier, called Signature in the (19)50s and (19)60s. Actually. It was originally called the Diners Club Magazine, and then he changed the name to Signature, but he hired writers who had been blacklisted, so he gave work to blacklisted writers, including Ian Hunter, who had won Academy Awards as a screenwriter. SM (02:10:16): Wow. The last one here is just Walt Disney, Howdy Doody, Hopalong Cassidy. It was just (19)50s television at it is finest. Hopalong was a little bit before you, Howdy Doody, went up to 1961 and Walt Disney as well. That is his, that is history right there. That is (19)50s television. MS (02:10:40): I remember Hat Duty, and I really remember Disney. SM (02:10:45): Right. MS (02:10:45): I was a huge Disney fan when I was a little kid. What does it mean to me now? Very little. It is mildly nostalgic, but it has no substance, substantive meaning to me. 2010. SM (02:11:00): You have, I wanted to ask you about your band, because, we have been talking about your journalism, your responses to questions around the generation. You talked about Kris Kristofferson, but I would like to know a little bit about your group, your band, what they are doing, and how you have been able to survive as a band all these years. MS (02:11:23): Well, first of all, I have had many bands. I mean, the most famous one was SlewFoot, but even SlewFoot. SM (02:11:31): That is what I am talking about. MS (02:11:32): Right. We broke up in 1978 or so yeah (19)78. Yeah, we broke up in 1978. SM (02:11:43): Well, what was it like being in that group those years? Because you were playing to the Boomers, what was it, does it feel different performing to the Boomer generation than it does to performing today? I do not know how you would say it, but- MS (02:12:05): Well, I do not have to, not that it is anyone's fault, per se, but people my age grew up more or less on the same music I did, so I did not to, I never had to explain things to them. Whereas younger people, a lot of my music is new to them. Not through any fault of their own, just they simply have not been exposed to it. Although, I mean, young people, some of them have good musical taste. I am not sure I know how to answer that question. SM (02:12:49): Yeah, just whether there was more of a, we call it excitement or energy within the audiences then, as opposed to now, in terms of- MS (02:12:58): I do not know. I think there is probably still energy. I just do not think the music has the same kind of quality or edge, but- SM (02:13:06): What do you think of, well you probably cannot say this either, but when the last Boomer has passed on that they do this over at the Gettysburg Battlefield, when the last survivor of the Civil War died in 1924, they have a statute form over there, but when the last maybe 50, 75 years from now, when the best history books and sociology books are written or books on the era of, what do you think they will say about this generation of young people, all young people in this case, because we are talking about those 74 to 78 million who were born between (19)46 and (19)64, and they will define them in many respects based on the time they lived. What do you think they will say about this group? MS (02:13:51): I do not think that they are going to talk about the Boomers per se, but that whole concept of baby boomers is a sociological construct. It has no bar. It has very little bearing on history. What is important is that a sizeable subset of what is called the baby boomers made a valiant attempt to turn history around, and in many respects, succeeded. That, in my opinion, is going to be in the history books forever. It is going to be looked on. I firmly believe that the 1960s and early (19)70s are going to be looked on as a kind of renaissance in human history. SM (02:14:43): Do you have any anecdotes or stories you would like maybe to mention one or two, just like the story about being with Kris Kristofferson, are there any other stories that could be educational for others? Like you mentioned John Beluchi, you knew him personally, but when Woodward wrote that book, it was full of mistakes. I did not know you knew him. Were there any other people in your music world that you worked closely with? Any stories would you like to share? MS (02:15:16): Well, there is many stories. I am not sure what you are looking for exactly. SM (02:15:22): Well I am looking, you had a purpose in writing about Kris Kris- well, being interviewed and saying things about Kris Kristofferson, what his music meant, and what he symbolized, that he was kind of symbolic of the (19)60s, and he was consistent through his life. Are there any other personalities or groups that have educational lessons based on your experiences with them? MS (02:15:53): Well, based on my personal experience? SM (02:15:55): Yes. Based on your personal experiences, just like your personal experiences with Kris Kristofferson. MS (02:16:01): I have to think about, I do not know if, I do not think that I have an answer for your question off the top of my head trying to think about it. SM (02:16:08): That is all right. MS (02:16:09): I am Sorry. SM (02:16:10): That is okay. MS (02:16:11): Yeah, do not know. I mean, lots of famous musicians, not only from my time as a musician myself, but also as a journalist. I have gotten to meet many of my teenage heroes. SM (02:16:31): Who are some of them? MS (02:16:34): Oh, well, I mean, for instance, a couple weeks ago I was hanging out with Jim Kelner, who is a drummer. He used to play with John Lennon and George Harrison and Dylan, but he would, I do not know if you would know who he is, but I am trying to think of who you would know. Who have I gotten to know? Last night I was hanging out with Don Was, who has been the Rolling Stones producer for the last 20 years. I am trying to think of who you would know. SM (02:17:06): Where are you based now? Los Angeles, or is it San Francisco? MS (02:17:10): LA. I live in LA. SM (02:17:10): Okay. MS (02:17:14): I should say I sleep in LA, but I live in New York, meaning that my heart is in New York, but my bed is in LA. SM (02:17:22): Okay. Very good. Are there any questions I did not ask that you thought I was going to? MS (02:17:28): No, I was not really sure what you were going to ask. In fact, no, I do not. Nothing that I can think of. SM (02:17:38): Well, that is it then. MS (02:17:40): Well, Steven, thank you. SM (02:17:41): Thanks for going over the hour and a half too. I really appreciate that. Eventually, I am going to need a good couple of quality pictures of you to be sent to me. MS (02:17:52): Okay. SM (02:17:52): But I will be emailing you on that. MS (02:17:54): Okay. SM (02:17:54): And a little more updates. I am finishing my interviews as of the end of the first week of Labor Day weekend. I am going to interview Kathleen Cleaver. She is my last interview. MS (02:18:06): Oh, okay. SM (02:18:07): And I have been told I got to stop the interviews because I have, I will have about 200 then, and that is a lot of interviews. And then I am going to be spending nothing but four solid months in hibernation, transcribing it myself. I have got the equipment. I am already, and I want to do it myself because people have told me the mistakes have been made when they hand them to other people, and then they end up having to do it themselves anyways. And then I will send you a copy of the transcript, and so you will be able to see it. And at the same time, there will be a form to sign so that I can use your interview in my book, and I will be sending that out to everybody. People said, well, you are put Mark, you should have handed this out to everybody before you even started this press, but they will see the transcript and we will go from there. MS (02:18:51): Okay. SM (02:18:53): And I really want to thank you. MS (02:18:53): You are welcome. Thank you. Who is publishing? SM (02:18:59): Well right now? Syracuse University Press is very interested. I have not, have not been going, I have been only going to university presses. I have not been doing anything with, I have not made no contact with major presses. And so as I get closer to Labor Day weekend, I have been told that this book needs to go out to more people. The University press books do not reach very many people. Syracuse University Press, I think is the one that is going to do it, but there is some issues there right now, and because of the economy, we all about the economy, and so some university presses are limited in the number of books they do on an annual basis. Now, they did not use to limit themselves, so it is not definite yet who the printer is, but I have a couple professors I am working with on this and go from there. MS (02:19:50): Okay. Well, best of luck. Keep me posted and thanks, man. SM (02:19:56): Yeah, thank you, Michael. Have a great day, and keep writing those articles. I will be reading your articles now all the time. MS (02:20:02): Thank you, Steven. SM (02:20:02): Yeah, have a good one. MS (02:20:09): Oh, wait a second. Let me ask you something. Yes. Before I, do I have your phone number? SM (02:20:10): My phone number is six one zero. MS (02:20:12): Hold on one second. SM (02:20:16): And I have a tape machine here all the time. Yeah. Six one zero. MS (02:20:19): Where are you, by the way? SM (02:20:21): Oh, I am, I am in Westchester, Pennsylvania. Just outside Philadelphia. MS (02:20:25): Steven. Oh, is it 4 3 6 9 3 6 4? SM (02:20:30): Yes. 6 1 0 4 3 6 9 3 6 4. MS (02:20:33): All right. Very good. Alright Steven, thanks so much. SM (02:20:36): One other thing. Yeah. Do you know Kris Kristofferson real well? MS (02:20:41): I know him. SM (02:20:42): Boy would I love to interview him. MS (02:20:46): You would have to go through his publicist and I do not even remember. SM (02:20:53): You email me that information if and I will. MS (02:20:56): I do not know what his public, you know what, I will email you. I do not, I am trying to think the best way to do this. I will email you somebody. You know what the thing is that I really do not have the, I do not have the, it is really not my- SM (02:21:24): I can go right to his website too. MS (02:21:26): Yeah. That is really the best way. SM (02:21:28): Do you know if he lives in LA or does he live in Burlingame? MS (02:21:32): Burlingame. SM (02:21:34): That is where his hometown is. MS (02:21:37): Burlingame. SM (02:21:37): California in- MS (02:21:38): San, well, actually he was born in Texas. SM (02:21:41): Yeah, but he went to Burlingame High School. MS (02:21:43): Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think his family moved to California later, but anyway. SM (02:21:54): Okay. MS (02:21:54): From what I know, and I do not know everything, obviously he splits his time between Malibu and LA and Hawaii. SM (02:22:05): Well, that is nice. MS (02:22:05): Yeah. No kidding. SM (02:22:09): All right, Michael. Thanks a lot. Have a great day. MS (02:22:12): You too. SM (02:22:12): 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 Michael Simmons Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Simmons, Michael ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Simmons, Michael--Interviews Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-06-05 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.10.2016.114a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.114b 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. 142:16 Description An account of the resource <span>Musician, writer, filmmaker and activist Michael Simmons was dubbed “The Father Of Country Punk” by&nbsp;<i>Creem</i>&nbsp;magazine in the 1970s. He was an editor of the&nbsp;<i>National Lampoon</i>&nbsp;in the ’80s where he wrote the popular column “Drinking Tips And Other War Stories” and won an LA Press Club Award in the ’90s for his investigative journalism for the&nbsp;<i>LA Weekly</i>. He&nbsp;has written for&nbsp;<i>MOJO</i>,&nbsp;<i>Rolling Stone</i>,&nbsp;<i>Penthouse</i>,&nbsp;</span><span><i>LA Weekly</i></span><span>,&nbsp;</span><span><i>The New York Times</i>,&nbsp;<i>LA Times</i>,&nbsp;<i>High Times</i>,&nbsp;<i>Artillery</i>,&nbsp;<i>CounterPunch</i>,&nbsp;<i>The Rag Blog</i>,&nbsp;<i>The Progressive</i>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<i>Dangerous Minds</i>&nbsp;and has scribed liner notes for Bob Dylan, Michael Bloomfield, Phil Ochs, Kris Kristofferson, Mose Allison, Kinky Friedman,&nbsp;</span><span>Arthur Lee &amp; Love</span><span>&nbsp;</span><span>and Paul Krassner</span><span>. He wrote and co-produced the documentary&nbsp;<i>The Real Rocky</i>&nbsp;about boxer Chuck Wepner.</span> https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/40f31bf002884775d26855b70ef32fb6.jpg a3f7d9d2212eb2508bdb01c39ee2eb97 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b414833457a6c72673270c6c041f5510.mp3 2080ed5ad83ffb3421638e98e06ce630 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-04-23 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Steven R. Shapiro Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Steven R. Shapiro is an attorney and educator. He is the former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's oldest and largest civil liberties organization. Shapiro also taught taught at Stanford Law School, and the NYU School of Law and he is currently a lecturer in Law at Columbia University. He has a Bachelor's degree from Columbia University and a Law degree from Harvard University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15107,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,16317180],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Steven R. Shapiro is an attorney and educator. He is the former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's oldest and largest civil liberties organization. Shapiro also taught at Stanford Law School, and the NYU School of Law and he is currently a lecturer in Law at Columbia University. He has a Bachelor's degree from Columbia University and a Law degree from Harvard University.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 92:27 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Activism; War draft; NAACP; Civil Rights Movement; Brown v. Education; segregation; Baby boom generation; Assassination of John. F Kennedy; Earth Day; Gaylord Nelson; Lawyers; The financial crisis.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Activism; War draft; NAACP; Civil Rights Movement; Brown v. Education; segregation; Baby boom generation; Assassination of John. F Kennedy; Earth Day; Gaylord Nelson; Lawyers; The financial crisis.</span> Subject LCSH Lawyers; Lecturers; American Civil Liberties Union; Shapiro, Steven R.--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 Steve Shapiro Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Shapiro, Steven R. ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Lawyers; Lecturers; American Civil Liberties Union; Shapiro, Steven R.--Interviews Description An account of the resource Steven R. Shapiro is an attorney and educator. He is the former legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's oldest and largest civil liberties organization. Shapiro also taught at Stanford Law School, and the NYU School of Law and he is currently a lecturer in Law at Columbia University. He has a Bachelor's degree from Columbia University and a Law degree from Harvard 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 2010-04-23 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.113 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. 92:27