22 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c8a26e36a3d81d74052308df92cd6dc7.jpg 0f942b97df33d1268c9b7d885f62fd89 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/838c25478b6228e7b5b6064273c46cf5.mp3 7c04cf1246368ddca0af8868f429f278 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 2010-02-25 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Malcolm Boyd, 1923-2015 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Malcolm Boyd (June 8, 1923 – February 27, 2015) was an Episcopal Priest, author and activist for many social constructs such as racism, religion, and war. He was one of the first priests to go public about his homosexuality. He was very involved in the Civil Rights Movement and rallied against the Vietnam war which made him a national champion among others. After being open about his homosexuality, he wrote a book about his journey and fought successfully for women and homosexuals in the Episcopal church. He graduated from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15235,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:16777215},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:4995385},&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}">Malcolm Boyd (June 8, 1923 – February 27, 2015) was an Episcopal Priest, author, and activist for many social constructs such as racism, religion, and war. He was one of the first priests to go public about his homosexuality. He was very involved in the Civil Rights Movement and rallied against the Vietnam War, which made him a national champion among others. After being open about his homosexuality, he wrote a book about his journey and fought successfully for women and homosexuals in the Episcopal church. He graduated from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California. </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;Freedom Rides; Martin Luther King Jr.; Jonathan Daniels; Civil Rights Movement; Arlington National Cemetery; Common Cause; Baby boom generation; Healing; Veterans; 1960s; Black Power; Weathermen; Kent State; Jackson State; Spiritualism; The Beatles; Stonewall; Harvey Milk; Legacy of Slavery; Sexuality; AIDS epidemic; John F. Kennedy; Robert Kennedy; Jackson State; Richard Nixon; Watergate; Woodstock; Summer of Love; Counterculture; Hippies; Yippies; Drug Culture; Black Panthers; Weathermen&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:2,&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Freedom Rides; Martin Luther King Jr.; Jonathan Daniels; Civil Rights Movement; Arlington National Cemetery; Common Cause; Baby boom generation; Healing; Veterans; 1960s; Black Power; Weathermen; Kent State; Jackson State; Spiritualism; The Beatles; Stonewall; Harvey Milk; Legacy of Slavery; Sexuality; AIDS epidemic; John F. Kennedy; Robert Kennedy; Jackson State; Richard Nixon; Watergate; Woodstock; Summer of Love; Counterculture; Hippies; Yippies; Drug Culture; Black Panthers</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 88:43 Subject LCSH Episcopal Church; Clergy; Political activists--United States; Authors; Boyd, Malcolm, 1923-2015 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 Malcolm Boyd Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Boyd, Malcolm, 1923-2015 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Episcopal Church; Clergy; Political activists--United States; Authors; Boyd, Malcolm, 1923-2015 Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Malcolm Boyd (June 8, 1923 – February 27, 2015) was an Episcopal Priest, author and activist for many social constructs such as racism, religion, and war. He was one of the first priests to go public about his homosexuality. He was very involved in the Civil Rights Movement and rallied against the Vietnam war which made him a national champion among others. After being open about his homosexuality, he wrote a book about his journey and fought successfully for women and homosexuals in the Episcopal church. He graduated from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15235,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:16777215},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:4995385},&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}">Malcolm Boyd (June 8, 1923 – February 27, 2015) was an Episcopal Priest, author, and activist for many social constructs such as racism, religion, and war. He was one of the first priests to go public about his homosexuality. He was very involved in the Civil Rights Movement and rallied against the Vietnam War, which made him a national champion among others. After being open about his homosexuality, he wrote a book about his journey and fought successfully for women and homosexuals in the Episcopal church. He graduated from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California. </span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ND Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource 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.10.2016.26 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 88:43 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/74d17d53bd481eda22765d5272bf70e8.jpg 3d908d792f9feff4fb690993858a8d3f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4b0a2778cfbab258100cd4318f8f5a68.mp3 5dadf904093f9f091920edb452509500 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 1997-08-13 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Alan Brinkley Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Alan Brinkley is an author, scholar and a professor of American History Columbia University. He specializes in the history of twentieth-century America. Dr. Brinkley has been part of the Columbia University faculty for 27 years where he also served as the University Provost and chair of the Department of History. He previously taught American History at the University of Cambridge and Oxford University. Dr. Brinkley received his Bachelor's degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from Harvard Univeristy.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15107,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:16777215},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,4995385],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}">Dr. Alan Brinkley (June 2, 1949 - June 17, 2019) was an author, scholar and professor of American History at Columbia University. He specialized in the history of twentieth-century America. Dr. Brinkley has been part of the Columbia University faculty for 27 years where he also served as the University Provost and chair of the Department of History. He previously taught American History at the University of Cambridge and Oxford University. Dr. Brinkley received his Bachelor's degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University libraries Digital Format ausio/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;Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Youth Rebellion; Historian; abortion; Political Correctness; Tolerance; trust; empowerment; Berrigan Brothers; Benjamin Spock; Black Power Activist; Timothy Leary; Martin Luther King Jr.; John F. Kennedy; George McGovern&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:2,&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Youth Rebellion; Historian; abortion; Political Correctness; Tolerance; trust; empowerment; Berrigan Brothers; Benjamin Spock; Black Power Activist; Timothy Leary; Martin Luther King Jr.; John F. Kennedy; George McGovern</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 68:21 Subject LCSH Authors; Scholars; College Teachers; Columbia University; Brinkley, Alan--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: Alan Brinkley Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 13 August 1997 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:05): ... now to make sure it is coming out okay. The boomer generation is of course individuals who have been born between the years 1946 and 1964. That is the categorization. I would like your comments, Dr. Brinkley, on your thoughts on individuals who try to categorize an entire generation of 70 plus million people for a lot of the ills of American society today in 1997, 1998. I would like just your overall thoughts on what you think the impact of the boomer generation is on America than this year in 1997. AB (00:00:47): Well, I think the only way to answer that question is to try to think about what is distinctive about the boomer generation. And that is made more difficult of course, by this very expansive chronological definition, 1946 to 1964, that is almost 20 years. Which means in theory that two members of the same generation could be parent and child. So, I prefer to think of the boomer generation as the people who were born in the first 10 years or so after World War II. Even though the definition that you are using is a a longer one. I think there are two things that are distinctive about that generation. The first is its size, and that is an obvious distinction. This is the biggest generation in American history. And as it moves through the various stages of life, its experiences will almost inevitably be the dominant experiences in terms of the way the economy performs, and the way the culture behaves. When the boomer generation was young, youth culture was at the center of American culture. As the boomer generation got older, the culture began to focus on its experiences as it moved into later periods of life. So, it has an unusual position of cultural and economic power in our society, simply because of its size. And that makes it more influential, relatively more influential than other generations have been through most of our history. The second thing that I think makes the boomer generation distinctive, is the character of American society when its members, which include me and probably you, were growing up. I think this is a generation that grew up in a time of uniquely high expectations, both for America's future, and for the future of individuals in America. And this is actually true not just of the United States, it is true of most of the Western industrial world. People who grew up in the (19)50s and (19)60s during periods of very rapid economic growth and very high expectations, absorbed a set of expectations for themselves and for the world that in retrospect may seem unrealistic. They came to assume that society was moving in the direction of a much higher level of success of social justice than had been the case in the past. They came to assume that there would be much higher levels of personal freedom and opportunity than there had been in the past. They came to assume, we came to assume, that our lives were likely to be characterized by an unusual level of self-fulfillment and self-realization because the opportunities would be boundless. And of course, those expectations turned out not to be true, or could they ever have been true. And so, a generation of people came of age in the (19)60s with enormously high expectations, suddenly to confront the reality of a world that was not as malleable as they had thought. It was not as easy of changes they had thought. It was not as prosperous as they thought. It was not as just as they thought. And so, the disillusionment I think, of young people who had grown up with one set of expectations, encountering a set of experiences that in effect shattered those expectations, accounts for a great deal of what happened in the (19)60s I think, among young people. Obviously, there were particular events in the (19)60s that hastened this process of disillusion with the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement particularly powerful among them. But I think there is something about... I mean the fact that the youth rebellion of the (19)60s occurred all over the world more or less simultaneously, not just in the United States, suggests I think there is something larger than the particular events that were happening in America. That there is something characteristic of this generation of young people who in the industrialized world, that made for a particularly difficult experience of adjustment to the realities of adult life. SM (00:05:14): Excellent. I am going to follow up on that, but I want to make sure this is working properly. As a follow up to that question, when you look at today's generation, the young people that are in college today, and I guess you do not have to categorize them all as being college. But they are the sons and daughters of the boomers. We see that the children of boomers do not vote. We see that the children of boomers are not really politically... well, have an interest in politics or political matters. There is a tremendous interest in volunteerism. Studies in the chronical higher educational state that as many as 85 percent of the incoming freshmen over the past years in all colleges, have been involved in some sort of volunteerism before their college years. But that generation that you speak of, that 10 years from '46 to (19)56, they came into that era of desiring, of having interest in political issues, social issues, civil rights, ending the war in Vietnam. A lot of the movements developed at that time, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, even the Hispanic world, the Native American movement, they all kind of were around that timeframe. What happened? If you talk about those young people that were in that first wave of movers, having those kinds of attitudes, and you already reflected on some of it, that some the reality set in as they got older. But how could they... And they do not vote either. I am trying to get to the fact is, boomers do not vote, and their kids do not vote. And yet they were so involved in these things. Just your overall thoughts on what happened as this group is just reaching 50 now. AB (00:06:58): Well, first the question of why people do not vote. I mean, first of all, the decline in voting spans all generations. And young people have always voted in much smaller numbers than their elders. I would assume that at least some of the children of the boomers who are not voting today will vote when they are in their 30s or their 40s, when they are more settled and have families. But 18- to 25-year-olds have always been the lowest voting group in the population, 18- to 21-year-olds have of course have been voters only for a generation. So, I do not think the decline in voting is anything distinctive to the post baby boomer generation. I think that it is simply a broad disillusion of the politics that affects all of society and has reduced voting in all generations. But as for the absence in this generation of the kind of political activism that characterized the (19)60s, I think this generation had a very different experience in its youth. I mean, these are people who grew up in the (19)70s and the (19)80s, in the (19)90s, when political possibilities seemed very constricted. When a whole series of presidents either failed or had very ambiguous legacies, which there were no real political heroes for most people. And it is not surprising, I think, that this generation would not have the same faith in the ability of conventional politics to make a difference in their lives, or to make any major changes in the way we live as a society. That is very different, I think, from the generation that came of age in the (19)60s which saw endless possibilities in politics. And it is the efforts of the (19)60s to make the political system do a series of things that it failed to do well, that is in part responsible for the much lower expectations of the political system today. SM (00:09:12): Would you just list several adjectives to describe the boomers, positive adjectives, or negative adjectives, what would those adjectives be? AB (00:09:24): Well, I hate to generalize in this way about a generation which of course is proposed to people of enormously different experiences, and backgrounds and assumptions. But if there is anything distinctive generally about my generation as opposed to say my parents' generation, or my children's generation, I think it is probably the sense of... how to put it. I think the (19)60s for a lot of people in my generation was an extraordinarily disillusioning experience. Particularly disillusioning as I have said, because our generation grew up with such high expectations. And I think that the legacy of the (19)60s for this generation, for my generation, is a somewhat greater difficulty of feeling wholly a part of the institutions, and the values, and the cultural morays that characterize the traditions of mainstream American life. I think there is a slight sense of detachment, and of ironic detachment perhaps from these institutions. Even though we live within them and work within them and on the surface have more or less the same relationship to them that our parents did. I do not think there is the same passionate conviction that these institutions really work well that our parents had. SM (00:11:17): It is interesting you used that term, passionate. How about a book? When I was home from visiting my parents up in New York, Cornell University, a used bookstore about a couple miles from the camp, it is called the Phoenix. And they had a book called Ferment on Campus, and it was written in 1964. And it was analyzing the silent generation, and the people going into the early (19)60s, and this on rush of new young people with political idealism and activism. And they had a little section in there on passion, and actually a real big section on that. That was a quality that was really parcel of the boomers, but it is not so much... It is kind of looked upon sometimes negatively amongst Generation X and how they look at it, so with the comment. One of the things that I am trying to get at here is the impact that maybe that first wave of the boomers had on some of the major issues at the time. Certainly, the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. Just, you cannot define a whole generation again. But when you look at the Vietnam War, how important were the college students on the college campus at that time of ending that war, number one. And number two, how important were the boomers with respects to the civil rights movement? Because some people will basically analyze the movement and say by 1964 and Freedom Summer, many of the civil rights things, successes that had already happened as the boomers are just turning 18, and they got involved in freedom Summer down south some of them. What is your thoughts on those two areas? AB (00:12:58): Well, of course there was a Black baby boom generation too. And they are not quite the generation that was in the vanguard of the civil rights movement in the early (19)60s. People who were in college were born before or during the World War II. But certainly, by the mid and late (19)60s a lot of the African American activists in civil rights and other racial issues were baby boomers. And I think were responding to some of the same forces that white baby boomers we are responding to. As for Vietnam, there is a lot of controversy over the degree to which student demonstrations affected policy in Vietnam, and there is no very good empirical way of answering that question. I do think that the disruption of our culture and the life of our institutions, the attention that student demonstrations drew to the war, the anger, and the polarization that student demonstrations created, helped make the continuation of that war seem politically and socially intolerable to leaders who might otherwise have been inclined to keep it going longer. Now, there were many other things of course that made the continuation of the war seem intolerable too, including an enormous defection in support for the war among older people who were disillusioned with the war. Not because they thought it was immoral, but because they were frustrated that we were not winning it, and it was dragging along so long, and casualties were so high. So, it is very hard to separate the influence of different forces that all worked together to make the political cost of the war seem too high to justify continuing it. But I do think that the student generation, the student demonstrations, played a significant role. Maybe not a decisive role, but a significant role in that process. To get back to the civil rights movement, as far as white baby boomers and the civil rights movement go, I do not think white baby boomers played much of a role in the civil rights movement. People of my generation, by the time we were old enough to be involved in the civil rights movement, the movement was largely over with the form that it had taken in the early (19)60s. It was not any longer as much an interracial movement. There were not as many opportunities for white people to play a role in it. I think there was, for people of my generation, having grown up with the images of the early (19)60s in the civil rights demonstrations in the South, a higher level of awareness and sympathy for at least parts of the Civil Rights movement than earlier generations might have had at a similar age. But as far as actually affecting the movement in a direct way, I think not in an enormous way. SM (00:16:13): Have you changed your thoughts at all over the last 20 years when you were a young boomer in college, and then as you got into maybe five or six years out of college, started a family? And then 15 years, 20 years, 25, 30, you have been pretty consistent in your thoughts on boomers or have you changed your thoughts? AB (00:16:34): Well, I mean, I have an unusual relationship to this generation because I am an historian, and I teach about this period, and I will write to some degree about this period although it is not my principle field of interest. So, I have more reason than most people do to think about these issues on a regular basis. And yes, of course I have changed my views in ways that I cannot... I cannot even tell you what they are. I mean, I think I would hope that nobody goes through life with the entirely unchanging views that we did something wrong. If people did not reassess the past of their own, and their country's past periodically. I think if I had to characterize the changes in my own thinking, I think I am more aware than I was in the (19)60s of how difficult it is to achieve social change quickly and successful. I think I have somewhat more respect for institutions, and somewhat more of a belief in the value of institutional stability in society than I once did. I do not by any means repudiate the politics in the (19)60s, or the ideas that I embraced in the (19)60s. In a large sense there is still many things that I believe in the (19)60s that I still believe today is unfashionable as those things now are. But I think I have a somewhat more sober view of what is possible and what is likely. And I think I have a somewhat less iconoclastic view than I once did about institutions and traditions. And I do not believe now, I do not think I ever fully believed that all institutions and all traditions were obstacles to freedom. But I certainly do not believe that now to whatever degree I once did. SM (00:18:51): One of the terms that was often used when I was in college, I went this school, I am very proud of going there. A lot of who I am was because of my years there, and it was a hotbed of political activism. Those last years in fact, our president. Dr. Deering who resigned about a year and a half after I graduated, because he was physically destroyed but all the... He just could not handle any more. And he went off on a sabbatical and he came back and worked at Upstate Medical Center, and he retired there. Because he just could not... There were a lot of administrators that really almost did not survive that period. But one of the terms that I can always remember, and I have read it in history books and on it was an attitude. I do not know if it was an arrogance, but it was an attitude that we are the most unique generation in American history. We were the boomers of that period, knowing that activism was part and parcel of the people from the (19)30s too. There were students that were activists on campus in the (19)30s. But when you hear that statement, if you had heard that when you were a college student, one the most unique generations because of all the changes that happened, the issues that young people were involved in, just your overall thoughts on that terminology? AB (00:20:07): Well, I mean in some ways it is ridiculous, and in other ways it is a truism. Every generation is unique. No generation is like a previous generation. SM (00:20:16): Okay if I get a drink of water- AB (00:20:19): Of course. As I have said, I think the (19)60s generation was somewhat more distinctive than other generations have been. But to say that it is the most distinctive in American history is ridiculous. I mean, there is the civil war generation, the World War II generation is a very distinctive generation in a completely different way, the depression generation. Almost every period in American history has events that shape a generation's perspective on the world, and make each generation distinctive in a different way. What makes the boomer generation more distinctive than other generations I think, is primarily its size, that is truly unique. It is the biggest generation in American history, both in absolute numbers and in relation to the generations that proceeded and followed it. So that is the first thing. Whether its experiences are more distinctive than the experiences of other generations, I am not sure. They certainly are distinctive. But I do not know that they are any more distinctive or even as distinctive as the civil war generation or the World War I generation or any number of others. SM (00:21:36): I think when we talk about uniqueness, certainly each generation is unique. But there is still the feeling that the boomers are going to be the change agents, the betterment of society. Whether they accomplished that goal, I do not know, did it end the war, end the draft, to assist in the civil rights movement, and then all the other movements. And we are going to make America a more just society. People are treated equally. And I think that is what I am... And I do not know if any other generation, even though they were unique, felt that way. AB (00:22:08): Well, I think they did, certainly the World War II generation, the millions of GIs who came home from World War II, they talked in exactly the same terms. This war was not fought for nothing. We are going to make this world a better place, a different place. We are going to change our country and make it better. They had the same sense of being agents of change that our generation did. Their vision of change was not the same as ours, but they certainly had a passion about their role in history. And that generation has played an incredible role in history, and just as a symbol of it, the fact that every president from Kennedy through Bush was a member of the World War II generation. I mean, there is a whole generation that was basically skipped over as we kept electing these World War II veterans as president. We skipped 20 years or so down to Clinton in (19)92 when the Dole is the candidate again this year. I mean, this generation has had an extraordinary dominance of American life, which is now fading of course, because they are now at an age where they are passing between [inaudible]. I do not think you could say that the (19)60s generation was any more fired with a sense of its own importance than that generation was. SM (00:23:40): That is a real good observation. You are the 41st person I interviewed, and the first person who has really brought that up, and I think that is important. My dad challenged me in a home world because he fought four years in the war, and he is real proud of it. He used the GI Bill, he came back with the whole works. So that silent generation in between the World War II veterans, they never really did have a president. They probably do not regret it too. One of the things that I am trying to get at in this project, and I would like to your thoughts now on the whole issue of healing within America. In the (19)60s there was tremendous divisions, so I do not have to go into detail about them. But I have tried to go to the Vietnam Memorial the last six years, both on a Memorial Day and Veterans Day, to try to get a feel in the ambience. Whether the healing process has really taken place, not only amongst the Vietnam veterans and their families, but amongst those who were for and against the war, and just people who were maybe not the 15 percent who were actively involved in protest or activism of that period. I would like to know your thoughts. Because this is really geared to what Senator Muskie said in our meeting, when I asked him about the fact that we healed. And he had a kind of melodramatic pause, and he almost had tears in his eyes, and he had not been well. And he came back and said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And he said, "Let us not talk about '68 in the convention, but let us talk about the civil war." Because he had just gotten out of the hospital and seen the Ken Burns series, and the generations of people who were probably killed in the civil war, and how it really affected America. So, your thoughts on, in 1987, as a historian who teaches young people and has taught young people who writes history books, where are we with respect to healing from the divisions of the (19)60s? AB (00:25:40): Well, it depends on what divisions you are talking about. I think the division over the war, which was so polarizing in the (19)60s, is no longer an important fact in American life. People still disagree about whether the Vietnam war was a just war or not. They still disagree about... Excuse me. Give me just a second to get some water. SM (00:26:12): Yeah. AB (00:26:17): As I was saying, I think the divisions over the war, although they have not disappeared, are no longer an active and divisive force in American life. I think as veterans get older and become absorbed into the life of being adults and family group members, their scars on the whole healed to a large degree, not entirely, not everyone certainly. But there are other divisions of the (19)60s that I think have not healed. And I think in a way Senator Muskie was right. Because there are divisions that preceded the (19)60s and long survived the (19)90s, the racial divisions that the (19)60s brought into a much harsher light than they had seen since the civil war. There have been great changes in the push between races in the United States. And I view great progress in some ways. But that problem is still at the center of our existence as a nation and it has been for 300 years. So, there has been no fundamental healing, I think, of the racial divisions of American life. I think that there are periods in which those divisions are particularly searing and difficult, and periods in which they are somewhat less corrosive. But I do not think there is very much variation. And so, I think that those divisions remain. And then there are divisions that the (19)60s did not create, but helped illuminate perhaps for the first time, that are also still very difficult for us to deal with. The division between men and women, between feminists and gay feminists, between supporters of abortion, the opponents of abortion, the divisions between gay men and lesbians and straight society. All of those are things that were not new to the (19)60s, but the (19)60s made an active part of our culture and our politics, and we were very far from having resolved any of those issues. Even though on all of them there has been significant change, and with time significant progress. I think the divisions in American life are more numerous today, and no less acute today than they were in the (19)60s. The way in which those divisions make themselves felt are not quite as destabilizing as they were in the (19)60s, but they are still here. I think there was a period before the (19)60s when these divisions were sort of artificially obscured by politics, and by popular culture, and by other things. The (19)60s brought them to light and they are still in the light. SM (00:29:57): [inaudible] already at... As a follow-up to that observation when you talk about the divisions, one of them is the dialogue that we had between each other. Again, it all depends on the metaphor of an individual's life. What Newt Gingrich's metaphor in life, how he was raised in Georgia may differ with how Bill Clinton was raised in Arkansas, and their perceptions. Some will say that, because the divisions were so strong, because protests were so obvious at that time in so many areas, and pointing of fingers, the reason why we have problems in society today is because of your group, or because of you, not me. And it is almost like the concept of dialogue. What has happened with the dialogue in America today. What I am getting at is this. Do you feel that in the dialogue, the discussions that we have within each other, whether it be between races, whether it be between different lifestyles, that we are living in uncivil times, the dialogue... And then some people will point right back to the (19)60s when for example, college students would go in and would not listen. I know this happened at my school, and I reflected on it all the time with my friends from SUNY Binghamton. When I was then older I would expect more. They would not listen to administration, but they would satisfy a demand but then always had a different demand. There was a really a hostility, an unsettled presence dialogue beyond just the concern of an issue and a cause. And I am wondering if you see any linkages between that time and today and the dialogue we have in each other? AB (00:31:36): Well, I think both the (19)60s and our own time are less civil in the sense that, I think you mean the word, than the (19)50s were, or the (19)40s. I civility is an overrated quality, and there is certainly a value disability, but there is also a value to challenging orthodoxy, and there is a value of conflict, when conflict is needed and civility has often been something that has been used to circumvent or short circuit challenges to authority and institutions. I think the kind of civility in the (19)60s, which you mentioned, was particularly dramatic. And not I think, one of the happy features of (19)60s. The intolerance that students and many others felt not only permitted but almost obliged to show those people that they-they disagreed, the contempt for authority. It is one thing to question authorities, another to reject the authority [inaudible]. I think the late (19)60s, at least in universities, was a particularly uncivil time in which there was a kind of driven orthodoxy among students that both intimidated students who disagreed with it from expressing their views, and encouraged students to try to intimidate faculty, administrators and others. That was a relatively brief period at the height of the passions over the war. But it was a period of quite substantial incivility and intellectual discourse, just as the early (19)50s in the era of McCarthy was a period of great chilling effect of discourse. I think in our time there is certainly a lot of heated language and sharp conflict in our culture and universities and elsewhere. But I do not think of this as an unusually uncivil time. First of all, there are lots of examples that are trotted out all the time of political correctness becoming the source of a really shocking intolerance. And some of those examples are quite right, and they have really not been shocking as an intolerance and discrimination in the name of political correctness. So, they were not nearly as many as there have been in the name of other forces, is what it seems to be. But I think on the whole, character of intellectual discourse today, the character of academic discourse today, and even to some degree the character of general public discourse today is more tolerant of more things than it has ever been before. And that makes for a lot of sort of chafing and a lot of uneasiness. It is not an easy popular culture to live in. It can be very jarring. But at least it is a culture that does more than our culture ever did before, to give voice to all the different cultures that make up the nation. So, I think whatever parts we paid in civility we have gained in democracy. SM (00:35:34): Interesting. Because in the best history books, you have probably heard this 100 times over the years. When the best history books are written, of course 25, 50 years after an incident happens, what will the historians be saying about the boomers. Now, you know, boomers are only 50 now, and so we are talking to still get 15 productive years at least, 15 to 20, and hopefully boomers are going to learn a lot longer and retire later, so they will be confirming the society for longer periods of time. But if you could put your history cap on now, and you could have tremendous revelations right now about your feelings, it might be... AB (00:36:16): I will [inaudible]. SM (00:36:16): What will the history books say about this generation? AB (00:36:17): Well, I cannot predict what historians will say 20 years from now. All I can do is tell you what historians say now. History moves in unpredictable ways, and I do not know what the evaluation will be of the (19)60s from respect from 20 years, or what I will think 20 years from now about the (19)60s. I do not know what other younger historians will think 20 years from now. I think that if I had to predict, I would predict that the (19)60s will be remembered as they already are, as an unusually pivotal decade in the very life, the life of the 60s I mean, basically mid (19)60s to the early (19)70s. I think the (19)60s generation, if there is such a thing, will be remembered as I have already said to you, as a sort of distinctive generation that had a particular relationship to society. What historians will make of all this. Whether they will think the impact of the (19)60s was on the whole a good thing or a bad thing. Whether they will believe that really dramatic changes came on in the (19)60s or just modest changes, I cannot tell you. I tend to think that the (19)60s will be seen as a time that produced quite dramatic changes in the character of American life, whether it would be seen as a really important turning point in our history. But I cannot tell you how the balance sheet will read in terms of whether those changes are thought to be good things or bad things. SM (00:38:08): If there is one specific event that happened in your youth that had an influence on your life, what is that one? AB (00:38:19): Well, I suppose the event that I remember most vividly, the public event that I remember most vividly as opposed to personal events is as, for many other people, the assassination of John Kennedy. I am not sure I would say that that is an event that changed my view of the world in profound ways. But it is certainly an event that left an extraordinary imprint on my sense of the world. I think what had a bigger effect on me was not so much an event as a moment, and that was probably 1968 and the extraordinarily turbulent events in even more extraordinary concentration of jarring events that occurred within a relatively short period. The Tet offensive, the end of the Johnson presidency, the King assassination, the urban arrest, the Kennedy assassination, Chicago. I think 1968 was a year that made everyone who was old enough to be aware of it and young enough to be still unformed in his order of thinking. We consider a lot of assumptions about what we thought about our lives, our world, our country. I think that would be the event, a year could be an event, an event that I would point to as being most influential in my view. SM (00:40:02): There is a brand-new book out from 1968 in memory. I think it is Jules Lichtman. AB (00:40:07): Oh, well there is so many books on 1968 now- SM (00:40:09): Yeah, it is really good. AB (00:40:10): It is so good? Oh. SM (00:40:13): It is a good one too. There's one written, I think by [inaudible] Kaiser, what is it called? Kaiser, that came out a couple of years back. And it is my understanding that David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon Eisenhower are supposed to be working on a book from the Nixon presidency from '68 to the time he resigned. So, I am not sure when that is going to out. So, the issue of trust is an issue that faces many boomers today, and it is certainly a quality in America today that is lacking. And it is getting back to this trust in leaders, trust in other people. Psychologists just will say... Because I remember if a psychology course is when you think of it. Psychologists will say that if you cannot trust others, you have got to trust some people to be actually a success in life. Yet so many of the boomers did not trust the elected leaders of that period because of the things... We all know the story about Lyndon Johnson on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, where some people say it was just a way of getting into the war. It was not, I would say, an honest way of getting into the war. It certainly was not what Robert McNamara did as Secretary of Defense with President Nixon and Watergate, and a lot of those things of that era. But this period of trust is a quality that many boomers do not have. How prevalent do you feel this quality of lack of trust is within this generation that is now reaching 50, and it is passing onto its children, who I work with day in and day out in the university. And I have sense there is a lot of distrust amongst young people, authority people, and distrust of authority too today. AB (00:41:54): Well, I mean this is one of the most commented upon phenomena of our time. We decline in trust in almost every kind of institution in American life. Starting with government, but extending throughout the spectrum, including lawyers, doctors, clergy and academics, understanding group [inaudible]. What has caused it? I think in part it has been the failure of government and of many other institutions to deliver on the promises that they made in times. But I think it is also been more importantly, a displacement onto institutions of an anger and disillusionment that many people feel about what has happened to the economy. Obviously, the economy has been quite good for many people, but for most people, at least until quite recently and probably still, the economy has been something that has made their lives much more anxious, much less secure, and in some ways much less affluent than they had expected it to be. And I think there is a great sense of disappointment among many Americans about the way their lives have turned out, their economic lives have turned out. And I think a lot of the loyalty towards, and trust in institutions that was so characteristic of the (19)50s and (19)60s was a result of the extraordinary successes that so many Americans were enjoying as their lives got better and better and better. And in the 20 some years since the early (19)70s, that has not been experienced in those people. And so, the same institutions, the accumulated trust and loyalty on the basis of successes in the (19)50s and (19)60s have forfeited it, because of basic structural changes in our economy works that are not necessarily a fault of these institutions, but they are blamed for it any less. SM (00:44:37): Exacerbation, because when I interviewed Congressman Gunderson two weeks ago in Washington, former Congressman Gunderson, he said that he felt that when boomers age then reach the age of 65 and go into retirement, one third will be well off, one third will be in very bad dire straits financially and saved or whatever. And then one third will make it okay, but they are not going to be able to really enjoy themselves in a retirement, it will be just like a struggle day in and day out. And it is interesting, because we Congressman Ken [inaudible] on our campus, it was a year and a half ago talking about a book Common Sense. And in his lecture, he said one of the biggest negatives of the boomers is they have not saved, and they were going to pay a heavy price... I have two more questions for you. I will just ask you some names just to reflect upon. Then we will be done with the interview. These are names of the period. But, one of the concepts of the (19)60s, and again boomers had it in the first wave of boomers you were talking about, was this sense of empowerment. We teach students day in and day out when they come to school to feel empowered, idea of the students in leadership positions, but that their voice counts. And we are always dealing with issues of self-esteem. I hope a few people feel comfortable with who they are and what they are all about, and then they will speak their thoughts earlier. But I like your thoughts on the sense of empowerment amongst today's young people that you teach. Whether it be a peer [inaudible] or the history of reflection of young people today, whether they feel empowered because they are the sons and daughters of boomers. And whether you feel that boomers as they have gotten into adulthood and now hit rushing 50, feel a sense of empowerment that their voice counts. Maybe they do not vote, but where they work, involved in the local PTA, get involved in the local government or whatever. Just your overall thoughts on the concept of empowerment amongst boomers and their kids. AB (00:46:40): Well, my experience of the college generation of power era is skewed by the fact that I have never taught anything but elite Ivy League institutions. So, the young people that I encountered are on the whole quite privileged people. And I am not sure that any generalization I can think about them would be meaningful for the public as a whole. But I will say that comparing the students that I encountered today from my own generation, comparable students in the higher pool institutions, I think there is a much lower degree of engagement with politics, conventional mainstream politics. My generation had a higher degree of career and economic anxiety, and a much more pragmatic view of education than this case when I was in college. But I have to say also that I find among students today, a much larger level of commitment to, I guess what I would call, community-oriented activities that most people I knew in my generation ever had. You mentioned volunteerism, and there has been a tremendous increase in volunteerism. High schools all over the country have incorporated volunteerism now as opposed... They are part of the curriculum. It is becoming almost unusual for people in any reasonably good high school not to have some experience with volunteering activities. And I think that is a kind of social commitment that we undervalue when we talk about this generation. And in many ways, it puts our generation to shame. We may have been deeply involved in movements to end the war and demonstrations on behalf of this or that. But not many of us have worked in homeless shelters, or worked in AIDS clinics or different kinds of things that so many students today are doing without any recognition, without trumpeting it in any way. So, I do not consider this generation an uncommitted generation. I think their commitments are different from ours. They might take a different form from what once ours did. They are perhaps less hopeful than we were or where we were at. SM (00:50:00): I am going to list a couple of names here of individuals that anybody who they were alive in the (19)60s will remember these names. Maybe not to give a dissertation on each one, but just to simply give a few comments and your thoughts on their overall impact then, and their significance in the history of the times. First two would be Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. AB (00:50:26): Well, I would have to talk about them separately, because I think their years together are less important in both their lives than the years before they were together. Tom Hayden was probably the most single, most influential person who has left a somewhat more pragmatic figure in the left than others, but was very committed to radical. And in the years since then, he is tried, and I am not sure how well has succeeded, to find a way to fuse his radical commitments to mainstream politics, which is what a lot of formalists have tried to do with varied degrees of success. Jane Fonda, I think was a young, fiery, famous privileged woman with a lot of unearned political power, who felt very strongly about the war and did not have very good judgment with how to express it, as in consequences with 30 years. SM (00:51:37): You still think part of the Vietnam veterans... See those badges, you are going to watch them. But then there is some with a wall [inaudible]. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. AB (00:51:52): Well, in a way I find them hilarious figures. Because they both had very well developed yet somewhat bizarre sensitive humor. And also, because they were such, in a way, they were almost the clowns of the new left. And they made political farce a part of the political process in a way. I do not have great admiration for them, I think they were very intelligent. I do not think they had much political sense. But when I think of them, I think of them as dark figures from our past. I think of them as sort of Atlantis figures in both senses of the word. SM (00:52:53): Berrigan brothers, they just did a segment on Philip Berrigan on Sunday morning. AB (00:52:56): Well, I admired the Berrigans at the time. And I am somewhat uneasy with the kind of passionate extremism they ultimately embraced. But I think that they had commitments that were based on a real moral sense of what was right. And although I do not admire everything they did, I admire their commitment. SM (00:53:40): What about Benjamin Spock? AB (00:53:41): Well, I am not sure that I admire Benjamin Spock's ideas about child rearing. SM (00:53:49): He sees the challenges softly. AB (00:53:49): Nor does he still subscribe to the ones that he was famous for in the (19)50s, But, you know, I think he was a decent man. He tried to use the power and the wealth that he had gained to do some good. I am not sure that he had much impact, but I admired him for his efforts. SM (00:54:14): How about... There is so many people here. The black power advocates, the Bobby Seales, Huey Newtons, Eldridge Cleavers. They were kind of very impacting. Sophie Carmichael, Taggart. AB (00:54:26): Well, I am not a great sympathizer with the idea of racial separatism, and so I am not very sympathetic to the ideas that they espoused. But on the other hand, I certainly can understand how black people, male strip of the (19)60s, would come to those conclusions. I think they helped create an unhappy tradition of Black politics that I think has done African Americans more than good over time. But I do not think I would attribute it to them personally. I think they would prove it was inevitable that these ideas would start to emerge, parts of the African American world, several reflections if it had not been with somebody else. SM (00:55:41): What about Malcolm X? AB (00:55:41): Malcolm X is really an enormous figure I think in African American history, and American history. I do not subscribe to the idea that he started out as a man filled with hate, and then came to a greater understanding and became more moderate and benign as he grew older. I think from the time he became engaged in politics, he was a deeply committed radical, who over time redefined his radicalism to embrace class issues somewhat more than they had at first, and racial issues somewhat less than they had at first. But I do not think he became any less radical. SM (00:56:24): Timothy Leary. AB (00:56:25): You know, this issue I suppose I am somewhat in accord with the right, which is that, I think the romanticization of drug use in the (19)60s was one of the most damaging legacies that our generation left for our children. And I think the romanticization was probably ignorance to a large degree. I do not think most of us... I was never aptly crossing them. But most of our generation used and celebrated drugs, understood the damage that they would do, both to them and to the society, but they probably should have. And Leary, it seems to me as he became a celebrated figure, he was someone who just was [inaudible] of this issue. SM (00:58:14): Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. AB (00:58:14): It has been said a million times. I think I probably admire him more than any other figure of the (19)60s. You are all aware of set of limitations that critics have attributed to him. He was a truly great man. SM (00:58:18): Do you admire the fact of the stand that he took against the Vietnam War, and all the criticism he took at that time by even his fellow civil rights leaders. AB (00:58:24): Well, I think it was probably a tactical error. But I think it was a morally defensible position. So, I guess I do admire him. SM (00:58:42): Let me just change this. I have just got a couple more names. Some of the presence of this period, you have already made reference to John Kennedy, but just your thoughts on John Kennedy itself. AB (00:58:50): Well, I think Kennedy is in many ways more important in death than he was in life. And he was, as a president, an interesting president with some accomplishments, but not great accomplishments. He has not had many great accomplishments. He may have had more if he had lived. But I think he became, almost despite himself, a symbol of a kind of energy, and activism, and vigor, and idealism that has had and continues to have an enormous impact on American culture and on American aspirations for people in my generation, the next generation. He is an extraordinary phenomenon, and much more extraordinary a phenomenon in death than he ever was in life. SM (00:59:41): I shook his hand when I was a kid at Hyde Park, and I was there the day that Eleanor Roosevelt was trying to get the... It was a Sunday, and the parents were going back on a trip, and we just lucked out. We did not know what all commotion was. And he was there in the FDR Library talking to her about... I guess, at that time I did not know why he was there. I just know he was a candidate. And he came out and I shook his hand as he was getting into the car and left the library. He came out the back entrance. I was a young kid, so I will never forget that. The tan, the thin striped suit and the smile and everything. Robert Kennedy. AB (01:00:18): Robert Kennedy, I had a real passion and devotion to, which I also had to his brother. My admiration for his brother has faded in the 30 some years since. My admiration for Bobby has not faded as much. I think he, coming out of a family situation that in many ways was sort of traumatic and destabilizing for all of those kids, found a power in himself in his last year's that was just extraordinary. SM (01:01:09): George McGovern. AB (01:01:10): Well, George McGovern I think was a smart, interesting man. A lot of the stature of many of the other major political figures of that age. I think he did not... The political imagination of the more successful figures of his time had spread this time. SM (01:01:44): Eugene McCarthy. AB (01:01:48): Eugene McCarthy is someone who never quite fit in a political world, who could not quite fit in it at the level that he maintained as a presidential candidate. I think he was a decent senator, a little more cerebral than most. And I think he was an effective voice in 1968, legitimizing opposition of the war. After 1968 I think he became kind of an embittered man who spent the rest of his public life angry about what he thought had been done to him, that he had been cheated somehow. SM (01:02:34): Richard Nixon. AB (01:02:37): Oh. SM (01:02:39): You can write a book on that. AB (01:02:49): I can write hundreds of books as people have. He is a brilliant man, great politician, very important figure in our history, very important president. And I think his great flaw... The flaws were kind of resentment and bitterness towards the part of the world that he believed had rejected him, but never left him even that he is a pinnacle of success. And also, I think a basic... I do not think he had very many core convictions. I think there was a moral compass in his political view. And he was such a realist, such a devotee rail politic, that he lost sight of any role center that might have reigned again as he was busy doing or tolerating things that finally destroyed him. SM (01:03:55): Was not that one of the criticisms of John Kennedy, that he was more of a pragmatist, and if it was not for his brother who really had a conscience and developed a conscience? AB (01:04:04): No, I do not know. That is something that could be said about a lot of politicians. I do not think there is anything wrong with being a pragmatist. But I think there has to be something at the core of it. This is one of the [inaudible] of Clinton too, is that there is nothing at the core. I do not know that I believe that. But I do believe that in Nixon. SM (01:04:26): George Wallace. I am trying to get all these boomer names. AB (01:04:33): Well, I think Wallace helped launch a new kind of politics that eventually became, at least for a time, a dominant politics in this country. But Wallace was too crude and too racist and too reckless to profit from it at the end. SM (01:04:53): Spiro Agnew. AB (01:04:55): Oh, slippery crook. SM (01:05:03): [inaudible]. Muhammad Ali. AB (01:05:05): Oh, I am a great fan of Muhammad Ali. And I think he was treated very badly by his country, or at least by his government. But a man of great courage, great spirit. SM (01:05:30): Herbert McNamara. AB (01:05:34): I do not think he is a bad man. He is a very smart man. But his intelligence is a throwaway that made him inappropriate for the kind roles that he played in the public wise. SM (01:05:49): Barry Goldwater. AB (01:05:52): Well, Barry Goldwater is the last voice of a bolder conservatism unconnected to the cultural politics that was dominating. He was a conservative, sort of rock-hard convictions about communism, the cold war, government, individual freedom. And there was a kind of icy certainty about him that made him somewhat unpalatable to the electorate in a way that Reagan, who shared many of those beliefs, but also managed to identify himself with a lot of fuzzy cultural issues, was not. SM (01:06:43): Three more and we are done. AB (01:06:45): Okay. Actually, I think we have to be done with maybe one more, because is 3:00 now. SM (01:06:49): Okay. Just your overall impression of the musicians of the year and the impact that the music of that era had on boomers. It will be Bob Dylan, just a general analysis of all the music from that period. AB (01:07:03): I do not know that I can do that with the time that I have. Clearly both rock music and folk music were both the defining cultural products of those generations. I am sorry. SM (01:07:17): That is okay. I will like to just take three pictures of you. AB (01:07:20): Okay. SM (01:07:22): Thank you very much for taking this time. AB (01:07:25): Oh, it was my pleasure. Very interesting project. SM (01:07:28): Do you know Dr. [inaudible] at- AB (01:07:30): Yes, he is a good friend of mine. Have you talked to him? Or... SM (01:07:33): Yes. He came to our campus and spoke about his latest book. AB (01:07:36): About the Parchment book. SM (01:07:38): Yes. AB (01:07:38): Yeah. SM (01:07:41): Gave in to the development project too. Because he came to our campus last year in the middle of [inaudible] to begin, the conspiracy, so the mental degree, so that is [inaudible]. Just one more, just one more. AB (01:07:55): Make it quick. SM (01:07:58): Yeah. We have a light... Do you mind if I just put the wide angle on here? AB (01:08:00): I do not have time really. I am sorry. SM (01:08:05): Okay. AB (01:08:06): I am sorry to rush you out. SM (01:08:07): That is okay. Thank you for being able to have an hour with you, I really want to thank you. And... (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 Dr. Alan Brinkley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Brinkley, Alan ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp4 Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Scholars; College Teachers; Columbia University; Brinkley, Alan--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Alan Brinkley (June 2, 1949 - June 17, 2019) was an author, scholar and professor of American History at Columbia University. He specialized in the history of twentieth-century America. Dr. Brinkley has been part of the Columbia University faculty for 27 years where he also served as the University Provost and chair of the Department of History. He previously taught American History at the University of Cambridge and Oxford University. Dr. Brinkley received his Bachelor's degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. 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 1997-08-13 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.10.2016.27a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.27b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 68:21 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/12dd2067fa0bc0904c3c27c20e8451af.jpg 92e4f114ceb3e390c715318ab09d11cb https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7ef5d47bf44d8c2e8c33df2ca23dba48.mp3 5f924d6b33c3a3009e6e36363a7b7dc0 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 1997-09-27 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Douglas Brinkley Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Douglas Brinkley is an author, scholar and academic. He is currently a history professor at Rice University and the presidential historian at CNN. He is an author and has published 12 books. He received the Ann M. Sperber Biography Award in 2013 for his book, Cronkite. Dr. Brinkley has a Bachelor's degree from Ohio State University as well as a Master's degree and Ph.D. in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15233,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:9}">Dr. Douglas Brinkley is an author, scholar and academic. He is currently a history professor at Rice University and the presidential historian at CNN. He is an author and has published 12 books. He received the Ann M. Sperber Biography Award in 2013 for his book <em>Cronkite</em>. Dr. Brinkley has a Bachelor's degree from Ohio State University as well as a Master's degree and Ph.D. in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown University.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation; Civil Liberties; Vietnam War; Democratic party; Activism; Vietnam Memorial; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Baby boom generation; Civil Liberties; Vietnam War; Democratic party; Activism; Vietnam Memorial; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 77:37 Subject LCSH Authors; Scholars; College teachers; Rice University; Brinkley, Douglas--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Douglas Brinkley Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 9 September 1997 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:08 SM: Okay, get over there. I will test it after the first question too. First question I want to ask is the recently and I have seen on the news a lot lately, and I have actually heard over many years, you will see George Will who will write articles on it yet he will make commentaries on ABC, you will possibly see Newt Gingrich saying it and on the floor of Congress and politicians generalizing about the boomer generation and their impact on American today, in mostly negative terms. I would like your thoughts and not only as your personal thoughts, but even from a historical perspective, whether the criticisms of the boomer generations has been leveled at them as they are the reason for all the ills in American society today, the breakup, the American family, the increase in the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority, those types of issues that were they were some individuals and even times the media tries to portray this group as the reason why we have declined as-as an American nation. 1:02 DB: In the view. I think it is all a lot of rubbish, that notion of blaming a generation for-for anything, particularly because what-what do you what do you have in a pre Boomer period, Jim Crow America, where African Americans do not have the right to vote, that they are living in, essentially an apartheid system throughout the south, that women are on subpar salaries, that minority migrant workers, minority workers have no rights whatsoever. You know, if you go back to that glorious Eisenhower (19)50s, before his boomers got control over American culture, what you would see is a is a white male autarky controlling the United States, his finances, and in controlling government. And I think we were much better off now in the (19)90s than we ever were in the (19)50s in the sense of more equity of distribution of capital. That is more civil liberties and civil rights for people. The American pie- it has been it was, it was being shared, I think, by more people, and hopefully by more to come in the future. So, I find that the boomer generation has been extraordinarily important in for has equal claim to being a group of a generation that has done more to change America in a positive fashion than any other generation simply on the areas of spite of civil rights and civil liberties which occurred during their period. Now, if there is going to be some criticism, there is-is a kind of feeling of the cheapening of American culture, the-the advent of kind of pop culture gone mad in, in Hollywood and magazines, records, music, but that is only because there is more and more people with capital, because of these changes to purchase, you know, D run DMC, you know, rap albums or to purchase, you know, Garth Brooks Country Albums or to get experiment leisurely in the drug culture. I do think that the promotion of drugs in the (19)60s, in some ways was problematic, because it is it not so problematic for middle class and upper middle class, but that just devastatingly dangerous for the underside, the other side, or Michael Harrington called it of American life. And so, you know, as any generation, there is a downside to certain things. But all in all, I think the boomer generation should be proud that they told the spoke the truth, and opened up the democratic process for more people than ever before. That is a major accomplishment. 3:45 SM: Just double check. It is kind of a little repetitive, because you already hit on some of the points. But if you were to look in 1997, we are heading into the new millennium. The overall impact of boomers not even looking at the criticisms that I mentioned the first question, but just as you know, the boomers are now reaching the age of 50. Bill Clinton has often said as a fore-runner, he feels he just reached 50. In fact, he turned 51 this year. But if you were to again, look at just overall this 65-70 million, I am quite sure the numbers of boomers amount of course, boomers being defined as individuals born between (19)46 and (19)64. Overall impact positive or negative? 4:28 DB: Positive. All generations are positive. I think it is all you know, there is nobody that goes around identifying themselves as I am a boomer. They do they have got kind of a problem. I mean, people are people. Kurt Vonnegut once told me there is no such thing as generation X, we are all generation Z. Each generation comes up together and starts themselves together and you know, there is no- or it could be generation a- but it is mean- meaning they are these deputies’ categorizations of everybody, by age bracket song. It is useful. In some ways, when you are writing and thinking about large, long-term trends in American society, but I do not think it has much bearing when you start talking about real people, they are always gaps between age groups, dad and son, you know, always have differences of opinion. That is kind of the way like this goes back to the days of the Bible. I do not think it is some new sociological generation trend. 5:25 SM: That leads you right into the question on the generation gap. It was a term that I do not even know if they use those terms. As a historian, you might know more than I would. But uh, that term was used over and over again, for boomers during the (19)60s and early (19)70s, to divide themselves and their parents to World War Two generation, mainly because oftentimes, boomers looked at the World War Two generation like they look at IBM, the corporate mentality, everybody be in it alike that, that whole picture of the IBM family of five people walking up front door, their house, all wearing a suit and a hat going into the same current status quo. And boomer said, not me, not me. 6:02 DB: Think it gets exaggerated. But if you look in the (19)60s you know, most Americans college students were pro Vietnam war that they were more college students that were for Richard Nixon then against Richard Nixon, in 1968 on colleges, and he where are the you know, we-we become hostage to is the extravagances of the counterculture of the (19)60s of you know, the Haight Ashbury experience and Timothy Leary's, in the factory in New York of Andy Warhol. And, and we, because of that the it spoke out so loudly and flamboyantly about, from an artistic perspective, and a social perspective. I mean, Abbie Hoffman, remember talking to some years ago at Princeton, he is now deceased, that he has to say, you know, we quickly learned all you have to do is call a rally, get 10 people, but if you grab a TV on a middle of campus, smash it with sledgehammers, burn an American flag, you will find about 300 people watching the freak event. And then the media will come in and cover it and bring it into a million homes. So, what started as eight people smashing up a television suddenly looks like it is this big event on campus. I do not think they are the upheaval that the counterculture had that they kind of impact on American society as the republicans like Newt Gingrich used to say it. It is the revolution in the (19)60s was a social revolution, dealing with civil rights and civil rights for African Americans and women, the battle browns, beautiful, historic battle markers. Sure, there are some from and emerged in the counterculture in certain ways like Kent State, you know, protest, you know, but most of them are aware of Selma. And watts in the march from march to Montgomery, and Birmingham, Little Rock, you know, Albany, Georgia, these were Greensborough. These were places where direct confrontation to change society took place in this massive way. Not that that because there was a love in that in Haight Ashbury, or Woodstock Rock Festival. Those are significant, but it is just a little, that is every generation is going to have something outrages the parents, today, kids will have in college, their three earrings and go to some other kind of concert. And it is an alienation process with mother, father, that is very healthy. I do not trust students that do not have a little bit of alienation. And then when they are young, I find in there, so they are not intellectually engaging, if they are going to be 19-20. And not really care to read poetry or fiction or be idealistic, and think that they can change some of the things or want to take a few swipes at the mainstream American culture. 8:54 SM: One of the things that said would you like some water? One of the things that is interesting, I have worked in higher education on 19 years, I was out of a for a while. And when young people today look at their parents or boomers, I always keep coming back to that term. There seems to be two reactions, and this is [inaudible] your feelings, whether you see the same thing as a scholar that teaches students and has worked with him for quite a few years. Number one, I am tired of hearing about it. I have seen these people live in nostalgia the- you know, the times are so great, you know, and the and the other thing is this, basically they are sick of it and then the then the, there is no middle ground. The other side is I wish I live then. I wish there were the issues today, like the issues then civil rights, you know, certainly ending the Vietnam War, the women's movement, a lot so many of the movements came to fruition the late (19)60s and (19)70s. Your thoughts on that? 9:47 DB: Well, it that part I think is-is true. The (19)60s are exciting, because young people-people in their 20s made a difference. I love looking at the pictures of young Dr. King and Stokely Carmichael and Andy Young and Jim Lawson and you know, John Lewis and they are extraordinary to see these young men in their 20s actually changing the US Constitution and forcing governors to in the federal government to respond to their desires for their rights there is to be 20 and have-have been part of that was so exhilarating. I have talked to any number of young people now that are what you are calling boomers and they are in their (19)50s today, that their highlights of their lives we are working with snick when they you know, we are actually at these sites and the change and the-the excitement and the notion of the antiwar movement. The fact is that they did bring Richard Nixon down. that Watergate in the Vietnam War of a- the people protesting were correct that this was an immoral war. There is- we could not find an honest historian in the country today, not to say that Vietnam War was a mistake. So, what these people were protesting were in many ways, accurate and correct. So and then the fact that the music of the era was just seemed to connect to the social protest in a way through whether it was through Bob Dylan or, or, you know, Janis Joplin or-or, you know, or others that just had that link to the-the soundtrack kind of to the era all makes it combined into a certain kind of counterculture romance that you could get caught up in and look back to, and you are never going to have that now, it is not the world's not quite like that. Now-now, the romance, you know, people are taking set up websites, for their political issues out on their homes, or will, you know, kind of try to organize some kind of rallies, but it just does not quite have the fervor and flavor that it did in the (19)60s. So, if you are interested in social activism, I think there is a, there is a missing element. However, an argument could be made that young people today have more outlets to explore the spiritual realm than they did back in the (19)60s, when you had a when was a much more an LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? Now you be much more defined young people's protesting in society in a sense, by practicing yoga, or work dealing with crystals, or adopting some kind of new age, religion or philosophy, have their own way of making their own spiritual space, you know, between themselves. And in that way, it was one of the reasons why as a writer like Jack Kerouac is so popular in college campuses is he was always dealing with the spiritual, not the political. And so, there is a sense of spiritual activism going on now. People trying to look at self in new ways, understand who they are, as a purpose, trying to explore the meanings of their, their life. And so, it is a different it is a more of an inward revolution. Right now, where I think in the (19)60s, it was an outward one, these things will all come and go and there will be another era of genuine protest in this country and some somewhere down the line. Now this was set versus the (19)60s for a while, but it will come. 13:15 SM: I like to ask you a- something like a what went wrong question. When young people and again, I was in that era, we thought we were the change agents for the betterment of society. We were the most unique generation in American history and, and as a historian, you probably may have a sense of that from other generations as well. But when you are part of it, when you are living it. It was just in the fact is that they felt that there was an empowerment that there we were the change agents you are in somehow that has not been transferred to the children of the boomers. 13:49 DB: Oh, I do not know about that. I think you are a little getting a little tied up on this boomer thing. From your own personal vantage point. The truth of the matter is there is a lot of arrogance of any young generation, gets on the streets and thinks they have ripped down a president and ended a war and brought about a social revolution and through race relations in America. That is a lot of accomplishment at a young age, and you cannot keep that crescendo going. So, you tend to look back on your past glories of that historical epoch in children being raised by parents or going to the dock any generation of kids they are going to say, oh, be quiet dad. It is like some different generation had to put up listening to look through dad's World War One stories. I was there in Europe. Now. This was when I was there Woodstock. It is the same there is not this kind of dividing line. It is as old as time can be. There is no big division between generations today. They accept- you know, in ways that are-are teasingly so or ways that are just kind of surface any more than there is with any other generation, and I would reverse it and say what went right. The Cold War is over the, the equal, we have a real much greater sense of what equal rights are and fair wages, you know employment benefits. The-the bringing income to minorities American, the next century is going to be over 40 percent nonwhite and allowing these people into the mainstream culture. The whole story of the boomer generation is one of just extraordinary success. Now if-if things did not go become, you know, golden for everybody the way you when you are 21, you think things are going to be different than they turn out to be that is another story. And no, in also there is a perpetual Peter Pannus about this generation, because they define themselves not in is a world as an older generation that they defined themselves when they were young. I have to tell you, it is no different than World War Two veterans, I interviewed D Day veterans in battle of the Bulge veterans all the time, that was the highlight of their life. They are 18, throwing hand grenades, and in the, you know, along the Rhine River, and it was their moment of, they have defined their whole lives around that particular experience. So, they may have gone on to own a car dealership or be an insurance salesman, raise a family, send them to school, they still define themselves as a veteran of World War Two, and it is their one thing that they are most proud of their contribution occurred when they were young. And I think you will find some boomers who had their defining moment when they were young. That is there is nothing wrong with that there are also people who get defining moments when they are older. And there will be some boomers that you do not even know their names of now that are going to be known as being the great leaders of that generation, who-who are now in their (19)50s only in the next 10-15 years are going to be excelling in ways that are the ending of AIDS and developing clean blood supplies. So, we do not you know, people that grew up in that generation, you know, they are all over these people. And so, there is was just as many as some people when they were young, they are going to be others that peak when they are older from your generation. It is great. 17:03 SM: When you look at the Vietnam War. In your opinion, why did it end? What is the number one reason that war ended? 17:13 DB: Because we failed to win. I mean, the ended because you can only take so much toward the ark, the domestic or tour economy apart, ruin the great society broke down two presidents, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. At that point, it is time to cash in it the-the chips, call it a quasi-victory like they did and send the troops home should have been done a long time ago. But, you know, the Vietnam War only ended because we were not winning. And it seemed impossible to win short of doing a kind of massive bombing campaign, which would have destroyed Americans credibility throughout the world, and would have done grave damage to NATO, and to continuing to call us on, you know, fractious relationships in American society. 18:05 SM: How important were the college students on college campuses and contributing to the ending of that war, knowing that when you look at this large generation, the biggest generation in American history, historians will say that 15 percent were really involved in some sort of activist activity at that timeframe. 18:24 DB: They were very important for framing the argument for giving a voice to the antiwar movement, through song through protest through just bodies to constantly apply pressure, though antiwar movement of 1965 looked a lot different than 1970 at Kent State. When you started getting people like William Fulbright and George cannons denouncing the Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite in Johnson's famous line there when Cronkite was anti came out, anti-Vietnam said there goes the war. He was losing America in the Harbinger's of that were ministers, pacifist groups, and youth culture groups were the Civil Rights Organizations find when Dr. King in April in May guess, yeah, April, was in April of (19)68 or (19)67, April (19)67, gave his speech, a Riverside Drive in New York, that in announcing the Vietnam War, and connecting the civil rights movement to the Vietnam War. That was a fatal moment for Lyndon Johnson. It was that that was when everything changed. And I thought that was the point that it was going to be clear that this was truly a social revolution and the antiwar movement now merged with the civil rights movement. 19:46 SM: When you look at the civil rights movement of this year, and when you look at freedom summer of 1964, and again, I know I am getting too caught up in the terminology of the boomers, but the oldest boomers at that, at that stage are 18 years old. And so, when you look at the impact of the boomers had on various issues in American history at that timeframe (19)60s (19)70s, how important were the- these boomers who may have had their first experiences, maybe through the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley when things started in (19)63. And then they went to (19)64, down south. But how important overall were these young people in the issue of civil rights? 20:23 DB: Well, they are extremely important because they first thought the African Americans largely in the civil rights movement were in their 20s. And as they developed many, most of their followers, it is easier to get a young audience that is in college to form a crowd, if you were going to hold on activity here this afternoon and wanted to get 200 people were better than to go to a campus and generate 200 people. They are all in a condensed area at one point of time. So it allowed civil rights, also, to have, you know, a sort of intellectual strongholds scattered throughout the country words like Cambridge and Madison and Hattiesburg and, you know, other college towns became symbols of places where people could share information and read about Herbert Marcuse, or Noam Chomsky, or could share their new enthusiasm for the Bob Dylan album could, you know talk about Mao Zedong and pass out his red books on campus and kind of create a was a place to spread a lot of this kind of, you know, youthful protest energy? 21:36 SM: You have, you have talked about some of the positive and negative qualities of the boomers. But if you were just maybe give through four adjectives positives and negatives? What were those positives again, be for the boomers and the negative? Just brief descriptions? 21:50 DB: Well, I do not-not sure. On the negatives, I think positive was that that when they are they confronted the crisis of the moment at a young age, which was the crisis in American society, the crisis in confidence in American leadership, and a crisis of what is democracy? Who controls the power? Who controls the purse strings of America? And why cannot we open up to allow more people into the system, that was the game going on when they came of age, and they confronted those issues in a in a vocal and forthright manner, and we are able to make a profound difference. They also, I think we are, I think that their contribution, you know, it became the popular culture now started in the (19)50s. But by the (19)60s, it became commerce and by the (19)70s really became commerce with so what I mean, it is the second largest export in America's, after our aerospace is pop culture, they talk about contributing to American exports and money, the whole pop culture industry that that emerged on a rock and roll and, you know, the endless massive Hollywood films and book tie ins and all the promotional aspects of things, which we frown on a lot, is what were some of our biggest money making activities in this country, you know, in the entertainment industry, which kind of emerges in in the spirit. And I think all things considered and entertainment industries is not necessarily a negative thing. I think it has quite a positive impact if it brings some sort of joy into working people in middle class people's lives. I do not really have anything negative on the generation, I think that is bad karma. You know, you know, to start seeing this generation that these negative and this one did it positive, it is, you know, it is just it is too cold. You know, there is, there is every generation confronting different problems. I think that yes, it was correct in the (19)60s generation to talk about sexuality openly, to let women talk about the need for their own sexual satisfaction in life for-for homosexuals to be able to come out like at Stonewall in places and have begun gay rights. The sexual liberation of the (19)60s was long overdue and puritanical America. On the other hand, it went overboard to the degree that free love and multiple partners led into the (19)80s the problems of sexual diseases in herpes and venereal diseases and in AIDS and so there was a cost factor that came in because it went too far. And I think if there was a criticism to that boomer generation, I think it is the sense of the excess in their ideas pushing it is they really believed in William Blake's notion that wisdom is not is excess. Hunter Thompson believes that he is a product of many ways of that period of access through-through excesses comes wisdom. I do not buy that, and I think that that is probably where that generation at that period where period of time pushed these envelopes a little too far. But today they do not. Today there is responsible they are running our government, their weather, and is any other generations responsible and running, you know, they have, they have grown up. But they be because they had an impact when they were 20 and 21. It made them feel they were more empowered Tom Hayden felt like, you know, when he wrote the Port Joran statement that we are going to change the world. This is a revolution right here this statement I just wrote SDS, you know, well, of course, now you may look back at that and realize that they were they were delusional. They think they were good as supplant the World Bank and, you know, these The International Monetary Fund, you know, through their revolutionary pocket proclamations. 25:54 SM: That is, it, there is one specific event that had the greatest impact on your life from this period. What-what was, there was there were so many, but if you could pinpoint one? 26:05 DB: Bob Dylan penning like a Rolling Stone. Because I did not get to live through, you know, when John F. Kennedy was-was shot, you know, I was three years old, when Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy was shot, I was a, Lyndon Johnson resigned, I was eight. I do not my memories of that those events are foggy at best; I was too young to know or appreciate him. So, I do not know quite I can see films. And I can read books, but I do not know just what it would-would have felt like to have been able to drift into San Francisco and go to Haight Ashbury and feel like you were part of this social revolution that was going on. But I can tell you one thing, I do know what it is like to drive in my pickup truck, down a country road and blast like a Rolling Stone and feel and tie all the sentiments and power of that entire generation, all kind of like pull into a funnel and transform in that one song. I get it, then I get chills. And I hear it. And I realized what that must have been like, the day that song came out. And I heard that on the jukebox. And I was sitting in a bar somewhere in America, you know, and I would have been ready to just head to any of these places that time that the moving in the just wispy right up that song. 27:24 SM: As a follow up, I want to recommend that to you. Listen, some of the country- Joe McDonald. Have you listened to the Vietnam Album? Yeah, unbelievable stuff. 27:33 DB: Yeah, that is straight Vietnam War protests like Rolling Stones piece of art. 27:36 SM: Right. One of the issues trying to get at in this project is trying to understand the healing process. There were so many divisions in America that time, different sides, lots of people that listening to each other. Again, getting back to that whole issue of not respecting authority and really challenging authority, but there were tremendous divisions. I want to get back to the Vietnam War. And those individuals who protested the war, were against the war. And of course, those who served. In your opinion, how far have we come in the healing process from the divisions of those times not only with between those who serve and those who did not serve, but even in the political spectrum, because you know, the history of the democratic party that has been the downfall is they started because of (19)68 and all the liberal mentality and conducting themselves in the war issue and, and the end only recently, are they may be trying to make the comeback? 28:35 DB: Yeah, no, I think it has been divisive in many ways. The combination of Vietnam protests the war. Also, Richard Nixon, Cambodia [inaudible], Watergate led to Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, led to them the-the reemergence of a jingoistic American stance through Ronald Reagan, and then slowly is led through Bush and Clinton into a moderate, right of center kind of approach in in this country, which is we are back kind of on the center. We are back on track during the Bush and Clinton years. But what the problem is, it is the-the part that is annoying, that still legacy of Vietnam is that in gets into your boomer question is where were how did you stand on Vietnam War. And we have to learn, I think, as a society to realize the antiwar protesters like Bill Clinton, were equally patriotic, as somebody who wanted to fight in the war. That is a hard concept for a certain portion of the population to believe. And in other words, Clinton's was denunciation of the war is refusal to fight in you know, some people look at it is cowardice and an almost cost him the election. I would argue that that he was the people that were protesting the war were equally American heroes, as were the veterans who went to war That concepts not an easy one for people to swallow. So, there was always a feeling well, if you were not pro war did not fight, you did not love your country. And I think there are many ways to loving the country. And it is not always just picking up guns and go into a war that you do not believe in. I think the civil disobedience that occurred during the (19)60s during Vietnam War was justified, I have to say, if I were grew up in that area, I would not I would have gone to war, I would have gone to fight. I know that about myself. On the other hand, I can also appreciate the courage that it took not to. Sometimes it is not just doing what you were told, but it is not doing what you were told that takes more courage. And I think that, you know, we need the-the healing process is there, it is underway, we need to constantly look at that period and realize that there-there are people that it is more people that act out of conscience and convictions of what they believe their best, are people that I can admire are not people who just were doing it because they got walking papers. Also, the disparity of who fought the war is still something that angers the black community. So many poor people and blacks ended up being the ones to shed the blood into a war, you know, where that people with money got out of the war. So, it becomes a sore point Vietnam because it shows the inequity of American life between rich and poor, yet again, I think you nailed the same thing. We look in our country. And you see that problem the vast disparity of wealth in the country. 31:39 SM: The Vietnam Memorial was opened in 1982. And it is now we are going to be having a big celebration down in Washington on the 50th anniversary coming up on Veterans Day, November 11. I have had a chance to go down there the last six years for Memorial Day and Veterans Day to try to get a feel and ambience helped me with this project get a feel about the healing process. I sense a lot of healing has taken place. But I also sense again, a little bit of a continuing divisions, the hatred for the Jane Fonda’s of the world never forgiving her for going and even Bill Clinton at times. Even Peter Arnett, who spoke two years ago, I sat next to three Vietnam veterans and they, he replaced Larry King who was supposed to speak, and they said if I knew he was coming, I want to show up today because he was the media, he was part of the problem in Vietnam. So, they had some negative stories, the media, but how important has the Vietnam Memorial itself, been in respect as Jan Scruggs wrote his book To Heal a Nation has it really healed the nation itself, man. And, of course, it was done a lot within the Vietnam veteran community. But your thoughts on the impact of that wall. 32:46 DB: I think it is important to first remember the war. It is important for the veterans that are alive today to go see, their families to see their-their buddies names on that wall, and it is always moving to watch veterans look at it. Beyond that, the memorial will be there. 100 years from now, 200 years from now, hopefully, you and I will be in our graves dead as can be. And people will be coming look at that wall and remember that moment in American history. But you have to realize its relevancy, what you are talking about today is as simple as because it is so close to our time. Years from now, it will be like going to a Spanish American War Memorial or-or Confederate War Memorial will be interest there but it will not resonate quite as strongly as it does right now in the-the nerves and the in, in the issues are so-so raw still, but it has, it has been a healer, a healer of sorts, it has been a focal point of energies for veterans to come to and hang out at. For people come and talk about the war. It has been a place to go a destination to, you know, to get some things off people's chests emotionally, mentally. So, it has, it has had a wonderful, long, cathartic service for our nation, I think. 34:03 SM: We took a group of students to see Senator Muskie because there were years before he died. And in that session, I mentioned this in your last trip here. We have to question about 1968, the convention was happening in America at that time. He was not well at that time he just got out of the hospital. We asked a question about the boomer generation and the healing process, and the divisions and we were expecting real response to talk about the (19)60s but when he responded he said we have not healed as a nation since the Civil War. He broke American the two parts and is there truth to that? 34:37 DB: No. Absolutely Could not be more true. That is what I am getting at here. When you focus so much on this boomer part, it is indulged self-indulgent because it is so close to us for looking at oh gosh is not a different look at our van it was no different than it ever was. They have it is so easy in every way imaginable. And the problems that we have international problems race has been going on for a long time violence their whole nation was founded on violence the whole selling the West was settled on extermination of Indian slavery, death, not meaning much. We are a violent nation. This is not new news that there can be people killed today in Philadelphia, oldest river countries that but we keep losing track of that in some ways, because we think everything is so new. And that is because we have no real historical sense about ourselves as a people, we always march forward without any understanding of looking backwards. So Muskie statement was one of sober reflection on the events, trying to quell the kind of hype that people keep making over Vietnam, simply because it is in their lifetime, and it is a crisis of their lifetime. Well, there have been millions of crises going on since the beginning of man, and they are going to continue to go on some large, some small, some bigger than Vietnam, some not. It was nowhere near as fatal Vietnam to our country is something like the Civil War. And it did not have anywhere near as damaging of ramifications for our country, as there was World War Two was an isolated bombing of peasant people in a remote part of the world, you know, for us, which, you know, gets way too much press and talked about and constantly simply because it is part of our life script, we experienced Vietnam in some way. So, it is a, it is a talking point, that next year is the 100th anniversary of the Spanish American War, I could not get any of the TV networks to do especially in the Spanish American War, much more significant more than Vietnam, in the forming of American life. We fire Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Philippines empire for the first time. It is the beginning of America and the world theater of trade with China wants to go on and on and on of what the Spanish American War did for American Life. We do not even want to talk about it. Nobody even wants to open a book, you cannot get a near publisher to publish a book on the Spanish American War, because nobody cares. Yeah, my god. 400 books on Vietnam, another veteran writing his story, this one from the protester, and oh my goodness, and-and if there is a criticism, I have on our modern culture is it is developing now. It is this focal point on self, to this degree that that is all we do is think about the, the tone and the tenor of our lives as being so significant, when we are just grains of sand, or just sparrows falling, where we were no different than anybody else. And we are all be ghosts soon. So, we should get on with some of the heavier matters of living in creating communities in a positive fashion instead of getting all tied up in the kind of acrimony over Vietnam. 37:36 SM: I know there is, there is so many books on Vietnam, but say 100 years from now, will they be writing books? Or is it the same? 37:44 DB: Sure, if I am saying all you have left is the war memorial that nobody goes to. 37:48 SM: And books gone on books collecting dust in a library. What do you think of the individuals again, I am just using the term here, the left leaders of that era who became conservative I think of a David Horowitz is in the world of Peter Collier, the world those individuals who are at the forefront of the left than they did a total turnaround, and then condemned all the people that were involved with them when they were young? And Just your thought on. 38:14 DB: Mr. Horwitz was a recent speaker here at your school or he was coming there. But they are, I do not have put much stock in those two gentlemen. Their books on the Roosevelt family in the Kennedy family are sleazy tabloid trash tracks. That just one step above the globe in the store, the National Enquirer in integrity, they their notion of coming out and denouncing a generation of playing all this politics, it is great press, and it puts them in the papers and headlines and people in people that are anti (19)60, anti what occurred in that period, from the left point of view, you know, meaning the right and loves this, you know, here is one coming to our side. It is like Eldridge Cleaver, leaving the Black Panthers to write for the National Review, or Jerry Rubin leaving the Yippies to work on Wall Street. You know, I think that oftentimes those characters that act like that do not have a whole lot of personal integrity of what it means to be a scholar and a true intellectual. They are simply into controversy for the sake and it makes them wonderful guest on-on the gambit of talk shows on television, but as you get right down to it, and not that they are not brilliant in their certain ways, but when you get right down to it, I do not see what they are, I just think what they are doing is creating noise and not putting the kind of sober you know, reality to it. The all of both of those books that they wrote on the Kennedys and Roosevelts are not you cannot put no I cannot use those footnotes without being considered a joke in a serious, scholarly way. It is not even pop history. It is always taking things one step at little too much of what an overstatement and inflation of fact, so you are just you are reading it-it is like you are reading a Harlequin romance, but yet they masquerade as being serious intellectuals and committed to truth so as a historian, those are not my type of characters you know and I would rather the- you know, it is me it is like with Horwitz, and Collier they bottomed out when the left bottomed out they went right there they were there for whatever the fashion of the moment is. I do not think they I mean as soon as America turned to the Reagan period, and that was where the majority seem to be at, that was where they were at. And they are, you know, they will always be there. They are never leading that movement. They are hopping on the bandwagon at any given moment. You know, if tomorrow there is a big social revolution that occurred my guess is you find them, they are jumping off the banding conservatism for the new movement of the moment. Very few people take them very seriously. 41:03 SM: You get a chance to read the radical [inaudible] 41:06 DB: No, you told me about that its worth reading. 41:07 SM: I think worth reading I think then I think that that is a lot better than the other books that you were talking about. I will not read the other two, but I think what I was on I think Brian Lamb had Horowitz or Collier on talking about one of the Kennedys of Academies of- 41:21 DB: They are, they are, they are major their major characters I mean, these are major quotes that, but they are not much above Kitty Kelly, they are getting really with the kind of with brains you know. 41:34 SM: I am going to I have got several other questions here, but I want to get into some of the individuals here of the year and I would like you to comment on your just-just brief thoughts on all of not only your personal thoughts on their impact of that period, but it is personal and an impact on the period itself. Jane Fonda. 41:57 DB: Jane Fonda is a great deal of admiration for her as an actress, she is superb as somebody who is largely been committed to-to you know, she is this is a Hollywood figure essentially, I have never taken her much more seriously than that. But she is a I think a fine woman who is a good actress, and it gets involved with some very good causes- I like her. 42:28 SM: Tom Hayden. 42:30 DB: like Tom Hayden also I think, unlike [inaudible], Collier and Horowitz, Hayden has a-a is constantly staying on the cutting edge of bringing out certain issues certainly he is no longer part of the ease of fringe character now he ran for mayor of Los Angeles and now everybody knows he is not going to win and he is so far on the left obviously but-but I think he raises some interesting points that makes us think about things he takes part in the American political process. I think he is a very honorable legislator and somebody whose ideas are always worth talking to in thinking about. I do not think Hayden does things for the money you know I do not think he is there to-to be sensational I think there is in general social commitment behind him to make-make changes I have looked at some of his recent books which will never make bestseller list because he is dealing one of them has to deal with you know, the need to study Indian culture and nature and environment all over yeah female book on environment and stuff, you know, but he is looking at issues and grappling with them he is not trying to just manufacture kind of you know, you know, hype up things. I do not think he is trying to particularly live on his past, past reputation. I think he is one of those characters has steadily been committed to-to his view of where America needs to go. 44:00 SM: Jerry Rubin and again using I am using 40 names here then so if anybody is my generation. 44:07 DB: Jerry Rubin’s you know, I think at the peak of his notoriety came with his book do it, which, you know, Jerry Rubin’s, just minor fringe figure of a really no import Abbie Hoffman had the great sense of humor, and wit, soon to be a major motion pictures deal this book, he was a lot more in that tradition of a Mort Sahl or Lenny Bruce, and Hannah. There was a great, great comment. He was a comic genius in many ways, Abbie Hoffman and I think you have to look at that side of the spoof of the hippies in his crate creativeness in guerrilla theater. And to understand that he is an important person, I think Ruben was always a second or third tier character who is never had either the charisma or the importance of Hoffman. 45:03 SM: Does not take up for going the next name [inaudible] Abbie Hoffman died several years back just outside Philadelphia. I think we were in Bucks County yeah; he was dead they found them, and he had $2,000 in the bank. Like I will never forget the article that was written the Inquirer stating that he had only had $2,000 to his name you get we have made a lot of money, but he has given away to friends having depression and that something that a note was written on his deathbed or the stating that no one was listening to him anymore. And you know, when I saw that and read that in his short obituary, despite what you might think, and what people might think about the hippie period, when he went into hiding and then he came back on the Phil Donahue show after he came out of hiding out in the state of Washington, I saw him in the Bay Area, he was working behind the scenes in the Hudson River dealing with issues on the environment and you are just your opinion on that statement that was at the end of this obituary. No one is listening to me any more so less I know he was having problems in his life but that struck me especially if people care about issues. 46:11 DB: Well, I think you have as you heard I said very nice things about Abbie Hoffman, but I mean on the front of his resume he is a con man he was a con man in a in a glamorous and funny in good one. We can always use it a couple of con men and they make life spice wants to recently William Burroughs in the New Yorker. He wrote before he died this horrible thing, but I had to kind of sick in a sick way agree with him which is a problem with Burroughs where he was saying not God, I do not. Let us hope to God that there are still people selling drugs in the streets and who wants a bland status quo America where everything looks like the strip mall, and everybody lives this perfect squeaky life what-what boredom? What dullness? I am a writer and one has to appreciate characters and Abbie Hoffman was a flamboyant, exciting, eccentric character. He but he was a con man. I do believe he was socially committed to things that he took on. And he had a massive amount of chutzpah to take on the CIA and to go and change himself to nuclear reactor sites and things as a social activist, which that kind of occupation takes, but I do not use the ways that his declining years dealing with cocaine and alcohol and depressants, I would not pay much attention. I do not think Abby was ever a symbol of that he was a symbol of the (19)60s but I do not think we want to he was only the symbol one certain aside of the (19)60s, which was the kind of hippie guerrilla theater of protest, which was mainly men on self-promotion, in getting in the news, you know, and being pranksters on the American scene. These are anarchists and we are always going to have some anarchist, I think they are healthy to have a few peaceful anarchists, not Unabomber anarchist, but people that could do social protest or play, play mild pranks on the mainstream society to make us see ourselves in Hoffman at his best, was that at his worst he was he was a criminal. And you know, so I just do not you see, it is unfortunate because what will happen is people will take Abbie Hoffman and Reuben as the (19)60s, Abbie Hoffman, you know the Yippies. This is just a fringe element of the period and I would again say take a look at the people wearing suits and ties marching with Dr. King all over the place singing We Shall Overcome. This is where the revolution in American life took place, not Abbie Hoffman staging a guerrilla theater event. And they were important Hoffman's events at the time, they are newsflashes and dramatic, and we will never forget it gets them. But it did not Abbie Hoffman, if Abbie Hoffman did not exist, not much would have changed in that course of American history. 49:00 SM: The Black Panthers is another group that certainly in this period, Huey Newton everybody remembers that poster of him. And certainly Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver. I remember seeing Kathleen Cleaver when she came to Ohio State when I was there. I mean, the whole city was in turmoil. And Kathleen Cleaver, when flew into the Columbus Airport and escorted by many-many cop cars to Mershon Auditorium. 49:28 DB: I do not place; Black Panthers are fascinating to study. I enjoy reading about Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton and the gang. But ultimately, believer in the nonviolent protest movement, also the politicized internationalizing, the civil rights movement that Dr. King was doing. I can never kind of, I think it is a mistake to glamorize the gangster mentality of the Panthers into acquainted with the-the honest civil rights efforts. That is the problem things got blurred by the late (19)60s and (19)70s where the great accomplishments of the era blurred into the Black Panthers, the great accomplishments of the peace movement got blurred into the Yippies, which became, which in many ways were the worst examples of the positive social revolution that was occurring. Yet one has to say I understand the Black Panthers the great line, the Panthers, Bob Dylan had a song it was all over now baby blue, where he has the line, the empty-handed beggar at your door is standing in the clothes that you once wore. And the Panthers changed into the empty-handed Bay, grab the door standing and the closer you once were, and he was carrying it, aka submachine gun, motherfucker. And you have got to do what we want to we are going to blow your head off whitey. That is a powerful switch of sentiment in in, it did do its desired effect of shocking white America into fearing blacks. And in that sense, hearing them more and empowering them, meaning turn the other cheek, you are not afraid if you can walk up to-to one of the students in Little Rock Nine and spit on them and they keep walking, or you can walk up to a black man and smack him in the face. And he turns the other cheek. White culture is not going to be afraid of black America when you now, since the Black Panthers. You walk down the street, I walked down tonight in Philadelphia with my suit on down the street and I see three black teenagers walking down the young, I have more money than them. I am more educated than them. Second, I see them immediately tense up, you are getting fearful. And then suddenly they are empowered, and I am not. And I think the Panthers are the ones that started that, which is an empowering black culture, which I can appreciate that on the other hand, it is not a solution. It is just, it is just more racial warfare. In so what I want to understand the Panthers and the sentiments that they had; it was it was quite primitive in its approach. 52:00 SM: The Berrigan brothers. 52:03 DB: Let me- mike was down yes, the-the Berrigan brothers are. I just got a letter to go have dinner with one of them. I forget which one, are they both alive? 52:17 SM: Ones in jail. 52:19 DB: Who is the one that is out of jail? 52:23 SM: But- Philip is in jail was give [inaudible] See, there is some- Daniel-Daniel Berrigan is out of jail. Philip is in jail. 52:30 DB: So, Daniel Berrigan went out of jail. 52:33 SM: Yeah, and I think he is not very well either. 52:34 DB: I need to catch up with him. 52:36 SM: He lives in New York, I think. 52:37 DB: He is coming to New Orleans. I am a have dinner with hi- Well, I think there are examples. I am Catholic. So, I think they are examples of the, of the role of what we call radical theology in that continues a wing of the Catholic Church that I have always admired. You know whether it is in Central America or the Philippines or their home of an activist priest and other useful, so I mean, we do not have that many of them and having Daniel Berrigan bringing some, you know, showing up, it had a calming effect for certain people connected the Catholic Church to some of the social the poor people's movement, in a very real way, the antiwar movement. I think some of Berrigan’s-Berrigan’s tactics got a little extreme of pouring blood on tanks and things such as this. But again, that was in do part to the recommendation of the media age that you need to do something extravagant. In order to bring the cameras there. The priest just held candles and sang the media was not going to cover that. But if you have started pouring blood on tanks, my God, you were going to be reading the nightly news. So um, you know, I think the Berrigan’s were shrewd in that way. 53:50 SM: There is a new book written on the Berrigan brothers, by Murray Palmer, and- 53:55 DB: I got to pick that up. 53:56 SM: Yeah, it is I am reading right now because we are trying to bring a group of students to down to Jonah's house to meet his wife because Phillip Berrigan’s his wife is in jail, because his daughter is 21 and she is carrying on the tradition of Jonah house. And I want to I want to ask students to go down and see how people are living their whole life to activism- 54:14 DB: Who is this now? Whose house? 54:16 SM: McAll- Jonah House. That is where [Elizabeth] McAllister. That is the wife of Philip Berrigan and his daughters. He has three kids. 54:24 DB: Phillip Berrigan does? Did they all live there? 54:26 SM: Yeah, they all live there and- 52:27 DB: What is it called? Jon- 52:28 SM: Jonah, j o n a h house it is in Baltimore. I want to go down and meet them. They are supposed to be three nuns there that are in- 54:34 DB: What do they do at Jonah house? 54:37 SM: It is, it is part of whatever they do is there for their livelihood is activism fighting for issues and they have someplace in the Midwest is where they have this weekly or monthly newsletter that comes out that is affiliated with Jonah house from the activities because his wife is like Philip and McAllister, I think is her last name and just impactful people because they were on 60 minutes. So, and the daughters 21. And now she is doing the same thing. 55:02 DB: At the Jonah house? 55:03 SM: Yes, she is a college graduate and- 55:05 DB: What is her name? She uh- 55:06 SM: Oh my God. There is, there is three he has got three kids and ones 16 ones 21 I think [inaudible] 55:12 DB: They all work there at the Jonah House? 55:13 SM: Actually yeah, I think the one works there. The others are going to school. They live in the area. Yep. 55:19 DB: Okay. 55:19 SM: Couple other names here, um Dr. Benjamin Spock. 55:25 DB: Oh Well, you know, Benjamin Spock is of course the baby doctor and antiwar protester and I think have also have a very positive character positive force. In the time of reassuring people in the end, it is just what both Berrigans and Spock so people said other it opened up the net of who can protest it. It brought in in people here is the most famous baby doctor denouncing sending young 18-year-olds to get their heads blown off in Vietnam. I think it had a powerful impact and convinced a lot of people. You know, I am with Dr. Spock, and it gave a celebrity status to gatherings. If you are going to want to draw 3000 people, you need some celebrities. And by having Spock there, you can guarantee people come out to hear Benjamin Spock. So, you know, he had a he had this, he has this footnote in the era. 56:19 SM: George McGovern and Eugene McCarthy. 56:22 DB: George McGovern has transcended the period really. And one of the great new deal liberals of recent times has continued to be somebody above integrity and honesty, decency. And if you really looked at McGovern’s foreign policy stances in the (19)60s and (19)70s when he was in the Senate, you would be amazed to see how right he was about so much. So, he is I think, of all these names are saying somebody is a little more special. I think he is- has a is really a maj- a major kind of alternative voice liberal voice in America and in simply carrying on the Henry Wallace tradition of the Democratic Party. 57:07 SM: And Eugene McCarthy? 57:09 DB: He is a little bit of a crackpot. In some ways, I like him. When I say crackpot, I just mean, he has become so irascible and so co- such a contrarian, that everything he does is he uses his wit and intelligence to win people over all the time. I do not think he has ever evolved out of his role in being the antiwar senator. And that was (19)68 that was 30 years ago, and he has still kind of the, you know, living on that that one moment where I think he could have been more useful in our politics if he continued to work as a congressman or, or did something beyond sort of just living on his past reputation. 57:53 SM: Getting into the presence of this era. And I will start with Eisenhower, because again, you know, as a Young Boomer that was the first person I remember, as President going from Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. 58:06 DB: Eisenhower was underrated, overrated at his time by being double elected, and love, underrated in the (19)60s and (19)70s. In truth, he kept America out of war. He was he most famously taught us that we need to balance our budget that we should not write more money for checks than we then we have to fiscal conservative in those ways, which we are seeing now is probably prudent, and was an honorable and good president. John F. Kennedy was the right man at the right time, that great passing of the torch from Ike the oldest president ever to the youngest, he represented the tenor of the times when society was changing, just think of the number of new African countries coming into the UN at that time. And, and all of this so when I think, you know, I think the Kennedy also, you know, did a fairly decent job of handling himself in the middle I am going to use the restroom. Just a minute. Kennedy. Yeah, so I think a larger question before going through each of these, I think we were lucky we had largely good presidents Sidney Kennedy was a good president in in the Cold War period, except for Nixon, I think we would say Nixon and Reagan are the two presidents that I find reprehensible in certain regards. Both because of largely their great dishonesty that both people and towards the American people, their inability to tell the truth, to me was, was frightening. But the I think Kennedy, of course, has some of that too. But he just could not help but reveal that he was the person representing into the era in a certain way. I think he made inroads with civil rights that were extremely important. I think his handling of Cubism in Britain. And we were important I think he said it kind of tenor for-for the era. And of course, assassination is such a moment in American life that will never be forgotten. I think Lyndon Johnson was much better president and some people think in some regards, certainly his Great Society programs in his fighting for civil rights, puts him at the forefront of American leadership in this period and on the other hand, it is so paradoxical you have that his obsession of seeing the world from a Cold War lens in Vietnam but I would say you know that there was many students of history there many sides of Lyndon Johnson the complex man and-and I have a large amount of admiration for him Nixon it just the paranoia factor with Nixon and with Johnson just drives you crazy as a historian I mean, these people are not are to have that kind of level of paranoia and to be in power is scary to me. You know, one of the things that I liked about Clinton, and I like about Bush, I like about Ford and Carter, was that they were not paranoid. They were my head is something in them was able to take a little bit more balanced. You they were not feeling that they were being you know, people were after them. Even Reagan did not have that kind of paranoia. They did not at all. So anyway, that is my view. 1:01:23 SM: Just a few more here. Timothy Leary. 1:01:29 DB: Leary was a kind of like a carny, at the carni- at the carnival or something, he is not really a serious character. And I think, look, I mean, what was good about Tim Leary, was that here was a Harvard psychiatrist. Experimenting was something worth experimenting with, LSD, what are the effects of this newfangled drug it was legal at the time, he the belief that it had these different powers. But I think what I do not like about Leary is not that he was willing to talk about LSD. But I think that kind of Jack Kerouac once said, when they tried to have him take LSD, then by then I mean Ellen Ginsberg and Leary and all and Kerouac said hey, guys, walking on water was a made in a day in the thought that they can walk on water in a day by eating a little tablet, to me seems, you know, that suddenly they were going to have all the answers to the universe, because of the chemical shows that kind of stupidity and naivete, and it was worse- had some very damaging effects on American culture. On the other hand, if you take the kind of Aldous Huxley approach from his book, doors of perception, certainly I think, experimenting with LSD, did open up perceptions for some people and could have been a thing but as soon as you start going over and over again doing did you become an acid head and fry your brain and to you know, there are a lot of young people that [audio cut] 1:03:14 SM: Barry Goldwater. 1:03:18 DB: Well, let me just say one thing about the Timothy Leary, what I do not like to doing on now, is the inability to talk rationally about these characters like I am trying to do, because as soon as you say anything positive about Timothy Leary people either go love Leary, that was that polarization you were talking about on figures like that? It is disturbing mean, if I told The New York Times Book reviewer that I found Timothy Leary interesting. They would not give me any more books just to review for The New York Times. These are the controversial characters because of the way we look at drugs now. But I think it is a story you just have to understand that put if you put Leary in his time and place you-you can see how he emerged, why he emerged in it was not a matter of promoting Timothy Leary, but it was a matter of just understanding that Leary's bizarre contributions to that period you know, there was all sorts of American history is replete with every kind of religious fanatic imaginable I am not sure Leary is more strange than Joseph Smith was, you know, with the more finding the Book of Mormon you know, these are kind of false prophets that are that are always out there and they are worth studying that we are talking about. That does not mean one embraces their-their efforts. Goldwater was over there was a misunderstood in some ways he is the genuine article, the real libertarian conservative, I think is its harsh anticommunist views were dangerous. With his- the way he would talk kind of cavalierly about bomb dropping bombs on Vietnam and things. I think his inability to understand the civil rights movement properly was a great drawback. In- thank goodness, we got defeated horribly by Johnson and (19)64. On the other hand, Goldwater as his career, we look at his whole career, we can see that he was a man of personal integrity of deep beliefs. A true Western conservative, somebody whose word was good, somebody who had a big role to play in the bringing down in Richard Nixon because he could not stand to have something like that wine to the American people. Somebody who supported the Panama Canal treaties, when Ronald Reagan did not. A genuinely somebody who you could at least deal with, and I think was a very positive figure in American life. As he as we look at his whole life, I think there was a moment of time when he ran for president where he was certainly not fit for that position, due to his at least the rhetoric of a kind of strike militancy that was behind him, which would not have been helpful at the time? 1:06:05 SM: What about Ralph Nader? 1:06:07 DB: Nader's the kind of the perennial watchdog, nothing new there and nothing changes there goes to the beat of his own drum, is that he has the that squeaky clean ethic, which is useful in throwing Nader on corporate America or on any issues always. It is always useful to have people that are keeping others in check. He is the unwritten check in our checks and balances. 1:06:36 SM: Hubert Humphrey. 1:06:39 DB: Classic-classic New Deal, liberal writing of the coattails of FDR well into the (19)60s. First rate senator, not much of a vice president botched his opportunity to be president in (19)68. But it is one of these sorts of honorable senators who has very good for labor and, you know, a positive force also on getting the Civil Rights Act of (19)64 and (19)65 through. so, you know, first rate, first tier senator. 1:07:13 SM: Muhammad Ali. 1:07:17 DB: Absolutely major figure, I mean, more- bigger than all the people he had mentioned so far, in the league of his own because years from now, he will be remembered forever. And probably the most well-known name in the world. Muhammad Ali, everybody knows him everywhere. He just an extraordinary combination of spirituality of political conviction, of athletic prowess, of his ability to speak so fast that in rhyme and in riddles, and he just captured all of our imaginations. And I think his antiwar protest was mutually significant. But as he has moved on in life, through his disease, he has become a symbol of disease. Here is somebody that is handicapped with that Hodgkin's disease, Parkinson's disease, right, and is able to go around the globe and constantly reach out to other people in pain and misery. And he is a symbol of many things that are that are that are positive. It is probably the most singular athlete of the 20th century most well-known athlete of the century. 1:08:31 SM: Spiro Agnew. 1:08:32 DB: Just a you know, a corrupt footnote to the times. Dirty black Asterix to the Nixon era, never had any real power ever. It was just a hat henchmen hatchet man for Richard Nixon, a bit word politician from Maryland who never really had any-any sense of real genuine accomplishment in his career, short of being, you know, working on saying pithy phrases to put down fellow other Americans. It is not leadership to win power by denouncing other Americans leadership. It is about bringing people together, as soon as you have a president that scapegoat’s elements of the population for our nation's problems. You have about bad leader, a good leader should never scapegoat a fellow citizen, no matter who he should end up liking all groups in America and you know, unless you are obviously a murderer in any criminal class, but, you know, you know, you know, in case of Agnew trying to scapegoat gays or women or the women's movement or blacks, that is the lowest kind of thing. It is like the Jonathan Swift notion that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel claim. 1:09:45 SM: Robert McNamara. 1:09:47 DB: McNamara was the as the was our worst Secretary of Defense in the history of the post since it was created in (19)47. He was the worst because he was somebody who knew Vietnam was futile as early as (19)64 and (19)65 and allow the word continue lie to himself to Lyndon Johnson to the American people. And now his as how, has a hard time living with himself, because, he started out to be a wonderful character in many ways he, you know, a decent I think, motor executive with Ford Motor. But by not having the courage to talk candidly and put his career on the line to the best of the country. He ended up leading the president and therefore our nation down the garden path in Vietnam. 1:10:36 SM: Dr. King, Martin Luther King, we could probably talk for hour and a half. 1:10:42 DB: You know the giant of our time because of his ability, oratory of writing, of the sheer courage of Dr. King, and what it took to every minute, every moment knows that there were death threats on your life, something, any protest you were had could be your last, and to constantly pick yourself up with a smile in forge forward. It was the perfect leader for the civil rights movement, and we would be hard pressed to think of a replacement for King those sorts of people with genuine leadership qualities come around even once every couple generation. 1:11:15 SM: What about some of the women of the Gloria Steinem is Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, the leaders of the women's movement, they are your thoughts on them. 1:11:25 DB: Unfortunately for the women's movement, they never had a Dr. King none of those people can hold a candle to Dr. King, but yet all of them had their significant role I think I think Gloria Steinem's come out of that group to be a somebody who understands women's issues in a way in a larger cultural context. For her generation, at least to Hillary Clinton's of the world, you know, understanding the need to be both a mother and both activists but also to you getting a little more conservative when they get older, but also wanting a sense of sexuality without, you know, saying I do not I am not disowning feminism, totally, I mean, being feminist, feminine qualities totally. So, I think she is the most-most interesting of that group as a personality. But the women's movement itself was usually important. On the other hand, I do not think it ever went far enough, due to the fact of fractions within their either coalition, and a lot of women wanted doors open for them, or wanting, you know, traditional kind of, I want to be a housewife, or I want to have that is, you know, they never really were able to capture the kind of swelling movement of two demands there for the Equal Rights Amendment. Still never really too cold yet. Any woman today, working in network news or in law firms owes a lot to those women who are, I think, a lot of doors down for them. So, the combination of a lot of minor characters added to a lot in the women's movement, but none of them exuded this kind of control or leadership over the movement. 1:13:05 SM: That he had mentioned earlier about Bob Dylan. And I just use a general term the music musicians of this period. And the impact of this generation has there ever other means there has been music in the (19)40s there was Glenn Miller and all of that, but has there ever been a generation in America where music was such a crucial part of their being? 1:13:23 DB: No, but I think everyone now it has become since then, I think it was a post war phenomenon, the beginning of the road record albums, you know, early part of the century so by the but it would be really becoming a mass product in postwar period where everybody had a record player. So, he started having a lot more people identifying with the singers in the (19)50s. But everything Elvis Presley bit more than Bob Dylan, and it was Elvis Presley, who really, really brought, you know, this sort of mass way Frank Sinatra, you know, and (19)50s rock and roll, you know, which is to be made the big change. I think Chuck Berry's an enormously influential and important and underrated figure. But that is different story. 1:14:07 SM: As we are getting close to the end if you get a meeting at 11:30 I want to end around. One question here in the final question is dealing with the issue of trust is a historian you probably can go back to other periods in American history where Americans or even leaders had problems with trust, but want to read this do you think we will ever have trust for elected leaders again after the Vietnam War after Watergate, after the enemies lists that we all knew and [inaudible] as college students, we knew what Nixon was doing. Remember being an Ohio State University and there were cameras over around the entire oval and infuriated our campus because every picture of every student was being shot and we knew it. Why? And if the boomer’s distrust what effect is this having on the current generation of youth, which is the kids- 1:14:56 DB: I think Bob Dylan often has wonderful sayings for all time. He is not a (19)60s character. He has a brilliant album out that just came out right now. And Dylan's and an album out called Empire Burlesque, which emerged in in the early (19)90s. Very, no would have been, it would have been. I am sorry, it would come, I think, in the late (19)80s. But yeah, late (19)80s. Empire Burlesque, which is a line in there, “If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself,” is the name of the song. And I think that is sort of the subvert ethic of our time. Now, if you want somebody you trust, trust yourself. That is why there is this turning into words to self so much. The distrust of government has led to reemergence of the individual. And people now trying to learn to trust who they are on that deep turning inward right now. So yeah, there has been permanent damage done by Watergate and Vietnam, and in corruption and politics. But look, it has always been there. Nobody is ever, when is the time people truly trusted politicians. I mean, there were moments, you know, I think, during the war time, when there was a kind of, but you know, FDR was moved and distrusted by endless numbers of people. I just do not believe our countries ever based on pure trust in the politician, or anywhere in the world. But I do not think it is eerie damage. That is- I do not see a shortage of people running for Congress. I do not see a shortage of things. And I think our country is in pretty good shape. You know, I do not think that are, I think the American people should be distrustful of their government in some ways, and to keep an eye on them. And that is what the whole checks and balance system is about. We also know that we have the power and we taught our politicians through Watergate, that we can bring you down at any minute. So, you better run a straight path. And so, we get people I think, Watergate does not have to be seen as a negative and Vietnam does not have to be seen as negative. It could be the triumph of-of Watergate, the triumph of taking down a precedent that was breaking the law, replacing them and business went on as usual. 1:17:09 SM: Is that is that the lasting legacy might be that history books are written about? 1:17:13 DB: That is right now. James Cannon’s wonderful book on Gerald Ford, that came out recently, you know, it is really hammers that point home that Watergate is the triumph of the American constitutional system. It is not a negative event. 1:17:27 SM: Dr. Brinkley, thank you very much. 1:17:31 DB: You are welcome. 1:17:32 SM: Great. Excellent. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Douglas Brinkley Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Brinkley, Douglas ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Scholars; College teachers; Rice University; Brinkley, Douglas--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Douglas Brinkley is an author, scholar and academic. He is currently a history professor at Rice University and the presidential historian at CNN. He is an author and has published 12 books. He received the Ann M. Sperber Biography Award in 2013 for his book <em>Cronkite</em>. Dr. Brinkley has a B.A. from Ohio State University, an M.A. and Ph.D. in U.S. Diplomatic History from Georgetown 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 1997-09-27 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.10.2016.28a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.28b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. 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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 2010-03-02 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sam Brown, 1943- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Sam Brown is a politician and political activist. Brown was the head of ACTION under President Jimmy Carter, and ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Redlands, and a Master's degree from Rutgers University. He also completed his graduate studies at Harvard University Divinity School.&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;}">Sam Brown is a politician and political activist. Brown was the head of ACTION under President Jimmy Carter and ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has a Bachelor's degree from the University of Redlands and a Master's degree from Rutgers University. He also completed his graduate studies at Harvard University Divinity School.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The Army-McCarthy hearing; Generational Gap; National Student Association; C.I.A.; Communist Propaganda; Young Americans for Freedom; Leadership; Non-violence; Lafayette Square; Kent State; Student for a Democratic Society; Black Panthers; Peace Corps.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">The Army-McCarthy hearing; Generational Gap; National Student Association; C.I.A.; Communist Propaganda; Young Americans for Freedom; Leadership; Non-violence; Lafayette Square; Kent State; Student for a Democratic Society; Black Panthers; Peace Corps</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 119:03 Subject LCSH Politicians--United States--20th century; Political activists--United States; Brown, Sam, 1943--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. 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: Sam Brown Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 2 March 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:04:39): Testing, one, two. This will carry very well. Done pretty good. I noticed something when I was reading your background. It was a quote. And I would like you to explain it a little further. "It never occurred to me that America could be wrong." You are quoted as saying that when you were younger. SB (00:05:01): Well, I grew up in Council Bluffs, Iowa in an egalitarian, Republican, religious family. And part of the religion of America is that America's always right. We are the good guys, we saved Europe from itself twice. We ... You know. So as a young man, I thought that almost quasi-religious sense of America's role and mission. And it never occurred to me until, oh probably like a lot of other people I guess, probably about freshman year in college, that maybe all that history that I thought I knew, I did not know as well as I thought I knew it. And that there was another side to America that was ... That we were, in fact, just human. I should have thought ... I should have known that actually from just religious teachings. I mean if we were all fallen, then how would we create a perfect state? SM (00:06:18): Right. SB (00:06:19): So ... But in any case, you know I was a kid. I believed that that is where a simple vision of America, always right, always on the side of the underdog. SM (00:06:38): You think this was ... Because I think a lot of Boomers ... A lot of people do not like the term Boomer so I am going to say those born after 19, about (19)46 and beyond. Certainly, the first 10 years, the frontline Boomers, who lived in the (19)50s and experienced everything from the get-go. I think a lot of Boomers had that feeling, what you are talking about because the parents were home, they had defeated two of the really worst dictatorships in the world. And things looked pretty good at home despite the Cold War and McCarthy telling people they were Communists. And- SB (00:07:17): Well, and there was an enormous growth in the economy. There was all this surge in education. People who had never thought they would get a college education, knew that their kids would. I was born in (19)43 so I was very much in that ... One of my very earliest memories actually is the Army-McCarthy hearings in, which would have been I guess, (19)50, (19)51. SM (00:07:47): (19)51, yeah. SB (00:07:48): Yeah. I remember coming home from school for lunch and seeing it on our- SM (00:07:52): Black and white- SB (00:07:53): ... black and white television set, yeah. SM (00:07:56): It is amazing. See, I had a little boy. I was born at the end of 1946 and I can remember before going to the school ... Actually, I am a first-grader or kindergarten. But we had half days in kindergarten. I remember being home and being on the floor and hearing this man yell. He did not ... I did not like him. I did not like that. Did you have a generation gap with your parents? SB (00:08:24): Well, sure. I mean they really were on that World War I ... I mean, my parents were both born at the end of World War I and so their formative years were the depression and World War II. And America's enormous achievements during those years were really quite remarkable. And so, they saw in a different ... They saw the world through different eyes than somebody born in the grow and prosperity and opportunity that we were born into. So, in that sense, I did not always get along with my parents. I mean we had political differences that drove us apart for a number of years. But we were never apart as parent and child. We grew apart politically. Some things were just off the table, and I thought they were old fogies. SM (00:09:26): Yeah. You were a Republican when you were young. What changed you? Was there a specific event that changed you to become a Democrat? SB (00:09:34): Well, what changed me was not Republican to Democrat so much as the Civil Rights Movement. Remember this was the days when there was actually a reasonable Republican Party. And it was the era of Rockefeller. And the idea that the Republican Party could actually, particularly on civil rights early on, there were probably more Republicans willing to vote for bills than there were Democrats because the demographic of the Senate being so Southern, the Democrats being so Southern. So, I mean what changed me was not anything in the parties. It was that it was seeing a little more of the world and what actually happened in that world. Seeing, particularly, foreign workers in California. I was involved very early on with some efforts to ... In the unionization efforts of- SM (00:10:39): [inaudible]. SB (00:10:41): ... all of the farm workers. Not at any leadership. Just- SM (00:10:43): Right. SB (00:10:44): But you know, helping out, setting up tables, volunteering for things, that sort of stuff. In fact, that is what I was doing the day that Kennedy was ... John Kennedy was shot. SM (00:10:58): Mm-hmm. SB (00:10:59): And you saw that the world was not all this ... The same as this sort of white, red world in which I had grown up in Council Bluffs. And even Council Bluffs probably was not that way if I had had my eyes open all the time. But I had grown up in a middle class, relatively privileged family. And then you see what is happening to other people and you say, "Well, wait a minute. This is not working very well." And so that, I think, that and the Civil Rights Movement probably, were the things that eventually ... SM (00:11:38): When you were young, were you ... I know you were involved in a college but were you an involved student in high school? Did you just study and did well in classes and when was that first point where you said to yourself, "I want to make a difference in this world? I think I have it within me to"- SB (00:11:56): Freshman year in college, probably. High school, high school was high school in the late (19)50s. I was a whole lot more interested in cars and girls than I was in politics. And freshman year in college, Allard Lowenstein came to the campus. He was at Stanford then. He was Dean of Men at Stanford and came to give a speech. And he had just come back from Southwest Africa. And a small group of us, for one reason or another, met with him and got to talking to him. And it was really Allard who gave me the sense [inaudible]. You focus your attention and make an effort, you actually can make a difference in the world. So really, freshman year in college was very important for me. Very important for me. I mean, by the end of that year, I was just on campus stuff. The administration shut down the student newspaper because of an article that ... Either because of an article I had written in the paper or an article. I mean it was never quite clear but they were very angry, in any case. And so, we started an alternative newspaper and I mean ... So, by the end of my freshman year, I was pretty much involved. Then, only on campus and helping out. SM (00:13:42): That is interesting you had that experience. I saw that reference someplace in some of the information on you. And if you look later on in your life, in your young life, there's that time when you were with the National Student Association. And then as you got a more important role within that organization, you saw that the CIA had admitted to infiltrating. The organization of the International Scholars Program over in Europe, I guess. And that really upset you. SB (00:14:16): Yeah, I would not say infiltrating it, so much as that was the CIA had been funding a number of cultural institutions, the Congress for Cultural Freedom and other things in Encounter Magazine. And the National Student Association had turned out from sometime in the early 50s. And it really undermined the claim that we made because there were two sort of competing organizations of students. And the CIA knew what I believed to be true. That in developing countries particularly, the student leaders of today are likely to be the leaders of tomorrow because the very narrow elite. So, the student leaders tend to move into positions of authority. And certainly, the Russians and the Soviets knew that. And they were funding then an organization imported in Prague that was ... Pretended to be an organization of students who was really an organization of part of the Communist Propaganda Apparatus, basically. And the United States started funding an alternative organization of which the NSA was a leading player. And the agency was very smart. They knew that if ... That they probably could not fund it openly because of Congress. Because most of the people who were involved were people of moderate left persuasion because we were going to talk to European and African, Asian students. You could not go there. The right wing did not have much to talk to them about. So, from sometime in the early (19)50s until 1967, they had funded a variety, mostly of international activities for students, without telling many of the people that that is where the money was coming from. It theoretically came from a foundation in Upstate New York, Corning. That is the old Corning Glass money. So, the whole time we were pedaling along, we were saying, "Oh well, they are the bad guy, Communist Propaganda Apparatus. We are just the blossom of America's youth out to ... Because of ..." And many people did not know. I mean Gloria Steinem was on one of the first delegations to go. And there were a number of other people. I mean I have met other people through the years who were on that delegation of which Gloria was probably the most famous. But they did not know that it was CIA money. And it really was ... It just made a lie out of the whole thing because of it. I understand why it happened. I understand how it happened. But I disapproved then, I disapprove now. If it had been done directly through the State Department ... Maybe it could not have been done because of McCarthy and McCarthy [inaudible]. SM (00:17:54): Yeah. SB (00:17:55): But if it had been done straight through the State Department, you just said, "Yeah, we got a grant from the State Department to go to this trip." Well, okay, that is fine. I mean nobody would have had any problem with that. SM (00:18:06): Upon reflection, after all of your experiences even beyond when you were in college and certainly the years you were organizing the Moratorium and the Anti-War Movement, it did not surprise you then that the CIA or the infiltrating organizations to- SB (00:18:28): It did surprise me. SM (00:18:29): Even during the (19)60s and the- SB (00:18:32): Yeah, it did surprise me. That was a great shock to me. It was a great shock to me. But it is now 40 years later. I can reflect back on it and say, "Well, it was this and that, I disapprove of it still." But I was shocked at the time. I mean I was in graduate school and was Chairman of the Board of NSA at the time and I had no idea. And then this allegation was made. There was a discussion at a board meeting about the allegation and everybody said, "No, it is not true. It is not true. It is not true. It is not true. It is not true. It is this crazy left rhetoric." And then three days later, I got the call saying, "Well, it was true." So the people that I had known for many years who were aware of it had been lying to me the whole time. So ... SM (00:19:22): Wow. SB (00:19:23): And they were sort of suborned into it. They signed an oath and they were, I think, basically threatened that they had to keep their mouths shut about it. I do not find that easy to forgive either. But ... You know, you get older, you understand. SM (00:19:53): There has been so many events in your life, so many experiences that really had an impact on you. But can you pinpoint one event, whether it was something you were involved in or something beyond you where you had no control, that really had the greatest impact on you as a human being? We are talking it could be a tragedy, a ... SB (00:20:20): Oh. I mean probably the event that changed me the most was that first meeting with Al Lowenstein because it really changed the direction of my life. Beyond that, I mean I had things that were weird. I started to say, I was on a Thursday night. I was studying and slogging my way through a manuscript in German. And Sunday morning, I was on Meet the Press. I mean that is a fairly rapid change of venue. And that was the CIA stuff. And I came ... I got on the plane right away and I was in Boston at the time. I came down here and held a couple of days of hearings and then went on Meet the Press with Joe Clark and I cannot remember who. There were a couple of other people on that program. Anyway, that had an enormous impact. But so did the early successes of the McCarthy Campaign changed what I could do subsequently because I got known and got known among other things among contributor circles so that when it came time for the Moratorium, I knew where to raise the money. So, it was ... Anyway. SM (00:21:54): You were involved in a lot of anti-war activities way before the Moratorium. SB (00:21:59): Yes. SM (00:22:00): In college years and- SB (00:22:01): Yes. SM (00:22:01): And I remember reading the Vietnam ... I think it was Vietnam Summer which was the (19)67. SB (00:22:08): Yeah. SM (00:22:09): Explain what that is because people are going to be reading this now, most of them are not going to have a whole lot of knowledge of that particular period, some of the specifics. Well, the Vietnam Summer. SB (00:22:22): The Vietnam Summer was an effort, as you say, in 1967, to get some of the people who had been organizing on their college campuses to actually go do it more broadly on a community-based level. And the theory was that you get however many people you could get to spend their summer talking to friends and neighbors and trying to find beyond the campus or beyond their campus at least, a way to talk to people about the war. It was really, as I recall it, sort of a successor to the teach-in movement from before that. That was broader. It was an effort, it was a broad educational effort, an outreach effort, that was before everything went to hell. SM (00:23:14): Yeah. I remember reading that there were 500 paid staffers and 26,000 volunteers in that anti-Vietnam project all over the country. SB (00:23:24): Yeah, that sounds a little inflated, frankly. I mean- SM (00:23:28): Yeah. SB (00:23:28): ... 500 paid staffers. Not likely. SM (00:23:31): That might be misinformation [inaudible]- SB (00:23:33): Yeah. Somebody's inflated notion about how good it was. I mean it was- SM (00:23:38): But those experiences, did they help you in prepping you for McCarthy and being involved in the McCarthy- SB (00:23:44): Oh sure. SM (00:23:44): ... experience? SB (00:23:44): Sure. SM (00:23:45): And how did you ever get that position? Because my golly, people would die to get a position like that at such a young age. SB (00:23:52): Hawk, with David Hawkins, another ... I mean we worked on a bunch of different things. We worked on a series of letters from student body presidents and student newspaper editors that we published in the New York Times because the administration, the Johnson Administration, was trying to say, "Well, it' is just a radical, crazy, lefty fringe that is against the war." And we wanted to say, "No, no, no. This is a mainstream, student leader, student’s newspaper editor. This is not your ... You cannot dismiss this as just a bunch of crazies." And through that, and through NSA itself, I probably knew people on ... I do not know, 3, 400 college campuses around the country. And that was in the days when it was not so easy because without email ... I mean now you can be in touch with 400 people with the touch of a button. Then, you either had to pick up the telephone and call them or you had to send them a letter. I mean there was no real, easy way to communicate. You could do a fax, but it is the same thing. You could not ... We did not have mass blast faxes at the time. So, it was just sort of ... And a lot of students would not have access to a fax machine anyway. The newspaper editors would and probably the student body presidents, too. But in any case, it was a lot of hard work. So, we spent months making phone calls and pulling together those ads. And through NSA, which had a big gathering every summer, you would get together with people from 3 or 400 different campuses. Well that is a big benefit when you are trying to organize something to actually know people face-to-face. SM (00:25:56): See one of the things that I do not think is talked about enough in the literature on the (19)60s is the National Student Association. I think it was formed in the late (19)40s or something like that. Hubert Humphrey was somewhat connected or- SB (00:26:09): Yeah. SM (00:26:09): ... at the very beginning. Why has that organization ... Obviously, it still exists. But why is that organization not being pushed to the forefront when we are talking about the Anti-War Movement and all the groups. I do not ever hear the NSA discuss or even the Young Americans for Freedom which was a Conservative group. You hear about SDS. You hear about Vets Against the War, those kinds of groups. SB (00:26:34): It is all ... NSA also had this broad educational function and education reform function. It was not a single representative it had. And it was composed of a broad range of people. I mean I remember Danny Boggs from the Harvard delegation, every year wrapping the ... Using very clever parliamentary tactics to delay activity. I mean it was a broad-based organization and it represented a lot of different people. I knew a lot of the leadership of Young Americans for Freedom because they were also at NSA. So unlike SDS which had a conscious ideology, NSA was less ideological and certainly more modest in its moderating, I would say. Because it was broadly based. And the membership of it was student governments, not individuals. So, if the student government was headed by somebody conservative, then you get to the convention in the summer and it'd be very hard to get certain things done because you would have a resistance. Now eventually, by the summer of (19)64 as I recall, I think we got a resolution passed supporting Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party that year. And lots of people who then became well-known were there at the time. And that includes everybody from Tom Hayden and some of the people, more ideological people, to people like Rodger Reaper who was the editor of the student newspaper at Illinois or ... I do not know. There's a whole bunch of people that we knew. Rik Hertzberg is now at the New Yorker and then the editor of the Crimson and ... There are probably 50 of those people that I could Google and they'd come up with a long list of stuff. SM (00:28:54): Yeah. It is interesting that I am trying to interview him as well because he's a friend of Charles Kaiser, the writer. So, I just sent an email to him to see if I can interview him. SB (00:29:06): Tom? Oh, Rik Hertzberg, Henrik Hertzberg? SM (00:29:11): Yeah. SB (00:29:11): Yeah. SM (00:29:11): Yep. SB (00:29:11): Yeah. SM (00:29:12): So, I am hoping ... And I did not use a speech writer for Jimmy Carter and ... One of the things- SB (00:29:20): We spent the summer together, Rik and I, in the summer of 19 ... Must have been (19)65, I guess. At what later turned out to be CI Summer Camp. And then he went on to work for the US Student Press Association for a year. SM (00:29:37): The links between McCarthy, you were a very important person in that position because when you think of Chicago (19)68, that is something that comes to everybody's mind, the- SB (00:29:50): Actually- SM (00:29:51): Go ahead. SB (00:29:53): [inaudible]. I have just realized that I sort of filibustered the answer to your question about how I got there. I did not intend to, but I started a ways back. SM (00:30:02): Right. SB (00:30:03): So, the- SB (00:30:03): It started a ways back. SM (00:30:03): Right. SB (00:30:03): So, the end of all of that story is that when it came time for them... Oh, and then there was one other big piece in there, which was the summer of 1967. There was a huge fight at NSA about who was going to be president of NSA for the succeeding year. And I lost by a few votes to a guy, the name of Ed Schwartz, who lives in Philadelphia now, and Ed was really the education reform. He said that is what we should be doing. And I was the candidate of anti-war that said what we should do is that an NSA should essentially devote its resources to ending the war in Vietnam. I did not, of course, know at the time that it was... No, maybe I did. Because by that time, the CIA funding had ended that spring. That was when it blew up. Anyway, I said, what it should be doing was anti-war stuff, and I lost. But we then went on to form an organization called the Alternative Candidate Task Force, which was to be the student effort to find the new candidate, an alternative to Johnson. And I became the head of that. So, in the fall the campaign, when we found the candidate, I had already been working for months on the process of finding that candidate. I knew the people who were involved in campuses all over the country. Allard Lowenstein was the kind of Pied Piper. He would go out and give the speeches, and then Curtis Gans would do the follow-up and actually make an organization out of Allard's enthusiasm. Harold Ickes was working in New York at the time, and I was traveling around to campuses. I was doing the campus side of that. I ran the campaign to the college Young Democrats to elect the slate of officers that was against the war and then looking for an alternative candidate. And we won that to the great chagrin of the White House. And anyway, long story short is I would spent years doing this stuff. So, when it came time for the campaign to do something, there was my smiling face. SM (00:32:37): What amazes is, well, it is obvious. It comes out over and over again. Organizer, organizer, organizer. That is such a skill. Because I know, I have been working with students for 30 some years, and most of them do not know the first thing about how to organize. They have a lot of friends and they can get their friends to come to things, and they go to all these student organization lectures and conferences, but they still do not know. And so, I think it is something that we need to do a better job of, especially with college students today. That is just my personal opinion. Because the question I am tired of hearing about over and over again is, I do not know what to do. And I believe in young people. So, it is just that they need to have confidence that they can do it. But one of the things here is 1968 was such an unbelievable event. You were in Chicago? SB (00:33:32): Yeah. SM (00:33:33): What was it like being there? Tom Gorman, I interviewed too, and he told me the experience he had with Senator McCarthy in Chicago in (19)68. But explain what it was like to be there. Secondly, to be the link between Senator McCarthy and the protestors. SB (00:33:57): Yeah. Well, most of them were friends of mine. I mean, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis particularly. But I knew a lot of the other people around too. Carl Oglesby was there. They were people I knew from the years past. So, it was a natural thing that I should be asked really on behalf of the campaign to go meet with them, talk to them, try and figure out if there was a way to minimize the damage on the campaign by their actions. We had no idea, of course, that the police would turn out, that there would be a riot, a police riot as the Ryan Commission later said. We could not predict that. What we could try to do was to help the demonstrations be peaceful, well-organized, not destroy any chance of getting a resolution through the convention opposing the war. It turned out we probably did not have a chance to get that anyway. It was a kind of symbolic effort to get a peace plank in the platform, which we lost. But anyway, my job was to try to minimize the damage, which was all really, I mean, there was no way it was going to be helpful. So how do you minimize the damage is really the question. And it was natural that I should be the person asked to do that. And I spent some time with them over the summer and then early on at the convention, and then did not spend much time actually with them during the convention itself. But I was outside the Hilton Hotel when the police attacked, I was actually sitting in the street with Carl Oglesby and he said, "Well, the police are going to attack." I said, "Carl, come on. The whole damn world is watching. There is television cameras up on the ledge of the Hilton Hotel. They are not going to do anything stupid." Well, how wrong was I? SM (00:36:26): Oh my gosh. SB (00:36:27): Two minutes later. Tear gas every place and we were trying to get out of Dodge. SM (00:36:35): Yeah, just to be there. I saw it on TV. SB (00:36:41): It scared the bejesus out of you, I will tell you. Because you get in a crowd like that, the crowd is as dangerous. Just the panic. SM (00:36:52): Who was at fault? I have read many books on this. Were the young people at fault or were the police at fault? SB (00:37:02): I think there is no question it was the police. I mean, they just lost it. And they lost it, I mean, I understand most of the people in the street were kids of privilege. They were college students. They were college graduates. They were people who could afford to come, who were not working the second week in August, could afford to be in Chicago. And the cops did not have any of that privilege. Probably not mostly college educated. Their jobs to maintain order. They are pissed off because these are raggedy-looking, yada-yada, yada. I mean, in some ways they were attacking their own kids or their own family, I think part of it, or whatever. I mean, nobody will ever be able to fully explain the psychology of it. But there is no question that they lost it. I mean just completely lost it. Nothing would have happened. Maybe a few windows would have gotten broken, but I am not even sure of that. SM (00:38:07): Well, there was disruption within inside the convention too. And of course, when Ribicoff spoke, they were swearing at him up there. SB (00:38:14): Yeah. SM (00:38:16): Senator Ribicoff. So, it was happening within it, because we all know what happened to Dan Rather. They roughed him up. So, a lot of things were happening. SB (00:38:23): Well, and Daley was the lead. He is the guy standing up saying fuck you. What do you think the police think? SM (00:38:30): What was Senator McCarthy thinking though? SB (00:38:32): I have no idea. SM (00:38:33): He was seeing this too. Two things come out of this. I guess you were a witness, too, at the Chicago Seven trial? SB (00:38:41): I was. SM (00:38:41): And of course, there were eight of them. Then of course Bobby, they took him away. But what was it like to be asked to be in that room? Did you feel a lot of pressure? I mean, a lot of them were your friends, but you had to be objective. SB (00:38:58): Well, yeah, I had to say what I saw and knew, which is pretty much what I just said to you. That they did not have any, I mean, there was no plan on behalf of the leadership of those demonstrations to end up in the circumstances in which they ended up. I was there enough to know that nobody was passing out clubs or wearing helmets. None of the things that would make you think, whoa, wait a minute, what is going on here? Were there 10 rabblerousers, or 50? Maybe. I do not know. But there was no plan. I mean, Dave Dillinger was not planning some revolutionary action in the street. I mean, it was a stupid [inaudible]. SM (00:39:50): They picked those eight people. I mean. SB (00:39:53): Who knows? SM (00:39:54): Some of them were well known. But a couple of them, Lee Weiner was not well-known. SB (00:40:01): No. SM (00:40:01): There is another one that is well known. He is a professor in California. But anyway, so being in that trial, in that room with Judge Julius Hoffman, you experienced him firsthand then. SB (00:40:14): Yeah. It was not exactly an objective courtroom. I mean, the atmosphere was very hostile in the room. But I did not have so much to say. They wanted me because they wanted me as a defense witness to say I had observed the preparations. I knew that there were no plans for riot. I was there that night. I was in the campaign. I certainly was not with the demonstrators. And just they did not do it. SM (00:40:48): Did the prosecuting attorneys try to make you feel like you... SB (00:40:54): Oh yeah. SM (00:40:56): William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass were on the other side helping. SB (00:41:00): These are your friends. And of course, you are going to say what you say. No, I did not say it that way because they were my friends. I said it that way because that is the way it happened in short. But it was very brief as I recall. They wanted to get that piece on the record, and I got that piece on the record. SM (00:41:22): Yeah, I have read so much about it, and I have read so many different opinions and thoughts of it. And now quite a few of them have, well, several of them have passed on. Abbie and Jerry and have passed on, and Dave Delinger too. SB (00:41:41): Yeah. Well, Abbie and Jerry were always wild cards. I mean, I did not know them so well, unlike Tom and Rennie, Dave. SM (00:41:50): I interviewed Rennie. Rennie is smart as the dickens. SB (00:41:55): Yeah, he is. SM (00:41:56): But he does not like to talk about it anymore. He into a different sphere. Spirituality, that is his life now. And actually, his girlfriend, the person that was with him, it is the first time I have heard any of this. He does not even to talk about it anymore. SB (00:42:07): Is he living in Colorado? SM (00:42:08): He lives in Colorado. I guess he has done real well. Goes all over the country in a big expensive Winnebago with his, I am not sure if it is his girlfriend or his partner or whatever the story is. But she is also very well-educated and they talk about spirituality together. So, she is well-known too. But he is an unbelievable person. He gave me two hours of his time in a restaurant when he was in DC that is way beyond the call of duty, because he had to give two speeches that night. So, he was great. And I have interviewed David Harris, and I have interviewed a lot of good people. SB (00:42:48): Dave was a very good guy. SM (00:42:49): Dave was a great guy. SB (00:42:52): Yeah. SM (00:42:52): One of the things that really struck me when I interviewed Senator McCarthy. He did not really say anything to me. I asked Tom Gorman, I have asked other people, David Hawk, I asked people who worked on his campaign, what happened to him after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. Because you would have thought, with Humphrey and the other guy, you would have thought. He was sad, obviously, and he had his differences. But it's my understanding that that really did affect him, the assassination, even though he did not like him that well. Why did not he go gung-ho, pick up the reins and try to be the Democratic nominee? SB (00:43:36): Well, at the time, we were all very angry at him. SM (00:43:39): Let me switch. Here we go. Okay. SB (00:43:48): So, McCarthy in the summer of 1968, I think we were all very disappointed. Quite angry, in fact. About that time, there was that Paul Simon song, "Where have you have gone, Joe DiMaggio? The nation Turns its lonely eyes to you." SM (00:44:04): Yeah. SB (00:44:05): Well, that was a kind of theme song around the office, because everybody was saying, where have you gone, Gene? I mean, what the hell's going on? Now, I do not know that we'd ever would have gotten a completely straight answer to that question. But I think it was not so much being devastated by it as it was that he was a realistic guy, and he knew he was not going to get the nomination. Or that his view was that there was nothing he could do that would get him the nomination, and therefore it was just creating false expectations and hopes to be out. Maybe he was devastated by it. Maybe he was. But what happened, of course, is a lot of Kennedy people did not come over to McCarthy, but in fact went to McGovern. And McCarthy regarded that as only one more sign of the duplicitous nature of Kennedy's supporters and whatever. And remember with him, it goes also way back to 1956 in the Democratic convention. SM (00:45:24): Oh, that is right. When John Kennedy was going to run for vice president, and he did not have to. Yes, he had no shot. Stevenson was going to win. SB (00:45:36): But McCarthy nominated Stevenson at that convention. And so, the animus there was very deep and in some way’s kind of inexplicable. I mean, his vote against Teddy for the leadership position two years later. I mean, it was crazy stuff. SM (00:45:59): Yeah, I remember Tom Gorman. You know Tom? SB (00:46:03): Yeah. SM (00:46:04): He said he was up with McCarthy looking over the protest in their room. They had a little balcony. And so, they went out on the balcony and they could smell the tear gas and all the things going on. And he thought Senator McCarthy would get very upset with what was going on. But then he said it was listening to a professor talking about philosophy or something like that, no emotion. And he said he quit on the spot. He quit because he did not see the emotion of young people being beaten in and all the things. And this is America and he is running for president. SB (00:46:43): And he is a hundred feet from it straight above. SM (00:46:45): Yeah, and that is amazing, knowing the man. I have met him three times. That is not the man that I talked to, but maybe he is different personalities, multiples at times. One of the things too, you said something that is very important, I think this is important. I mean, I am trying to interview Brian Lamb at C-SPAN, and I know his philosophy, and this is comparable to what you just said. This is a quote from you: The worst thing that can happen to an organizer is to become identified as a leader. And that is Brian Lamb at C-SPAN. We took students to see him. He said, there is no superstars at C-SPAN. If you want to be a superstar, go to ABC. He does not allow any superstars to see it at C-SPAN. And he is very sensitive when he was thrust to the front. And I know it was at a time when all young people were questioning leaders, did not trust any of the leaders, but is that very important, a little bit about who you are as a human being? SB (00:47:50): Yeah. I mean, partly it was, as you say, at the time, it was do not trust leaders, watch the parking meters. It was partly that. It was partly, too, that if you are trying to organize something, what you want is as broadly as possible for everyone to think they are a leader, for everyone to be a part of it. And if you are either self-proclaimed or proclaimed by others to be the leader, you lose people at that point. I mean, when you become visible in that way, people take shots at you, or think you are gotten too big for your britches, or you are this or you are that or the other thing. So, I mean, it is both a real sentiment about that it is better that it be broadly shared. And it is a tactical thing as well, that the more people you can drag in and make them feel good and important, the broader base of activity. Now, that is not always true, but I think it was true then. At that time, in that circumstance, I think that was true. SM (00:49:21): What is interesting is when you look at the Boomer generation of perception out there is it is a generation that does not trust, and for very obvious reasons, because so many of the leaders lied to them, whether it be Lyndon Johnson or the Gulf of Tonkin. We all know about Watergate. And even as they progressed into older age, or even older, you could say, Iran Contra with Ronald Reagan. Nobody trusted Gerald Ford. SB (00:49:50): When he pardoned Nixon. SM (00:49:53): Pardoned Nixon. Because there has got to be some sort of a deal there. Jimmy Carter at times was attacked for the amnesty for people up in Canada. And then of course, you can even go back to Eisenhower where the U2 incident relayed on public television, on TV. And I remember seeing that as a little boy, him talking about Gary Powers and saying that we are not spying, Ike-like. SB (00:50:18): No kidding. SM (00:50:19): On national television. And then of course, as you read later on, John Kennedy, and he was involved with the coup in Vietnam. I do not think Kennedy wanted him killed, but I think he was upset. But he gave the okay for the overthrow. So here we got leader after leader after leader, after leader, not trusting. And college students at that time did not trust anybody with responsibility, whether they be the president of the university, or a minister, or a rabbi. They did not trust anybody in leadership. And I think you hit something very important here. Do you feel that your feeling was really [inaudible] amongst many of the Boomers? SB (00:51:03): I do not know. I mean, I cannot speak for other people. I just know that it was a sentiment. My sense of the people with whom I worked was that you wanted to be very careful, that claiming leadership is likely to lose you the ability to actually be a leader. SM (00:51:31): Once you were designated a leader though, when you became the head of Action, when you became the head of these other organizations later in life, you were a leader. You were assigned, you were picked just like you were picked by McCarthy. You were the Clean for Gene, which I want you to talk about there, but you were picked to be the leader of this. So, you might feel that, but you are showing a lot of sensitivity here that you are more about collaboration than you are about... SB (00:52:03): Yeah. Even when I was at Action, we brought in a series of consultants to work on something that the Congress then later countered me around for called Workplace Democracy. I thought that it was important to bring people into the governance process. Not always into the policy making process because that is really the Congress and the President set direction and my job was to carry out that direction. But to set the tone of the workplace and the way to get it done, I thought the way to do that was to bring as many people as possible into it. So, we had this sort of ongoing thing, and we hired. SM (00:53:03): I know you hired Dick Celeste. I am a big Dick Celeste person. SB (00:53:06): Yeah. Well, but we hired this consultant to come to do workplace democracy. Anyway. Oh, yeah. I was very fortunate because the president gave me a lot of room to succeed or fail, and I was able to get Dick to come to the Peace Corps and John Lewis to come to run the domestic programs. And John Podesta to be my chief of staff. I mean, I had a good crowd. Betty Curry, then Betty Mitchell, but later, Betty Curry, the president's secretary, Clinton's secretary was my secretary for four years. So, for a little tiny agency, we had a lot of very high-quality people. Tom Glenn, who was later Under Secretary of Labor, worked there. I do not know. We had a good crowd. SM (00:54:09): Good people then. And then the Moratorium is something, when you look at your history, I think me personally, I think of the Moratorium and I think of Action, and certainly all your involvement as a great organizer. These things really stand out. I know I have read about the Moratorium, but how did it come about? Before we go there. Clean for Gene. SB (00:54:36): Oh, Clean for Gene. SM (00:54:37): Clean for Gene, and then we will go right to the Moratorium. SB (00:54:39): Okay. SM (00:54:40): Because those are big decisions, both by you. SB (00:54:44): Clean for Jean was, I mean, I think probably Mary McGrory probably invented the phrase, but the idea was a simple one. We are going to a place that is essentially New England, conservative, small-town America. We are trying to talk to people about voting for our candidate. You want them to listen as open-mindedly as possible to the argument and not be put off by appearance. Therefore, you need to appear in such a way that people, when they see you standing on the doorstep are inclined to open the door and talk to you or offer you a cup of coffee, rather than slamming the door in your face. So, if you are not sorted around, that is if you are not dressed properly, if your hair is too long, if you look like you are not going to be able to have that open conversation with people by and large older, a generation older in many cases, who had expectations that were framed in the forties, not in the (19)60s, then you need to appear appropriately. I mean the rules were pretty clear. If you are going to get on a bus to come to New Hampshire, do not bother if we cannot use you. Now, sometimes when people got there, if their appearance was not appropriate, then we put them to work in the basement of the headquarters filing, keeping track of file cards. But we did not put them out on the street unless we thought they had a chance to actually influence people in a positive way. SM (00:56:44): That is the New York Yankee way too. The Yankees have this thing about appearances, remember? Because Johnny Damon had the... And that is what Bobby Cox does for the Atlantic Braves. You got to look at your part, look like a pro. SB (00:56:56): Yeah. SM (00:56:57): And they can still have a mustache. SB (00:57:01): Right-right. SM (00:57:01): Yeah. SB (00:57:03): So anyway, that then the press picked up on it and sort of loved it. So, there you go. But that was really, I was in charge of that organizing effort in New Hampshire, and so I made the rules. SM (00:57:27): How were you appointed to this very important role, again in McCarthy? McCarthy had to make the final decision. He picked you. SB (00:57:37): Well, they were not initially focused on New Hampshire. In fact, there was some discussion of not even contesting New Hampshire because it's a conservative state. We did not have that good an organization on the ground. Maybe we should focus first on Wisconsin, a more congenial place. But some of us in the campaign felt that we had a shot at New Hampshire in an important way. And one way to say that was to say, okay, well, I believe it so strongly, I am want to go there. And then it turned out I ended up. I mean, they were not going to make a 60-year-old in charge of the student volunteers coming in. So, I was at the right place at the right time. Just lucky. SM (00:58:37): Now, the Moratorium, that idea came from... Oh, I remember some name came out of nowhere. I never heard of the person, but you were one of the leaders of starting the Moratorium. But originally the idea of a strike, and I have done a lot of reading about- SB (00:58:54): That is Jerry Grossman. SM (00:58:56): Yeah. Now who is he? SB (00:58:57): Jerry was the president of Mass Envelope Company. He is an older business guy who was the head of Massachusetts Peace Action Council. He is actually still alive. His son is running for Congress, the Senate, I do not know. SM (00:59:13): Oh, wow. SB (00:59:15): And used to be the Democratic National Committee, the chairman of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, his son. Jerry is now probably in his (19)80s, writes a blog. And he had this idea, Mass PAC actually had the idea. I mean, Jerry was the president, but the idea, I think grew up sort of organically through the organization, through Mass PAC to call a national strike. And Jerry went to see, I do not know, probably Marty [inaudible] to talk to him about money to do this thing. And Marty said, "No, go talk to Sam Brown." And I was teaching a course at the Kennedy School at the time. SB (01:00:02): ... I was teaching a course at the Kennedy School at the time, and because I was not very good, I was young, I was kind of intimidated, most of the students were more or less my age. I was 25 and I had only graduate students and juniors and seniors, so it was ... Everybody in there was more or less my age. And I was fairly intimidated by that and not really very good at what I was doing. So, I threw out the standard way of doing it and said, "Look, since it is a seminar in contemporary American politics, what we are going to do here is we are going to talk about what you would do. We are going to learn about how politics works and what might work or might not work by taking a real issue, ending the war in Vietnam, and whether you agree with that or not, it does not matter. What we are going to talk about in this seminar is what might work." And at some point, in that seminar, we were talking about everything, demonstrations, letter writing campaigns, congressional campaigns, cutting off the budget, da-da, da-da. At some point, the idea of a strike came up, and Jerry had come to talk to me about it as I recall. And I said, "Nah, that can never work. It is too militant. It is too labor oriented. It does not sound like something that you can talk to people in the Midwest about. It sounds like the 1930s. It sounds like some lefty idea from the (19)30s. We cannot do that. But maybe we can find a way to think about that idea and not say we are going to have a strike and shut down American business, but to say instead, we are going to put aside a day to think about, to focus on this national issue and that they will put aside business as usual. Not shut down the factories, but put aside business as usual to contemplate what we are doing." And anyway, that grew over a period of time through that spring, in that seminar we refined that idea, and we needed ... Refined it to the place where we thought it was a pretty good idea. And then I raised some money to start the organization. And I had friends who I'd worked with in other things, David Hawk, David Mixner, Marge Sklencar, and a couple of students from my seminar, two or three students, in fact, from my seminar, who came to work in the office. And so, we started with a core staff of six or eight people, 10 or something like that. The core probably being the four of us, David and David and Marge and me as co-coordinators, term of art appropriate to the 1960s. Not leader and followers, but co-coordinators [inaudible]. SM (01:03:20): Yeah, that was what SDS was supposed to be about, everybody's ... SB (01:03:25): Yeah, right. SM (01:03:25): Yeah. No leader, just... SB (01:03:32): Yeah. So, we just came down here in June after school was out and opened an office and announced we were going to end the war. Fairly audacious undertaking, but there you go. And because of the McCarthy campaign and the CIA thing, and one thing and another, I knew a lot of press people, so I knew we could get decent coverage for whatever we were going to do. SM (01:04:01): Boy, it was big. Because I can remember students from my college going to it, and it was big. SB (01:04:11): Yes. SM (01:04:11): And I know that we had students going to it from Binghamton, and of course that was ... It was in October, I think? SB (01:04:20): October 15th. SM (01:04:22): Yeah, October 15th was the actual across the country. And then November 15th was the actual event. SB (01:04:25): The [inaudible]". SM (01:04:27): Now, how many people were actually at the Washington Monument, because that is on Thomas Power's book, the front cover of his book? SB (01:04:33): Yeah. SM (01:04:34): That is the picture. SB (01:04:35): Yeah, that picture is actually hanging over there. My wife just gave it to me for Christmas this past year. SM (01:04:41): Oh my gosh. SB (01:04:42): Yeah. That was ... Who knows? I mean, everybody lies and nobody really knows. Estimates vary, but it was probably a half a million people, something like that. But I think you'd ... On any given day, depending on somebody's political instincts, they would say it was a hundred thousand or a million, 500,000. I mean, people ... But I think it was probably around 500,000. SM (01:05:15): It was a tremendous success. But from what I gathered, Nixon, as he always did, "Yeah, it was a big event, but it is not going to affect me at all on how I run things." Is that true? He was ... SB (01:05:29): No. Well, Dan Ellsberg tells me that it is not true, and Dan was still there, and he says that Nixon, that there was serious discussion about the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam, and that the moratorium ended that. Certainly, it forced them to rethink how they were going to conduct the war after that. And their first rethink was in the spring when they actually escalated the war, substantially in April when they ... SM (01:06:07): Oh, yeah. SB (01:06:11): And then that led to its own new round of demonstrations and opposition. But I think, I mean, Dan says he knows this with absolute certainty that from inside ... SM (01:06:33): That movie is out right now, The Most Dangerous Man in America is opening tonight in Philadelphia at the Ritz Theater. I am going tomorrow to see it. SB (01:06:43): Yeah. I saw it a few months ago. SM (01:06:44): I am heading off to the 40th remembrance at Kent State too. I have a question about that, but I have a question about who the speakers were at the moratorium in ... SB (01:06:54): Oh God. SM (01:06:56): ... 1969. I know Benjamin Spock spoke ... SB (01:06:58): There was a struggle all the time because McGovern spoke, but the left did not want him to speak. I do not remember. David Hawk spoke there. I do not know. I just do not remember. I'd gotten arrested with Spock the night before. There was an effort to do something to say this was going to be non-violent. So, we were going to show the way by a demonstration at Lafayette Square, where a bunch of us got arrested. But I do not remember who ... I mean, I remember the fights about who should not speak. SM (01:07:49): Right. You had musicians there too that performed? SB (01:07:53): Yeah, I think Peter, Paul and Mary performed then. I am not sure who else. I just do not know. SM (01:07:57): I think Teddy Kennedy came and spoke too, did not he? I think. SB (01:07:59): I do not ... SM (01:08:01): I have some literature here ... SB (01:08:02): Maybe. SM (01:08:03): ... that says that he came out and said a few things. SB (01:08:04): Okay. SM (01:08:07): Kent State, obviously after the moratorium in (19)69, and the reaction that I thought that Nixon gave to that particular event, then the peace activities were going on, so people looked at him more as the peace candidate, so it kind of died. So, the protest movement kind of ended there until the Kent State killings? SB (01:08:30): Well, it was not clear what he was doing at that point. And what happened really, in my recollection is, in October and November, we spent so much energy that when it came time for December, everybody ... Students were home. They were not on their campuses. It was hard to organize. You could not reach people. We had become sort of sclerotic. We had offices all over the country at that point. We were spending a lot of money to keep alive, not much real activity, so we decided ... I mean, we just sat down with our staff and said, "This is crazy." So, we closed. And then in the spring, of course, with the bombing, the Cambodia bombing over there, yeah, it just sort of blossomed from that. I mean, that was the ... SM (01:09:37): Now that was ... I asked quite a few of my interviewees where they were when two or three of these tragedies happened. Where were you when you heard about Kent State, number one, and where were you when you heard about John Kennedy's assassination? SB (01:09:51): Well, John Kennedy, I remember distinctly, I was at Redlands and I was working on a conference, a farm worker conference that weekend. And we were setting up tables and getting ready to do this conference when I heard about it. And then went to the cafeteria, and we were just sort of all in shock. And Kent State, I was here in Washington, but I do not recall precisely where, but it was so ... I mean, that two or three days around there, it was all kind of mushes together because it was such a blossoming, really, of anti-war activity. I think that spring ... I have this vague recollection that spring was the first Earth Day. SM (01:11:06): Yes. It was April 22. SB (01:11:08): And I had been working on Earth Day with Dennis Hayes and a bunch of people. SM (01:11:12): I have interviewed Dennis. SB (01:11:12): Yeah, he is a good guy. SM (01:11:12): He is. SB (01:11:15): He is a really good guy. So, I was around here because of that, and I had probably traveled someplace on the 22nd to speak, but I was living here and I do not remember exactly where I was. SM (01:11:30): You knew Senator Nelson too, when ... Because he was very involved in Earth Day. SB (01:11:35): Yeah, oh, sure. SM (01:11:36): The organizing of it. SB (01:11:36): Yeah. SM (01:11:36): One of the things that fascinate me about your background too, and I know you are probably very proud of this, was the book that you Wrote, which is called the Storefront Organizing. SB (01:11:50): Oh, Storefront Organizing. SM (01:11:51): And what really got me excited because it was dedicated to Jesse Unruh. I know him real well from living in California, and Senator McCarthy. But I love this quote, and I am not sure ... I get these quotes out of the ... But I think this is beautiful. You got to be proud of this. SB (01:12:11): Whatever. SM (01:12:12): "The bias is against the status quo rather than for it, because the few have always been well organized. The many have never been organized and never had a voice. Grassroots organizing is the way to change this." Now, that to me is beautiful. That is something that is about grassroots organizing. That says it all, but ... SB (01:12:35): Thank you. SM (01:12:35): But no, that is beautiful. But that booklet, you saw the need, just like I mentioned about students today ... I think, I do not know if this book is out of print. I think you ought to get this book back in print, I think, and put it on college campuses, because I think they are lost. SB (01:12:51): Well, it was just, it was largely a technical manual. It is sort of where you get office space and how you do various kinds of things. And of course, the times have changed so much that the techniques would have to have necessarily changed with it. There is actually another thing you may not have seen that I am, in some ways, even prouder of a piece wrote for the Washington Monthly called The Politics of the Peace. SM (01:13:17): When was that? SB (01:13:19): That would have been in late (19)69, early (19)70. SM (01:13:26): Can you get that, or? SB (01:13:29): It is probably archived, or it is certainly in a library, or ... SM (01:13:33): Okay. SB (01:13:37): I do not know. That is what I was looking for over there was to see if I might see a copy of it, but I do not know that I have a copy of it here. Anyway, but that it was a long piece that The New York Times then wrote a very laudatory editorial about, saying that they thought it was real smart, which is always a nice thing to have someone say. SM (01:14:05): Has that ever been put into a book as a ... Like essays of the (19)60s or the (19)70s or? SB (01:14:10): No, no. I think the only place it has been published was in the Washington Monthly. But Random House then came to me and offered me a contractor to write a book, and I went to write the book and discovered when I got to writing it that I really had about 12,000 words to say, and I would said them all. So, I returned the advance to Random House and got on with my life. SM (01:14:39): Wow. That is an interesting story. If I get a copy of that ... I am going to try to find it, but ... Not today, but down the road. SB (01:14:46): Yeah. I do not know whether you can find ... Maybe you can Google or maybe it is ... Or, whatever. Anyway, the Politics of Peace. SM (01:14:56): I have interviewed quite a few people from the Peace Corps in this project. Bill Jacobson ... Bill, he's great. We had a Peace Corps conference that I organized at our camp with Harris Swafford and [inaudible] ... SB (01:15:08): He is a really great guy. SM (01:15:08): Yeah, and we brought in five or six of the original people from the beginning, and ... Of course, Sergeant Shriver could not come because he is not well, and he has got Alzheimers, but they told him that this was happening. We have got it all on tape. But that must have made you feel really good, I mean, to be picked by President Carter to be the head of action and to oversee the Peace Corps and Volunteers in Service to America, which were ... When you were a boomer in the (19)60s, you knew about SDS, you knew about Black Panthers, you knew about certain things. But you knew about the Peace Corps, and you knew about VISTA and they were important. And just any thoughts you have about that experience of working for the Peace Corps, and maybe working with Sergeant Shriver, and knowing the people that were linked to ... And being a part of the continuity of its history? SB (01:16:09): Yeah. Well, again, I was lucky. I mean, I was the state treasurer in Colorado at the time, and I have gotten to know Carter during the course of the campaign. So of course, I was ... When he asked me, I did not hesitate. I probably could have been more gracious to the people who would help me get elected state treasurer by at least having a momentary pause before leaving the job to go to Washington. But, yeah, it was a terrific opportunity. And the Peace Corps is a very interesting institution because it has the theory that people will only be there five years, can only work there for five years, and then have to go out in order to renew. It has a funny opposite effect part of the time, which is that it tends to create the myth that it is ... It clings to its founding myths more strongly, I think, because of that than it might have if the same people had just stayed on. So, I am never sure about how that idea, which seems like a really smart idea, and I thought it was a smart idea, and it seemed like the right idea, but I am not quite sure that it actually works the way the founding fathers would have wanted it to work. And it also may be that just like any other institution, when it gets to a certain size, it becomes very difficult to move it in any very substantial way. I mean, it sort of has its own path and I was too young really probably to figure out that you could not go in and say, "Okay, now we're going to do this," and not have everybody say, "No, we are not going to do that." So, it was difficult for me. I mean, thank God for Dick Celeste, because action had been sort of forced together by the Nixon administration. There was a strong year irredentist movement in the Peace Corps that said it should be independent again. I thought it should be sort of policy independent ... Well, it cannot be policy independent. It's driven by the president. The Congress and the President give the policy. So, it cannot really be ... You know, you cannot go out and remake it into something that is not. But I thought there could be more ways of cooperating and training between Vista and Peace Corps. Peace Corps resisted that pretty systematically and consistently, because they were ... Okay. They would deny this, but I think it is true because they saw themselves as the sort of elite volunteers, VISTA volunteers. I thought being a VISTA volunteer was at least as hard as being a Peace Corps volunteer because you got to deal with your friends and neighbors. SM (01:19:20): When I was in high school, I knew kids that looked at them equally. I know a couple went into VISTA, before they went off to college, they wanted to do the VISTA thing. SB (01:19:31): Yeah. Well, it was a terrific opportunity and a wonderful four years for me, and I could not replace it, and I could not replace the people I had a chance to work with those years, for me. SM (01:19:43): You seem to be a little bit like the person who founded it though, because Sergeant Shriver believed in ... From reading his biography by Stossel, he had a whip in his office. I do not know if you have ever saw the whip? SB (01:19:54): No. SM (01:19:54): Yeah. In the early offices of the Peace Corps, and people asked him, "Why do you have a whip in your office," and being the guy he is, he said, "Well, it just means that I am a hard driving person. I work very hard and I work hour after hour," because he believed that this is the toughest job you will ever have. That was kind of the philosophy, but it is the greatest feeling because he ... Stories about he would sleep on the floor of an airplane when he flew. He did everything that the workers were doing. He was a great example. And one of the things says he believed in the think of hard work, and from what I am gathering and I read about you, you would be working 18-hour days. You had the same kind of philosophy, working all kinds of ... That was one of the qualities, when I read about your background, people admired you because you were a one heck of a worker. SB (01:20:50): Yeah. Well, who is it says, Woody Allen? "Success is 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration." Right? Or whoever it was that said that. I think a lot of that is true. And the only thing that they left out is that there is also a good deal of luck involved, in my experience. Being there the right time, in the right place. Now, sometimes if you're working ... Allison (01:21:14): Hello. SB (01:21:17): Hi! If you are working additional hours in one thing than another, you're more likely to be in the right place. Because we are there all the time. SM (01:21:27): In the 2004 election with Senator Carey, you made some comments too, you know one of ... SB (01:21:34): My wife, Allison. SM (01:21:35): Oh, hi. Allison (01:21:35): Oh, do not ... That is okay. We [inaudible] ... SM (01:21:39): One of the things that happens is the Vietnam syndrome. Today, you cannot even bring up Vietnam, or ... At least in the university, and I have been the university for 30 years. Whenever you bring up the word Vietnam or quagmire, it sends all kinds of unbelievable waves amongst fellow boomers that run universities or students who either their parents have told some them about bad things about that particular era or whatever, or maybe not explained it properly. But when Senator Kerry was running for president, you were very upset over bringing ... About his service record, when they were not talking about ideas. It was more, they were making comments about whether everything that he said was true. SB (01:22:24): Oh, [inaudible] because they were lying about his service record. SM (01:22:28): Yeah, yeah. And this is another quote of yours, and I think it is very important because it is somewhat symbolic of what I have witnessed in universities for the past 30 years whenever we talk about Vietnam. And the quote here is that "36 years after the idealism that produced the McCarthy insurgency, I see nasty, mean spirited, politic politics on all sides." You compare it to the Chicago comity pits. I thought that was interesting. And I do not know if that is true, whether that is an exaggerated quote, but you bring up a good point, because in that election, to me, that was ridiculous to bring those things up. SB (01:23:10): Yeah, it was [inaudible] ... SM (01:23:11): Had nothing to do with ... SB (01:23:12): Nothing to do with it. SM (01:23:13): ... what was going on. And to me, it is like the battle of Vietnam never stops. SB (01:23:21): Yeah. Well, the right has sort of demonized the (19)60s, and it was an era of loose morals and loose living and rejection of authority. And I mean, all kinds of things that the right says about it. And I just think that what they confuse, what gets conflated here is, there were really several things going on. One was a kind of cultural identity and revolution in politics, and Abby and Jerry and that crowd were into cultural revolution. Then there was the anti-war movement, which had to do ... Which was focused on political change. And sometimes those got ... They overlap, but frequently they were quite different. That is, the people who were working in the anti-war movement were not also spending their time promoting free love and free drugs and whatever other things that the right has said, "Oh yeah, well, the anti-war in the (19)60s. It is all the same." It was not all the same. There were distinct currents going on, and the anti-war current was, in fact, in some ways ... It certainly questioned authority, but it did not ... Most of us who were deeply involved did not intend to overthrow the cultural life of the world. I mean, we were more interested in ending the war and stopping the killing, and whatever we had to do to effectively do that. And we did not think that meant that the way to get that done was to go around breaking windows and making a fool of yourself. But the right has sort of stuck all that together and called it the (19)60s. And it's really quite different. SM (01:25:30): Because Newt Gingrich, when he came into power in (19)94, made some very strong comments about that particular period and blaming the breakdown of our society, the divorce rate, the second revolution, the drug culture, the isms, the welfare state, everything was blamed on that particular period. SB (01:25:49): Yeah. But I will tell you, you have been around interviewing people. David Hawk has been married for 30 years. I have been married for 30 years, and make a list of whoever you have gone to see. And by and large, I mean ... David Harris, I mean, was first divorced and then his wife tragically died. SM (01:26:12): Died, right. SB (01:26:14): But by and large, the people I know from that era have pretty stable personal lives, and family lives with a spouse or a partner or whatever. And frequently, the people throwing those rocks are the ones who themselves have personal lives that are a mess, and ... SM (01:26:40): Now George occasionally will take shots too. SB (01:26:43): Oh, yeah. SM (01:26:46): In his columns, in his books, he will have one or two little articles really attacking the (19)60s, but attacking the boomers, basically. And yeah, it is 78 million people is what we're talking about. One of the issues that I have tried to bring up with all of my interviewees is the issue of healing. I know we are getting toward the hour and a half here. We took a group of students to see Senator Musky about eight months before he passed away. It was a program we worked with Senator Nelson. I knew Senator Nelson real well. We would brought him twice to Westchester University, and we had organized nine trips. Okay. SB (01:27:30): It has been rescheduled. I am going to need to take it. SM (01:27:31): Right. SB (01:27:33): But they will call and let me know. SM (01:27:34): What was I ... I was starting to ask something here. SB (01:27:39): Senator Nelson, some trips? SM (01:27:41): OH, yeah. Yeah. It was about the issue of healing. The students actually came up with the question. The question was this, due to all the divisions that took place in America in the 1960s, particularly witnessing 1968, and since you were the vice presidential running mate at the Democratic Convention, I would like your response to this question that is, have we healed as a nation since those times or were those Black against white, male against female, gay against straight, those who supported the war, those who were against the war, those who supported the troops, those who did not, Vietnam veterans, against the anti-war people. The list goes on and on here. And the thought was that these young people who had not been born when all of these things were happening had heard that we were close to a second civil war in the United States? We were close to tearing this nation apart. Just your thoughts as-as Senator. And of course, he ... I would like your response to that first, and then I will tell you what Senator Musky said. SB (01:28:46): Yeah. No, I do not think, I mean, we were not close then. And I mean, in some ways I think we are closer now because the politics is deteriorated into ... There used to be adults in politics who could criticize each other, but still go out and have a drink. And I knew those people. I mean, I knew that time. And it seems like that time has now sort of passed. And the politics has been debased into essentially name calling and special interests trying to demonize everybody they are against. And the (19)60s make an easy target for that. But the idea that somehow or another in the (19)60s, we were close to civil war is preposterous. I mean, we were divided, but some things began to grow. I think, I mean, the moratorium was the first thing that a major trade union, the United Auto Workers, endorsed the moratorium, which we were very proud of because the unions at the time ... SM (01:30:03): ...We were proud of because the unions at the time were widely regarded as sort of flag waving. Whatever America wants to do was okay with us. And we had the usual little lefty unions, 1199 and the Leather Workers and stuff. But when we got the union, when we got the UAW of endorsement, even that, there was always a kind of tension in the room. Here's a bunch of young lefties, and here is people who are more worried about what happens on the shop floor than they are about what happens in Vietnam. And you could still have that discussion. I am not sure now you can have the discussion with the teabags. I do not know if there is any basis there to talk about. Their vision of the world is so different. So, no, I think we were not even close, and I think we're more divided in many ways right now than we were then. We thought Senator Musk, his response is, we have not healed since the Civil War. And then he went on to talk about the loss of 430,000 to 440,000 men in the Civil War where South almost lost their entire generation. And because he had just seen the Ken Burn series and he says, "I am not going to talk about (19)68". He did not even mention it. SB (01:31:36): Yeah. Good for him. SM (01:31:42): And if you go to Gettysburg, I do not know if you have been to Gettysburg. It is amazing when you go there that you see the flags on the southern side, the Confederate side, you see nothing left on the northern side. And yet I will interview Phyllis Schlafly, who I interviewed about three weeks ago here, and she said, "Oh, the North has not gotten over it, but the South has." So, we cannot even agree on the Civil War because she says the South has healed and the North has not. And if you go to Gettysburg, you would think it is the other way around. But those are pretty good comments. The students were expecting of different responses. SB (01:32:20): Yeah. SM (01:32:24): I want your thoughts on the split between the white students and the black students in the (19)60s. They were together for a while against the Vietnam War, and then toward the latter part of the (19)60s, you could see it on college campuses, they were distancing themselves from the Anti-war Movement and more toward the Black Power Movement here in the United States with Black Panthers and everything. At Kent State, you can hardly find any African American students at the protest. Although I recently saw one of an African American students holding one of the students that was wounded, so there were a few there. But did you sense the split within the moratorium? Did you sense the split that African-American students or the Latina students, the- SB (01:33:09): African-American and Latinas were never deeply involved for the reasons that I am not quite clear about, but I do not think it was so much as a split as there was never a common ground. The African-American students that I knew and the movement people tended to be focused, as you say, on identity questions of black politics, of black power, of war on domestic issues of racism and poverty. And most of the people I knew in the Anti-war Movement took a nod in that direction. Many of us came out of the Civil Rights Movement, but were focused first and foremost on the war. I do not think it was so much a split as it was never really together. SM (01:34:02): Were you pretty cognizant and- SB (01:34:04): Except during Civil Rights era. And during civil rights era, it was very much together. SM (01:34:10): You obviously went to three different schools, I think you went to the Red lands, I think Rutgers, and then you went up to Harvard Divinity School. Did you have a knowledge and a sense that the free speech movement of (19)64 and (19)65 was very important for college students beyond Berkeley? Because of the fact that those students believed in freedom of speech. Most of them had experience, which we already talked about, of going the Freedom Summer in the South. Many of them came back like Mario Sabio and Bettina after, and Tom Hayden and Casey Hayden, I am interviewing her as well. And what I am getting at here is that ideas were more important than careers. Mario Sabio talked about that all the time, that when he grew up in the (19)50s and then in the early (19)60s, the difference between his parents and that generation and our generation is that we are different. We believe that a university's for ideas, not preparing people for careers. Did that have any sense within the movement south where you worked with David Mixner and David Hawk and the others, that they were really more into ideas and not into career? SB (01:35:31): The, it is a comment of privilege, frankly. We grew up in a new prosperity that our parents had not experienced. And they were, I think more driven by career because their life experience was that it is fragile and you do not know what's going to happen, and you need to focus on that. For us, at least in my experience, it was quite different than that. Jobs were readily available. You always knew you could do something. Money was not... None of us needed a lot of money to live. Our expectations were not, at least mine, of having any substantial amount of money. You're working for 30 bucks a week or 50 bucks a week and doing organizing stuff. Well, that was fulfilling and it was enough money. We had to share houses because nobody could afford to live on their own, so you end up renting a house with six other people or something, because that was the only way we could afford it. But that was in some ways a time of... That is a comment about privilege as much as it is about the times. My kids do not feel that. They know it is going to be really hard, jobs are tough. It is hard to figure out what you are going to do. You do not have the privilege of assuming, "Oh, well I will go do that for three or four years and then I will be able to land on my feet someplace else." And so, at least in the case of my career, it is serendipitous. It certainly was not planned. I could never have planned that. I did not think when I was a young man that I was going to be a US ambassador. that I was going to be right here now. That I was going to run an agency. That I would be an elected official, none of that. It was all just sort of one thing led into another and I was in the right place at the right time. SM (01:37:33): You talked earlier about the fact that you have poor violence, because it is only negative when you have violence and it hurts the image of a group. But do you think that the violence when students from Democratic Society, which was a really legitimately good group, went to become the Weathermen, and when the Black Power Movement with the Black Panthers and a bunch Chicano movement, when the Young Lords. And when the American Indian Movement from (19)69 to (19)73 became violent around wounded knee. All these groups tended to head towards some sense of violence. Is that a first? SB (01:38:16): Yeah, sure. SM (01:38:16): Does that permanent [inaudible]? SB (01:38:19): And it destroyed them. It effectively destroyed SDS when the Weatherman split off. Suddenly you had to either denounce them or be identified with them. And I just think it is a fruitless short term, stupid dead end. It is not as if you are going to change this country by violence. And we should have learned from Dr. King, that you can change the country, but not with violence. And so, all of those split offs ended up destroying the very movement that they thought they were being the cadre or the radical cutting edge or the leadership, whatever kind of crazy terms they applied. SM (01:39:21): Your thoughts on the Vietnam Veterans of America who kind of took over the Anti-war Movement of (19)71, because SDS basically went. And the other groups had their own problems, but they seemed to carry on the anti-war movement from 71 until almost the very end. SB (01:39:38): That is true. SM (01:39:40): Yeah. How important were they overall in the scheme of things? SB (01:39:43): Well, it was terribly important because the politics of it were important. The right did not have a singular monopoly on saying, "Well, we support the troops." If the troops are saying, "We do not like this war," then those people who are against it are actually supporting the troops. So, it changed the politics dramatically. They have that, it was a big deal. It was a big deal. SM (01:40:12): When you look at, after all your years as an activist, an organizer, a leader, or an ambassador, like you said, I have not even gone into some of the other things you have done in the last 30 years. Because we'd be here five hours if that was the case. What lessons can you pass on to young people today based on your experiences, especially if young people are willing to listen in the tough times that they are living through right now, where they are just trying to survive and struggle with? SB (01:40:46): Yeah, it is very tough. SM (01:40:47): And in oftentimes had no time at all to even be involved in the classroom activities. SB (01:40:53): That is right, because they are working. SM (01:40:54): Yeah. SB (01:40:54): I remember that was also at a time when the great public universities were still accessible to people of modest means, which is decreasingly true as time has gone on, and vanishingly true now. So, what would I say? Well, I would say, I guess what I say pretty much to my kids, which is, you need to care about these things, they matter. They will matter to your children. They will matter to you. Whether it is the war or healthcare. You need to care and you need to be informed. But you also need to find sort of your own muse in terms of what you do with a career. It's not for everybody to be actively involved on a daily basis. One of my kids is an actor. One of them in graduate school at Berkeley. One of them is in a PhD program at University of Virginia. SM (01:42:02): My nephew is going there next year. SB (01:42:04): Yeah. Well, they are doing other things, but they have, all of them, a great consciousness about the common good, about the public good, and about their obligation to pay attention to that. To be involved in campaigns. To be active voters. Everybody can do that. Everybody can do that. And if you do not do that, then I do not know what it means to be a good citizen. That is the core of what it means to be a good citizen, is to pay attention. SM (01:42:44): Good words. What do you think the legacy will be of the... Yeah, we are talking 78 million people here. Todd Gitlin said... I kept talking about Boomers. He had a problem with it from the get go. And I have had several people decide, I am going to talk about Boomers. SB (01:42:57): Yeah. SM (01:42:57): I am going to talk about the period, the times, the issues. SB (01:42:57): Well, I agree with Todd about that. SM (01:43:04): And people your age, a lot of the people were the graduate students that were leading the undergraduates in the (19)60s. And Abby and Jerry Rubin and Tom Hayden, they were in the early and- SB (01:43:16): They are all a little older than me. Slightly older than I am. I think. SM (01:43:19): So, they call them pre-Boomers. And Richie Hayden, when I interviewed him, said, "I consider myself a boomer, Steve. I am a boomer. I was born in 1940, but I am a boomer." SB (01:43:30): I do not much like the term myself. But that post-war generation had a different life experience then. If the one before was the depression era, we lived through the prosperity era. SM (01:43:44): Yeah. What do you think the legacy will be when the best history books are written about the generation, particularly after on the 78 million have passed away? SB (01:43:56): I am hoping that the memory will be that we took our country seriously and we took seriously our obligations to try to set it right when we thought it had gone wrong. We were not always right, but I think it's changed and I think you see that now in, for instance, the openness toward gays. I think that is a legacy of that idea that all people should be acceptable for who they are. That is a direct derivative of the civil rights movement it seems to me. It took more years than it should have, but I think that openness of spirit is an important legacy. I would hope that would be seen. The (19)60s would be seen as the time when we began to take our country seriously enough and our fellow citizens seriously enough to really raise questions about the treatment of black people, for people. Hispanic people. Native American people, whatever. Gay people. It gets caricatured by the right as being so open-minded that our brains fell out. And I do not think that is the way it was. That is not my recollection of it. We thought hard and worried about the impact of our actions and took it seriously. SM (01:45:46): See, the no movements, you could say it, were a movement generation because a lot of these movements came about as a result of studying the Civil Rights movement and using it as an example, as a model. And certainly, the Anti-war Movement historically did that. Certainly, the Women's Movement and the separation. But if you study any of the movements, whether there's Chicano, Native American, even the Environmental Movement. Because I can remember, I have interviewed some people about how important it was with the Anti-war people making up with the Environmental people before Earth Day, and the consulting that went on between the two groups. To me that was collaboration, which should be a quality that we cannot forget. You have to collaborate to be successful. SB (01:46:29): Yeah. SM (01:46:31): And that to me, and I will get your thoughts on that, as a person who was involved in the Moratorium and the Anti-war that had the Environmental Movement student or young people consulting the Anti-war Movement, we're not going to step on what you're doing. Do you remember how important that was? SB (01:46:47): Oh yeah. That whole spring, the whole Earth Day, the first discussions were... I had been involved with this major event in the fall or events in the fall. So of course, they wanted to say, "Well, how would you do this? And what do you do about that? How do you get this done? Who do you talk to there?" So sure, there was a lot of that going on. SM (01:47:11): I only have three more questions and I will be done. I am not going to give you a name. I had this thing at the end where I give you names and terms, and what are your thought? I am not going to do that because you have given me already a lot of time. In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? SB (01:47:29): Oh, it probably began in the mid (19)60s, actually, or the (19)60s, like (19)63, (19)64. And probably ended about (19)70, early (19)70s sometime. It did not start in 1960, at least in my recollection and experience, it did not start in 1960 before end in 1970. they certainly carried over through a year or two to get- SM (01:47:56): Stay Earth Day. In (19)73, a lot of people say went into (19)73, and you could even see on campuses the change in the fall of (19)73. SB (01:48:03): Really? SM (01:48:04): But the guy was there, and (19)72, (19)73, there were still things happening. And then on the fall, something streaking happened, and I knew it was over. SB (01:48:14): It was over. SM (01:48:17): Was there a specific event? (19)63 is the Kennedy assassination or the- SB (01:48:22): Well, the Kennedy assassination. The following year of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, the Civil Rights Movement. Everything sort of came together to raise questions about the American narrative. And it was that questioning, which really led to many other things. SM (01:48:42): When you look at your fellow Boomers, I consider you a boomer. I consider pre-Boomers as Boomers, they are all one. When you consider the 15 percent that were categorized as activists, which is still a lot of people in 70 million, can you, from the people you know, because that is all you can really talk about, what were their strengths and what were their weaknesses? If you were to, from a person who worked with so many? SB (01:49:15): Well, the biggest weakness was probably clarity of analysis. There was a lot of bullshit in the rhetoric at the time. There was a great deal of inflammatory language and schismatic politics so that you would have the, not just SDS, but Socialist Workers, Progressive Labor, the Shack Mantes, the Trotskyite, the boot-boot, boot. everything was split up. And now partly that reflected the fact that people were thinking about ideas and so they were driven in various directions by what they thought about those ideas. But I think our biggest weakness was really probably a lack of consistency in the analysis. A lack of rigor about how people thought about their own actions. The greatest strength, I suppose, was simply the incredible energy. And aside from that intellectual piece, the brains, the attention to getting things done. That is a funny thing to say, that the weakness was analysis, but one of the strengths was it was a bunch of very smart people. SM (01:50:55): My last question is, and I asked this probably on about half of the people I have interviewed, because I have been doing this since (19)96. Now the last year I have been asking, this is important. That might be your call, right? SB (01:51:01): Yeah. SM (01:51:01): And then I going- SB (01:51:20): Hello? Yes. Hey, Steve, can I call you back in two minutes? I will call you right back. No, that is not the call I have to take. SM (01:51:28): All right. Well, this is the last question though. But in your eyes, I have asked each person who has experienced the 60 plus years that Boomers have been alive from (19)46 to 2010, just a couple sentences to describe the decades that these people lived. And I break it down from right after the war, (19)46 to (19)60. (19)60 to (19)70. (19)71 to (19)80. (19)81 to (19)90. (19)91 to 2000. 2001 to 2010. Just characteristics of the legacy. SB (01:52:01): Well, the (19)50s, my experience in the (19)50s was classically late 1950s. It could not have been more suburban, bland, ordinary. That was my experience of life is everybody's stereotype of it was the life I lived. SM (01:52:24): Right. SB (01:52:27): Bland food, bland politics, bland everything. The (19)60s was in my experience as you know on a time of this incredible intellectual engagement and in ideas. And so, I kept going to school. And when I was not going to school, I was writing something or reading something or whatever. And also, of enormous change. I would say most of my best friends are people in most cases that I have known since the (19)60s. There was a kind of bond forged there in common action that even when it turns out sometimes later in life, you do not even like them much, you still think of him as friends because you shared so much, such an experience together. The (19)70s, well, for me, it was the enormous hope of finally electing a president who seemed to have some vision for the country, and then the incredible loss that it turned out that he could not actually govern. The (19)70s are a sort of lost hope generation. It went from really thinking, "Wow, the war is over. We can begin to rebuild the country. We can do some exciting things." To Ronald Reagan. The (19)80s. The (19)80s for me are all Ronald, they're just Reagan. He was the dominant figure. It was the dominant politics. It was the change and it was rejection of the two previous decades in a fundamental way, which is really what he ran on. And just to fall back into some vague America hurrah kind of thoughtless politics. In the (19)90s, we are once again an era of some hope, but much more tempered than for me. My expectations, Clinton's a friend of mine for many years before he was elected president. I thought he was the political genius that he turns out to be. Now, there is a guy that Luke Gingrich could say was undisciplined. But sadly, because he is the political genius of our generation indisputably. There is nobody even like him. The next generation has Obama, but our generation, Bill Clinton. So, the (19)90s were a much more tempered hope. Economic recovery, for me, of course, the (19)80s and (19)90s were the time when my children were young. So, a lot of that time was spent with family not doing something else. And then the first 10 years of this decade lost again to war and to growing anger. I just find it depressing. I find right now, I have never been so discouraged about the country as I am right at this moment. We have got this fabulous president who offers a real opportunity, and yet we cannot get passed the... We cannot have a real discussion about healthcare because one party has decided we are not going to have that discussion, that it is in their interest. Well, I cannot imagine it is in the country's interest to not have a discussion, a real discussion about healthcare. It is in the country's issue to fix this problem not to just say no. Anyway. SM (01:56:54): And I am done. But I would like just your thoughts. What do you think about the Vietnam Memorial? What has it really done to the nation, and why did we lose the war? I am, I am actually going over there. I go over there every time I am here. What does it mean to you that wall? James Scrap said he wrote the book to heal a nation. He said it was not only about healing the families of those who served, but and also to be a non-political entity. SB (01:57:25): Yeah. I find it terribly. I think everyone, I find the symbolism of it moving and a visit to it because of the that incredible list of names. We have now been at war for eight years in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we have lost 3,600, SM (01:57:47): Oh no. More than that. SB (01:57:47): 5,000. SM (01:57:51): It is in the 4,600 right now. We are heading to five. SB (01:57:53): Yeah. But you walk down there and walk past the 55,000 names on that wall, it reminds you of... When we went to 125,000 troops in Afghanistan that was a huge deal. Remember, we had 550,000 troops in Vietnam. SM (01:58:13): And in your opinion as a person who fought to end that war, what was the main reason that Vietnam War ended? SB (01:58:20): Oh, exhaustion. Country just got tired of it, it just wore us out. And also, if you think about what it did to Vietnam, we would pretty... There was not much left to fight over by the time we got done there. We had so destroyed that country, and it has been so remarkable the way that it's been rebuilt since then. So disappointing in many ways and some of the things that the Vietnamese leadership did after the war. But anyway. SM (01:58:59): Very good. Well, thank you. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Sam Brown Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Brown, Sam, 1943- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Politicians--United States--20th century; Political activists--United States; Brown, Sam, 1943--Interviews Description An account of the resource Sam Brown is a politician and political activist. Brown was the head of ACTION under President Jimmy Carter, and ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Redlands, and a Master of Arts from Rutgers University. He also completed his graduate studies at Harvard University Divinity School. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-03-02 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.10.2016.29a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.29b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. 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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 2010-06-17 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Susan Brownmiller Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Susan Brownmiller is a feminist activist and author. During the Feminist Movement, she was a writer at ABC-TV. When she saw how much power women have, she began to write about abortion rights. She has written and published books that highlight the hardships women face and how they came to be. She attended Cornell University and studied Acting in New York City.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:6531,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Susan Brownmiller is a feminist activist and author. During the Feminist Movement, she was a writer at ABC-TV. When she saw how much power women have, she began to write about abortion rights. She has written and published books that highlight the hardships women face and how they came to be. She attended Cornell University and studied Acting in New York City.</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;Voter registration; Black Panthers; Black Power; Gay rights; Environmental movement; Sexual revolution; Hugh Hefner; Women's issues; Abortion; Feminists; Women's studies; Antifeminists; Newt Gingrich; Equal Rights Amendment; Civil Rights Movement; Communist Party; Montgomery Boy Boycott; Tallahassee Bus Boycott; Drug culture&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Voter registration; Black Panthers; Black Power; Gay rights; Environmental movement; Sexual revolution; Hugh Hefner; Women's issues; Abortion; Feminists; Women's studies; Antifeminists; Newt Gingrich; Equal Rights Amendment; Civil Rights Movement; Communist Party; Montgomery Boy Boycott; Tallahassee Bus Boycott; Drug culture</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 94:01 Subject LCSH Feminists; Authors; Brownmiller, Susan--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: Susan Brownmiller Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 17 June 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:02): Ready? [inaudible] somebody recorded too. SB (00:00:07): Here we go. I keep checking this because... SM (00:00:10): I know. I know that anxiety very well. SB (00:00:15): Yeah. Well, I had experience with Charles. Okay. Second wave feminism. SM (00:00:23): I am just checking to see it is on. SB (00:00:25): Yeah, it is on. SM (00:00:27): Okay. SB (00:00:28): It has been pretty good. I interviewed Noam Chomsky this past week. SM (00:00:31): Oh. SB (00:00:34): I have to... That is going. Second wave feminism. When did it start and how is it different from the first wave? What are the... SM (00:00:45): Well, the first wave was the suffragette, the Suffragists. SB (00:00:48): Right. SM (00:00:48): That was first wave feminism starting in 1848. SB (00:00:54): Right. SM (00:00:54): Yes. So, second wave feminism started about a hundred years later. Probably a really important kickoff was Friedan's book, "The Feminine Mystique", which came out in (19)63, paperback (19)64. That is when I read it. But there were things happening in the left that were making women angry, quite apart from Betty Friedan's book, which was really directed towards middle class white women. The women in the left, in the civil rights movement had gone south to work for equality. They thought they understood that Blacks and whites were equal, but they also thought that males and females were equal, and to their shock in the southern civil rights movement, they discovered that nobody was thinking that women were equal. This wonderful organization, SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was really set up in the image of the-the young black guy in denim coveralls. On the individual projects in the famous Freedom Summer of 1964, several women discovered that in a sense, they were being pushed to the back of the bus. So the other movement that was happening a few years later was the anti-war movement. There again, the women who went into the anti-war movement discovered that they were relegated to running the mimeograph. That is what we had, the mimeograph machines and getting the coffee for the meetings. If they spoke aloud at a meeting, the guys just like would not hear it. Then a few minutes later, a guy would make the same point, and every would say, "oh, yeah, that is it. That is, it." So they were burning too. These were young SDS women, you know that, Students for a Democratic Society. They were anti-war women. So, there were two groups of women in the (19)60s, the civil rights women and the anti-war women who began to think, what about us? Which was exactly what had happened in 1848. This was closer to 1968, (19)65-6. A hundred years later. In 1848, there were all these movements around abolition, new socialist movements, the year of the Communist Manifesto, things like that, and the women in the abolition movement discovered that they were not equal to men in the abolition movement. There was a very famous, I do write this in "Our Time," my history of the women's movement. So that is why I am being so articulate now. I know it well, and I teach it too. There was a very famous anti-slavery convention in London, and couples of abolitionist, because they were mostly married, went to the World Anti-Slavery Conference from America. When they got there, the women were told that they did not have voting rights and that they would sit in the balcony. That is when Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and I think it was. SB (00:05:19): [inaudible] home. SM (00:05:22): [inaudible] They were in such a state, and they were determined to start a women's rights movement, and they did in Seneca Falls, 1948. So women's movements happen infrequently in history, and they always seem to tag along in a period of great militance in the country. People are organizing for these rights, those rights, and suddenly the women who are active in all those movements say, "whoa, what about us? What about us?" Then a women's movement starts. So that is really how it happened in the late (19)60s. SB (00:06:00): That is why Frederick Douglass was so ahead of his time, was not he? SM (00:06:03): Yes. SB (00:06:04): Because he was sensitive to both issues. SM (00:06:06): He sure was. SB (00:06:07): I can remember taking my dad before he passed away a couple years ago to Seneca Falls and going through the tour there, the room where the sofa was located, and the fact that Frederick Douglass had come there and spent some time with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. SM (00:06:21): Yes. SB (00:06:23): When you think of the times and how they traveled, that had been so difficult. But he was really ahead of his time. SM (00:06:27): He was definitely ahead of his time. SB (00:06:30): Sure. This is going. Okay, great. SM (00:06:33): Yeah. SB (00:06:36): I am going to read these to make sure that I get these too. Before you were an activist, something that I read that you went to Hebrew school and that had a very important effect on you. I will mention what it was. SM (00:06:48): Tell me what it was. SB (00:06:50): Then you were an actress for a short time. SM (00:06:52): I do not think it was Hebrew school that had a great effect on me. SB (00:06:57): You were a writer. You had been a writer in many years, and you were a student at Cornell? SM (00:06:59): Yeah. SB (00:07:00): How did a combination, this is before... SM (00:07:02): What was the Hebrew thing? Indeed, I went to Hebrew school. SB (00:07:05): The Hebrew School said that it was in... SM (00:07:07): East Midwood Jewish Center. SB (00:07:09): Yes, I think it was, and I have it here. I could show you what the... SM (00:07:13): What was it? SB (00:07:14): It said that because of the experience of the Holocaust and what had happened to many... SM (00:07:19): Oh, I became very Zionist. Is that it? SB (00:07:21): Yeah, that, but you became... Man's inhumanity to a man and that kind of thing, the treatment of people. So, you saw, well, how women were treated, and you said, well, when I was younger, I saw how Jewish people were treated. SM (00:07:38): I got... That must be from the Jewish archives or something, because that is an exaggeration. SB (00:07:44): In fact, I might even find it here. SM (00:07:46): Yeah, please do find the source for that. Because I do not recall the going to the East Midwood Jewish Center had much effect on my development as a feminist. SB (00:07:57): I will find it here. SM (00:08:01): Do not worry about it. I do not think it is true. I mean, I was a rebel. In 1948, Wallace and Taylor ran. I was 13. Roosevelt had just died. Wallace and Taylor were running on a third party ticket for president. At that age, I kind of knew I was for Wallace. I mean... SB (00:08:26): He was much more liberal. SM (00:08:28): Yes. So that became my political awakening. SB (00:08:33): Were there any, in all these experiences, I have a question later on, but I might bring it up now, because in all the years that you worked, now this... SM (00:08:43): I am still working. SB (00:08:45): You are still working. SM (00:08:45): In all the years I have worked. SB (00:08:48): When you were in your early years, when you worked for the Village Voice, ABC. SM (00:08:53): Yeah. SB (00:08:54): You did NBC TV, ABC TV, and then also Newsweek. SM (00:08:58): That was earlier. SB (00:09:00): ... and national affairs. How were you treated as a female? The question is, I was curious as if those experiences in those earlier years, your work experience, not the experience, you are going down south in the summer of (19)64, but those work experiences as a woman in America in the (19)50s, in the early (19)60s. SM (00:09:23): Terrible. SB (00:09:24): How were you treated in these jobs? SM (00:09:25): I was treated like a second class citizen. See, you asked how the movement started you then you said, but you want to ask the personal questions. Again, I suggest you read "In Our Time" because I do describe how, when I worked at Newsweek in (19)63, (19)64 as a researcher, I wanted to be a writer. I was told women do not write it at Newsweek. Men write at Newsweek. You girls as opposed to do research here for two years and then go off and get married. That is what I was told. It was that job that I quit to go down south and work in Mississippi. SB (00:10:10): Right. SM (00:10:10): Yeah. I wanted to write, and Newsweek, later the women sued at Newsweek. It was one of the first cases with the EEOC against a corporation. I had gone by then, but a lot of the women [inaudible]. Nora Ephron was working there as a researcher. She left, she made an early and very good getaway, the New York Post, but the ones who remained behind as researchers who did not get married. It was an aging firm of researchers, and they saw that those of us who left had gotten somewhere. They got angrier and angrier, and eventually they hired Eleanor Holmes Norton as their lawyer and sued. Yeah. So at ABC, this was after I came back from Mississippi. At ABC, they had one woman reporter network, and I wanted to be a reporter. They had me...I was a news writer, and they said, "we have our woman." That was it. They had their one woman and they're one blackest. We have one Black. We have one woman. I tried every local TV station in the city. We have our woman. SB (00:11:37): Now, what year was that? SM (00:11:39): I worked at ABC from (19)65 to (19)68. Yeah. We have our woman, and as they say in my book, they said to me, "you are lucky. You have got a man's job to see you're working at the same job that men can work. What are you complaining about?" SB (00:12:07): Was there a quote at any time in your earlier years, what they call a magic moment, where it is like any person, this is the first time I feel I have to stand up and say something and become vulnerable. Because standing up and speaking or writing or saying something in public... SM (00:12:28): As a feminist? SB (00:12:28): Or... SM (00:12:31): As a feminist? No, it was easy for me to talk about it when it came to civil rights. I had no trouble . SB (00:12:38): Do you remember the very first experience that really upset you when you said, and you spoke up, whether it be you could been in high school or the first thing that. This is wrong. This is wrong. Was it going to down freedom summer? Was that it? SM (00:12:54): No, I think... SB (00:12:54): Your experience in New York City? SM (00:12:55): I came from a very good public school and high school in Brooklyn, and I had no trouble expressing myself, but having an opinion is quite different from doing something. When the civil rights movement started, which I date from, I date it from Feb 2, 1960 with the sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina. But of course, I had already been aware of the Montgomery bus boycotts of (19)55. Oh, did I welcome that movement. Did I welcome it? It was not just Montgomery. It spread in (19)55 to a few other cities, but there was no way I could participate really. But in 1960, when the southern sit-ins started, there were picket lines suddenly in front of every Woolworth in New York, or in front of a lot of Woolworths. So, I joined the picket line on 42nd Street, and I met people in CORE, Congress of Racial Equality. SB (00:14:08): James Farmer was the leader of that group at the time. SM (00:14:13): They said, come to the CORE office, in New York CORE and work with us. So I did for a year, and then I did other things. But I welcomed this, the civil rights movement. I welcomed my chance to participate, is what I am saying. Yes. Right. SB (00:14:35): Yeah. I have here talk about your experience in New York City and the effort to integrate the lunch counters because you... SM (00:14:41): Yes. Well, that was it. Somebody, a friend of mine said, "Let us go over to 42nd Street. You will see a picket line. I bet you have never seen a picket line in your life." He was [inaudible] and I had never seen a picket line in my life. There were all these people in front of Woolworth on 42nd Street. I was astonished. SB (00:14:59): Were there people that were actually on the other side though, screaming at you, or... SM (00:15:03): Not at that moment. SB (00:15:03): No. So not that moment. SM (00:15:05): Oh. But there were always [inaudible]. They were cra- You know, do anything publicly in New York, you attract crazies. There were people who made their own signs... I remember they would march up and down the outside of the line saying, "Futility. Futility." Then I started my own picket line in front of Old Woolworth near Bloomingdale's. Yeah, it was great. SB (00:15:35): When you made that decision to go south, because I have spoken to several people that went in the summer of (19)64. Yes. David Hawk, I do not know if you know David. David was on the core organizers of the Moratorium in 1969, and a couple other people that, of course we know Tom Hayden was in that group, Casey Hayden. SM (00:15:55): Yes. She is a Facebook friend now. SB (00:15:57): ...and a couple people that were either in the first training group or the second training group. SM (00:16:02): They were there before Casey. Casey, not Tom, Casey was there before. SB (00:16:06): I am interviewing her sometime in July. SM (00:16:09): Oh, good for you. Give her my regards. SB (00:16:10): She has had some issues, I guess. And she has had to put off interviewing or something. SM (00:16:14): Health issues? SB (00:16:15): No. Not health issues. Just... First of all, she does not do many interviews. SM (00:16:20): She does not. SB (00:16:23): Mr. Gor- I think Tom Gorman was a friend of hers, and I interviewed Tom and Casey. Anyways, she has agreed to do an interview in July sometime. SM (00:16:34): Great. SB (00:16:36): But the question I am really getting at here, SM (00:16:38): Well, you should read her contribution to that book of- SB (00:16:41): I have. SM (00:16:41): Women in the- SB (00:16:43): I have. That is the one with the kind of a light brownish cover. SM (00:16:46): I do not know. I have it over there. SB (00:16:46): Yeah. SM (00:16:47): It is like eight women, eight white women in the southern... Yeah, something like that. SB (00:16:52): What amazes me, because it was a thousand people in that first wave. I know... SM (00:16:56): Yes. But she was there before. She was not among those first wave of students. SB (00:17:00): Right. SM (00:17:00): She started a few years earlier, she got radicalized at Texas where she met Tom Hayden because he was on some committee of a national whatever. She was a white Texas girl who found her way to that southern movement early. SB (00:17:19): As one of the individuals who came from the north to go down south. That had to be for anyone in their, whether you be in their twenties, an experience that could be exciting but then you get down there and then you face the reality of what it's really like. Did you fear for your life? SM (00:17:39): Yes. SB (00:17:40): Because some people that I have talked to did. SM (00:17:41): Of course. SB (00:17:42): ...and particularly those that followed the first after Chaney... SM (00:17:46): Yes. SB (00:17:46): ...Goodman, and Schwerner were murdered. SM (00:17:48): Right. Well, I went down with my friend Jan Goodman, who lives in this apartment building. We were in our twenties. We were in our late twenties actually. By then, we were older than the age of the student volunteer. But hey, a movement was starting, but we had the philosophy that everyone had, which was that this was a cause that was worth giving your life to. Now looking back and looking at those pathetic, crazed suicide bombers, wherever they are. I think that this concept of giving your life to a cause is something that you can think about when you are very young, but when you are older, you are what is important enough to end your life for? So, I remember that Jan and I, we volunteered to go to Meridian and Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney had just been declared missing. At our orientation session, which was not at Oxford, it was later, it was in another city, they said, "We need volunteers in Meridian." And they said, "Meridian is really the safest place in Mississippi," And this happened, but it happened outside Meridian in Neshoba County in Philadelphia. So Jan and I, because we were slightly older than, so nobody wanted to go to Meridian. Meridian was a CORE project, and the other projects were basically SNCC projects. Jan and I volunteered for Meridian. Now this is interesting because I quit, Jan quit her job at the Girl Scouts to go, or took her summer leave from the Girl Scouts. She was working as an organizer for the Girl Scouts. I took my leave from Newsweek. Newsweek was not happy that I was going south. Newsweek had two southern reporters who were certain that I was going to mess things up for them, Karl Fleming and Joe Cumming. We had a Newsweek reunion a few years ago, and Joe and Fleming came over to me. We remember the moment and because he objected a lot. He said, "You are sending a young researcher?" No, it is her summer vacation. She is going. He said, "Well, she is going to get arrested, and she is going to be identified with Newsweek, and I have to work both sides of the aisle here." So Newsweek, in its questionable wisdom, took my name off the masthead for the time that I was in Mississippi. Yes. Peter Goldman, who was the Star National reporter. I was his researcher. Peter Goldman, said, she is going to get herself killed. I mean, he was very hostile. Very hostile. But he was writing all the civil rights stories for [inaudible]. SB (00:21:07): Yes. SM (00:21:07): I am sure he told you. SB (00:21:08): Yes. SM (00:21:09): I was checking the facts. So yeah, Peter was not wonderful at that moment. Yeah. So anyway, Jan and I are driving. She was the driver. She had rented a car. We're driving into Mississippi, and they had told us at the orientation session, I could see her in Nashville, in Memphis, I do not remember. They had told us, when you crossed the border into Mississippi, roll up the windows of your car, and she rolls up the windows of her car. I remember this so well. I said, Jan, what's the difference between where we were two minutes ago and where we are? Why are you rolling up the windows of your car? We were two white women in a car. But she was nervous. Jan stayed in the movement far longer than I could. SB (00:22:05): Now You were there just the summer, or... SM (00:22:07): Then I went back and yeah, I came back to Newsweek after my summer vacation. It was very hard to resume a bourgeois life. SB (00:22:19): I understand that. SM (00:22:20): After being in Mississippi. SB (00:22:21): What was a typical day like? I know that people were down there, but what was a typical day like when you are trained and when you go off? SM (00:22:30): Yeah. Well, it was easy in Meridian. I mean, because everybody was really scared because of Woodman, Schwerner and Chaney. What we did... We were housed with a black family, Jan and I, the Falconers, F-A-L-C-O-N-E-R-S, Falconers. The wife was Johnny May Falconer. She had a daughter named Sandy, and I forget the son's name, and her husband worked for the railroad. In the month that we lived with them, he could never get to sit at the same table with us for a meal. He still could not get him to sit down with the white women. We would take a bus, a city bus to the COFO office, Congress of Federated Organizations. That was the name of the umbrella group that was mostly SNCC, a little bit of CORE. We were doing voter registration, symbolic voter registration for what turned out to be the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. We were canvassing Blacks, asking them if they could vote, would they register to vote? Would they? Then they would fill out the forms, and we would pair off in interracial couples to do this. We would also... There were other activities. It was a freedom school, which I think was probably more fun, but... SM (00:24:03): ... activities. It was a freedom school, which I think was probably more fun, but we did not do that. Then we got a message one day, James Bevel came to town, and he said that Martin Luther King was swinging through on the speech tour, and Jan and I said, "Oh, we could organize that." I mean, yeah, we have done a lot of that sort of stuff. So we helped to organize the turnout for the Martin Luther King rallies in Meridian. So, then we went back to our lives after, when the summer was over, they said, go back to your life. But Jan and I both felt that our lives were too bourgeois. I mean, how could I return? Newsweek was on Madison and 50th, and it was a block away from Saks Fifth Avenue. So, on my lunch share, I would go to Saks Fifth Avenue and shop. How can I do that after Mississippi? So Jan and I, no, I think she had made an earlier arrangement. She hooked up with the MFDP, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. I think Lawrence Guyot was still around and had asked her. So I went back down and worked in the Jackson office, 1017 Lynn Street. I lived on the Tougaloo Campus in a house that was famous for having Casey Hayden having lived in it before. I had come back, it felt very important to vote for LBJ in November. So when I went back to Mississippi, by then the movement ... I was in Casey's house, and Casey's clothes were there, but she had already gone to New Orleans. She was burned out. Also, the movement was questioning whites, because as I am sure you know, not all the blacks in SNCC had welcomed these white students who were not all white and were not all students. They were ministers. They were all sorts of people. Then of course, when all the publicity that summer was because two white guys and one black guy had gotten killed, there was a lot of resentment over that too, because there had been other murders in Mississippi, civil rights connected, but they had not gotten the attention of Goodman Schwerner and Cheney. So, this anti-white feeling was seething. After that summer, the movement really did lose its direction a bit. People said to me, "Listen, you have to make your own project, do your own thing, because there's nobody here to assign you to anything." So I did a little of that. I actually wrote my first story for the Village Voice from Mississippi. They were holding a cotton board election. It's complicated, but there was such a thing called a cotton board. Of course, it only whites would get on the cotton board, but they established the cotton allotments, how much you could plant, and how much you could not plant. So COFO thought it would be very important to monitor the elections, and also to try to get blacks to run for the cotton board. So, I and a guy got sent to, I think it was Edina, to monitor the cotton board elections. Now, I thought it was extraordinary the COFO was doing this, and I tried to get the New York press in the Jackson office, alerted to the fact that the movement was still alive and well and we were monitoring the cotton of board elections. I could not get anybody interested in it. Sometime how after that summer of (19)64, the press lost interest in the Civil Rights movement, and the Civil Rights movement was losing its steam and getting very self-involved in who are we? SB (00:28:51): Was that when Black Power really came about? SM (00:28:54): Ah, yeah. SB (00:28:55): Because Malcolm X died in (19)65, but he was "all white men are devils." But then he changed his attitude when he went to Mecca. SM (00:29:04): Right. SB (00:29:05): But he did not live very long. SM (00:29:06): No, but that is what was happening. Stokely was beginning to speak up about Black Power. So I tried to get the white press. I tried to get Life interested, others interested. Nobody was interested in the cotton election. So, I said, "God damn, I am going to write a story myself." I always wanted to write. So I wrote it and sent it to the Village Voice, and it was the first thing they ever print of mine. Wow. SB (00:29:32): Yeah. Black Power. It is interesting. We had Tommy Smith in our campus, the guy from (19)68 Olympics who put his fist up. We had him at our school a year and a half ago, and he was really upset when people said that he was a Black Panther. "I had nothing to do with being a Black Panther." And he had to correct them all the time. This is Black Power. It is about injustice against African-American. Nothing to do with Black Panthers. But I was on college campuses, and I know the split that was also happening there. The intimidation in the late (19)60s. The Afros and the encounter classes that were happening. SM (00:30:11): Yeah. SB (00:30:14): I have asked a lot of our guests, when we talk about the era that Boomers have been alive. Now, Boomers were born between (19)46 and (19)64. SM (00:30:21): Yes. I was quite a bit older. SB (00:30:24): Again, the difference between the Boomers from the first 10 years and the second 10 years is a difference in night and day. I have learned that through the interview process. But what was it like being a woman in ... what I am trying to describe about the Boomers themselves, the era that Boomers have lived, the 63 years they have been on this planet, because the oldest Boomers are 63 years old and the youngest are 47. So, I am looking at that period of time since right after the war ended. What was it like being a female in the late (19)40s and the (19)50s, and then in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, the (19)80s, the (19)90s, and the 2010s? I break it down by decades. I know it might even be different to some of the people, but what was it like in- SM (00:31:16): It was stifling in the (19)50s. You could not be anything. In the (19)60s at first did not change for women. But there were other forms of activism available that I and a lot of other women joined. Civil Rights, Anti-War. But it was not until the start of the women's movement that I found a movement that was directly concerned with me. Never thought it would happen. SB (00:31:53): And that is really the (19)70s then, really. SM (00:31:55): Well, (19)69. SB (00:31:59): (19)69, (19)70 and the (19)70s are when a lot of the movements really came in. SM (00:32:03): [inaudible] That was the women's decade. SB (00:32:08): And the (19)80s. What happened in the (19)80s besides Ronald Reagan being one? SM (00:32:12): Well, I wish you had read "In Our Time," because I talked about that too, that in the (19)80s, women continued to make strides in terms of employment, things like that. But suddenly you needed two incomes in a family to survive under the Reagan Era. Things had been cheap before then, things were cheap in New York. You could get a cheap apartment and have a part-time job and still have time for your political activism. But that disappeared in the Reagan Era. That was, I think, one of the primary reasons why activism fell off in the (19)80s. It was it the pressure to earn a living with the rising rents and double-digit inflation. It became very difficult. SB (00:33:09): Before we go in the (19)90s, the (19)70s was the heyday of the second wave of the women's movement. And obviously that was also the environmental movement because of Earth Day. You might even say because of Stonewall, that was the gay and lesbian- SM (00:33:24): Oh, absolutely. All happening. SB (00:33:26): Certainly, even the Native American movement, that was (19)69 to (19)73. But why is it that that decade, and I just interviewed Dr. Schulman up in Boston, who just wrote a book on the (19)70s. There is something that happens. People seem to remember the first half of the (19)70s, but they do not remember the second half and I said, "Is it because of disco?" So, what happened as how some people look at the (19)60s as the decade. SM (00:34:00): That is right. SB (00:34:01): And they kind of knock the (19)70s knowing that when you define the (19)60s, that goes up to (19)73 in most cases, because even people say the (19)60s was from (19)63 to (19)73 or something like that. So, what I am saying- SM (00:34:15): Well, I know I have heard that, but I date it a little differently. Hold on. Let get a cough drop. SB (00:34:19): Yep. SM (00:34:25): People have tried to write the women's movement out of history, that is one thing. I have read accounts of the (19)70s, Rolling Stone asked me to contribute to an account of the (19)70s. And I said, "Well, for your purposes, we got Roe v. Wade." SB (00:34:51): I got that later on. SM (00:34:52): The editor said, "What? That happened in the (19)70s." I said, "Yes, women won abortion rights in the 1970s." "No kidding." There have been many intellectuals who have tried to bury the women's movement. Tom Wolf, most famously, he is referring to it as "The Me Generation." Todd Gitlin famously refers to as the "Identity generation" me, my identity. He does not consider the issues that emerged to be on the level of his great involvement. SB (00:35:41): I interviewed him too. SM (00:35:41): Yeah. Well, incredibly important movements arose in the (19)70s. At this point, I would say that the gay rights movement is stronger than the women's movement. The environmental movement has certainly gotten a push from the Gulf spill. SB (00:36:09): Oh, yes. SM (00:36:13): But by the end of the decade, before the election of Ronald Reagan, there were many of us who felt that somehow we were running out of steam in the women's movement, and the great divisions had arose among us. I was part of a group that formed Women Against Pornography in (19)78, and that became a very divisive issue in the movement. Earlier than that some people, like Phyllis Schlafly, had decided to take a very strong stand on surrogacy. She argued, and I guess would still argue, that a woman who offers her body as a surrogate has a right to change her mind. And others of us thought, well, well, a contract's a contract. If you have volunteered your womb, and perhaps your egg to incubate a baby for somebody else, well, you signed a contract. What is this, a woman has the right to change her mind all of a sudden. So, I was surprised when Phyllis Schlafly turned surrogacy into a woman's right thing. And a lot of people were surprised when I turned anti-pornography into a feminist thing, not I alone. I mean, Schlafly alone seemed to be spearheading the surrogate thing in the case of Mary Beth Whitehead. But pornography split the movement a bit or earlier than that, prostitution split the movement a bit because some leftists in our movement, they named it sex work. They named prostitution sex work and said it was as honorable as any other kind of work, and that all work is basically exploited anyway. I said, "Excuse me, what I do is not exploited as a writer. I do not get exploited except maybe by my publisher." I never have royalty statements. But I thought that the effort to redefine prostitution as sex work was really bad and they keep it up, because this is an international dispute now. Those of us who considered ourselves the ones with the real feminist analysis said, "No one should be allowed to buy a woman's body the way no one should be allowed to buy any person's body. I mean, we eliminated slavery. We have to eliminate prostitution." But that battle still goes on. SB (00:39:25): Now, when you look at certainly the (19)50s and the (19)60s, you got to think of Hugh Hefner. I have not brought him up very much. SM (00:39:34): An enemy. SB (00:39:35): Okay, but I have not brought him up hardly in any of the interviews. Well, you are talking about the sexual revolution. You bring up Hugh Hefner, and some people say that his work was more art, but when you compare a Larry Flint that is more pornography. So, they're in the same boat, but Hugh Hefner was the front runner of all this. SM (00:40:00): Well, he has a whole team of publicists who are still promoting his role as a great sexual liberator. SB (00:40:13): His kids are going to take over, too. His sons who are like 20, 18, when they do. I had a question here on the organizing of the Women Against Pornography. How effective had that been? SM (00:40:37): We lost. SB (00:40:39): Obviously, they even had a TV show recently on CNN going into that, in-depth on the business and so forth. So that is- SM (00:40:52): The industry, it was a very funny thing at the time, even. SB (00:40:58): Make sure this is still going. Yep, we are doing fine. SM (00:41:07): We had a slideshow on a carousel, and we would invite audiences to see it. Pictures really, atrocious pictures from Hustler, from Penthouse, from Playboy. That was our technology moving the crank on a carousel on a slideshow. Meanwhile, the industry is moving with VCRs. The porn stores are opening all over the place. You can now buy a VCR, take it home in the privacy of your home seat, you do not have to go to a booth in Times Square and masturbate in a booth. You can take it home. So it was hilarious. It was like the technology changes that we were talking about. But we also had a problem, in addition to the fact that the industry was growing by leaps and bounds, and all kinds of people got the idea into their heads, was that, "Ooh, I want to be a Hollywood director, so the first thing I do is make a porn film, make money on that, and then I can direct a real film." I mean, it permeated everybody in the (19)70s. It was disgusting. SB (00:42:29): Well, I do remember Hugh Hefner being interviewed, even recently saying, I do not know what it was, he was on television, and he said, "Well, Playboy was very important to change the attitudes in America that bodies are beautiful, that a women's body is art." SM (00:42:59): I know his lines, and I have seen the most recent documentary, which unfortunately, I mean, this Canadian woman fooled me, Pat Boone and I represent the opposition. And everyone, including Jesse Jackson and Mike Wallace is saying, "Oh, Hugh Hefner was such a pioneer." It was horrible. I crept out of the screening. I was mortified that she fooled me. She really hood winked me. Anyway, what were we talking about? We were talking about the changes. SB (00:43:36): Yeah, we were talking about changes. Yeah, we were talking about changes. SM (00:43:37): Well, the other thing that happened in our anti-pornography movement was little did we know that there were ... we saw pornography as something created by men, that men watched and masturbated over it. That is how we saw pornography. And as for gay-on-gay pornography, it did not bother us. Men want to, that is their thing. We were thinking of heterosexual pornography as being a lie about women. It was always showing rapes, gang rapes that women love. But within the women's movement, it turned out we had people and some identify themselves as lesbian feminists, some identify themselves as straight feminists, who said that they found their sexuality in pornography, and that our images that we thought were so horrible about bondage and things like that they enjoyed and that we were censoring their minds. That is a very serious charge. SB (00:44:47): You talk about that- SM (00:44:48): We did not mean to censor their minds. We did not think those images were very healthy. SB (00:44:54): When you wrote "Against Our ..." I am going to get back to the [inaudible], maybe I will finish this question here on the decades. You talk about how about the (19)90s? Where were the women's movement in the (19)90s and 2000s? SM (00:45:05): Well, the movement goes on. There are people working in every aspect of it. It was through our movement that we established the battered women's shelters, the rape crisis centers, the laws against sexual harassment. These were women's movement accomplishments of the (19)70s. In the (19)80s, those forms of organizing, having a battered women's shelter, having a rape crisis center, having a hotline, they got taken over by the establishment, as well they should have. They moved into the mainstream of community service. A town with good people funded a battered women's shelter so you did not need feminist activists to be involved in it any more. In fact, they were pushed out because they did not have social work degrees. SB (00:46:09): It is interesting, I cannot remember who I interviewed that said, when I brought up the name Gloria Steinem, they said she is the epitome of a person who is now mainstream. She's the most mainstream of all the feminists. SM (00:46:24): Well, I do not know. I think she keeps trying to be relevant. She tries very hard. It is her life. It is her life to be a public speaker and to travel to colleges. So, I do not need to criticize her. SB (00:46:36): The (19)90s though itself? SM (00:46:39): So, getting to the (19)90s. SB (00:46:43): Bill Clinton. Stop. Here we go. SM (00:46:52): Yep, it is fine. Okay. It is on? SB (00:46:54): Yep, it is on. SM (00:46:55): I can say from personal experience, because in the (19)90s I was writing my book called "In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution," I would say that my editor, who had signed it earlier in the decade with great hopes and a big advance, was telling me several years later that the salesmen were reporting to her that no one was interested in a history of the feminist movement, and that there was no chance for this book in the public marketplace. So, something happened out there, in the culture at large, where even though individual women were making strides in their individual lives, the movement was dead as an issue that engaged the public. SB (00:47:55): See, that was the same criticism that when people praised the (19)60s, they criticized the (19)70s because ... SB (00:48:03): When people praised the (19)60s, they criticized the (19)70s because what happened to all those movements? What happened to all of them? SM (00:48:08): They were there. SB (00:48:09): They were there in the (19)70s. SM (00:48:10): They were not their movements. The civil rights movement split off into black power, which I think was very destructive. SB (00:48:17): Right. SM (00:48:18): Right? SB (00:48:18): Mm-hmm. SM (00:48:22): The anti-war people, what happened to them? Most of them went into academia and became professors, which a lot of them did. A lot of them quickly jumped into academia. SB (00:48:37): And I know the gay and lesbian movement was in its heyday in the (19)70s, SM (00:48:40): Yes, and it was a fantastic improvement in civilization, but some people were so angry at it because they were not gay. SB (00:48:49): And then AIDS hit in the (19)80s. SM (00:48:50): And then it became a really serious movement, and that is when I saw a split off in the women's movement where the lesbian feminist in our movement discovered they identified more with gay men than they did with heterosexual women. It was profound to see that happen at the time of AIDS. It was such a crisis that lesbians felt, Hey, I have been working in this women's movement and we are always talking about abortion rights, and now suddenly a movement closer to my own identity is talking about we need a vaccine, we need something, we have got to stop this epidemic. And they move, they move right over. SB (00:49:35): What is interesting too is that when you see, and I have seen it in the universities over the years, is that the split between the African American community and the gay community, even though they are united in many respects, only through crises do groups like this seem to come together. We had a student who now works in Washington who had the gay and lesbian office right across from the BSU office. He said, I was afraid of even walking in there for fear of what someone might say. SM (00:50:07): Yeah. SB (00:50:07): And the fact that many in the African American community have been raised in the church that this is wrong by their ministers. SM (00:50:13): Yeah. SB (00:50:14): And so, you have got that split automatically. SM (00:50:16): Yeah, but it also did not fit their idea of machismo black men. What? We're not gay. Oh. It is very complicated, it is very complicated. SB (00:50:27): Where did Clinton fall on any of this? And he's- SM (00:50:30): Well, he started off pretty good, but the Monica Lewinsky case really did him in, as I keep reminding us. On television, I was watching Colbert last night. I think he wanted to have a much more liberal presidency than he could have. One of his very first acts was he wanted to close some military bases in the United States, and people had forgotten this. People jumped on him. You want to make America- SB (00:51:07): One of them was right in Philadelphia, Philadelphia [inaudible] I remember. SM (00:51:07): Is that one that he wanted to close? SB (00:51:08): Yes. SM (00:51:08): Yeah. SB (00:51:09): Ireland inspector came right after. SM (00:51:11): Yeah. Right. Well, see, I am glad you remember it because very few people remember that it was one of the first acts that Clinton was attempting, and he had not thought that through very carefully in terms of the reaction. SB (00:51:23): Do not ask, do not tell was the other- SM (00:51:24): The other thing was do not ask, do not tell, which he thought was a progressive move at the time, and everyone's hit him on it. SB (00:51:31): Oh, yes. SM (00:51:32): Yeah. SB (00:51:33): David Mixer was the one that really hit him, and I think resigned over it or something like that or he left the White House. SM (00:51:39): Yeah. SB (00:51:40): And how about this last 10 years, George Bush and of course, and now President Obama. Any changes there, have you seen? SM (00:51:53): I know because I am on the mailing list that the Pro-Choice abortion action groups are still with Obama, but worried a bit about him. SB (00:52:08): Yeah. SM (00:52:10): But cannot fault his Supreme Court nominations. I do not know. He got hit with more stuff as president than anybody else. And of course, there has been this strange sudden rise or coalescing of a nutty far right, a religious, nutty far right. I work really hard as a volunteer in the Obama campaign, which is interesting because many of my old feminist friends were horrified that I was not for Hillary, and that was another division in those of us who identify ourselves primarily as feminists. SB (00:52:53): Yeah. I think we are going to see her run again. And of course, he is going to run again. I see her running in, let us see, 2012, (20)16. But there has been some scenario, I am going into it here, some scenarios where she could run in two years. SM (00:53:15): I have heard that too. I have heard that, that they have a deal. SB (00:53:19): If there is a chance that there is no way he is going to win or ... There is some things going on right now. SM (00:53:24): I have heard it. I have heard the same thing. SB (00:53:26): Yeah. SM (00:53:29): I do not know. I am not in the in group. I just get a hell of a lot of fundraising requests on my email to help the Democrat, because I gave money for the Obama campaign. And I did a lot of telephone work, so I am on their list, but I am not a fat cat, and I really resent saying, do you believe what Obama said today contribute to the Democratic Party? SB (00:53:55): I do not like those emails that are sent in. There was an email where after they took the vote on healthcare- SM (00:54:03): Yeah, they wanted us to pay for it. SB (00:54:06): Yeah, but give a thank you to Nancy Pelosi. Well, I sent a thank you to Nancy Pelosi for doing that, and now all I have been getting now is from the Democratic Committee, all these, send 25, 59. SM (00:54:18): Yeah. SB (00:54:19): I did not do that to thank Nancy Pelosi. SM (00:54:21): Right. They get your name on the list. I mean, I am furious. I mean, I identify the names now. They all- SB (00:54:30): Vogel or whatever his name is. They are always coming from a guy named Vogel. And again, when I look at the boomer generation, I always look at the presidents. Harry Truman was president [inaudible] right through Obama. Now, when you look at that, all those different presidents, do any of them stand out as presidents who ... If you had a conference tomorrow on women's issues, I do not think Obama has been in long enough, evaluating the president since World War II, would any of them get passing grades? SM (00:55:06): No. No. It was not a primary issue for any president, and I remember Roosevelt too. I was a child. No. Well, because of the abortion issue in particular, it is a tough one to run on. Yeah. And Obama has made statements that can be interpreted several ways, when he says, we want abortion to be legal, but rare. Well, rare? How rare? Inaccessible or everybody is on birth control, using protective measures? What does he mean by that? But it is a very tough issue. And the biggest change I have seen in the national psyche is that we talked about abortion as a woman's right to control her own destiny. And now it has gummed up with all sorts of other things because of the influence of the religious right. My students think that a first trimester abortion hurts. They go, Ooh. Not that they are not having them, ooh, it hurts. And this whole business of killing a baby. We have not killed a baby, we're just killing a tiny little fetus that we are unprepared to raise. So, I have seen a tremendous setback in young women's attitudes toward abortion. And even my heroes on TV like John Stewart, he has said things, I am not altogether comfortable with the idea of abortion. But I mean, he is bending it, but he is backtracking. Okay, you are taking a life. The point was women's life. Before it is born, it is not a life, so we have lost that. SB (00:57:13): I wanted to say too, that I think your work and your book, Against Our Will, as a person who has worked in higher education for over 30 years, you have had impact on higher education and the issue of rape. SM (00:57:25): I hope so. SB (00:57:25): Oh, yes. It is one of the major issues in universities today. Every university I have worked at, it has been a major ... well, they hired a person. The women's center person is normally linked to it, but it is much, much more than that with a health center. So, you got to realize that your book, Against Our Will, and what you did back in (19)75 by writing about this issue has had direct effect on universities today. SM (00:57:50): Yeah, that is what I published at (19)75. I started writing it a few years earlier. SB (00:57:55): Again, we do not pinpoint it on fraternities anymore, but still a lot of college men have to still hear this story over and over again. And I know it is like a record to some people. They probably heard it in high school, but it is important because it is a very important orientation wherever I have been. And that women, I think in universities today, at least the universities I have worked at, I have worked at four different ones, feel much more empowered. They know their voice counts. And in this particular issue of rape, I am hoping that the stigma and the fear of going to the public safety ... and that is the one thing we have been trying to do, is the stigma and fear that some of them have. And of course, the worry what the parents might think of them for getting drunk and not knowing what was happening. SM (00:58:56): Yeah. Yeah. SB (00:58:56): But I just praise you for that. I just praise your work. SM (00:59:00): Well, thank you, but it was part of a movement. I did not make this all up by myself. Yeah. It was a movement. SB (00:59:08): But you had to know that this is ongoing and will forever have a direct effect on male-female relationships, at least within the universities and colleges and community colleges. SM (00:59:18): Oh, sure. SB (00:59:18): It is part of the daily life, and even in fraternities now. I worked with fraternities. There was a period of time, oh, I got to go through this. No, not anymore. Most of the fraternity guys now work with some of those other people on the other side to educate their fellow brothers or sisters to be sensitive to this issue. SM (00:59:40): Yeah. SB (00:59:40): And hopefully the biggest stigma is going to public safety. And that seems to be still the hardest thing for some of the females to go in [inaudible] that they have been raped. SM (00:59:53): Yeah. Well, because they are still, I think, afraid of a viral internet smear on their reputation, which has happened to several rape victims. SB (01:00:04): Right. I have here that Roe v. Wade was the most important legal decision in 1973 since the end of World War II. SM (01:00:13): Yes. SB (01:00:13): Do you feel that is the most important legal decision? SM (01:00:13): Well, I say since Brown versus Board of Education of (19)54. Yeah. That is how I teach it. SB (01:00:22): Are you fearful as a person that one day they will try to change that? SM (01:00:27): They are trying. SB (01:00:28): They will not succeed though. Today they will not succeed. SM (01:00:31): They better not, but they are cutting it back and back and back and back. I was reading about the Miranda Rights from Warren Court era. SB (01:00:41): Right. SM (01:00:41): They are cutting back on Miranda rights. They are cutting back on a woman's right to have an abortion. In many states you cannot get an abortion now. There are so many qualifications. Now you have to watch an ultra ... it is offered to you. You do not have to watch it. You can close your eyes, but before you get an abortion, in many states, you have to look at an ultrasound of this itty-bitty thing that is inside you. But of course, it's blown up big on a screen, and it looks like something is sucking its thumb. That is just one example. It is the latest tactic is the ultrasound. But the parental notifications, the waiting period, all the picketing that they have done, the shooting of abortion providers, so at least four shootings of abortion providers. So, you cannot say it is one nut somewhere. It is part of their movement, they kill. And what else has happened? Well, the hounding of abortion providers in some of the smaller states. New York, I am sure it is pretty easy to get an abortion, but- SB (01:02:04): Yeah, on university campuses, there will be groups that cannot actually be on campus, but they have the right to stand on the streets surrounding campuses because it is a public sidewalk. And they have the okay to hand out literature, the body parts and the ugliest pictures you're can ever see, but not a lot on the campus. SM (01:02:25): Well, that is good, but there was something else that they are doing. It just went out of my mind. I have to think about it because it is important. Oh, yeah. I just had gotten an email about it. One of the antis strategies now is to have abortion crisis centers and get them in the yellow pages. And women think this is a place where you can go and get an abortion, and it turns out it is not. It is a place that will tell you about the evils of abortion. And once they grab these young women for whom it was a big step to say, yes, I want an abortion, then they get in the hands of these abortion crisis centers, and they are fed a different line altogether and are under an enormous pressure to bring the child to term and give it up for adoption. SB (01:03:39): I just had a question here regarding just some of the other classic figures or writers in the second wave. Whether you want to comment on any of these individuals, I will just read their names and some of them are politicians too, of course. Kate Millet and Sherry Hite, Jill Johnson, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abs, Betty Friedan, Jermaine Greer, Susan Sontag, Alice Walker, Rebecca Walker, who I really like. SM (01:04:05): Well, I would not put Susan Sontag in a list of feminists if I did not- SB (01:04:10): Well, I might put her in the writer area, Alice Walker and Rebecca Walker, who I really think are unbelievable. We have had her on campus. Winona LaDuke, who I think is a fantastic Native American, and Andrea Dorkin, who passed away, and Robin Morgan. I think I have Geraldine Ferrara over here, too, but these are just people when I think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s and some of the books that have been written, and I have some of the books. Oh, I had books of all these people. But what do you think of these people? SM (01:04:38): Well, everyone had an important role to play, wish we had more of them, because you are describing ... I mean, your list is made up of the ones who got famous and had extraordinary skills of being articulate, having an ability to write. Not everybody in a movement, although most wish they could, but they do not write, they do not publish, and they cannot speak before a crowd. And yet they are the heart of the movement. SB (01:05:15): Yeah. I remember we had a speaker that ... we tried to get Gloria Steinem to come to Westchester. We ended up getting Mary Tom. SM (01:05:22): Oh, yeah. SB (01:05:23): Now she was very good, but she was very good if you had her on stage interviewing her, but she was not good as a public speaker. SM (01:05:30): Well, there you go. SB (01:05:30): Yeah. But we wish we had interviewed her because she was great at dinner. What are your thoughts on these conservative women who came to the forefront since World War II? SM (01:05:41): Yes. SB (01:05:43): These are people that are really against probably women's studies and a lot of the women's issues. And I start right out with Phyllis Schlafly, who I have interviewed, who has been very friendly. We brought her to our campus and our conservative students like her. But her quote is that the troublemakers of the (19)60s are now running today's universities, including all the studies departments, so they are- SM (01:06:09): Pardon? SB (01:06:10): Women's studies, black studies, gay studies and [inaudible]. SM (01:06:13): I did say that a lot of former radicals went into academia. SB (01:06:20): Right. SM (01:06:20): They looked around and said, well, I think I need a steady job for life and a pension. SB (01:06:28): So that is truth from- SM (01:06:30): I would say it is true. A lot of so-called Marxist, feminist academics, [inaudible] I mean, they just ran into academia. SB (01:06:39): And that is been a critic of the university in the (19)80s and (19)90s, that the people of the (19)60s are the liberals who controlled the humanities department. So, they control the liberal arts department, arts and sciences. SM (01:06:52): That is probably true. SB (01:06:53): What are your thoughts on other ones that stood out during this period, whether they be a Margaret Thatcher, who was during the Reagan era? Anne Coulter, Michelle Malkin. SM (01:07:05): Well, I mean, I would not put- SB (01:07:07): They are different eras. SM (01:07:08): Yeah. No, but they are different kinds of people. Michelle Balkan and Ann Coulter are right wing screamers on television, are not they? Margaret Thatcher was a complicated person, she was conservative. So on one level, I think way, Hey, she got to be Prime Minister. On the other hand, I mean, she destroyed the labor movement in England. But on the other hand, maybe it saved England. I do not know. I am not enough of a student of English history. SB (01:07:43): And, well, actually, Colter and Malkin are very popular now because they write books and they go out and speak on college campuses. SM (01:07:51): Yeah, very articulate. SB (01:07:55): And one of the older ones is Gertrude Himmelfarb, which is I think Bill Crystal's mother, and she is [inaudible] for criticisms of the left. SM (01:08:03): Oh, well, yeah. She has been around forever. SB (01:08:05): And the other one I have here is, I think it was ... What is her name? Oh, golly. Forget her name now, cannot read my writing here. Oh, Sarah Palin. I have Sarah Palin here. SM (01:08:19): Yes. Well, she is quite a phenomenon, isn't she? SB (01:08:19): Anita Bryant is the other one. SM (01:08:24): Yes. Yeah. Well, just because they are women does not mean that you have to ask me to apologize for them. I mean, what the women's movement did was open up doors for women of all kinds to express themselves, and I guess many of us have been shocked at what has come out of these women's mouths. They are certainly not hewing to a feminist line. In fact, it is very funny. I tangled with one of them on a television show. I do not think it was any of the ones you mentioned. I think she came and went. I think she was with the Heritage Foundation, but it was a Charlie Rose show, and she had been trained to interrupt whatever I said and just go, [inaudible] I could not get a word in and I was so unused to that, and he could not control it either. It was the first time I saw that new women were coming up who ... they did get training in how to speak loudly, forcefully, and not give the opposition a chance. I mean, maybe today they do not need those kinds of training sessions, but at the rise of these right-wing spokespeople, they had training sessions. I just could not believe it. Every time I asked, she said, you believe this, you believe that, duh, duh, duh. And I thought Charlie Rose was supposed to be the moderator here. Tell her to shut up. I do not want to scream too. SB (01:10:12): Yeah, we have had- SM (01:10:12): But they became fantastic screamers, so many of them with long blonde hair. That is, it. Suddenly we have a generation of long, beautifully thin, blonde-haired screamers on the right, except Sarah Palin- SB (01:10:26): Are they on Fox? SM (01:10:27): Yeah, they are all on Fox, aren't they? Oh. What have we wrought? SB (01:10:34): One of the things the questions I do ask everyone is something that [inaudible] Gingrich talked about when he came into power in (19)94 when the Republicans took over for power. And then I have read some of his writings, and he has a PhD in history too, and he actually is a boomer. And George Will has also made comments in some of his writings, and I know Huckabee has done it on his TV show. And I know when Hillary Clinton was running for President, McCain had made accidentally a reference to her as one of the hippies or whatever from that period. But the question is this, that the reason why we have a breakdown in our society today goes right back to the (19)60s, goes right back to the (19)60s generation and that era, because the increase in the divorce rate, the drug culture, the lack of respect for authority- SM (01:11:30): And abortion. SB (01:11:30): Yeah, and special interest groups. SM (01:11:31): Because Gingrich, he is so virulent against abortion. SB (01:11:36): But they claim that that is the era when all of the things started going wrong with America, and it is during that timeframe. And they make references to the (19)60s, and they know it is not all boomers, but they make references to the reason why we have these problems, and the isms culture, whatever it might be. And in the end, what they are thinking of is they would like to see a return to the (19)50s. SB (01:12:03): In the end, what they are thinking of is, they would like to see a return to the (19)50s, I think, or a period Reagan of what was trying to do in the (19)80s. SM (01:12:12): Of course, they are nostalgic for the (19)50s. Women did not have a chance at anything, Blacks did not have a chance at anything. That is what Gingrich really is yearning for. You could not be a public gay, except maybe if you were on Broadway. The changes have been amazing in culture, and who would have predicted the forms they would have taken? It has all been a march forward, except now for this sudden strange rise of the fundamentalist right in this country, and I would add, the strange rebirth of Islamic fundamentalism in the Mid-East. SB (01:12:57): What are your thoughts on when Mondale picked Ferraro? In your opinion, was there a seriousness in picking her? SM (01:13:06): I thought it was terrific at the moment? SB (01:13:08): It was not tokenism? SM (01:13:10): Who cares? She was the first candidate of a major party for vice president who was a woman. He should have done more of a background search on her, because John's Zaccaro, her husband... that is the problem. When you have a woman. She comes with a husband who helped her get to where she got. What is his background? That was unfortunate, and she tried to weasel out of it, which made it worse. SB (01:13:43): I worked for a woman, Dr. Betty Menson, in my first job at Ohio University. She was very strong in working for the Equal Rights Amendment in Ohio. She worked at Ohio University, and I think she has passed on since I left the university. She worked very hard, and I remember the day as if it was yesterday, when I heard the, "Oh no" in the next room, because it had been defeated at the State House, in Columbus. SM (01:14:11): Yeah. SB (01:14:12): Why did the ERA fail? I know it passed in some states, but why is it that it will never happen? SM (01:14:21): Because the opposition to it was very clever in scaring people about its implications. They kept talking about unisex toilets. They said, "You will not have a separate men's or ladies’ room anymore." Somebody else would say, "Wait a second. First of all, have you ever flown an airplane? You have a unisex toilet. You have adjusted to it on an airplane." That is not a big issue. They were saying that you would have no distinctions between the sexes whatsoever, and that is nuts. People were afraid of it, and I think that now made a mistake in putting so much of its energy into the passage of it, but they did not know they were going to hit these. SB (01:15:08): I think Phyllis Schlafly was very strong on the other side, and she organized a lot of people to defeat it. Many people believe she was one of the reasons why it was defeated. SM (01:15:16): Well, she has had an interesting career. For somebody who was always championing the role of the stay-at-home wife, she did not stay at home. SB (01:15:23): That is right. When you look at the movement itself, the second wave as it stands right now, with the successes in the (19)70s, maybe some of the setbacks in the (19)80s or (19)90s, what have been the major accomplishments of the second wave of feminism? SM (01:15:43): That women can work, and have ambitions for career. That women can choose not to be mothers, or to postpone motherhood because of abortion rights. That women have been able to go into what is still called non-traditional work, which is, I think, one of the most important areas of work for women. I care less about a couple of CEOs who are women than I do about seeing women in and police departments, fire departments, bus drivers, train drivers. Those are the jobs that, so much more work has to be done there. The whole opening up of the sexual violence issues was our contribution. That was feminism in the (19)70s, we did that. We made it possible for women to speak up, and for men to understand that sexual assault was a crime. A lot of them still do not get it. The understanding that in war, rape is a very common crime, and that guys who commit rape in war are not psychopaths. They're ordinary young men who, under the cover of war, are acting out of some kind of machismo, because they can get away with it. The courage of a woman to leave a husband that batters her, that is a woman's movement accomplishment. I was called for jury duty last week, and there was a case that none of us wanted to catch, it was very interesting. Nobody wanted to catch it. New York State has a new rule that after a sexual offender, a predator of children, after a child predator has served his term, the state can now put him in a mental facility, obviously to keep him away from children, but also because the state has decided that he is a compulsive molester of children. There was a case, and I think it was the ACLU that was arguing against this continuation of his sentence. It is really a continuation of the sentence. Nobody wanted to serve on this case. We did not want to hear the details, because everyone said, "Lock him up, and keep him locked up," that was the feeling of most everybody. When everybody was being voir dire'd, one after another said, "My girlfriend was raped when she was very young. My sister had an experience. My uncle turned out to be a child molester." People were pouring out this stuff. Nobody would have said this years before. SB (01:19:19): Thank God. SM (01:19:19): It was amazing. Nobody wanted to sit impartially on a jury that was to determine whether the state had a right to put this guy in another lockup facility. We all did. SB (01:19:36): We talked about the sexism that took place within... I know that the Civil Rights movement was rampant, and probably if Dr. King were alive today in his (19)80s, he would be embarrassed by it, but he would have talked a lot earlier on this subject. When we were talking about the movements that took place in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, all of them, I can remember in 1970, when Earth Day was organized, Gaylord Nelson met with members of the moratorium in (19)69, to make sure we were not stepping on their toes, that we were linked, and we were in unity. We both care about ending the war, and we both care about the environment. It seemed like in those days, and again, maybe through the early (19)70s, when you had an anti-war rally, when you had a women's movement rally, when you had a gay and lesbian rally, an environmental rally, you saw signs from all these organizations there in unity, caring for each other's cause. One of the criticisms today is that all these movements have become special interest. They are on their own, they are independent. I know I have talked to some of the gay and lesbian leaders, and they have agreed, this is one of their problems. It is an issue in that community, and they cannot even get people to have a song to sing, which was so important in the movement, "We Shall Overcome" in the Civil Rights Movement. David Mixner, when I talked to him, he said, "It is frustrating, because we proposed that we need to have some songs that we all sing, and no one wants to do it. It is like we are talking to the wind." What I am getting at is, do you think that is part of the problem of all the movements today, just not the women's movement? They have become single issue, special interest, and they do not work with the other movements. SM (01:21:29): I have two things to say. One is that the labor movement of (19)30s had folk singers who made up songs to them. The Civil Rights Movement had a spiritual base of songs to rely on, and just change a few words. The women's movement never had songs, and as you said, the gay and lesbian movement never had songs. Songs do not always accompany a movement, that would be the one thing to say. What was the other thing? Oh, the special interest. The amazing thing about the Civil rights movement, and the women's movement, was that our issues were not issues that these larger umbrella groups could successfully address. When we had so-called vanguard parties, talking about the Socialist Party, Communist Party, Socialist Workers party, they claimed to speak for everybody. "We cover all the issues," but they did not. They basically covered the issues that White males felt were important. In terms of civil rights, I would not knock the Communist Party in its effort on civil rights, but their strategies failed. It was an indigenous Civil Rights movement that came out of the South that made the difference. A movement not beholden to these embracive, inclusive, grand vanguard parties of the left. Since then, it has worked that you take your individual issue and you make that your focus, because those other groups never did. They never did. SB (01:23:23): One of the heroes, really, of (19)64 was Fannie Lou Hamer. SM (01:23:26): Yeah. SB (01:23:27): Here is a woman who was really- SM (01:23:29): Very religious. SB (01:23:30): She was not known, and then, she went to that convention, and Johnson was checking up on her and everything she was saying back in (19)64. SM (01:23:40): Sure. She was a sharecropper in Ruleville, Mississippi, and tremendously religious. SB (01:23:47): I know it is hard to do this, but when you look at the Boomers now, you are older than the Boomers, but almost 40 percent of the people I have interviewed were born before (19)46, but they have lived during the times of the Boomers. SM (01:24:03): We are very grateful to the times that allowed us to make a contribution. SB (01:24:08): Do you have any thoughts on the Boomer women in particular, as opposed to say some of the more recent women, the younger women that have come on college campuses or in society? SM (01:24:18): No, I am not the person to ask that question of. SB (01:24:20): Any strengths or weaknesses that you think the generation has, both male or females? SM (01:24:26): Women today, and I feel it is another defeat for feminism... my students, let us just talk about the young people that I am in contact with, and the young people I see in the street. They seem to have fallen for some of the traps that we, (19)60s and (19)70s feminists thought we had settled. You do not wear six-inch heels. What is this with pushing your boobs up and forward? You are looking like a tart. This whole business that fashion contributed to, of women looking like babes, "You have to look like a babe," is a big step back, I feel. A big step back. SB (01:25:21): The Boomers were not really into that. SM (01:25:23): Not at all. People began to dress casually for the first time. SB (01:25:30): Do you have any overall thoughts on the generation itself, those people born between (19)46 and (19)63? SM (01:25:38): No, that is what you are going to do. SB (01:25:42): When did the (19)60s begin, in your opinion, and when did it end? SM (01:25:46): I think it began on February 2, 1960, when those four black students who were quite religious sat in at a local Woolworth in Greensboro. Was not it Greensboro, North Carolina? But, now that I have been doing some reading lately, and I have been thinking about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the Tallahassee Bus Boycott, Tallahassee was student initiated, unlike Montgomery, which was Rosa Parks initiated. Maybe it should start in (19)55, which would be a year after Brown versus Board of Education, which was the first time- SB (01:26:39): In (19)54. SM (01:26:39): Yeah. It takes a while. SB (01:26:47): A lot of the people of my era, and my college years, felt they were the most unique generation in American history. There was this feeling they were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society. SM (01:26:57): Yes. SB (01:26:58): We were going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, bring peace to the world, change it like it has never been before. Be more different than anybody that preceded us, and anybody that will follow us. SM (01:27:11): What happened? What do they say now? SB (01:27:13): Well, that is my question. SM (01:27:15): It is your question to raise and your question to answer. SB (01:27:21): The majority of people that I have been interviewing think that is a ridiculous, arrogant statement to make. A lot of people have said, either the generation is arrogant for thinking it, or that some people just do not believe in generations like Boomers, which is happening all the time. They just do not believe in what they call the Greatest Generation, Boomer generation, Generation X. They do not believe in that stuff. It is about a period of time, in decades or even years. There is a lot of people saying that as well. Those that do say unique are those, in many respects, that were very involved, and they have just never been as involved as they were then. It was just great memories. It's a combination of a lot of different things. SM (01:28:10): You are asking, what happened to it as a generation? Why did not it continue? I can speak to that. SB (01:28:17): Yes. SM (01:28:18): But, not as a member of it. SB (01:28:18): Yes. SM (01:28:19): Because of something we have not discussed at all, is that there were so many casualties of the Boomer generation, and it did have to do with drugs and rock and roll. A Hell of a lot of icons were dead before they were 30, and I am sure Charlie talked about that. SB (01:28:42): Yes. SM (01:28:43): That is his subject. It is not mine, but I am aware of it. I cannot believe the number of people who just died from an overdose. SB (01:28:58): I think what is happening, it is a book that needs... forget about the big names, like Jimmy Hendricks and Janice Joplin, how many young people just died? I know two in particular from my community who, because of drugs, they did not live very long. SM (01:29:13): Really? SB (01:29:17): That is back in the Ithaca, New York area. I was born in Cortland. SM (01:29:23): Oh really? Apple country. SB (01:29:25): My dad was transferred down to Binghamton, because he was a Prudential salesman. We lived in a community called Lisle, New York. I do not know if you have ever heard of Lisle, it was on the way between Cortland and Ithaca. I only mentioned that because I know you moved to Cornell there. SM (01:29:43): Yeah. SB (01:29:44): I have relatives there. Everybody has a different answer to this question, so far. SM (01:29:52): I think that many people experimented with freedoms in the (19)60s that they were not prepared to cope with. One was a lot of sexual experimentation, and they were not prepared for it. I have interviewed people who have talked about how, on the college campuses, the head of their department suggested that they all have a group sex thing to get to know each other better, and a lot of people could not take that sort of stuff. A lot of people tried drugs, and then went too far with them. The first thing that I noticed in the press, because they're very quick to sound in-depth now, was that they started to talk about themselves and say, "Boy, I remember my days in the (19)60s, when all I did was smoke dope and stare up at the ceiling, and say, "Wow-wow, wow." Suddenly, that became a popular portrait of the (19)60s. Now, I did not know anybody who smoked that much dope that they looked up at the ceiling and said, "Wow-wow, wow." The (19)60s began to be tarnished very early after, by the Reagan era. People were dis-remembering it. They were remembering it as a time when everybody was just flaked out on drugs, and I do not know why they did that. I just do not know why they did that. Probably they were just doing some colorful writing, but certainly it was in the news magazines, that I would start to read these reminisce. Those who were enemies of the changes of the (19)60s quickly grabbed onto it, and there's a time when very few voices were raised in supportive of the (19)60s. That documentary that Charlie and I are in together, done by Oregon PBS, that is rare. SB (01:32:21): Which one is that? SM (01:32:23): It is called "The (19)60s." He did not tell you? SB (01:32:27): Well, I interviewed him four or five months ago. I bet I have had about 70 interviews. SM (01:32:32): That is why he mentioned me, because we are stars of it. They chose him because of his book on the (19)60s, and also because he is a gay man, and he talks eloquently. They chose me as the feminist for that documentary, and I remember, after we both saw it on PBS, we called each other, because we used to be friends. We are not friends, we just do not know each other anymore, but we called each other and said, "You were good." "You were good." It has been shown a lot on PBS lately, because these blessed people in Oregon actually got a documentary done called "The (19)60s" that is pro-(19)60s, and that includes the women's movement. SB (01:33:18): I think I own that. SM (01:33:20): Look at it again. SB (01:33:21): I have to look at it. SM (01:33:22): It will give you heart. That is why Charlie thought of me, because we are linked in this wonderful documentary that is now as staple on PBS. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Susan Brownmiller Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Brownmiller, Susan ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Feminists; Authors; Brownmiller, Susan--Interviews Description An account of the resource Susan Brownmiller is a feminist activist and author. During the Feminist Movement, she was a writer at ABC-TV. When she saw how much power women have, she began to write about abortion rights. She has written and published books that highlight the hardships women face and how they came to be. She attended Cornell University and studied Acting in New York City. 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.10.2016.30 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. 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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 2009-12-12 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Philip Caputo Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Philip Caputo is a Chicago born journalist and novelist. Caputo attended Loyola and Purdue Universities and served in the U.S Marine Corps for three years. He has written 16 books throughout his life and was nominated for the National Book Award for Horn of Africa. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:6531,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Philip Caputo is a Chicago born journalist and novelist. Caputo attended Loyola and Purdue Universities and served in the U.S Marine Corps for three years. He has written 16 books throughout his life and was nominated for the National Book Award for the <em>Horn of Africa</em>. </span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Vietnam War; Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Drug culture; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Baby boom generation; Kent State; Walter Cronkite.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Vietnam War; Anti-War Movement; Civil Rights Movement; Drug culture; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Baby boom generation; Kent State; Walter Cronkite.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 140:17 Subject LCSH Journalists; Authors; Marines; Caputo, Philip--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: Phil Caputo Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 12 December 2012 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:02): ... Going here. When you think of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? PC (00:00:09): The first thing that comes to mind. Well, okay. I was not ready for that one for some reason. Well, the war does to me. I cannot think of a specific time or scene in the war, but that is what I think of. I mean, I always revert with that era back to Vietnam, the war. SM (00:00:50): When- PC (00:00:51): And then probably the other thing, of course, it sticks in my mind now I think of it, let us say there is two first things. One is just the war in general, and then more specifically was the Democratic convention riots in (19)68 in Chicago, which I happened to cover part of that. SM (00:01:12): Oh, wow. PC (00:01:13): ... As a Cub reporter, so that is probably why it sticks in my mind. SM (00:01:18): Well, since you mentioned that, what really happened at that convention in (19)68? Who was responsible or was it both of the police being overly brutal or a lot of irresponsible young people creating habits? PC (00:01:35): Oh, it was absolutely both. It was like a bull fight between the matador and the bull. You cannot have one without the other. And now you can argue as to who was the matador and who was the bull. But there was kind of dynamic operating there where, I cannot say all the protestors because there were thousands of them, but many of them. And particularly I think some of the more radical leaders, wanted to provoke a violent police response and a lot of the cops wanted to respond violently so they in effect provoked each other. SM (00:02:33): When you think about that experience, what did you think about America at that time? Because you insert in Vietnam, I think in (19)65 and (19)66, came back home. Then as we get into the (19)67, (19)68 period, things kind of rev up in the United States in terms of anti-war. But you probably had a lot of different feelings as a person who served, came back, and then was back as a reporter. Just your thoughts on just being in that experience and your thoughts on America at that time. PC (00:03:10): Well, I remember distinctly, and it started well before actually (19)67 or (19)68 when I got back from Vietnam in the summer of (19)66 and I got home right after some of the Watts riots in Los Angeles, the race riots. And then similar riots occurred in (19)66, I think also in Chicago, which was where I was from. And I remember when I flew home reading, seeing these headlines in the paper about these really extensive race riots, for lack of a better term, I guess, and feeling really uneasy. And that increased his time went on. So that by (19)68, I had the feeling that America was going to fragment into something like a new civil war. And I really felt that the society was beginning to pull itself into pieces. And a lot of it too was reflected in a lot of the pop music of the day, that Creedence Clearwater song, Bad Moon Rising, and oh, I think it was, I cannot remember. I do not think he wrote it then, but it certainly embodied some of the spirit, like Fortunate Son and some of those tunes, that had this almost doom haunted quality about them. I really felt like we were going to be lucky to hang together as a society and as a country. SM (00:05:27): When you look at that Boomer generation, which is that young generation that was born between (19)46 and (19)64, what are some of the qualities that you admired in the young generation at that time and the qualities you are least admired? PC (00:05:45): Well, I can sort of speak as an almost outsider. I think I told you in the email is I am not a Boomer. SM (00:05:54): I want to mention that over half the people we have interviewed are not Boomers but they lived during the time. PC (00:05:59): Yeah. I am four years shy of it. SM (00:06:01): Right. PC (00:06:05): Well, I think the quality that I admired most was, again, we have to qualify these things. We are talking about a segment of that particular generational cohort, but a significant segment both in terms of its numbers and of its educational level or its leadership level would be a better way to put it. And what I admired was its commitment to improving the world, of wanting to make a better world. It was real. And I think there was definitely a very passionate feeling throughout that generation toward that end. And this is what I least admired about it, is that it was a generation that had never really known hardship. It was probably one of the very first truly privileged generations in America. And so consequently, whenever what it wanted and what its goals were and so forth, were frustrated. I think it tended to act immaturely, almost, I do not know. There were sometimes some of those war anti-war protests that I covered as a reporter almost struck me as these vast mass temper tantrums. And unfortunately, a lot of its political commitment got co-opted, even commercialized and became very self-indulgent. SM (00:08:20): How do you respond to this feeling that many felt that they were the most unique generation in American history? Because I can remember being on college campus at that time and this feeling of community and togetherness, that we are a generation that is going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, end war. We are going to do things that no other generation has done, bring peace to the world. This feeling of uniqueness that they had, and I think some Boomers still have it as they approach 60 years of age. The oldest Boomers now are approaching early retirement [inaudible] social security, so, but some still believe that. So, what are your thoughts on their feeling unique? PC (00:09:05): Well, I do not know about unique. There was a generation in the thirties that was certainly is politically committed as the generation of the (19)60s, maybe committed to some different ends to improving a lot of the common man to things like the Labor Movement and so forth. And they were very committed and they wanted to change the world in the way things had been done for decades, if not centuries. But I would say that the (19)60s generation was if not unique, certainly highly unusual. And they did. As I said, one of the things I admired is they wanted to end all of these ills of, like you said, end the war, poverty, end homophobia, end the exploitation of the environment and so forth, end sexism. By all those movements, the environmental movement, feminist movement, and the civil rights movement, although they certainly did not begin during the (19)60s, that the whole revolutionary impulse advanced those causes. And interestingly, just as something aside is that the fury generated by the war, the anti-war movement, I think was the fire and the boiler. I have a feeling that had there been no Vietnam War and no anti-war movement, all of those movements I just talked about, the civil rights, the feminist’s movement, and the environmental movement, and probably, well, those three [inaudible], I think they would have proceeded at a slower pace and probably at a more peaceful pace. SM (00:11:30): It is interesting because that was my next question. Because oftentimes all these movements developed when they were young, and people have different feelings of these movements as they have gotten older and how effective they are compared to what they were then. One of the things that is interesting is many of these movements, if you see a protest, many of these same groups that were unique in their own way, were all together at the protests. You have to include the Native American movement, the Ang group, certainly the Chicano movement, and the gay and lesbian movement along with civil rights, anti-war, the women's movement and the environmental movement. And I even believe the disability movement was starting then so that these were all kind of connected. PC (00:12:16): Yeah, they were. They all drew energy, I think. They were cables leading to the same generator, and I think they were all, again, fueled by the same impulse which was to change the world for the better. SM (00:12:38): This is a question I have asked everyone. When you hear people like Newt Gingrich and George Will and other political pundits criticize the (19)60s generation or the era of the (19)60s and (19)70s as the time that America really started going backward, the breakdown of American society. There will always be commentaries where the divorce rate began then, lack of commitment and in terms of family, victim mentality was really started around then, the drug culture, the breakup of the American family, you name it. And the Democratic party paid a heavy price in (19)72, and George McGovern lost. And I can remember Barney Frank wrote a book speaking frankly saying the Democratic party better disassociate itself from that left group that was anti-war or that party will be destroyed. Just your thoughts on these criticisms that all the problems in American society are based on that period. PC (00:13:50): Put it this way, it is a half-truth. In other words, what they are saying is true insofar as it goes, but what they are not saying makes it somewhat of a falsification. I am convinced that a lot of the good things, at least to my mind good things, that have happened in America since then would not have happened had it not been for, again, the call it that revolutionary highly idealistic spirit. The problem is that I think in any social movement... Well, let me back up a second. It is not unlike what a lot of economic conservatives, when they talk about capitalism, they talk about capitalism's creative destruction, if you are familiar with that term. That is kind of what happened in the (19)60s. There is no doubt that, again, the self-indulgent face of that generation is largely responsible for the prevalence of drug use in America. The idea that society had to be remade from the bottom up has been responsible for the breakup of the American family or partly responsible, again, the self-indulgence for the higher divorce rate, but only in part. So, in other words, a lot of things that a George will or a Newt Gingrich say, again, are true insofar as they go, but they leave out the other side of the argument. SM (00:16:10): What were the watershed moment when the (19)60s began and when the (19)60s ended? PC (00:16:20): Well, I have actually talked about this in some speeches I have given. And to my own mind, I certainly would not speak as some kind of historian who is giving you something chiseled in stone. To my own mind. The (19)60s began with the assassination of John Kennedy in November 21st, 1963, and they ended with the fall of Saigon. SM (00:16:57): That was April 30th of 1975, I believe. PC (00:17:01): Yeah. So, what we called the (19)60s actually was only part of the (19)60s and was also part of the (19)70s. SM (00:17:13): I have asked this question, and again, I can get different responses. But if you were in a room with 500 Boomers and these Boomers were from all over the country, and they were of all ethnic groups, males, female, different qualities, and you asked them if is there one event in your life that had the greatest impact on you, what do you think that event would be? And we're talking about Boomer lives that had lots of events. PC (00:17:47): Yeah. Boy, that would be a one event. Well, probably again, this Boomer generation since some of them were, I think do not sociologists classify it as being up people born up to 1964? SM (00:18:07): Yes. PC (00:18:09): So I got to qualify that a little bit. I got to split my answer. I would say for older Boomers, the assassination of John Kennedy would be the signal event. For younger ones, I would call it the Kent State shootings. SM (00:18:32): Right. Now, I have a question on that later in the interview that we will go into. How important in your views were the college students in ending the Vietnam War? All the protests on college campuses? PC (00:18:49): I do not think very effective at all. SM (00:18:52): Explain in detail or just your thoughts. PC (00:18:57): Well, first of all, what really ended the war was the North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam in 1975. But I think you are really talking about our part in the war. And what led to the withdrawal of American forces from there was the growing perception on the part of the American mainstream, the American middle class, what Nixon called the silent majority, that the war was futile, that we were wasting many lives and a lot of money over there toward no end or an uncertain end. And I think that is what led, we can argue about Nixon's how much withdrawing he really did have American forces, but he did begin to withdraw them even if it took it four years. And I think that is really what ended the war. Probably if there was one event that encapsulated that feeling, it was the moment when Walter Cronkite, the great face of the American mainstream, said at the end of his newscast that, I do not recall his exact words, but he pretty much told the American public that his experiences in Vietnam had led him to the conviction that it was not a winnable war and that we ought to get out. SM (00:20:48): And again, this is just from your personal observations from being a reporter, a writer, an observer of America over the past 40 plus years, do you think Boomers have been good parents and now grandparents? And I preface this by saying that the generation is often looked upon as an activist generation, but only really 15 percent in my readings of the period were involved in any kind of an activism and 85 percent just went on with their lives. PC (00:21:23): Yeah, I wanted to bring that up too. SM (00:21:24): But subconsciously though, probably all of them were somewhat affected by this. And I am just curious as your thoughts on if you feel the Boomer generation of 74 to 78 million depending on what you read, have been good parents, not only in terms of sharing what it was like when they were young and giving their sons and daughters a belief in idealism that they can be positive change agents for the betterment of society, just activism or just your thoughts on them as parents and now as believe it or not as grandparents? PC (00:22:01): Yeah, I do not think I could answer that for when you are talking, what did you say, 74 million people? SM (00:22:12): Yeah. PC (00:22:15): I just know about my wife, my second wife, is a Boomer who was born in (19)53, and my sister-in-law who was born in (19)55 as a Boomer, let me think. I got friends of mine who were born in the late forties. I am just speaking of them. The ones that I know, that is all I can tell you. SM (00:22:37): That is fine. That is fine. PC (00:22:38): The ones that I know have been certainly I would say probably better parents than I was. I was really an old school parent, old school father, kind of disassociated somewhat from the lives of my children. I was the stern, ex-marine disciplinarian kind of thing. And the ones I have seen were much more involved, I think, in the lives of their children and really hands on in getting to do well in school and to achieve something in life. That is about all I can say. And I am talking about maybe at most 10 people, 10 sets of parents I should say. And I could not speak for such a huge ass number. SM (00:23:49): This is something very important. I got two more big questions here, and I am going to get into really direct questions on your experiences in Vietnam and the impact, and your writing and everything. I have to read this one though. I took a group of students when I was working at Westchester University, it must have been about 10 years ago now. We took a group of 14 student leaders to Washington DC to meet Senator Edmund Muskie. And we were able to arrange this because Senator Nelson was a friend of his, and we had a series of meeting former senators. And one of the questions the students came up with was a question that we asked him, the one I am going to read to you, and we got an unusual response from him. And let me read it here. Do you feel Boomers are still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth, the division between Black and White, divisions between those who supported authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not. What role did the wall play in healing divisions? Or was it primarily a healing for veterans? And do you feel that the Boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has 40 years made the statement, "Time heals all wounds," a truth? And I just want to mention that we thought Senator Muskie was going to talk about the (19)68 convention, which he was the candidate. And he kind of gave a melodramatic pause and he said, "I just saw the Ken Burns series in the Civil War when I was in the hospital." He had just gotten out of the hospital. "And we have not healed since the Civil War." And then he went out to talk for about 10, 15 minutes on that and never even talked about (19)68. Your thoughts on the healing issue in America. Is this an issue? PC (00:25:47): Well, I would not call it an issue. I would simply say that first of all, I really understand where Muskie was coming from when he mentioned the Civil War. Because again, in certain talks that I would give on topics like this one, I have talked about the American Civil War and how the repercussions of it just echoed and echoed for at least a century after Appomattox and probably longer than a century. And again, we must be careful, but I guess we have to for sake of argument of setting up these dichotomies, those who supported the troops and those who did not and blah, blah, blah. But just for the sake of argument, we will say that they existed. Well, it is quite obvious that among that Boomer generation, that those divisions in attitude and outlook and politics have echoed very loudly down to our own bay. And all you had to do was take a look at the 2004 presidential election. That is the one that I have cited quite often, is that all of those serpents that have been crawling around in the mines of the Boomer generation came out when Kerry ran against Bush. SM (00:27:29): Yes. PC (00:27:30): It was almost like the two of them were incarnations of the two faces of that particular generation. SM (00:27:42): Could you talk a little bit- PC (00:27:43): I remember actually being called by, I do not know why he called me, but he did. I was called by a reporter from the Houston Chronicle during all that business of the Swift boat veterans and so forth. And he asked what I thought about it. And I said, "Well, here we are involved in two other wars now, the Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are re-fighting this one," I said, "That took place 35 years ago." I reminded him that more time had passed between 2004 and the end of the Vietnam War than it had passed between the Custer Massacre and the beginning of World War I. And he agreed. He said he was 33 or years old or something at the time, or 35, and he said he was just stunned by this. He said, "Why are these guys re-fighting these old battles?" Well, it is the same reason that I guess the South and the North and the Confederates and the Union people really re-fought the Civil- PC (00:29:03): People really re-fought the Civil War in one form or another for, as I say, a century after the last shot was fired. SM (00:29:12): That is really interesting. When I asked that question to Senator Nelson, he said, "Well, people do not go across Washington or are not walking on down the street of Washington DC with lack of healing on their wrists or on their shirts." But he did say Vietnam will forever have an impact on the body politic, and I thought that was very prophetic. And Mr. Caputo, one of the interesting things is that just about every foreign policy happening that takes place, people always talk about Vietnam. It's amazing. PC (00:29:49): [inaudible] Right now, with Afghanistan, is that second thing. SM (00:29:52): If you recall when President Reagan came into power, he said, "America is back." And he emphatically was saying, from the divisions that we had back in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and he was going to change America back to the way it was, kind of like John Wayne. And then of course, President Bush senior talked about the Vietnam syndrome is over. And again, I am going to get into some direct questions here, but when you think of Ronald Reagan's presidency and what he meant to America, and when you think about George Bush Sr and his presidency and saying the Vietnam syndrome was over, as a Vietnam vet, what were your thoughts on those two presidents and what they said? PC (00:30:36): Well, if we take George Bush Sr first, when he said the Vietnam syndrome, he was defining it very narrowly, and not even toward foreign policy, it was toward military action. And he was just basically saying that we are no longer fearful of committing military forces toward the defense or furtherance of our interests, the way we had been, I guess, paralyzed or semi-paralyzed in the wake that Vietnam. That is what he was saying. Then, I think he was right about that. In other words, that he was correct in his analysis of it, I think somewhat to our misfortune. I think had we been a bit more reluctant, we may not have gotten involved in what I still regard as this really stupid and unnecessary war in Iraq. Now, as far as Reagan went, I think what happened there was that the voice of the other people you were talking about, that 85 percent who had gotten on with their lives, or perhaps that 85 percent whose voice is heard in the Newt Gingrich’s and the George Will’s, that particular aspect of the boomer generation found its hero. When I think of Reagan though, the thing that troubles me, and by the way, I voted for him, and I am a lifelong Democrat. And I voted for him the first time, with Carter and all that, and then did not the second time. But the one thing that troubled me about his administration was I think the elevating of that materialistic element in the American character into a kind of, I do not know, almost a dogma, a sacred text. I remember when he said that something about the great glory of America, or the great thing about America is that anybody can become a millionaire. And now, that is been with us probably maybe our entire history, but certainly since the advent of the industrial age in America. But I remember being struck by that, and I said, "That is it? That is what this country is all about? Becoming a millionaire?" And I think that that led a lot to that, to what I would call the transformation of the self-indulgent aspect of the boomer generation into that scramble in the (19)80s to just make lots and lots and lots of money. SM (00:34:08): Yeah, I think- PC (00:34:08): I certainly saw all kinds of boomers who told me that they had been in anti-war protests, stuff like that, who were working on Wall Street and raking it in. I can remember one guy, as a matter of fact, we were in the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel, he and his wife, and me and my wife. And I do not know, he had been in a couple of marches and all that. Now, I think he was some sort of rising muckety muck with Salomon Brothers or Goldman Sack, I forget which. And we were drinking martinis. And then I said, "Oh, man, we got to get back to Connecticut, my wife and me, and we got to catch a cab and catch a train." He says, "Oh, fuck the cab, fuck the train." And he just gets on the phone and [inaudible] this stretch limo and takes us all home. So that, to me, was the Reagan era. That is one of the things that bothered me about that era was. And then I think too, is that just in a specific policy argument, that deficit spending that he led us into- SM (00:35:36): You still there? PC (00:35:37): ... has been really detrimental. And his breaking up of labor unions, when I told you I am an old-time democrat, that [inaudible] electrical... SM (00:35:47): Oh, hold on one second. Can you hold on one second? PC (00:35:51): Yeah, sure. SM (00:35:51): Okay. Somebody is trying to get... You still there? PC (00:35:53): Yeah. Still here. SM (00:35:55): That was my brother. PC (00:35:56): Oh, okay. SM (00:35:58): Go ahead. That is okay. Go ahead. PC (00:36:03): Oh [inaudible]. See, where was I? Hold on. SM (00:36:05): You were a martini and you were going to fly back and... PC (00:36:09): Oh, yeah. Well, I think that was when I mentioned that Reagan also, I think, led to, accelerated the breakup of the American labor movement, which I think has been detrimental to our society. I think it is hardened class lines. I think it has been partly responsible for the lack of growth in wages for the American working man and woman. And I criticize them for that. I was sorry I voted for him for that reason alone. SM (00:36:51): No, a lot of people, in recent articles, said that part of the problems we are having in America in the economy today is that self-indulgent boomer generation. Spend, spend, spend, spend, materialism, and then of course, the credit card problems and everything. So, a lot of blames been put on them even for that. PC (00:37:11): Yeah. Well, I think that that is going a bit far. I see all these people who pouring into Walmart, or at least they were before the economy collapsed. SM (00:37:30): Exactly. PC (00:37:30): And I do not think they were responding to some sort leadership from the boomer generation in that. I just think that there is a lot of reasons why we're economically here. But I think that some of Reagan's policies are certainly responsible. SM (00:37:47): If you were to just respond directly to this question, why did the Vietnam War end? Why did it end? Some people say it ended when body bags came, when families in middle America had their boys are coming home in body bags in middle America. That that was really the beginning of the end. Why did we lose that war? PC (00:38:15): Well as, wait just a second. Could you hold on one second? SM (00:38:21): Yep. PC (00:38:21): I thought I heard somebody at the door. SM (00:38:24): Okay. PC (00:38:24): May not have been. Hold on. SM (00:38:26): Yep. Yep. PC (00:38:27): It was false alarm. SM (00:38:32): Okay. PC (00:38:33): Now, the question was is why did we lose the war? SM (00:38:36): Yes. PC (00:38:38): Well, I think it has been pointed out in a lot of, not just books and interpretations, but the direct testimony of the Lyndon Johnson tapes, that a lot of people, that Johnson, Senator Russell back then, and then a lot of the great minds of that time knew that the war was not winnable to begin with. So why was it not winnable? Is that it was basically a civil war between, just as ours was, between the north and the south. The north was as motivated by Vietnamese nationalism and a drive or desire to unite the country as it was by Marxist ideology. In many ways, Marxist ideology just simply provided the framework and the discipline for those nationalistic aims to be realized. There is a lot of strategic military reasons. We had extremely long lines of supply and communication. We were fighting in an alien culture, about which we knew next to nothing. It was partly a conventional war, but partly also an insurgency, and it's always very difficult for foreign powers to win insurgencies. And I think for all those reasons, and in the end, probably the main reason was is it was always the South Vietnamese's war to win or lose. Yeah, South Vietnamese society was too fragmented and too confused in its aims to win the war against the north. But I think what happened in (19)75, there is all sorts of people say, "Oh, if we had sent the B-52s in there, that the North would not have won. Well, yes, we probably would have stopped them in (19)75. And then I would say that in 1977, they would have tried the same thing again, and we would have just gone on and on and on. SM (00:41:28): One of the qualities that somewhat linked to the boomers is this issue of trust. Boomers went through their lives seeing leaders lie to them. Of course, Lyndon Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Nixon and Watergate, even in recent years, as boomers got older, the questions of President Kennedy, how much did he know about the DM overthrow? And Sorensen's tried to clarify that in his latest book, but there were still questions. And even young boomers saw President Eisenhower lying on TV about the U2 incident. And I remember that, coming home from school and seeing him say those things. The next day, he admitted he had lied or had not told the truth. And of course, we would go on and on and on through a lot of different presidents, whether they lied or did not quite tell the truth. When I was in college, I remember a college professor telling me that the issue of trust is very important, if you are to be a success in life as a human being. And to not trust others means that you may not be a success yourself in life. And I asked myself, that is always stuck with me. And Boomers just never... Or the (19)60s was just a-a period where many of them did not trust anybody in positions of responsibility, whether they be a university president or a vice president of student affairs or a minister or a priest or a politician or a president or a corporate leader, anybody in a position of responsibility, there was a lacking trust. Your thoughts on whether this is indeed a quality that many in the boomer generation had? And if this is a really negative quality to have as boomers age, what has this done in terms of raising their children to think the same? PC (00:43:29): Well, first of all, yeah, question one is that, yes, I do think that the distrust of official authority, maybe not now, but certainly was a characteristic of many of that generation, not all. Do not forget, again, we're talking about this percentage of them that was the most visible and the most vocal. But it was justified. The fact of the matter is they and the entire American public were lied to in big ways, repeatedly. And Winston Churchill once famously said that during wartime, the truth must be guarded by a body guard of lies. And yes, every now and then, it is necessary for national security reasons to lie or at least to shape the truth or withhold the truth. But in this case here, our national security was not involved, whether we're talking about Vietnam, or there was other things going on Southeast Asia, Laos and Thailand, I remember was there was problems there and so forth. And the Diem execution is another example. Our national security was not involved there. These were the secrets of the CIA. So that boomers who distrusted official authority, in many of its forms, were right to feel so. Because the highest levels of their government were lying to them consistently and in ways that could and did affect their very lives. Because of those lies, there's 60,000 dead guys up there now, memorialized on that wall. And probably twice as many without arms or legs or eyes or even minds. Now, so far as it being a trait that is going to, I do not know what, make you a failure or something like that, I do not buy that. I think that questioning authority is basically a good thing. Because I am an old reporter, so skepticism is part of my DNA. SM (00:46:30): All right. PC (00:46:32): Yeah. So that skepticism's part of my DNA as an old reporter, but I think that one should be skeptical of what one hears. SM (00:46:43): Could you comment on, again, how important the music was of the boomer generation, in terms of not only rock folk and the Motown sound, but how important that was in inspiring the generation? It obviously had quite an impact. And secondly, what were the books that you were reading that you felt had the greatest impact, not only on you, but on these young boomers as they were in the (19)60s and (19)70s? PC (00:47:18): I think that as far as the famed music of that era, the protest music and all that, obviously it coalesced as all art, pop, whether it is high art or low art or pop art or some other art coalesced, the spirit of the times gave people anthems that they could identify with. Although, I think the music, like most of the culture of the time, I meant the artistic culture, was more a product of the times than it actually shaped times. Two books that I remember most, that affected me the most during that time were Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five. SM (00:48:11): Huh. What did those books say to you? PC (00:48:16): Well, Catch-22, first of all, is that on a literary sense, it kind of showed that the traditional novel need not be the only form of the novel, that there were radical new ways to go about writing a novel. I would say that for both of them, particularly for Slaughterhouse five. And both of them just discussed, explored at great length, not the tragedy of war, but the absurdity of it. And, of course, Catch-22 went beyond that, and just into an examination of the absurdity of modern bureaucratic society, with the military that Heller described being a microcosm of that society. SM (00:49:22): What do you think of the movies that have been made since the war and trying to explain the Vietnam experience, your thoughts on them? And secondly, well, just respond to that first. PC (00:49:38): Well, I think that it has been pretty uneven. Except for the most surrealistic of all the films. That was Apocalypse Now. I have not been overly impressed with what Hollywood has turned out [inaudible]. Although there was a rather obscure film called Go Tell It to the Spartans. SM (00:50:18): Oh, wow. PC (00:50:18): That came out, and I think it was Burt Lancaster was in it. And I thought that that was a very good film that it certainly, but it looked at an aspect of the Vietnam War rather than was a kind of big, sweeping epic of the whole war. So, no, I have not been overwhelmed by any of films. SM (00:50:46): What other books on Vietnam that do you really like? Whether they be novels or just non-fiction books that you really think are the best, for the respect to telling the story about Vietnam in the (19)60s? PC (00:51:04): Well, I could not say the (19)60s. I would have to think about that. But as far as the Vietnam War goes, for my own taste, the two best novels were Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried. But you can argue The Things They Carried is really a novel or a series of short stories, but we will not get into that hairsplitting at the moment. I think there were several other very fine novels about it, that were more traditional kinds of novels, but that were very, very good. Like Webb's Fields of Fire, and Joseph Del Vecchio's The 13th Valley. Those were more in the kind of Norman Mailer Naked and the Dead tradition. But I think they were very good. The best nonfiction that I have read about it was, without question, again, there's some really good ones, but was, without question, was A Bright Shining Lie, Sheehan's. SM (00:52:36): What do you think of how- PC (00:52:37): But followed by, I would say, followed very closely by Fire in the Lake, The Best and the Brightest, and Once Upon a Distant War, which was not so much about the war, it was about the media or press coverage about the war, but it was very, very, very good. SM (00:52:58): What did you think of David Halberstam's The Making of a Quagmire? PC (00:53:07): I guess that is sort of overshadowed in my... No, I was not bowled over by it the way I was by the other ones. SM (00:53:15): And one last book I want to mention, and did you have a chance to read Fortunate Son by Lewis Puller? PC (00:53:21): No, I did not. SM (00:53:22): Go ahead, it is a great book. PC (00:53:24): Yeah. I was told it was, and I think by the time it came out, I was kind of saturated with the subject. SM (00:53:33): Photography has been very important part of any era. It explains an era. The picture says a thousand words. When you think of the Vietnam, but when you think of the (19)60s, what are the photography pictures that first come to mind? I have three that I really pinpointed here, but I would like your responses before I mention my three. PC (00:53:56): Well, let us see. I got to think about as far as Vietnam goes, one, in fact, there is a signed copy of it hangs on my wall. It was Don McLellan's photograph from the Battle of Wei during the Tet Offensive, of what appears to be this shell shocked Marine. I forgot if he has got a title for it or not. And it's on the more recent paperback, the 1996 paperback edition of Rumor of War has a sepia tone version of that photograph as its cover. If you can take a look at it. SM (00:54:42): Okay. PC (00:54:43): Then the second one, again, from Vietnam, would be Larry Burrow's photograph of these wounded Marines on this miserable shell-pocked muddy hilltop, somewhere near the DMZ, and one guy has got bandage around his eyes. SM (00:55:05): Yep, I remember that one. Yeah. PC (00:55:06): And he is reaching his hand out to somebody else. That photograph. And then there is, and I cannot remember the photographer on this one, but there is a haunting picture of a medevac, and it is a captain deep in the jungle somewhere with a dead soldier covered by a body bag next to him. And he is calling a helicopter in through some clearing in the jungle. And there is this almost ethereal light shining down on this captain as he looks toward the sky. It could almost be corny, but it is not. SM (00:55:54): Wow. PC (00:55:54): Those three. Boy, now, far as the (19)60 era goes, but I cannot think of any specific. SM (00:56:09): The three that I was thinking of was the girl standing over the body at Kent State. PC (00:56:16): Right. I was about to say that one. And, of course, I know we're back to Vietnam though, but it was the famous one of the AP photograph of the Napalm Girl. SM (00:56:30): Yep. That is Kim- PC (00:56:31): The little girl with her clothes blown off. SM (00:56:33): Kim Phuc. PC (00:56:33): But yeah. Yeah. And there was another one from the (19)60s, and it is just vague in my mind, but I- SM (00:56:46): There is the other one that was the two athletes, the (19)68 Olympics, Tommy Smith and Carlos raising their fists. PC (00:56:55): Yeah. No, that was not one of mine. This was- SM (00:57:00): My Lai? PC (00:57:01): No, it was not that either. It was something from that Chicago convention riot. But I cannot remember who the photographer was and exactly was, but it was this picture of this protestor with this blood coming down over his face after he has been clubbed. And it looks like all the little trickles of blood look like cracks in a window pane. SM (00:57:31): Wow. PC (00:57:31): But that is all I can, that one’s sticks in my mind. SM (00:57:38): There is three quotes I want to mention from period that may define this period. One of the quotes is Malcolm X, "By any means necessary." The second one is the quote from Bobby Kennedy, which I believe was a Henry David Thoreau original quote. And that is, "Some men see things as they are and ask why. I see things that never were, and ask why not." And the third one is from a Peter- SM (00:58:03): ... were and ask why not? And the third one is from a Peter Max poster that was very popular on college campuses in the early (19)70s. And on the wording on that one was, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." It was those three, from different angles, from a more radical, from Malcolm to the idealistic beliefs that many boomers had with Bobby Kennedy, and then the kind of a hippie love and peace from Peter Max. Do those three quotes kind of define the boomer generation when they were young and in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, or... Of course We Shall Overcome is another one, but just your thoughts. PC (00:58:49): Well, I think that they do encapsulate, or almost aphoristically express some of the main elements of the zeitgeist of the (19)60s. Yeah, sure. SM (00:59:08): I have got some questions here now directly related to your experiences. When you came home from Vietnam, how were you treated? PC (00:59:20): Well, when I first got back, of course I remember I landed at two o'clock in the morning with just a couple of other guys at Glenview Naval Air Station near Chicago. Was a rather dreary homecoming. My parents were there to pick me up. The anti-war protest movement was not really underway the summer of 1966, but there were some... No, that barking means something. Just a second. SM (01:00:06): Okay. PC (01:00:08): That means somebody is at the door. SM (01:00:10): Yep. PC (01:00:10): All right, come here, come-come. Sage. Come. Come here. Come here. Get away from the door. Come here. Just a sec. SM (01:00:22): Yep. That is okay. The next question I wanted to ask you is... PC (01:00:33): Oh wait, just one sec. I want to... And the shed's open. All right, go ahead. SM (01:00:42): Yep. Not when you returned, but when a lot of the vets returned back in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, what did most of the troops think about the anti-war people back home? And I am not only talking about the college students now, I am talking about the politicians, the leaders that were along with the students that were anti-war. PC (01:01:06): Oh, well, I think that... By the way, I just want to back up a second, when I was mentioning that there were not a lot of anti-war protests when I came back in (19)66, but I do remember one moment when I was back on leave, and I was in Chicago and my Marine Corps haircut gave me away. And I was standing on a corner with a friend of mine near downtown Chicago, and a carload of kids came by and they yelled something at me about being a pig or something like that, and threw all of these McDonald's scraps at me and a bag of hamburger and french fries scraps. So that did not make me feel too welcome. But, I think that probably most veterans felt... most soldiers, whether it was by the college kid protestors themselves or by the politicians, I think they felt kind of betrayed, if there was a general feeling. SM (01:02:29): Were Vietnam vets discriminated against upon their return? PC (01:02:32): Yeah. SM (01:02:32): And I am going to say this in the area of jobs, service groups and so forth. I know my very first job at Ohio University, there was a Vietnam vet who I got to know quite closely, and he had two kids, and it was 1973. And the university was way ahead of its game, and they had to put Vietnam vets in the area with minorities in terms of possibly being discriminated against. What are your thoughts on America, say, in the first five to 10 years, and how they looked at Vietnam vets upon their return? PC (01:03:11): Oh, I think it was, generally speaking, a very negative viewpoint. And I think that what you just said is correct, is that in effect, no matter what race you were or ethnic group, just being a Vietnam veteran almost automatically made you a member of a minority group that was looked upon with suspicion by the general society. And even contempt. And there was discrimination against... and I mean job discrimination, particularly in the academic world. So, no feeling on that. SM (01:04:00): Was the reason... We are not talking about the anti-war people now, we are talking about the government, people who hire people for jobs. Was it because of incidents like My Lai, the massacre, there was a perception that all Vietnam vets could commit those kinds of crimes? Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, they could crack at any time? What was the reason why they felt this way? Because I have stories of people, Vietnam vets who would go to the VFWs and they were not welcome. And they are welcomed with open arms now. But then they were not. PC (01:04:38): Well, I think that at the VFW where this is where some of the contempt came in, is that they were associated with a losing war. That they were losers in all senses of the term. They were losers as individuals, they were part of a losing army, and mind you, that most of the VFW guys were World War II guys and Korea guys and the World War II veterans, at least could say that they were members of the most triumphant army in American history. And I think that the society in general, there was this viewpoint of the Vietnam veteran as a so-called ticking time bomb, someone who was mentally disturbed as a result of his experiences. And then, I think at a deeper level, because a lot of horrible things did happen in Vietnam, people did not want to be reminded that these veterans were really themselves. They did not want to be reminded that the American young man was capable of doing some pretty terrible things in the conditions of battle stress. SM (01:06:22): But you bring out- PC (01:06:23): I mean, these things have always happened in battle. And I do not think they happened in Vietnam any more frequently than they happened in other conflicts. But they were more naked because you did not have the cloak or the covering of some noble cause ala World War II or freeing the slaves or whatever to obfuscate some of the terrible things that men do in war. SM (01:06:58): What did you take from your experience in Vietnam and bring back to America when you returned? Break it down into two parts, short term until the war ended, and then long term over the past 50 years. What did you bring back with you that has been with you since? PC (01:07:19): Yeah, I would say that the short term and the long term are really one and the same. And I am trying to think of how to phrase it. That given the right circumstances, anyone is capable of almost anything. And that we never know until we are faced with a critical moral choice, under great stress, which choice we will make. SM (01:08:14): How did you become who you are as a person, that person who became a marine, that young man who became a marine. How did you become who you are, number one? And of course, this same person goes on to write one of the greatest books ever, I think on war and on the Vietnam War in particular. Your book will be read three, four, 500 years from now. And no, it will be, because it is a classic. PC (01:08:44): I do not know that anybody is going to be reading 300 years from now. SM (01:08:48): Well, I tell you, it is a book for all time. And how did you become who you are? Because you have gone on and written some other great books and you are a great writer. PC (01:09:02): Well, when you are talking about is that how did I become who I was when I joined the Marines or... SM (01:09:08): Yes. Yeah. PC (01:09:09): Or since then? SM (01:09:10): Yeah, both. Long term, short term, who were you? How did you become who you are, that young man who went into the service and the man that you are today? So, you became an author after many years of serving. PC (01:09:27): Well, if we go way back to the early 1960s is... First of all, I grew up in a pretty much a blue collar family. And in a neighborhood and in a milieu that was basically kind of call it upper blue collar, if you want. My father was a machinist at the time. One of my best friend's father was a tool and die maker, that kind of thing. And almost all of our fathers and uncles and even older cousins had been veterans of World War II. And military service was just expected. It was a thing that you did. And it was also, of course, you had the force of the law at that time. Everybody was subject to the draft. So, that was part of the reason that I ended up joining the Marines was that first of all, they were supposed to be the best. And it was that if you volunteered, you somehow or another would be better than being drafted. That did not turn out to be the case. And then, well, we're going back now to the early (19)60s, the (19)63, (19)64 era. The idealism of that era, and that generation had not yet fragmented in the way that we have been speaking of for the last hour. I think I used to tell people as a joke. I said that a lot of my friends joined the Peace Corps, and I joined the War Corps, but we all felt that we were doing something positive to make the world better. And I thought that, "Well, okay, you serve your country and you take your stand against the Soviet communism and Soviet imperialism." My friends in the Peace Corps, and several of them that I graduated college with went to Africa and South America. One of them, in fact, I remember almost died of some deathly illness in Columbia, in the jungle. My roommate joined AID and ended up in Laos and living in a remote village. And so, I think that a lot of... I joined up because of a lot of patriotism and idealism. What is interesting to me is that when I look back on it, is that there was a unity in the idealism in the early (19)60s that then kind of exploded and fragmented as the decade wore on. SM (01:13:01): Was Kennedy's inaugural speech part of that too? PC (01:13:05): Yeah. Oh God, yeah. SM (01:13:06): Yep. PC (01:13:08): Oh yeah. I remember that. But still, when I see the old news clips from that, that still gives me chills. SM (01:13:16): How did you become that author? PC (01:13:17): Well, I think that all writers become writers because there are two things, is that they have been wounded in some way, and they were outsiders. And the Vietnam War did both to me. And I mean, it inflicted a kind of psychic wound. And that in turn, we were just discussing it about the society's attitudes, and I was as a Vietnam veteran, I was an outsider looking in. SM (01:14:12): When you wrote A Rumor of War, did you expect it to be such a big hit, number one? And what was the reaction of some of your peers, your Vietnam vets, when that book first came out? Because you revealed a lot of... some of the things, the bad side of the war, some of the things that soldiers do that are not so nice. PC (01:14:36): Yeah, right. SM (01:14:38): Yeah. So just I- PC (01:14:40): Go ahead. SM (01:14:42): Just what was the reaction of the vets that you served with and came home just like you did, proud Marines and those who followed? PC (01:14:53): Well, as far as... no, I did. As far as the expectations I had for the book, I can still distinctly remember when I finally finished it in... When did I finish it? 1976, I think it was. Yeah. And I remember telling my first wife, and by this time, I mean it had been accepted for publication by Henry Holt company. And I remember telling her, I says, "Well," I said, "Be nice as I think I got an advance of $6,000 to write the book." And I said, "I think it will earn the advance out and we should have enough money left over." I said, "Maybe to take a nice vacation somewhere." But those were my expectations because the subject was so anathema at that time that I just could not... I was stunned that anybody was going to publish it and then I could not imagine that anybody would read it in great numbers. As far as the reaction from federal veterans, it has been almost uniformly positive. And for just one simple [inaudible], I told the truth and the truth of the experience. And even if it revealed a lot of ugly behavior and presented myself among others and them in unheroic light, they did not mind that. They have not minded that at all. They appreciate it. Anybody is going to appreciate the truth when it is presented to them, and we know it is there. SM (01:16:52): What are your thoughts on Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and even Gerald Ford at the end when the pardon came of Nixon? Just your thoughts on those three as the war ended, because obviously LBJ ran the war. Nixon said he was going to end the war, and he technically did, even though half the people in the names on the wall died after he became president. And then President Ford came in on unusual circumstances. Just your thoughts on those three men. PC (01:17:26): Well, my thoughts now are on this, as I now see Lyndon Johnson as a truly tragic figure. I think he was a man who had really... He wanted to do great things for the American people. And he did. From the Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, Great Society and anti-poverty programs and so forth. But he was caught by the circumstances of the Cold War that combined with his own insecurities about himself as this Texas farm boy surrounded by the brilliant minds of the Ivy League. And oh, I guess what he viewed as a hostile media and so forth, combined with his own insecurities to lead him to commit American troops to a war that he knew and that some of his top advisors like Russell Long told him was not going to be winnable. Nixon, I see more as a, I cannot help it, it is cliched now, but as a brilliant, but I think fundamentally evil man. And I think his [inaudible] was Henry Kissinger. I mean, when you talk about lies and secret wars and all of those machinations that Kissinger was pulling off, I mean, even in (19)68, when he was taking part in the peace talks in Paris. But now evidence, I think I saw it recently in the one book about Nixon, is strong evidence that he was deliberately undermining the peace talks he was taking part in so he could advance Nixon as a presidential candidate and then attain a position of power in the Nixon administration. And I think both of them were very callous about the lives that they were risking, both Vietnamese and American. And Ford... I grew up in the Middle West. Ford is a very typical old time Midwestern Republican, a fundamentally decent guy. He had these two guys, Lyndon Johnson and Nixon, both extremely, I think, very talented, but very complicated and very flawed men. And yet Ford was basically, had very few moving parts, but it does not mean he was simple minded or something, or kind of a dope. I think he was a very smart man, but his personality was not complicated. I think he had a clarity of vision that the others did not. But it was combined, as I say, with this fundamentally kind of small-town Midwestern Republicanism. SM (01:21:45): What were the veterans' that you knew, your peers' thoughts on Robert McNamara, William Westmoreland and Abrams? PC (01:22:00): I never heard any opinions about Abrams, mainly because I think that by the time he took over, I was well out of the service. Westmoreland, I think to most veterans... I mean, I kind of thought of him as a bit of a staff type general, the spit shine shoes, spiffy looking Eagle Scout general, up at the front lines, chesty puller kind of general. In fact, you just saw him as kind of a remote person. I do not know but I do not seem to recall anybody getting in any discussions with any other veterans about him. I do recall getting in discussions about McNamara, and it was just almost universal loathing among the people I have talked to. SM (01:23:13): What was your thought when he wrote the book In Retrospect in 1995, and then he wrote another one where he admits to the mistakes that he made? And I remember I asked, that was the very one of the questions I asked in my very first interview with Senator McCarthy, because around that time, about a year later when I interviewed him, the book had just come out. And Senator McCarthy said it was, "all trash, a little late," and he was furious. But some people say, "Well, geez, at least he finally admitted that he was wrong." And that that is something to think about too. So just what was your thoughts on the book In Retrospect and his follow up book? PC (01:24:01): I am ignoring McCarthy's temp on that one. I mean, I would not think of it as trash, but it was definitely way too little, too late. And my other feeling is, so what? So he admits his mistakes, but the fact of the matter is that he couched these admissions in such a way as to almost make it sound as though he were... that his great mistake was not seeing things as he should have before we committed to Vietnam. And in fact, he did. I mean, he knew, and again, there's ample evidence. I cannot cite a chapter and verse at the moment. In the Lyndon Johnson tapes and in some other... even in McNamara's own writings, that he knew ahead of time that this war was not winnable. And he never explained to me in either book, and I could barely read the second one. I was so infuriated. Never explained to me clearly, as to why he went ahead with it anyway. And became the chief architect of the war. SM (01:25:41): How do you feel, I got a couple names here, and how do you feel, and some of your vets feel about the following people at the time, and maybe your reflections today? Muhammad Ali. PC (01:25:54): Oh, well, I loved him. I first saw him fighting, that Liston fight in (19)65, and then... No, I just thought he was really cool. SM (01:26:06): Were vets upset with him when he went against the war, and he would not serve because he was a conscientious objector? PC (01:26:14): No, I believed in that then, and I still believe in it. I mean, I think he was an authentic, conscientious objector, and he paid the price. This was not a case of where he objected to the war and he got rewarded for it in some way. I mean, he paid the price for his defiance of the norms of the day. And I saw his point of view. If I had been a black guy back then, I would have certainly questioned about, "Why am I going over here to fight these guys?" As he said, "No Viet Cong ever called me nigger." SM (01:27:03): Right. PC (01:27:03): And- PC (01:27:03): As he said, no Viet Cong ever called me nigger. SM (01:27:03): Right. PC (01:27:03): And there was a lot of truth in that. SM (01:27:07): How about Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden? PC (01:27:11): Well, now this is going to sound contradictory, but no. My feelings toward them are negative, especially Jane Fonda. I think that Muhammad Ali, first of all, because of his particular version of the Islamic faith, and I think he actually thought things through. He thought about, "Okay, can I in conscience take part in this war and go into the army, both as a black man and as a member of the..." What was that called? It was not exactly called Islam. It was some... SM (01:28:01): Black Muslims? PC (01:28:03): Black Muslim. Yeah. It was a Black Muslim [inaudible]. And I think he thought things through and realized the price he would pay, and he paid it. And I admire him for that. I think Jane Fonda was reacting without any kind of thought to the things she did. She was reacting like a typical, I think, celebrity movie star. Sometimes a lot of them just strike me as huge vacuums that have to suck in all of this energy of attention and publicity. That is how I saw her. SM (01:28:51): How about Tom? When you look at Tom Hayden and Rennie Davis, though, they were called the intellectual leaders of the left, and they were big anti-war. Just your thoughts on them? PC (01:29:04): Well, they are kinder than they are toward Jane Fonda. But I fault them for, and I think an unjustifiably false reading of the American public. They basically thought that America was right for some kind of total revolution. All American society was going to be turned upside down violently or non-violently. And I think that that was an unjustifiable reading the mood of the American public and the kind of reading that you get from a person who is an ideologue with blinders on. Then I think it led them into a lot of actions and a lot of rhetoric that I just simply do not agree with. SM (01:30:07): How about the three politicians that many look upon as the big-name anti-war leaders: Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, and Bobby Kennedy? PC (01:30:19): Yeah, just a sec. SM (01:30:19): Okay. PC (01:30:27): I worked for, in a very small way, but it is kind of like a precinct canvasser for Bobby Kennedy, and after he was assassinated for Gene McCarthy. So obviously I admired both of them. Stuff has come out about both of them since then that makes you see that there were some aspects to their characters, especially Bobby Kennedy, were not so admirable, and that Gene McCarthy sometimes comes off as an almost an arrogant intellectual who was, I do not know, a little too Olympian in some of his attitudes. But generally speaking, I admired, and still do, both of them. Then you mentioned somebody else. SM (01:31:28): George McGovern. PC (01:31:29): Same thing. I have worked for McGovern's campaign. I have thought of him and still do, I have met him once or twice briefly, as a principled man who was willing to take a lot of flak for the... SM (01:31:54): Hold on one second. PC (01:31:55): As I said, he took political risks for his [inaudible] and I admire him for that. SM (01:32:14): How about Vietnam Veterans Against the War? PC (01:32:17): Well, I joined them, so I cannot say anything, but that I thought that they had the right idea. I remember I was opposed to the war. I was against the war. I talked to some anti-war movement people, and I did not really like them. And I felt like the only people who had any moral authority to really protest the war were veterans. And so, when Kerry formed the VVVA, I joined them. SM (01:32:59): What do you think about the Black Panthers and the Weatherman's groups? PC (01:33:04): Oh, well, the Weatherman is just, they are contemptible. Again, you want to talk about misreading the American public, they were really guilty of that. They were basically nihilists. They were acting out some kind of psychodrama with violence, and certainly were so insular and so hermetically sealed in their own little revolutionary bubble. And again, they thought that the American public was ready for this revolution, and they were going to lead it. It was just a delusion of grandiose proportions. Same thing with the Black Panthers. Maybe some of their anger can be explained, but I do not think a lot of the things they did, the shootouts, the murders and all of that, there's no way to justify that. SM (01:34:18): I know the Black Panthers had the food programs that were very popular and very good, but they are set- PC (01:34:25): South American dictators do the same thing. It is always this bullshit that comes out when people who have violent political agendas, or Hamas over there in the Gaza Strip. They say, "Oh, well, they hand out water and food, and they have social services." So what? They are basically criminals. SM (01:34:53): There is seven big names that come out of that. Of course, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, and Angela Davis. I know that Dave Hilliard too. So these are all names of the Black Panthers that represented different things. They were a lot different in their own way. Do you bottle them up all together? PC (01:35:19): Yeah, I bottle them all up together. SM (01:35:21): What did you think of Students for a Democratic Society? They died when the Weatherman became a reality. PC (01:35:33): Well, the Weatherman, basically, Weatherman action took them over. I do not know what I thought of them. I had a brother-in-law, a high school classmate that was a member of SDS. I do remember getting into some vigorous arguments with him, obviously. For example, maybe this will tell you what I thought of them, is that he was trying to recruit me. Because they figured that a veteran would add some credibility to their ideas. And I remember him showing me a cover from The Nation magazine, and it had an oil derrick on the cover. The article that he was citing, its thesis was that the United States was fighting in Vietnam to gain control of the oil fields offshore of Vietnam. I think they are called the Spratly Islands or something like that. I remember he says, "That is what that is you were fighting for." And I remember looking at him and I said, "You know, Jack?" I said, "I wish [inaudible] for that." He says, "What do you mean?" I said, "Because then I could say, "Okay, I fought for an oil field.'" I said, "Right now I do not feel like I fought for anything." And they had this traditional, in other words, Marxist or neo-Marxist outlook about the world that I think was essentially incorrect. That we were fighting in Vietnam to gain control of these natural resources. SM (01:37:41): What did you think of Dr. King's speech against the Vietnam War? Because that was, even in the civil rights community, he was heavily criticized for getting outside his territory. What was your thought on him giving that speech? PC (01:37:58): I do not remember that I had a thought. SM (01:38:01): Okay. I was wondering if any of the veterans you knew reacted to that. PC (01:38:04): No. SM (01:38:06): No? PC (01:38:06): I did not have a lot to do with veterans after I got out of the service. There were not that many around, tell the truth, or the ones that were did not reveal that they were. But no, I do not remember that I had a thought about that one way or the other at the time. Again, I did not really know a lot of veterans, especially immediately after I got back. SM (01:38:33): You covered Vietnam as a reporter. I think you witnessed there. What did you think when the helicopters took off from the embassy in Saigon when the war was over? What were you thinking having served and knowing that over 58,000 Americans died and thousands were injured, both physically and psychologically? And then of course we got to also say 3 million Vietnamese died in that war. When those helicopters were taking off, what kind of feelings were going through your mind? PC (01:39:04): Well, I felt two things, because I wrote about them in the paper. I felt a mixture of bitterness and relief. Deep bitterness that these... I had 16 of my buddies were killed in action over there. SM (01:39:23): Oh geez. PC (01:39:26): A deep bitterness that they truly had died for no reason and a relief that it was finally over. SM (01:39:40): Jan Scruggs, of course, you probably read this book, To Heal a Nation. Did the Vietnam Memorial heal the nation? The Wall? I know it's done a lot with the vets and their families, but you cannot heal even every vet, because they have their issues. But his book centers on the fact that that was very important in healing in the nation. Do you think it has? PC (01:40:06): Well, I got to tell you in all candor, I do not believe in this healing. All it is, it's what I call the cant of this therapeutic culture. There are wounds that just remain tender forever, and they probably should. And no, I do not think that the Wall helped. It might have helped, like you say, Vietnam veterans and their families. Yes. I do not know that it helped heal them. It was a place where you could go and experience a certain kind of emotional catharsis, I guess. But it certainly, I do not think it did anything for the divisions in the nation, as going back to what we talked about quite some time ago now, is the 2004 election. Look at this. You had Vietnam veterans as members of this swift boat campaign turning on another highly decorated Vietnam veteran in the most vicious way imaginable. So, I did not see that there was any healing as far as the nation went. SM (01:41:39): Who do you blame for losing the war? PC (01:41:45): Well, nobody, because it was not winnable. SM (01:41:51): Okay. PC (01:41:51): All right. Let us put it this way. I blame the persistence and the discipline of the North Vietnamese army. SM (01:42:00): In the book since the Rumor of War, what have been the messages you have tried to deliver in those books? PC (01:42:14): Well, did you want to include A Rumor of War? SM (01:42:20): Yep. Include that one, but certainly your number two book and then some of your novels. PC (01:42:27): Well, as far as A Rumor of War went, I think I mentioned this in the afterward to one of the editions, is one of the purposes I had in writing, it was to create, by making an appeal to the physical senses, the virtual tour of duty for anybody who read the book. In other words, to put a reader into the Vietnam that the ordinary fighting man experienced, as much as was possible on the printed page. And when the reader finished the book, I wanted that reader to think or say to himself, "Now what do I think? Now what are my opinions and attitudes about Vietnam?" If I had a conscious motive it was that. In other words, as far as my other motives, they were probably unconscious. It was almost like an irresistible compulsion to set this experience down on paper. Many of the other books have been, particularly the novels, have been about the idea I expressed a little earlier here. Was that they have been stories about people in extreme circumstances or alien circumstances, where none of the usual moral guideposts of life exist. Facing moral choices and the choices they make become revelatory of what their true natures are. I have tried to get that across in a lot of novels, particularly in Acts of Faith and Horn of Africa, two books that interestingly enough take place in almost the same part of the world. SM (01:45:20): I would like to ask a question about the boomer veterans. 3 million served in Vietnam, and I know in some of the materials that I have read that probably about maybe 450 to 500,000 actually fought on the front lines. But in talking to vets who did not fight in the front lines, their lies were in danger the whole time they were there. So even though the 2.5 million did not walk through the jungles, there was danger there. How do they differ? Again, when we define a generation, we're talking 3 million of a 73 million population. How do they differ from the other boomers? And Vietnam vets we know were not welcomed home upon their return, but now we see an era in which Vietnam veterans are, it is really in to be a Vietnam veteran. And that there is an issue of people lying that they were veterans and making money off it by speaking, by talking about it. And I remember the ultimate was Dr. Joe Ellis, the professor at Harvard who has won of Pulitzer Prize, yet he was teaching his students that he fought in Vietnam. PC (01:46:45): He was 173rd Airborne. SM (01:46:47): And that is amazing for a guy that already had won a Pulitzer Prize. So, what is he trying to do? Just your thoughts on how the Vietnam veterans may differ from the rest of the boomers and really how important they are in the boomer generation and for America. I think they are very important. I would worked with them for many years. Just your thoughts. PC (01:47:14): Well, when anybody is experienced, and this would really apply to, I think you said, half a million were actually in action. You are forever set apart from your peers and contemporaries. I do not know. You know things that those who have not been there do not know, and that very knowledge cuts you apart. And I have touched on some of that knowledge, about the knowing that what you say are, what you believe in, what you will do under a certain set of circumstances is all rubbish until you are actually confronted with that moment when you have to make the choice. And to say nothing of the fact that these guys were all between 19 and 22, 23 years old, and they confronted death on a daily basis. Suddenly a lot of things that seem important to people who have not confronted death, it just pale to nothing. So, you are set apart for those and other reasons. And I think I agree with you that I think they are quite important. In our political leadership, you can take a look at how many Vietnam veterans have risen political prominence. John Kerry, Jim Webb, who is also a very fine writer as well. He is a real renaissance man, Webb. And Chuck Hagel. And there is I think 13 or 14 other members of the state Senate, of the US Senate and the US House of Representatives who were Vietnam veterans, and many of them combat veterans of Vietnam. The chairman or the CEO and founder of FedEx, I want to talk about business, is a Vietnam veteran. There's people like me who have become well known writers and artists as well. And probably if you did some research you would find Vietnam veterans in prominent or leadership positions in every single field life. SM (01:50:13): I agree. Kent State and Jackson State, I would like your thoughts on that. You have to link both of them, because you wrote a really great book. I read it. 13 Seconds. They have always tried to make sure when they had the remembrance events at Kent State that Jackson State is always remembered as well. Would you go so far as to say that the deaths on that campus, those four students, and of course the students at Jackson State, are also combat veterans of the Vietnam War, but on the home front? PC (01:50:48): No, I would not go so far as to say that. No. SM (01:50:53): What is your thoughts on Kent State and Jackson State? What does that mean to you? PC (01:50:58): Well, it was along with the assassination of President Kennedy, probably. Well, I would say the assassination of President Kennedy, the Tet Offensive and the Kent State Massacre were probably the three most prominent events of that era. Now that was the moment, Kent State, I think, when a lot of people that were writing about the boomer generation realized that when you are in the revolutionary forefront, you are not just risking a whack in the head, you are risking your very life. That this is a deadly business. And I think the American public realized. No, I should not say that, because I know the reaction was a reaction of Kent State from the Great American mainstream that was actually quite vicious. A lot of people in America realized that the atmosphere in the country had become so toxic that those National Guardsmen pulled the triggers on these college kids who were really no threat to them whatsoever. You could say that the mood or the atmosphere in the country had its fingers on those triggers as well as the actual men who pulled them. SM (01:52:40): Okay. I have a couple names here. We are getting close to the end of the interview. A couple names that I would like you to respond to. You have already responded to some of the presidents. These do not have to be long responses, but just gut level reactions. Your thoughts on Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. PC (01:53:04): Clowns. SM (01:53:06): Timothy Leary. PC (01:53:08): Another one, but a dangerous clown. SM (01:53:11): How about Spiro Agnew? PC (01:53:19): I would just call him bombastic. I am trying to think of a word to describe him. He was bombastic and a demagogue. Bombastic demagogue. SM (01:53:38): John Kennedy. PC (01:53:47): He still moves me. I know everything, all of his flaws, and he had many. Personal flaws as well as political misconceptions. But there was still something about him that incarnated, I thought, a lot of great things in the American character, the American spirit. SM (01:54:17): How about Daniel Ellsberg? PC (01:54:17): I still miss him. SM (01:54:18): Right. How about Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers? PC (01:54:25): Well, I know Dan a little bit. I have met him. I am torn about that. SM (01:54:45): He is a fellow Marine, too. PC (01:54:46): Yeah, I know. SM (01:54:46): We can go on. PC (01:54:51): Torn about it, because you can take that idea of disclosing big secrets too far and endanger people. But I would say that given, looking at him in hindsight, I think he did the right thing. SM (01:55:10): How about Dr. Benjamin Spock and William Sloane Coffin? PC (01:55:17): No particular opinion of either one. SM (01:55:20): How about Daniel and Philip Berrigan? They threw blood on- PC (01:55:34): I cannot say that... No, I do not really have an opinion or a feeling about either one of them. SM (01:55:42): All right. Dwight Eisenhower? PC (01:55:53): A great general, a great man, but a kind of a boring president. SM (01:56:00): How about Barry Goldwater? SM (01:56:01): How about Barry Goldwater? PC (01:56:15): I see Goldwater as a, living right here in his state, and I still see... I am thinking out loud right now, just a lot of echoes of Goldwaterism... He was really basically, kind of almost a man of the American frontier, who had lived into an era when those frontier values were ceasing to make much sense. SM (01:56:47): Woodward and Bernstein. PC (01:56:50): Oh yeah. No, I think they both did a great thing. SM (01:56:56): What are your thoughts- PC (01:56:57): And I really admire them as journalists because both of them were not, they were not big stars in the paper, and I do not even think they quite knew what they had for quite a while. But they were persistent, and they kept after the story, and I think that they did a great service to the country and to journalism. SM (01:57:26): How about George Wallace? PC (01:57:29): A demagogue. SM (01:57:31): How about William Buckley? PC (01:57:43): I think he was a guy that was a brilliant, he definitely was a brilliant articulator of the classic conservative position, but at quite a few points in his life was a bit overly impressed with himself. SM (01:58:06): How about Watergate? Your thoughts on that? PC (01:58:11): Well, I go back to what I said. I said I think Nixon was an evil man, period. I think, when it came to politics, he was totally, totally amoral. And that Watergate scandal was a direct result of his amorality. SM (01:58:33): How about Woodstock and the Summer of Love? PC (01:58:36): Well, just a lot of frothy bullshit. SM (01:58:41): The year 1968. PC (01:58:45): One of the most dramatic years in our history, really a chronological dividing line. Think of everything that happened then, King assassinated, Kennedy assassinated, the riots after King's assassination, the Tet Offensive, the Chicago Convention riots. That was the year, going back almost to one of your first questions, that I felt that the country was going to blow itself apart. SM (01:59:21): And LBJ withdrew from... PC (01:59:22): Yeah, LBJ withdrew from running for another term. SM (01:59:25): The term counterculture. PC (01:59:36): What do I think of it? SM (01:59:36): Yeah, what do you think of the counterculture? PC (01:59:37): Oh, oh, what do I think of the term? Or what do I think of- SM (01:59:39): Just, yeah, the counterculture, not the term, just the... PC (01:59:42): Again, I think that that was, that is the least attractive facet or aspect of this boomer generation that you are writing of. It was basically a... It was self-gratification and self-indulgence masquerading as a social revolution. SM (02:00:08): How about the hippies and the yippies? PC (02:00:10): The same thing. They were the counterculture. SM (02:00:14): How about the Chicago 8? PC (02:00:21): Oh, I will go back to what I was saying about Tom Hayden and all that. They were basically ideologues, and like all ideologues, I do not think they lived in the real world. SM (02:00:38): And Tet. PC (02:00:41): Well, Tet was... That was an interesting event, probably a rather euphemistic way to put it. SM (02:00:50): That was (19)68 too. PC (02:00:52): Yeah, yeah. What happened with Tet is, it is often said nowadays, and going back 10, 15 years in some of the postmortems about Vietnam, that we had actually had the war won at that point, that we had dealt such severe blows to the Viet Cong that they had never even recovered from it. And that was true insofar as it went. But what a lot of people ignore was that this offensive took place at a time when the political and military leadership of America were telling Americans about all of the wonderful progress we were making in Vietnam. And that all of a sudden, this enemy that was supposed to have been on the ropes, comes back and stages these massive attacks throughout the country, even to the point of invading the American Embassy in Saigon. And I think that is when the American people said that somebody has not been telling us the truth. That is why that when they say that that was a psychological victory, they are correct. Where they're incorrect, is assuming that it was a psychological victory because the media made it so. What really made it so were the optimistic statements and predictions that preceded it. SM (02:02:37): Just a couple more. John Dean, thoughts on John Dean. PC (02:02:48): Well, what do I think of him? My opinion of his character, who- SM (02:02:52): Yeah, he is the guy that- PC (02:02:52): I think he was the guy that saw the ship was sinking and decided to bail. SM (02:03:06): Very good. Yeah. The final names here are the women leaders, the Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug. Shirley Chisholm's in there. A lot of the, Phyllis Schlafly, who was a conservative, the women leaders of that period. PC (02:03:23): Oh. So, what about them, I mean? SM (02:03:24): Yeah, just your thoughts, if you have any thoughts on them. Many of them got involved in the anti-war movement too. PC (02:03:31): Yeah, yeah. Well, it was because, once again, as I said, it was the war and then the anti-war movement it had spun. I still think it was the generator behind a lot of the social and cultural upheavals of that period, which would include the feminist movement. SM (02:03:46): The- PC (02:04:07): Well, I do not know. By the way, I have met Betty Friedan, and I would suspect... I mean, I never met Gloria Steinem. I never met Shirley Chisholm or Phyllis Schlafly, on the conservative side. But I have a feeling that if I did, that I would end up liking Betty Friedan the most. I liked her. I thought she was a very pragmatic kind of feminist, even though she is associated by analogy. SM (02:04:44): We often say that... In the boomer generation, we talk about the (19)60s and the (19)70s as boomers have aged, but we do not talk a lot about the (19)50s. And what is amazing is that the boomer generation is often defined as a rebellious one. But that is amazing and ironic when you look at the (19)50s that were kind of laid back, conservative. Nobody really spoke up that much. I reflect upon the (19)50s by watching the television shows, whether it be Mickey Mouse Club, or the Mouseketeers, Howdy Doody. PC (02:05:19): Yeah, seriously. SM (02:05:20): Howdy Doody, when they were very young, Hopalong Cassidy, all the westerns on television through the (19)50s, and certainly the movies. And I know that many of the boomers, when they were very young, the McCarthy hearings were going on. If they could have heard that voice on television, may not understand it all, telling people their communists and, of course, going through the threat of nuclear war and all the things, but parents giving as much as they can to their kids. And all of a sudden, the first-stage boomers go into seventh grade around 1960 when President Kennedy's going in, and everything kind of changes. Is there something about the 1950s that maybe really has not caught on here, or was that it really had an influence on boomers when they were young? And I want to add one other thing here. The beats were also part of the (19)50s, and of course, Kerouac and Ginsburg and those people, and their whole very being was challenging authority and the status quo. So, your thoughts on what was it in the (19)50s that may have influenced these young people subconsciously before they even started getting into junior high school? PC (02:06:39): Well, I think that one thing is that... I think we are talking about a number of levels of human psychology, and particularly mass psychology. One, that I would just say, was boredom. No. Sometimes boredom is a great motivator. I think that a lot of these people that grew up in the (19)50s were just kind of bored. They wanted action. They wanted excitement. They wanted things to happen. So I think that was a factor. I think the other one was privilege. I had mentioned this earlier. This was the first generation in America, its Black component excepted, that had never really known hardship and hard times, so it was comfortable. It had the luxury to think about things other than getting a job, surviving, rising just a little bit in society, hopefully from the lower class over to the middle class, and that kind of thing. And then another would be that there is a certain hypocrisy that they saw in their parents' generation that was, I think, undeniably there, particularly the racism that existed. At that time in the (19)50s, it was really quite virile. I mean, I remember it really, very clearly. One thing I remember is 1962, I was driving with two of my college buddies down to the big migration in Fort Lauderdale. We got lost. There were no interstate highways to follow at that time, and there's all these old US highways and state highways and stuff. Anyway, we got lost in the middle of Georgia somewhere at night, and we stopped at a gas station to get gas and ask directions. And I remember that I was really thirsty, and I went around to the side of the building, and I was just drinking at a water fountain. And while I was bent over the water fountain, I felt this tap on my shoulder, and it was the gas station attendant, who was a pretty beefy guy, big guy, and he had a type of [inaudible]. I think it was a blunt... It was probably an open-ended wrench, but it might have been a ratchet, I do not remember. Anyway, a large metal tool, and tapping me on the shoulder. And he says, "You do not look like no nigger to me, boy." And he pointed up to the sign, says, "Colored only," or is it blue? This is scary stuff. So, I think that there was a perception of a certain hypocrisy. And I think, too, is that when they talk about... Okay, we have the boomer generation and the greatest generation, which were the parents of the boomer generation, is that... Well, the greatest generation, I think too, it was probably a bit over materialistic, even though its materialism, in a lot of ways, contributed to the comfort and the security with which the boomers were brought up in. But I think that they may have resented that. They may have seen that their parents were too concerned with getting ahead, making a living, the old 1950s organization-man idea, and rebelled against that as well. SM (02:11:16): When the best history books are written, they are usually about 50 years after an event. Some of the best World War II books have been written in the last 5 to 10 years, and that is 50 years after World War II ended in (19)45. When the best history books are written about the boomer generation, 50 years, or even after boomers have passed, what do you think they will be saying about the generation? And again, the people that will be writing these books will be the generation Xers, of which is the generation that followed, or even most likely, millennials and future generations. So, they would not have even been alive during the time the boomers were alive. PC (02:12:04): Well, I could not project that far ahead. I would suspect that this, whatever you want to call them, generation X or generation Y, anyway, people might... I have two sons. They are 38 and 36, so I guess they are generation X. I do not know. SM (02:12:24): Yep, they are generation X. PC (02:12:36): And my impression is that if any of them ever write the history of the boomers, it probably will not be too positive a portrait. I think they may see the boomers as just a bit too self-involved, too self-centered, kind of like that newspaper reporter that told me like, "What the hell is going on here? People my age are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and you guys keep arguing about this goddamn Vietnam War that took place 35 years ago." They may not be as impressed with the boomers as the boomers quite often are of themselves. SM (02:13:17): Mr. Caputo- PC (02:13:18): But I do not know. I cannot think about it. But then going further into the future than that is impossible for me. SM (02:13:25): Yeah. One of the interesting things is for some reason, millennials, which is people born after, probably in the mid-1980s in fact, they seem to get along fine with the boomer generation. There is really strong links because their parents are boomers, and now 85 percent of all the parents of college students are generation Xers. So, it is interesting, the links they have got. In the mid-(19)90s we did programs on the generation X and boomers, and boy, there was friction between these two generations. There is no question. And the friction was based on this, and it was very clear cut that there were two things that generation Xers thought about boomers. Number one is, "I am tired of hearing about what it was like when you were young. I am sick of it. You're too nostalgic." And the other reaction was, "Geez, I wish I lived during that era because there is no issues today for me like there was for you." So those are kind of some interesting comments. And we did two programs where we had panels on that. Those came out clear. The last question I have here is what do you hope your lasting legacy is going to be? PC (02:14:50): Oh, I think that if somebody who wrote some pretty good hardcover books that they will, it is to be hoped, be read a hundred years from now. SM (02:15:07): Well, I can guarantee you, Rumor of War will be read 300 years from now. No, I am a history major, political science major as an undergrad, and I have about 20, 25 books that I have read in my life, and I am a reader. Your book is there. Your book is just- PC (02:15:27): Oh. Well, I mean, I hope so. I think of, I am trying to remember it. Let me see if I can quote it exactly, probably will not be able to, but it's from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. And it's a whole passage he has on the brevity of life. And he says something like, he says, "Brief, too, is the longest posthumous fame, and even this is carried on by poor mortals, who must themselves die and be forgotten." SM (02:16:09): Wow. PC (02:16:12): It is always good to... Yeah. I hope that my book will be read 100 or 300 years from now. A thousand years from now, it may not be. SM (02:16:28): Well, I hope it is still, will always being book form. I am worried about people reading on computers. But anyways, I do recommend that you do read Fortunate Son while you are out in Arizona. Pick it up in the library or buy it. I know they have copies of in the bookstore. I think Lewis Puller's book is excellent. He was one of the inspirations for me getting started in my project here because we took students down to Washington to meet him at the Wall two days before the Women's Memorial was dedicated. He spent over two and a half hours with seven of our students at a bench across the way there. And then in the spring, of course, we all know he committed suicide. It was very sad. And I have my own story about it. It is going to be in the opening of this book, things I am going to say about that, but I encourage you to read it. It is a great book. Are there any questions that I did not ask that you expected me to ask? PC (02:17:32): Gosh, no. SM (02:17:33): No. I guess I have covered it all then. I will turn my tape player off. Thank you very much. One thing I want to mention is that I went through 50 interviews before I realized I had to get waivers for all of my speakers. They all said, "You can use my tape," and once they get the transcript and edit it and stuff. And so, what I am doing now, I am having to send out waivers to the first 50 people I interviewed, and 7 of them had died, so I got to go to the family estates. So, I just wanted to let you know, sometime in the next couple of weeks I will be sending, through the email, a copy of the waiver, then you can make a copy of it, print it, and then send it back to me on the computer. PC (02:18:17): Okay. And I will try not to die between then. SM (02:18:19): Oh yeah, do not die. But Senator Gaylord Nelson was one of my earlier interviews. PC (02:18:24): Confuse your... SM (02:18:25): Yeah. Well, I just found out one of my interviews... just died recently, and it was Forrest Church from All Souls... the son of Frank Church. And then Jack Smith, I interviewed, and he passed away, and of course, Senator McCarthy, and so there's been a few. But I want to thank you very much for taking this lengthy time with me. It's an honor to talk to you. And one thing I do miss, and that is taking pictures of you because the way this book is going to be broke down, it's going to be broken down into seven different sections, and you will be in the veterans’ section plus the authors section. And I usually take pictures of all the individuals, 90 percent of the people I have been in person. So somehow, I need to get some updated pictures of you to put at the top, but I will be emailing you on that. PC (02:19:18): Okay. Yeah, I have got a friend of mine here who is a pretty good photographer. He could just get a shot at me. SM (02:19:23): Yeah. I do not know if you are ever in the Philadelphia area in the spring, and I do not know if you are [inaudible] or speak in that area. I got two people that I have already interviewed but are going to be in Philadelphia, Washington, or New York in the spring. And I am just going to take their pictures, anyway. PC (02:19:37): No, I do not plan to be. SM (02:19:40): Right. All right. Well, you have a great day. Thank you. PC (02:19:44): Okay. All right. It was good talking to you. I guess we certainly covered a lot of ground here. SM (02:19:52): And I will keep you updated on how the project is going. I got a lot of transcribing to do, and once I get it transcribed, you get a copy of that as well. And I will get the waiver to you first, and we will go from there. PC (02:20:07): All right, okay. SM (02:20:08): Well, thank you very much and happy holidays. PC (02:20:11): All right. Happy holidays to you, and you are welcome. SM (02:20:13): Yep. And talk to you... (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 Philip Caputo Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Caputo, Philip ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Journalists; Authors; Marines; Caputo, Philip--Interviews Description An account of the resource Philip Caputo is a Chicago born journalist and novelist. Caputo attended Loyola and Purdue Universities and served in the U.S Marine Corps for three years. He has written 16 books throughout his life and was nominated for the National Book Award for <em>Horn of Africa</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 2009-12-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.31a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.31b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 140:17 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/96beb7494bb3b853195d287bb3b6bc81.jpg e4cdcbb58ea75a688320e9841f41cd4b https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/13a1f59be9541edce86b843d238aaa2e.mp3 dccdab1cb59d2d7cd59c36206e296159 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 2009-12-03 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Mandy Carter Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Mandy Carter, a native of Albany, NY, is an activist for the African-American LGBT community. She attended Hudson Valley Community College. After leaving college, she won a Spirit of Justice award for helping to increase awareness for the LGBT community and for quickening the process of acceptance of the LGBT community. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize as one of the \&quot;1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005\&quot;.&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;}">Mandy Carter, a native of Albany, NY, is an activist for the African-American LGBT community. She attended Hudson Valley Community College. After leaving college, she won a Spirit of Justice award for helping to increase awareness for the LGBT community and for quickening the process of acceptance of the LGBT community. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize as one of the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005."</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;Activism; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Woodstock; Baby boom generation; Voting Rights Act; Civil Rights Movement; Race Relations; Women's Health; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Black Panthers; Richard Nixon; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; LSD; John F. Kennedy; Lyndon Johnson; Hubert Humphrey; Free Speech Movement; LGBT&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13689059}}">Activism; Assassination of John F. Kennedy; Woodstock; Baby boom generation; Voting Rights Act; Civil Rights Movement; Race Relations; Women's Health; Vietnam Memorial; Kent State; Jackson State; Watergate; Black Panthers; Richard Nixon; Eugene McCarthy; George McGovern; LSD; John F. Kennedy; Lyndon Johnson; Hubert Humphrey; Free Speech Movement; LGBT</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 135:15 Subject LCSH Human rights workers; African American sexual minorities; Carter, Mandy--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Mandy Carter Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 3 December 2009 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:02 SM: Testing, one, two, testing. 0:07 MC: Because what I thought was so unique about the (19)60s that of course, you know, you are running rattling off these names of people. And I do not know about other generations, I guess what did they call the (19)50s? The Beat Generation? And I do not know. 0:21 SM: Yeah, sometimes, you know, the silent generation two or World War II. 0:25 MC: Yeah. But what was intriguing to me is that I thought it was I thought it was interesting. Those of us born too young to be a part of the Civil Rights Movement, but just the right age to be smack dab in the middle of the Vietnam Movement. But what strikes me, Steve, and I am just like, come up in some of your its just the continuity factor of so many of us that when we got involved, we got about the big picture. It was not just only the Vietnam War, it was not only about you know, women's right to choose to it was this broader perspective of equality and justice, and I think that so many of us who are still active, still involved. And in a way, I think the demographics when I last saw when I left saw them that post World War Two baby boomers, roughly 78 million of us and thinking, what kind of impact that can have and it has to be so real I think the Obama stuff, what impact that has on a culture when you have that many people that kind of came from that generation? I am just intrigued by that. And maybe your book might get to the heart of all that is how else do you explain some of the people you are rattling off? That are there are still here and what they believe in is just a constant. I am just intrigued. 1:44 SM: Well you know for me, yeah. So, anyway, one of the things to, what I have made sure that I tried to get the book conservatives in here too, because I interviewed Charles Murray, you know, the Charles Murray and I interviewed Ron Robinson for the Young Americans foundation Ed Filner from the Heritage Foundation, Dr. Lee Edwards, a historian at that group, I have interviewed David Horowitz. And I am trying to make sure, I am hoping that one of the goals of this project is also respect and, and an understanding of that each individual, whether you like them or not, are deserving of integrity. I have always, I have always looked upon the definition of integrity as people who stand for something who are willing to stand up in front of a room and speak to people knowing there might be people out there who are going to disagree or dislike what they have to say, but they have the courage, but they had the courage to stand up for their beliefs. And so, this project could be something that could bring people together, even different opposing points of view politically. So, yeah. 2:52 MC: I totally agree. And I have to tell you, when I think about all the movements that we have all been a part of, and, you know, nowadays, sometimes I think so people busier-busier getting your 15 minutes of fame that they would have no really no integrity. But I remember some of our opposition, depending on which side you go on that, but you have to respect what they believe in. They believed in it, they lived it, they talked it. And-and I am really glad you are going to do that. Because without that it would be to be almost skewed, would not it if you did not include? 3:19 SM: Yes. 3:21 MC: Both sides on that I agree with you. 3:22 SM: And I have been trying, you know, trying to get Phyllis Schlafly. You know, some people say no, because they are busy, but you got to make the effort. And that is what I am trying to do. And I saw the first question because you brought up the fact that you are a perfect example of longevity. And you mentioned some of your peers who have lived this life throughout their entire lives of activism in different areas. But one of the criticisms that we often read about the boomer generation is this issue of longevity and how do you feel about the members of the generation overall, whether they be black, white, gay, straight, uh, or any ethnic group in terms of if they were really committed when they were young, have they continued their commitment into the beginning of I guess old age, 62? Just your thoughts on the generation itself? Are you? Are you do you have positive feelings towards the boomer generation or negative? 4:21 MC: Absolutely positive. In fact, I would almost say that is why I am I mean, I if I was not doing his work as an activist, I would love to be a demographer with people who do demography, people who do demographics. Excuse me. Because I am thinking that one of the constants I think that is really helped me, and of course, this is all before the internet. And now the technology which you could use on this little switch on your computer, you have access to everything, prior to those days. I think a lot of us that were getting involved as is first because you had people who were standing up there to explain a folk singer that started out as a teenager, she is nearly 70, who is still believing what she believes in about nonviolence and is consistent in that. And you see that as an example, and I think for me now, maybe this is, maybe this is the defining factor, maybe Steve, I think for those of us who believe in the concepts of nonviolence, and social change, maybe our style or what we believed in, one reason why I am still doing all this work is because when I was bumping into groups like the American Friends Service Committee, the Quakers, the War Resisters League, they talked about the philosophical underpinning of what we did every single day with equality and justice for all. And when you have that as your philosophical underpinning that it does not matter what the issue is coming down the road, and especially in my opinion, I do not know how you feel about this, but the society has such a short attention span it is like I own at a time, I am only going to do women's organizing. Only going to do the work and Vietnam, I am only going to work on nuclear, you know, disarmament, not realizing that there is some kind of constant that keeps you in the ready. Alert. And again, prepared to say that this is multi issue, organizing and as a woman of color, thinking about the struggles I have gone through as a woman, as a person of color, and as a lesbian. How many times have I been down that damn road? So, when I think about that, and I even now when I go out and do public speaking, I was speaking at a black college here in Durham, and it was some, you know, black colleges where, you know, they do not want to really talk about the gay thing. Now, more students are saying, wait a minute, you know, we know we have got gay folks in our black community. Yeah, it is an issue. But I say to them and long before they were coming after us for being black folk and slaves in this country, who do you think was at the receiving end of not having anything in this country, then it was people of color, you know. So, when you when you when you draw it that way and realize it is about kind of a rights issue, people listen to that differently, I think Steve, and I think young people, there is just an attitude of, you know, whatever, I do not care, even in, even in the black, you know, black folk. When I think of youth, I think they are going to be the ones who really will make a difference. But, but that has been my experience. And I think the other final thing I would say on that is, I think people like collinear, and others, a lot of us are bridge builders. Some people are not bridge builders, but I have always been a bridge builder, and where did I learn that you know, the Quakers and nonviolence and how you have to be in a position to see both sides, be willing to kind of go both places, wherever that might be, and willing to take some risk, willing to take some criticism. I have had black folks say to me, Mandy, you are black. I do not want to hear one word about you being lesbian. Yeah, I have been in the NOW and you know, the National Organization of Women setting where I wanted. I want to hear about you being a feminist. Here one word about you being lesbian. Mm hmm. And I said, I am like you all like, you know, take me or leave me. But you got to take all of me. 8:18 SM: That is interesting, because we did a national tribute to Bayard Rustin. Several years back and in our department, we brought a lot of people into because Bayards from Westchester. 8:28 MC: And I- 8:30 SM: And, uh, and we took I took a couple students down to Washington DC and one of them was the president of the Black Student Union and we went to see Courtland Cox who was a close friend of Byard, Rustin, actually, he was a mentee of buyers, who worked in the Clinton administration and we were sitting down there and I could not feel I thought that these young men, both African American young men knew the Byard Rustin was gay, but certainly this president of BSU did not and when Courtland was talking, he mentioned that he was gay and I could see the face on the leader the of the BSU because he is anti-gay. And, oh my, and I did not know that until that particular moment. And I saw right there the divisions between the black and the gay community and the African American community. So, that was kind of a revelation. And he said, my minister just taught me that it was that it is wrong. So, he was not really a supporter of the conference. And so, and I could see it, I want to ask you a question here. What, what specific event in your young life turned the light bulb on in your head with respect to changing your life direction? I know you went to high school I was reading you went to high school, I think in Schenectady, New York. Schenectady, New York. Yep, I know. Well, because I am from Cortland/ Ithaca area and so, I am from New York State. So, I know and, and some but what was not in your high school years and said this just is not right or, what was what was the turning point that kind of helped to aided in in your career path? 10:06 MC: Well Believe it or not, Steve, it was a, we had a social studies class. And I remember I was like, that is a freshman when it goes freshmen South when you go, how does it go freshmen- 10:18 SM: Sophomore, junior senior- 10:22 MC: So, my junior year, and our social studies teacher brought in someone from the American Friends Committee to talk about AFSC. This is like in (19)64, (19)65. And this one person came in this is the only time I ever met this person came into our class and was talking about the work they were doing down south and the Civil Rights Movement. But when he was talking, I, you know, I had to back up a minute the fact that you are going to maybe call this magic moment is interesting, because you know how sometimes you would something happens to you and at the time, you have no idea the impact it is going to have on your life years and years later. Well, this young man who came in from the American Friends Service Committee talking about the Quakers, um, the work they were doing down south, but two things he said that really just perked my heart and my head up. And that was when he made the comment about the power of one. But you know, we live in a society where basically we are always told every day, there is not much you as an individual can really do. But if you really think about it, each and every one of us has to impact change as a person, the one that struck me, but the other thing he did at the end of the class, because I was like, all ears at that point, you know, I mean, you know, you are sitting up in Schenectady what do you know from nothing? It is you know, GE and you are really detached from the, you know, Vietnam was really was not an issue at that time. But then he said something interesting, he said at the end of the class, and if any of you would like to come for a- one-week high school work camp in the Pocono Mountains, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, raise your hand and we will get you there. I raised my hand, and I went, and that one week in the Pocono Mountains of a high school work camp with the American friends Service Committee. The literally changed my life because I was my goal was to be a doctor. I was on a track to be a medical doctor and all that. But I went to that one week up in the Poconos. And I said, I am out of here and got the California the institute and blah, blah, blah. But that was what happened. That one class that one class made all the difference in my life. And here I am all these years later because of it. So, that would be it. 12:33 SM: My gosh. Well, when you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? 12:39 MC: You know, I have to tell you, it is interesting, because, you know, I would probably have to say, coming from New York and moving to San Francisco. I mean, I just do a little quick timeline. I graduated high school in 1966. I was living in an orphanage. It was called the Schenectady Children's Home and the way the law works in New York is that you are a ward of the state. When you turn 18, you are on your own. And I have been a ward of the state since I was born in New York. And I did good in school and the directors of the Schenectady Children's Home where we all went to Mount Pleasant High School said, Mandy, if you decide you want to go on to college, we will pay for the complete thing. But you have got to stay in school and I said, I was interested in the beginning, went one year to Hudson Valley Community College, but then by that time, I was really agitated wanting to really figure out what I wanted to do. I had gone to the AFSC high school work camp, and I made a decision I dropped out. I dropped out of college, which meant I lost all my funding. Hitchhiked down to New York City spent the summer in New York in 1967, and then hitchhiked out to San Francisco with a couple of friends in the at the end of summer, and got to the Institute in 1968. And that is how life has been. To me the (19)60s was a generation "this is what I have to figure out". The Civil Rights Movement had just ended, Martin Luther King had been assassinated. John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated to have those three murders happen in a lifetime of a generation. I do not know if we will ever-ever have that replicated again, and the impact that had and add to that remember, the Cuban Missile Crisis. 14:22 SM: Oh yes-yes, (19)62, 196- 14:26 MC: And I remember in New York, they were given last rights on the radio and then feeling like you know, your life could be over any minute. There was such a sense of urgency, Steve, that I always thought, why am I going to be doing this? I might not be around long enough. Why do not I do the world's safer to I can at least know I will be around long enough. And I think there was a whole generation of us that this kind of error era that it I think it just had a profound impact on how we viewed life, how we saw things and then we thinking we have got to dedicate our lives to figuring out how social change could really change all of that. That would be the thing I would say would be unique. 15:05 SM: When you look at the boomer generation, what would you if you were to list some characteristics of some of the strengths that you saw in the generation some of the weaknesses, what would they be? 15:17 MC: Folk songs, I thought I thought that whole era of you know was you know, named mom, Judy calm. Joan Baez, you know, Crosby, Stills, Nash, that whole kind of what I would call acoustic music. But what was on the radio, it was like folk songs. I think that certainly set a tone in terms of what kind of music you were hearing or you know, Buffalo Springfield, I thought that was interesting. And of course, living in California and being at the heart of the whole anti draft resistance movement. By the resistance, I was living in San Francisco, that resistance with David and all those folks down in Palo Alto, and we were doing demonstrations of the other day. And so, because we were at the heart of being able to maybe stop some of the Vietnam War Machine, if you will, with the, uh, ports where and the- were guys had to go further to be inducted, it just seemed to be like the heartbeat. So, maybe my perspective might would be different than if I was living in, you know, down south or something like that. But another-another method would have to would have to have been Kent State. I think Kent State and remember, there had been some other black kids killed before that on some black schools, but Kent State, I think it just made people realize this government will do whatever it needs to do and it will kill our own people. What a rude awakening that was. I would say certainly the murders of Kennedy, [inaudible] Kennedy at Kent State, you know, it is just- it seems like it is-it is-it is impossible to believe that these things could happen. We are in the missile crisis? How could that happen? 16:56 SM: When you look, when you look at the generation [inaudible], would you consider mostly positive or whether some negative qualities within the within this group? 17:05 MC: I would always see it as positive. But I think that you know, I was also living in the Bay Area when the Black Panthers came around. And as a black person who was a staunch pacifist, I was asking what in the world of these black folk doing with guns up at the state capitol? Do they not realize that I do not care how many guns they carry, look at the price these black panthers paid? And when I think about the Panthers, what people do not remember or they should that they had some of the best programs going on over in Oakland. They had breakfast programs, they had programs going on in the neighborhood. And I saw that side of it. And I could not understand Steve why a group that would be so dedicated to the community. They are the ones that brought in the afros. I mean, look, look at the size of bandits. Angela Davis is outgrowing, get rid of that? You know, James Brown with the slicked down hair and the process and they said you know black is beautiful. And then to go from that message to an off the pigs And, and it was just, and I know for me it was rough choice to be around my black people in. Hear, "well, you know, we are going to support the Panthers, do you?", And I said, "I am not I am not going to be supporting the Panthers not with the guns". I like the idea of doing the breakfast program and working in the neighborhood. What is up with that guy and look at the price these people paid, get murdered in jail, and why they thought guns would work. I do not it is beyond me. It did not. 18:25 SM: You were there in San Francisco during the summer of love. 18:29 MC: I was there during the Summer of Love. 18:30 SM: What was it like being in the Bay Area? You are the first person, ah well David obviously was there. But the first the first person that was really talked about it except describing it. What was it like being in San Francisco in the summer look? 18:45 MC: Well the first place we went of course because we were moving down I was I actually ended up one a part of my part one of my jobs I got just because I had no place to live. I was living in Central Park and I was living down in Washington Square Park, but this is like (19)67 so it is like not it is not it was not bad. It was like just the thing that you did. You know in New York, we were called luck children who go to, you know, California. But I remember I had run out of money. I was walking down in the East Village, West Village. And there was a sign hanging on the door that says, Come on in free lunch or something. And it was run by Tim Leary. It was called the Lead for Spiritual Discovery, LSD. Do I need to say more? And here is the negative. This is one of the negatives I saw. So many young people were going to all these, you know, like New York and San Francisco. Do you know who and if you wanted a place to stay, they would give you free housing. But 99.9 percent of the people sitting down there were men trying to hit on all the women coming into these places, and it happened to me. And I said to the people who were who were running this place, I said, you know, what, I would like to find a place to stay and of course, all the end of the night, it is all these guys. That is all they were doing. It was just despicable when I think about it. Mm hmm. And you know, after the first night, I said, what my choice was one guy or three guys down at the dock. That was my choice. And I turned to the running display says that you need to know this is not good. They said, well, Mandy, is there anything we can do? And I said, you know, is there a way I can work for you or in exchange for a place to stay that is safe? And they said, yeah, you could work here and answer the phones. And that is what I did for the whole summer, Steve, when I work place the whole summer. Oh, but when I think about how men in my opinion, it happened out in California, when we got out there the same thing. They were just sitting on all these women, and if you were willing, and I thought about that, and How sick is that? Yeah, that was the downside for me. 20:44 SM: One of the things some and you know this from probably hearing it on the news, and then criticisms of the boomer generation for the problems in our society over the years, I remember in (19)94, I think of Newt Gingrich when he came to power, um, some of his comments, were that, you know, because a lot of the problems in American society are directly related to the (19)60s. And of course, George Will over the years has written pieces on it. And other people have made comments who were against the liberal left or anything they can to kind of downgrade that era and that generation and the things that happened in the (19)60s in the (19)70s. Criticisms like well, the drug culture, the breakdown, the American family, the divorce rate, a lack of respect for authority. This was a creation of the victim mentality that many people today saying is out there because of that era. What are your thoughts on those critics of the boomer generation who believe this? 21:45 MC: I do not buy it. And what I find fascinating is that maybe now this is just my opinion, but when you think about who was sitting in those offices, while we were trying to beat that war back, it was Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and maybe a lot of us are kind of like we are waiting for a moment when we would have enough numbers to make a difference. And you know, who then ended up being Bill Clinton? And-and so, you know, when I think about now, you know, there is I mean, we would have predicted during that time, how many times for those of us who were out here trying to end that war in Vietnam, and again, a lot of us were too young for the Civil Rights Movement. All we heard was, your rosy eyed never going to happen, you cannot make change. That is all we ever heard. And then we found out when the Nixon tapes were exposed, and someone like the Dan Ellsberg talk about a magic moment, Daniel Ellsberg, who used to work for the RAND Corporation, bumped into people like Randy Keeler and David Harris. Right. And what led him to get to give out the pentagon papers that was about a magic moment, Steve, and that probably did not work to really pull back the veil-veil? Of what was said versus the reality of what they were doing and I think that a lot of us were thinking, we can make a difference. We have made a difference. But we had to wait until almost the presidency of Bill Clinton after Ronald Reagan. So, it is easy to always blame someone or say something. It was not I realized, Steve, that Vietnam War was over. I remember how I said you earlier that a lot of us who had longevity understood it was not just a particular war or a particular issue. Mm hmm. A lot of people went back to school, they got married, they had children, no disrespect, you know that that was part of what you know, they almost put off their lives to try to end this war. And they did. And then people kind of asked, well, then you want me to come back out and do what now? I mean, like, you know, civil justice issues, we are continuing on that lives and you see people now who are of the (19)60s generation, but look at the (19)70s they bring to the table and-and I think that is part of- In my opinion, in a way, you go Clinton then you go eight years of George W. Bush who never should have been in there. And then you get of all people, Barack Obama with the timing. I mean, tell me history did not have some kind of a path happening here. And I have a lot to think in my opinion of that to the (19)60s has direct impact. That is me. I might. 24:19 SM: Well, that-that is interesting. One of the things about the (19)60s and early (19)70s, and a lot of people think the (19)60s go right to about 1973, (19)74 when some changes took place. 24:31 MC: But especially when that war ended in (19)73. 24:34 SM: Yes, but there were so many movements, the Civil Rights Movement that the I guess the question I am trying to ask is, how important was the boomer generation and the people that were young during that time and in their ongoing links, today with these movements, and I am talking about the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano movement, the Native American Movement and the environmental movement. And, you know, how important were the youth. And again, we know that you are you are have had longevity and you have mentioned the Joan Baez and others. But really, the leaders of those movements continued to lead those movements as they aged. 25:18 MC: Now this leads to an interesting point, and I am really glad you asked it that way. Maybe what I was trying to say is that I think another lesson we learned especially after the murder of Martin Luther King I think everyone realized was that if you if you have a cause, and if you do not try to hold up one person who winds up being the head of that cause, because if you kill them, you kill the movement. [dial tone] is-is that the cause is really what has got to be the continuum, not you. So, if the leadership gets older, they move on or whatever, it is the cause that ends [dial tone], excuse me, that ends up and I remember a distinct I remember in the leadership of what I would call our generation, why women got damn sick and tired of men running everything including the resistance because it was always male with men-men- men-men, the Civil Rights Movement, namely a woman other than Coretta Scott King and the person who sat into Montgomery Bus Boycott, you would be you would be hard pressed to hear anyone get. 26:14 SM: Dorothy Height might be another one. 26:16 MC: And, Dorothy Height, but you know, but I mean, three, um. And so, I think you know, when you when you saw movements that were so which is one reason why I think the women's and feminist movement really took off. People just got tired of always feeling like we were here, we were here we were doing the work, but the figureheads who got to get the press. It was always the men and I think a lot of women said, besides just fighting for the rights as women, Steve was a voice and a movement they could call their own. And so, I remember one distinct meeting. I do not know if David mentioned this or not, but I will share one distinct meeting that I remember when we were having with the resistance down in Palo Alto, we were doing one of our usual meetings and the men were dominating and someone passed a piece of paper and approve, you know, you are at a meeting pass a piece of paper around, put your information on it. And it got to one woman and she says, "Well, how come there is nothing but penises on this list? There is no women on here." And that one comment, made everyone go. Yeah, yeah. And the other. And the other controversy was Joan Baez, when she and her sister Mimi and Pauline put out that poster that said, women say yes to men to say no. And you I mean, they had to take it off because it was just people were outraged because what message was that women say yes to the men who say no. And so you know, think about that. put that in perspective. And if you want to, if you want to view if you want to, if you want to view those kinds of, if you were doing like a flowchart, where this dramatic shift of women thinking Enough is enough. And then of course, with the women them dealing having to deal with us, we are lesbian now, when this whole thing called the lavender menace. We do not want lesbians associated with, they were not that they were not there. Which meant that a lot of lesbians said, you know, what if we cannot be here to be who we are, we are gone. We are out of here. And then you got the lesbian movement. So, I am just intrigued at these moments where sometimes it is not out of because people realize it is the right thing. You just get tired of being ignored or you are not your issues are not relevant, and you go on, start something new, and then look what we have now. 28:25 SM: Well, we know that um. I know Dr. King, if he were alive, would be very sensitive to this issue, because he would have to take the criticism that the Civil Rights Movement, like you said, was basically a male dominated movement in the antiwar movement the same way. I would like to ask you questions, though, on the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano movement. Cesar Chavez was kind of a con on the leaders in the Native American movement and the environmental movement were men also kind of in the lead of these movements and women worse in secondary roles at the beginning. 29:00 MC: You know, it is interesting. I mean, let us take one, let us take, let us take them each by their own thing, because each one could be different. What was interesting to me is that you know, when you thought about Cesar Chavez, first of all, the fact that you had led farmworkers organizing was extraordinary. And the fact that it was not white and middle class, it was like, Whoa, what is going on here in California. But what people do not remember is that Cesar Chavez always, always, always had if the laws were with him, or always demanded that the media make sure that they included her but the media kept on only talking about who, Cesar Chavez and it was not until Cesar got ill and or when he could not be somewhere that people realize, wait a minute, Dolores Huerta was there from day one with Cesar Chavez, but a lot of people do not remember that history. And so, even so even when you have a man who understands and especially in the Latino community, where even though you have got this macho thing, let us admit it is like a matriarch just like the black community, what do you think? Family it is women and maybe part of the dynamic this is, this is a little psychological but maybe part of the reason why when you have, and it is more of an issue with black men than with women about being gay. Women have always been the matriarch of the family. And maybe anything that threatens the idea that males are so what word Am I looking for Steve are so chastised or so put down that whenever there is an opportunity for them to be the figurehead to be the face and voice, they will take it. But still knowing that without the women, I mean, if you did not have women, in these black churches, man, you would not have no black church, but the minister gets all the accolades. Mm hmm. And so-and so, I think when you think about, you know, the gay thing when I first talked about being gay in my black community, you know what they said to me? They said, "Mandy, we have enough problems, we do not need to be bringing that gay thing in here. That is all we need to have. We can barely hang on to our men now and you want we are going to lose more men because we are gay." I mean, think about that. And that really goes to a heart a lot of the reason why they are upset because it is what the preacher says, but they are thinking we do not want to lose no more men. Anyway, um, so, but-but I think the environmental women, I think the environmental movement had a lot more women, what was the Dr. Helen Keller got? Is that her name? 31:17 SM: Yes. 31:18 MC: Yeah, really-really was out there. And I would say that might have been the place where it really broke the tenure of-of being so male dominated. And now that that would almost tend to think as we went into the (19)70s and (19)80s there tends to be quite frankly, more women. Sometimes they have been men but again, it was just hard to break that male dominated thing even if they were doing good social justice. 31:43 SM: I know in the Native American movie you think of Russell Means and Sam sub there was a woman made kill about most women are placed in a secondary role there either so- 31:53 MC: And once again they were you know, and yet you still had so many strong women, Native American Indigenous women and you know and maybe that and maybe that is where you know you ended up people like with woman man killer and others who ended up starting to write and or be known and, and but this culture is just- it is just men and also the media does not help when they say who you are speaking to your people who your spokespeople see when there was a (19)63 march on Washington. We always talked about [inaudible] never got to speak as an out gay man but you never you never you know who else did not speak that day. Not one woman spoke, they say, not one woman spoke at the 1963 march on Washington, because they even said we cannot have any women speaking because we will not be taken seriously. So, think about that. Here we are with black folk trying to get the right to vote and be full citizens. But even at the march that was really a magic moment. Women were allowed to sing but they did not speak. 32:53 SM: I know at least Dorothy Height was able to stand up there with him, so. [laughter] 32:58 MC: You know what as he went on no, you do not. And then the rules were no women speaking. But think about that now. And I am not saying it is I am not saying I am not trying to put a value judgment on it. But I think it was sense of even it did not matter what movement if you were black, white, Latino, Native American, in a movement for justice, even within those movements, there was still the issue of where the issue of gender and let alone sexual orientation what role they had to play, but look how far we have come. 33:27 SM: When you think of Harvey Milk, I actually lived out in the San Francisco Bay Area at the time that he was assassinated along with Mayor Moscone. When-when Harvey Milk who is the hero of the gay and lesbian movement, even though Stonewall happened many years earlier, what-what-what how would you rate him and whether he was he was a male leader? So, what how would you rate him in terms of, uh, his treatment of women? 33:56 MC: But you never said something about First of all, people, I have not seen the movie milk pretty limited. I do not know if I could go, have you seen that? 34:03 SM: Yes, I have it. 34:05 MC: Okay. Uh huh. Okay, um, one day I might, you know, I might I might get around to it. I remember, after the Vietnam War, it took me years and years and years before I could go to the wall. I mean, you talk about people having issues going to the wall of being vets, I think a lot of us who are who wanted to fight that war. I could never go near that wall. It was just too hard. And I thought a lot of us who fought that to fought the war in Vietnam, let alone those who fought in it. The Wall was a hard place and it took I think it was like two years ago, I finally went to the wall for the first time ever. Oh, wow. It was it was devastating to think how many lives we lose and for what? Anyway, Harvey Milk, putting up with Harvey when this is what is so interesting, though. See, when Harvey, when Harvey and you were there, when Harvey Milk started to run, you know, back in the community was what are you wasting your time we are having a great time in San Francisco. It was not met with any kind of wonderful thing the way you look at people now who run for public offices, it is like what is the point? But Harvey as a man, and because he had a lot of the gay male community behind them, but there were a number of women who were can that were key in his election campaign did not get to hear that. Now this, the tragedy is and I was, you know, we are all hanging out in the bars, but I was hanging at Moz. And, and you know, and someone said Harvey wants to run and why not? It is gay vote and blah-blah. It was not until the man got murdered on that fateful day. And we all looked at each other. I mean, remember, Steve, but that happened that day, everyone was told to meet down at the corner of Castaway market bring a candle we are going to march in silence down to City Hall. And Steve, this is a town where lesbians never mixed with gay men, gay men never mixed with lesbians because we had our own worlds. That was what was great. And we got to the corner of market and [inaudible] and Steve, we looked at each other and said, what have we been doing? And it took Harvey's death, and George Moscone’s murder to say we have got to come together as a community, and I do not think that it is just an- a weird thing to say, I do not think that would have happened and occurred and look where we are now-now with the politics of San Francisco, because people did not quite understand what we had in the gift. We are too busy in our own worlds, you know, I will never forget that moment as long as I live. And I think back at that time, and that to me was the candidate in terms of the power and the politics of LGBT San Francisco to this day. 36:30 SM: My sister lived within three blocks of Mayor Moscone’s home. And I can remember I have a dumbed down Berlin game and I can remember driving up around his home and seeing all the cars there after the day after he was killed. And then of course, the event the daytime event in front of City Hall, remember when and I was there along with just about, I had a lot of people that I worked with, they were in they were not getting it what they could, but they liked Harvey Milk and they were all there. Talk about bringing people together, that that event brought gay and straight together because they admired him and I will never forget Joan Baez singing Amazing Grace. 37:13 MC: Oh, man, do you remember? 37:14 SM: Were you there? 37:16 MC: Yeah, I was there at that? Yeah. Talk about, talk about memorable days memorable days, not only in the context of San Francisco, I am getting chills thinking about it. And, you know, it is just it is almost like it is not me, Steve, but once to take this to lose someone to really sometimes grasp just how precious what we have in the, in our dedication to what we do. 37:38 SM: It is almost amazing because it is I have worked in universities for so about 30 years and, you know, all the different groups that we have talked about here, whether they be African American, Asian, American, Latino, you know, college Republicans, college Democrats, student, government, gay and lesbian, all the groups. They all come together. When there is a tragedy, like 911 and or somebody is murdered or the Rodney King incident, or whenever there is a major tragedy, they are all together and but then they seem to dissipate are not together anymore. Except for cultural extravaganzas, or, you know, and diversity, they have these special events that happen the university, it brings everybody out and about a tragedy, but it does not seem to be an everyday happening. And that is always disturb me. I do not know how you feel. 38:30 MC: And I was wondering to set that that is part of I was wondering if that is part of human nature, is that part of American culture, I agree with you. We would like to come together around a moment of tragic tragedy. And then time goes by now I will say this, I think they are, I think that would happen sometimes, though, that lessons are learned and I think there is some strong bonding that happens too, so some so you so you stay in touch with or you might be more clued in about why we need to establish like a relationship together. And I am not sure why someone was celebrating something and or when we have to mourn. And I am not sure what that is about Steve. I mean, but on the other hand remember I told you after Harvey's death, I mean, the gay and lesbian community, we did not, there was really no reason why we had to get together. But when Harvey ran, and then we realized about the politics of the city, and it was in our best interest to try to figure out ways, um, and then you know, when he after he got killed, we had another gay person run, got the seat, and then you had your first lesbian. You know, so, yes and no, depending on what you mean by-by staying together versus drifting apart. I mean, more about that, maybe that would help me understand. 39:46 SM: Well, at the university, for example, we had a, um, student who was an African American gay male, and I did not know this till after he left, but he was a very big leader within the Black Student Union. And, uh, he was always in the BSU office, BSU office, it is not on purpose, they have always had their doors shut. But right across the hallway is the Gay and Lesbian Student Union. And they had their-their office. And his only comment was that he told another person who told me is that he never felt comfortable walking across the hall because he feared what his peers would say in the BSU. So that was, you know, that that is the separation, I am talking about that, uh, you are, you are expected to be in one community and it is okay to be friends. But if, if you go too far, I just a perception that I have seen what one of the qualities of the boomer’s generation is they thought they were the most unique generation in American history. And a lot of boomers when they were young felt that way because they thought they were going to change the world. They were going to end injustice. They were going to bring equality. They are going to end the war, they are going to create a more perfect world. And that is why they had that unique feeling in some to even who we were approaching that (19)62 era-era still think that. But what are your thoughts on a generation? You know, I do not think I am not sure 74 to 78 million thought this, but a lot of them knew that they are unique. Just your thoughts on they are thinking that they are unique. 41:25 MC: Yeah, I guess I guess he said a racist field that I guess I would be curious to know, like, you know, go from the (19)60s, you know, what they racing and all that. Now, this is my take on it. I think I mean, I say I still think the (19)60s were magical because I think, uh, I mean who would be the next, and how do we count the generation? So, if you had the (19)60s, would it be the (19)70s and (19)80s. And then what was the Generation X and Y? I have no clue what that means. 41:52 SM: Generation X and now the millennials. Yeah. 41:56 MC: Is that what they are calling them? Look at the music we are listening to. I mean, when I think about the song I remember hearing that were songs that really meant something Dylan and Baez and other folk, you know, it was it was a protest generation but it was also a generation of hope. Now I cannot even make the lyrics out half the time of what is going on. Um. And so, music is an indication of what your what your generation is about. I do not know my day and I was part of that (19)60 thing because after that, I just lost track and then we got the bubblegum pop, (19)70s stuff and, you know, whatever. 42:29 SM: Disco. Disco. 42:35 MC: Wait a minute. I am glad you said that. Because I was just thinking about something. I was I would play I think we should claim to disco gay community. And here is why. 42:44 SM: Hold on. I am going to turn my tape here. Hold on one second. 42:48 MC: Okay, great. 42:55 SM: All right. Alright, go continue. 42:57 MC: But I am glad you mentioned disco because I remember this is going back to when I was up in Schenectady high school. I remember. And I will just say all this stuff, and then you figure it out, Steve, I remember thinking when the Civil Rights Movement was in its height of time, you know, (19)64, (19)65 and all that was going on down there. I remember Motown and if you remember the (19)60s and Motown songs ended up being this amazing cultural thing. And I guess you would have to count Elvis-Elvis in there somewhere in the (19)50s. With seemed like, even if you were white. You listen to songs of the Motown and I think we have to credit Motown for maybe bringing a lot of folks maybe never would have been put in the same place because of the music that was going on in the (19)60s and that would be the Motown sound, the folk songs. And then in (19)64, (19)65 came the Beatles. Now remember how jarring that was for me because up in upstate New York, when I was going to Mount Pleasant High School, we would always have daily dances and until the Beatles came along the only music that we were hearing, dancing was Motown, and then the Beatles and someone said, well, who are these people? They were white. They were from Britain. They had a sound, they took the whole thing over. But after the (19)60s, the (19)70s then we had disco. And I was in San Francisco and thank God for Sylvester. [laughter] You know who Sylvester is right. Yes. And Sylvester was the biggest Queen out there and he did not have anything but pride about who he was. But disco ended up being the scene and who else was on that? The Village People with YMCA? Yep. And how many baseball games do you go today? Steve? What song do they play all the time at every baseball stadium in this country, YMCA, so do not tell me that you know that whole disco sound and you know that was another generation too. But even disco had its unique role in my opinion music of- 45:02 SM: You, you make a perfect way? Because all my friends were listening to Diana Ross and the Supremes. I mean, who would know? Yeah. And the temptations and the list and of course, Marvin Gaye and what is going on in the early (19)70s. 45:10 MC: I mean it is powerful songs, right? 45:19 Yeah. And they are just, they are just so many and then of course, um, Donna Summer you are talking about Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor and the Bee Gees and all the disco music is unbelievable. You make some good-good points. How important, how important do you feel that the college students of the boomer generation were in ending the war in Vietnam? I have gotten mixed responses on their-their impact on ending the war, just your thoughts on the protests on college campuses, and their overall impact. 45:55 MC: Pivotal. We could not do it without him. I mean, we had a lot of people out in the streets, but it was because we had these courts that was the other thing see we ended up doing this this tactic of coordinated days of action, I remember, not the draft week, um, you know you name them were and the infrastructure because college campuses was the natural built in infrastructure that us to organize these strikes and sit-ins and pros and what not and-and I do not know how you do movement in this country without them you had students very much involved heading down in droves down south when the Civil Rights Movement was going on. When you had the feminist movement and you had people demanding women's studies programs on college campuses, you had women campuses all across this country and even with the farm worker boycott, which is how did you think they got all these contracts when these colleges to say do not buy the lettuce so colleges, to me, is a built in infrastructure that really worked and the other, the other the other. The other network would have to be the churches came to the fore as well. Churches in the draft civil rights, women, environmental now you see with the gay lesbian thing. So, college campuses and their faith-based community. This seems to be natural. So, for me, I think, for this kind of justice organizing. 47:14 SM: How do you feel about this? This quote, this is another criticism on the generation. And we often hear it. "Only 15 percent of the boomer generation was ever really involved in any kind of activism. And so, we are talking 85 percent, who did nothing." I believe they were all subconsciously affected whether they did something or not, but that is still a lot of people. So, your thoughts on when people use that as a criticism and a lessening of the impact of the boomer generation for good in America. 47:51 MC: I do not know if I buy that. I mean, I do not, you know, I do not know where they got that figure 15 percent. I am not sure what they are getting at. Here is the other way to look at it, but let us go the other side. And that is all it took us to make this big, big difference where it makes it easier to go out and think about who you have to organize if we can do it with just only 15 percent of the population. But I think maybe this might be, this might be an interesting thing I have always wondered. And it was not until after the Pentagon Papers came out, and Dan Ellsberg and we had him talk about, you know, why he did what it did and what he thought about it. And it makes you wonder if it is about, lose my train of thought. If it is about changing hearts and minds. I mean, I remember when I was doing my first organizing, someone said to me, man, do you know how change happens in this country? And I said, no, tell me how it happens. Blah, blah. He said, it is about the changing of hearts and minds, but it is also about at times, partnering that with changing the public policy. And that there are times one gets ahead of the other and here is a classic example, interracial marriage in this country was against the law until we had the chicken in 1967. I graduated high school in (19)60. But in 1967, the famous Loving v. Virginia case out there did finally once and for all put to rest that you could be an interracial couple and get married legally in any state in this country. But that did not mean that the next day after that decision and to 1967 the rule said, Oh, yeah, we did it now. Yeah, it is all right. You can be married and if you are an interracial couple, just the opposite Steve. People hated the idea, but that was when the law got ahead of public opinion. So, I wonder in this country when you have a lot of young but they would call who is all these popular these people out here? You know, rebel rousing there is so few of them. Why are they causing all this? Why are they causing all these problems? But those handful of people, that really, were so dedicated to what they believed in and willing to take the risk and down south, you know, when they said black folk is not going to never make a difference down here. But it did make a difference, Steve. And so, versus the-the final product of what you end up changing, society and attitudes, then I would not I would not go by percentage, I will go by the fact that it did it got done. And sometimes it only happens with a handful of people. I do not know if I am articulating that well or not. But that is hearts and minds, policy, the power of the vote, the power of being in the street, the power of what you believe in. 50:34 SM: What is interesting is that today’s universities are run mostly by boomers, in some and now generation Xers those born after 1982, and so those are the people that are now running today's universities, and a lot of them are boomers that are some of them heading toward retirement, but they are in leadership roles. I am wondering, uh, and this is just the thought based on my experience. But I would like your thoughts, that there is a fear of activism on university campuses, not volunteerism, they want people to volunteer and service learning is crucial and, and they will be everybody will be the first to say, well, that is activism. But activism in terms of 24/7 is-is what I am talking about people whose lives are activists as opposed to giving a certain number of hours a week toward a cause. And, and my thought is that, and I like your thoughts on it is that universities are afraid of activism because it brings to mind what happened in the (19)60s, which is about disruption, stopping of classes. And in this day and age, we know that parents send their kids to college and if anything happens, they will send them take them right out and send them to another school. So, your thoughts on whether universities that actually learn anything about the activism that took part in the (19)60s and-and then in the possible linkage between the leaders that run universities today and the fear of activism itself? 52:09 MC: Well, I would say because I speak on a lot of college campuses I would say, like we say that I do not see anywhere near the level of activism what I saw, you know, back in the day, if I can use that term. In fact, I have been to a couple of campuses, I cannot believe to see where I was told that because they learned so well, from what the demonstrations that have happened in the past, that they were when they were doing building designs and security designs, they would do it in a way that there would be less opportunity for sit ins or taking things over or whatever. Because some of them had learned so well from when people were doing their activism on college campuses. And I thought that was just too ironic. And some of those people were people in the (19)60s who said, oh, yeah, I used to fit in and if you want to make sure that this is sit-in proof, right, this is what you can do but I do not I do not see as much maybe because it has taken a different style and, and this is my take on it but back in the day I was thinking about the film Brother Outsider when there was that one part where he said you had no faxes, you know we had a phone we did not you know, we did not have email and yet we were able to get, you know, quarter of a million people to the mall. And you think about what that took. But nowadays activism is become what do they call it cyber activism or it is just viral you put something out and then everyone across the country gets it at the same time? And is that changing how we protest? Does that change you know, what kind of pressure you bring to bear so you do not have to be out in the street per se? I do not know. But I think it is just an it is certainly is not anywhere near what I saw in my heyday, um, but yet, I would still say campuses have a role to play. But I but I am not in that environment as much. 53:55 SM: There is a, I will get to that question in a second, but there has been writings out there by one or two people that basically said the increase in tuitions, the fact that students have to work to get through college, which was not really the case as much in the (19)60s and (19)70s, has put a burden on students, so they have no time for activism. And that that and that in itself is part of a plan. So, I do not know if I buy all that. But it is interesting that there is some truth because when you look at today's college students, they do not have the time. Yeah. What is one event and your eyes changed the generation forever, that most shaped the lives of them in their adult years is, is there one specific event that that you feel the boomer generation, you know, felt, changed their life more than any other? 54:48 MC: Can I say a couple or just one or - I would say, um, when I think of the boomers, I am counting, well, Kennedy was killed in (19)63. I still think that that I think the Kennedy, I think the Kennedy assassination forever will ever be a benchmark for our generation. The other ones I would say that I would include on if I was doing a list this would be on my list. Woodstock, that just came new. Three Mile Island, Three Mile Island remember but on the other hand, what was the other huge treaty action that was up in, uh, up in New England were all these people got arrested because they were doing anti-nuclear power. 55:35 SM: That was Barragan was at the Barragan, uh. 55:38 MC: No, nope it was uh [dial tone] The Barragan s certainly had a role to play when you think about anti draft and stuff and then being priest but no, this was that big of steam. It was somebody It was a huge [dial tone] on the tip of my tongue. It was up in new way it was up in New England. It was around the power plant and it was the first time I think post-Vietnam and not Central American organizing where we sort of talked about the next big issue was going to be stopping nuclear, uh, weapons and these power plants, I will have that I might have to email it to you if I think of it. But I remember that being because that was one of the biggest civil disobedience actions. Outside of some of the actions we did to sit in against the war in Vietnam, that would be the next kind of big thing. Mm hmm. And then for me, and for the gay community was the 1987. March on Washington in 1987, Steve, where we rolled out the AIDS quilt, and all that went with it, and all we did to organize around that, I think, put the gay and lesbian movement on the map. Mm hmm. Post milk. Those would be the big ones I could think of when I think of the boomer now that is kind of getting beyond the (19)60s. So maybe I am getting out of range there. 56:51 SM: But that is still part of Boomer lives. So, that is important because when we are talking about this, we are not only talking we are talking about when they are young but as they grow as they grow up as they grow. So, this is about the time the boomers were alive. And so obviously, if you believe in evolution and growth and development, these are all important. 57:08 MC: Okay, good. Good. I was not sure if there was like, find a kick back to specific years or not, nope. 57:14 SM: Is there, uh- When did the (19)60s begin? And when did it end? Was there a watershed moment in, in its beginning? And then in its end? 57:26 MC: Well I would, I would, think as for me, when I was thinking about the (19)60s generation and how I did it as being a passivist and being an activist, it literally made I think it and, I do not know, if I say it ended, but I would say that the cutoff time, because remember, all of us were trying to end that damn war. And when that war was declared over in 1973, that was a benchmark because it was like, oh, my God, finally after all these years, and when they declared that, you know, the Vietnam War is over in 1973. Now, this is for me, Steve. I do not know if I can speak for everyone else, but for a lot of It meant that the charge of our lives at that point, would be like someone working in the Civil Rights Movement and you finally end up getting whatever you are trying to get the (19)63 voting rights act or (19)65 whatever. But I remember thinking distinctly when the (19)70s came along, so, in a way, it is also by the calendar, you know, (19)68, (19)69 a lot of stuff going on a (19)69, (19)70, (19)73. And for me, like, I know when I turned what, when did I turn 30, 40? I would have to look at the calendar and think about that, but I do not know. I mean, can I ask you what when did you think it ended? 58:42 SM: Well, I thought the six to me yeah. And again, this is about you, not me, anyways. But yeah, but to me, I was on I was in my first job at Ohio University Assistant Director of Student Affairs, and my very first job and I got a call from friends to come back to the Ohio State campus because students were streaking. [shriek] And, and, and we were talking and they said, well, the age of protest is over. Now students are streaking and that was 1973. [laughter] In the Fall. So, I placed I know that in people's minds, the (19)60s never left for those that were involved, but in terms of what was happening on the university campuses, streaking was the was a main thing because geez, I, I could not believe what I saw and I observed, I had a friend and I was actually teaching at a, was an administrator at a Catholic school in Indianapolis and he was ran a residence hall, and one of his students streaked at this Catholic school. And he was expelled from the school totally he had to leave the university and in the middle of school, so in the spring of the following year, so that is the kind of one the one of the events that I remember I have, I have, I want to read this to you because I think this is important. This is a big issue about healing. Do you feel boomers are still the boomer generation is still having a problem from healing from the divisions that tore the nation apart in their youth, a division between black and white divisions between gay and straight divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not? Do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong thinking this or has 40 years made the statement, time heals all wounds a truth? I preface this, I add something to this and that is that meeting we had when I took students to see senator Muskie and before he, a year and a half before he died, he had just gotten out of the hospital. And the students were really excited about this question we asked him we thought he was going to talk about 1968 nominee divisions at that convention which he was the vice-presidential candidate. And he responded right away that we have not been healed since the Civil War. That was his response. So, just your thoughts on whether this issue of healing, is that important within the boomer generation? Or am I just making something up? That is not important? 1:01:23 MC: No, see, I would go the opposite. I would I would just, I would just I would say, I do not know if that is true. Certainly, I would certainly say, and it is two reasons. I think there is three reasons why we saw we did end the war in Vietnam, and we saw in time that we did have an impact that in fact, we found out that did make a difference that our movement was there. So, to see that conclusion, and no, we worked on it and see that as a conclusion, I think that was something that really was like a validator. I think the fact that we, uh, I think Barack Obama I mean I mean I work the polls here in North Carolina, Steve. And I remember the day that we were voting whether or not Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is the primary in the state of North Carolina, which was a pivotal moment in his election. And I remember going to the polls that day in North Carolina there is a town, I do not know if you are familiar with this, the area, that has a huge black population that was based on strays moving up here from the south. So, you know that there is a real sense of history and whatever. And I am out here and one of the things I had to do with the poll that day is anyone who could not come into the polls to vote you have to go out they call it curbside voting. Mm hmm. And I went out to one of the curbs that day and there was a 98-year-old black woman sitting in there in her chair and she was in tears. She said, "I thought I would never live to see the day that a black man would become the president of this country." And I believe that the (19)60s generation, like I said, you earlier, saw the fruition of that. And I think a lot we had a lot to play in that in addition to those who came before women who were willing to vote, the right to vote to since the Civil Rights Movement. And so, I think I had I was at peace after I saw this poor woman. I mean, her whole life was her whole family was brought up in the slave area. So, I think for those of the (19)60s generation of anything, we have seen a kind of, um, I would not use the word closure, Steve, but we have seen a, um, coming around the bend and we saw it in our lifetime. I do not know how else you how else you can say that, that you know the impact that we had as a generation. So, that is why I would not agree with that. Now, on the other hand, race relations in this country and I would add class, class struggles continue to be an issue because we continue to be a country of haves and have nots. And that is my concern, as we move on to the future have and have nots, those who have and those who do not and the fact is you have got people living out here in the streets, kids, families with no place to live, and no heat, no call and repay for this fucking war over in Afghanistan, I am disappointed in Obama. And if anything, a lot of us who fought the Vietnam War now have been going around and will oppose him on this one as well. So that is a long way to say no, I think I think we really, I do not think it is a question of feeling as bad that there is still division, if anything, I think we have seen some closure, but also, we have seen a commitment that we are going to keep doing this issue, organizing around equality and justice as long as we are alive. Because we believe in it then and we believe in it now. 1:04:39 SM: You know, one of the things, and, well I am a big Barack Obama fan, I am also against the war. So, he knew that he is going to get criticized for this so much. But one thing about the issue of him that some people have written and I have read that he was just a continuation of the (19)60s generation in terms of the way he thinks the new Left mentality and all that ideology. So, in a sense, some are upset because it kind of brings back the memories of that period. And even though he is a very young man, yeah. That so you believe that? No, I do not believe that at all, but that there are people that do not like him not so much because he is-he is black. It is because of what his politics and his politics reminds people of the new left. I-I, it is just an- I read this in papers. So, I do not know if this is something that shows this lack of healing that that we have always got to go back and find Achilles heel in everyone and everybody I do not I do not know what it is I do not know. I that is just my thoughts. But- 1:05:42 MC: You know what is intriguing to me, I mean, talk about a generational shift. Look how much trouble he got in with the traditional civil rights people. It was like this guy. It made me think, you know, when I hear someone like Jesse Jackson, shame on this man for saying what he said about Barack Obama. It is like You know, Jesse, I love you, you have played a pivotal role, critical role in the Civil Rights Movement. You cannot hang on to this forever generations are going to move without, with, with you or without you. And it is like, you know, is he black enough, you know, is he this enough? And it was it. I mean, there is a generational shift. Now, I think there might be a tension around the generational side of us who were in the (19)60s in the (19)60s, movement, Civil Rights Movement, antiwar movement, are we willing to let it go? Are we willing to say hey, you know, that is what it was now, but you know, times are what they are now, we cannot hang on to this forever? I mean, that Jesse Jackson, to me is the epitome of I had it. I still want it, but life's going on without me anyway. And then he gets a woman pregnant and he is a minister do not even get me started. 1:06:44 SM: Yeah. Very good point. One other major besides the issue of healing is the issue of trust. The boomer generation when they were young, saw major national leaders lie to them and-and of course, we all know about Nixon Watergate, the enemies list, a lot of things that happened there. We know about President Johnson in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. We know about Eisenhower and his lying about the U-2 incident. Even then rich near [inaudible] writings about Kennedy, and how much did he know about the- was he involved in the overthrow the diem regime? And then, of course, Reagan with Iran Contra, towards the end of his presidency and all kinds of evil. People did not trust board they said there was an agreement made between him and Nixon. The list goes on and on. The boomers did not trust people in positions of authority, whether they be a rabbi, a priest, Minister, president of the university and Director of Student Activities, the United States Senator congressman. I mean, what where, where are we today is that equality of this generation and has this lack of trust been passed on to their kids and grandkids. And then- 1:07:58 MC: I think it has, you know, I will tell you what I have to tell you and it is interesting you read that list off because I still do not know who I can trust and who I believe I do not care who it is. I mean every time you turn around and then when you find out this country is willing to do almost anything you know if we made a skeptic I mean, you know, I sat here in Washington for with September 11 but I also sat here and watched is that these people that wish knew got on a plane and got out of here with me who can you trust? Who can you believe? I like it and to me, I would hope that Obama has nothing that we need to worry about but George W. Bush and all those people and-and why am I still listening to-to Cheney and these people I do not trust them as far as you could throw them and I think at least with the (19)60s generation, maybe we have a healthy very healthy dose discussing skepticism because it was, look what we have seen happen. And, you know, I-I will always remain, uh, very, very leery. But with my government tells me and I also believe that once Obama became president it is no longer Obama's a man. There is a machine that runs on up there. That is the machine it runs with you as a person or not. Right? And I, candidate Obama was one thing but now he is president and I am thinking must have walked in and said, Oh, I did not realize I had this to deal with whatever. But no, I will always be skeptical because we have been burned so many times, Steve, and you know, where we find out more stuff later on. Probably we will. 1:09:30 SM: Talk a little bit more about the music and how important the music was, as part of the boomer generation. You talked about Motown but certainly the folk music and the rock music and-and of course, it had social messages, which was very important to Yeah, just and I remember talking to my parents or the World War Two generation, the big band sound is something that they were very loved and very proud of and come to define them but your thoughts on how important how important the music was, and the artists that you feel were the most important in this right? 1:10:04 MC: I just I just think, you know, I was just sitting here thinking about why-why did Motown? Why did Motown have such a pivotal role to play? Well, one of the things that did is that that music was played, that music was played with a lot of white kids that you could not even be in the same room with what was white kids? At least they were dancing to the music and let me that movie. What was the movie? That the guy from Philadelphia did? Oh, my God. My mind is going John- 1:10:30 SM: Singleton. John Singleton. 1:10:34 MC: Oh, no. It was a movie about the old days before America. You only could have white kids on the show, what is it called? 1:10:44 SM: American Bandstand, Dick Clark. 1:10:47 MC: Yeah, no, but there was a show based on that, but it was better was I want to think of it in a minute. But, but I think the point was, is that people were dancing to black music and black music, Steve, was so good. Not only was it a good tune, but you have to remember until people like Marvin Gaye came along with a message most of it was just a good beat. But white kids were dancing to that beat. That is what I guess that I was trying to solve- 1:11:09 SM: Soul Train. Where you talking about the TV show Soul Train? 1:11:16 MC: No. Movie. It was a movie. No, no. I have to eat it down and I have to find it and I will tell you what it is. But anyway, bottom line, it was a story about it was a dance show, like the American Bandstand. But it was all based in Philadelphia. And what happened is that these white kids were asking well why cannot we have black kids come dance with us because all the music that black songs so at one point they were doing it was called the talent show, they had to go to some studio, and one of the white girls bought a black kid in and it costs a real ruckus, but it turned out that all the black kids had to go to do a black place to dance. All the white kids could go to a white place to dance, but at one point kids said "We are going to protest and we are going to come in and dance to what we as we want anyway." Well, that that that one act of defiance, so we are going to dance anyway turn out to be a major thing that made the city realize these the kids could dance together if they want to blah-blah-blah. You know we did not have great songs and it was all the songs you know about era Motown and all that. But what I was saying about the Motown sound was that even though there was a racial issue going on the music ended up being the unifier because it was a good beat. People love to dance to it black or white, it did not matter. And then once they realized that the songs were so great, and it was bringing money, and they were willing to put these black performers out in front of white audiences, and that changed it forever. You know, you got the Motown review and all that. That is what I meant. I am sorry, that was a long way to, right? That you and I think it is. 1:12:51 SM: Yeah, you mentioned Joan Baez, but some who were the folk singers that you felt kind of crossed over. And then of course, some of you mentioned the Beatles, but any other records. 1:13:01 MC: Yeah, well, I would certainly I would certainly I would certainly say that when you think about the Baez, Dylan even before Joni Mitchell, Peter, Paul and Mary, Peter, Paul, and Mary ended up being able to bring some songs into the mainstream that you might that might not have been played otherwise. I mean, even if you think about back to those songs, what folk songs were not being played that did not go mainstream, they are numbered monovision came out in, and St. Marie came out. But you had some people who are Judy Collins, and they are all singing these folk songs, but also in remember used to have coffee houses and where a lot of organizing happen were in the coffee houses before the music industry became a big deal. A lot of a lot of the organizing and the resistance and people doing stuff because there was a folk singer, local people that were not well known, but I would have to tell you, in my opinion, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan will have to go down is in my opinion, but it forever be the voice of the folk scene. The (19)60s I would say Motown music, will have to go down as the sound of the (19)60s. I would say Buffalo, Crosby, Stills, Nash, Joni Mitchell. And then interestingly, Richie Havens, because how many people of color did we have out there that were singing songs of protest and Richie Havens what a performer this man is. So, I am intrigued that you are going to interview him as, and then Jimi Hendrix, you know? Yeah. You know, I think about that, but you know, as people of color, the movement was so white, you know, no disrespect, but it was like, you know, where are our folk man? Where are our people. And other than Motown and Richie Havens, Aretha Franklin, I mean, you know, people of color, but protest, people of color, Richie Havens would be the closest I could think of, right? 1:14:50 SM: Yep. What were some if you can remember what were what were some of the things you were reading back in the (19)60s and (19)70s. Were there any books and authors that really had an influence on you? 1:15:01 MC: Well, a lot of our reading of course, because we are all past this was, you know, Gandhi, you know, leaning on John Fondren. I was trying to think of my reading was people who were talking about the fundamentals of nonviolence. Um, I was not big. I was not really a big reader. There was a couple of magazines that would come out. Before Rolling Stone became so commercial I remember Rolling Stone being out there. I was living in the Bay Area. So, what the Bay Area Guardian I mean, more movement kind of stuff. I was not a big reader, quite frankly, see, so I cannot remember any books that stood out. Oh, I remember when it was called Our Bodies Ourselves that came out about women's health. There was a thing, I still have it. The movement toward a new society by my, uh, Mitchell Goodman, one of the most amazing books ever put out of the (19)60s I have it sitting on my shelf it is falling apart because it is so old, but I remember that. 1:15:57 SM: What is the name of the book? 1:15:58 MC: It is called- it is called, um, The movement of a New America by Michel Goodman. 1:16:12 SM: Oh, I got to, check that out. Yeah. I have come to the part of the interview where I am going to ask you, just your responses to some of these names and some of the terms of the era. They do not have to be long, but just your feelings on them. And the first one is what do you think of the Vietnam Memorial and its impact not only on Veterans, but on America. 1:16:38 MC: Profound. Absolutely profound. That wall, like I said, I think a lot of us who fought the war, it took us forever to finally go down to that wall. And for me, it was it was just realizing how long we had fought against this war and then to go down there and see what was the 58,000 and for what and I knew a number of people on that wall and I was just thinking, What lessons did we learn from this? I mean, that wall is deep for all kinds of reasons. And you know, that is all and the woman who put it together I mean, it would it would it what a gift in- 1:17:16 SM: Maya Lin, yep. 1:17:17 MC: Blew me away. 1:17:20 SM: What does Kent State, what does Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? 1:17:26 MC: Well it, it meant two things for me one is that why did Kent State get more-more play than Jackson State, Jackson State being where black students got killed but on the other hand, it said to me that this country, what length will this country go to and it became very clear that they were willing to kill people. And I just did I could not believe it, that they would be willing to kill people for a policy that that, that people were protesting, but Kent State was I mean, how is that possible? Jackson State How is that possible? 1:17:59 SM: Yeah, I know Kent State that group that puts together the memorial every year. Always make sure that Jackson States involved and they bring people in. Yeah-yeah. So, they are-they are very sensitive and they have been doing that from the beginning. With the media, you are right about how the media often times does things. What does Watergate mean to you? 1:18:21 MC: Ugh Watergate that was just I think, I think for that generation, Steve, Watergate, Watergate to me is sort of like I do not know if I am going to say this, right. It was-it was an awakening for it was an awakening for the country to realize once again to what ways people will go. my innocence was taken from me when Kennedy got [audio cuts] 22nd 1963. I know exactly where I was. I thinking just cannot happen. And I think when Watergate happened in another kind of way that was like this cannot happen and yet it did and then you realize then you wonder why there is such a healthy level of skepticism. And they got caught. That is what it meant to me. They got caught. 1:19:14 SM: Yeah, Woodstock. 1:19:16 MC: Who knew, who knew. I did not go. I had heard about it. But on the other hand, the commercialization of Woodstock, I am done. You know, it is like, okay, it happened and it was and I do not know? 1:19:32 SM: How about, uh, 1968? 1:19:39 MC: When I hear (19)68, I think of two things in my personal life. I went to the Institute for the Study of nonviolence and met Ira Sandperl and Joan Baez. But of course, (19)68 will be Chicago Democratic National Convention, and what would they call the something 8? What they end up being called the folks who got indicted. 1:19:59 SM: Chicago, Chicago, eight and then Chicago, Chicago seven after Bobby went to was taken away from them. 1:20:06 MC: That is right Chicago 7 got yeah, right. Uh-uh. 1:20:10 SM: Yeah, well how about counterculture? 1:20:15 MC: I always thought that was a media term like where did that come from this idea of counterculture. I thought that was more of a media now this is my thing. I thought that was like a media thing. You know, like the counterculture? I am not even sure what they meant by that. 1:20:26 SM: Theodore Rosa, Rosa wrote that book of the called the making of a counterculture which said it, yeah. 1:20:32 MC: I mean, I do not know about this when you look. 1:20:39 SM: How about the-the hippies and the yippies? 1:20:43 MC: Well, I think because I was I remember the hippie thing because I was there. And but the good thing is that- 1:20:48 SM: Your voice just went down. 1:20:49 I am sorry. 1:20:51 SM: Your voice just went down. 1:20:53 MC: Oh, you know, I just picked up the handset. I was getting static. Okay, can you hear me? Yep, I can hear you. Yep. So, The hippies I mean, it is interesting remember I told you when I was in New York in the summer of (19)67 we were called we were not called hippies we were called you know love children we were called love child you know whatever to say I am go to San Francisco and they were called hippies out there but that But that was before that got commercialized. It was little h-i-p-p-i. But then it became, you know, commercial. Yeah. Yippie Was not that what was his name? Abbie- 1:21:24 SM: Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin created the yippies. 1:21:26 MC: So, I did not quite get that. What does that stand for youth and what? 1:21:28 SM: Youth International Party. 1:21:31 MC: Oh, okay. Yeah, I do not even I do not know what that was about. I did not like these two guys. Anyway. 1:21:37 SM: How about SDS Students for Democratic Society and the weathermen? 1:21:42 MC: Well, the SDS that I mean, to me in the early beginnings, when SDS was truly the students for democratic society, I liked it. I do not I do not know what happened where it went off tracks after that. And what was the other thing? 1:21:53 SM: Uh, the Weathermen. 1:21:54 MC: As a pacifist this what the hell were they doing with guns and bombs and look, look what happened and then they did not they probably caught them did not they did not do or what happened? 1:22:07 SM: Yep, Bernadine Dorn and Harris, who was a friend of, um, President Obama, he has remembered- he has been a critical mass, right? That is right. 1:22:12 MC: And they are, you know, and they are again, I have to tell you something, I never shared this with anyone I want to tell you. 1:22:22 SM: Let me change. Let me change. [audio cuts] Okay, go ahead. I am ready. 1:22:32 MC: Speaking of that, I was just saying that again, this idea of violence and destruction to do that for a better read, I remember there was a big debate, Steve around draft board, destruction. Remember, people were going in and pouring blood on draft files. And there was that one case of thing someone either bombed or put on fire some draft board with the files and it was huge debate because we said, you know, what is the point of going in and doing-doing property damage if you are trying to get people not go you know that interesting line of how do you protest? And are you-are you going to be accountable and I remember Steve during stop the draft week and Oakland where we had the Oakland induction center. The first two days we were going to be organized by the War Resisters League which meant it was a non-violent protest we had everything organized and the second part of the week was going to be organized by those who did not have the same philosophy and their attitude was do it but do not get caught and-and do it and do not get caught meant the girls burning tires and we thought you know well here is your let us go use this as an example do it but do not get caught so you have no accountability you are not you do not know why you did it. You are not going to stand up and-and-and-and take the kind of risk and or, the punish- you know, I do not want to use the word punishment but you know, to say that, in jail for 10 days versus like, do it, do not get caught that that was a really dividing line for I think a lot of us in the movement. That is whether underground curiosity like, you know, what is the point. 1:24:11 SM: That, you actually you just created a magic moment. We have had like five magic moments. That is a magic moment. And you just said there, because Dr. King was the one that said, if you are not willing to go to jail for your beliefs, then you are, you know, then you shouldn't be out there. And, and it was the Barragan brothers who put blood on nuclear and destroyed draft card, draft papers and everything, but they went there and did it and they were caught and they went to jail for years, because they were willing to pay the price for their actions. 1:24:44 MC: Backed by, big difference, is not it? 1:24:46 SM: Oh, really big difference. How about the Vietnam Veterans against the war? 1:24:51 MC: Unbelievable. I you know, when you think about the fact that vets and we were trying to stop the war that we did not have to have vets, but to have come out of that war, and be called Vietnam vets against war. Unbelievable. And I think that was that would have that would have to go into a category that we never thought that could happen or that was not even on our radar. Think about you have vets who are over there understanding about how that you know what was wrong with the war and look at the role they played, you know, with their role in terms of opposing the first Iraq war, when they said no, it has been there do not did it. Do not do it. But yeah, unique. And thank you. 1:25:30 SM: What did the three most? Well, I think one of the actually these three pictures are, are in the top 100 pictures of the twentieth century, but they were major pictures that oftentimes are looked at-at defining the (19)60s generation. One of them is Tommy Smith and John Carlos raising their fists at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. The second one is Kim Phuc. Well, the young girl being burned in Vietnam and that was a 1971 picture. Yeah. And then the third picture was Mary Ann Vecchio the 14-year-old girl over the body of Jeff Miller at Kent State on May 4, 1970. What, when you think of those three pictures? What do you think of? 1:26:15 MC: Well first of all, I am stunned that you did not have [inaudible] lie on that list. 1:26:18 SM: Well, I you know, me I am, yeah. Get the picture of the certainly the people the dead bodies that me lie to so you can add that. 1:26:31 MC: Yeah. Well, first of all, each one of those to me, ended up being and we did not know at the time those photographs ended up being turning points in our movement. I was each one of those who just said, they are like, they are just like seared in my memory. And-and then I realized just how powerful a picture is worth 100 words, 1000- whatever word you want to use. They just tear it. You did not. You did not even have to say anything. You just look at these pictures and you realize they are their icon, iconic. We are on it. Yeah, yep. 1:27:01 SM: I am going to mention some names here in a minute. But I want to mention three quotes too. And I would like your thoughts in terms of which one made define the boomer generation more than the other, or if all three define the generation. One of them is the one that Malcolm used all the time by any means necessary, through all those posters but he, he went to his grave with that statement, even though he had gone to Mecca, coming back and saying that all white people were devils by any means necessary. The second one is Bobby Kennedy, who I think he took Henry David Thoreau's quote, but it was you do some men see things as they are and ask why I see things that never were and ask why not. And a lot of people remember that from Bobby. And the third one is just from the painter, Peter Max, who is well known artists of that era. And he had a very famous painting that a lot of college students put on their wall and on that painting said you do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, or we will come together. Now those are three different statements from three different kind of angles. Is anyone define the boomer generation more than the other? Or are the is it a combination of all three? 1:28:15 MC: Well, I have to tell you, I really, I really take exception to Malcolm X is one of by any means necessary, correct? That puts me the back in that, you know, do not get caught. That is me. That is my personal thing. Bobby Seale, I had issues with as a person so I probably go with the latter, but I do not remember that that well that latter one. The third one- 1:28:34 SM: Yeah that was Max's posters. Yeah. I am going to mention some names now and just your response to them as people. Okay, and then from the era. Amie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. 1:28:52 MC: We will know them, certainly, I do not know. I mean, you know, I mean, if I had to go on a scale of yes, I like them a lot or not. I mean, I do not know. I mean, I did not know him personally, and I, you know, I am sure they had a role to play. I do not know, I am not I am not impressed. I do not know what else to say. 1:29:15 SM: Let us get into the Black Panthers. And because there is five or six of them here, and of course, there is Elijah. There is Eldridge Cleaver. There is Kathleen cleaver. There is Huey Newton. There is Bobby Seale. There is Angela Davis. The- one of course that was assassinated in in Chicago and just that, and of course, Stokely Carmichael, and H. Rap Brown, they are all black panthers. 1:29:39 MC: Well, the only two I will tell you, I will tell you what, how many of them are still alive? 1:29:45 SM: Well, I know that H. Rap Brown's alive. He is in jail. Yeah. And Bobby Seale is alive. Mm hmm. And so is Kathleen, she is a lawyer in Atlanta, a very successful lawyer. So, uh. 1:29:58 MC: She was Just here and Durham. I would say of all of them may course I am still concerned about the male thing. If I had to put a sympathy level on things, I mean, when I say sympathy if I had to put a level on, you know, okay. I do not know I have I have a lot of respect for Kathleen Cleaver and Angela Davis. This is women within the Panthers. 1:30:27 SM: Yeah, okay. How about Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew? 1:30:33 MC: You know what they have they actually ended up playing [audio cut] into these two people, they probably without realizing it has brought us on more. If I could say it that way, Steve. They really ended up being motivators. And then we saw of course in the end, why? Yeah. 1:30:55 SM: But they motivated because they were bad. 1:30:59 MC: Oh, yeah. When people would win We were on a roll about what to do about what was happening with this war and Richard Nixon and remember when he got elected and-and, and what was like, you know, unprecedented numbers it did not then we realized it did not matter how many people voted for you, you were still a crook and you were still bad and you were wrong and-and we saw what happened. He had to leave office. I mean, talk about a defining moment. And what-what happened to Agnew, did not he go off to jail, what happened to him? 1:31:24 SM: He got indicted. He never went to jail. But yeah, if I saw him was at Nixon's funeral, he was on TV, and he was walking around like no one wanted to talk to him. [laughs] He never I think he paid-paid a penalty, but I do not think he ever went to jail. But you do Gene McCarthy and George McGovern. 1:31:43 MC: Well, I think you know, I have to tell you, just real quick, I think for a lot of people, there was a lot of people who said do not bother to vote, it does not make a difference. And I think between Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern, a lot of us who were told do not vote, it does not make a difference, people begin to turn toward electoral politics as another tool for possibly making change because up until then it was all in the street. Mm hmm. It was a protest, but people begin to realize maybe the importance of the vote and-and Eugene McCarthy and McGovern probably did more to seal that as another avenue of protest, the power of the vote. 1:32:20 SM: Timothy Leary and Daniel Ellsberg. 1:32:25 MC: I knew them both and I got to work for Timothy Leary, of course, LSD. You know, I have to tell you, though, I took one trip and I did was only did not last long because I could not handle it. But I always wondered what the what the impact of LSD was on our society. I do not know if it was good. I am not so sure that it was good. Was the he was, you know, part of that scene? And Denver? What can I say the Pentagon Papers, I still know Dan to this day? And-and if anything, I think it showed me Steve that you can reach someone. You know what Daniel Ellsberg did for the movement after we realized the role that he played meant that you could not write anyone off that you never knew who you could impact and if you if you just told people you do not count, you will never matter we do not like you. If you do not leave an opening for them you do not know the consequences. And look what happened with Daniel Ellsberg. 1:33:15 SM: You are right. You are right and a lot of people and I learned something later that he was a very proud marine. Yeah, when he was young. and that is what- 1:33:26 And that was what was so amazing about this man when you think about the life he led, but look, and look at the impact of what happened with him and the people he met and just hearing stories of people's lives and that was a lesson and I know for a lot of us passivist type. We have always been told you never shut the door on people you never know whose life will impact but a lot of the movement was angry in trust. And you never gave anyone space to say that I can change or I have a role to play and then only to find out and you know, who was Daniel Ellsberg before he did that he was just a guy working at Rand unite. Right? And look at the role this guy played unbelievable. 1:34:00 SM: How about John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy? 1:34:07 MC: You know, there was a theory KKK Kennedy, King, Kennedy, I remember hearing that I was sitting in on the mall in resurrection city. That was the last project King was working on with the poor people's campaign. Kennedy had killed in Spiro Agnew (19)63, King had been killed. And we were sitting in the mall and we heard about Bobby Kennedy and I am thinking someone wanted these people gone. On the other hand, the Kennedy, the Kennedy thing I mean, as a woman, I am done with these men messing around. Cannot they keep it in their pants? What is the deal? You know? So, you find that out that out about a guy but for all intents and purposes, he was the president as I knew a man and he got assassinated and-and all that but you know, I do not know Kennedy's are not like walking on water for me, but yet that was this I think our innocence was taken from us with-with the first one not 1:34:58 SM: Bobby but with john F. Kennedy. How about Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey? 1:35:04 MC: Well, I guess the more we find out about Lyndon Johnson, you know, you get to know on the other hand, I would say that in terms of the Civil Rights Movement, what a pivotal role this man played. And as a white guy from Texas that does sit there and do the stuff he did, without knowing all the background, but look at the role he played down in the Civil Rights Movement stuff. And I know he did not, he had a lot of flak for that, but it turned out to be historic. who was the other person? 1:35:31 SM: It was Hubert Humphrey. 1:35:34 MC: I do not know much about Hubert Humphrey. I do not remember anything that really stuck out in my mind about him. 1:35:40 SM: How about Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. 1:35:45 MC: Well, I just remember Goldwater, you know, just thinking of Republicans and you know, and then he kind of scared me because I remember when he was when he was running, there was some race stuff going on, or some folks were right. Ronald Reagan was interesting, because like, I remember asking, how does the governor and how does the former movie star remember does the former movie store become the governor of California before he becomes president? And I remember Ronald Reagan for one key reason People's Park Ronald Reagan governor sent in sent in in the-the we call those state the tanks into Berkeley. Right? And I said once again well this is this this country has no shame. 1:36:25 SM: He is directly linked to the Free Speech Movement to at Berkeley and (19)63, (19)64 because he was the governor then so the battle when- 1:36:35 MC: He had the right is some of the most tumultuous moments in Berkeley. So, when government Reagan was governor but people spark will forever I remember that why are we having tanks and people with bayonets and-and the park around this damn piece of property? But let me share something with you Steve. Remember we said earlier about do it but do not get caught. Mm hmm. I remember I remember it was Mayday being called whoever these people were calling for people to come take that fence down. This is when you had National Guard in tanks with bayonets drawn wire around that piece of property there in Berkeley. And you had these organizers telling people to come in down here and take this fence down. And I remember the night before the war resisters league and Roy Kepler said we have to have an emergency meeting. We were going to stand in between the protesters in front of us, the barbed wire behind us and the National Guard behind us to make sure no violence happens on this day. And we that Steve and my knees were knocking I will never forget that day as long as I live. And the biggest compliment we got as pacifists, we heard people say, Oh, man, we could have done something that those damn pacifists had not gotten in our way. That was one of those moments and all the guys would tell people to go down and take their takedowns where would they you could not find them for nothing. They were not around. Wow. And I thought can you put people's lives in jeopardy you are calling for these people to go take that fence down. Maybe you could not find them if you could try and I thought this is so irresponsible. But we ended up being able to not have a violent action on that day because of us to intervene as pacifist between the National Guard behind us and the protesters in front of us at Berkeley in People's Park. 1:38:12 SM: I remember the book that called Berkeley at war written by [W. J] Rorabaugh it is a great book. And that is all in there. Yeah, Dr. Benjamin Spock and Daniel and Philip Barragan. 1:38:26 MC: Thank you Dr. Spock, who knew that a guy who worked as baby book and there you go again, the guy who wrote the book on having babies and what you do with babies and look at the role he played and the Barragan brothers to be Catholic priest to do what they did go to jail and I think for a lot of people they really created this whole wonderful faith based kind of understanding the role of people of faith in any movement we have they really they-they sealed it and symbolized it and but did not want to do that went to jail to that ended up marrying one of the Barragan’s, we do not know about her. 1:39:01 SM: Yeah no, we do. She runs Jonah house in Baltimore, Elizabeth McAllister, she is. 1:39:07 MC: Elizabeth McAllister, for a lot of women, once again, no disrespect to Dan and the two guys, but for a lot of women, it was her as a woman and as a nun doing that, you see what I mean? I think people are forgetting the role of how important women are when you do these things to have a role in that some of that stuff. 1:39:26 SM: One of the one of the important things because I have met, I was at the funeral for Philip. I went there because he was spoke on our campus with Elizabeth and so did Daniel and I have interviewed Daniel for my book here, and that is that they respected women and women and Catholic nuns were as important as Catholic priests in the movement and I have not seen any sexism or anything. On the part of those two men. Because when Philip was there, oftentimes Elizabeth was there. And sometimes when Philip went to jail. Then Elizabeth took care of their three kids. When Elizabeth went to jail. He took care of the kids so it is absolutely yeah. 1:40:04 MC: And by the way, I did not mean anything. I did not mean to be [inaudible] them. I think what happens is that, once again, the media what they tend to just remember I told you about Cesar Chavez and it is weird stuff is that when they are writing their pieces, rather than being rare than them getting it like you just talked about, they always end up defaulting toward only talking about the man. Good. That is all. I mean, I am sorry. I cannot be. Yeah. 1:40:29 SM: Well, there is truth to that. Robert McNamara and George Wallace. 1:40:34 MC: But the thing I love about McNamara toward the end of the day when he when he was not it recently, where he ended up thinking when he asked, he said, I made a mistake. And McNamara was one of the people that we kept on saying you were so wrong about the Vietnam War policy, he would not back off it. But then as we saw Time went by and he said, you know what, I think I might have been wrong on this. So, there you go again, but how many years that we have to wait to hear that knowledge and George Wallace. You No. for me and I think our generation who can forget George Wallace standing in the door of town and Alabama saying is not no nigger coming through these doors at this high school, right? And at the same time when he got shot and he was in a wheelchair and very woman, he said that too. They stood together and I was in tears on that picture and I thought about whether he was sincere or not. That just showed you that a thing called the civil rights movement in which people would be murdered. Just for the right be equal. Here is this white Southern man and a chair apologizing to the very woman is saying I am sorry. And then you have Jesse Helms here in the North Carolina never once apologized, even into the death. Fringe, and they are both gone now, but [inaudible] yep. 1:41:51 SM: The other things are just the presidents and boomers’ lines, which is Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. Just your thoughts on those two presidents. 1:42:00 MC: Well, Jimmy Carter, a southern peanut farmer to become president, that was that was like, oh, and who was the other person? Gerald Ford? I was like, What the hell? I mean, how did he get in there? I mean, man who knows? But he was-was not he like an orphan? What was he? I mean, I could relate to him because listen, he like adopted or something. 1:42:21 SM: Not quite sure. I know that took obviously, he pardoned Nixon, which did not go over but Pete that one? No, it did not go about, you know, what was going on with that people think he did it, though. He did help and healing the nation by doing so. So, it is a controversial moment. 1:42:37 MC: Everything is controversial. And he kept on falling a lot. Did not he fall? Yes. And- 1:32:44 SM: He hit people with golf balls. A couple of other presidents George Bush Senior. He was the gentleman who said that the Vietnam syndrome is over. And of course, we are not talking about Reagan. But Reagan. Reagan said we are back. We are going to build the army up again. America is back. We are going to love Living in America where we did not supposedly in the (19)70s in the (19)60s, so both George Bush Senior and Reagan both played a part in this, what they think was the ending of the Vietnam syndrome. 1:43:13 MC: Right? Well, I remember being scared to death of Bush Senior because he was once head of the CIA. What do we think of the CIA? We said, this is the guy that president of this country, he scared me. 1:43:23 SM: And the last two are, of course, our Bill Clinton and President Bush Jr. And I say this because in my interviews, not the early interviews, I did not include them. But in the latter interviews that I have had this year, in the last couple years, I have said, most people say that when you look at Bill Clinton and George Bush, they-they epitomize the boomer generation, with the qualities about who they are. When people say that what do you think the qualities that these two men have that label them boomers? 1:43:54 MC: Well, that is interesting, because I would have to say on first glance, I remember I did say that, put it in would end up being like our first sixties Example of because he was the first guy that never served in the military. He was the first guy. You know, literally the president of this country because it was so that was almost a way you could judge about the (19)60s kind of going on. Is that because he was the first president, post (19)60s generation? So, that is-that is kind of what I meant. On the other hand, I do not I would not put him together with that. I mean, when I think about the (19)60s, I, you know, he was not what was he doing? He was not around. Hillary was not around, I guess what Hillary was doing some stuff. So, that is what I meant about my memory. But, you know, I remember working on his campaign and after, after, after, what did he come right after Reagan. Right. Bush came in. 1:44:43 SM: George Bush, he came after senior George, Bush Sr. 1:44:42 MC: Yeah, I remember working hard and thinking about the fact that we would get someone and the reason why right. The reason why I am quitting stood out because he was the first president willing to talk to the gay and lesbian community and having them having us be a part of his campaign. I thought that is amazing. And a lot of rested on Clinton and I loved him until many Monica Lewinsky and I thought he is just like every other guy out there. That was disappointing. But, you know, Clinton had a really pivotal role to play. He was there for eight years from the south. Again, by this time I am in North Carolina. So, yeah. 1:45:15 SM: And George Bush himself, you do not like him, but what were qualities that may link him as a boomer because he is a boomer. 1:45:24 MC: So, you know what is interesting, but you know, let us look at the difference between and George W. Bush, Jr. There is a qualitative difference right there. The top has not have nots. And that was interesting about Bill too, you know, coming from a family where it is basically his mother raised me down south, he does not have a whole lot of money, he is bright. And then you look at someone like George W. Bush and I worked in Florida, by the way, Steve in the 2000 election campaign. And this man was never elected. He was selected by one vote, and I will never forget that this man should never have been president. And Florida was it was a disaster. And, and I am just glad he has gone. I do not you know, and I would never put it I would not ever say he is a person of the (19)60s. I mean, he might have been born in that time, but not his lifestyle, not the way this guy was raised. Well, I want to- 1:46:16 SM: My final questions is just about you, because I am what makes you continue to do what you do knowing that throughout your life, some of the things that you stood up for, you have been some people look at you as a threat, or they do not. They do not like you for some reason, and how have you been able to deal with it? You have a lot of supporters and some people are not supporters. But I have a question here. I can read my writing here. You created the National Black Justice Coalition, which is for black LGBT individuals to fight racism and homophobia was-was there resistance in the black community? To you like there was toward Dr. King when he had many members of the African American community mad at him because he was against the Vietnam War. He saw the bigger picture whereas some of the other civil rights leaders said you got to concentrate on racism you cannot concentrate. So, you just-just your thoughts on that question and in any way, you respond? 1:47:22 MC: Well, first of all, I am really glad that you highlighted that about King because I think a lot of people missed under-, missed that point that this was such a romanticizing about, about Martin Luther King, that when he took that, what I would proceed, he just positions- he has ever took in his career was to say we have to look beyond civil rights and what is going on with that war in Vietnam. He took hell. And like you said, People said do not do it, do not go there and he was willing to do it. And I am not a conspiracy, I am not a conspiracy theorist, Steve, but the death of this man down in Memphis, Tennessee, helping the garbage workers down there. You have to wonder who had it out for who, that is what I meant about. I do not know who to trust anymore. But I know that he took a lot of flak, because they said, you know, do not go there. On the other hand, I think that was interesting because King was the bridge in a way, Steve, now that I think about it. Remember I told you said a lot of us were too young for the Civil Rights Movement, but old enough for Vietnam? Yes. So, who was who was the bridge builder on that? It was Dr. Martin Luther King when he gave this famous speech at the church up in Harlem. Mm hmm. I mean, the-the church up in New York Riverside Church when he gave this famous Vietnam, yep. And I think there was a generation of folks that said, you know, I was not down south, here is a man talking about Vietnam and then we would not take it off and went running with it. So, I just say that because I was just thinking historical links that be it but you know, it is what is interesting for me is like, I think part of it is because I was orphaned I have nothing I have to lose about being out as a black lesbian. And for those of us who have nothing to lose, I do not care what people think about me I have things I have got to say and try to get the work done. I am now 62 I have never had my life threatened but I have had people tell me I am terrible and I am awful. 1:49:16 SM: Mm hmm. 1:49:17 MC: But when I think about when I started talking about that a long time ago and where we are now, and thinking how far we have gotten when you have a black man who has the five national co-chairs for his campaign, who are out lesbians working on his campaign to get him elected called Barack Obama and I am one of them. Look how far we have come did we ever think that would ever happen so for me my work is easier everyday this slips by not-not let it does not get worse it gets- people are getting it now. 1:49:50 SM: Well I will tell you one thing one thing after reading the information on your background longevity is part of your legacy. It is ongoing commitment, and I would like you to make a few comments on the, uh, song, the organization that you work for, how it was started, and how it is going, and what and what it is doing for others and a little bit about that Stonewall award, did you receive that? Define, you know, because it was given to us. So, a song first. 1:50:18 MC: Well, you know, as to you know, there was a great quote, and I and I am not the only one who has made it, Steve, but I know this has always been Remember I said it earlier about the equality and justice being the philosophical underpinning about why a lot of us hang in so long. That has always been that has always been what has driven me is equality and justice for all. But the other quote that I love Steve, that keeps me going is "Do not mourn, organize. And if there is a need, fill it". 1:50:44 SM: Wow. Mm hmm. 1:50:49 MC: We saw when I you know, living here in the south, I have never seen so much anti science with movement people. Then, then when I moved to the south, I mean, we are talking about my people, gay and lesbians. We are organizing our first conference here, this is how song got started. We were organizing a gay and lesbian conference to the gay and lesbian taskforce. They do an annual conference called creating change every year. And this year because of another side law that they decided for the first time ever in 1993, to have that conference here in Durham, North Carolina. And a lot of us got together and said, here, I was with the warrior sisters League, and I said, yeah, we will help organize it. And so here is the phone call, we started getting, well, is there an airport down there? Are the roads paved? What kind of food we going to eat? And I am saying, wait a minute. These are people coming to our conference down in Durham, North Carolina. 1:51:43 SM: Mm hmm. 1:51:48 MC: And the final one was, where are the roads paved? And I said, Well, maybe we better do a workshop about what it means to be of color. Queer, in the South and that workshop was so well attended back in 1990. That became the foundation of what is now called southerners on new ground, right? Because we were trying to connect the issues of race and class and culture and gender and sexual identity. And understanding that all those isms are so connected and that when we do our work, we will be equally as concerned about gay and lesbians in the south as we would people who are farmworkers down here. And that became the foundation that would now is in our 15th year, and we are still going. 1:52:28 SM: That is excellent. And then the Stonewall award, you received that and what was the criteria? And how did you respond when you heard about it? And what does it mean to receive that award? 1:52:42 MC: Well it is quite an honor. I think the Stonewall would have to be put on the level of you know, if you get the Nobel Peace Prize, I do not know if you wanted to try to put something you know, close to what it would be. The Stonewall award was always given to people who were doing work in the queer community that really was that they recognize it acknowledged it and I think the first one I got I think it was 10,000 $5,000 check. Remember, it was a chunk of change, but it was really more of the acknowledgement um, it was surprised to me quite frankly because like a lot of people I just do the work because I know it has to get done. So, I am not interested in or not thinking about am I going to get acknowledgement for it, but to have been, and they do not tell you in advance, you are going to get it in fact, I came home to a FedEx package and in it-it said, dear Miss Carter, we want to tell you that, you know, we want to congratulate you on getting one of the five Stonewall awards. And there is a check enclosed and it was you know, whatever [audio cuts off] 1:53:41 SM: Just tape just click here you go, go ahead. 1:53:46 MC: Oh- 1:53:47 SM: You got the award. You were just it was just the point where you were saying you have got the award because- 1:53:52 MC: Oh, because they just get that there is an anonymous you do not know you are going to get it and you get nominated for it and the only way you know you have gotten it is when they send you a letter of congratulations and a check. And so, I came home one day I was living up in Maryland. I came home one day and there was a FedEx package waiting for me and I opened it up and, and it was a letter saying, dear Miss Carter, and we want to acknowledge and tell you, you know, congratulations, you are one of the five. Mm hmm. It is the Stonewall award and it was a check. I think it was for $10,000 I think. So, what I was saying though, Steve, is that I a lot of us do this work. You do not do it because you are going to get anything for it. But it is nice when you get the acknowledgement and recognition it was just came out of the blue. 1:54:39 SM: The I forgot to ask you what you thought of Gloria Steinem, Bella Epps, Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisholm, some of the leaders of the women's movement. 1:54:51 MC: Thank goodness for these women. I mean from so many of them, they are such role models. I just think about I know for me as a as a young woman, Black feminist lesbian and you are out here looking for other women who were strong and strident and believe in with their cause was just wonderful, amazing women and the roles that they played the cursory and someone like Gloria Steinem I think is already just turned 70 she was just here and look with this woman did Bella ABS suck, you know, elected official and feisty as can be, and Shirley Chisholm, black, you know, and, and, and it is just awesome. Now, I will tell you this, Steve, I think one of the qualities that I loved about these women is that they always said, it is not about me, you can be doing this too and you should be doing this and the ability to impart that kind of go out there and get this done. I did not see a whole lot of men saying that. Men do it more better now. But the women were just so much more into passing it on and you can do it and go for it and-and oh my gosh. 1:56:01 SM: That is a real that is a really good point. Because in Dr. Martin Luther King speeches, he would you know, he I know, I wish I had him in the room today to ask him what he feels about Martin Luther King Day because I think he would be very honored and very pleased, but if he had not been assassinated. And we are still in his (19)80s today and alive. I he has- he always said it was about we not me. Yeah, that is it. And what you are saying is that women leaders have always been saying, itis about we not me, were some of the male leaders in the early on, not so much all of the day, but were-were more about their own prestige and power. Is that- am I giving that right? 1:56:43 MC: Yes absolutely, yes-yes. Right. And you know, and I think part but I think it is a two-way problem. I think the media, and once again, I mean, the media it is just so interesting to me, I have gone to Germany. It is the only time I have ever been out of I have been to Germany and Zimbabwe. And what is so fascinating to me that this media is so personality driven? So that, you know, maybe you have been a demonstration, and you will hear the media come up and go, well, who's your spokesperson? Mm hmm. You know, versus Can I just talk to someone here about why you are here. And so, the media seems to be this obsession of who is-who is-who is-who is your leader. And of course, if you say, you are a leader, and people think, well, let us kill this person, because we get rid of them. We get rid of the movement that when I said earlier, no, it is not about killing anyone or offing any one or doing something to any one person because what you believe in is so dispersed with the people doing the work, that that movement goes on with or without you, because you have stood these values and women have, I think women have always gotten that instinctively. See, so their style is a lot more of Louis. You know, so and I just appreciate that. Oh, and I think but that is changing even now. I mean, you know, there is so much tough the young people today, and what you will get is like to scan lesbian thing. That is why we are making so much progress, I believe it is like, you know, what is the big deal? Who cares? You know, how am I identified? You know, who am I? And, and then Obama you know he is multiracial. Now you have got kids who are tri-racial and quad-racial and family being defined and we are in an amazing historic moment. I am so glad I have lived long enough to see all this. I am just I am just every day I get wake up. I am blown away. 1:58:25 SM: Well, I think that one of the magic moments in my life was when he was elected, then it back because to me, it was very special. And it is not always just because he is African American. I, I am so happy that they have seen that in my lifetime. But it is because of who he is and what he stands for and how articulate he is. And yes, he is the first ever I but peeps. What really astounds me is how people continue to try to find the Achilles heel in him constantly. And I think that is because they are upset that he won. Yes, I think it is-it is about they are jealous. They are-they are just plain jealous of him. And how could this happen? And many, many people who may have been against all these efforts back in the (19)60s and (19)70s, who are now boomers or younger, you know, but especially boomers, they can understand the battles that all groups have gone through. Finally, you know, a lot of the efforts are, are successful, some any, what do you think the lasting legacy when the best history books are written on the boomer generation, what the lasting legacy will be when they talk about this generation, and I mean, a generation, you know, as someone said to me, someone told me once they thought boomer generation was about white men. Well, I am talking I am trying to in this book to make the argument about everybody who was a boomer, right, whether- 1:59:54 MC: I would have to say I think I think that our generation will go down as the generation of hope. And I think our generation will go down as a generation of change. And sort of articulating more than that. I mean, I am just thinking back what I said, Steve to be in a generation in which we saw such-such a way to come into with the killing of the president and then you know, King and all that credible social movements that are going on and we-we sustain them. We show that, despite money and power and all that everyone to at us to stop us from stopping a war and also just corruption within the government. We saw that through. And I think the fact that we saw I was thinking about this with King and in fact, Coretta Scott King, lived long enough, no, wait, when did Coretta Scott King die? Was she? I do not think. 2:00:49 SM: Two years ago. I think she died in 2007. 2:00:52 MC: Yeah, because I mean, the fact the fact that you had a family and who they represented and who would know that when King gave his famous speech now of course with the "I Have a Dream" today, um, that Obama and understanding Obama did something amazing to me because I was supporting Hillary from day one. I wanted a woman in there really badly and I think that is going to happen sooner or later but I think history was right and we got Obama. But Obama did something amazing and maybe just swept people off. He said I am not I did not get this because I am a Barack Obama, I got here because of naming the names, you know, all the women and the people who had to fight for everything they had, as first citizens of this kind. I think people are either jealous of it. Do not believe that he could just be sincere. Like, you know, is he for real? Yeah, yeah, he is for real. And, and to realize that and for you and I to see the fruition of that. It was just amazing. Steve, I look up some times and I had to pinch myself and said this really happened. 2:01:51 SM: It is-it is almost like and again, I-I never met Dr. King, but I have read an awful lot about him. In fact, when I am done with this book, I want to do another book just on him, which is going to be an oral history on the Vietnam War and his decision to make that I just want that and interview people just on that issue alone, because not enough has been done. But he, he was the one we did a program in Westchester University where I brought Lynn Washington in and Dr. Megan Kate, a professor at Villanova. And we talked about we were not going to talk about the Big Four, on Dr. King Day, we were going to talk about the unsung heroes of the movement, the people who had died, whose names we will never know, and how important they were in the movement. It was like we were just like you said, there, you get on somebody else's shoulders you get on somebody else's shoulders. It is not about me, it is about we I do not care if my name is ever known, but I did my small part in that moving something forward. So that was, you have made some very important points here. One, one thing, one last question is, is there anything That you thought I was going to ask in this interview that I did not. And you would like to say something or as- 2:03:08 MC: I guess, I guess what I would say there is two things that I was thinking about knowing you were going to do this interview one of them. To me, Steve is the interesting demographic shift in this country. Mm hmm. And they say roughly between 2040 and 2050, this country movie majority people of color. That is profound. And, and I just wonder, when you think about that, 2040, 2050 I just, I just turned 62. I will be 62 this year, so I will still be around. But I am just wondering the impact of the (19)60s generation where I thought, the racial divide, but I thought I saw a lot of getting it about the equality thing across gender, certainly across orientation and color. I have a feeling that maybe the (19)60s generation people of our era might have a really important role to play when that transition continues to play. play out, you know, with more and more color, not less. So that might be something down the line to think about, you know, it is just what is what does that mean? What-what has that meant? So that was one thing. The other is just I think this interesting thing of what I seen were in a way the degeneration of the (19)60s really had a profound impact on our what we now see as our amazing, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender movement. I it is just-it is just astounding to me how fast this is, how fast this is happening. But a lot of the people who are at the forefront of this were people who came out of that antiwar movement who were lesbian, gay, out visible. And, and at the time, were told what was that got to do with anything and here we sit now with a lot of us out here being on the front lines of what I would perceive- 2:04:47 SM: So, you are, you are pretty, so my guess is you are pretty proud of the boomer generation gay and lesbian, America. 2:04:56 MC: My Gosh! Absolutely. 2:04:57 SM: Because that is important because that when I talk about that Boomer generation now I am talking about not only black and white and yellow and red and different ethnic groups from male gender male female but also sexual orientation It is important because they are all part of the boomer generation at it yeah and that is and some people have been disappointed in the boomers because so many went on to raise families make a lot of money and then just forget everything. And others have continued like yourself the longevity but overall, you think the boomer gay lesbian Americans have done quite a bit? 2:05:31 MC: Oh my god, absolutely no doubt about it. Just pivotal, my opinion pivotal and-and, you know, willing to be out there and be visible and the same thing with the women's movement as well. I mean, they that those I think those two movements came out of the antiwar movement, women's movement, bisexual transgender movement. Yeah. And we and here we are still doing it. 2:05:50 SM: So that is excellent. Well, if you have any suggestions of other names of individuals that you see I think would be a good interview. For this project so you can email me. Yeah. And I, you know, I know that when I when I interviewed David Harris, I said, can you get me to interview Joan Baez and all he well he is divorced from her now but still very close to her. You know? Yeah, he lives I think their child they live together in a house in Mill Valley. So, some of the key things in Joan Baez is one I would love to interview and but any of the other I sent a letter to Eleanor Smeal and Gloria Steinem and I remember the person I interviewed on Monday. Well, Gloria Steinem does not do many interviews, so you are lucky if you get anything with her, but- 2:06:39 MC: Ellie Smeal does, she is up there with the feminist majority. I am surprised she heard back from her. 2:06:44 SM: Now I have not heard from her I sent like, these are emails. I have been doing everything by email. And I am not sure sometimes secretaries even pass these on to. So, I emailed Gloria Steinem and I emailed them. Eleanor Smeal, and I asked David but David just simply said she is too busy. David Harris, for Joan Baez. And so, but there may be other people I am missing here. And so, if you put your thinking cap on about people, not only the gay and lesbian community, but female leaders who would be great to head because right now about I would say about 70 percent are men and 30 percent are women. A lot of a lot of the women like Phyllis Schlafly and Linda Chavez and conservatives, I did not get a response from them. So, some people just do not respond by Janet Snark, a female Vietnam vet on the board she did not respond to there is some people that, you know, I am making the effort, but I need more female voices. So, no question. 2:07:41 MC: Let me think about that. And I have your contact info. Steven. So, let me let me think about that and try to send you some folks that I might know. That would be great. Like I said, you know, as we saw out of that movement, we saw the feminist movement, the women's movement, whatever and off and on either side of the sense, but I am also thinking women of color as well. You know some yeah. 2:08:00 SM: That cat free. I have not. I am going to be interviewing Christy Kiefer, I have that link, Sam. I got her because she is on the list and there is some Professor Roma. I have Pauline Roma do not ever name for she is in San Francisco State. She hasn't responded yet. That was another list. I certainly sent an email to Angela Davis. I have not got a response from her. 2:08:21 MC: But yet. 2:08:22 SM: Now, but Bettina Aptheker, I am going to interview her in January because she is coming back east Anna for five months, because I guess she is on sabbatical and she is going to be teaching at Columbia so I can, uh, interview her in person as opposed to on the phone. But- 2:08:42 MC: Where are you located? 2:08:43 SM: I am in Westchester, Pennsylvania, right outside Philadelphia, and I am about same age that you are I graduated from SUNY Binghamton in 1970. I was a history major. Then, then I went off to Ohio State to grad school and student personnel in higher ed and my advisor was Dr. Roosevelt Johnson, a 29-year-old African American male from Southern Illinois University, University of Illinois, Champaign Urbana, and he had a tremendous impact on my life in grad school because our graduate program was all about, you know, the-the issues that were going on between black and white Americans at that time. And so that is kind of my specialty area. I am involved with those issues. My whole life. And-and he is, he has been at Johns Hopkins University for quite a few years, and I believe he is just retired. So, I kind of stay in touch with him every year. We go to lunch. Okay, so he has been an inspiration along with my parents, but yeah, but this is I love history. I loved interviewing people and I love interviewing people. I feel comfortable with everybody. Yeah-yeah, because you know, but I feel comfortable with Vietnam vets, I feel, yeah, I just I love doing this and it is, and I would have left my university position to work on this to make you know, to continue the process. And hopefully young people will read this and they will learn from it because it is all about modeling. 2:10:06 MC: I think it is great. 2:10:08 SM: Okay, well, um, I guess that is it. 2:10:11 MC: Okay. Well, I just want to- 2:10:14 SM: Go ahead. 2:10:16 MC: I just cannot hear you. I am getting feedback. Can you still hear me? Yes. Huh. Okay. But I wanted to say to you is that I think your timing is awesome, because I was sitting here thinking is that as we keep on aging on in our memories is so crisp and clear, but the best, honing in on this, I just think it is wonderful. It is fantastic. And I love the question asking, and I just, I just feel like you are, you know, I do not know, I think it is just fortuitous. And I think what you said about wanting to write a book about Martin Luther King and his decision to do that Vietnam Yes. section that that is that that someone has to explore that if you take that on, because that is why was that not part of any written history and I think people were so nervous because there was a lot of drama. And yet that was one of the most historical pivotal moments, in my opinion, not only his civil rights, and all of a sudden understanding about the word Vietnam that touched so many different aspects in American society and King who knew that you know what the consequences that was but normally exploited. So, for you to put energy into that with being incredible. 2:11:20 SM: Well, I have tried to link up but you know, I have even written a letter to Martin Luther King or emailed Martin Luther King, the third and Joe Lowery. I did not get a response from them. A lot of the bigger you know, they do not know me from probably a hole in the wall. But the question is that I always ask is, are their secretaries and the people that work for them passing these up to them? And then is oftentimes that I find out that is where the problem is so. 2:11:42 MC: Or could it be they do not want to go there? If you thought of that? 2:11:45 SM: Yeah, that is-that is a possible use. Couple university presidents said they did not want to be interviewed because obviously if they were talking about boomers that could affect the bottom line in their university. Because I wanted to interview Leon Botstein and Bard, and Dr. Mote at the University of Maryland because I think they are both brilliant and both them so they had no time. Well, I know they had time, they had time for my- to bring my students to meet them, but they do not have time for this. And that is because they are still university presidents and but I am going to, you know, in the back of my mind when they leave their university positions if you do not think this project may be over, but if you do not think I am going to talk to them about that or king, that is another thing because I like both of them. They are really great brother. Yeah. So yeah, the only other thing I want to mention is I take pictures of all of my people and obviously I cannot take pictures of you because you are too far away. So I will need pictures of you eventually not right away. And maybe at some juncture in the next six months, I might be able to see you and I will take your picture. because that will be. 2:12:45 MC: Do you need to take them through something you can use it or I can- 2:12:49 SM: Yeah you can, you can send them to me some pictures that I can use now and if by some chance between now and next few nights, I link up I can take pictures of you. That would be great because I am taking pictures with my camera of everybody. Okay, but I do need a picture if I can. And I tell you what an honor to thank you for taking two hours and 20 minutes of your time to be interviewed. 2:13:13 MC: Oh, this is awesome. And I want to thank Callie for passing in the name on that. See, that is what I meant about women willing to go ahead and say hear some other person hears. I mean, hi. And I just talked about longevity. Come on. 2:13:24 SM: Yeah, well, I, you know, Holly, I did not know how I met Holly. But she did not remember meeting me back at Kent State in 1974 when I was just in my first job. So, but I only a couple years ago, she came to our campus and then she did a program for activist series. And then I mentioned to her that I was writing a book, but I did not do I did not contact her for over two years. And then I finally contacted her through her agent. And then her agent said, Yes, you would like to do the interview and I sent the questions ahead and that juncture did the interview and then I asked her if she would list some names and so she listed seven names and another one is Dr. Brunch or Bunch. I think her name is yes, she has not responded either, but, but I am, I am thankful that she gave me those names. So- 2:14:13 MC: No, that is great. Well, like you said, that is what that you know. 2021 That is great. Okay, Steve, well, let us stay in touch. I got your contact info send a couple of pictures. And you know, I just I am just so thankful and happy to tell you till someone asked his questions. I never think about this stuff. It is like I am looking ahead, you know, and like what we are doing now and realizing we have to think about where we have come from as well. So. 2:14:35 SM: Okay, and send me some names. And if you know Joan Baez, St. Louis is great guy you interviewed your former husband and myself will be great for the interview. 2:14:45 MC: So, I do know I do not I do not know where to pick up the phone. But I know she is sitting down there in Woodside, California. You know, why she tours? I do not even know why she is still out on the road touring. It is amazing and all her audience of course is all from the (19)60s but right you know, it comes to Durham Once a year, so who knows? Maybe. 2:15:03 SM: Alright, well, thanks again. Okay. Thanks, Steve. Have a great day and carry on. 2:15:08 MC: Thank you. 2:15:09 SM: Bye now. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Mandy Carter Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Carter, Mandy ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Human rights workers; African American sexual minorities; Carter, Mandy--Interviews Description An account of the resource Mandy Carter, a native of Albany, NY, is an activist for the African-American LGBT community. She attended Hudson Valley Community College. After leaving college, she won a Spirit of Justice award for helping to increase awareness for the LGBT community and for quickening the process of acceptance of the LGBT community. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize as one of the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005." 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 2009-12-03 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.10.2016.32a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.32b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 135:15 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3b7fb618df7aee331d3c759314624e6c.jpg eea6275ef0620223761107fcf03eff73 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a8c85b626dde92be81e3ed4b03f8f410.mp3 095ac0432f1e4faaa17d5e7f7ed5a119 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 2010-02-22 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Patti Cassidy Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation; 1960s; Political Correctness; Activism; Government trust; George W. Bush; Bill Clinton; late 1940s-1950s; Civil Rights Movement; 19770s; Sanctuary Movement&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:2,&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13689059}}">Baby boom generation; 1960s; Political Correctness; Activism; Government trust; George W. Bush; Bill Clinton; late 1940s-1950s; Civil Rights Movement; 19770s; Sanctuary Movement</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 165:33 Subject LCSH Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Political activists--United States; Cassidy, Patti--Interviews Biographical Text Patti Cassidy is a playwright and producer. She wrote her first play on a dare in a Mexican border town in southern Arizona. From then on her work has been produced from LA to Paris. Cassidy currently is co-producing a series of readings of plays in the greater Boston area. She has a Bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature from SUNY Albany. 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: Patti Cassidy Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 22 February 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): You are going here. PC (00:00:04): Okay. SM (00:00:06): I have got lots of questions to ask you, but some of them will be a little different than David, and some will be the same that David got. PC (00:00:11): Okay. David, whether they are all the same or- SM (00:00:14): Well, the first question. When I looked at your website, I am pretty fascinated by the fact that your experiences are pretty diverse. And before we even get into specifics about the boomers, it is about boomer lives, when you say that you grew up in New York State and then you lived in the Arizona Desert and the New England Island- PC (00:00:33): Right. SM (00:00:34): ... that is given you a diffuse and eclectic experience of the United States, was that when you were young? Was that during your early years? PC (00:00:42): No, I grew up in upstate New York, and I was up there until I was 20 something, 25. And then, the man that I ended up marrying, he and I did that great American go and find out if there was a better place to live kind of thing. And we ended up in Arizona, and that was in the 1970s. So, when I was 25. And we lived there down there, first, in Tucson, and then moved up into the mountains and did the homesteading thing, and that was total 27 years. And then, I moved back here to Boston because it was time to come home. And by that time I was divorced. And then, I met David, and he, of course, was on an island in Narragansett Bay. So, that is now. Excuse me. SM (00:01:48): Was there anything about your upbringing as a child that you wanted to explore America, you wanted to see more than just growing up in New York? PC (00:01:58): No. Just to put it bluntly, travel. Our vacations were either in Western Pennsylvania where my family's family came from, or it was in Maine, Kennebunkport, actually. And that was fine. And I did not have the wanderlust. I did not particularly have any reason to want to travel. Although when my aunt went to Greece, she was a classic professor. When she went to Greece and showed me pictures of, well, this is the crossroads where Oedipus met his father, that started to spark something. That was when I was about 12 or 13, but it was not very strong until college basically. And the year I dropped out of college to buy a motorcycle and travel across the country- SM (00:02:55): Wow. PC (00:02:56): ... by myself, I went to drop out, and my guidance counselor said, "Do you know that 25 percent of your class has dropped out here?" SM (00:03:06): Now, what school was this? PC (00:03:07): That was State University of New York at Albany. SM (00:03:09): Oh, okay. PC (00:03:10): And that was the years, and that is the way things were happening. SM (00:03:16): And what year was that? PC (00:03:19): That was 1968. SM (00:03:22): Oh, that was a big year. PC (00:03:23): That was a huge year. SM (00:03:26): Yeah. Yeah. So, you traveled around the country. What was that like? Share a little bit about that year. PC (00:03:32): Well, that trip, I was a young girl, and I have always been young looking for my age. So, I looked like I was 12 or something, riding around. Basically, I got as far as Nebraska before I turned around and went back. But I was alone. I was on a motorcycle. I had a Honda 350, and it looked like a mini Harley. And it was just interesting for me to feel the sense of freedom. The people I met. I remember in Illinois somewhere, I had run a stop light or a stop sign, which I had not seen. But this cop pulled me over, and I took my helmet off and my hair fell down because it was long hair. And he was flabbergasted that there was this girl going by herself. And he said, "What are you doing?" And I said, "Well, I am taking a spike across the country and seeing what I can see." And he said, "Well, that is amazing because I had always wanted to do something like that." And he poured his heart out about how he had always wanted to go on trips like that, but he never had the nerve. And so, that was pretty neat. And then, there were a lot of people who told me, "You be careful. You were driving by yourself. You were going alone by yourself." And I really did not feel afraid. That is the thing, I was not a particularly brave kind of a girl or a tomboy even. It was just something that I wanted to do. And of course, I'd seen your basic easy rider, and I had been reading a little bit of Kerouac. Not a lot. SM (00:05:32): On the road. PC (00:05:33): On the road. So, basically I was becoming more and more interested in seeing, "Well, what is this? There is got to be something outside of Albany." And so, that is when I started to take trips. SM (00:05:52): Well, 1968, obviously, your brother-in-law has written a great book about it, but it is a historic year in so many ways. And the way your brother-in-law talked about it is there were things leading up to it. There were historic events and happenings that played a very important part in that year, even before that year. But when you looked at America in 1968, obviously, if you were on the road on a motorcycle, you may not have been watching television as much as others. We had the assassinations that year of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, Johnson resigned and was not going to run again as president. We had the Tet situation in Vietnam, and then obviously the conventions and the confrontation in Chicago. PC (00:06:36): Oh, I paid a lot of attention. SM (00:06:38): Yeah. When you were going across the country, were you talking to people? Were people talking about it in restaurants or wherever you were stopping? PC (00:06:49): No, I did not really hear much about it. I was only on the road for, I think, three weeks because, as I say, by the time I got out to Nebraska, I said I am going home. And I tended to be a fairly shy person. But what I saw, basically, all the way across country, as I say I never felt fear. I really did not feel afraid at any time. And I saw, I guess, what I expected to see. I saw people who dressed like I did, even in the Midwest. I did not find it a foreign land, which I was thinking that I would have. But as far as discussing the situation with people I did not know, no, I cannot really say that I heard a lot of discussions going on in diners or anything like that. Right. SM (00:07:50): Right. Do you look at your growing up years as a female boomer, which is obviously different than a male boomer. Do you feel that a female boomers' experiences were really totally different? PC (00:08:06): I do not know that they were totally different. I think they were different in the way you related to what you learned. I do not think that we had the feeling of we can go out, or I can only speak to myself. I did not have a feeling that, oh, I could go out and ride a motorcycle. Oh, I could go out and overturn the government. Oh, I can go out and do all of these things. And yet, as the years went on, I did start to feel that power during that period. I did really feel like, oh, I can do all these things. It was a very empowering time for me as a woman. And one of the big things, and I wondered if you were going to be talking about it, was birth control. SM (00:08:53): Yes. PC (00:08:54): That was just phenomenal. And it was the biggest change. Now, I grew up a staunch Catholic gal, and of course the idea of, A, birth control and, B, needing it, we were out of the question. But once the hippie years started, and I started getting involved with people, and then all of a sudden you have got birth control on top of it, which meant you did not have the biggest consequence that you had to worry about, it made me feel totally free. And at that point, I think I really wanted to try to experiment more. I really wanted to take advantage of the freedoms that guys had traditionally had that you had to be more careful when you were a girl. Suddenly, there was this thing that made it be, oh, you do not have to be as careful because you're not going to have to get pregnant. And so, that made a really huge difference. But as far as growing up, I did feel limited. I did feel very much like there was a role to play. You go to school, you get married, you have kids, and you do that thing. I was not happy with that role. That really did not seem to fit me. But because of the way things were. Now, I thought I would be a nun, actually, rather than a mother, because, if you were a Catholic kid, that was your other option. But I did not feel like there were very many options until the (19)60s came along, when all of a sudden things cracked open and you suddenly realize, yeah, I do have a lot of different options. I could ride a motorcycle, or I could be a writer, or I could be all of these things. It was almost overwhelming. SM (00:10:52): Yeah. You mentioned the pill. One of the questions someplace and on my list here is a question that I was going to ask regarding what were the major happenings or events that really affected you as a female boomer during the time that you were young? And when I say young, I am also talking about your elementary school years, your high school, your college, in the twenties, thirties, into the (19)40s, because I consider that young. So, we are talking about the (19)50s, the (19)60s, the (19)70s, and the (19)80s. I am really looking at those periods. PC (00:11:28): Okay. SM (00:11:29): So, obviously the pill was very important. Was the sexual revolution a myth? Or was there truth to it? PC (00:11:37): I do not know. No, I do not think the sexual revolution was a myth at all. You suddenly had people who, well, as I just mentioned, the pill was so huge because you had one group of the population saying it is possible to do this and not have to deal with, oh, I am going to have a baby. I am going to have to take care of it. Or I cannot do anything that I really want to with my boyfriend because, et cetera. So, you had that freedom. At that point, there was not a whole lot of venereal disease problems that could not be fixed by a shot of penicillin. And so, that was another issue. Everybody I knew was involved. And remember, I was basically in a pretty middle-class situation. Standard, good Catholic, strong background situation. But I would say by 1972, it was just an arbitrary date, came around, almost everybody I knew was having full relationships with guys. I mean, our parents were tearing their hair out. But basically, none of my generation had a problem with, yes, she was living with so-and-so, or they are getting together every weekend, or whatever. You just did not even think about it. It just flew over the top of your head. SM (00:13:10): How important was Roe v. Wade with women, too? PC (00:13:15): Roe v. Wade was very important. And at the time that that decision was made, I was very happy that the freedom came along. But I ended up rethinking in the 1980s, the late (19)80s, I started rethinking my position about it. And that was actually due to a remark that was made a man that I really respected by the name of Nat Hentoff. I do not know if you know him. SM (00:13:51): Nat Hentoff. That name rings a bell. PC (00:13:55): He was actually a jazz critic for the Village Voice and a very smart guy. And he started doing some investigation, basically, to decide how he felt about the abortion issue. And he came up with some conclusions that, when I read them, I said I do not want to be pro-life. I do not want to be pro-life. I want to continue to be pro-choice because it goes along with my anti-war stance and everything else. But the more I thought about it, the more I got back to first causes, the more I felt I had to change my decision on that. And basically, I tried not even to say very much about what I believed, because I knew everybody would look at me like I have got a third head. SM (00:14:48): Betty Friedan, of course, was one of the big writers of that period, and she wrote many books dealing with women. And she used to always say that the mothers, which our parents, the mothers of the boomers, were basically very unfulfilled in the late forties and the (19)50s, and when they raised the kids. Do you feel this is true? I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly this past week in Washington. PC (00:15:15): Oh, wow. SM (00:15:16): And she said that that was nothing but propaganda, that women love being homemakers, and that women were fulfilled in raising their kids. So, there is a lot of different points of view here. But do you feel that your mother, the mothers of the (19)50s, were unfulfilled because they were home being homemakers as opposed to working? PC (00:15:41): My mother personally did not have a real problem with it. She was very ill. She had heart condition, and so she was not a real go-getter to go out and have a career or anything. But I cannot really agree with Phyllis Schlafly. There were a lot of hamstrung women. There were a lot of women who wanted more than what they could have that I saw that when the was made available to them to go out and work or to do more things than be a mom and be consistently tied to your kids. There were a lot of divorces that happened around then, I remember. And sometimes, they actually bought the wrong product. Freedom meant getting a job, but getting a job might be a file clerk, and that was, certainly, not even as fulfilling as being a mom. So, sometimes they did not think it through. But I cannot really say that I agree with her just based on my own personal observation. A lot of women that I talked to that I knew were frustrated, that they were very glad to add to their roles, they were glad for the opportunity to try to do different things. SM (00:17:12): Yeah. That was an interesting time because a lot of women had worked during World War II when the men went off to war. There were a lot of women in the war, but that is where women really worked. And I can remember my mom was a tremendous secretary. And then, when my dad came home from the war, she gave all that up to raise the kids. And I had never even thought of asking her once we started moving off into the world whether she felt fulfilled after all those years. She raised kids. PC (00:17:40): Is she still around now? SM (00:17:42): No, she passed away in 1998. PC (00:17:45): Oh, okay. SM (00:17:46): And I never even asked my dad who passed away in 2002 some of these issues. I wish I could have asked them. But that was a big issue because the Equal Rights Amendment, of course, was defeated in the early (19)70s and the mid-(19)70s, and Phyllis Schlafly was a very important reason why it was defeated. PC (00:18:09): Right. As a matter of fact, I just finished reading a book called, it was not The Way We Were. It is, The Way Things Were, I think. And basically, it tells about the way things were for women in the early (19)60s all the way up to now. And it does not try to be a polemic. It does not try to say, "Oh, this was terrible." It just said, "This is what happened." And one thing that she mentioned that I had forgotten all about is that, financially, I had to have a male's signature to start my bank account, to start my checking account, I had to have my dad's signature. And credit cards. I looked into getting a credit card. I did not get it. But basically, you have to have a man sign for you. And I had forgotten all about that because, basically, it really did hamstring you. Again, it was that whole feeling of you really did not have the power because, in fact, you had to get the permission, even in the 1970s when I wanted to have a tubal ligation, I had to have my husband. SM (00:19:25): Wow. PC (00:19:26): I could not just do that on my own say so. They said, "Well, your husband has to sign the papers." He was not happy about that. He said, "Well, it's her body. She should do what she wants." SM (00:19:36): Right. PC (00:19:37): And they said, "No, you are her husband, so you have to sign.” SM (00:19:41): Well, one of the things that the women's movement talked about, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug, I was looking up some of the quotes, and that is that they felt that women were unfulfilled. And to this day, Mrs. Schlafly believes that this propaganda continues, and they need to move on. So, anyways, that is just a little side note. Now, you're a very artistic person, obviously, because I looked at your background, and were doing films and writing and so forth and sculpture. PC (00:20:21): Right. SM (00:20:22): Do you feel that this area of interest had anything to do with reinventing yourself, which is a quality so many boomers felt. I know, even in Charles's book, he talks about this business of a concept, and a lot of people wanted to reinvent themselves. They did not want to be like their parents. Their parents were part of a generation that ended a war. Of course, beat two really bad, at that time, very bad countries that were doing terrible things. But when the war ended, they came home. And a lot of people in the boomer generation were upset that this was a generation that also created the atomic bomb, and that they wanted to be different, and they wanted to reinvent themselves. Do you feel that anything you have done in your life was not that you did not disrespect your parents, but you did not want to be like them? You wanted to reinvent yourself and be your own person? PC (00:21:29): It is an interesting question because I am constantly reinventing myself. I think that, basically, the way I chose to run my life, I knew I had to kick against the belief because you had not only, basically, GI parents. Well, my father was even farther back. He was born in 1904. He was old when I was born. But it was not so much that I wanted to be something different than they were, but I wanted to be something different than what the world expected of me because it did not fit. Like I said, the housewife with the kids, that never did fit me. I wanted the freedom to do that. Let me think for just a second. I think that it was all about experimenting. It was all about experiments. And one thing we were lucky enough, as a generation, to have cheap education. We could all go to college or almost everybody could go to school. And so, we had a lot of opportunities to explore ideas and possibilities. And with me, I read tons of poetry. I met a lot of people who were involved mostly in the writing game. And so, basically, I wanted to try that out. I wanted to try those [inaudible 00:23:12]. So, as far as reinvention, reinventing the traditional roles, yeah, but not necessarily in opposition to my parents, but just to try it out. SM (00:23:26): Yeah, you are a boomer. What is your overall feelings about your generation? It is interesting. Even if you look at the books, they cannot even come up with the exact number of boomers, anywhere from 70 to 78 million. That is quite a discrepancy. But I have seen many different quotes. 70, 74, 78 million. What are your thoughts on your generation, not only when you were young, but have you changed your opinions of them as you have grown older and as they have grown older? And in terms of some of the qualities they possess, a lot of them had this idealism that was a very important part of the generation. There was a feeling of community where, whether it be a cause, people could come together and believe and fight for justice. Or have strong feelings toward a particular issue, and they knew that other people felt that way. So, a sense of community, and there was also a sense of movements, many movements, that you felt a sense of empowerment, that an individual could make a difference, that the individual was important. But you had not only community, but you had the importance of individual freedom of speech. And that, finally, my views, and I can make a difference in this world. So, what are your overall feelings of your generation when you were young, and as you have grown older? PC (00:24:59): Basically, starting, when you are saying, when I was young as a kid, I do not think I had that much of a feeling as a child. But as I got older, and this is a point where my husband and I diverge. I am proud of the boomers. I am proud of what we did. At that point, I was, although every once in a while my contemporaries would irritate me because they were self-righteous. But they were questioning. I mean, there was this whole thing about our generation questioned everything. And sometimes it got silly, and sometimes it led into weird places. But in fact, at least they were questioning, at least they were saying, "Well, what is this?" And they were trying to make an alternative to basically the gray corporate world, which is what we grew up in, and the world where everybody had a standard that they had to tow the line or else the left out or called weird or whatever. At last, people were saying, "Okay, we do not have to do this. We can do some other things. We can try other situations." And I was proud of that. I was very happy to be a part of that. And I still think that boomers get a bad rap. Everybody goes, "Oh, my God. Look how it turned out, and look how terrible they are. And look at how greedy and grasping they are. And look at all the things that went wrong." Well, you know what? It may have gone wrong with a lot of them, but also with a lot of people, it did not, I mean, just in the church, and I will go back to that because that was most familiar. I mean, there were things that were done that made it more understandable and accessible to more people. The whole divorce thing, the whole, they call them, street priests. I mean, priests actually going out into the street and helping kids, like juvenile delinquents and stuff. I think we did a good job of what we did, which was questioning all the basic assumptions and saying, "Do they work or do not they? What can we tear apart?" Sometimes, we got to be tearing apart for the hell of it. In fact, I always felt when I saw somebody my age, I knew pretty much, or I felt that I knew pretty much, what I could expect. And that did do a bonding thing for me. As I said, I did not approve of a lot of stuff they did, because sometimes I felt that they were too self-righteous. And sometimes I felt they were silly. But in fact, the situation was that somebody had to go questioning this stuff or else was going to go on forever as far as we could see. SM (00:27:56): You mentioned some of the things that you felt were weaknesses. What do you consider some of the strengths and weaknesses? I have had people that will not answer this question because they said, "I cannot answer a question for 74 million different individuals." PC (00:28:09): Well, that is true. SM (00:28:11): And so, based on your experiences, though, and the boomers that you knew, what do you consider their strengths and their weaknesses? PC (00:28:24): Well, I will start out with the weaknesses. The weaknesses were that they did tend, when they grabbed on to something, to be a little self-righteous. And as far as today goes, I do not think that we are as self-righteous anymore. I really do not. And I think that that may be why we fall apart, why we went from being a group to being a bunch of individuals. So, I think that the self-righteousness was probably a weakness. Another thing was that because we were so curious about everything. We wanted to bring in, say, Caribbean poetry of the 18th century as a course to be taught in colleges as opposed to just the straight cannon. It got a little bit silly, some of the stuff. So, those I think are the weaknesses. I think as far as the strengths go, I see it as a strength to question everything. To basically say, "This is not working. What can we do? Let us go down to first causes. Let us really get behind it." Think of all the teach-ins. These were not just demonstrations where people say, "Oh, let us go out and club a few heads." Or, "Let us go out and dance in the streets." They said, "Let us have teach-ins. Let us find out what the truth is behind things." And I think that was a real strength of my generation. I am happy that they did that. And I am also happy with the hippie movement. Although again, it got to be something other. It got to be probably too much in the world of drugs. We lost too many people that way. The fact that, again, they were trying to experiment and trying to put it into action, put your theories into action. Go out and reject, I do not know if you remember this. There was that big thing about the culture of death. The ruling culture is the culture of death. Let us be the culture of life. They really did give it a whack. They really did. It was not this violent thing that you see going on now. Oh, how do you rebel against the establishment now is get a zip gun. Back then, it was just tell them to do their own thing and drop out. SM (00:31:00): A critic of that view maybe, I am from the era, too. So, I know. PC (00:31:10): Oh, good. SM (00:31:10): But my opinions do not mean anything in this book. The key thing here is there were people that used drugs to get away from the reality of the world they were seeing. And if they wanted to be the change agents for the betterment of society, did not they want to be sober or off drugs to be able to deal with this? Experimentation is one thing, but to be thought upon as legitimate people who care deeply about changing the world, why get on drugs? So, I am just being a critic here. PC (00:31:47): No, I understand. And I have a complicated relationship with that, too, because I must admit, I experimented just like people did. I always held a job and everything like that. I mean, it never got in the way of that. But you may be talking about two different people. Basically, you have got some people who say, okay, let us try to change the world with tutoring, classes after school, tutoring of classes, working in the slums, doing that sort of thing. You have got other people who are experimenting with themselves and they are saying, "What will it take? What if I try this drug?" Particularly the hallucination. "What if I take this drug? What will happen to me?" So, they're exploring themselves. You do not necessarily have the same person doing two different things. Some people would try to change society, some people would try to change themselves, and some people were just not interested in changing anything. SM (00:32:56): Well, we know that we lost some great musicians to drugs, and that is just well known and documented. Do you have any personal experiences of friends or peers or fellow college students or people that lost their life or were totally destroyed by being involved in drugs? Do you have any anecdotes or stories? PC (00:33:19): Let me think about that. Basically, everybody I knew took drugs to one degree or another, anywhere from pot to heavier stuff. I did not have any personal experience with anybody I know dying from drugs. One girl, her parents sent her to an asylum because she was very whacked out. And I certainly saw a lot of meltdowns, but at that point, we were all taking care of our own. SM (00:33:58): Well, I think, one day, someone, if they could write a book. There has never been a book written about it. One day someone, if they could write a... there has never been a book written about it. Of course how do you document it? But you have to find boomer parents who lost kids and most boomer parents are passing away now. PC (00:34:10): Who, the people who died from drugs? SM (00:34:14): Yeah, because it is a story... we know about these personalities who died from drugs, but the question is, we read that so many lives were destroyed. And who are these people whose lives were destroyed? Who are they? PC (00:34:30): Exactly. SM (00:34:31): And no one was ever really done a book on it, like an interviewing. I wish I was 25 years younger now talking to boomer parents about losing their son or daughter because it would be a great story in terms of students not getting involved in drugs today. A couple things. When Newt Gingrich came into power in 1994, and obviously when George Will does a lot of his writing in his books and comms, they love to take shots at the (19)60s generation or the boomers that grew up after World War II. And they look at the (19)60s and early (19)70s when boomers were young and say, a lot of the problems we have in our society today go right back to that era, which includes the skyrocketing divorce rate, the no commitment with between... in relationships, the ism culture, which is everybody's a victim and nobody takes it by their bootstraps to help themselves. The drug culture, the sexual revolution, sexual morays, whether it be through movies or the way people lived and all the other things. They love to take shots at the generation for all the problems that are in America today. I know it's very generalized, but it has been documented and they're not the only ones. There has been a lot of books written about even the issue that what is going on in universities today. The troublemakers of the (19)60s are the professors of today, and that is why the universities are destroyed with political correctness and women's studies programs and gay studies and Native American studies, everything studies and only caring about their own particular culture. Your thoughts on these criticisms that people do have about things that they felt began when boomers were young and then they have carried it on in their adult lives. PC (00:36:34): And that is part of this whole blame the boomers for everything culture that is arisen. We had a conversation at home just the other night about this whole attitude toward people. Yeah, well, something is wrong, it must be the boomers. Boomers are really horrible people. They did all this. You know what, it is every generation does the same thing. As far as the diversity of people who were women's studies, Native American studies, that kind of studies, I will say that that came during that period. That you started looking out and saying, is history in fact only name states and of the ruling powers and war studies and peace studies and diplomacy studies, or do other [inaudible] of the population have a story in itself too. And to what degree should that be recognized. Political correctness used as... this is only my opinion, but has been used as a piece of propaganda against the left when in fact you will see the same kind of thing going on in the right. And I am not going to go any farther with that because I do not have any name states and facts that I can do that. But I think that, I do not think that all the political correctness battles have been entirely a problem of the left. And them too, I do not see them blaming the right-wing boomers because there were right wing boomers. You had the young Republicans, you had- SM (00:38:17): Young Americans for Freedom. PC (00:38:19): Exactly. You had that whole rule. But you see absolutely no criticism of those guys. You only see criticisms of the left. Why is that? Because who is doing the criticism? Well, you have got your Newt Gingrich not known as a left-wing pundit. I would tend to look carefully at whether they are saying it is the boomers or it is the left that is making all of these problems. And who's doing the criticism? Is it the left that is doing the criticism or is it the right? If it is all across the board, then you have got something to look at. SM (00:38:57): See, I think the critics... it has been explained to me by some of the people I have interviewed that it is really the 15 percent of the activists who were really involved in any of the movements at that time that they are really critical of. And sometimes they are not critical of the whole generation because, again, one of the things of the criticisms is that, well, only 15 percent of the boomers were really involved in any kind of an activism. We are really talking about the new left and the anti-war and all the people who are involved in all those different movements. That is what they... they try to redefine it that way. Not the whole generation of 85 percent that never involved in anything. But then I come back to them, and I ask you this, even though it may be critical of those who were activists, including the Phyllis Schlafly's of the world who was a conservative in that period, and they were Young Americans for Freedom, do not you feel that somehow in some way, all of the boomers were subconsciously affected by the times they lived in, even though they were not active in any of the movements? And as time's gone on, they are affected by it. PC (00:40:12): I am not quite sure that I can clearly... I am not quite sure that I understand. You are saying that all boomers, that their mindsets were affected by what was going on? SM (00:40:25): I am trying to say that subconsciously the 85 percent who were not involved in any kind of activism still were affected somewhat by the times they lived in. PC (00:40:35): Well, we are all affected by [inaudible]. I think that is fair. SM (00:40:39): And that is somewhat lessened when people say only 15 percent were involved. PC (00:40:44): Because you have even got, well Silent. David told me the figures one time for divorce during the 19 early (19)70s when divorce really got cranked up. It was the Silent who were getting divorces. I think it affects everybody all the way across the board, not just the boomers, but anybody who lives during a period of time is going to be affected by what's going on. SM (00:41:09): How do you feel that many boomers felt they were the most unique generation in American history because they were going to change the world like it'd never been seen before? That they were going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, war, and they were going to make a better world. PC (00:41:26): Well, you know what, that was part of the thing that I was telling you that used to drive me a little nuts, is that people did tend to get self-righteous. But did we believe that we were different, that we were essentially the salvation of the United States? I do not know. I think we thought that we could really make a change. And we did. When the Vietnam War was over, we really had a feeling that we had a significant role in making that happen. So that gives you a feeling of power to say, God, if I can do that I could do anything. And so you start building on that. And then you have the social programs that started up and had started. And the Peace Corps. People were actually going out and doing things and seeing some differences. And the more... excuse me, the more they built on that, the more they did feel in power. Now, what continues to flummox me is what happened to the ones that got a degree in corporate? Did they just burn out and went too far in the other direction? That is possible. SM (00:42:47): Let me change the tape here. Change to the other side. The next question I have is one of the two basic questions that I have been trying to get responses from all of my interviewees. And I am going to read this one because this is something our students put together when we went to Washington DC about 15 years ago, and we met with former Senator Edmond Muskie. And because he wanted to talk about 1968 because he was the vice presidential running mate with Humphrey. And this is the question. Do you feel that the boomers as a generation are still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore this nation apart in their youth? Divisions between Black and white, divisions between those who supported authority and those who criticized it, divisions between those who supported the troops and those who did not? What role has the Vietnam War played in healing the divisions or was this primarily a healing for veterans? And finally, do you feel that the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Am I wrong in thinking this or has 40 years made the statement, "Time heals all wounds," a truth? And I think when I was trying to clarify this more, I think it's more between those who were against the war and protested against the war, who were boomers, and those who were veterans because the divisions are still there. PC (00:44:20): Between the veterans and the [inaudible]? SM (00:44:22): Well, veterans still had very strong feelings toward those people, most of them, toward those people who protested the war. And I do not know... And I think most of the people that protested the war, a lot of them never had problems with the veterans, they had problems with the authorities who sent them there. But there were a few that did have problems with anybody fighting. So, your thoughts about the generation as a whole, do you think this generation has a problem with healing? PC (00:44:55): That is a really good question. The divisions back then between say activists and- SM (00:45:06): I am going to turn my tape right now. Make sure... okay, go right ahead. PC (00:45:20): I think that as far as healing goes... see, this is very hard for me to speak for anybody other than myself. Although I was an anti-war protestor, again, as you said, it was not against the guys that went, although sometimes it was based on the person and how he presented himself. Because a lot of those guys did not want to go. They were not there because they wanted to be there, they were there because they were drafted. I do not have a problem with the guys who fought in Vietnam. I had a problem with self-righteousness on either side. Either the activists, again, that same old thing that I keep coming back to, or the soldiers who basically were ready to say, oh, well, we were just doing our duty and you are a bunch of pansies cause would not do it. But as far as now, it is to me personally, it is a dead issue. I do not feel that division happening now in myself. I am trying to think of the other boomers that I know, and I cannot think of people that carry it on. And I know... Some of my friends are people who fought in the war, fought in Vietnam, and they're not carrying it. Some of them actually even became anti-war activists later on for different wars. I guess my final answer would be, no, I am not feeling that that division is any really significant one unless you had a personal confrontation with somebody who was really aggressively from the other point of view. And then you might have it against that person. But I really do not see that as being an issue now. I might be blind, but I have not seen it. SM (00:47:27): I know when Senator Muskie was... we waited for him to respond and he did not. Then he finally said, "We have not healed since the Civil War.:" And then he went on to talk about, he had just seen the Ken Burns series because he had been in the hospital and he said, 400,000 men had lost their lives. We almost lost a whole generation. Particularly in the south. The number of men, it is unbelievable. It is amazing that they could even have families because so many had died from the south. But that is what he was responding to. And because he knows that anybody who knows what happens in Gettysburg, when the north and south came together, that the healing really was not there. And so many people did go to their graves, was still the bitterness of that period. PC (00:48:16): Well, the south is still fighting the war. We have all met people from the south or been in situations where they make it clear that they're still fighting that war. SM (00:48:30): I think I was originally getting... because I had been at the wall many times, this is like an anti-war protestor taking their family to the wall for the first time and having their little son or daughter look up to their father and say, "Dad, what did you do in the war?" I think that was kind of where this all came from I think in terms of the healing. The generation gap of something was very obvious between the World War II generation and the boomers. Of course, the Silent was that small group in between. But did you have an issue with generation gap between your parents and you? PC (00:49:06): There were things we did not agree on. My father was an interesting character because he was not a GI, he was before GI's. He was what was called the Lost. And although it turned out that he was a conservative, we just basically did not talk politics, which is really interesting. I had not even realized it until we were... David and I were talking about it recently. We did not do it. Basically, the rule in the house was, if you have got something to say and you can back it up with facts, then I will respect your opinion but if you are just mouthing out [inaudible], I will not. SM (00:49:50): That is very good. PC (00:49:50): And that is the way we ran it. We did not have political arguments for their sake, but it was, what do you believe here? Because I was a Goldwater girl when I was in high school, before I could vote. Talk about ultraconservative. I worked at the Goldwater headquarters. I read, None Dare Call It Treason, I knew the whole John Birch line. And went to a fraternity party one night, and we were talking about Vietnam and our involvement in Vietnam. And I was saying, "Well, no, we have to do it because of the domino theory, blah, blah, blah." And some of the guys who were against the war started asking me questions. And I went home that night and I could not sleep. I kept thinking, something is not working here, let us go back to first causes. Why are we fighting a war? What is the worst thing that could happen if we left Vietnam? By the end of that night, I said, I cannot be a Goldwater girl anymore. I cannot basically support the war anymore because, again, it was this life-changing thing. To go back to first causes, first question, what is behind this? What would happen if? And once you started doing that, wherever it goes, that is where you end up. And I ended up radical left, and I basically have not been out of that camp since. But I also do not align with any parties. I have even voted for Republicans when I thought they were honest human beings who were trying their best to do what they could. SM (00:51:41): I think Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater girl too at the very beginning. PC (00:51:47): Is that right? I did not know that. SM (00:51:47): Yes. She was a Goldwater girl. There is a whole story in her biography by... I forget her name... God, one of the first ones when Bill Clinton became president. And she said she had a great teacher because she was a Goldwater girl, and the other person was a LBG person so they were forced to take the other person's point of view in a class assignment. She ended up doing a debate in support of Johnson and the person who liked Johnson had to support Goldwater. And that was a great way of teaching. And that is when she started making her change toward being to the left as opposed to being to the right. PC (00:52:28): When you start questioning, I do not care whether you are on the left and you start questioning and you slide to the right or the other way around, if you can have a good reason for what you're doing, then it is legitimate, then there is no fight. SM (00:52:44): Well, I think that her name was [inaudible]. I think it is a great little book she wrote on Hillary Clinton when she was the first lady. In your eyes, what were the watershed moments? When did the (19)60s begin in your eyes and when did it end? PC (00:53:01): Clearly, when Kennedy was shot, I think that was such a devastating situation for me and probably for everybody. That I knew suddenly, oh God, everything you believed in could be wiped out in an instance. And I was not a Kennedy fan, particularly, remember those were my Goldwater era days. But to have the president shot, that this could... I am sorry, it still makes me cry. That this could happen in your country was horrible. And so that is when that part of it started. When he got shot, it was total devastation of everything you believed in. And then the other half of it, the cultural revolution started when the Beatles arrived. My mother said that that was when I was ruined, when the Beatles came to the United States. She said, "You were ruined then, you were ruined." Everything fell apart. And so, I think that is clearly when they started. When they ended was when everybody seemed to get so self-absorbed, say the mid-(19)70s ish. It is like all of a sudden everybody was doing all these... and that is part of the victimization groups and all that stuff. Everybody was so involved in themselves, how they were [inaudible] better for themselves. But I feel that the idealism that marked our generation really started to get wiped out. SM (00:54:51): I know this is another question that some people did not want to answer, because they said, that is ridiculous to ask it because we're dealing with 74 to 78 million. But I said, if I had a room full of 500 people from all over the country, from all ethnic groups, from male, female, gay, lesbian, you name it, and I were to ask them, what do you feel was the most important event that affected your life, one specific happening, what would that be? PC (00:55:22): As a personal event? SM (00:55:26): Yeah, as an event that happened in your life when you were a boomer? And I was referring mainly to probably up to the age of 40 or whatever, what would it be? PC (00:55:39): That is a hard one if you are going to include the personal stuff. As far as national stuff- SM (00:55:45): National, international, is there any one specific happening that shaped you more than any other? PC (00:55:53): The Kennedy assassination on a political level. On a personal level, it had to do with a relationship with a guy. And that is all I really want to say. SM (00:56:10): And again, this is very difficult because we are talking about a lot of people. Do you think boomers have been good parents and good grandparents? I cannot believe we're saying that because a lot of boomers do not like to admit they are getting old. But boomers do not complain either, because I think they look like they are going to live longer. PC (00:56:34): What, because they do not complain about getting old? SM (00:56:38): I do not see a whole lot... they are just getting 62 now so I just do not see it- PC (00:56:43): I will tell you something about the boomers, the boomers have said tradition... all across the board, the boomers have said to themselves, okay, this is what happens at this age level, this is what I do not like, so what do I do to fix this? Therefore, you get things like... it's true, they did not invent it, but they certainly popularized it. Then you got birth control. As we were coming into a childbearing years, what is the thing that has to be fixed about getting pregnant when you do not want to? Well, give us something that will make it so we do not have babies. Then as older guys... and I am sorry because you are a boomer too, but as boomers started aging and getting that problem, what happens, Viagra. SM (00:57:29): Is not that amazing? PC (00:57:31): Whatever problems we have got or whatever problems hit the... when the boomers hit an age that has a problem, they fix it. And I think that is another good thing I like because they are not willing to say, okay, I am going to be 65 and I am going to be in a rocking chair. I do not know anybody my age who is sitting around in a rocking chair. I do not know anybody that age. What they have got now, if they're sitting in a rocking chair it is because they broke their knees skiing. SM (00:58:01): Well, they cannot walk. And of course, a lot of them retire because they want to go on do something else. PC (00:58:08): Exactly, nobody has... I started in the banking field when I was 20 and I am 70 and I am ready to retire and I am still in the banking field. There are some people that do that, but I think it is a much, much smaller percentage than our parents' generation. And it goes back to that thing that you were talking about, about reinventing ourselves. SM (00:58:30): But can you share... some people have told me their story, the exact moment that you heard that John Kennedy was shot and killed? Do you remember where you were? Tell me where you were and how you first heard about it? PC (00:58:47): I was in high school. Let us see, that was (19)63, and I graduated already, so it was my senior year. We were having career day. The Friday afternoon? SM (00:59:02): Yeah. PC (00:59:03): We were having career day at my high school, and it was between sessions. I was in the hallway and I heard a voice on the... sorry... a voice on the loudspeaker. And I thought to myself, God, that sounds like a black edged voice. You know black [inaudible]. It sounds like a black edged voice. And I got to the room, the next room where I was supposed to be, and somebody said, "The president has been shot." And after a little while, they said the president was dead and that we were all going to be released. And so my high school was on the other side of town from where I lived so we had to take a bus and it was tears all the way. People in the street were crying, the bus were crying, everybody was crying. And all we could do is sit there in front of the TV and cry all weekend. SM (01:00:16): That is what most people were doing. I was a sophomore. And the thing is, everybody was crying. And then we went home and then we saw the whole weekend. Oswald killed on Sunday on live TV, and then the funeral on Monday. And I remember not even sleeping, I stayed up because they were covering it nonstop on black and white TV. I cannot even think in terms of, was I thinking anything deeper than the loss of a president, what this all meant. I have been reading lately about other people that could have... they thought it might have been a conspiracy. Oh, there was so many things happening and of course- PC (01:00:58): Oh, I thought it was right after it. When I was on the bus... I knew it happened in Dallas, but I kept saying that those damn southerners, those damn southerners to kill our president, they're not part of the country. SM (01:01:15): Have you been to Dallas? PC (01:01:17): Never. SM (01:01:19): I would like to go once, but they say it is exactly the way it was. They made sure that they changed nothing. PC (01:01:27): Oh, right there? SM (01:01:27): Right there at the book depository and the road and everything is just the way it was then. Hopefully one day I will go there. One of the other issues is the issue of trust. It does not seem like the boomers... well, I did not finish the question. In terms of have they been good parents or grandparents in terms of... and by that, this is based on the experiences of people that you know, that they really shared the experiences of what it was like when they were young and the times they went through? Because today's young people do not seem to know a whole lot of history. That is partially because of the schooling system, but what are the parents doing in terms of educating their kids? And today, 85 percent of the college students are now sons and daughters of generation X'ers and they're not the daughters of boomers. But still 15 percent are Boomer children. And they're the ones that had children later. And I often wonder, what have they done to raise kids to be sensitive to the issues that they're facing in the world today? Just your thoughts on- PC (01:02:39): I wish I could tell you. I never had any kids myself. That was a conscious choice because I knew I would be a crappy parent. And that is why I was thrilled about birth control because I did not have to make that decision. But boomer parents always seemed fine to me, but I was not even thinking about it because that was not... they were friends of mine and they got very involved in their kids' lives but as far as what they were telling them about how they grew up, I suspect that they did it a little bit too much. Because I was somewhere recently, at a movie recently, and this dad was telling his kids, "Oh yeah, I went to Woodstock and I was part of Woodstock and blah, blah, blah." And I could see the kid's eyes glaze over as, oh God, not another boomer thing. And I suspect that that probably is not that uncommon. But as far as actually knowing how other boomers raised their kids specifically, I really do not feel qualified to answer. SM (01:03:48): At the university I worked at, before I left back in the mid (19)90s, we had a program where we brought boomers together with Generation X students. PC (01:03:57): Oh, that must have been interesting. SM (01:03:58): And we had two of them. We brought a TV personality in, and there was friction. PC (01:04:02): Was there really? SM (01:04:02): Yeah, there was friction. The faculty members that were on stage were boomers. And of course, they were very frustrated with today's college generation X'ers because first off, they were not activist enough and they did not work hard enough and all the other things. But the results of these sessions, two sessions were very obvious that the generation X'ers really did not care very much about boomers. And I do not think they do today either. And I think they would like them to get lost, basically. Because I do not find millennials, today's college students that way because I think they are fairly close to their parents. And I think they are close in many ways to boomers, but not generation X'ers. And I have even had issues with them personally. They had two responses to the boomers. And that is, "I am sick of hearing about how great it was when you were young. And all the nostalgia, I do not give a damn, I do not care. I am sick of hearing about it. And that is all you live on is the way it was. And I want to live now and I do not want to live back then." And the second group would say, well, "Geez, I wish I lived then because I wish we had the causes that you had." And there was nothing in between. PC (01:05:23): Nothing in between? SM (01:05:24): Nothing in between. It is either I dislike you or I wish I was there when you were there. PC (01:05:30): Remember when we were growing up and the GI', were all talking about the war and what it was like in the war and how you should be grateful to them because they fought the war and the war was everything. You got to the point, I do not know about you, I got to the point where enough. So, you fought the war and thank you very much, but it's over now so you can go do whatever it is that you are doing. I felt about the GI's, the way you're saying the Generation X feels about the boomers. And I do think boomers tend to overdo it sometimes. Come on guys. There were bad things about us too. We were not the salvation of the world. We did make some mistakes. But I think that is just generation to generation. I have been reading women's history in terms of how the suffragettes... I teach courses in film. That is another one of those things that I do. And one course that I was teaching was the jazz age, jazz age film. And suffragettes felt about flappers the way the women's liberation people of the 1970s feel about young women, particularly young women, Gen X. It was like, oh, look, we were fighting and dying for the right... this is the suffragettes. Fighting and dying and starving ourselves and doing all these things so that you can have the right to vote. And now it is 1920 and you have got the right to vote and a lot of you are not even bothering. And what the flappers were saying to them was, thanks a lot, we will use it if we need it, thanks very much, but that is all we owe you. And you will find a lot of the gen X'ers and I am not sure about millennials, who will say the same thing. Yeah, you worked really hard to get us these rights, but you have done it, so let it go. It is just the way of the world, I think. SM (01:07:39): Well, good point. Very good point. Because the Generation X'ers, they are the ones that were born between (19)65 and (19)80. PC (01:07:52): I was not sure what their date was. SM (01:07:53): (19)65 to (19)80 and then (19)81 begins the millennials, which really have a lot in common with the boomer generation. Not as well-educated though I- Not as well-educated though, I think. One of the issues too is the issue of trust. Do you feel that the Boomers having a problem as a generation with lack of trust? I mention this because I consider personally that not trusting your government is healthy because it shows descent and freedom of speech, and political science professors will actually teach that in the classroom, that it is healthy. But the Boomers even go way too far. They did not trust anybody when they were young in position of responsibility, whether it be university president or the President of the United States or governor, senator, religious leader, or a leader in a corporation. They did not trust any leaders, and that is because they felt they were lied to so many ways and you could not trust them. So, do you think they have passed this on to their kids and we are just not a trusting... PC (01:08:59): I think we should [inaudible]. I think what you say is true. I think Boomers did have a huge, huge trust situation. But I think that really that is a result of having grown up in a situation where it... Like in the 1950s and all leaders were exemplary, all leaders of business were exemplary. You just assumed that these guys were made of good stuff, that they rose to the top of the ranks because they were worthy of it. Then all of a sudden, so that is where you grow up. You start out with being a very trusting person. Oh, if you are an authority, I cannot speak for [inaudible], because I was not a [inaudible] person, but those people in position of authority are trustworthy, honorable people. Then when you get to the time of your life when you are starting to question anyway, big time, whammo, all these cracks appear and so you're not only going through the standard adolescent questioning, but you also have much heightened expectation, much more heightened expectation than you would, excuse me. I just ran up and down the stairs. SM (01:10:27): Oh, how did you do that? PC (01:10:30): Oh, I have got a cell, or not a cell phone. I have got a... SM (01:10:32): Oh, okay. PC (01:10:33): ...mobile phone. SM (01:10:34): Okay. PC (01:10:35): But basically, so you have got people who are brought up to really believe in the system, to really believe in the people who run the system, and then it is hard to take small cracks. But by the time Kennedy is killed, you are starting to see some huge fissures there, and then how are you ever going to trust after that? If you grew up in a fairly cynical background and cracks appear, then you say, "Well, that is life." But when you grow up in this sanctified atmosphere, the 1950s and the cracks appear, you cannot handle it. That is my theory. SM (01:11:15): Yeah. I go back to the 1950s again. I want your thoughts on the beat generation, which was that part of that silent generation that wrote those books, whether Ginsburg, Kerouac, and looked at the beats, how influential were the beats on the Boomers when they were young, and then this one as well. This was the first TV generation, and they saw the news on TV, sitcoms in black and white in the (19)50s. How important was TV in shaping the lives of Boomers, particularly when they were in elementary school? Because yeah, they might not have been able to think politically yet, but they saw shows like Howdy Doody, Hopalong Cassidy, TV westerns in which the Native American was always the bad guy, and the variety shows, the game shows, life coverage of historic events. The McCarthy hearings, if you are young enough to remember them, this man shouting that everybody is a communist, the Mickey Mouse Club, Captain Kangaroo. The media seemed to play an important part consciously and subconsciously in shaping this generation. Just your thoughts on TV and radio and the influence it had on the Boomers. PC (01:12:30): Okay. I will start with your first question first. That is about the beat generation. As I mentioned, I was reading a little bit of Kerouac, but I just want to give you an anecdote from my own personal experience. I started college in 1964, and we were on the old campus then, and it had buildings spread out all over town. On my very first day of college, I went down to get something in the cafeteria and saw a small room off the side of the cafeteria, and I was looking for someplace to eat my sandwich. I walked in there and it is where the beatniks hung out. My hair stood on end. All of a sudden, it was like, "Oh my God, there are such people. These people, there's..." So, I started hanging out there, although I could not... I was still living at home and stuff, so I was considerably restrained, but I got to hang out with beatniks, listen to them talk, listen to their music, listen to their basic assumption. One guy was a guy called Lester Greenberg, and he was actually one of Arand's [inaudible] part-time. She had a lot, but I was so excited, and I have always been fascinated by the beat in general as far as how much influence they had on the Boomer generation, I would say as themselves, not a huge amount, but as far as the CARNA culture, when it started happening, people were reading beatnik literature. So I would say not a huge amount. Me personally, huge. SM (01:14:22): It is amazing. Ginsburg seemed to be everywhere. PC (01:14:27): [inaudible] was. I took a class with Ginsburg. It was a poetry class. SM (01:14:30): You did? PC (01:14:31): Yeah. SM (01:14:32): What was that like? PC (01:14:35): He was so pompous and he was so full of himself that I was really irritated with him. Basically, this was out in Tucson years later, but it was all about, "I am the great God, Allen Ginsburg, and so you are going to listen to every word I have to say, and now you are going to do a few exercises and read your pathetic little poems." So, I was not too impressed. I was impressed by the fact that I had taken a class of Ginsburg. I was not impressed by Ginsburg himself. So, I would say there was not a lot there. But that is, again, these are all just my points of view. But as far as the TV thing, I think that that was huge. I think it was huge because it gave us one identity you had in a way that they certainly do not have anymore. You had your three channels at most, and not even very much PBS then, as I recall. So, everybody saw the same programs, everybody was on the same page, and you kind of felt, if... We got one of the first TVs on our block, we were very popular people during that time. Then when as other people got their TVs, not so much. But I think it was huge, just in terms of the fact that it gave us a single point of reference. I think maybe, and I had not thought about this before until you just asked it now, I think basically that is what coalesced the Boomers, because you all did come from the same spot. With Ed Sullivan, once he brought Elvis Presley in, and then the Beatles, you started going that way culturally too. "Oh, this is what is happening. Is not this exciting?" Again, the media is saying, "This is exciting. This is what is happening." SM (01:16:39): Well, TV westerns dominated television in the (19)50s, and of course, cowboys and Indians and guns and shooting, and did not think anything about the links between war. You just had a good time with your Hopalong Cassidy outfit and everything. PC (01:16:55): Exactly. SM (01:16:56): But I, as a kid, but as later on, I got to think Howdy Doody, I never saw a Black face in the audience for Howdy Doody or Rudy Kazootie or any of those shows. PC (01:17:06): I do not think they did have any. SM (01:17:07): Mickey Mouse Club was all white people. PC (01:17:11): Remember American Bandstand? They started bringing some Blacks in. SM (01:17:13): Yes. Dick Clark. Yep. But I did not, and of course, Amos and Andy was a very big show in the very beginning of the (19)50s, and that was a with African Americans. But there was nothing from that show until about the (19)60s except for Nat King Cole. It was amazing. Of course, the way they portrayed African Americans the way they talked, and it was kind of negative. I think about these later on. PC (01:17:40): Oh, okay. SM (01:17:42): Okay. I got a couple of things here. What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you? PC (01:17:46): It means a lot to me because, for one thing, I was fascinated by Maya Lynn in her story and the fact that she was the one that designed it. A young architecture student, Asian descent. I thought that whole story was fascinating, right from the giddy-up. But I did a documentary a few years ago on the History of War Memorial. SM (01:18:11): Yeah, I noticed that. PC (01:18:11): So naturally, I was very interested in the Vietnam Memorial, and I had not been there ever until I started working on that documentary. I went down there and I thought, "Well, it is a splash in the ground. It is very conceptual. It is very strong as being a concept, but I am not sure how it will play out 100 years from now when all the people are dead who were in that war or directly affected by that war." So we went there, and by the time I reached the middle, I completely collapsed in tears. There is something so powerful about that memorial, and I wish I could tell you what it was. I do not know what it is. I guess just being overwhelmed by all the names. SM (01:18:58): It has gotten so many responses. Most people think it is... Well, it had a lot of criticism at the beginning, as you well know, when the wall was, designs were coming in, and that was finally picked, that brought up all the divisions again in America that had been in the (19)60s, because a lot of people thought it did not do justice for one reason or the other. But that is kind of waned somewhat. But there are still some veterans that do not like it, and they do not, but most do, but... PC (01:19:24): Well, that is an age-old thing too. Do you want something representational or do you want something abstract. They have their Korean memorial right across the way, which is extremely represents. SM (01:19:38): Of course, the new World War II Museum, which took too long to build. [inaudible] wrote a book called To Heal a Nation. He felt that this wall was supposed to be non-political, and basically heal the veterans and the families and those who served. It may have done a halfway decent job with that group, but he also thought it was going to heal the nation and play an important role. Do you think that walls played an important role in healing the nation from this war? PC (01:20:07): No, I do not think so. I wish I could be more specific. Basically, the wars, one of the things I learned in studying war memorials and how and why they are built and why they look the way they do, is that war memorials are built for the people or for the generation who suffered from the war. They speak to that generation. You in 200 years from now, it is going to be an interesting piece of artwork. That is, it. As far as healing the nation, a wall cannot heal a nation, even a statue cannot heal a nation. I do not think that any piece of material, anything could heal a nation. Possibly a film could, although I cannot think of a good enough film that would have done that. SM (01:21:01): So, what is interesting about the World War II Memorial is World War II vets who fought in Europe are upset with it because it reminds them of Hitler. Hitler had these columns and things like this memorial, and he felt some of them were pretty upset with it. So, it is interesting. PC (01:21:18): So, all triumphant, again, you are talking to somebody who's like, this is the bee in my bonnet. Basically, all triumphant civilizations go back to a classical style. That classical style in this case is the Roman. This is a very Roman kind of memorial. Hitler did it because of the glorification of the Third Reich. But also, if you go back to any... World War II was a triumphant war. I mean, we clearly won, there were clear objectives that were clearly obtained. So, they are going to celebrate that with a triumphant style. We do World War I, that is not at all what those four memorials look like, because it was a very disillusioning war. So, I think for them to say, it is like Hitler. Well, Hitler was like the Romans, and that same sense of Roman triumph is behind this particular memorial. SM (01:22:27): What do you think of Kent State and Jackson State? PC (01:22:32): Kent State was devastating. I remember coming home, I do not remember where I was at the time, but I came home and I was looking at the news on the TV not paying any attention. I see these guys shooting these students, and for some reason it did not register. I said, "What are they playing that old Nazi war footage from?" Suddenly, I realized, this is today. These kids are being shot by American soldiers or by National Guard, and this is happening in our streets. How can this happen? I was shocked, afraid, devastated in talking about losing any shred of trust you might have in the government. That was the final nail in the coffin. SM (01:23:20): What does Watergate mean to you? PC (01:23:24): Watergate Gate was just, I just saw it as same old, same old in terms of, yes, these people are corrupt. Yes, these terrible things did happen. But yeah, it has been going on for years and it is going to go on for years more. SM (01:23:39): What did Woodstock in the summer of love mean to you? PC (01:23:46): Woodstock I thought was exciting. As a matter of fact, I had tickets to go and then changed my mind because of the weather. But I liked that whole thing. It was all a big experiment. It was all something. It was all about music and just relaxing and enjoying yourself. So that is what that meant to me. You said Jackson State? You mean Ole Miss and... SM (01:24:12): Yeah. Jackson State also. Two students were killed three weeks later at Jackson State right after Kent State. So, it was... PC (01:24:19): Oh, I did not, you know what? I tell you the honest truth, I guess I did not pay any attention to that. SM (01:24:24): They try to make sure Ken State that they include both at the remembrance ceremony. So yeah, Woodstock. Yeah. Do you still have your tickets for Woodstock? PC (01:24:35): No. I bet they would be worth a fortune now. SM (01:24:38): They would be worth a lot. Of course, the next one here is, what does 1968 mean to you? I think we have gone over... PC (01:24:44): Yeah, I think we did go over... SM (01:24:46): What does the counterculture mean to you? PC (01:24:48): The counterculture now or then? SM (01:24:50): Then. Because Theodore Rozak wrote that great book, the Making of a Counterculture. It was a big popular book. PC (01:24:58): Theodore Roosevelt? SM (01:24:59): Rozak, Theodore Rozak. PC (01:25:01): Oh, okay. I was going, "I do not know about a counterculture in 1900." Well, the counterculture was the whole network. Everything from SDS to hippies and hate Ashbury. That is what it means to me. Basically, anybody who was questioning and living a different... Questioning the way things were and living a different way than they were taught was the norm when we were growing up in the (19)50s. So that sort of was... SM (01:25:33): Yeah. My next one was just the hippies and the yippies. PC (01:25:38): Yeah, they were fun. They were just absurd. I mean, the hippies were honestly just trying to be left alone and express themselves in whatever way they chose to express themselves. The yippies were just absurd. They were [inaudible] all over again. I remember I went to a talk with Abby Hoffman before he went underground just talking about the yippies. It was all about fun. It was all about the absurd way of driving your point home. It was just another way to do get to do the work. SM (01:26:16): So you saw Abby. I saw Jerry at Ohio State and... PC (01:26:19): Okay, I saw him too later on. SM (01:26:21): Yeah, he had the bandana and the thing on his face there, the lines. But they were two unique and different people in the end. PC (01:26:32): Oh, extremely. SM (01:26:33): Abby was the real deal. I think Jerry was just an imposter in many respects. Even Abby says this later on, even though they were friends to the end. But can you talk about that experience to seeing Abby Hoffman? Because I have not talked to too many that saw him. I never saw him. What kind of, supposedly he had a charisma that was just unbelievable and he made people laugh. PC (01:26:58): He did. SM (01:26:59): But he was also very serious. PC (01:27:01): Well, but see, that was when I was just telling you that I saw Abby Hoffman. It was all about fun. That is where that came from. He was just so, at the time that I saw him, he was actually talking at [inaudible] at the State University of New York at Albany later. But it was before he went underground. He was just talking about, I cannot remember a single word that he said, except that you just had this feeling of joyous, absurd. Let us just have a good time with this. Do not take anything too seriously. Just do this for the hell of it, kind of. That was the impression that I got from him. Just as you said, he was funny. It was laughing. It may have been serious, but you were laughing and taking it all in that. SM (01:27:59): I heard stories from other people that said he made, even the policeman who arrested him, laugh. When he was in jail, he made them laugh. He was just a, well, he was different. PC (01:28:13): Well, he knew that basically life is a joke. I mean, nothing is going to last forever. SM (01:28:20): Your thoughts on Students for Democratic Society and the Weatherman? PC (01:28:25): I thought they were very romantic figures. Now, I think they are appalling. But at that time, even though I did not want to be them, because I could not quite go that extra sort of violent mile, I still thought they were very romantic figures fighting against the establishment and actually using the weapons of the established. Then I just thought, "Great, these guys are romance." SM (01:28:57): Well, but in the Port Huron statement, no one knew that they would end up becoming the Weatherman. So that is what really split SDS is when they became the Weatherman and Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Your thoughts on them? PC (01:29:15): I was thrilled to see that they were speaking out for something that they thought was wrong, and they just did not say, "Okay, so we fought. So, everybody has got a fight." That they said, "There is something essentially wrong here, and we are going to speak out whether we were part of the war or not, right is right," and so I have huge admiration for them for that. SM (01:29:42): They kind of took over the anti-war movement when SDS died right to the very end. The other one is the Young Americas for Freedom, which is a conservative group, but they were also against the war, and they are still very popular. Just came back from a conference down in Washington. The new students are still there. You do not see them a lot on college campuses. Did you ever see them at all, or? PC (01:30:04): No, I never did. SM (01:30:05): That was Bill Buckley's group. Then of course, the Enemies List. We all know about the Nixon's enemies list. PC (01:30:12): Yeah, I think we are all convinced we were on Nixon's enemies list. SM (01:30:17): What are your thoughts also on the Black Panther? [inaudible]. But this is great. A couple things, the Black Panthers, of course, had so many unique personalities from Bobby Seale to Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, H Rat Brown, Dave Hilliard, Elaine Brown, Stokely Carmichael. The list goes on and on here. They, of course, were the symbol of Black Power. They challenged Dr. King and the other civil rights leaders. Then of course, you had Malcolm X, who died in 1965. But even he challenged the civil rights leaders like Byard Rustin. There is two historic scenes that I know your husband was well aware of when I talked to him. Anybody who knows the (19)60s remembers when Stokely Carmichael was next to Martin Luther King in that historic picture. He was telling King, "Your time has passed." Then the other one is the debate that Malcolm X had Byard Rustin, where he told Byard, "You, like Dr. King, your time has passed on. Nonviolence is not the way anymore. It is by any means necessary." Those kinds of things. Your thoughts on Black Power and the Black Panther Party. It has challenged to the established civil rights group, which really challenged America in the (19)50s and early (19)60s. PC (01:31:52): As far as my personal experience with the Black Power guys, I was always a little scared of them because I grew up in a white suburb, and we did not know any Black people. Even my high school did not have any Black students or anything. So then I went to college and there were a lot of Black kids, mostly from New York City. I got to know a few of them, but in general, I was scared of them, just not the [inaudible] point on it. So as far as Black Power, when I thought, "Yeah, I understand why they are doing that, but I am still frightened of them." Interesting because I was not frightened of the SDS. As far as time has gone on, I think the great tragedy of the Civil Rights movement is when they moved from [inaudible] and the demonstrations of the (19)50s and (19)60s to the [inaudible], the violence of the Black Panthers and stuff. That was too bad because the original guys who were working non-violently to get where they were going, had the ideals had, it was not slogans to them. They were literally willing to put their lives on the line. I never got that feeling from the Black Power guys. They were willing to put my life on the line. SM (01:33:29): I know that David Horowitz, who used to be the editor of Ramparts, you know David? He went from being extreme left to being a conservative speaker, and he attacks the new left, the old left, the Black Panthers in particular, because someone he worked closely with was killed. He blamed one of the Black Panthers of doing it. He changed immediately and he attacks them constantly. But there were a lot of good things that the Black Panther Party did, the food programs. So there was a lot of really good things. So we tend to concentrate more on the radical aspects than some of the good things they did. But there is truth to it. One of the historic points is at Kent State University, you will not see an African American student at that protest. They were instructed by their... PC (01:34:18): Kent State? SM (01:34:19): Yeah, at Kent State, back in 1970, when the killings took place, there were no Black students, because Black students were not supposed to be at anti-war protests around 1970. They were together. In the late (19)60s, white and Black students were working together against the war. But then there was a split and Black students concentrated on what was going on in America. White students continued to fight for what was going on in Vietnam. So there was a big split there. You saw that even in the early (19)70s at Ohio State with the Afros and kind of more of a separation kind of aspect. So, everybody has different feelings about that period. PC (01:35:01): Yeah. SM (01:35:02): How important were the college students in ending the Vietnam War? We're talking about, and why did the Vietnam War end in your opinion? PC (01:35:11): I think college students were very important in bringing the whole issue to the forefront. They were not just going to let it sit back there and simmer. So I think that the way it was done with teachings, with closing down the schools, with the demonstrations, constant demonstrations and constant organizations, I think they were very, very important. Why did Vietnam stop? I think that there was a lot of truth to the fact that it stopped because there was not popular support at home. I think that the government, the people who were serving in government saw that this was not going to get them reelected. I was in a demonstration in DC I think it might have been the last one, and we were marching toward the White House, like a zillion people were marching toward the White House, and suddenly from the opposite direction came all these kind of thoroughly steamfitter, pipe fitter Union 109 kind of guys. I thought, "Oh, this is it. This is where we get our heads bashed." In fact, they carried these signs saying, "[inaudible] 109 Against the War in Vietnam." I went, "That is the end, guys." When those guys are joining forces with the students, there is no way they can keep this war going that much longer. So, I think that the reason it stopped is because finally enough people said, "There is no point here." SM (01:36:51): I know there was that historic scene in New York City where the hard hats wanted to beat the crap out of the anti-war people. Remember that? That was in the late... PC (01:36:59): [inaudible] I thought were-were... SM (01:37:00): Yeah. PC (01:37:01): That is when I saw those guys. So by that time, they had all come around like, "Why is my kid dying in Vietnam? What's the point here?" SM (01:37:10): You were in college from (19)64 to (19)68? PC (01:37:13): Yeah. Then I sort of dropped out ish, sort of, the end of (19)67, I dropped out. SM (01:37:23): Where did you get your degree? PC (01:37:24): I got my degree at... Well, I went to the University of Arizona when I moved there and took some credits there, plus combined them with the credits from the State University of New York and then a community college. I had picked up a few credits there that were applicable. By that time, the State University of New York had a program called the Regents College in which allowed you to take all your credits, acceptable credits from whatever colleges or universities you have gone to. Because of the way, I guess because of the mobility of so many people, you could get your degree finally from there. So that is what I did. My degree is from the Regent College from the university. I think it's called the University of New York State College. SM (01:38:11): Yeah. I went to SUNY Binghamton. You probably know that. PC (01:38:13): You did? SM (01:38:14): Yeah. So that is my school, undergrad that is. I went to Ohio State to grad school. The question I want to ask you, and this is very important to me. I am one of those guys that never missed a lecture, debate, forum, or whatever. I went to everything at SUNY Binghamton in Ohio State, everything. But do you remember, you already talked about that you saw Abby Hoffman, that Allen Ginsburg was one of your teachers. Was there a professor in any of your classes that truly inspired you and why? Secondly, who were some of the other speakers or programs that you went to when you were in college that really had an impact on you or that you remember? PC (01:38:57): Oh God. Well, as far as speakers, there was, remember I was always an artsy fartsy kind of a gal. But they had a week with three, it is funny, they had a week with John Cage, Merc Cunningham, and Robert Creeley, the three heavy hitters of basically, they were all beatniks too of the art scene in New York. I spent the whole week going to workshops and discussions with them. So that was huge. SM (01:39:31): Wow. PC (01:39:34): I am sorry, what was the first part of the question? SM (01:39:37): It was about the people that if, was there a professor that really inspired you in your undergraduate years? Just the way you taught the messages that were delivered that inspired your sense of learning? PC (01:39:51): That really, really inspired me. There was a history teacher whose name I do not remember, but you can see I [inaudible] they inspired me. But he did ask the question. I mean, he did open my brain to ask questions I had not thought of before. But my Shakespeare teacher was the one that opened my head to Shakespeare, and suddenly I realized he was not so boring anymore. Aside... Oh, I had a teacher, he was a speech, what was it? Speech interpretation, kind of performance art kind of guy. His name was Kevin Quinn. He was a friend of Andy Warhol's, and I do not know how he ended up in Sunny, but we all hung out together. As a matter of fact, Warhol or whoever, you know how Warhol always had look-alikes impersonate him? SM (01:40:48): Yes. PC (01:40:48): So either Warhol or one of his crew was at one party, but they used to hang out together. The reason this guy really influenced me was because he would crack your brain open in terms of the people, the writers. He would open you up to the questions he would ask, the basically cultural and art stuff that you would just see and understand and less of that. His apartment was always open to everybody. So he was very influential in saying, "How does the world work? What is art all about?" That sort of thing. The fact that he hung out with that whole factory crowd. SM (01:41:38): Yeah, yeah. Of course we all know about Edi. I read the book on Edi, which was... PC (01:41:44): What a tragic figure. SM (01:41:45): Yeah, what a tragic figure. She is beautiful too. She did not live very long. But the question, you are the first person I really talked to outside of David Lance Goins out of Berkeley, who is an artist from the Free Speech Movement. What was it about the arts from the (19)60s that were different than anything else? What was it about... From the (19)60s that were different than anything else. What was it about the art that was comparable to what was really happening? We all know about Andy Warhol, and we all know about Peter Max because Peter Max had all those posters on college campuses. I do not know if many people think of anybody beyond Warhol and Max. PC (01:42:19): The poet... I mean, there was a whole lot of poetry stuff going on and then there were of course happenings and all kinds of performance, but film started opening up. And that is one of the things also that completely changed my life. In the 1960s, they started things called film studies. This is when they started to actually study film on campus as a legitimate form, just like literature or art or sculpture, architecture, whatever. Film was another thing that you could study. And right from the very first classes, I went and said, "What is all this about?" You get to see movies. Well, that is nice, but you found out how to look at movies. How do movies influence you? Why do you feel the way you do when this happens? What about this camera angle? And it was completely, to me, that is when they legitimized film. Film was a legitimate medium before that. But when they started taking it seriously so that you could actually say, "Here is a whole new medium for us to work in." And I think film is the medium of the Boomer generation. It is more, music is now, film has become... Video and film has become very basic for the generation. But at that time, it was almost the same kind of explosion that happened in Russia when the beginning of film happened. When they started taking their cameras around, when Vertov took... Man with a camera, the saying, going on... All that excitement that happened in France when film was starting. And then of course, in the (19)60s, you had the New Wave in France, "And here is something else you can do with film and here and here and here." So, I think as far as the arts go, in the (19)60s and (19)70s, it was all about film. To me. I mean, there was a lot going on in poetry. There were a lot of experiments like Pynchon's the Crying of Lot 49, and some seminal books like that. But it was all about film. SM (01:44:31): Of course, when you think of the (19)60s, we have got to also think about what is going on around the world. Because we all know what was going on in France and Paris, and exactly what was going on in Hungary or what was going on in Poland and when Dubcek was overthrown in 1968 too. And of course, what was going on in Spain and England and all over the... Italy. I mean, there were protests, even in Japan. There were protests and a lot of them were against the war. But when you look at the film... Because I am only... Not too many people talked about the film. What were the films that really defined the Boomer Generation that you feel... It does not always have to be the (19)60s and (19)70s, but what are the films that you feel truly defined the generation? PC (01:45:15): Well, Easy Rider was giant. I think that as far as... If we are starting from the (19)60s, I think Easy Rider was giant. I think that Bonnie and Clyde was giant because it changed the language of film. This is going to sound bizarre, but Rocky and Bullwinkle. SM (01:45:42): On TV? Oh, yeah, I remember they were on TV when we came home from school. PC (01:45:47): Right. And the thing about Rocky and Bullwinkle was these were adult cartoons, masked as kids cartoons. And people started watching them. But that is a different thing. That is not... We are not talking about films here. I am trying to think of some of the other huge films that would have made an impact across the board people would see... I saw stuff like It, from England, the English school, so I do not know how many people saw that. A lot of people saw the Secaucus Seven, and they were involved in that kind of thing. I am trying to... Forgive my senility. I know that after we get off the phone I will- SM (01:46:31): I have a lot of movies that I remember had influence on me, but- PC (01:46:34): Oh, can you say some because- SM (01:46:35): Yeah, well, The Graduate was one. PC (01:46:37): Oh, yeah, of course. SM (01:46:39): And Zabriskie Point. That was a real (19)70s kind of thing. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was a real big film. I remember when that came out with Paul Newman. And some of the other ones, of course, Taxi Driver and Coming Home. PC (01:46:59): Okay. I never did see Coming Home. SM (01:47:01): Those are Vietnam films. In terms of African American films, I thought Shaft was unbelievable. And in some of those kinds of movies that were out in the early (19)70s, Black film. Let us see. Well, Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces. Anything Jack Nicholson was in. Also the movie where he played the... Later on, the person who was mentally disabled. PC (01:47:36): Jack Nicholson played him? SM (01:47:38): Yeah. He was in the sanitarium. PC (01:47:42): Oh, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. SM (01:47:42): Yeah. That was a major film because no one had talked about this issue ever. And it was in a film. So those kinds of films... And then when I think of the (19)60s, I think of Love Story. PC (01:47:57): Oh, yeah. I remember that one. SM (01:47:59): Goodbye Columbus. Anything Ali McGraw was in because she was miss (19)60s. PC (01:48:09): Then the Way We Were. SM (01:48:11): Yeah, The Way We Were with Barbara Streisand, because that remember... Even though that was about the 1930s, and it was in early (19)70s, it made me... Brought tears to my eyes, because I knew then that I would be doing the same thinking 30, 40 years from now about the (19)60s. So yeah, there were a lot of them. PC (01:48:30): That is when we really started talking to each other through film. I mean, film had always been around, there would always been film aficionados. But it was, I think in the (19)60s that it exploded. And that was partly because of the fact that film studies programs opened up, but also partly the fact that cameras started getting smaller and you started being able to take... Oh, that was another one. Do not Look Back. Bob Dylan's thing, which I thought it was never going to end. SM (01:48:59): There was the Beatles films too, which were very interesting. PC (01:49:02): Exactly. SM (01:49:03): And Apocalypse Now, which was a classic film. PC (01:49:06): And West Side Story. SM (01:49:07): Yeah. West Side Story. And- PC (01:49:09): I saw that a hundred times. SM (01:49:10): Sound of Music, which is... You can go on and on here some were... PC (01:49:15): Exactly. SM (01:49:15): Yeah. The Pink Panther film- PC (01:49:17): Was important to the Boomers. As far as Boomers in the Arts, I think that that is where their energy started going. SM (01:49:24): Right. And then in the course in the (19)50s, well, there were major films that I saw. A lot of the westerns. So anyways. A couple other questions here, and then I will end up with some questions on individual people. I got so many questions to ask you here. I have different questions for you, and I had them for David. What were, again, I just wondered, what were the books that you were reading when you were in high school and college, and what were your friends reading? Does not necessarily have to be the beatnik books. PC (01:50:00): Yikes. Well, of course there was... Why did my brain just go blank, please? I read a lot of Herman Hesse, I am trying to think how far back that was. I think that was later. I read Catcher in the Rye. Well, I do not know why my brain- SM (01:50:20): He just died. Salinger. PC (01:50:22): I know. SM (01:50:23): That is the only book he ever wrote. PC (01:50:25): Well, no, I read everything he wrote. He wrote Franny and Zoe. SM (01:50:29): He did not write very many novels though, I do not think. PC (01:50:32): Well, Franny and Zoe was sort of... It was a little episodic, but so, definitely everything he wrote, which was not that much. What did I write? You mean of that time? SM (01:50:48): Yeah. Books that may have been... That people were reading. PC (01:50:52): I am trying to think. Pynchon, as I mentioned. And what was the one about the guy? Oh damn. Well, Leonard Cohen wrote a lot of poetry. That, and of course there were a lot... Again, there was a lot of poetry that I was reading. People like Bob Kaufman, Carolyn Getty. Again, these are sort of going back to the beats, but that is what I was reading in early college, late high school. I am trying to think what else because I read constantly. SM (01:51:39): I am from a little later, and I know Greening of America was a big book by Charles Reich. PC (01:51:45): Right. I remember that coming out. SM (01:51:48): And Making of a Counterculture. They came out the same time. PC (01:51:50): And None There Call it Treason. As I mentioned, being a good Goldwater girl. SM (01:51:57): Now, the musicians, I love it. In Charles's book where he does in the introduction about all those musicians. He has got a whole page of them. I do not know if you- PC (01:52:07): Musicians? SM (01:52:08): The musicians of the era that had the greatest influence on Boomers. And then he, you turn the page and there is about 150 of them. But I mean- PC (01:52:16): Yeah, that is because we had the radios. SM (01:52:18): He forgot an important person. He did not put Phil Oaks down, but- PC (01:52:22): I know, I like Phil Oaks a lot. SM (01:52:25): Well, I am going to bring it up on Thursday that... I was trying to think. He missed seven people and groups that I thought should have been in there. But I will mention that to him. Maybe he can add it in an updated edition. PC (01:52:36): There you go. (01:52:37): Another, I always liked the Michener books. SM (01:52:42): The what? PC (01:52:42): Michener. James Michener, like Hawaii. SM (01:52:45): Oh, yes. He wrote Kent State too. 1970. PC (01:52:50): Exactly. And To Kill A Mockingbird. Yes. I like that one. And Winnie Ille Pu. Remember that? SM (01:53:00): Yes. PC (01:53:01): Winnie the Pooh in Latin. (01:53:04): I liked that a lot. SM (01:53:07): The musicians that were your favorites. I know you can... You know after those 150. PC (01:53:09): The entire British Invasion. You can start with the British Invasion, but Motown also. I think it is easier to do categories than it is individual- SM (01:53:21): Yes. PC (01:53:22): But Janice Joplin certainly was my hero. Jimmy Hendrix not so much, I liked a lot of the stuff he did, but more Janice Joplin. More Big Brother and the Holding company. I like Peter Paul and Mary. SM (01:53:42): Yep. PC (01:53:42): A lot. I like The Limeliters a lot. So I mean, basically that goes across folk and... I like folk, but I did not like people like Pete Seeger, who actually the real folk- SM (01:53:52): Is not it amazing that in... And you can see the division right here. When the Beatles came in (19)64, I can remember (19)65, (19)66, (19)67. Then around the Invasion came in six... But you had, before that you had Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass. That was very popular. And then you had Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons and Frankie Valley, and you had those kinds of groups. Little Anthony and the Imperials, Sam Cook in the early (19)60s, and then all of a sudden it all changed. PC (01:54:25): Exactly. SM (01:54:26): And they were still very important. But you saw the change, but they were still a very important... Beach Boys were earlier, too. You saw that they were all important except in different stages of your life. PC (01:54:37): Exactly. Well, I was never a huge Beach Boys fan. I had friends who were. Who really liked the California kind of sound. But I was more, what I call into minor key stuff. Although I did not like jazz as much. Now I do. I like jazz a whole lot. It depended on the jazz. I love Dave Brubeck, but did not like Thelonious Monk. But in general, I would say the British Invasion, Motown were the two biggest influences. And I also liked classical music. SM (01:55:20): Right. PC (01:55:21): Too, and a little bit... And I loved the blues. Every once in a while, we would go to a blues club. SM (01:55:27): San Francisco, I used to live out there. They used to have great blues festivals at Golden Gate Park. I want to... Here the presidents now. These are the presidents that were part of the life of all Boomers from the time they were born from (19)46 on. PC (01:55:43): Okay. SM (01:55:45): Harry Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama. Now, Obama makes a claim that he's not a Boomer, but he really is. He was two years old in (19)62, but I guess you really cannot call him a Boomer, but he was in that era. PC (01:56:06): [inaudible] prejudice. SM (01:56:07): But of all those presidents, you have already talked a lot about Kennedy in terms of his assassination, but when you look at the influence that all these presidents may have had on the Boomers, is there some presidents that stick out more than others? PC (01:56:22): Oh, I wish you had just asked me who my favorite was. SM (01:56:24): Yeah, who is your favorite? PC (01:56:26): Carter. SM (01:56:27): Carter? PC (01:56:28): Yeah. I was so surprised that he actually won, because I did not think he had a chance, and I felt like here is finally an honorable man after his predecessors. And so I was thrilled to death that Carter had won. But as far as who was the most influential, well, you would have to say Reagan, whether you agreed with him or not. Certainly a huge influence on everybody's life. Johnson was a man everybody hated. But when you look back at what he actually accomplished, it was amazing. It was really good for this country. I grew up thinking Eisenhower was a president. I mean that... If the word president and Eisenhower were [inaudible] for each other. Nixon of course, again, was the ultimate bad guy to me. So, I do not know as far as who was the most influential, probably Nixon and Reagan, in terms of direct impact on people's lives. SM (01:57:49): I always bring Truman up and people say, "They were only 2, 3, 4 years old." But even though I was a young kid, I remember him because- PC (01:57:58): Do not really remember Truman. SM (01:57:59): The Buck stops here. And he did not like, and he did not like McCarthy. And it was well known that he did not like him. PC (01:58:07): MacArthur. SM (01:58:08): Or, yeah, no McCarthy. Well, he did not like MacArthur either, but during the McCarthy hearings- PC (01:58:15): Oh, I see. Okay. SM (01:58:15): He thought he was a nutcase. And of course, Eisenhower was always the old smiling guy. You felt good that you had a grandfather in office. Then you had a young guy coming in. Then you had Johnson, who should not have been president, but he was because of assassination. Nixon coming back from... Unbelievable how he won after losing in 1960. Then you have Ford, who many people say, was not the smartest guy in the world, but he tried to heal the country. PC (01:58:43): I certainly, I always gave him credit for that. SM (01:58:46): Then you had Reagan, and then Bush I during the Gulf War, and Clinton and Bush were the... But Clinton and Bush II were the only two Boomer presidents. Some people in my interviews have said that you can tell that Bill Clinton and George Bush, number two are Boomers. What do you think they are saying by that? PC (01:59:04): Because they're so... Well, certainly Bush too was a Boomer. He just happened to be from the [inaudible] point of view that I was of this sort of absolute belief that he was correct and that his way was the only way. And that he would... you know, "Screw whatever you guys think. I am doing things my way." So, I think that is true. As far as Clinton goes... I think he is Boomer-esque. SM (01:59:37): When you look at the eras again, when I kind of defined the Boomers into five eras, their elementary school years, their high school and college years, then their beginning of their careers and their twenties, and then... So, I break it down into the (19)40s, (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s, (19)80s, and then the (19)90s and beyond. Can... In just a few words, how have the late (19)40s and the (19)50s influenced Boomers? PC (02:00:10): I think that the way they influenced the Boomers with the groundwork for a really stable... I mean you... For really stable life. I mean, you can count on things. You feel safe. You know your place in the world. So, the late (19)40s and the (19)50s did that. They gave you sort of the box to work in. SM (02:00:35): Explain the (19)60s. PC (02:00:37): Is there any explaining the (19)60s? The (19)60s, basically everything blew up. All of our basic assumptions blew up. All the new... From 1964 from The Beatles on... All the experiments in popular culture completely exploded. What are we going to do? All the possibilities were there. First we were shattered through Kennedy's death. And then... Oh, you know what I am leaving out is the entire civil rights movement, which was hugely important, I think. SM (02:01:20): Right. PC (02:01:21): In terms of fighting the bad guys, righting the wrongs. Doing something that would help the world, that people could individually do things that help the world. So that could go back in the (19)40s and (19)50s, I guess, but also in the (19)60s. So basically, I would say (19)60s were the time when the world blew up. SM (02:01:43): How about the (19)70s? PC (02:01:44): The (19)70s were the time when we went... I think that we went from changing the world to changing ourselves and became very inward. It kind of... And at that point started this whole self, self, self-thing. SM (02:02:03): You think we went from being a we to a me? PC (02:02:07): Yeah. I think so. SM (02:02:09): What did you think of disco? You cannot talk (19)70s without it. PC (02:02:11): You know what? I like that music. It is a terrible thing to say. I am sure I am politically incorrect, but I really like disco music, and I like the whole Saturday Night Fever kind of... SM (02:02:22): Yeah. I am a big Barry White fan, so... I think Barry White will go down in history is one of the greatest musicians of all time. And it is a little early to talk about it, but when you look at all the things he wrote and produced, oh my. And we only think about his records. I did not know he was producing concerts at major facilities all over the country. I did not know this. PC (02:02:45): No, I did not know that either. SM (02:02:47): No-no. He is much more than what we saw. He was a true musical writer. He was a kind of a genius. He knew how to play music, but he knew how to write it. And even a lot of the greats from the (19)60s could sing music, but they did not know how to write it, so they kind of experimented. How about the (19)80s? What did the (19)80s mean? PC (02:03:07): The (19)80s was when I was homesteading, so I was kind of completely out of it. I mean, we did not have a TV and we did not have radio. We were up in the mountains and raising our farm animals. So that is kind of hard for me. Although I was staying politically active. I was part of the sanctuary movement in Tucson. I do not know if you remember that. SM (02:03:29): What's that mean? PC (02:03:30): Hmm? SM (02:03:31): What is that mean? PC (02:03:32): Oh, there was a movement called the Sanctuary Movement that helped... Was like an underground railway kind of thing that helped people who were escaping from Guatemala and Central American countries get to safe havens in the United States. And they were illegal actually. They were being run through a Presbyterian church in Tucson. And churches... Well actually, they were pretty much church based. So I volunteered to help out with them when I could. But being up in the mountains, there was not that much I could do. SM (02:04:11): Explain the (19)90s to today. PC (02:04:14): Depressing. SM (02:04:16): That is all I need to hear. Okay. I can say depressing in what way? But then the... Okay. (02:04:29): Let me... There is something here, before we get into the individuals. When you think of the Civil Rights movement, we have not talked a lot about it. Dr. King was obviously crucial. The big four, which was James Farmer and Whitney Young, Wilkins and King, certainly Malcolm X and what he did in the (19)60s. And then we talked about Black Power and some of the changes there. And some of the people, the followed King have been the leaders of the last 20, 30 years, like Andrew Young and Jesse Jackson, and the list goes on. But the Civil Rights Movement was a great role model for the other movements that came in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. The women's movement, the environmental movement, the gay and lesbian movement, to Chicano Native American. You all kind of looked at the Civil Rights movement as a model on how to do protest and non-violent protest, those kinds of things. What are your thoughts on the lengths between these movements and the Civil Rights movements. And secondly, during that period, if you saw Earth Day in 1970, you seem to see all these groups together. All caring about the environment, but as time goes on, you do not see them together as much. They have kind of gone their separate ways, but still involved in the serious issues. So just your thoughts on the movements and their links to the Civil Rights movement. PC (02:05:56): I think you are right when you say that the Civil Rights movement basically gave people a background to know how to organize. Know what worked and what did not. It was kind of an empowering kind of thing. And so, I think you are right when you say that that had a tremendous effect on the other movements, if for no other reason, and that taught them logistics. As far as the environmental movement and the way it brings people together, I really... Because I was totally involved in well, being a homesteader, being alternative energy, all of that stuff, I believed in it, but I really do not feel qualified to say anything about how it worked with other movements. SM (02:06:49): All right. One of the things... When you look at pictures, pictures often say in a thousand words, photography is very important to you- PC (02:07:02): Right. SM (02:07:02): Your career. When you look at the times that Boomers were alive, particularly when they were young, (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s, and (19)80s, what are the pictures that may define the generation? In fact, I remember four of them, four pictures that stand out as four of the top hundreds of the 20th century. But when you think of that period, what are the pictures that stand out in your mind? PC (02:07:25): Well, the little girl running in Vietnam that she had just been napalmed. SM (02:07:30): Yep. PC (02:07:31): Remember that little girl? SM (02:07:31): Yep. Kim Phuc. PC (02:07:33): The Kent State. The pictures that came out of Kent State. Wait, I am getting stuck in the (19)60s. Germany. They need to go. SM (02:07:40): But those are two important ones. PC (02:07:42): They are. I am just trying to... God, there is so many. I am just trying to pinpoint… Some of the Avedon things, just the way he handled his pictures. True, they were mostly like fashion shoots, but they were also portraits. And so, the portraits that Avedon did, particularly of Yoko and John, you remember that one- SM (02:08:15): Oh, yes. PC (02:08:16): Kind of partially curled up. So that was just from an artistic point of view. Politically... There were some from Nicaragua that are just kind of hazy in my head now. Oh, I am trying to think. I do not know. It will come to me. But those two pictures, the first two that I mentioned I think- SM (02:08:44): Well, one of the picture... Well, the third one I was thinking of that is really there, is that the athletes were their raised fists at the (19)68 Olympics. PC (02:08:49): Oh yeah, of course. Of course. Yeah. SM (02:08:51): John Carlos, and then Eli, that historic picture of all... Before they were murdered. The group- PC (02:08:59): Oh, and there is that guy kneeling in the street of Vietnam too. SM (02:09:02): Yes. PC (02:09:03): That is getting... he is being shot in the head. SM (02:09:05): Yep. PC (02:09:06): Yeah. SM (02:09:06): That one was there as well. And of course... So, you, you have got quite a few of the classic ones. Also, when you think of phrases that define the generation. I came up with three phrases that I felt define the generation, I want your response. One person... Well, several people gave me a fourth, which I will mention. The three are Malcolm X, number one, where he said, "by any means necessary," which is the more militant, some might say, violent aspect of the period. Bobby Kennedy, using Henry David Thoreau's quote, "some men see things as they are and ask why I see things that never were and ask why not." Symbolic of the activism and the questioning of the era, wanting to make a difference. And then the Peter Max poster that was hanging in my Ohio State graduate school room, which was very popular in 1971, which stated, "you do your thing. I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." Which was kind of the hippie kind of mentality. And then not the other people gave me a fourth one, which was, "We Shall Overcome," which is symbolic of the Civil Rights Movement and the coming together. Is there any slogans that... PC (02:10:24): Well, the ones that instantly popped mine were "Burn, Baby, Burn." SM (02:10:28): Oh, yeah. PC (02:10:29): Which is very indicative of the whole... About what was going on. And then there was Corretta King's "War is not good for children and other living things." And there was a third one that also... Oh yeah, "Tune in, turn on and drop out." SM (02:10:48): Good. PC (02:10:48): I think that that was a really important one that people thought about. SM (02:10:54): Timothy Leary. PC (02:10:55): Exactly. SM (02:10:56): Yeah. (02:10:57): One of the things when we talk about the Civil Rights movement is the sexism that took place within that movement. And that is oftentimes the reason why the women's movement was stronger than it may have been as kind of a shoot off. Were you well aware when you were in college and in your twenties about the sexism that took place and most of the movements that men were in charge and women were kind of second class? PC (02:11:22): I think we did not even think about it that much. I mean, this is the way it was. And later on, when we really started thinking about, "Oh, I am a woman. I can have a say too, other than whispering in my honey's ear at night, and maybe he will take the idea to the rest of the guys." I think we... I was not aware of the sexism because I just did not think in terms of that. It was like, oh, the movement and the guys leading it, and this is the way it is. And that is why one reason for me, Angela Davis was really important because you have this really strong Black woman who was like a leader. That was different. SM (02:12:10): And she was not... A lot of people think she was part of Black Power... I mean, Black Panthers, she was not a Black Panther. She- PC (02:12:14): [inaudible]. SM (02:12:17): She was involved in the prison system with George Jackson and to Black Power, but she was not into the Black Panther party. PC (02:12:27): But she was a real spokesperson. SM (02:12:29): And she still is. She is still writing good books. Why do you feel the term Vietnam and Quagmire, just to bring that those two words up in any conversation today, bring so much tension. PC (02:12:42): Oh, does it? SM (02:12:45): During the Iraq War, and certainly Afghanistan, when we were going over there and people were making comparisons, people said, it is another quagmire in Vietnam. Here go the Boomers again. PC (02:12:57): That interesting because that... It never occurred to me that it would make any... Because it is so obviously true. I guess I never ran into that reaction. SM (02:13:07): Well, it happens on university campuses, particularly amongst Boomers. And so, it is almost like if you even bring up Vietnam and Quagmire, it is like, well, here is the new left again, or here's the bringing back everything that happened back then again to what is happening today. PC (02:13:26): Oh, interesting. No, I had not run into it. SM (02:13:28): And that happened during the Gulf War, too, back in the (19)90s. PC (02:13:31): Yeah. SM (02:13:31): Some of the Vietnam vets talked about it. Let us see. I am almost done here. (02:13:42): One of the things about activism... And you obviously, I think you have been an activist during your life. Activism is different than volunteerism. Today on college campuses, volunteerism is at an all-time high. I would probably say over 90 percent of students are involved in volunteer work of some kind. PC (02:13:58): Wow. SM (02:13:59): Some of it has required and some they just do it on their own. And that is been happening since the (19)80s. So, you cannot be critical of the last two generations of students for volunteerism. But I have always felt that that is not activism, as you define it. Define activism as a 24-7 feeling and living a seven days a week and 365 days a year. And I feel that universities today are afraid of that term "activism" and they do not like to use it. Do you have any sense or feeling that that is a word that people are afraid of today? The term "activism?" PC (02:14:38): I think people have always been afraid of the word "activism" because I think that basically people have said, "Oh, she is an activist. That means that she is strident, she is judgmental, she is angry at the world." So, I do not think people have at any time really felt comfortable with that word. And so, I am not surprised that campuses which do not strike me as bastions of left wing... They are no longer hot beds of left-wing activity. I do not think that they would be comfortable with that word anymore. SM (02:15:19): Of course, the critics- PC (02:15:20): Because nobody is because everybody is kind of threatened by the word. The minute we say activism, they start thinking about closing down college buildings and basically marching of the street’s kind of... SM (02:15:32): Course the David Horowitz is in Phyllis [inaudible] of the world say that the universities are nothing but liberal. PC (02:15:40): I know. SM (02:15:40): And education is the worst it has ever been according to their point of view. PC (02:15:45): Yeah. Well, what can I say? I just... SM (02:15:49): The last question before I just ask the names of people for you to respond, then we are done. Why did the Equal Rights Amendment fail in your opinion? PC (02:15:58): As I mentioned, I just read a book about it, and so basically my opinions are pretty much- PC (02:16:03): And so basically, my opinions are pretty much the same as the book. Between the time they actually passed the amendment and put out to the states to ratify, and the time that they were supposed to be ratified, a lot of states had done what they needed to do to correct the situation in legislation for women. And so it was no longer such a strong issue. For one thing, it took forever to get through. But it was no longer such a strong issue, but then when it came time to vote for the amendment, people would say, "Well look, we have already got the law, they already addressed this situation. So, I think that is why it failed in the end. SM (02:16:47): When Reagan came into power, he made a speech, first speech he said, "We are back" and the place went crazy in a room where he spoke. And then when President Bush one said, "The Vietnam Syndrome is over," he said, "The Vietnam Syndrome is over," and everybody stood up and clapped their hands. It is not only how they said it, but what they said that still implies division in the country. What do you think Reagan meant when he said, "We are back," in 1981 when he became president? And what did President Bush mean in 1989 when he said the Vietnam Syndrome is over? PC (02:17:30): Well I think Reagan really meant the conservatives are back, "You have had your revolution, now it is over. We are back and we are going to take charge." As far as Bush one, I really was not familiar with that speech but I would suspect that his definition for the Vietnam Syndrome might be that, "We are going to have a war and you're not going to protest it to death." I do not know, that is just my hunch. SM (02:18:00): And in 2004 when John Kerry was running for president, the Vietnam veterans that came out against him, remember? PC (02:18:10): The Swift Boat guys? SM (02:18:10): Yeah, and the Vietnam veterans against the war, the divisions were still there. It was amazing some of the terrible things that were said about him. It is indicating that the battle is still continuing. What were your thoughts when you saw that? PC (02:18:24): Well I kept thinking, "The conservatives have the media," period. And so they're going to pick up stories like that. I do not know that that was an everyday kind of thing. I think that the divisions that are in this country are definitely far huger than any other seen in my lifetime, far more divisive, far more profound than at any time and uglier. SM (02:18:47): Could you explain that because this is still the lives of Boomers? PC (02:18:52): It is still the lives of Boomers, but basically the divisions have happened during the last, what, 20 years? SM (02:19:03): Mm-hmm. PC (02:19:04): Wait, but this is 2010. During the last 20 years a lot of it is from the media. Do we take responsibility for the entire division of the country? No, I do not think so. I think that X'ers who are now in their, what, their forties? SM (02:19:21): Mm-hmm. PC (02:19:22): And more, they are certainly a huge part of this. Things have just gotten uglier and uglier and I do not think that you can blame the boomers for all of that. I think it is about time that the X'ers stand up and start taking responsibility about some of their responsibilities in all of this. SM (02:19:48): And actually, some of the millennials because they are now of age to work. PC (02:19:49): They are now of age to work but they have not had the chance- SM (02:19:52): Right- PC (02:19:53): ... to basically really influence the culture the way the X'ers have. And yet the X'ers will influence the culture and say, "Look, it is all the Boomers, it is all the Boomers." I am sick of it. SM (02:20:04): Yeah. Okay, now we are finally down to the names and the terms, and then we will end it. Just very quick thoughts, very quick thoughts. Your thoughts on Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. PC (02:20:15): Two different people. Abbie Hoffman, iconoclast. Do you just want words? SM (02:20:20): Yep. PC (02:20:21): Okay. Abbie Hoffman, iconoclastic, had a great point. Okay, and that is all I will say. And Jerry Rubin was very serious and turned very sold-out. SM (02:20:42): Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. PC (02:20:45): Tom Hayden, I think, was a sincere guy who stuck to his beliefs or has stuck to his beliefs. Jane Fonda is a child of her century or a child of her generation. She has explored all the different areas and become a lot of different things and in a lot of different ways. SM (02:21:06): Talking about movies, she did Klute and then she also did the one with her dad. Which was... PC (02:21:12): On Golden Pond. SM (02:21:13): That is another classic film, coming to terms there. Timothy Leary. PC (02:21:19): Tim Leary was a very smart guy who basically saw absurdity for what it was and decided to bring drugs to the masses. SM (02:21:27): Smothers Brothers. PC (02:21:29): I loved them, just really amusing and smart in the way that they presented their politics. SM (02:21:36): Laugh-In. PC (02:21:38): Again, very smart in the way it presented what it had to say. And it was just a good time. SM (02:21:49): Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. PC (02:21:53): I think they were sincere radicals who live what they believed. SM (02:21:59): Benjamin Spock and Norman Mailer. PC (02:22:03): Benjamin Spock was a very interesting guy in terms of being a doctor and influencing the way that Boomers were brought up in the first place. And then, continued to delve into what his beliefs really were. I am sorry, who was the other one? SM (02:22:20): Norman Mailer. PC (02:22:22): I do not really know enough about Norman Mailer to make a good statement. SM (02:22:27): William Buckley and Barry Goldwater. PC (02:22:30): Good old Barry Goldwater was an idealist from the right. I think he was a straight shooter and I think that he really did do what he believed. I am sorry, who was the other one? SM (02:22:47): William Buckley. PC (02:22:48): Buckley. Okay, I never agreed much with what Buckley had to say, and yet I really felt that he thought things through. He was funny, he was smart and he actually said what he believed in an articulate way. SM (02:23:06): Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. PC (02:23:10): Spiro Agnew was a clown and dispensable. Richard Nixon was cracked I believe, but a very smart guy. And he was just insane. SM (02:23:29): Dwight Eisenhower and Gerald Ford. PC (02:23:32): Dwight Eisenhower was like grandpa. He was the definition of the presidency. When I grew up I felt that he was benign. I still feel he was benign. Gerald Ford did his best, as I said earlier, to heal the nation. I think he was a sincere guy who did the best he could under an amazing set of circumstances. SM (02:23:59): Joseph McCarthy and Eugene McCarthy. PC (02:24:02): Joe McCarthy was an ideologue. If he could have been Hitler he would have been. He was a manipulator. I think that Eugene McCarthy was a very sincere guy. Well he certainly was not as politically savvy as he needed to be to get his stuff done. SM (02:24:24): George McGovern and Robert McNamara. PC (02:24:28): Robert McNamara was a liar and he was an opportunist. Eugene McGovern- SM (02:24:39): George. PC (02:24:41): Oh, George McGovern, sorry. SM (02:24:42): Yep. PC (02:24:45): I do not really know enough to say. He was an idealist and he tried his best, but he was ineffective, I thought. SM (02:24:52): How about Sargent Shriver and the Peace Corps? PC (02:24:57): With both of those, great idealism and an effective way to actually put your idealism to work. I think that it actually mobilized a generation. SM (02:25:09): John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. PC (02:25:12): John Kennedy, I used to think a lot more of him than I do now. But he was articulate, he knew how to mobilize the idealism of the people under him and the idealism of the nation. He had a lot of good things that he did. He had a lot of really terrible things that he did. Robert Kennedy was a sly dog. He was obsessed by certain ideas that he followed. SM (02:25:48): Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. PC (02:25:52): Martin Luther King, Jr., I think really, he had his finger on what I believe in, which is non-violence as much as possible. I think that he was an amazing organizer. He did not have too much respect for women but that is his issue. And so I think he was effective. As far as Malcolm X goes, I can certainly understand why he felt the way he did, and yet it is very hard for me to accept somebody who advocates violence the way he did. SM (02:26:25): Lyndon Johnson and George Wallace. PC (02:26:29): Oh, interesting combo. Lyndon Johnson was the ultimate politician who was the smart guy in terms of knowing how to manipulate people and manipulate the system, the situation. And I used to think a lot less of him than I do now. But at least he used his power to get social programs through and to do a lot for this nation. George Wallace, I do not know what to think of George Wallace. He is certainly, obviously not flavor-of-the-month with me because I do not believe in any of the things he believed in. But aside from that I have no... SM (02:27:15): Okay, Ronald Reagan and Hubert Humphrey. PC (02:27:19): Hubert Humphrey was ineffective, and that is why he did not get to be president. And Ronald Reagan used all of his abilities as an actor to get to where he wanted to go. He believed in what he said he believed in. I think he was honest that way but I also cannot agree with his policies at all. SM (02:27:46): Okay, Daniel Ellsberg and Daniel and Phillip Berrigan. PC (02:27:51): The Ellsbergs and Berrigans were friends of my sisters, so I believed in what they did. I believed that they did what they believe to bring the issues to the American people. And if you had to do that by dramatically pouring blood on some draft files then that is what you did. But I am not aware of how much they did after that, besides writing. SM (02:28:21): How about the women leaders, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Betty Freidan, that group. PC (02:28:28): Three different people. Gloria Steinem, I liked the way she's handled her involvement with the women's movement. Everything from her essay on being a Playboy Bunny so that people could see what it was actually like being the glamour girl of the movement. Bella Abzug and Betty Freidan, very serious women, very driven by their vision. And flexible, certainly, on Freidan's part. So, they do not leave a huge impression beyond that. SM (02:29:16): Tet, which was very important in (19)68 and John Dean. PC (02:29:23): John Dean, I will do John Dean first. John Dean, I hated him because I thought that he was so whiny, just like the whole rest of the Watergate guys and arrogant. He thought he could get away with anything and then, whammo, he was off to the slammer. And so I had no sorrow for that piece of information. The Tet Offensive was appalling and I think it was hard for anybody to trust after that [inaudible]. SM (02:30:03): Muhammad Ali and William Kunstler. PC (02:30:06): Muhammad Ali, I liked from the minute he hit the world was his Cassius Clay-dom. I liked the way he made poems. Even though he would say appalling, "I am the best," that kind of stuff, I never really felt that he took himself all that seriously. He promoted himself, to be taken so seriously, I do not think so. So he was amusing and he was valuable because he was amusing, but he also made the statement that he needed to make about the Vietnam War and the other thing. And then William Kunstler, I never had a huge since of anything was real clean. He was there. He was partaking of history, but I had no strong... SM (02:30:52): How about the AIDS crisis and Harvey Milk. PC (02:30:58): Oh, the AIDS crisis. I am sorry, I thought you said the age crisis. The AIDS crisis was so badly handled. And so many more people died because of screw up than had to. It's been really sad. And then Harvey Milk, I do not really know that much about him. I know he was a good guy. I know, essentially, what he did, particularly for gay rights. And I think it was horrible that he was murdered. But I do not have any strong feeling. I do not know much. SM (02:31:35): How about the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in (19)64, and Stonewall? PC (02:31:41): Free Speech Movement, I loved the idea but I thought they got silly about it. Because free speech is not about being able to say fuck. Free speech is about being able to say, "This guy is a crook," or "There is something wrong here." So as far as the actual use of the naughty word, I thought it got too silly. [inaudible] said it was [inaudible]? SM (02:32:09): Stonewall. PC (02:32:10): Stonewall. Stonewall was just heartbreaking, serious. SM (02:32:20): And Earth Day. PC (02:32:22): Earth Day is, it is a nice little celebration. SM (02:32:29): When the best history books are written on the Boomer generation, whether that be 50 years after a particular era or after they pass, what do you think sociologists and historians will say about the Boomer generation, their legacy? PC (02:32:50): It depends on who is writing it. SM (02:32:52): Good point. PC (02:32:52): If it's Generation X they will do nothing but cream them. If it is, say, an unknown generation many years down the road, basically it will depend on their point of view. Whether they're the kind of people that like to tear things apart and rebuild it. How do people look at the French Revolution? I think that is what it is now. Basically, the terror that happened after the French Revolution, some people say it was a good thing. Some people say it was horrible. So I think that will be the same, the same way of viewing it. It depends on your need for structure and your need for stability as to how you will view the Boomers. SM (02:33:42): What do you hope your legacy will be once you are gone? And I know you have said a lot of things already, but how did you become who you are? PC (02:33:54): What I would hope my legacy would be is that I inspired people to do something greater than they thought they could do, or to see things, to see the world around them. That is what I do in my movies. What made me who I am, a number of things. I grew up Catholic. That was extremely influential. I was taught to always go for the ideal, to never be happy with the status quo, to work for the poor, blah, blah, the poor, the underprivileged, that kind of stuff. So I think that had a huge influence. And then of course, my family was very staunch Catholic, too, so they did, as well. SM (02:34:55): Yeah, it is interesting that Charles, in his book, talks about the difference between John Kenney and Eugene McCarthy. And their Catholicism is pretty interesting. PC (02:35:06): Oh, really? SM (02:35:06): Yeah, if you read the introduction. I had not seen it before, because I knew that Senator McCarthy did not like Bobby, and we all knew that. PC (02:35:14): Right. SM (02:35:14): But I thought he liked John more. Actually, he did like John more as time went on. But there were problems in the (19)60s and Charles did a very good job in his introduction of explaining the differences. McCarthy thought he was a better Catholic than Kennedy. And a lot of it had to do with when he made the comments about whether he could be president of the United States and that the Catholic Church would influence his decisions because he was a man of conscience. Well McCarthy took offense to that and said, "I do not think Kennedy has a conscience." But he did not attack him for his Catholic faith, but John Kennedy looked at that as attack. And so, they were not very good friends for a while, but when he died McCarthy gave a great speech showing a lot of emotion. PC (02:36:02): Yeah. SM (02:36:04): Yeah. So, anyways, the last thing I want to ask you is here, because on your [inaudible], what does stone pilgrim mean? PC (02:36:14): Oh, as I mentioned, I am a person who hunts down public sculptures. And so therefore, I am a pilgrim of stone or bronze. SM (02:36:23): Have you been to Gettysburg? PC (02:36:25): I have not. That is always been on my to-do list, but it is not a place I have gone. SM (02:36:30): I go there four times. You have got to come because what is really interesting about Gettysburg, you drive on the southern side and you see all these little confederate flags left. You never see anything left on the north side. PC (02:36:40): Really? SM (02:36:42): No, nothing. It is always the South. Yet when I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly last week, she said that the South has healed much better than the North, that the North has never healed from the war and the South has. And so we even got differences of opinion as to who has healed from the Civil War. But one of the things that you mentioned, which is very interesting, you said in your frequent journeys to Europe you provided scope. Her occasional jaunts to South America and Asia have jolted her. Your perceptions and assumptions about the world, what are those? PC (02:37:17): Okay, I am sorry, what did I say? SM (02:37:19): "Her frequent journeys to Europe provide scope to her views. And occasional jaunts to South America and Asia have jolted her perceptions and assumptions about the world." PC (02:37:30): Are you talking in terms of just South America and Asia? SM (02:37:33): Yeah, yeah, because it is on your website. PC (02:37:36): Okay, well, specifically I have gone to Taiwan, which is where my nephew lives. And I assumed, basically, that they would be very concerned about their relationship with China. And also, as far as talking to people who have been to Vietnam, I assume the same thing. It turns out that the generations now could care less. And that really jolted me. I thought the people who lived there would be completely political. They are not political, certainly not in Taiwan, not terribly political people. They just want to get on with their lives, and in Vietnam the same way. From the people I have talked to in Vietnam they do not even know the war, they do not want to know the war. They just want to get on with life. So that was a real jolt. As far as South America goes, we have been to Bogota, which is where David's son lives. At first, I was terrified because I thought, "Oh, my God, we are going to be kidnapped." But the thing that jolted my assumption there is you get so used to it, it's just like walking around the corner, "Now I am in Newport, Now I am in Bogota." It is the sameness, the ordinariness. Not the sameness, but the ordinariness of life there. And the same thing in Taiwan. You expect everything to be so exotic, but in fact, it is really very ordinary, but with different trappings. And so that, I think, is what shapes my assumptions. SM (02:39:16): Why? PC (02:39:17): Why you think it is exotic is because it is not here. SM (02:39:21): This is the last question, so believe me. I have been saying that. But why do you feel that religion seemed to be so important in the (19)50s? Bringing up in a Catholic Church, I am sure there was a lot of people coming to church. I went to the Methodist Church, my grandfather was a minister. PC (02:39:36): Oh. SM (02:39:38): And he was actually raised a Catholic but he rebelled because his father abandoned him and his brother, so he rebelled against the Catholic church and became a Methodist minister. It is a long story. He was the minister of the first Methodist church in Peeksgill, New York from 1936 to 1954- PC (02:39:57): Wow- SM (02:39:58): ... when he retired. And then went and moved to Manhattan and passed away two years later, he was very young. But then it seemed like something in the (19)60s. Just, people were not going to church, synagogue or anything. There seemed to be a lessening of numbers. And I was wondering, was that part of everything that was happening, that people were challenging the church, too? PC (02:40:22): Do you think that those numbers dropped in the (19)60s or after the (19)60s? SM (02:40:25): They were dropping in the (19)60s, in the (19)60s and (19)70s. PC (02:40:27): Okay, well among the young people there was certainly a lot of questioning going on. SM (02:40:34): Right. PC (02:40:38): I think it is because the breaking apart of the basic assumptions of society, that this is what you do, this is how you do it. And then once you open that can of worms, you cannot hold it together anymore. SM (02:40:56): Right. PC (02:40:56): Basically, people are not going to only question, " Well, is this political party, right?" But they are also going to say, "Do I really have to go to church every week? What is the point of this?" That whole breaking apart and saying, "What is the point here?" Basic assumptions, what are the basic assumptions here? SM (02:41:17): Yeah. I was knocking my brain to remember when I first remembered a minister giving a social message. I remember they were always dealing with what was happening in the world. Because I went to church in Cortland, New York when I was a kid growing up. Dr. Nason gave great sermons. And I went to my grandfather's church and he gave great sermons. They were always dealing with religion and God. And I was wondering when the church started making political commentary about what was happening in the world. I know Dr. King did it all the time at his church. PC (02:41:51): Right. SM (02:41:52): And I know probably, Dr. Nason. And they were all doing it, but they were doing it in much more subtler ways than Dr. King. Then everything seemed to change. In the (19)60s ministers and rabbis, they were just about like anybody else. They were starting to give political commentary in church. So, I was wondering if that may have turned people off. PC (02:42:13): Well I went to Catholic grade schools and Catholic high school. And we were taught a lot about questioning and [inaudible] there. And so, we would be more likely to get a priest talking about the rightness or wrongness of a war, or whatever. SM (02:42:36): That is good. PC (02:42:38): But I think you are right. I think in general it did not happen very often until the (19)60s. And then you had that whole brouhaha over liberation theology. The Vatican came out against it. SM (02:42:56): And then, obviously, seeing the Berrigan Brothers and Malcolm Boyd and- PC (02:43:03): Exactly- SM (02:43:03): ...others that is out there on the front lines, Rabbi Heschel. They were not- PC (02:43:10): You have got the Quakers, always- SM (02:43:11): They were not the norm. But then they ended up trying to become the norm, though. Was there any question that you thought I was going to ask that I did not ask? PC (02:43:21): I think you covered everything. I was very interested to find out whether you were going to cover birth control. That was my big thing, I suppose. I said, "Well if he is going to talk to a woman he is probably going to want to talk about birth control." But aside from that, no, I think that you have covered everything I can possibly think of. SM (02:43:36): I know I expect to talk to David. Somehow and some way I have got to get your pictures. Normally, I take pictures in person. Then I am going to put them at the top of each of the interviews. So, at some juncture in the next month, would it be possible for you to send me a couple pictures, and David, a couple pictures of both of you individually? PC (02:43:53): Yeah, sure, no problem, I will [inaudible]- SM (02:43:56): And I do not know if you have my mailing address. PC (02:43:59): I have got your email address. SM (02:44:00): Let me give you my mailing address. It is- PC (02:44:03): Okay, wait a minute. Wait-wait-wait-wait. SM (02:44:05): Certainly. I am going to take Charles' picture in person this Thursday. PC (02:44:09): Oh, good. Love that. SM (02:44:11): My address is 3323- PC (02:44:15): Wait, I cannot find my pen. SM (02:44:17): That was like me, I am always short on pens. PC (02:44:20): All right, I am just going to open a Word document. Okay, I am sorry, 3320- SM (02:44:26): 3323 Valley Drive, V-A-L-L-E-Y Drive. PC (02:44:29): Okay. SM (02:44:30): In West Chester, and West Chester is two words, Pennsylvania, 19382. And I am, of course, Steven R. McKiernan. PC (02:44:40): Okay, great. But you want the pictures via email, right? SM (02:44:44): Yep. Or email, or mail them in person. If you can send them in person I would prefer it through the mail. PC (02:44:55): Okay, I will see if I can... SM (02:44:56): Yeah, two different ones of each of you. And if David has a picture of him in front of his book case or you have a picture of you in front of a bunch of art, I would even love that. I would love to have a close-up, if possible, of both of you. But then, David's a scholar. And I have gotten a lot of pictures of scholars in front of their book shelves or at their desk where they write. And then, you are an artist and a writer. So, if you have a background, too, that will be great. PC (02:45:21): Okay, great. SM (02:45:22): And, well, I am glad I talked to you Patti. PC (02:45:25): Well thank you so much for calling. SM (02:45:26): You and David are a great couple. Have a great day. PC (02:45:30): You, too. SM (02:45:30): Bye. PC (02:45:31): Bye-bye. (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 Patti Cassidy Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Cassidy, Patti ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Political activists--United States; Cassidy, Patti--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 2010-02-22 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.33a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.33b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 165:33 Description An account of the resource Patti Cassidy is a playwright and producer. She wrote her first play on a dare in a Mexican border town in southern Arizona. From then on her work has been produced from LA to Paris. Cassidy currently is co-producing a series of readings of plays in the greater Boston area. She has a Bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature from SUNY Albany. https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ebddffac9afb99461896b96783ff2866.jpg 8388161e4a4458220fbfee637ec4926f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3505ce9c5a42177700bc76507d96a1d3.mp3 079234b4b2891bcbdd2315b31b7b2b56 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 2010-04-13 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Judith Clavir Albert, 1943- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert is a Canadian-born activist who was associated with many organizations such as the Yippies, Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, and The Women's Liberation Movement. She married Stew Albert, a political activist, who was a founder of the Yippies. Dr. Gumbo Albert has a Ph.D. in Sociology. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15107,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,11791078],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert is a Canadian-born activist who was associated with many organizations such as the Yippies, Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, and The Women's Liberation Movement. She married Stew Albert, a political activist, who was a founder of the Yippies. Dr. Gumbo Albert has a Ph.D. in Sociology. </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;Yippies; Women's Rights Movement; Vietnam War; Protests; Social activism; Black Panthers; Children; Environmentalism; Counterculture; SDS; Weathermen; Baby boom generation; Surveillance.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13689059}}">Yippies; Women's Rights Movement; Vietnam War; Protests; Social activism; Black Panthers; Children; Environmentalism; Counterculture; SDS; Weathermen; Baby boom generation; Surveillance.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 125:57 Subject LCSH Political activists--United States; Albert, Judith Clavir, 1943--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Kimberly F Mourao Date of interview: 13 April 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 00:04 SM: Okay. Again, this is going to be a combination of general questions. And I started out basically with some of the direct questions that were not in the general question. Your parents were communists living in Canada, a life with serious thoughts that you became a yippie. Years later, where serious, serious thinking theater and fun were united. How does your upbringing shape your future social networks? And i.e., the yippies, the women's movement? Things like that? 00:37 JA: How does my upbringing shape my social network? 00:41 SM: Yeah, how did it? How did? How did you go from being, living in Canada and being very serious to moving to the United States and being linked up with a group like the yippies? 00:53 JA: Well, it was called rebellion. I had, when I was living in Canada, I was leading the leading a very traditional life, I had an early marriage. And one day, I came home to find my husband in bed with another woman. And basically, that was, it was a fight or flight response. So, I left Canada, I was, I have a, I was working on my PhD in Sociology. I left Canada to come down to the United States to a sociology convention, and you know, I walked outside, and the sun was shining, and it was warm, and it was cold and windy in Canada, because I guess it was the fall. And there were people, professors and students demonstrating against the war. And it was just a completely opposite experience to that sort of the pain of this early first marriage breakup. And so, I left. I would say that, in terms of social networks, when I first arrived, the people that I gravitated to were people who were familiar to me, which meant some of the more sectarian group on the University of California campus, but for various reasons that lasted maybe about fifteen minutes. And I was lucky enough at a, or the stars were aligned in the right way. That at a meeting, a Stop the Draft week meeting for the Oakland Seven who are a group of young men who had been indicted for trying to stop trip trains, that I happen to meet Stew, and that, that story is very simple. I was living in Berkeley by then I was by myself, and I was interested in meeting other people. So, I went to this stuff, the draft week meeting, and I walked in and it was like I was in, it was like a match.com in the 1968 because the room at Macau's campus was just filled with very interesting looking people, the men were wearing the army jackets, and they had long hair and the women were wearing, you know, long flowy robes. And there were these tall California girls, I am short, I am from Toronto, and I am Jewish and have these tall, beautiful, blonde California girls. And so, it was like a completely different environment for me. I went and I saw across the room two blonde men, I have always been attracted to blonde. So, I saw I saw across the room to blonde men, I went up and I introduced myself and of course, I have been prepared for this event by wearing, putting on my best, you know, miniskirt and black fishnet stockings, and I went up to these two guys. And I said, “Hi, I want to introduce myself. My name is Judy. And I just arrived from Canada.” And they both said hello. But then one of them was Stew put out his hand and touch me on the nose with this little finger. And that was sort of, that was how we met. 04:18 SM: That is like you will not be back up in Canada. Just before we get back to the United States again: What does it mean to be a red diaper baby because you are the third person, I have interviewed that said they were red diaper babies. 04:31 JA: Well, there is your social network. See what it meant, it meant that a lot of things, it meant that one of my earliest memories is the getting up on a chair in my parent’s kitchen. And I am sure at their urging or directions, calling the White House to ask them not to kill the Rosenberg’s. What is meant was growing up with a set of extraordinarily progressive values that the, that understanding the phrase “from each according to their ability to each according to their need,” was the way you look at the world that each person puts in what the society what they can and takes out what they need. There was an extraordinary emphasis on equality, there was this extraordinary identification with the oppressed of the world, whether it was the dustbowl refugees, or black people in the south, it did not matter, you, you, you had instilled in you from the earliest possible age, a progressive activist set of values, which then really, sort of defined your entire life. 05:43 SM: You mentioned that one of the things that if remember right, when I was reading some background information on you is that in your early years, when you were talking about those qualities of being a red diaper baby, also the comic books were banned. And that was, that was kind of a part of it as well, because everything was serious that but, that you became a yippie and that comedy was very important with along with the serious. 06:14 JA: Well, the yippies were not really that serious, what, you know, we let us get that up front. That was one of the reasons that I was attracted to them was, was that they, they were not that serious. And it allowed me to both be political, but not have to always look at things with the serious points of view. No, it is absolutely true that that in, in, in my household, comic books were banned. And everything sort of, there was a lot of, for the revolution you did things out of moral values, you did things in your home moral universe, was, is not good for the revolution? Are you doing things that will help other people? And for that, you have to be serious. Yes. But I think also comic books were banned, because they were strange, they were different. And in my household, it did not last that for a while, you know, they were they were ways to subvert the dominant paradigm. And that is when, you know, if you could not have comic book in your house, your friends had him, and it was not a big deal. 07:18 SM: And I asked Paul, this very same question that I am going to ask you, and that is what was in your own words, define what it means to be a yippy. 07:27 What it means to be a yippy, is to create a myth, an ironic myth about society about activity, and to act on that myth. For example, when we went to Chicago in (19)68, you know, we said we were going to do all kinds of things with none of which were even possible. And yet, we were able to, we were able to, I am not, I am not doing this very well. You know, I wrote something recently, about what it means to be a yippy. And actually, maybe what I should do is read it if I can find it. 08:06 SM: Oh, that is fine. Yep. 08:08 JA: Just go on pause for a minute, because- 08:12 SM: That is all right. Who were, the people at your wedding? Was, were those, was that your son and your family there holding the cover? 08:27 JA: No, that was, it was, it was, the answer to that is partly. Hold on for just a second. 08:34 SM: Yep. Was Paul at your wedding? 08:59 JA: No, he was not they could not come. 09:00 SM: Okay. 09:03 JA: But Bobby Steele, I will tell you who was at the wedding. Bobby Steele was at the wedding; Steve Bingham was at the wedding. 09:16 SM: Bobby was in Philadelphia, was not he? I thought- 09:19 JA: Oh no, no, he was here. 09:20 SM: Oh, he must have, all right. He did live in Philly. Okay. All right. 09:35 JA: I think I will not be able to define exactly I mean, I am sure Paul did a much better, within sort of quarter round on it. But when I prided myself as a yippy, I like to think of myself as Alice Waters, okay. And if I said if I was going to get a recipe for yippie, this is what it would be. All right. Ready? Mix together equal parts of hippie counterculture, with new left anti-war politics. Anything that smacks of seriousness and a large portion of ironic theatrical Jewish humor, together with a dash of anarchism and a dollop of Eros, sprinkled liberally with high grade marijuana both in LastPass and real estate and the pure audacity of weatherman, manipulate the media to expose the steps with hypocrisy. Garnish with my generation’s fervent, all-consuming fitments to end this disastrous illegal war in Vietnam. Serve hot. 10:42 SM: That is beautiful. Yeah, I think even Poland loves that. 10:51 JM: It is, you know, it is hard. It was hard to figure it out. But it is kind of easier, to it is easy at this moment anyway for me to read it rather than to say it, but that that is what yippy is. 11:02 SM: Yeah, I, again, I asked this, another question to Paul. And it is a regarding the yippies. And that is, how did how did you meet Abby, Jerry, Anita, Phil Oaks, Paul and Jonah Raskin, because I know Jonah too. I interviewed Fiona, very early on. And those you know, your name and your husband's name. And these names that I just mentioned are the ones that people know about. But how did you meet them? How did you become a group? 11:33 JA: Well, I had as I told you, I met him to in Berkeley, and when I have moved, in around May of 1968, I went up to Canada to get divorced from the, the husband who you know, the first husband. In the meantime, Sue, who had been living on a couch in Jerry's apartment, realized that he needed to do something. Find a place for the, for two of us. So, what he managed to do was, I guess, probably talk to Abby. But he ended up converting the cellar of Liberty house into a rent free, cold water flat. And if you had been in the cellar, it was there was no toilet, for example, there was just this sort of pipe that water drips down into a barrel and we would pee in the barrel. And every morning Sue would go up the metal stairs that lead up Bleecker Street and dump the barrel of piss water into the gutter. The cellar was, I, he had a bed, he managed to get a bed. He got a hot plate, an electric frying pan. And that was where we lived and because the cellar, because it was the cellar, and the summer was hot. All these people Jerry, Abby, Nancy, Anita, Krasner everybody, they would come down to our cellar to visit. And so that was what I would say I probably first met them in our cellar. I may have met Abby for the first, and Paul and Anita for the first time at Abby's place on St. Mark's. But um, no, I have met Jerry and Nancy for the first time in the cellar. But we would also spend time up in their apartments. You know, they live right down the street, right down the street and across the street from at the end. And these are all on St. Mark's place. And Liberty house, which was by the way, a co-op that sold goods made by poor black women in Mississippi to benefit the Civil Rights Movement. Abby has been a, actually a manager of Liberty house and had done the publicity for them and had also organized a program called Food for Newark during the Newark disturbances out of Liberty house. And so, and Liberty house was on Bleecker Street, which is not that far from where Abby and Anita and Jerry and Nancy were living. So that was where I first met them. 14:00 SM: Yeah, I have a question too, is at its core, at it was height, how many yippies were there? I mean, corps yippies that were, I know there were chapters all over the country at a certain point, not only the New York chapter, but there were other chapters. But did, did the main leaders keep track of the corps? 14:20 JA: No. 14:21 SM: Okay. So, there is no way of knowing how many. 14:24 JA: We were, there were work groups, there were, they were, they were, they were more expensive circles and groups with a car. Right? So, you know, you could, people came people went, but the people who were close friends and stuck together or were in conflict with each other, as Abby and Sherry were off and on during the summer of (19)68. That, that was the, the corps group was not that much bureaucratic, we talk about the yippies as organizations and chapters and that, that was not our, our way of thinking. 14:58 SM: Yeah, because I was often wondering, you know, because they were involved in so many different protests and so many different events is how did they survive financially? How do they support themselves? So that was, how did like, before Jerry and Abby went off and did lectures, lecture survey, they, how are they surviving? 15:18 JA: Well, you know, the FBI would ask the same question, and nobody ever really knew the answer. 15:25 SM: Well, I am not the FBI. 15:26 JA: Oh, no, I am not saying that you are. But it is, it is one of the questions. I, you know, I do not know, there was there was no, liberals would give people money. Abby had the free stuff and everything that generated any money. I do not know, you know, I know, I had money from my father, my father, when I left Canada after that, he gave me $500 for the revolution, he said, so that was cool. You know, people, parents gave him money. I do not know, I you know, I literally, how did the rent get paid. Who knows? Who knows? 16:02 SM: Essentially, Mark wrote in his book “Underground,” if you make reference to which I have read, which I think is a fantastic book and should be required reading in any course, in the (19)60s, I interviewed Mark. He talks about, you know, that very same thing about where the money came from, he said he never had a problem with it. And he said it was because people were always there to donate when there was a need, and, and no name need to be mentioned, there was money. And that was- 16:29 JA: That is my recollection, too. It is not, I mean, people were not, we were, we were not at that point, selling marijuana or anything like that. It was, there was, the money was there. Remember also, it was the (19)60s and there was a lot of money around? Like, for example, Sue, and I would both write for the Berkeley Barb. And Max Scherr paid twenty-five cents a column inch. Now you cannot live on that. But there was money around it. I do not know. I do not know. 16:59 SM: Yeah, one of the things your, your husband's do is, I have got, by the way, I want since I have you on the phone today is, I want to buy one of those books from you. If you have any left. 17:10 JA: I do, I have a few. I sell them for $45 because they are signed. And now the only signed one, you know, there is not going to be any more signed ones. 17:17 SM: Well, I will mail a check to you for $45 but we will figure that out at the end of the interview. But I, because the people who are going to be reading this may not have, will ever read the book. Uh, who is Stew Albert, and I know he was a young ̶ came from Brooklyn. He was a kid whose father was a salesclerk. And I know he was one of the people that you, you talk about reinventing yourself. So, I would like to talk who is Stew. And number one this quote that you have, which I think is a beautiful, I can explain this. When you were talking about the people in the (19)60s, it must have been the (19)60s, that brief period of time when everything seemed possible, and the future was up for grabs. Just who was Stew? 18:02 JA: Okay. Well, first of all, his father actually works in the city record. He was not a salesclerk. But he came from a lower middle-class background in Brooklyn. And at a certain point, he worked for the, he always had for some reason very contrary to parent’s progressive politics, his first demonstration was demonstrated, was against capital punishment against the execution of Caryl Chessman. He went to Cuba, to visit Cuba with a friend at an early age and always had an attraction to radical politics. At a certain point, he came out to Berkeley and fell in just by happenstance with Allen Ginsberg and then went to, came over to Berkeley, crashed for one evening on the floor of the, what was called at that time the Vietnam big committee office, the VBC office where Jerry Rubin, unceremoniously tried to kick him out because he was like, almost like a homeless person, he was a homeless person sleeping on the floor. But instead, they became the best of friends and Jerry and Stew were really best friends all the way through the 1960 series versus being a one with Abby, the leader of the yippies, leader in quotation marks, and then Stew's other best friend in Berkeley was the Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver. So that is, you know, that was ̶ what was the summary of who Stew was. He was a journalist, he was an extremely good writer, he wrote as I said, for the perfect barb, the perfect bribe and an organizer for Chicago. And then, you know, within that, which is when we got together then we had various adventures together and Stew was, he was, it was, he was someone who people like to confide in. So, for example, if Jerry and Abby were having one of their many, you know, the older brother younger brother type ego conflict, who would always mediate. And he and people listened to him he was very smart. He had the kind of memory where he could call up a factoid about anything from anywhere at any time. And so, after the (19)60s, we, he essentially, we worked on, he worked on a few books, and he continued to, his career in writing. And he also sorts of when we moved to Portland, became an organizer for progressive Jewish causes. 20:37 SM: What is interesting, I can see how Abby and Jerry may have not hit it off at times, because I do not know if you ever saw the YouTube when Jerry was on the Phil Donahue show. 20:48 JA: I asked if somebody just emailed me about that. 20:51 SM: Oh, my God, he put Phil Donahue in his place. It was just unbelievable it is like and of course, people were calling in upset that Donahue who had allowed him on the show, but he was calling Phil everything in the book. And, but it is amazing because Phil's the most liberal guy you could ever see on television. But he, in a way, if he was talking that way to Abby, I do not know that Abby could ever get a word in edgewise. 21:16 JA: Believe me, Abby, Abby, could. That was one of the things about observing, they are really, really interesting. During Chicago, there was a lot of Jerry/Abby conflict that was echoed by and it would, Stew would mediate on a case and, but we the women would kind of echo the, you know, we would take sides. And one, one example would be, there was a huge conflict over the type of pig, pig assist that we would run for president. Abby wanted a tiny pig. And I think that the Hog Farm was supposed to show up with one and did not, Jerry, in the meantime, wanted one of the big fat ugly pig, so Jerry, and I, and Stew and Phil Ochs and Wolfie Lowenthal and we all went out to a farm. And we got you know, we picked up, we picked up this big giant pig and then Jerry's took it to the civic center. The Chicago Civic Center in front of the Picasso statue and got arrested with the pig. And then they were in jail. The, all of them. And one of the cops came up to them and said, “I hate to tell you this boys but the pig squeals.” Even arrested Stew. And then, then we heard the rumors that they had barbecued, the cops had barbecued the pig. And oh well you know it is expected, right? But, but what was, so Jerry and Abbie in that time period, were having, were really having all kinds of pretty unpleasant disagreements with each other. But a year later, as the conspiracy trial, they actually made a point of making up, forgiving each other and presenting a united front to both the other defendants and certainly Judge Hoffman and show, I believe they even had a, may, may have been the first ungay-gay marriage where they exchanged rings. But, but so there was a qualitative difference between the way they treated each other in Chicago during the during the riot, riots, the police riots and a year later with the conspiracy trial. And then afterwards, they, they sort of, after well, it is evolved back into the old competition where it was, they did the “yippy-yappy” debate, and Jerry would argue one thing and happy with it another Sunday. So, it was a love hate, you know, competitive brother relationship with the way I was looked at it. 23:52 SM: You are very strong woman and I know that some of your peers were as well. I would like for you to describe your thoughts on the roles that women played in the yippies. I know if Dr. King were alive today and on the Civil Rights Movement, sexism was a major issue and, and I know it was in the anti-war movement. And I have had people that have talked to me, a couple females, professors who said they left the movement because it was so sexist that they went into the Women's Movement and the rest is history. Describe again, describe your thoughts on the roles that women played in the yippies and whether you felt you were equal within the organization to the men and in the anti-war movement overall. And then I also see that you were very involved in the growth of the Women's Movement back in (19)69. Over there in the, at the People's Park, and that was very important for you. So, in respect, with respect to your husband, Abbie, Jerry, Paul, Phil, Jonah, were, you know, how do they treat women? 25:01 JA: Well, I did not meet Jonah until the mid (19)70s. Jonah was actually in what I always called “Stew’s large men’s group,” which formed with Jonah and a number of other people on the East Coast after we broke up. And the reason we broke up at my initiation was because of sexism in the movement. And in the yippies. So, we were, been, was, was Nancy equal to Jerry? No, with Anita equal to Abbie? No, was I equal to Stew? No, but it depends how you, how do you define equal? Right? Were we the ones who held the press conferences? No. Did the media come to us and look us up? No. We are we serving coffee? No. Were we organizing? Were we doing what women traditionally do, which is keeping this thing going, organizing, making sure that things are where they need to be making sure these things happen? That was our job. That was our role. So, but remember, the, the women's movement came around for a reason, they were in (19)68, (19)69, (19)70. So, and most of the couples that I knew, broke up in that period that included me and Stew, we were one of the few however, who got back together, the only other couple in that, from that group who were together before the women's movement, who got back together, were Dave Dellinger and his wife, Betty. But, but Nancy broke up with Jerry, in that, in the early (19)70s. Abbie, of course, went underground. And Anita did not go with them for various reasons. And they never did manage to get back together. So, the answer is yes, there was sexism, yes, there was unequal distribution of power. Yes, the men got way of more the goodies than the women. But I will tell you something. I know this for a fact for Anita, for me, and for Nancy, it was in a period of enormous growth, you could not be, personal growth, you could not be in that environment, you could not be around these guys, without learning from them, without observing them without trying to do the things that they also want, that they have seemed able to do very, very easily. And, and we also had adventures on our own at a certain point, like, for example, Nancy and I and this woman Jeannie Plamondon, who was the White, one of the members of the White Panthers in Detroit, we went to Vietnam together. So, it was not “Oh, yeah, everything were oppressed. It is all bad. Let us leave.” Not at all. It was, it was, “yes, we are not treated equally. But we also, if this is also an opportunity, and we did, we absorb to our core, what it meant to be a yippie to act on your own and to be courageous and to act without fear and to run from the pigs and all that stuff?” 28:07 SM: You said you went to Vietnam; you went as part of a group? 28:09 JA: Yeah. A yippie group 28:11 SM: Oh, I did not know that. Could you tell us about that? 28:14 JA: Well, alright, now Nancy, and I, and Jeannie, were invited by a man in the group, the Vietnamese had a group called the Committee for Solidarity with the American People. And at the time, many people were going to visit Vietnam and coming back essentially, to talk about the devastation of the war. And we, the three of us were invited to, to do that. And so we went, we went, we traveled around the country. We saw the, I remember, there was this one mountain that has been half blown away by bombs. And yet still inside, the Vietnamese people were making the shells and armaments to defend themselves. We, it, it was one of those experiences, that you meet people who are so totally different from you, but yet are able to convey to you their love of their country, and also their ̶ they did not hate us, you know, you would think we would go out in the streets and we would be surrounded by children. And you would think that “oh my god, here is America, raining bombs down on these people, you know, killing them with napalm shooting them in the streets.” You would think that there would be a lot of hatred. We never found that. They said we all, we understand that there is a distinction between the American people and the American government. And so, we you know, I do not remember specifics now, but we, I know that we learned an awful lot about the war about the causes of the war. I remember, for example, that we went to a museum in Hanoi, which is a museum of the war. They, and they gave us, because they had so many, they gave us as a souvenir, a half exploded, anti-personnel bomb, it was like about four inches round, it was metal, no, no, no explosives left, but and you could see all these little ball bearings that were dead. And there is all these little ball bearings that were still embedded in the middle. And so, they would drop these by the hundreds of thousands on people, they would compete anti-personnel weapons against a peasant country, who was basically fighting to resist foreign invasion as this country Vietnam had for thousands of years. And so, these people, Nancy and I, and Jeannie and you know, Jane Fonda and many, many people who went, came back, and were able to talk about our experiences to audiences here in the United States. 31:12 SM: Yeah, I know that Daniel Barragan went because I interviewed him and, and I know of another female, and her name is Charlotte Bunch. 31:19 JA: I know, Charlotte. 31:20 SM: Yep, she went. And- 31:23 JA: There were lots, I think the thing that was really unique about our group was that it was the yippie group. And I guess, that possibly one of the unique experiences that we had, when we were all sitting around one evening out in the country, you know, there are seven or eight of Vietnamese, who would come with us from the committee and, and whoever the local peasants were there, and we smoked this stuff called Tokelau, which was how, you would you smoked in a long pipe with a little bowl on the end of it. And, you know, we would tease them about whether, you know, what was stronger marijuana or Tokelau, and they would say Tokelau, we would say, would say marijuana. And so that was sort of the yippie, that was the yippie aspect of it. 32:11 SM: That I want to make sure you get the other two women's names their full names again? 32:16 JA: Nancy Kurshan, and she see, it was very, Ruben’s girlfriend, we called girlfriend for a number of years, certainly during this period that we are talking about. And the, the other person was Jeannie Plamondon, if you google Pun Plamondon, I know that he wrote a book A while back. So, there is information about- 32:42 SM: This is ̶ this leads me right into my next question, in your own words, who are the key yippy personalities? And I know we have already mentioned them, but the ones I am asking here is: describe in your own words maybe some of the people that are not known? Some of- 32:58 JA: Tall cocky and Super Joel. 33:02 SM: No. 33:03 Well alright, here is, here is a, Super Joel was well known at the time his he was known because if you have ever seen a picture of a hippie putting a flower in the gun of the National Guard, that was Super Joel. Okay, so Super Joel claimed that he was the scion of a mafia, Chicago mafia family. And he said that, that when he decided to join the movement, his grandmother kicked him out, said “do not darken my door again.” After the, you know, the (19)60s were over Super Joel, became a heroin dealer. And grandma says, “oh, welcome back.” Wonderful. I just, this, this story this super Joel tells, he gets very wealthy, or, you know, at least when we visited him at one point, he certainly had all the trappings of wealth, including a motorcycle, a full, full Harley Davidson is in the middle of his living room. And, and, and it turns out, he is gay and he gets AIDS and he dies. Well, a while ago, a few years ago, someone was investigating Super Joel just to find out who he was and found out that Super Joel was not the scion of a mafia family at all, but rather just an ordinary alienates middle class kids from a Chicago suburb. So, he created this entire alternate identity for himself. And everybody believed it. And he was the one, Super Joel was the one who drove the truck into Lincoln Park that the bands were supposed to play on except of course, none of the bands showed up so that, that would be an example of someone who is not known but was certainly an interesting character. And just everybody knew at the time. 34:53 SM: What was his full name? 34:55 JA: Super Joel Tornabene, who knows if that is his real last name? 35:04 SM: You talk about reinventing? Well, he obviously reinvented himself. 35:09 JA: Exactly. Yeah. And you know, there were no boundaries about that in those days. So, it was pretty easy to do. 35:15 SM: Now, were they, were the yippies close to any of these groups. I know there was tension between the Students for Democratic Society, because then pure pow, pow political and my most, I have interviewed quite a few different people. And when I, at the very end when I am giving terms of the period and I say yippies or hippies, or especially the yippies: “no comment,” or “they were frivolous,” or whatever. And this is even some people on the left. So how do you how close were the yippies to, and I will just read these, and you can just comment on it, the Black Panthers, Students for Democratic Society the then the quarter when ̶ 35:55 JA: You do want to do it one at a time? 35:57 SM: Yeah, maybe. So how close were you to the Black Panthers? 36:00 JA: Because of Stew's relationship with Eldridge, we were very close to the Panthers. And in fact, after Chicago, Eldridge, Stew and Jerry and I put out something called the Yippie Panther Pack. So I was, and you know, I am still friends with Bobby today. And, and so I, and actually the reason that Bobby got indicted in Chicago as a conspiracy Brown was because Stew and I had gone and called Eldridge because we thought it was important for them to be a Panther present in Chicago. So, Stew and I, during the summer of (19)68, had called Eldridge, told us because he was on parole could not come out. So, Bobby came instead. And as a result, you know, Bobby was one of the conspiracy aids and then you know, that story. So, the Panthers, yes. Students for a Democratic Society. Not really, although there were, the boundaries were fluid so people could consider themselves to be yippies, but also members of SDS. I know that, I know for a fact there, there were a number of members of SDS, SDS and subsequently the Weather Underground, who consider themselves yippies, very close to the yippies. And maybe they did not say that in, you know, whether I am in town meetings or SDS meetings, but I know for a fact that they did. 37:27 SM: Yeah, I am just going to go into the Weathermen. And you mentioned that of course Mark never, I heard Mark never considered himself a yippy. I do not think. 37:35 JA: Mark is not one of the Weathermen who consider himself to be a yippy. 37:38 SM: How about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which basically took over the anti-war movement in, after the Weathermen took over SDS? 37:48 JA: Well, I would not say VVAW, who took over the anti-war movement, but I do have someone who has been interviewed who knows a lot about the GI movement. [inadible] but no, I do not think that I think there were many, many aspects to the, it was very diverse the anti-war movement. And I remember in 1972, in Miami at the Democratic and Republican convention demonstrations, that VVAW had a campment at Flamingo Park. But then there were a whole bunch of yippies who were there. Abbie was there. I was there. Who was there? There were a whole bunch of the ̶ I do not remember whether Jerry was or not. There were a whole bunch of people who were organizing that demonstration. I know for a fact some of the vets also considered themselves yippies. The people who, who, you know, here is the thing. They may, people may say that the yippies were frivolous, but ask yourself whose name has come down in history? Right? Whose name do people remember from that time. They remember the Black Panthers. And they remember the Weathermen and they remember the yippies, that are, whose remember though, you know, I say we have the historic staying power. 39:06 SM: Yeah, actually, Ron Kovac, I think was there at (19)72, the guy wrote “Born on the Fourth of July.” 39:14 JA: I know I ̶ Ron is a sweetheart, I love him. 39:17 SM: Yeah. And then Bobby Moeller too, I think, was there. 39:19 JA: Bobby I do not know, do you by any chance have contact information for Ron? 39:23 SM: No, I do not. See I know he is in LA. But yeah, and I thought Bobby Moeller would, but Bobby says he has lost touch with him. So, I do not know. The other group, groups would be the Mobe group. 39:37 JA: But the moment you know, the both of them and Dave and the Mobe works very closely together. I mean, they also just had disagreements in that summer, but, but, you know, Dave was organizing marches that we would go on the Grant Park one, we all got beat up during the day by, by the Chicago cops. That was a Mobe organized event that Rennie was, Ren-, that for, Rennie was hit over the head Stew had been hit over the head three days earlier before everything started or four days early before everything started. So put it this way we both knew of each other's presence. I am wondering, I tended to use the word respect, but there was also a fair bit of dissonance. 40:27 SM: The, the other movements, again, are just the movements, the American Indian Movement, the Women's Movement, the Environmental Movement. And- 40:36 JA: You take AIM right? Now, Bill Kunstler spent an awful lot, after you know, the Chicago Trial. The AIM people were some of his main clients. Bill always considered himself a yippie, always. Well not always, but ever since, ever since he met Abbie and Jerry. That is what he identified with. So, you know, so it really is, I do not think it is appropriate to talk about it as sort of this group and this group it is much more personalities, it is much more people, and people there was much more interpenetration. And both the dissent and support between these different, all these different groups. 41:23 SM: Yeah, I have, just to ̶ do the hippies want to be taken seriously? I had just had that as a question did the- 41:32 JA: Seriously? What does that mean? 41:35 SM: Yeah, that is what I am asking. Did the hippies want to be taken seriously? Because I know from talking to Paul, I asked him that same question. And it, because he, because his whole spiel is about linking serious issues with humor. 41:53 JA: Right. And he is right. 41:54 SM: And that is almost like the yippies is not it? It is almost kind of the same. They were dead serious about being involved. I am I cannot speak for you. But from perception that I see. The yippies were dead serious about being anti-war, but they want to be able to reach people through theatrics. And sometimes it was, may seem frivolous, but there was a message. 42:19 Exactly. No, that is exactly right. That is exactly right. The causes in which we believe that would end, was overwhelmingly ending the war. With a little bit of, you know, marijuana legalization coming along later. The causes in which we believed were deadly serious causes, but we felt that the best way to affect people through those was through dramatic theatrical fun. 42:45 SM: Let me turn my tape. 42:51 SM: Alright, here we go. This is something [inaudible] was when Abbie died. Just as a person who has always studied and read and cared about the people involved in the (19)60s, because I am part of it, too, in my own small way. Abbie's death touched me in some way. Because when I happened on the news, I heard about it that he, he lived over in Bucks County not far from where I live, and that he was alone in an apartment. And he committed suicide or OD-ed on drugs. And then there was a report that he had a note. Now Paul says he does not know of any note ever, he says that that is not true, that no one was listening to me anymore. But that that was in the news, and I am trying to find the article where it was written. But what, this is, my serious part of my interview is because there is some key people here that passed on way before their time. Abbie, Phil Ochs, and then Jerry got hit by a car in Los Angeles and your husband. He luckily Stew was able to live longer. But could, do you know any more of the circumstances surrounding Abbie? Were you at his funeral? 44:06 JA: Yeah, at least the West Coast was. My understanding of Abbie's death is that there may be some questions surrounding it. But that he did not leave a note. That I know for a fact he did not leave a note. He is, I noticed his eldest son, Andrew, and Andrew was, came out and his sister came down. As soon as they heard about the death and was not an apartment by the way. It was more like a there was a bunch of little houses on some land that this person owns. And they came down and the coroner, there was some issue with the coroner, back and forth; was it heart failure, was it this, was it, was it barbiturates, was it that? And so, there was a little bit of question as to exactly what the cause of death was. But there is no question he committed suicide. And there is no question that he did not leave a note. 45:13 SM: Were people shocked? Or would people say he was down? 45:18 JA: Well, you know, everyone, by then everyone knew about his manic depression. And certainly, everyone knew that the period underground had exacerbated the manic depressiveness. So, Stew, and I had left, saw him alive at this event to cover (19)68 plus twenty. He has been, Abbie had been in a car accident, so he was in pain in his foot. And he had essentially gone off lithium, because of, which was the drugs that were controlling this manic depression, because he hated being on lithium, and had been given Prozac by his doctor and his doctor, you know, everyone knows now the Prozac can cause or has a causal relationship with suicidal tendencies. So, you know, no one was there with him in those last days. But the, what was the actual progression of events was ̶ is not clear. But like I say, so there was some fuzziness about the cause of death. But there is no fuzziness about the fact that he actually did commit suicide and it was undoubtedly a result of manic-depressive disease. 46:30 SM: Now Phil died very young. And I remember there was a book that came out on him and I have it, a biography, but I did not know if his close links with the, I read a long time ago, I did not know his close links with the, the yippies, now the- 46:46 JA: Yeah, I remember in Chicago and in that, in (19)68, we were going, Phil and I would walk up and down the lines of National Guard. And I remember one National Guardsmen saying, I once paid like $10 or some, you know, some huge sum in those days to go to one of your concerts, I will never do that again. And Phil actually stops and talks with the guy and the guy, relax and changed his face from acid. And just in that conversation. 47:16 SM: I heard he committed suicide too. Is that true? 47:19 JA: That is true. Phil had actually come and visit Stew and I at that time, were living in the Catskills. Phil comes to visit us and stay for a few days, for a few days, he was not even able to go out of the cabin. And then he basically spent most of his time in a bar, but he had been in South Africa, and had been in some kind of, before that has been some kind of accident that had damaged his voice and his vocal cords, and he did not think he could ever sing again. Very depressed about that. And then also he put up this album of Elvis Presley songs that did not do very well. And he has gotten a lot of criticism. And so he was, you know, there were a lot of things going on in his life that made him unhappy in those days, you know, we did not know about counseling, know about pharmaceutical assistance, aid in manic depressive disease or depression. And so, you know, Phil, when he went to his sister’s house and hung himself in the bathroom with the shower curtains. 48:23 SM: Were you at his funeral too? 48:26 JA: I was certainly at a concert. I was, there was a memorial concert for him in New York that I went to. And I do not know if there was another funeral. He, I think, I do know he was still with us at Chile, you know, he and Stew and Jerry went to Chile together during the Allende period. And then they came back. And then they met up with Mr. Jara, the folk singer there who was later shot by the Pinochet regime. And then when they came back, they did a benefit concert for Chile. And I was at that and I, and I was also at another benefit concert around his death. I do not know if that was, you know? 49:07 SM: Where is Abbie buried? Is he buried? 49:12 Where is Abbie, I do not know if he has buried that is a good question. I do not know the answer. 49:15 SM: How about Phil? 49:17 JA: Now that I know. 49:18 SM: Now Jerry, I remember when he was killed while he was jaywalking. 49:23 JA: Well, he, he was, I would say he was for some reasons that I prefer not to disclose the practice. He walked across the street. And then someone apparently called out, Jerry walked back. So, he turned and at that point, was, was hit by the car. 49:46 SM: And, of course, I remember the newspapers saying, “the guy that broke the law was killed breaking the law.” 49:55 JA: Yeah, well, you know yippies always pretty myths even in death, sometimes they are bad, sometimes they are not. 50:04 SM: Well, and I guess Paul was the moderator of some of those debates if I am not correct. Corrected here, Jerry, and- 50:11 JA: The Yippie Yuppie. That could easily be, you know, I never saw one, I just heard about them. But- 50:17 SM: Now when Stew passed away, did you have a funeral there in Berkeley for him and did a lot of people come to it? 50:28 And that is where he is buried, if you go on his website www.stewalbert.com there is a photo of his funeral and we had a, we actually had a what we called Stew, what did we call it? Stew (20)06 tour, because we had a funeral for him in Portland, a memorial service in Berkeley, a memorial service in New York and the memorial service and in Boston. 51:04 SM: He had a lot of friends, 51:05 JA: He had a lot of friends. A lot of friends. 51:08 SM: Yeah, I have seen that website. That is a nice website. 51:14 JA: If you want to read what people said about him, not, it is all there on the website. 51:17 SM: Right. People's Park in (19)69. We all know that anybody who knows their history about the (19)60s and certainly what was happening in Berkeley, in your opinion, just a few words, what was it all about? And you are right on here, when you say that it gave Ronald Reagan, you know, something to build his career on? Because I had a chance to interview Ed Meese at his office. Yeah, I interviewed him. And you know, he was the man in charge of following, well he was in charge of the battle against the students on the Berkeley campus even back in (19)64. Yeah, because he was the, he was the district attorney, or the assistant district attorney for Alameda County back in (19)64, before Reagan ever knew him. And then when he heard that, about this young lawyer, then that is why he kind of linked them up with his administration later on in (19)69. What was that all about? 52:14 JA: Which People’s Park? 52:16 SM: Yeah, People’s Park, how important is it? 52:18 JA: Well, in some ways, it is very important. And that is because it shows that you can stand up, in this case, to the power of the university to create something beautiful for the people and what it, was it was a big community event, where people just decided, alright, this land that is essentially lying fallow should be turned into a park. I mean, what, what more benign thing can you then you think of that? But it was essentially a battle over private property. Because at that point, then the university said: No, you cannot do that. Whatever happens to this piece of land is something that we want to do, rather than what you want. And but the community would not let that happen until, of course, the University fenced it in, sent troops, gas, the gas, the entire city of Berkeley, and we fought that, but ultimately, the University took the land back. 53:18 SM: Yeah. But it is interesting, because when you study, the Ronald Reagan, who was governor of California, and I asked this to Ed Meese, that the two main issues that he built his career on in California was his battle against the students, which he said he was going to take on if he became governor, he was going to bring peace back to the universities, and then a battle against the welfare state. Those were the two issues that he wanted to, you know, to work on as governor. And- 53:50 JA: If you think about it, it is ultimately a battle over capitalism and private property. Both the welfare state and the People's Park battle. 54:01 SM: What were the feelings of the boomers, the students that you saw at Berkeley? Of course, a lot of the yippies were boomers. What were their thoughts on governor, Governor Reagan? 54:14 JA: Well, we hated him. He was the epitome of everything that we despise. I would have to, you know I have not thought about Reagan for years, you know, because mostly what happened when he became president and the terrible things that he did as president kind of eclipsed the terrible things that he did when he was governor. But Stew, I remember saying, Stew said that Reagan knew him by name. And so, it is a very specific anti-people, anti-student strategy that he was doing. I mean, it was right. That is exactly what they were trying to do. Talk about people with control issues, huh. 54:55 SM: Yeah. One of the, something that I did not know and reading on your website too. And we are going to get into some of the general questions here in a minute. But I found that Bernadine Dohrn’s son, Zayd Dohrn’s, play “Magic,” I guess, “Magic Form Farm” or something like that, “Form Farm?” I just want to read these quotes and then you respond to them. You say this in, this is what he was trying to do with this play: “How do kids raised in the shadow of the (19)60s keep the parts of the experiment that were healthy, which is idealism, the hope, the courage, while getting rid of the narcissism and the silliness that had the potential to undermine it.” And then the other quote here is some of the qualities that he talked about, that is Zayd Dohrn: “Counter-cultural values, do your own thing, dope, nudity, sexual experimentation had negative dysfunctional consequences for some, not all the kids that live there.” And then you had mentioned, what an inconvenient truth, this play was all about. Reaction? What is your overall reaction to the play? And did he get it right? 56:18 JA: Oh, he got his experience right. You know, here is the thing. This is what Stew and I both used to say often is that everyone has their own (19)60s. So, for a kid growing up and having a lot of experiences with the nudity, and drugs and so forth, that he, I gathered, he must have had or heard about from his friends, I cannot help but think that the way he portrayed it in the play, it was not a pleasant thing for him. And both, you know, that was his experiences does not mean that everything that every new experience that everyone ever had in the (19)60s was wrong. But but you know, kids have their boundaries. And I guess we did not, in those days, we did not recognize that because we were a little bit more than kids ourselves. So, we did not recognize that, I think that when you are bringing people, when you are bringing up young children, at least for some, it may not be the best thing to expose them to the overt sexuality that some people in the (19)60s were into, it is not a universal experience, it was Zayd’s experience. 57:25 SM: You know, one of the general questions I had for everyone has been the question of the boomer generation now, which is 74 to 78 million people of which 15 percent, or 5 to 15 percent, depending on who you are reading, were activists, and the activist part of the movement. So, most people of the group have responded based on the friends, of the boomer friends that they knew whether they were activists or non-activists, and that is, you know, how, have they been good parents? Have they been good grandparents now, in terms of raising their kids, number one, by sharing what it was like to be young then and trying to let them understand, try to understand what we were doing and why we were doing it? And, and, you know, just basically, the values that they, whether a lot of people criticize the following two generation as not being very activist oriented. And they did not follow in their parents’ footsteps in that area. Just your thoughts on, based on the people you have known who are boomers, and as they have gotten older now they are up to sixty-three years of age, the frontline boomers, and the frontline boomers are sixty-three, and the youngest ones are now forty-six. 58:46 JA: Let me answer in a couple of ways. First, in terms of childbearing, this is what I can tell you. Jessica, my daughter, my daughter, one of them wants to have kids. One of the reasons that she wants to have kids is because she considers her upbringing so idyllic and so supportive and so loving that she wants to recreate it for her own family. Now, we could not hide from her who we were, and we did not. We talked to her. You are, how do you talk to your kids about drugs. Well, excuse me, we had to talk to her specifically, because it is very clear that Stew and I had both smoked marijuana a lot and had advocated for it at certain point in our lives. You cannot be yippy and not. And we had a conversation with her, and we basically said to Jessica, we do not want you to smoke marijuana until you graduate from high school and guess what she did not do that. She now is a, an attorney, she is, in some ways. pretty mainstream. She has worked within the Democratic Party. She has worked in New York City and politics, but she also now works as an attorney, an employment discrimination attorney helping women basketball coaches and firefighters win multi-million-dollar verdicts against being wrongfully terminated by sexist institutions. So that, you know, it is, and all the kids, the (19)60s kids that I know, and there is a whole bunch of them, you can tell if they are (19)60s kids if they are born in the, in between the 1970s to the 1980s. These are a lot of children of (19)60s activists, they turned out really, really well. And I think that the reason for that is that all of us put our values into child rearing, the naked nude stuff aside, we all believe very much in you know, this is an old SDS club, and that people should not be involved in the decisions that affect their life. Not all of us felt that way about our children. And when we were in, as part of our child rearing, we would treat them with appropriate boundaries, not letting them do something that they would that would hurt themselves but letting them be a decision maker in what they wanted to do. Not, not controlling and not being neglectful. We let them, but we let them be decision makers in their lives as a specifically is a result of our (19)60s values. And I think we have produced a generation of absolutely fabulous and wonderful kids. 1:01:25 SM: Yeah, very good point. You know, it is interesting that we have a president now, President Obama's in the second year. And he is often criticized both ways. One, he shies away from the links to the (19)60s, he makes an effort to make sure he is not part of it. And yet his critics will say he is the reincarnation of it. Because he is as left as you can get. 1:01:51 JA: They do not know anything if you think Obama's a leftist. 1:01:55 SM: Yeah. Well, your thoughts on that? It is, this is a two part question your thoughts on Obama and then the criticism of him and then he shies away from it? And secondly, the criticism that is often leveled by the Newt Gingrich’s, the George Wills’, the John McCain’s, the Governor Huckabee’s of the world, that that period, the boomer generation, the (19)60s and (19)70s, I think they are referring to, is the reason why we have so many problems in this nation, with divorce, with the lack of respect for authority, with the rise of the what they call the -isms, the welfare state, which they put blame directly on the LBJ in many respects. And- 1:02:44 JA: Let me start with that one. But what, how could all the McCains, Gingriches, Glenn Becks, and all the right-wing attack dogs fail to remember, are the gains that were made from the (19)60s, it is, you know, they can ̶ they could not come up with their list of terrible things. But what about the things that we can take credit for, for example, the fact that there is a black middle class now comes directly out of the (19)60s, the fact that there is an environmental movement, and that pollution is being lowered. And those issues are really central around the world is a result of the (19)60s, the fact that corporations are being pressured to divest practices that are not socially responsible, is a result of the (19)60s. The fact that women have access, and are equally, an, are in law school in more numbers than men are in business, although not as much, are doctors. That is all the results of the (19)60s, the fact that people are thinking about eating local food and eating responsibly, it is a result of the 60s there. The other aspects of the environmental movement that are all a result of the (19)60s. It is amazing how the right wing tends to forget the advances that came out of my generation while focusing on the, what they consider to be the negative. 1:04:07 SM: Well, it is interesting in this is kind of sad, when they start talking about the environmental movement, they say well, that they use that as a negative, because the environmental movement is all negative because it takes jobs away from people. As someone said to me, “you are more interested in saving an owl than you are saving jobs.” I mean, those kinds of things. And then they will say that, that Al Gore Look at him. He writes his book and now they are all being questioned whether, there has been some questioning whether they are, they have their facts straight, and he is making all these millions flying in an airplane and he is ̶ so there is they find ways to still be critical, even of the environmental movement ̶ 1:04:48 JA: Right. Well, if it is not in the service of the naked pursuit of greed, they do not like it. Reason and individualism. Individualism, that is, is only for fun not for myself. It is only for oneself. It is selfishness and greed. If it is not selfish, if it is not greedy then they do not like it. 1:05:10 SM: In your view, when did the (19)60s begin? And when did it end? 1:05:14 JA: I think it began with the civil rights movement, the early days of the civil rights movement, although you could even get earlier than that was a nuclear disarmament movement. So, I would say the late (19)50s and early (19)60s were we when, when the (19)60s began, and they ended? I do not know maybe the end of the (19)70s. Middle, mid to end of the (19)70s. 1:05:38 SM: Was there a watershed moment, in your view? 1:05:41 JA: In the (19)60s? 1:05:42 SM: Yes. 1:05:44 JA: Well, there were a number, it was like a, like a cascade. You know, starting with the gulf. I mean, to me, the, the watershed of the (19)60s was the Vietnam War. And so, whether you can point to what particular moment in the Vietnam War, the escalation to Gulf, the Gulf of Tonkin, the escalations, the, the switch, the switch from ground troops to bombings, all the various phases of that war. Those were all in some ways, watersheds and they built on each other, in my opinion. 1:06:18 SM: I have a question on healing, one of the two questions that they are going to be healing and trust. The first one is on healing. I took a group of students in the mid (19)90s, to Washington to meet Senator Muskie. Students, none of them were born in the 60s and this was all new to them. They were studying this period. They feared that we were close to a second American Revolution or a second Civil War with all the divisions that they had been seeing it was epitomized, but what they saw in Chicago in (19)68, the question they want to ask Senator Muskie, because he was there as the vice presidential Democratic candidate, is: due to the divisions that were tearing the nation apart, at that time, the divisions between, between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who are for the war, those who are against the war, those who supported the troops, those who did not. Do you feel that, that this generation, the boomer generation born between 1946 and 1964, as they age and start passing away, will go to their graves, not feeling like they have healed from all the divisions from that era, comparable to what happened in the Civil War when they went to their grave, mostly with a lack of healing. I will tell you what he said, what Senator Muskie said, but how would you respond to that? 1:07:43 JA: Well, see, for me, the concept of healing, personally, does not apply. I never, it was never a wound, the (19)60s were never, oh, the late (19)60s were never a wound, but they were the best time of my life. I do not want to heal from the best time of my life, I do not feel that there is a need. Now, you heal from a wound, you heal from death, I have not yet fully healed from Stew's death, and certainly any people who lost their lives and their families, the lives of the people whose families, the families whose children lost their lives in the war. They, that, that is a feeling that may have been helped by the wall or may not. But remember, you have a situation there were the people who got, the young men and women who went to Vietnam were drafted. It was not voluntary. It was not choice. And, you know, and, and the things that caused the war, the fact that, you know, government is, imperial governments going in invading other countries, that still goes on, say, obviously, in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I do not I do not accept that paradigm that this country was broken in needed healing. What, what I, what I do feel is that there were terrible, terrible things going on in the country, which the only way to have them stop was to take action, which is what we did, which is what soldiers in Vietnam did. And the healing that needs to happen is the healing from those who died. beyond that. I do not see the need. And you know, I look at the Tea Party today. They are certainly not promoting anything like healing they are still, you know, fighting back culture war. 1:09:42 SM: Yeah. When Senator Muskie when he, we waited for his response. He waited about a minute and he finally said, he did not even respond to 1968. He said, we have not healed since the Civil War. We were fighting for the issue of race and, and he said, talking about the 430,000 men who had died in that war, almost the entire South lost all their men. And so, he, that is what he said was the issue was, we have not healed since then he did not even refer to (19)68. 1:10:13 JA: Well, you know, this is a country that goes to war. And in some way slides on what, what you may recall, does an Eisenhower warning us about the military industrial complex. That is what, if anything needs to be healed, it is the contradictions of capitalism, and that have produced this kind of society. So healing, like I said, the healing metaphor does not work for me in terms of the whole country, I think people need to be healed from their ̶ from the individual traumas that what they went through, caused by, you know, being forced to fight in a war that they did not support, or did not believe in, the deaths that happened, that is where healing needs to- 1:11:03 SM: Yeah in fact one person said to me: Steve, if you, you specified and this question better by saying that, why do not you just simply say those who were for the war and those who went to war, then you get into what Jan Scruggs did in his book “To Heal a Nation” that the wall was built to not only heal the families and of those who died in the war, but then to heal the nation from those who were against the war and for the war. So, the people said they might be able to answer that question better if it was just those two groups. And I think what I was really getting at was, I wonder how many, it could be yippies, it could be SDS-ers, or it can be Mobe people, it could be anybody who was against the war. I wonder how many of them have gone to that wall, as they have gotten older with their kids. And they look at that wall, and they reflect what they did. And whether any of them are saying, maybe I should have served or, you know, I just do not know how they are feeling. That is what I think I was really getting at. 1:12:05 JA: Well, I, you know, Stew and I went to the wall, and he actually helped Sandy, whatever her last name was, Boreal, I think in her, I think she was a fundraiser for it or something like that. I do not think that, that was not our experience, was not my sort of service. If anything, the experience was, we served well, we serve too. We served in opposing the war. My recollection is that we, we, we often identified very much with the vets, because we both felt that we served our country. We served our country in the way we best knew how, by trying to bring in and to an immoral, illegal war that was killing, that killed 54,000 young Americans. 1:13:02 SM: The, the other issue is trust. A quality that I perceive is a very well, it is a quality within the boomer generation. And of course, how can you say, Steve that 70 million people know of trust? Well, I am not saying that everybody does not trust but the question is, the young people of that era saw so many leaders lie to them, throughout their lifetime. Whether it be President Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin, McNamara and those figures that he used to use of people killed in Vietnam, you have the Watergate with Richard Nixon. There is there is some questions with everyone from Eisenhower all the way up to even President Reagan, there was, whether you could trust any of them. And correct me if I am wrong, and I have lived in this era too, most people at that time, did not trust anybody in positions of leaders or responsibility, whether they be a university president, a Congressman, a senator, a President of United States, a rabbi, a minister, a corporate leader, they do not trust any of them because they were leaders. Am I correct in that? 1:14:10 JA: Well, you know, Free Speech has a slogan, “do not trust anyone over thirty.” 1:14:15 SM: Right. That was Jeff Weinberg. 1:14:20 Ja: I do not think they did not trust because they were leaders. They did not, people did not trust because people lied. Like that, like, like that guy yelled out, Obama, “You lie.” Well, that is what we were yelling. We were yelling, “you lied.” “You lied.” And I think that the trust still does not exist today. Because guess what, people continue to lie. But at same time, we have a right-wing attack machine that creates its own level of lies. And for some reason, they are considered, those, the right-wing lies are considered truth and believable, whereas someone like Obama, who in fact is going pretty much the way it is, is not lying. So, I think that trust, yeah, sure, trust is a huge issue. But I do not think it is simply not trusting leaders. I think it is, it is, goes in some ways deeper than that. 1:15:15 SM: Yeah, because it was Jack Weinberg who's, if I am not mistaken, said, ”do not trust anyone over 30.” 1:15:22 JA: Exactly. As we got older we kept changing it to “do not trust anyone over-“ 1:15:26 SM: Yeah, I hear you. Ruben changed it to forty I think, something like that. 1:15:30 JA: That is the one problem with that slogan. 1:15:32 SM: Yeah. And then he said, kill your parents too. And, and this is something you mentioned this, which I think is great. And I think I want to make sure I got this correct, too. And I will, Jack and Jerry, were right, in your opinion, to change the system is, is completely reinvent, was a goal to completely reinvent ourselves. We had to break from the repressive warmongering, right-wing dysfunctional values of our parent’s generation, which was the group that came back from forty-six to sixty. So, is that basically say it all there? 1:16:07 JA: Yeah. Yeah, we did. We had to break, we had to break with that. And create something that was, we believe was new and alternative. And we did. 1:16:17 SM: In your view, you lived in Canada, but what was it about the 1950’s, or the post war era that (19)46 when President Kennedy came in, what was it about that era then made the (19)60s? 1:16:31 JA: Well, remember every ̶ the dominant American culture in the (19)60s was sort of like the TV show Mad Men, was very repressive in almost every way, and anything that was, that was in any way dissonant, whether it was being gay, or being, wanting to do something, a woman wanted to do something with their life, anything that did not fit into the dominant mold of a father goes to work, you know, Father Knows Best, mother does this. Anything that did not fit has to be, had to be hidden. And so, then people, when, that was really, there was the breaking out of that. Those strictures, the breaking out from those repressive molds that actually really started the (19)60s, whether it was the beats, or jazz music, or whatever, all the various ways of creating an alternate counter-culture that were there in the society in the (19)50s, but were hidden, gradually, for whatever reasons, and I am not a historian broke out, broke their way through and then and then people once empowered, made an entire alternate environment. That is the second model. And growing up in Canada, it was like, that is exactly what it was, in Toronto in those days was repressive, 1950s model. 1:17:55 SM: Do you feel the 1980s was a, an effort to return to the 1950’s? Yeah, when Reagan came in, do you think that eight-year period and then George Bush that followed that twelve-year period was an effort to bring, to say goodbye to that the (19)60s and the (19)70s? And go back to the (19)50s? 1:18:15 SM: Well, you know, it interests me enormously, that in that period that the right-wing Think Tanks got themselves together and decided that they had to have, I am not saying conspiratorially, but culturally decided that they had to have a strategy to combat what they call the excesses of the (19)60s. One of the reasons I think that we are in such doo doo today and the right is able to exert the power that it is, that it has, is because well, we were sort of figuring out: Well, what do we do next? The right path strategy, raised money, always was backed by money, had think tanks, recruited people and was able to develop itself into a dominant cultural force, with a, you know, national broadcast network, that is very hard for the more diverse Democrats to counter. 1:19:13 SM: Do you feel that is what is happening now with respect to when George Bush the second came in, and then of course, this first year and a half of President Obama, he is having a very hard time. Is this again, like the 1980s again? I mean, with these groups, kind of attacking that whole era, and the progress made and trying to bring that back to a conservative America? 1:19:38 JA: Well, I think they are, but I do not necessarily think that they are going to succeed. I mean, remember, Obama was, was elected on a gigantic majority vote. The vision that he put forward for America was a pretty progressive, liberal vision. Now for whatever reasons, he has not been able to implement that a lot of that has to do I think with the, with the power that the right-wing has amassed over these last thirty years. So, I do not look at this the (19)80s as a defining decade, I look at what happened in that, in the period after the (19)60s of the social forces that really helps define where we are at the present more than just the simple, simple decades. I mean, what do I remember the (19)80s? Disco? I mean ̶ 1:20:25 SM: Well actually disco started in (19)76. So, some people think it might have just been going downhill ever since. 1:20:30 JA: Oh, yeah. Well, I was not impressed by the (19)80s at all. 1:20:36 SM: Couple, a quote here, “despite all the,” this is from you, “despite all the humane positive progressive values we passed on to our children. Our 1960s activism also gave them difficult stuff to work through and resent, rebel against.” And then you say this maybe, this is maybe the moment when our (19)60s gen. or generation chickens are coming home to roost in their own right. explain that a little further. 1:21:08 JA: You know I, is that in the Zayd Dohrn piece? 1:21:12 SM: I think so. 1:21:13 JA: Yeah, I, I guess this was just what I was doing there. I am in it, because I do not remember it very well, as you know, because I wrote it a while a while ago. But I think what I was what Zayd was reacting to were some of the excesses that he either witnessed or heard about. And it is certainly true, that Weatherman was one of the more extreme, if not the most extreme organization in my generation. And so that is probably what I meant about coming home, coming home to roost is the ultra-extremists, who raised children, then the children really in their own right to have to look at their parents and their parent’s activities with their own critical eye. And I think that ̶ that is what Zayd was reacting to, but you have got to understand, overall, someone like Zayd is very supportive of, and the play that I was writing about, is very supportive of things, things that happened in the (19)60s and the reasons the (19)60s people, like, his parents did what they did. It is just also that that, you know, people can go before, and I think that that is one of the one of the issues with Zayd. You know, if you, there is a book that was written by Thai Jones, and it is called a “Radical Line,” and his parents also were in the Weather Underground and it is interesting the way he approaches it. But the, how do you, how do children of the extreme (19)60s parents make, come to terms with what their parents did. And, again, it is one of those things where, overall, the reasons that people were fighting the experiments, fighting against the war, the experimentalism of LSD, and the counterculture, that was something that made it really the best time of our lives. And, and our children, I think they may be critical of us for, you know, going as far as we did, but they also appreciate and honor the reasons that we did it. 1:23:32 SM: Let me change my tape. Philadelphia, just outside about 35 miles from downtown Philly. When you look at the, do you like the term, the boomer generation? I have had different responses to that. And ̶ 1:23:51 JA: No, I do not like it. I never actually identified ̶ 1:23:54 SM: Would you call the generation born between (19)46, there might be a better term, whether we call the Vietnam generation, the Woodstock generation, the protest generation, how would you? What would be the perfect term for it? If it is not the boomers? 1:24:09 JA: I like, I like to protest generation. That is cool. 1:24:13 SM: So that is good, because that is, that is one of the one I was mentioning. Could you give me I do not expect you to tell me everything about Chicago, but just in your own words, what it was like as a person to be there. 1:24:27 JA: It was empowering. 1:24:28 SM: Yeah, just for me. Yes. Tell me for just a couple minutes here, what it was like to be in Chicago in 1968. 1:24:37 JA: It was an enormously empowering experience. And it is what I remember running and I am talking now, but in the, being in the middle of the riots, because there was a lot of other things going on as well. But I remember being in the park after permits had been denied and we have we had come up with a strategy. If we are going to leave, we will leave the mark. But we will leave slowly turning around. And looking behind me and seeing giant light. In front of which were, you can see swirls of tear gas and a line of cops marching toward us with, it looks like bayonets or guns. And it turned out and just looking at that and saying to myself, wow, what are they doing to us, and just, you know, running through the park running through the tear gas. Yet, I do not remember feeling afraid I as I say, I remember feeling enormous power that somehow, we had just to exercise our, you know, we wanted to sleep in the park and protests just to do that the, that the powers that be and the daily machine felt it necessary to call out these enormous forces. And I remember running by seeing Alan Ginsberg. In the park he was sitting in, in the circle with his acolytes and his friends and they were coming. And I could start to smell the tear gas coming behind me. And I said to myself, he is not going to stay there very long. And lo and behold, very soon, Allen also was running through the park, so the police totally, and Mayor Daley, totally, absolutely overreacted to us. And really a cause the police riot that interfered that did not allow us to simply peacefully protest our opposition to the war and to the conventions. I think in some ways that sets the standard for police brutalizing protesters from then on. And so, so and then you know, what, what would happen is we would run through the park we get, we inhaled the tear gas, and then Stew and I would go home and watch yourself on TV and make love. It was a wonderful time. 1:27:01 SM: He, one of the, one of the things that I think people do not realize that it was the Festival of Light, which was the term that was used by the yippies. That really, the, the hippies were more responsible for getting the people there than SDS because was not ̶ there was something about SDS did not want to be there in the beginning or so- 1:27:20 JA: Oh yeah, a lot of the major organizations did not want to be there. SDS was one, the Motherfuckers, who were the street fighting group from New York City was another because they, they felt you know, and perhaps rightly, that, there would be a bloodbath. But we felt that it was important enough to demonstrate to the delegates, that the war has to stop, and that they should not elect a pro-war, a pro-war candidate that we would go no matter what. And also, you know, there was, I always felt, and I guess, what Stew would call a naive optimist, but I always felt that they would give in that they would see the rightness of our way, of our ways. So- 1:28:07 SM: How many people were there? Were students ̶ 1:28:10 JA: Between five and 15,000 at the most ̶ 1:28:13 SM: Because I have read reports there were like 50,000 people there. 1:28:18 JA: No, fifteen, we were predicting, you know, 500 to half a million. 1:28:28 SM: And then once you, once everybody was there, that is where the organization leaders met for planning like Tom Hayden and Randy Davis and Dave Dellinger and that group ̶ 1:28:39 JA: In the park? Well, there were all kinds of places people met in the park, they met in church basements, they met in the, the yippies would meet in the offices of the BB the underground newspaper, but most of the most of our time was actually spent in the park. 1:28:53 SM: And how did Stew get not, he was the unindicted What do you call it? 1:28:59 JA: Herder? Yeah. 1:28:59 SM: How come? How did he luck out? 1:29:03 JA: He was a journalist. They did not want to indict him because he always would say he was there reporting for the Barb which indeed he was. He always said by the way that I should have been indicted. 1:29:18 SM: Oh, really? Yeah. Actually, that might have been a sexist indictment because there were no females. 1:29:24 JA: If you look and see the other side, there are some women among the unindicted co-conspirators, but there is no women as either. 1:29:31 SM: Wow. Can you talk about your feelings when certain movement groups went violent? I know you have made some reference already to the SDS and the Weathermen and so forth. And you know, Gary Rubin in his book, “Do It,” which I read in during my graduate school summer. I always, I always liked that term, “do it,” because in my graduate test, we were always taught that people who stand up for their beliefs they have integrity because they know who they are. And they can take criticism. I remember I put Jerry Rubin in my master's thesis, because actually, you know, he could take it. He could stand up and he did it he could take it too. But how do you go from “do it,” which is basically making it happen to Malcolm's “by any means necessary,” which imply guns and violence. And I use these examples. We already talked about SDS to the weathermen. But the American Indian Movement was started out at Alcatraz ended up at Wounded Knee with violence, you get the Black Panthers with their guns. You have got some protesters on university campuses at Cornell with guns at (19)69, you had the Young Lords looked up to the Black Panthers in the Chicano movement, and they did the very same thing. And even in years later, and this has been critical within the gay and lesbian movement, the violence that took place in San Francisco in the 1970s after, or when, when Dan White got out of jail, I mean, there was massive violence. And some people are still paying the price from that. Just your thoughts on movements, and violence. 1:31:12 JA: You know, you have lumped together a lot of things that I do not need, think to be lumped together. For example, the case of the Panthers, the Panthers have been brutalized, folks in communities, other black communities have been brutalized by police for years, and years and years. And so, after a while, and I think Malcolm X, says this, and Frantz Fanon certainly is that they began to see themselves as a colonized people within the United States, and the only way to respond to being colonized is to adopt the violence of the oppressor. But you cannot take it out of the context of being oppressed. In the case of a Weatherman, you know, there have been marches and marches and demonstrations and marches and marches and demonstrations. And the war, the Vietnam War still went on there, let us be absolutely clear Weatherman, in its so-called violence, or what today might be called domestic terrorism never killed or targeted individual. Right, they blew up bathrooms, they blew up police stations, but they did not kill or target individuals. So, you have to when you talk about violence, you really ̶ I think have to define your terms and what you mean. And you also have to look at the context in which the reactive violence in terms of self-defense, which is the way it came, which is the way people were thinking, you have to look at the context and violence and, and, and resisting through self-defense as being very different than violence as a general overall category. I mean, here is an example. Right? The, the Tea Partiers are saying, Well, you know, we are going to resist, we are going to violently resist if we have to, the healthcare. Well excuse me, any violence that say Weathermen property damage, let us be clear, that Weathermen did was in response to children being napalmed and burned alive in Vietnam, the Tea Parties, the Tea Partiers are, are worried about children's getting with pre-existing conditions getting access to health care. I mean, you know, that is bizarre, that kind of violence is bizarre, I can understand people being driven to defend themselves in response to violence perpetrated against them. 1:33:50 SM: And so, this connection that we have been seeing, since President Obama ran for president, his friend, Bill Ayers, you know that he is a friend of a terrorist, that kind of, yeah. And I want, we all know, he is a great educator, anybody who is, who is aware of higher education, which I am and the ̶ Bill Ayer, I know how good he is and what he has written and, and how he was changed and a whole lot of other things. But, but still the, you see those generalizations out there? 1:34:21 JA: Right, well that is what I am talking about what I was talking about earlier about the power of the right to define the message, that is thirty years defining and refining their message and broadcasting it through talk radio and Fox News. So, they have an advantage and that is why people believe it. And even you know you, even if you read it filters, it filters into the mainstream, it filters into the New York Times. It filters into liberals and it sort of defines and rules the entire discourse for the right. 1:34:53 SM: When you look at the boomer generation as a whole and of course, 85 percent were probably not involved in any kind of activism, but I have always been on the belief that they were subconsciously affected by everything that happened. You could not be if you were alive and could not you have to be living in a cave someplace if you were not affected by someone, but it, could you give them strengths and weaknesses of the personalities that you knew of the people that were the boomer generation. Even if it means just those that were involved because someone was that told me I cannot define 78 million people. But ̶ 1:35:31 JA: Well exactly, you know, I absolutely agree with that comment. I think I noticed that one of your questions was “please with the quality admire least in boomers.” And I go back to something I said earlier was that the naked pursuit of greed, the ultra-individualism? I think that those that is the qualities that I think are part of the boomer generation, I do not however, attribute that to the (19)60s. Yeah, you know, I am just wondering, it is almost quarter to five and much longer we are going to be. 1:36:10 SM: Oh, that is right, I did not even look at the clock. fifteen more minutes. Is that okay? 1:36:14 JA: All right. You are wearing me out here. But okay. 1:36:17 SM: I am almost, I am not going to ask you those names of all those personalities. I am not going to ask that. So, I have been cutting that off quite a bit lately, because I like the other answers. What were you responding to, again? 1:36:33 JA: The negative qualities of ̶ 1:36:34 SM: Oh, yeah, there any ̶ 1:36:38 JA: And also, in the (19)70s, you know, you had a bunch of these self-help movements and the extremes there, there was an enormous amount of self-involvement. movements like EST and things like, Well, I think it is very good for people to discover things about themselves, and what motivates them, if you can get to be extraordinarily self-involved and lose a sense of altruism that I think is an important part of life and being a good person. 1:37:06 SM: You co-wrote the Sixties Papers, which I think it is a great book. And I had, I have had this for a long time I got a really, I have had it for over twenty years. But what was your goal with this book project? And what were the final conclusions? 1:37:25 JA: Yeah, I as I told you, I have a PhD in sociology. And at the time, I was in school, I was teaching I think it was at Mills College, I was taking courses on the (19)60s, there was no textbook, I wanted people to be able to read the original sources to, so they could get a sense of what things were like, were over. And that book did not exist. And so, we, Stew and I, we filled a niche by writing it. 1:37:53 SM: The other thing you wrote a book on the conspiracy trial, which I do not have was that about the Chicago Eight? 1:37:59 JA: what it was, what it was, I was, for a while the office manager at the conspiracy trial. And what it was is an edited version of the trial transcripts. So, it was actually almost it is almost the entire file transcript, probably is the entire trial transcript. And that is what it is. I mean, there were a number of books that came out that portions of it later, but this was this was this one was the entire trial transcript. 1:38:23 SM: What year did that come out? 1:38:26 JA: Okay, hold on. I will go take a look. I am sure it is out of print now. 1:38:32 SM: Right. Was this a big book that had a black cover on it with? Well then, I do have it. 1:38:50 JA: Well, there you go it was 1970. 1:38:52 SM: Yeah, I do have it then. Because I have so many books. Oh, what was the Open Seven? 1:38:58 JA: The Open Seven were, seven young men here in the Bay Area who were involved. I believe in this in this demonstration stuff, the draft week. And I you know; I have written about it. And I do not have it at the top of my brain at the moment. But I think that General Hershey was, they were sort of facing off against General Hershey. And they were trying to get they were trying to organize the national demonstration, national stuff, the draft week, but then it there was this more, it was just a very big demonstration here in Berkeley. And I believe that they were trying to stop group training from the demonstration was attacked by the Hells Angels. And there is a lot of fighting ̶ 1:39:44 SM: Yeah, because you have a view of a page on Steve Hamilton. 1:39:48 JA: Right. And so that and that would be where the Open Seven stuff would because he was one of them. 1:39:52 SM: Right. And he just recently passed away. What, I have three slogans here and I have asked this question to everybody. slogans that I think really symbolize the (19)60s and (19)70s, or the ̶ when boomers were young. Some people have mentioned one or two other ones and I mentioned those as well. The first one is, obviously Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary,” symbolizing a more radical approach may be a more violent approach depending on who you are talking to. The second one is the quote that from Bobby Kennedy, that was the Henry David Thoreau quote, “some men see things as they are an ask why I see things that never were and ask, why not,” which is really symbolizing the activist believing in justice, the against the war in Vietnam, that kind of an attitude. And the third one was more of a hippie kind of a mentality, which was the mentality of the Peter Max posters that came out in the early (19)70s. The slogan, “you do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful,” which was kind of a hippie mentality. And the fourth one that people have mentioned to me was the civil rights one, “we shall overcome.” Are there any quotes that you feel really are symbolic of the (19)60s and (19)70s that really are symbolic of the boomers when they were young? 1:41:17 JA: According to Eldridge, “you were either part of the solution or part of the problem.” There was, “hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” “Peace Now” was a very big deal. I think the famous hippie slogan was “rise up and abandon the creeping meatball.” Never really caught on. You know, the women's movement. I think “freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose” was very key, you know, from that from the Janis Joplin song was very key to our mentality. 1:41:59 SM: Yeah, and of course, the those are all great, though. None of those have come up before it all my interviews. And the other one was John Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” which was another important one, and then the “tune in, turn on, drop out” by Leary? When you think of ̶ 1:42:18 JA: Turn on, it is actually “turn on tune in, drop out.” 1:42:21 SM: Right. When you look, when you think of the pictures of that era, because pictures are supposed to say 1000, more than 1000 words. What are the pictures that come to your mind? If someone had not read any textbooks, and they are looking at books, if you were looking at, I would say the (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s, and (19)80s, the pictures that may have been on front covers of magazines or in books, newspapers. 1:42:46 JA: Well, I think you know, the one that is the most is the guy pointing a gun at the head of the Vietnamese and shooting him. And then, and the napalm young naked Vietnamese. Girl running? Those are two that really stick in my mind. Certainly, the pictures of Chicago, or you know, the, the police beating people in the dark. 1:43:21 SM: There is the picture of the three athletes to the (19)68 Olympics too which was a big one. 1:43:27 JA: Now that yeah, that exact, that was certainly the whole bunch of the panda ̶ the picture of the Huey Newton poster with the bullet hole in the wall and the glass. 1:43:41 SM: There was the poster of him that said, “Free Huey,” I remember that one. 1:43:45 JA: He was sitting in the, actually Huey was suppose sitting in a chair. One of those wicker chairs. 1:43:55 SM: The other one was ̶ 1:43:56 JA: There is a great picture of Stew and Jerry with the pig in front of the Chicago statue in in Chicago that you know, I do not it is probably not that well known but pretty iconic to me ̶ 1:44:07 SM: Is that on a magazine? 1:44:10 JA: It is an Avedon. It is a Richard Avedon picture. 1:44:12 SM: Oh, wow. I did not see the ̶ 1:44:14 JA: There is a Richard Avedon book, there is book called The Sixties, a big art book and you should look at that. And also, there is all the Emory, Emory Douglass’ cartoon from the Panther paper and Emory has a book out of cartoons or you know, another art book size books and there is a ton in there, you know, his cartoons of pigs with flies flying around them. 1:44:42 SM: Yeah, the other the other picture was the girl over the body at Kent State which is Mary Becky over Jeff Miller. Real quick question on the music. You know, Phil Ochs was very important. Paul mentioned something to me when I asked him what happened to Phil, he said he was in some sort of pain. He did not go in any detail. But he did say that Phil was a little sensitive that he did not become as big as Bob Dylan or, he did not become, you know, Was there some sort of sensitivity there? 1:45:15 JA: Yeah, Phil always felt that, you know if Dylan had not been around, Phil would have been at the top of the top. 1:45:22 SM: Of all the musicians that the yippies really, I am talking about the yippies now, you and Stew and and your peers, what were the musicians that you most admired. Music that you like the best that especially the ones that had the greatest words to their music. 1:45:39 JA: I would say Dylan, Dylan and Phil were definitely there. There, Cohen was there. Joan Baez was there. Carole King was there, Janis of course. The Stones, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater, 1:45:58 SM: Right. When you think when the, the best books are written on the boomer generation, (19)60s, they got to talk about the (19)60s and (19)70s. What do you think historians and sociologists will say? Well, what are they going to write about this period when the last Boomer has passed away? 1:46:21 JA: Well, you know, you have that question on, you know, the big questions that you sent me and I looked at and I thought about it, and I said, you know, I am not a prophet. I cannot predict the future. I do not really know. I know what I would like them to say, but I, who knows what they actually will say so I think I am going to decline to answer that question. 1:46:42 SM: Alright. Can you in your own words, because you have to see, have had met a lot of people in your life, a lot of major people, first impressions are usually lasting. Now I think when you first met Stew that was lasting was not it? I am just, you do not have to go into any length here. But what was your first feeling when you met these people for the first time? Allen Ginsburg? 1:47:13 JA: He ignored me because I was a woman. He was not interested. You cannot blame them. 1:47:20 SM: Yeah, Tom Hayden. 1:47:26 JA: Tom was a very warm, warm hearted Irishman who just did not get the yippies. 1:47:34 SM: Timothy Leary. 1:47:38 JA: He stank. 1:47:42 SM: How about Jack Weinberg and Mario Savio? 1:47:46 JA: Mario I did not meet until later he always seemed like a very sweet guy. And Jack is the same, both of them, you know, Mario is gone. But Jack is here. So, I you know, my first impression is they are sweet guys. But I did not meet them till the (19)80s or so. 1:47:59 SM: How about Jerry Rubin? 1:48:02 JA: Interesting, exciting. Terrible dresser. 1:48:06 SM: Abbie Hoffman. 1:48:07 JA: [inaudible] clothes. Performance, intense performance. Handsome, attractive, charismatic, Jerry was charismatic too. But Abbie had a certain kind of charisma about him. 1:48:22 SM: How about Paul Krasner? 1:48:29 JA: Sweet baby face. Smart ̶ 1:48:31 SM: Phil Ochs ̶ 1:48:33 JA: Kind of sad. Kind of sad. 1:48:37 SM: William Kunstler. 1:48:40 JA: Bill was, Bill was terrific. Very flamboyant, very smart. The first time I met him he came down to the cellar at Liberty house and tried to evict us but then he changed his mind and we all smoked dope together. I got to know Bill really well. Also, handsome. Very handsome, man. 1:48:57 SM: Rennie Davis? 1:49:00 JA: Intense and intense, dedicated. And having that kind of old American, what is the word? I am, very old American. I will leave it as that. 1:49:23 SM: How about Bobby Seale? 1:49:25 JA: Funny. Charismatic, warm and with the ability to talk. I mean, if he is, if it been today, he would be a rapper. 1:49:39 SM: Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver. 1:49:41 JA: Eldridge was smart. Very intense. I am writing stuff about Eldridge and it will be on my website in a while. But he was smart, very intense, very persuasive. And with a very kooky kind of sense of humor. Kathleen was absolutely gorgeous like, looked like a model also extremely smart. And very also with a really kooky sense of humor and a nice belly laugh. 1:50:15 SM: I am actually interviewing her in the summer. She is finished. She is writing her book. She said the end of, mid-summer, she has done with her book. But so did you meet John Lennon because I know Stew did. 1:50:26 JA: No, I never did. I was doing something else at the time. 1:50:29 SM: Benjamin Spock. 1:50:32 JA: Never met him. 1:50:33 SM: Bergen brothers. 1:50:34 JA: Never met them. 1:50:35 SM: Howard Zinn. 1:50:36 JA: Never met him. 1:50:37 SM: Dave Dowager. 1:50:39 JA: Dave was a much beloved, kindly person who was very committed to his passive nonviolent civil disobedience. 1:50:50 SM: How about Malcolm Boyd? 1:50:52 JA: Never met him. 1:50:53 SM: Harvey Milk. 1:50:55 JA: Never met him. 1:50:56 SM: Jane Fonda. 1:50:57 JA: I like Jane, Jane was, you know, she was not your usual Hollywood type of person. She really was committed to the things that she believed in was willing to move ahead on them. 1:51:11 SM: I think it is Peter Coyote. 1:51:14 JA: Ah, I do not know. I mean, he was more, by the time I met him, he was more into the Hollywood superstar thing. 1:51:26 SM: Angela Davis. 1:51:30 JA: I do not know that I ever met her. She at one point. Kathleen was visiting my house in Toronto, Canada and FBI being racist, confused Angela with Kathleen. Kathleen with Angela. But I do not think I actually ever met her. 1:51:52 SM: And I only got two more questions, and I am done here. What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you? And what kind of impact did Kent State and Jackson State have on you? 1:52:05 JA: Well, the Vietnam Memorial, I think was, I believe now I did not at the time when I visited. But now that Stew’s dead I have a much better and more heartfelt understanding of why it is important to have a living memorial that we can go and actually commune with the dead person. I did not understand that, you know, I had not had experience with death. I did not understand that at the time it was still, and at the time that I visited, but I certainly do now. So, what it means to me is that it is a place where you can go and visit your ghost, you know, and the ghosts are always with you. And you need to have a place to be able to go and, and visit with them. And what was the second? 1:52:52 SM: Kent State, what did the Kent State and Jackson State killings in 1970. What ̶ 1:53:00 JA: I remember being on television, being interviewed on TV show shortly after Kent State. And it was that was occurred shortly after I had come back from Vietnam. And I remember saying to the audience, something to the effect of the Vietnamese people are very sorry for your loss and extend their sympathies to you. And that was kind of a shock. I say to everyone, but it is true. The Vietnamese people, the people that I met anyway, were very sad. When anyone got killed as a result of the war 1:53:45 SM: Where were you when John Kennedy was killed? You remember? 1:53:49 JA: I was married to my first husband living on the top floor of a house in Toronto. 1:53:57 SM: Were you watching TV or ̶ 1:53:59 JA: We did not have a TV. I heard it on the radio. 1:54:02 SM: And how about where were you when you heard Martin Luther King was killed. 1:54:07 JA: Well, I do not know. I do not remember where I was when I heard he was killed. But I do remember that that evening Eldridge and Stew and I spent that evening together. 1:54:20 SM: Oh, you were with Eldridge. Oh, wow. 1:54:23 JA: I think Eldridge needed to hide out because there were all kinds of everything was going up in flames. And he did not know he was on parole, and he did not want to be in a position where he was caught, of course like six days later, or he was caught with Bobby so it was irrelevant but- 1:54:39 SM: Yeah, Bobby Kennedy gave that unbelievable speech in Indianapolis that night. Of course, then he died two months later. So, I am going to end like, I, I was talking to you about the people when you met them for the first-time people that you liked, I just like your thoughts on the personalities that I think you dislike. This is just my feeling. Just your thoughts on these few people here. Ronald does not have to be any length at all here, just real gut level reaction. Ronald Reagan 1:55:11 JA: Hated him. 1:55:12 SM: Ed Meese. 1:55:14 JA: Was not really, you know, until, until Watergate, until Nixon. He was not really a figure but it I hated him too. When it became obvious as to who he was, I am sure, by the way, they both hated us. Us being the movement. 1:55:34 JA: Richard Nixon. 1:55:36 JA: Please. 1:55:37 SM: That is all I have to ̶ okay. And Spiro Agnew. 1:55:40 JA: Please. 1:55:41 SM: LBJ. 1:55:43 JA: “Hey, how many kids that you kill LBJ,” although, I have to say that LBJ, I am now as a recipient of Medicare, I have to admit to conflicted feelings about LBJ. He did some good stuff. 1:55:57 SM: Hubert Humphrey. 1:56:00 JA: You know, the slogan there was “dump the hump.” I mean he ̶ we knew that he was going to continue the war and so therefore I did not, I dislike him immensely. 1:56:11 SM: George Bush is the first and George Bush the second. 1:56:14 JA: These people are, continue in the tradition of sending Americans to die in unjust and unnecessary wars and for that I believe they are despicable, as a matter of fact all these people go on my despicable list. 1:56:31 SM: Yeah, Dwight Eisenhower, is he on it? 1:56:35 JA: Well, you know, it is funny, I once was visiting somewhere in Denmark and he was there and or maybe he was there and he was sort of visiting the same castle together so I always have had had a slight bit of more of a positive feeling and also for really, for his identification of the military industrial complex as something to be concerned about. 1:56:58 SM: John Mitchell. 1:57:00 JA: Oh, terrible man. terrible man. 1:57:03 SM: J. Edgar Hoover. 1:57:08 JA: J. Edgar Hoover was personally responsible for harassing and surveilling me and Stew, and all of our contemporaries, for setting up potential concentration camps to put us in. And for you know, killing the Rosenberg, for setting up Mayor Daley to believe the yippie exaggerations. So, the man was evil. I would say J. Edgar Hoover was evil. 1:57:39 SM: Did you feel there was a, because I know COINTELPRO was really big back then, of course, they were really going through the American Indian Movement. And certainly, the Black Panthers and SDS and Mobe. And they were, what is it about? Is, do you fear that that is ongoing today? 1:58:00 JA: Well, you know, the FBI, under COINTELPRO put a homing device on my car, burglarized our house and the cabin eight times and then installed a listening device for seventeen days. These were all illegal, the fiscal responsible, the one on the top being L. Patrick Gray, where I would say removed from office and disciplined although they were never jailed or anything like that, everything that the FBI did to us, and I have piles of surveillance files on everything that the FBI did to us. The homing device, the burglaries, the listening device, are now entirely legal under FISA and the Patriot Act. 1:58:44 SM: Well and you can go down and get your files anytime you want to cannot you in Washington or? 1:58:47 JA: We did that actually, when we, when I found the homing device. We sued the FBI and we got tons of files there now on repository at the lab data collection at the University of Michigan. 1:59:01 SM: Wow. Someone said I ought to get my file. I never even looked. Mayor John Daley 1:59:08 JA: You mean Richard Daley? 1:59:09 SM: I mean, Richard Daley, excuse me. 1:59:10 JA: The argument he gave me in the sun. I mean, well, Richard Daley was a racist, an anti-Semite. And he allowed himself to be essentially wired by Hoover, so that he would overreact to us. Daley, I do believe if Daley had granted us permit a lot of violence to sleep in the park. A lot of the violence in Chicago would have been avoided. Instead, he adopted the most aggressive stance that he could and just gave his police force free reign to beat demonstrators. 1:59:51 SM: I will never forget the senator that was calling him a Gestapo head. Well ̶ 1:59:55 JA: And then you know what Daley, you know, and you know what Daley said back? 1:59:59 SM: No, I do not know what he said. 2:00:01 JA: Something like you Jew bastard son of a bitch. 2:00:04 SM: Yeah, I forget the senators name from Connecticut, I think. Robert McNamara. 2:00:10 JA: You know where you can find it in my book the Conspiracy Trial because it was brought out in the trial. 2:00:13 SM: Robert McNamara. 2:00:17 JA: Hated him because of the war. 2:00:19 SM: Henry Kissinger. 2:00:20 JA: That is the same. 2:00:21 SM: Haldeman and Ehrlichman. 2:00:24 JA: They got what they deserved. 2:00:26 SM: Governor Nelson Rockefeller because he oversaw Attica. 2:00:30 JA: Yeah, well, he was the murder of murderer as well. 2:00:33 SM: Barry Goldwater. 2:00:36 JA: Well, you know, Barry Goldwater’s a little interesting because he was pro-choice. And he actually hosted events for Planned Parenthood at his home. So, there is a little ambivalence. 2:00:50 SM: And William Buckley. 2:00:53 JA: William Buckley, you know, was an articulate right wing, son of a bitch. 2:00:59 SM: And I did not ask you your thoughts on the women's movement, which was certainly Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, your thoughts on those leaders in the early years? 2:01:11 JA: Well, some of that, you know, if you look in the Sixties Papers, we wrote about that in the introduction, the women's movement, segments of the Sixties Papers, but, you know, they came along, they were more the mainstream women's movements. And what I grew up in and my contemporaries was women's liberation, which is more radical. And our view essentially was, if black people can have a liberation movement, and the Vietnamese can have a liberation movement, and Chicanos can have a liberation movement, then we too, as women, we are oppressed, and we also can be liberated. I was glad that the Steinem’s and the Friedan’s of the world, were able to take these concepts and make them more mainstream, so more and more women benefited. At the time, we were critical because we felt that they were the middle of the road. 2:02:02 SM: I just realized that Betty Friedan brings, the people in the gay and lesbian movement just cannot stand her because she was homophobic. So, and that is a real sensitive issue when you bring up her name. I am going to end right now, except I want, I had, I did not ask the final question here, which is what have you been doing all these past years? I know you are involved in Planned Parenthood, what causes have you have been involved in since the yippies. 2:02:29 JA: I would say the Planned Parenthood, I worked for Planned Parenthood for over twenty years as a fundraiser. And so, the causes that I have been primarily involved in has been choice and reproductive rights. And I actually raised have raised millions of dollars for those causes, and I am very proud of that. I consider that a very important life achievement. I also for a number of years, was involved in two states solution in Israel and ending the Israeli occupation, and I am currently living in the cohousing community and I am very much involved in cohousing and people living in community with the intention of building community. It is a very different kind of lifestyles than I have lived before but certainly is way, way better than the way most people live in isolated nuclear families. We do have a community, we support each other, we care for each other. And it is very, cohousing is a very wonderful institution that I have only just in the last few years become aware of. 2:03:39 SM: Is your new husband as active as your former husband? 2:03:44 JA: Well, he was involved in founding this cohousing community. And what he does as a living, he is a financial planner for socially responsible investing. So, what that means is essentially he is part of the movement to look at corporations and make them more responsible to environmental concerns, to women's concern, to the consumer, to, to the concerns that any progressive person would support. 2:04:14 SM: Where did you get your PhD? 2:04:16 JA: University of Toronto. 2:04:20 SM: I am done. Are there any questions? I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask. 2:04:24 JA: No. But you wiped me out. 2:04:29 SM: I tell you, what an honor to, to interview you. And I will keep you abreast of all the, the transcripts when they become available. You will see it. 2:04:38 JA: Well please do. I would appreciate transcripts. I would also actually appreciate a copy of the tape of the interview. 2:04:44 SM: Oh, you want a copy of that too? Very good. Well, okay, well, we will be in touch and as far as getting some pictures of you. I do not need them right now but sometime during the summer I would like a couple pictures. 2:04:59 JA: Well, well. I would like to say and pick anything you want from the website. And there is one of me that is supposed to come on my email. I do not know if it does, but it is on my Facebook page. 2:05:08 SM: Okay, anybody, have anybody, got a whole list of names that Paul gave me to try to interview. So, if you think of any other names, let me know, because ̶ 2:05:18 JA: You know, I mean, I, I too have a whole list of names. So, you know, if you are looking for what I suggest is if you are looking for people of a certain type, you know, you need a person who can do this and you need a person who can do that, shoot me an email and I will ̶ 2:05:31 SM: I would like more female speakers. That is what I like, more women. 2:05:41 JA: Yeah, well, I am not sure I, you know, I like to say my brain is fried by now. But if I think of any I will, I will let you know. 2:05:49 SM: Alright. Well, thank you very much. You have a great day. 2:05:51 JA: Yeah, you too. Take care. 2:05:53 SM: Yep. Bye now. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Albert, Judith Clavir, 1943- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Political activists--United States; Albert, Judith Clavir, 1943--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert is a Canadian-born activist who was associated with many organizations such as the Yippies, Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, and The Women's Liberation Movement. She married Stew Albert, a political activist, who was a founder of the Yippies. Dr. Gumbo Albert has a Ph.D. in Sociology. 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 2010-04-13 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.10.2016.34a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.34b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 125:57 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1253bd9a4899545841efd5b0aecf643e.jpg d95cfea19488fda41725b712e0e96211 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/0d6122397365ba1599a944e1214ea348.mp3 e7080e4ba5e91da83fa8987cb544fa66 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-10-15 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Alexander W. Astin Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Alexander Astin is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Higher Education and Organizational Change, at the University of California, Los Angeles and the founding director for the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. Dr. Austin has authored 23 books and has been a recipient of awards for his outstanding research. In addition, he was apart of the National Academy of Education.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:8403713,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:4995385},&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11,&quot;26&quot;:400}">Dr. Alexander Astin is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Higher Education and Organizational Change, at the University of California, Los Angeles and the founding director for the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. Dr. Austin has authored 23 books and has been a recipient of awards for his outstanding research. In addition, he was a part of the National Academy of Education.</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;Psychology; Gettysburg College; Television; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; Women's Movement; Environmental Movement; Chicano Movement; Jimmy Carter; Activist; Millenials; Political correctness&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:2,&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13689059}}">Psychology; Gettysburg College; Television; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; Women's Movement; Environmental Movement; Chicano Movement; Jimmy Carter; Activist; Millenials; Political correctness</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 96:20 Subject LCSH College teachers; Authors; Astin, Alexander W.--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Alexander Astin Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 15 October 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:03 SM: A question that I have been asking everyone that I have been interviewing in the process. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your early influences? How did you become who you are? Maybe the people that inspired you as a high school or college student, and how you chose kind of higher education, [inaudible] particular emphasis on studying students and working with them as a career. 0:33 AA: Well, a lot of it was fortuitous I have to say, I guess that I guess not-not a typical answer. I was originally very interested in music and majored in Music in college. But my, my parents represented what I liked to call the-the snows, two cultures family. My father was a physicist, and my mother was into the art, writing and theater and that kind of thing. And so, I was influenced, pretty equally by both of them. I initially wanted to go into music as a, as a career, but I got very interested in Psychology, as well during college and so quite I guess, serendipitously, I decided to go to grad school in my college route. Music, I had minor- 1:45 SM: You are fading away. 1:49 AA: Hang on a sec, let me, let me put my speakerphone on here. And this phone may run out of juice on the speaker, but I have got another phone I can- 2:02 SM: Okay. 2:03 AA: I run out of juice. But anyway, so I, when I graduated college, I decided not to pursue Music as a career and instead went to graduate school in Psychology. Very scientific Psychology, of experimentation and measurement, that kind of thing. Not-not necessarily, Clinical Psychology. Although my first job when I got out of graduate school is I had to do two years in the service. So, I was commissioned as a Clinical Psychologist, US public health service, relief Medical Corps for the Coast Guard. And other than wearing a uniform though, was a relatively painless two years, I did work as a Clinical Psychologist in a federal penitentiary. But I, while I was there, I was doing a lot of research, I was always applying for [inaudible] so pretty much stuck with that the rest of my professional career. 0:3:38 SM: Were there any people that really inspire, were there teachers- were there? Someone out there in the world that, wow, that person really impressed me and inspires me. 03:54 AA: Well, I think certainly in high school, there were, there was a music teacher that was very much a mentor for me, and I was inclined for having a good time partying, not taking school very seriously. And it was- I thought to at least to stay reasonably clean and take me under her wing, and I did have a lot of musical talent. She tried to cultivate that. But so, she was very important influence and really, in college, nobody in particular. Our choir director was very supportive, but it was not until I got into graduate school, and I did a-an internship at a Veterans Hospital that I met I say one of my first major mentor in psychology, that was a psychologist named John Holland, who was [inaudible] but sort of developed a reputation in the field of interest measurement, career development- 5:29 SM: You went to Gettysburg College, which is not far from where I live. 05:34 AA: Where do you live? 5:34 SM: I live in West Chester, Pennsylvania, just outside Philly. I go to Gettysburg four times a year to the battlefield right I know that college really well, in fact, when I worked at West Chester, we took a group of students over there, we had a leadership on the road, we met the president. He has since retired, but very nice college was very good students and what was it like going to college there? Obviously, you went in the (19)50s. 6:02 AA: At the time I went, it was still very firmly connected to the Lutheran Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church. And I was not a religious child. Although I was very interested in religion, study to attend as many different types of religious services. But I was not a member of particular faith. I went there because of their choir, they have a world class, choir, and I was arranging choral. 6:24 SM: What were or are your views of the students who were in college in the late (19)60s and (19)70s? Yeah, in the following areas, and I will just list these and then you can just comment overall. 6:57 AA: Is it just the late (19)60s and early (19)70s? 6:59 SM: Uh, yeah, I would say from (19)65 till about the late (19)70s. Because when you talk about the boomer generation, they were those born between 1946 and 1964. But by the time they were going to college, it was around 1965 that they started college. So, I am really looking at, you know, that frontline boomers that were in college say from (19)65 to (19)75. And then you had the late-stage Boomers who were (19)75 to (19)83. But I would like your views on the students, the Boomers in these areas, just your thoughts. And I will list them. They, what, where were they with respect to their willingness to challenge faculty and interacting in class, their knowledge of history, keeping up with the news, caring about the social issues, as opposed to having fun events would seem to be very much what the (19)50s were all about with Panty raids, and all that other stuff, awareness of their world, and sensitivity toward people of different colors. How do they differ from the students that were, that preceded them? The students in the (19)50s and late (19)40s, and then the students that came after in 1983? Just your observations? 08:22 AA: Yeah, well, I guess I was a member of the preceding generation, the boomers came after I finished college. But I think the thing to remember about the boomers, and I have given this some thought, since we originally thought since we originally talked s, and I and I, it is impossible to overestimate the effects of elements. And what you see in the boomers, in many respects, the things that the ways in which they differed from previous generations. Many of these things, I think, are the result of television. And the boomers span the period from no exposure, basically, to full immersion in television, if you base it on stuff like the number of homes that had television sets ore the number of homes that have colored television sets, or whatever you want to measure it. They, if you lag it back to when these Boomers were at the most sensitive age in terms of being influenced by that kind of media, say around the age of five or six, then the early Boomers had very little exposure to television, and the late Boomers were fully exposed. And the effects of that, I think, show up clearly, in the data that we collected on the new college freshmen beginning in the in 1966. With the freshmen entering college, that year and they, they would have been born in (19)48, (19)47, (19)48. And the ones who kind of brought up the tail end, which would have been the late (19)70s freshmen entering late (19)70s, the most dramatic changes imaginable occurred in between early and late bloomers in just about every respect. You are really, if you take-take that span of years, you are talking about dramatic changes in the character, values, aspirations, etc., of 18-year-olds. And so, you know, to rump the Boomers into one category, it really kind of masks a lot of that does know these changes were in we have documented them in a number of publications, and so forth. But I do not think we will ever see anything like that, again, that massive change in the really in the population, country and the Boomers were just simply reflecting that because they were the ones, I think who were most influenced by television. 12:28 SM: Yeah, you know the Boomers in my interviews, it has come up over and over again, that people have problems with lumping people in the generation because within a generation, there is so much difference. And for example, those born after the war (19)46 to say (19)56. And the experiences of those born say from (19)57 to (19)64 is totally different. Because those later Boomers were not involved in the antiwar movement. They were they heard about it, they were the young brothers and sisters of the front runners. And so, the experiences are somewhat different. And which is I have had this theory, and I have been asking a lot of my interviewees this question, that what is amazing about the Boomer generation is that you, you have what I consider three criteria that really symbolize what they stood for as elementary school kids, that period between (19)46 and (19)60, when President Kennedy came in, and I liked your thoughts on this, I looked at them and then then you also ask yourself, Well, how did they become so you know, how have they changed so differently in the (19)60s, and the three areas are, number one, the quality of being very quiet. Number two, the quality of fear. And the third one being very naive, which is the case with most young people when they are growing up in elementary school, but the fear centers, you know, the threat of nuclear annihilation, the McCarthy hearings, the fear of speaking up, if you speak up and you were labeled a communist or it was really frowned upon the organization man was what was okay in the (19)50s. And naive because when you saw that television, over and over and over again, you did not see people of color very often, you did not see a whole lot of women, except in roles where they played moms raising kids and stuff. You see him as independent people on the road making decisions. So, there is a lot of things happening here. And then obviously, when we get into the, you do not see a whole lot about the civil rights movement, and then all of a sudden you get to the (19)60s, and things just really change your thoughts on those thoughts about those three qualities in the Boomer generation when they were very young. 15:13 AA: So, I, just to add another comment here about television again with is I think, I think what happened with television was that young people began to become more passive in their, in their recreation. And I think that remained this way ever since. And but most importantly was the message that television was purveying, which was a message of materialism. And not only in the commercial but also in the, in the program, a lot of a lot of the TV series, dialog exposed the world to material wealth, and so forth. And what we saw beginning in the late (19)60s and going on through the talking about 18-year-olds. And continuing through the early (19)80s, there was a dramatic increase in materialism. So, in a sense, the commercial message of television was having was having its intended effect, we were breeding a new generation of people who believe that material wealth was the ultimate goal in life. And whatever form it might take, in the academic, having lots of thoughts, acquiring lots of possession and so forth, so on was, was a very high value. And we were also at the same time, however, running, breeding a generation, a new population, really, of citizens, who were not very reflective. They have done studies on what happens to five- and six-year-olds who watch a lot of television. And the certain circuits in the brain are actually bypassed compared to radios, where-where in listening to the radio, you are these areas of the brain are activated, because we use a lot of you participate in radio with a lot of visual imagery and imagination, and that kind of and, and they are one of the social critics [inaudible] has written several books about this. And his view is that young people are brain damaged today, that their brains are not fully developed, so that we have all the ADD and all this kind of stuff. So, the evidence for the advent of this change in our young people is shown in the Boomers from the early to the late. All of these changes, as each new-new generation a new class, as you will of Boomers, has been more exposed to television as watch more of it. So on to the point where it became saturated, and at which point, all young people were being exposed. And what is interesting is the materialistic values that peaked out in the (19)80 have plateaued in a sense, which you would expect because the degree of exposure has remained high. So that basically the-the Boomers are the guinea pigs for this social experiment of television. They document the effects of this medium on-on our values and attitudes, this sort of thing. Now that there are some confounding factors here and you mentioned some of them, one of them is civil rights movements. So, the early Boomers, I think we were very socially conscious, very, very much more aware of some of these issues than I think the late Boomers were to tell you the truth. And they, they had experienced the Jim Crow bout, and the racist tendencies of the north and the West. And they had to confront that even-even the late Boomers really did not have much exposure to the Jim Crow world. The early ones did, and I think that is why they got so exercised about racial issues. And why civil rights movement really had a lot of white input in the early days, because a lot of thinking, young people suddenly became aware of the growth in equity that they had been exposed to growing up, and that they had taken for granted growing up. And so that began to crack. The early Boomers and so there was a lot of energy, a lot of idealism, a lot of engagement. And I think the antiwar movement was really just the perpetuation of that. The antiwar movement came a little later. But buried in all of this civil rights movement, the antiwar movement was American sexism. You know the- In the antiwar movement, the men provided all the leadership and the women provided sex, or painted signs, or whatever, but they were not really invited into positions of leadership and sharing of power in the, in the civil rights movement, and in the student protests. And so, the woman's movement became a- I think, a-a-an- that, and that really emerged in the late (19)60s that became a competing force for student activism. In fact, a lot of the energy out of the antiwar movement, a lot of it, and on and, and but the Boomers span, all three movements, kind of a tail end of the Civil Rights Movement, which really began in early (19)60s. And is to the kind of culmination of a woman's movement in the city, and in the (19)80s. Now, what, what you’ve got there, are that women were so profoundly influenced by the woman’s movement. And this shows up in the late Boomers. So profoundly influenced that the net result of this was that women and men today, because of this, much more alike than they were at the beginning of the early Boomer day. Basically, feminism effectively come become more right because the women have become much more like the men. Men have changed some, but nowhere near as much as the women. And we have all this is all documented. It is amazing when you compare men and women entering college 18-year-old in the late (19)60s, with their counterparts in years later. It is just a profound change. Even a change in politics. The men used to be to the left of the women, and they have traded places. women now a way to the left of the men. And that is true nationally, not just with college students and women's movements was I think, an impetus for that political change. 25:24 SM: Where would you play saw these other movements that also evolved around in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. We all know that the gay lesbian bisexual movement was strengthened because of Stonewall in 1969. Then you had the Native American Movement, the American Indian Movement, which was in the took over Alcatraz, and of course, it ended sadly, in 1973. At Wounded Knee, you have Earth Day in 1970, really setting in motion the well, the environmental movement as a whole of course, I interviewed Gaylord Nelson many years back and he said they respected the antiwar movement so much that they met with them before they made the decision to have this protest with respect to the importance of understanding the importance of teaching, and then of course, you have also got the Chicano movement, then you have the Young Lords that follow the [inaudible] the Black Panthers, and you have you have all these groups of black power, all these things are happening in the late (19)60s going into the (19)70s. Is that all part of what was going on with the women's movement? 26:36 AA: So, I, the women's movement was very much of sisterhood. [inaudible] And what is interesting now is that this is a short memory we have in this country, the feminists today or the or the, you know, leading women, thinkers and theorists so forth have really forgotten. They I mean, they and women in general today take for granted the-the status of women today, as if it has always been this way. There is no question in my mind that, that is, by far, the biggest social change in our country was brought by the woman’s movement. I think there is no question about it. And every aspect of life was affected by that family life, community life, the life of the individual woman, the life of the individual man, because now suddenly, men have women as, as peers as work [inaudible]. And in the fields that you see. Nearly exclusively men of engineering, law, medicine, and so forth. You know, we have not really had a men's movement yet. That amounted to much of anything, and we may never have one. But the women have certainly been emancipated slavery [inaudible]. 28:23 SM: Don’t you think some of the African American students today and people overall forget what it was like to be African American is? Back, I mean it is the same thing. It is like it has always been this way, kind of- 28:36 AA: Absolutely. 28:37 SM: And I know it has even been brought up in the gay and lesbian community with the people I have interviewed that, oh, it has always been this way. I mean, all the battles, but an extreme prejudice. 28:52 AA: I-I- My African American Graduate students, when I tell them my experience growing up in Jim Crow, Washington, DC, they cannot believe it. They think I am making it up. 29:04 SM: Wow. What, what are some of the distinctive characteristic characteristics you have seen in this group of 74 million? I will preface this, first, do you like the term the Boomer generation, do you like it? 29:19 AA: Not really, it is a rubric to refer to a particular group of people that came of age in a particular time, but I think it is. It does a lot of violence to reality. [chuckles] And as the sort of main reason is that the early Boomers were so wildly different from the late later one. And, you know, the pundits like to stereotype you know, were the Boomers, you know, the protesters of the (19)60s and (19)70s? And that is really, really not a very good description. 30:17 SM: Right, What? When you look at the generation, what do you think? Are their strengths and weaknesses? And, and what do they contribute to our society as a group that was not here before or after or during, before World War Two and the end of the war. 30:36 AA: Well, I think the certainly the idea that it is possible to have a bad war. And it is patriotic to protest about it. I think that was a tremendous contribution. Now, that value judgment I just made is not shared by everybody in the country, obviously. But you know, given the stakes involved in warfare, at all levels of it, human, the social and economic, the international, etc. The high stakes of any kind of a war would seem to me to be justify, in a democracy, some discussion and debate and dissent about the act of waiting for one thing, to have a defensive war, but to that have an offensive war where you initiate the hostility. It seems to me worthy of some discussion and debate and the Second World War [inaudible] against that, and there probably would have been a lot more of protesting about the Korean War than there was if it had not come so closely on the heels of World War Two. 32:25 SM: very good point. 32:26 AA: So, the Vietnam War. War are longer now that I think the young people did really pave the way in the draft factor I wax and wane on how important the draft was. The Senate failed with the whole reason I do not I do not really do not agree with that. In any case, that that was a, I think, a major contribution. Another one was language, the use of language, the, you know, the 30 words movement at Berkeley was one of the earliest ample this certainly seems to me, began the loosening up of our language, the freeing up of our language, and I think the use of the free or use of language has been a major contribution, that ability to be authentic and honest with each other. 33:54 SM: Good point. 33:55 AA: I think I think that, if you will forget that. You know, I remember my first trip to Europe as a young man, I had to smuggle a couple of Henry Milller books. And my wife smuggled Ulysses. That change in language is another major cont- I think providing the environment in which the woman's movement could take off was very important. In other words, with the atmosphere of questioning and protesting and with the atmosphere of equity and fairness came out of the civil rights movement and in the student protest movement. People forget that the biggest protest movements, by any measure is not civil rights was not the woman was not the antiwar movement. It was the student’s movement for students’ rights. 35:14 SM: Yes. 35:15 AA: That drew more participants, and there were more protests about student’s rights. So that was, again, an issue of fairness, of empowerment, that sort of thing. So that all of that activity provided an environment in which the woman's movements could really take off. And where it was that women felt comfortable, uh- 35:45 SM: Yeah, you know too, it is, to me, the people that I have talked to, and when I-I am in that front group, because (19)47 is when I was born. And I graduated from college in 1970. And I can remember as a young person, this feeling on college campuses, that we are the most unique generation in American history. And there was a feeling and just a feeling that the Boomers were going to make a statement call themselves Boomers either, but the generation and the (19)60 generation was going to make a big difference in the world by ending all the wars, racism, sexism, homophobia, saving the environment, making the world a better place to live. And now, I am always reflecting just like you are, when you when you reflect on the women's movement, did they? Did they make this world a better place to live? Second, was this just the liberal wing of a generation, the new left, as they always talk about and so-called liberals, and was the rise of the conservative neo cons and the new right. They also were there in the (19)60s and became really powerful in the late (19)70s. And they, they became involved due to the reaction to the movement, the civil rights movement, the antiwar, the environmental, the Native Americans, the women's, the gay and lesbian, they have been kind of reacting to it ever since the late (19)70s. So, I am saying a lot here, but [inaudible] what-what has been the overall impact? Or do they? Did they make a difference in the world by ending any of that stuff that I mentioned? 37:32 AA: Oh, they I think they made a tremendous difference. It is tremendous. I do not even think you can question the difference, because- you know, the thing is, is that the-the protests accomplish their objectives. That was really remarkable and-and they, and they have remained in force, ever since. Women were basically allowed to be like men; have the same power and privileges and opportunities as men, then African Americans, almost all the jury of discrimination was removed. In fact, that, to me, that took the gas out of the civil rights movement, because also, affirmative action became an established policy, in the workplace, in the academia, and everywhere, affirmative action was taken for granted. You know, it has been questioned and challenged the last 20 years, but basically, the same in business industry, they took it for granted. And they still do, but it is in their self-interest is to have representation from different racial groups. And so, it seems to me that that, you know, one of the profound changes, changes from the rights of women and the opportunities for women, the changes in our language, the changes in our in our racial relations and in racial- Now, you know, a lot of the cynics say oh well, you know, the situation for African Americans or some African Americans for large numbers, that is true, but that is in spite of the civil rights movement not because but the snake in the woodpile, if you will, is the materialism. I really, I really believe that is the hidden legacy of corporate takeover of our mind. And that is what television is. And we have become a more materialistic society, and we still are. But that is not something you blame the Boomers for something that happened to while the Boomers were growing up. And, and it shows up in their in their values. As a change from the early Boomers as I said. that materialism is still with us. It is what got Reagan elected. It is now going into the realm in political discourse, money, money, money. We have a political establishment, and a citizenry that’s willing to borrow and spend instead of taxing and spending. Because the, the, the appeal of no taxes or low taxes, is the selfish appeal. An appeal to our selfish. The Kennedys, the 1961 inauguration speech would not fly today. But he made that speech in a very different value climate then today's value climate and the Reagan era, for me was just simply a consequence of this change in value. Not-not, not a cause of it. It- of course, reinforced it, but-but you can see these value changes year by year by year leading up to 1980. And it was pretty clear that something was going to happen politically. 42:17 SM: So, when people say that when they talk about the Boomer generation, and they talk about the new left and-and all the groups involved in the movements that the conservative students and the conservatives were kind of never talked about, even though they were probably some say maybe even larger number than those that were main movement protests and so forth. I have had this in some of my interviews that the conservatives have been excluded when you talk about the Boomer generation and-and then of course, there is there was a national, I think Student Association, there was William Buckley's group that met and then of course, the rise your you mentioned the rise of Ronald Reagan, but it kind of started with Barry Goldwater in (19)64. And those ideas really came to fruition, the late (19)70s. That and that is why we see today, the neo cons and the conservatives and their attacks on the (19)60s. And that generation as a breakup of our society, were the conservative students of that era, which some say were more were larger in number than the new left and the liberal students and students of color. 43:34 AA: No-no, now we have now we have done surveys of that, that is a myth that is- the peak time for the left politically, in terms of political identification was in the early (19)70s. When you had the left outnumbering the right, by better than three to one, we would have never seen anything like that since. As far as defining concomitantly with the materialist because let’s face it, the left does not make a very good appeal to your individual read, right? That is not something that the left is very good at. And-and the right, of course, is all about that. And so that, that helps to account for the fact that now the left barely outnumbers the right. And it has been that way for twenty years. That the left-right balances, are pretty much even lean, tilts slightly left. And it always has, but it is- of course if you break it down by gender, the women are still significantly and then the men significantly right today, and that has been that way for- 45:23 SM: In your view what? You have made reference to several of them already materialism. But in your view, what were the main issues of Boomer generation before they reach the age of 30? And-and I asked the same question, again, what has been the main issues of this generation after the age of 30? Since the oldest are now 64? And the youngest are 49. 45:46 AA: I am not sure that-that the issues are any different for the Boomers today than they are for other people today, you know, younger people today. I do not. I do not, I think it is difficult to single out something called the Boomers in contemporary times, as really being very different from anybody else. We have all been sort of swamped by technology and by materialism and by knowledge, distribution of wealth and that has impacted all of us. I do not know. 46:42 SM: How about before the age of 30? 47:43 AA: Well before the age of 30? Certainly, I think there was, there was a legacy of the days of activism of the days of hope, for humanity, that we-we have power to make things better. I think the, you know, Jimmy Carter was a big disappointment to a lot of the Boomers. He was seen as too timid and, in a way, we were sort of seeing the same things today with Obama, I think people are seeing him as too timid, to willing compromise, who willing to sort of cave in to pressure his enemies. And I think that Carter was the same, although the whole Carter thing was so confounded by the- Iranian contraband, you know, that rumble in the desert has been-been successful. Our perception of Jimmy Carter might be entirely different. And Reagan may never have been elected. Oh, yeah, you have that little military adventure in the desert was the- such a damaging thing that Carter's image and he had nothing to do with it. Bad weather. So, you know, I but I, he was, I think, seen as timid and as a disappointment and not having the courage of [inaudible] and by the, and then Reagan pu-put sort of finality to it, that was the [inaudible] for boomers and [inaudible] and then become as popular as he did further disillusion at least to the Boomers on the left. 49:09 SM: One person told me that when they think of the Boomer generation, they think of white men and women, and they had not, they never thought of even thinking of African Americans and people of different orientation. I have only had a few people say that, but people were upfront about it saying, this is not just about white men and women. So, have you heard that before? 49:38 AA: No but I-I do think that there is a tendency for-for white people, at least, in probably maybe people of color as well to think of Boomers as white. I think that-that is what comes to mind. 50:01 SM: What? What is your- I have gotten a lot of questions here. What is your reaction to conservative thinkers who say most of the problems that Americans did to society today are due to the generation that came of age in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s? And I am referring to the drug culture, the sexual freedom, no respect for authority, lawlessness, center, a sense of no moral character or break up the American family, the idea of the welfare state, the rise of special interests, the ugly dressing and clothes that they used to wear rock and roll culture, linked to drugs, that they mocked the IBM mentality of their parents in the (19)50s. And, you know, when I say, you have heard this before, I know that Newt Gingrich, when he came to power (19)94 made commentaries and he is a Boomer. And George Well, over the years has always had articles in his books, shooting at this generation, and of course, you see it today on Fox with Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee, and even Senator McCain made comments about Hillary Clinton, they are close friends, but made kind of derogatory comments during the campaign a couple years back. So just your thoughts on that? 51:31 AA: Well, it is sort of a revenge thing going on here. I mean, I think that all the attention that the that the activists got during the Boomers, the advent, aggravating people who did not agree with the civil rights movement, or the women's movement or the antiwar movement, or any of that. 51:51 SM: Please speak up to. 51:54 AA: Well, Yeah, I was just going to say that. But there was a lot of attention and a plane that flowed on Boomers on the left, and they did outnumber those on the Right. I think. So, it is important to realize that the psychology of the right, I think, I think, but the psychology of the right is a fear of losing control. It is all about control. And so, now, the right feels better having a big army having a tough belief, tough laws, tough courts, tough judges, you know, we got to maintain control, because we are all flawed center. And so, we need a song, ironically, a strong authoritarian government to keep people under control. And that is a-that is a big part of the psychology of people on the right. And I think, I think they saw the (19)60s and (19)70s as a time of loss of control. people got out of control, so it was very threatening. And so, you know, it is-it is the paradox. Me arguing that we have, you know, the government to say, we got to cut it down, but also to be advocating, this has always been the, the, the contradiction of right wing thought is that, there is theoretical claims of freedom and, and what that really means is freedom to make as much money as you want, and are able to at anybody else's expense is what that really means, which was very narrowly limited to the economic sphere. Right? Because the control is all pervasive on sex life on what you put in your body, so forth. And, and I think that is-that is what we are seeing is just the manifestation of that that dynamic. I think that is why the alliance was the religious right as the and the political right. It is really a pretty new thing. You know it did not exist during the Boomer’s pay day. 54:53 SM: Right. 54:53 AA: That is a relatively and I think that around this whole issue of control. 54:59 SM: You know it is interesting when I lived out in the Bay Area, I am going up to visit a couple days, some old friends, but when I lived out there, there was a minister on the radio. I was I was out there, late (19)83, (19)76 to (19)83. And I will never forget this minister, I was listening to him on a Sunday night, and he said, the world will be a much better place when the last member of the Boomer generation has died. And then he went on his whole sermon was about why because he felt that the not only that those who were the active and protesters, but he said the entire generation, even those that did nothing, were totally subconsciously affected by it. And then it could be nothing, but we create a negativity in our society down the road. It was a I almost threw the radio out the window [laughter] but-but I am. Phyllis Schlafly and David Horowitz and other critics of today's universities say that. Oftentimes they say the troublemakers of the (19)60s now control today's curriculum, and they were referring to obviously the Women's Studies Program, the black studies, gay studies, environmental studies, Asian American, Native American, Chicano, that is what they were referring to. And then, of course, they always say, they are educated. They are indoctrinating, and they are not educating by these things, your thoughts on their thoughts? 56:31 AA: Oh, right. They are, right. They, largely, the curriculum and the faculties are controlled by the troublemakers. And I think the differences in how the troublemakers are perceived and characterized. You know, if these are the people who helped to bring about equality for women, equality for African Americans, the end to an immoral war, the beginning of the end of the suppression of speech. Yeah, they are the troublemakers. And, if that is, you know, that is, that is the group that is in charge of academia right now. Then I am perfectly comfortable with that. 57:34 SM: What did what did universities learn from the students they served in the (19)60s, with particular emphasis on those who protested on campus when activism became the norm? What- I fear that today's universities have forgotten, the lessons that were that they should have learned particularly whether it be in linkage to the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley in (19)64, (19)65. And the reasons why it happened. Not being upset with the fact that it did happen but understanding the reasons why it happened. And then all the protests, obviously from babies (19)65, (19)66 through the probably the 1973 time period when activism kind of died on campuses. What-what did universities learn, or do they have amnesia? 58:28 AA: I think the one thing they learned about-about protests was a tactical one. 58:34 SM: Hold on a second. I am going to turn my tape here. Hold on one second. How is your weather out there today? 58:40: AA: Very cloudy. 58:43 SM: We were-we were supposed to have some pretty strong 60 miles- [tape cuts] I do not know where they would be would it be, but I did not really the only reason. I am back. Go right-ahead. 58:59 AA: Okay. Well, I was going to say that. 59:06 SM: Still there? 59:10 AA: Yes, just a second, I dropped my phone. The- let us see what was on my mind, my mind was wondering- 59:35: SM: I was wondering what the universities learned from the students and service of the (19)60s, or do they have amnesia? 59:32 AA: they learned I mean, some tactical ways of dealing with protesters, and that is stop their issues, to have a conversation with-with the protesters. And-and in many cases, they did not do that. We did a major study on that during the (19)70 and the real difficulties on campus that came when the administration refused to stop or negotiate with the protesters. That is that. And also, the other one is bringing police on the campus inventorially. Because that was always an instigator to violence. I think they are much more sophisticated tactically, because they were on the other side of the protests during the during the (19)70s, late (19)60s, early (19)70s. So, they learned that much. Not allowed to negotiate with seemingly unreasonable people. 1:01:04 SM: Yeah, I think their whole experience at Kent State and Jackson State Police and guard coming on campus, when I was in Ohio State, Dr. Philip trippy, you may have known was my well, he was-he was one of the reasons why I went to Ohio State. And then I had a great advisor. In Dr. Roosevelt, Johnson went on to Johns Hopkins University, and they were like, to close the faculty members. And we have a lot of classes dealing with the issue of illegal aspects in higher education, about who can and cannot come on a university campus. And so, you are really right down there with respect to responding to that. Still there? 1:01:46 AA: Yes, I think, I think they-they learned a lot about the tactics. You know, the problem is, is that we do not have these big, weeping social issues, that can galvanize a lot of people. You know, you enumerated all the other much smaller scale protest movements of various sorts. Not only are they not able to galvanize large numbers of students around an issue, but also the ethical and moral issues are not as clear cut. You know, just to take one example, in the American Indian distaste for team mascot name, as you know- 1:02:49 SM: Cleveland Indians, and- 1:02:52 AA: Basically, the main issue that seems to get the attention of activists in the American community, and one of my former doctoral students, devoting pretty much all of her spare time to this issue. And it does not, it does not get any attention from people outside of the community involved. Like racial discrimination got the attention of a lot of white people. And gender discrimination got the attention of a lot of men. And of course, woman was a large enough group. It did not need the men, but it nevertheless, there was a lot of attention. So, these, a lot of these more specialized protests do not seem to get that much attention. And, and also, I think the-the, what is required to deal with it is a fairly minor things like, okay, Stanford, led the way back in the (19)60s, aging, his name from the Indians to the Cardinals. And then, I mean, big deal. And of course, professional sports teams are refusing fraud. Basically, that-that is the problem is it is the issues do not get the attention, get the empathy, empathy of people outside of the group. 1:04:49 SM: Bear with me here I have a question to ask here. And we will read this thing-thing, man, we will read this one. Universities today- This is just me thinking. Universities today emphasize service learning, and really have a push for volunteerism as important goals and preparing students for the world they will face in the future, by giving them the sense of helping and caring for those less fortunate than themselves. However, I feel universities are afraid of the term activism, which is really a 24 to 24/7 mentality as opposed to volunteerism that is oftentimes required, especially in Greek life organizations, and but although others do it on their own, maybe for two hours a week, because they we because they remember a time of disruption in the (19)60s and (19)70s. Where students demand. Where students were making demands that is greater questioning of what money is or accepted or used from corporations linked to war. These are just examples. In my right in my perception that money over ideas and social conscience is the number one thing in higher ed today. Because they are constantly doing fundraising, everybody has a link to it. And if there is a threat to that, these other you know, a lecture, they want to put a lecture because of that speaker is controversial, it could affect the money coming into the university. Are universities afraid activism, the term activism? 1:06:32 AA: That is hard to say? I guess I would put it differently. I think, what the materialism has infected. Is university, far beyond what we could have imagined, back in the (19)60s and (19)70s. And it has been exacerbated by policymakers who starve the institutions. And they find out, they can get away with that, because the institutions have a way of compensating mainly to raise their fees. And so, I think the-the focus on money is-is way too powerful. And it distorts our thoughts, distort our policies. And so, you know, we-we hire fundraisers to lead our institutions rather than educational leaders. And I think that is a huge mistake. 1:08:06 SM: That was what Arthur Chickering said, when I interviewed him, about six months ago, at the end of the interview of a job and revenue, book, education, identity, in depth, comparing about the boom generation, I asked him this. Is there one final thought you would like to give me as we end the interview? Is there anyone concern you have about higher education today? And he said, yes. Corporations have again, taken over. 1:08:34 AA: He is right? 1:08:35 SM: And, and you see, that is what really upsets me as a student, the (19)60s and you think of the Free Speech Movement, you think of Mario Savio, whether you like the guy or not, he is his voice. And if you read his speeches and what he had to say, to universities, about ideas, that is why I went to school, I went to school because I loved to learn about ideas. It is not about corporations taken over. And I know and so I have interviewed quite a few people linked to the Free Speech Movement. And even though they like Clark Kerr, as a human being, and many of them because he got fired by Ronald Reagan, and that was a plus in the eyes of the movement because that was a good thing. They did not because they just did not like Reagan so much that they call that a badge of honor for-for him. But, you know, he talked about the knowledge factory, well knowledge factories, what that upset a lot of students at Berkeley, and I tell you, it worries me today that history has forgotten in the university. And those students back then we were really fighting for the students of the day because the universities of our learning and ideas of education first, will last and forever. That is just me. 1:09:49 AA: I would agree with you. And the tragedies that we seem to have come to the place now where bottom line seems to predominate over everything else. And it is, it is bad. 1:10:13 SM: I want to get this quartered here that you have a tremendous interview that I have read over the web with T. Mills, do you remember this interview? And this is a quote from you, you have already mentioned this, but I want it for the record. This is a quote from you. “The problem is really larger than that, because the society is so different than it was in 1969. Kids grow up with a different set of stimulation, their ability to concentrate, their ability to read to listen well is different. It is different primarily because of TV, and the electronic media.” [chuckles] And that is-that is a beautiful quote [inaudible]. I actually sent this quote to some of my friends on Facebook that are in higher ed, did not. You basically, that was what you have been saying. 1:11:02 AA: Yeah, and, you know, we even tested this out, we-we studied a couple of cohorts of college undergraduates to see how their materialistic values develop during college. And, of course, in general, they tend to decline. And I think that is one of the salutary effects of the college experience is, students began to reassess their values and priorities. And this has been true from the earliest studies back in the (19)30s. That the college experience tends weaken your materialistic values, but there are individual exceptions. And one of the interesting studies we did was to see what-what kinds of experiences during the college years tend to promote materialistic values and guess what it is the television that you watch in your, in strengthening your materialistic values. 1:12:25 SM: You mentioned in that interview with cane Mills that the students today, in 2010, that you stated in the same interview is as much different is a much different clientele than those in the (19)60s and (19)70s. In the year that because their values are different. There is less learning for its own sake. And we learn in order to get credentials, get a job and to make more money. And you are-you are pretty good at saying, this is not a blame game. But it is just the basic fact that our culture is different. When you talk about their values are different. Could you just explain how the Boomer-Boomer generation values are different than say the millennial values of today? 1:13:13 AA: Well, first of all, they are much less politically and gay today. They are more cynical about politics. So of course, that leaves the field to the people who want to manipulate the political world, because the populace is not that interesting. And that is reflected of course in voting patterns and a lot of other things. The- I also think that not having access to print media that you and I were used to, is another factor because I really believe that print media, getting your news, through print media is a different experience. Again, you are more reflective. I think getting it off the internet or on television, which is worst thing is- makes you much more vulnerable to being manipulated, frankly. And so, I think it is easier today to manipulate public opinion than it ever has been. The so-called mainstream media are responsible here, it seems to me again, because they are primarily out to make a buck. And so, you know, if it bleeds, it leads, and the most outrageous things that politicians say and do get the attention. And so, people who are willing to be outrageous who are willing, and the attention really is-is simply look what this person said, rather than this person made up a story or this person lied, or this person to sort of the facts, they do not have that kind of reporting anymore in the mainstream media very much more. And maybe we get a little bit of that on MSNBC. But it is not right-wing propaganda. It is a being a funnel, for right-wing propagandists, I am overstating the case, but the problem is that our brains are being watched. And we do not know it. And there are some people who-who resist it. You know, years ago, Leo Postman used this wonderful metaphor in the sidebar, you know, what education really needs is the capacity to develop our craft detectors. I think he is lifting a line from Ernest Hemingway or somebody earlier. But the idea that, particularly this day, where were barraged with opinions and, and distortions and lies and so forth, is that we need to have the capacity to sort out reality from propaganda. And I think we lacked that kind of critical capacity. People do not have it. 1:17:14 SM: You-you mentioned in-in a lot of your writings that one of the key components of a successful college career is the emphasis on diversity. And I 100 percent agree. I went to Ohio State because I knew in that program, even in early (19)70s, little (19)70s, that multicultural diversity was a very important part of their program. And I was honored to have Dr. Johnson's my advisor who really, you know, made a strong in that particular area. But there, you mentioned in [inaudible] talking about diversity, that there were several ways of talking about it, you felt it was important that if you had to preach it, then do it, you were able to incorporate it into your courses or workshops and speakers on campus. And students that are encouraged to interact between the races. And then you see the very end student outcomes that are not positive come out of this emphasis. Have you-have you again, respond to these critics? And again, I always bring this because I would have to have both sides here, who say that some that all of these activities centered around indoctrination, not education. Because when you say preaching it and incorporating it, I think you have already responded with respect to an earlier question on this, but diversity is important, but for those some students today, and I hate it, I do not like it forced down my throat. And I have had that from some of my conservative students over the past 10 to 15 years. 1:18:51 AA: Well, I do not know exactly what they mean by forced down your throat. You know- 1:18:56 SM: Well, that is, there is nothing wrong with preaching the importance of it in the university environment for its students. That could be from administrators or faculty members? 1:19:08 AA: Well, you know, the, the whole idea of a liberal education is based on this concept of exposing the students to new and different points of view, people, cultures, ideas, and so forth. That is-that is the whole idea behind it. And of course, there are some people who are do not want their kids to be exposed to a liberal learning, and so they will send them to an evangelical college or the Military Academy or something like that. Wonderful aspects of our diversity. But the vast majority of our institutions are committed to liberal learning, and to providing a liberal education. And a good part of that involves exposing the students to new and different people and ideas. And, you know, what is really interesting is that we have just finished in fact, you might want to check out the microsite he developed for the book that is coming out at the end of this month. So, cultivating the spirit, “How college can enhance students’ inner lives,” that is the subtitle. Anyway, you can just go to cultivatingthespirit.com. And the website, indorses the book and so forth. But we were very excited about this. Because what we found is that experiences that expose students to new and different kinds of people and ideas and cultures, so forth. experiences like study abroad, interdisciplinary study, service learning, and even interracial interactions. All these experiences contribute to student's spiritual development and enhances their lives. And when we have defined spirituality as-as a multi-dimensional quality of all traits like equitability and your sense of connectedness to the world, your, your ethic of caring for other stuff like that, these are spiritual qualities that we looked at. And, and, and all of these kinds of liberal learning experiences, enhance spiritual development. And spiritual development, in turn, enhances the college experience in general. Qualities developed in college, they get better grades, they are more likely to be satisfied with college, they become more interested in graduate study and so forth. So, it is a very exciting study, and we had no idea we are going to find something quite-quite exciting. 1:22:28 SM: It is amazing, because as I am reading this question here, where were the students in the (19)60s and (19)70s, with respect to spirituality, the perception is the perception that you read from the books on the (19)60s is as they were reared in large numbers going to church and synagogues in the (19)50s. And that religion was very important then. And, and of course, religion was an issue when John Kennedy was elected president there of all the concerns of the Catholics, the pope would control his thought. But as the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, showed many less organized religions, and became involved in what I call the inner spirituality. We saw it with the Beatles, we saw with rap groups, we felt with entertainers that will the media portrayed Zen Buddhism became very strong. Course people went into communes and so forth. And so, they continue their religion but not in a structured way. are your thoughts on the Boomer generation and their sense of spirituality? 1:23:44 AA: I think it was expressed in their-in their moral outrage about, about the war about racism, both myself I think, I think we are sensitive of meaning and purpose and value and that sort of thing came out in that form. And it was all self-righteousness involved, and no question about that. But I think in general, the run of the mill student protests were motivated by altruism and by concern with social justice and equity and caring about the others. And that is an important aspect of one spirituality is one sense of connectedness, and people. Some-some theorists argue that it is the essence of what spirituality is all about. But, you know, the religious engagement Actually, we found declines during college while your spatial qualities tend to get stronger. Even though spirituality is more often a quality of religious people, and is not always that question about that, but in spite of the fact that the two kinds of qualities are positively associated, one of them decline in college and the other gets stronger. And I think that has a lot to do with the fact that, to a certain extent, the entering college students religious versus a product, a heavily a product of the family experience. They get away from that he is exposed to other religions and other religious perspectives. And then he begins to wonder, well, maybe this is not the one and only fate, and so forth. And I think that because we have a measure of religious struggle and that-that does show a substantial growth during college. 1:26:07 SM: I think it was about eight years ago, at West Chester University at the Student Affairs meeting. I do not know how it came out during the round came along around any news to report and someone said, well, are you aware of the students meeting in the basement of Challenger Hall, and they are meeting at seven o'clock in the morning before classes meet students of color or sexual orientation? Male, female or all ethnic groups. And I said why? Well, because one of their fellow students was killed in an automobile accident, over the Christmas holidays. And when they came back, they were meaning to try to figure out, why did this happen to her? And what is my meaning? Why am I here? And it had nothing to do with whether you are Catholic or Jewish, you know, Muslim, Protest- It had nothing to do with any of that it had to do with the fact of they loved the students. They could not understand why she had been taken away in and acc-. the person was a drunk, that did it. And he was just coming back from Christmas break, and he was killed. And so, they were just sat over there for dinner. they were talking about why are we here? What is our purpose? 1:27:22 AA: Yeah, and that is-that is exactly what-what we call that a spiritual quest. That shows a lot of growth during college, and they begin to attach more importance to exploring questions like that the big quest of life and living, 1:27:39 SM: Right. One of the things that- 1:27:41 AA: I am going to have to take off. So, can we wrap this up in a minute? 1:27:50 Yeah, I ever run another five pages of questions, but I guess I will not be able to get them in. Can I ask two more questions? 1:27:54 AA: Okay. 1:27:55 SM: Maybe; let us see? Which ones do I want to ask you? I guess. One of the questions is that in the in the late (19)80s, and early (19)90s, political correctness was a very, we heard that all the time on college campuses, the PC, and there is a sharp attack on some of the programs we mentioned, and so forth. And then, of course, in the (19)50s, we saw attacks on trying to find communists, you know, behind every wall or whatever. Did you think when you heard all these talks about political correctness in the late (19)80s, and (19)90s. Any comparison with McCarthyism in the (19)50s trying to drown out people that in a university environment that for whatever reason? 1:28:51 AA: I have not heard that comparison, but I-I understand it, I mean, I can see the parallel and it probably has some validity to it because, like with any-any social movements, they are going to be excesses. And I think some of the political correctness, you know, represents an excess is, you know, inevitable social movement. And I, my sense about it is that is that we just should not take ourselves too seriously. [laughs] That have a bit of a sense of humor about-about that. You know, it is interesting that the phrase political correctness was actually coined by people on the web to and they would use it to joke with each other about-about being too clapper with language or whatever. The right picked it up and ended against it. Last- 1:30:02 SM: We had a-we had a conservative politician in the mid (19)90s. Coming to the university checking to make sure faculty members were in their office. And they were supposed to be looking at liberal [inaudible]. It was unbelievable. And I thought is this McCarthyism all over again? 1:30:18 AA: Listen, I know a guy in the Department of Education when the Reagan administration came in. They sent some guy with a clipboard around to one office after another, classifying people as to their politics. And I would say how they would classify you, and he says, as a communist. 1:30:41 SM: Oh, my God. 1:30:42 AA: Okay. Department of Education. 1:30:45 SM: Oh, my God. My last question here is that data has shown that less than 16 percent, were involved in any sort of activism within the Boomer generation, the (19)60s or (19)70s. And that could be conservative or liberal activism. People that I have interviewed for this book, have said it was much less than 15 percent. Do you have data to verify this? As far as values are concerned. Do you have data to show the impact that this period had on Boomer youth both consciously and subconsciously, as time went by? 1:31:20 AA: You know, it all depends on the, you know, the most widely participated in protest was, of course, first day in 1971, (19)70, (19)71. Whenever they say was, we do a national study of this of this whole issue. In the published in a book called The Power of Protest, it is a jokey book of 19- whenever that was 1980, I cannot remember exactly when it might have been earlier 1977. But a lot of it is in there. I could not dig that out right now. But there is a lot of sorts of normative data on how many participated and what impact that participation had on them and that kind of thing. And so, you might want to check that out. 1:32:16 SM: What is the name of that Book? 1:32:19 AA: The Power of Protest. There were four of us who were authors if I recollect my wife, and I think we had four authors on that. 1:32:36 SM: What do you think the legacy will be in this generation once they are all gone? What will the historians’ educators and-and the sociologists be saying about the generation and secondly, in the current way, you feel this generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, with so much division, that they will not be healed. The reason I asked this question is because I took a group of students to Washington in 1995 and I cannot understand this [inaudible]. And they were very concerned that the Boomer generation that they had seen on film reminded them of the Civil War generation that they had been reading about in their books, where divisions were so strong between black and white male and female gainsay. Those who supported the war and those who were against the war that that they were going to go to their grave like the Civil War generation bitter, feeling hate remorse and not feeling like they did in the Civil War. So basically, it is a two-part question, question of healing and the question of the legacy. 1:33:53 AA: I think if they it depends on who they are going to believe. You know, the right-wing propaganda machine is well oiled and has starting with, I guess, the Nixon and on with [inaudible], with these are books that are being drowned out by the Heritage Foundation and the taser and so forth. If you want to believe those characterizations, when you know, you are going to, you know, feel like you are a failure, nothing happens, but deceit to me. We got to look at the facts. And the facts are the generation initiated a lot of very-very important, positive changes and provided an atmosphere for other social movements to take foothold. And also, they popularize the idea of a value-based approach to public policy and government, so forth, as opposed to a cynical power approach. And so, there is so many positive aspects to it. And the excesses are easy to burlesque like political correctness, like reverse discrimination, and so forth. And but I think in, all in all, it has been very positive force in our society and-and the folks who, who were part of that movement, need to step up and be counted. So, you know, we are proud of what we accomplished, and we think society is better off for it, and it is not drugs and rock and roll. 1:36:16: SM: Much more I thank you; do you have any other final thoughts? 1:36:20 AA: I think that is about it. I really got to run. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 1 Microcassette Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Alexander Astin Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Astin, Alexander W. ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; Authors; Astin, Alexander W.--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Alexander Astin is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Higher Education and Organizational Change, at the University of California, Los Angeles and the founding director for the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. Dr. Austin has authored 23 books and has been a recipient of awards for his outstanding research. In addition, he was a part of the National Academy of Education. 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 2010-10-15 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.10.2016.35 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 96:20