27 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/074eeefbc3f4cd948169391490fd99e2.jpg 5c5261217874e358939a16f5ad71a580 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e403aaf6ff4c9bd47b1740b6ffefcaf6.mp3 19d4eb30e0c6e4b5cd3bea2b388064f4 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 2011-03-02 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Julius Lester Language English Biographical Text Julius Lester (1939 - 2018) was an author, photographer, educator, activist, and musician. Lester was raised in the South and Midwest and received his undergraduate degree in English from Fisk University in 1960. In 1961 he joined SNCC and became their photographer documenting events like Freedom Summer in 1964, the Civil Rights Movement, and the U.S. atrocities in Vietnam during a trip to the country with other members of SNCC. His photography is well documented at the Smithsonian Institution and is part of a permanent collection at Howard University. After teaching for two years at the New School for Social Research, he joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1971 where he taught in the Afro-American Studies Department and the Judaic and Near Eastern Studies Department. Since 1968, Lester published 25 books of fiction, non-fiction, children's books, and poetry. His writings brought him much fame with numerous awards for both adult and children's books. Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 213:05 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Montgomery bus boycott; Kathleen Cleaver; Black Panther Party; Muhammad Ali; Civil Rights Movement; Angela Davis; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; James Baldwin; Thurgood Marshall; Leroy Jones; Emmett Till; Lynden Johnson.&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;:14275305}}">Montgomery bus boycott; Kathleen Cleaver; Black Panther Party; Muhammad Ali; Civil Rights Movement; Angela Davis; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; James Baldwin; Thurgood Marshall; Leroy Jones; Emmett Till; Lyndon Johnson.</span> Subject LCSH Authors; Musicians; Political activists--United States; Lester, Julius--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: Julius Lester Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 2 March 2011 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Testing one, two, three. You answered the first three questions, so I think we might go right in the order of the questions that I sent you. I do not know if you have them in front of you. JL (00:00:15): I do not, but I can certainly... SM (00:00:20): I can just read them. JL (00:00:21): Sure. Yeah. You can go ahead. SM (00:00:23): Yeah. My first question is, in your own words, could you describe what the impact was of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in terms of it had not only on African Americans in the South, but basically, the impact it had overall in the movement? JL (00:00:44): Well, historically, there is a gap between when the Montgomery Bus Boycott happened and the movement itself. The Montgomery Bus Boycott happened in (19)56, (19)57 as I recall. And the impact at the time was not that great. There were no demonstrations or anything that followed that. I certainly think the impact was one of... Interesting that it happened. This was different, but no action happened. The next action that happened was... There was a sit-in at a lunch counter in Oklahoma City in 1959. And once again, this was something that happened, but nothing followed it. And then in February in 1960, the sit-in happened at a lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. And for whatever historical reasons that lunch counter sit in, set off a series of demonstrations and sit-ins in Nashville. And within months it spread all across the south. And so why that happened in 1960 and it did not happen in (19)57 after Montgomery, (19)59 after Oklahoma City, nobody knows. But that was the progression of it. And so, Montgomery was certainly very important both in attacking interrogation on the buses as well as introducing Martin Luther King Jr. and non-violence. But I think at the time, people took a wait and see attitude and just kind of wanted to take in exactly what is this, what is happening, and it is something worth counting on. And by 1960 people felt that it was. SM (00:02:55): Yeah, the boomer generation... I think higher education is the reason why they break these terms down like the greatest generation, the boomer generation, generation X, millennials, and now generation Y. And I know a lot of my interviewees have not liked the terms of trying to define a generation with a term because there is too many different people. But as it is defined, it is those born between (19)46 and (19)64. And so my question is really those individuals who grew up knowing the following African American names due to their presence on television or in the newspapers, could you just give your very brief comments, because there is quite a few here, what their impact was with respect to not only the lack but white communities and bringing equality to people of color. You could either talk about their strengths or weaknesses or their activism. Just very brief comments. Roy Wilkins of the NAACP. JL (00:03:55): Yeah. Well, NAACP was certainly the oldest civil rights organization having started about 1909 I guess it was. And so, it was a pretty mainstream organization and that certainly when the more radical activities of the 1960s began, our Wilkins was opposed to it. But interestingly enough of other organizations from the 1960s, the only one remaining is NAACP. And so that certainly as a mainstream organization, it has been very important not only on the legal front, but also in terms of... And what I mean by a legal front, I mean bringing suits, especially where school interrogation was involved, but also just in its ability to last, to endure. SM (00:04:53): How about James Farmer and CORE? JL (00:04:57): Yeah, I have a list in front of me so I can just go down it. SM (00:04:59): Okay. Very good. JL (00:05:01): James Farmer, CORE, was Commerce of Racial Equality, and it was started in the 1940s and the Freedom Rides of 1961 were started by CORE. CORE started off as a much more mainstream organization with a real commitment to non-violence. And then as the 1960s progressed CORE became more and more radical and pretty much radicalized itself out of the existence. James Farmer was head of the organization during the early 1960s, and especially during the Freedom Rise in 1961. Whitney Young and the Urban League. The Urban League is an organization, which still exist, and its focus has always been much more in terms of employment issues in the black community. And Whitney Young was the head of that organization in the 1960s and died in the mid (19)60s in a drowning accident in Africa. Martin Luther King Jr. of course, he was very familiar with SCLC, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with the organization that he organized and was very important in terms of organizing demonstrations throughout the South in the 1960s. Robert Moses was a member of SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, which I belonged to. And Bob Moses was a graduate of Harvard in mathematics, I believe it was. And he went to Mississippi in the early 1960s and very courageous. He essentially worked by himself in some of the worst places in Mississippi trying to get people to a vote. And he's kind of the legendary figure in the movement. John Lewis was one of the leaders of SNCC in the early 1960s and is now a congressman from Georgia. Julian Bond was a member NAACP in the... We have the past 10 years or so... Was a member of SNCC and if anyone has seen the documentary Eyes on the Prize, it is Julian Bond's voice that narrates that. James Meredith was Black man who was a marine veteran who integrated... Was the first black student in University of Mississippi, an event which set off riots in Oxford, Mississippi and President Kennedy had to nationalize the National Guard and call in the Marines. And I guess three people who were killed. James Meredith later became a very arch conservative. SM (00:08:01): Yeah, that is a shocker. JL (00:08:03): Yeah, he is an interesting fellow shall we say. Ralph Bunch was a US representative of the United Nations and played a part in the United Nations recognizing Israel in 1948. Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph were labor leaders and Bayard Rustin was very important and influential with Dr. King. He was the one who really introduced Dr. King to non-violent and played a behind the scenes role with Dr. King until he was associated with the Communist Party, and he was also gay. And so that he was kind of quietly ushered out of King's Circle. A. Philip Randolph was a labor leader who organized the union of Pullman car Porters on the railroad back in the 1930s and forties I guess it was. And the very first march on Washington. The idea of the march on Washington came about when in 1941, Randolph threatened President Roosevelt with a march on Washington, and I forget what his threat was, whether it had to do with the integration of Washington DC or the integration of armed forces, but it was something along that line which Randolph threatened a march on Washington if they did not come about. And the threat was enough to bring about whatever it was that he was fighting for. Mackenzie was head of CORE at one point. Vernon Jordan was head of the Urban League at one point and is a very high-powered Washington lawyer now and is a very, very close confidant of Bill Clinton. And when Bill Clinton goes to Mount Luther Vineyard, he stays with Vernon Jordan and Dorothy Height was head of the National Negro Council of Women, I believe it was. And she and Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young and several others were known as the Big Six Negro leaders they were called at that time. Stokely Carmichael was head of SNCC, was someone whom I knew. He was the one who introduced to America the term 'Black power'. H. Rap Brown, whom I also knew was head of SNCC after Stokely was head of SNCC. And Rap was much more into radical violence, even though Stokely was too. But Rap was a little bit more serious about it then Stokely was, [inaudible]or that was my impression, and Rap coined the sentence, "Violence is as American as cherry pie." Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver were founders of the Black Panther party. Kathleen Cleaver was Kathleen Neil and was a member of SNCC, and I knew her at that time. And then she met Eldridge and married Eldridge, and they were all very prominent in the Black Panther party. Muhammad Ali. of course, Cassius Clay play a very important figure in terms of his resistance to the war in Vietnam and refusing to fight in Vietnam. And another example of the importance that athletes took, I played in the Civil rights movement starting with Joe Lewis really, and then Jackie Robinson certainly. And Muhammad Ali is certainly always reviewed for that. SM (00:12:09): And Kurt Flood too. Definitely. JL (00:12:14): Fred Hampton was a member of the Black Panther Party in Chicago who was killed by the police. David Hilliard was also a Black Panther party member. George Jackson was... My memory of the details on George Jackson are limited. I did review his book for the New York Times, but he was killed attempting to escape from San Quentin. He became kind of an iconic figure for Black Panther party people, but my memory on him is vague. Angela Davis was associated with George Jackson and at one time was wanted by the FBI for armed activities or something, and later caught in the northern California system. Bobby Seal, Black Panther party member. Jesse Jackson identified himself as the successor to Martin Luther King Jr. Minister from Chicago ran for president in 1984. And the first Black person to make a credible run for president. Andrew Young was a very close associate of Martin Luther King Jr. And was mayor of Atlanta for a couple of terms at least. Ralph Abernathy was a minister who was Dr. King's closest friend. They had known each other since they both [inaudible] in Montgomery. Paul Robeson, the singer and actor, 1920s and 1930s. Very, very radical for his time associated with the Communist Party and went into exile for a number of years and lived in East Germany for a number of years. And I did meet him once shortly after he came back from East Germany. James Balman, who was a friend, was a very important writer. And his most important book came up in... Guess it was 1964, The Fire Next Time, which was two essays that really kind of captured the feelings of anger that were going through significant parts of Black America at the time. And certainly Paul, read the move correctly in terms of the predictions of violence that the book expressed. Thurgood Marshall, who was a lawyer for the NAACP Legal and Defense Fund, who argued the Brown vs Topeka case before the Supreme Court that led to the school desegregation decision in 1954. And he himself later became a Supreme Court Justice appointed, I think by Lyndon Johnson. Roy Innis was probably the last leader of CORE and the one who basically presided over its demise. Adam Clayton Powell was a very flamboyant congressman from Harlem for many, many years and was very important civil rights figure in terms of his willingness to speak out in very, very forceful terms, especially in the 1950s. It is when I remember him at a time when nobody black was really speaking out and Adam Clayton Powell certainly did. LeRoi Jones, Amiri Baraka, is a poet and dramatist Leroy Jones, when he was known as a poet most associated with the beat generation. And then he underwent a radical change and identified himself totally with Black issues and black nationalism. And so, he changed his name to Amiri Baraka and lived in Newark, New Jersey and still lives there. And then Richard Wright was the very important novelist who once again articulated, this is in the 1940s, I guess it was, when both Black Boy and Native Son came out and certainly articulated the violence that laid dormant in the emotions of Black American shall say at that time. And he later went into exile and moved to Paris where he died in the early (19)60s. SM (00:16:58): That is excellent description of all those gentlemen. And Dr. Hight. Number six here is really a listing of events. I do not have to read them all over here, but these were major events that really not only made front page news, but really were somewhat shocking to many in America. And it kind of awakened even white America about what was going on in the south. The Schwerner, Chaney, Goodman murders were, I know big front page when I was a little kid. And your thoughts on all these events in terms of how major they were in awakening this nation to the terrible things that were happening in the United States, of which I believe was totally hidden by the media, because if you look at black and white TV in the (19)50s, you hardly ever saw a person of color with the exception Nat King Cole. I think he had a six-week television show during that time period. JL (00:18:03): Yeah. SM (00:18:03): And then Amos and Andy had a show in their early (19)50s, which was kind of slapstick, and then you really did not have anything until you had Ice Spy and Diane Carroll on the nurse program and there was a big gap there, a lot of hidden things. Just your thoughts on these events. JL (00:18:22): Well, Emmett Till was 14, 15 years old and was from Chicago and was visiting his grandfather in Money Mississippi and was accused of whistling at the wife of a white store owner. And he was murdered very, very violently, very, very viciously murdered. His murder had a great impact upon young Black people my age because I was a bit older than Emmett Till. And that certainly it was one of those events that really create a lot of anger in those of us who later would go on to be the generation of the civil rights movement. And so here was a similar event for us, what it was for White America, I have no idea, but certainly Jet Magazine, the mother of Emmett Till had his body photographed and the pictures were published of his body in a Jet magazine or Black Magazine, weekly magazine. And it really, really had an enormous impact. And it certainly had some impact on White America because Bob Dylan wrote a song called The Death of Emmett Till, which was on his first album in the early (19)60s. The church bombing certainly in Birmingham in (19)63 that killed the four girls had a great impact because the march on Washington was at the end of August of 1963, and the church bombing came about three weeks later, about the third week of September. And so that church bombing should follow both closely on the heels of the march on Washington did get a lot of publicity and had a great impact, certainly. And I think it was the event that led President Kennedy... It was the event that led President Kennedy to introduce the Civil rights bill of 1964 into Congress, and no, Lyndon Johnson, I am sorry, Kennedy was not there at that time. It was Lyndon Johnson. And so that had a great impact on America nationwide. James Meredith, 1966, June of (19)66, Meredith was going to do a march against Fear, and he was going to walk from Memphis, Tennessee down to the state of Mississippi, and he got a few miles outside of Memphis, and he was shot, not killed, but he was wounded. But that led to others taking up the march. And it was on that march that Stokely Carmichael first used the phrase 'Black power'. SM (00:21:15): Wow, I did not know that. Wow. JL (00:21:19): And so that certainly got national attention. Delmont 1965 was really what galvanized the... It was after Selma that Lyndon Johnson introduced the 1965 voting white bill, and it was the march that we were going to march to. Well, I mean, the background was basically... There had been a young black man named... What was his name? Jimmie Lee Jackson, who had been murdered, at a demonstration for voting rights. And so the people wanted to march from Stalman to the capital in Montgomery to protest to the governor. And so, the first attempt of the march was met with a lot of violence by men on horseback and this, that and the other. And so subsequently, there was a march that was protected by federal troops. And so, the federal Montgomery March was very important in terms of the eventual passage of the 1965 voting right bill. The murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, 1964. Chaney was black and Goodman and Schwerner were both white Jewish from New York City. I knew the families of both Goodman and Schwerner, and they were murdered, and their bodies were not found. They were murdered in June. Their bodies were not found until August. And that certainly their murder came at the beginning of the Mississippi or Freedom Summer. And the Freedom Summer was when it was almost a thousand, basically mainly white college students went to Mississippi to register people to vote, and for the summer to begin with their disappearance certainly was an indication that going to Mississippi was a very, very dangerous thing to do that summer. And so certainly their murders were publicized in the nation certainly. It was an important event in terms of focusing the attention of the nation on Mississippi and segregation in Mississippi and just generally the atmosphere of violence against Black people in Mississippi. I mean, it was really a terrorist state as far as I am concerned. I was there before, and it eventually led to significant changes in how delegates were chosen to the Democratic Party. And so, the Democratic Party at that time, which had been controlled primarily about Southern democrats, changed after the summer of (19)64. And so subsequently, the Democratic Party was much more... Became much liberal and much more open than it had been previously. The Freedom Rides were 1961... At that time, it was black and white could not sit together on buses that were leaving the South. When I left Nashville, Tennessee in 1961, I had to sit in the back of the bus until the bus got to a Northern state, and then I could sit anywhere on the bus. And so, the Freedom Rides were to basically enforce the law, which already said that the segregated seating on interstate buses was unconstitutional. And so, the Freedom Rides started in Washington, DC and were going to end in New Orleans, they were organized by CORE, but they did not get any further than Mississippi. When they got to Jackson, Mississippi, people were arrested and put in jail. And so that led to people from all over the country getting on buses and going to the Mississippi and being arrested and going to jail. Before that, the people on the buses had met a lot of violence in both Birmingham, Alabama and Montgomery Alabama. And that also did get a fair share of publicity. But after that summer, there was no more segregation on interstate buses. The murder of Malcolm X 1965, February (19)65. At that particular time, one of the things that may be hard for people to grasp is that both during the lifetime of Malcolm and during the lifetime of Dr. King, they were not the heroic figures they are looked up on to be now. I can certainly recall the New York Times coming out with editorial against Martin Luther King and accusing him of throwing up violent by non-violent demonstrations. And so certainly with Malcolm X, Malcolm X at the time of his death was a minor figure, believe it or not. He was really not that well known outside the black community. And he was certainly seen as somebody who was extremely violent and what have you. And so, there were no tears lost, shed at the death of Malcolm X. And like I said, he is much, much more widely known and revered, and I think he's even been on a stamp than he was during his lifetime. And so, his assassination had little impact compared to the impact of Kings assassination. King’s assassination, certainly there were riots in New York City. There were riots in other places around the country because certainly even though King at that time was preparing the march on Washington, he had come out against the war in Vietnam and was really becoming a lot more radical in his thinking and in his actions in terms of trying to build a coalition of a multi-ethnic coalition as well as a coalition that would involve economic coalition also for whites and for people and what have you, not so, but his assassination certainly set off a great reaction both of violence and of creep at the time. The Little Rock Nine, 1957, I guess we are talking, were black students who integrated at Central High school and [inaudible] had to be escorted in by the National Guard, which Eisenhower nationalized at the time because the governor basically refused to let the students in. There was some violence around that, and that was one of the first events that was covered on television. John Chancellor, who was later an Anchor Man for NBC, covered that for NBC, and that was shown on television and did get a fair amount of publicity. George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door, this was the 1963, I guess it was, the integration of the rest of Alabama, and George Wallace made this show a pending in the entrance of the administration building, but it was all a show for his constituents because a deal had been worked out with the Kennedy administration where he was standing in the door. While he was standing in the door, federal marshals were escorting... Now, there were two students, Vivian Malone, and I forget the... I cannot think of the young man's name, but anyway, while he was standing in the front door, federal marshals were escorting the Black students in the back door for them to be registered into school. And so, he did that for show. It had no impact upon them getting into school whatsoever. He did not stop them from getting into school. SM (00:30:18): This is important because I know you bring it up in your book, one of your books, that we talk about the tragedies here, but we never talk about... It is like when Dr. King used to give speeches, he used to say that we all have it within us as individuals to bring change to this world, bring justice to the world. And so, it was the people that we never hear about, the people that... And it is the same thing here. We might emphasize Dr. King or Malcolm, and certainly the tragedy of Emmett Till, but there were 4,000 people as you brought up in your book, who were murdered, who were lynched. And this is something that I still think our students today are not aware of or do not seem to...still think our students today are not aware of, or do not seem to have an understanding. JL (00:31:06): Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah. Basically, starting after the Civil War, and especially after 1877, when federal troops left the South and the Reconstruction era ended, there began a campaign of terror against Black people carried out by the Ku Klux Klan, and then the local communities, of murdering people, often by hanging them from a tree, lynching them, as a way both of terrorizing the black community, and intimidating anyone who had any thought of doing anything, political, voting, or what have you. People were lynched quite often on trumped-up charges of rape, very few of which could have been proven. They were also lynched if they owned a prosperous store. The reasons why you could be lynched were almost infinite. It reminds me of the summer of (19)64 in Jackson, Mississippi, a civil rights worker was arrested for reckless walking, and so they could make up any charges they wanted. SM (00:32:33): Oh, my gosh. JL (00:32:34): And certainly, from about 1880 until 1970, I guess, the last... Well, no, we got to go into the nineties. There were lynchings in the nineties, but certainly close to 5,000 Black people, both men, and there were women also who were lynched, were lynched in the South. And Congress, the Senate passed a resolution a few years ago, apologizing for the fact that even though the NAACP tried every year from 1919 forward to get the Congress to pass a federal law against lynching, so that lynchers could be arrested and tried in federal court at least, Congress never did it. And so, the Senate did issue an apology for not doing what it should have done for all those years. SM (00:33:35): I know right here, and you may be aware of it, in, I think it is Coatesville, Pennsylvania, the murder of... They actually put a historic sign up a couple of years ago. It was torn down and they put it up again. And we are talking about, I forget, the professor from Franklin and Marshall came over and talked about it, but it was... There was one in the 1940s as a follow-up to this one that they were putting the marker up for. It is a terrible tragedy, and people were saying, "This happened here?" One thing that is very important, you talk about the March on Washington. We all know that Kennedy was very pragmatic with respect to, he was worried about what could happen in the city. And A. Philip Randolph, I think he trusted more than any of the other leaders. But there is a comment that, and I'd just like your thoughts here from your book, however, respond to your criticism that the March is a great inspiration to those who think something is accomplished by having black bodies next to white bodies. JL (00:34:48): At the time, and I remember the March on Washington vividly. My wife went to it, I did not. And I thought it was really a publicity thing. I thought it was good public relations. I did not see what else it would accomplish. And certainly, the fact that the four girls were bombed, were killed less than a month after it kind of confirmed my opinion at the time. Well, I was just never impressed with the March on Washington. I thought King's speech was great, but I just saw it as a PR thing. I did not see it as effective politics. SM (00:35:27): Yeah, the quote that you have here was, "The march was nothing but a giant therapy session that allowed Dr. King to orate about his dreams of..." I do not even like to use the word, the N word, "Eating at the same table of a Georgia cracker, while most blacks just dreamed of eating." JL (00:35:44): Yep-yep, yep. I would not repudiate those words now. SM (00:35:53): In your view, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? And what was the watershed moment? JL (00:36:01): Well, I would certainly say probably February 1960. And I would probably say that they ended with the death of King. I think King was the center, and when the center was not there, things fell apart. And actually, I would say, well, I will back up from that. I will say that the Civil Rights Movement had two goals, and the two goals were to integration, and public accommodation, and to ensure the right of Black people to vote. And those were accomplished in 1964 and 1965. And I would say the Civil Rights Movement ended in of 1965 with it fulfilling its goals. And I think one of the unfortunate things is that we never celebrated that we won. And so (19)65, the Civil Rights Movement ended. (19)66, you had the beginning of Black power, and certainly the mood turns much angrier, and there is much more rhetoric of violence and actual violence with the coming of the Black Panther Party. And then (19)68 King, and also the rise of Black nationalism also comes (19)65, (19)66, and then King is killed in (19)68, and certainly things are done by then. SM (00:37:33): Yeah. Actually, this bleeds right into question eight and nine on the second page there, is if you could describe the strengths and weaknesses of the activists who believed in the philosophy of Gandhi, that nonviolence is the only way to protest. And secondly, the change that took place, the strengths and weaknesses of activists who believed that going beyond nonviolence, via either armed confrontation, or burning buildings, or tougher talk, or being more aggressive, which these individuals are labeled. I know that Bobby Seale has said over and over again that, "We were not violent." I have seen him talk many times. He said, "We had guns to protect ourselves," he says that "but we never used them." Now, I do not know what your thoughts... So, what would be the strengths and weaknesses of these two approaches? Because these are the people that- JL (00:38:24): Well, the strength of non-violence was very, very effective as long as it was used against very recognizable institutions, segregated lunch counters, and things of that sort. The weakness of nonviolence is that racism does not exist in a concrete building where with the sign on it saying, " No coloreds allowed." Racism is so much more amorphous and resides in the spirits and the minds of people. And that is very difficult for non-violence to attack. The strengths of the Black radical movement was- certainly was that it was a movement aimed at changing the consciousness, number one, probably, of Black people, which is something that began with Malcolm X, beginning to change the consciousness of how Black people thought about themselves. And then also changing how Black people thought about white people and changing how white people thought about themselves. The weakness of the Black radical movement, despite what Bobby Seale says, is that if there is anything America knows about, its violence. And if you present an image of dressed in a black beret and black turtleneck and black pants and a black leather jacket carrying a rifle to white America, they know how to deal with that. And so that even though the Black Panthers may never have fired a gun, which I doubt very, very seriously, they certainly were what Lenin called agent provocateurs, and so they certainly provoked violence. And I spoke out against the Black Panther Party at the time, and I continue to speak up against them now. SM (00:40:40): Would you put the Weather Underground who split from SDS? JL (00:40:46): Yeah, I would- SM (00:40:47): As well as the Brown Berets that followed the Chicanos, who followed the Black Panthers in the same boat? JL (00:40:53): The Brown Berets, I really know nothing about, but certainly the Weather Underground, they were well-intentioned, but that certainly the way to attack America, the way to change America, is not through violence, because that is what America's good at, is violence. SM (00:41:21): I put the AIM leaders in there too, because the AIM went from Alcatraz in 1969 to Wounded Knee in (19)73. JL (00:41:30): Yeah, once again, I really do not know enough for about AIM, about the details of what happened at Wounded Knee to really talk about it. The other thing, which is really hard to get someone to understand, is that 1968 was an amazing year in terms of all the things that were happening in the country, and certainly, a lot of people believed that we were on the verge of a revolution, and that was people both in the government, as well as people on the left. And so, while it is easy to look back and criticize the Weather Underground, at the time, it certainly seemed like that it was going to be possible to bring about revolutionary change in this country. SM (00:42:28): Do you like the term Boomer Generation, and if not, what would be a better term to describe it? JL (00:42:36): It is not my generation. I have no opinion one way or the other. SM (00:42:40): But you know something Julius, can I call you Julius? JL (00:42:45): Yeah, you may. SM (00:42:45): Yep. One of the things that is interesting, because I think you found in the same category, is many of the people that were born in that period between say 1937 and (19)45, feel that they are more closer to the boomers, the front edge boomers, than those that were the last 10 years of the boomers. Because if you are in graduate school in the early (19)70s, we were taught that the leaders of the movement were usually people that were the graduate students, that were in their late twenties, which means they were born in that timeframe. So, in a sense, a lot of the people that are your age claim that they really have the boomer spirit, and I have noticed that. I do not know if you feel that, but you were a very important part of that spirit. JL (00:43:26): Yeah, I do not, and I do not because I feel like, well... I was born and was, I guess, seven years old when the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. SM (00:43:49): Yes. JL (00:43:50): And I consider that to be a watershed event in world history. And I think there is a difference. For me, there is a difference between whether one was born before that happened, and whether one was born after that happened. The difference being whether you grew up believing, knowing that the world could be destroyed by the dropping of certain kinds of bombs, and whether you reached an age of consciousness without knowing the world could be destroyed. SM (00:44:23): Wow. Very well- JL (00:44:24): And so, for me, that is a big difference. Also growing up with radio, as opposed to growing up with television, is also, to me, a big difference. And so, I do not see myself as part of the Boomer generation at all. SM (00:44:44): Please describe in a few words your role with SNCC as an organization photographer. I know you were assigned to cover a lot of the events and activities. I know you went with Stokely to Vietnam during that timeframe. JL (00:44:58): I went with him to Cuba, not to Vietnam. SM (00:45:00): Oh, okay. Cuba, my mistake. JL (00:45:03): Yeah. I went to Vietnam separately from him, but I was in Cuba with him. SM (00:45:11): Yeah. Could you discuss some of the events you covered, and what did you learn from that experience that you maybe did not know before you were that photographer? JL (00:45:19): Well, my role in SNCC was very modest. I came into SNCC in 1966 as a photographer. And by that time, the demonstrations and the voter registration campaigns were over. I did photograph, there was a riot in Atlanta in 1966, I photographed that. There was the riot in Newark in 1967, which I also photographed. But primarily my role in SNCC was to, number one, write and produce materials using the photographs. And so, I produced calendars using the photographs, and other materials, publications, that SNCC did. Also, when I was with SNCC, I also wrote my first book when I was living in Atlanta with SNCC, which was Look Out, Whitey! Black Power Gon' Get Your Mama. I wrote during the winter of 1966, I guess it was, (19)67. I was also a folk singer in those years. And so, I went to Cuba for a protest song festival. And the first day I was there, unbeknownst to me, Stokely showed up in Cuba. And so, I switched from the protest song festival to live with Stokely and go around with him. So, because of that, I got to spend three days traveling through the mountains in Eastern Cuba. I wanted to talk to Stokely, and so we spent three days traveling around the Sierra Maestras. SM (00:47:13): Wow. JL (00:47:17): And that was fascinating. That really was fascinating. And then also that year, I spent a month in North Vietnam. The Burton Russell Foundation had organized a war crime tribunal to be held in Stockholm, Sweden, the spring of (19)66, (19)67. And so, two people were sent from SNCC, myself and Charlie Cobb were sent from SNCC to get a testimony. This was during a time when the US was still denying it was bombing North Vietnam. And so, we ended up spending a month in North Vietnam, and I did a lot of photographing in North Vietnam, showing the United States was very definitely lying about bombing, since I was certainly very close to a bombing raid on more than one occasion when I was there. SM (00:48:05): Well, did you ever see Che Guevara? JL (00:48:05): Never did. Che Guevara was already in Bolivia when I was in Cuba. SM (00:48:06): Oh, okay. Yeah, because he was a hero to many of the new left students, particularly many of the ones that were in Columbia in (19)68. This next question is basically centered on the students who came south, the white students. And it is amazing. The majority of them, I believe were Jewish, because I am amazed. When I talk to everybody, the Jewish background, I know there were some Catholic white students as well, but there were a thousand that went south. And just your thoughts on them, in terms of their overall impact. And we all know that Mario Savio, he was not Jewish, but he was one of those students who went back to Berkeley and tried to hand out literature. And that is when all that stuff happened, and the free speech movement started because of it, because they were recruiting students to go south. And I know that Tom Hayden was another one who had been south, and others had gone back to recruit on college campuses. And there was also that period of time when there was a question over who was leading the organizations. And was there sensitivity within the Freedom Summer that African Americans instead of whites do the running of the events? JL (00:49:34): Oh, yeah. There was... Well, how can I put it? Most people in SNCC were opposed to Freedom Summer. They did not want all these white kids going to Mississippi. They also recognized that they had been working in Mississippi for three years. And again, very-very little publicity. People had been beaten and put in jail and close to being killed, a couple of them. And so, they also recognize that a thousand white students coming to Mississippi would bring publicity. One of the real ironies of all of this is that I think I mentioned before, both the Schwerner and Goodman families were friends of mine, and I was friends with Andrew, Mickey Schwerner's brother, and was talking with him that Spring of (19)64, and he said, "What needs to happen is for one of those white kids to get killed." And of course, not knowing that one of those white kids was going to be his kid brother. And so, that certainly, there was a recognition that they will bring the newspapers and the publicity will come with them. And so, the state was split up into congressional districts, and there was at least one congressional district where the SNCC leader who was head of the project in that district would not allow white students to work in his district. And so that certainly, there was a tension between who is running the show, and certainly I, myself, witnessed a certainly unintentional insensitivity on the part of some of the white students in terms of working with blacks, because they simply were not aware of the social dynamics, and what have you. And so certainly there was tension, and certainly the SNCC people involved made a great effort to stay in control and to give the orders. And it was a success politically, but internally, it was not a happy summer. SM (00:52:09): Yeah. I remember one of the leaders of the trainers was Staughton Lynd. JL (00:52:18): Yep. SM (00:52:18): And I guess they trained up north, and then they went south. So, did they have issues even with him being a trainer? JL (00:52:25): I do not think so, no. Staughton was real well respected. No, there is not a question about that. SM (00:52:28): Yep. Would you compare the... thirteen, there. Would you compare the SDS in the late (19)60s with its change from, we talked about earlier, about going more radical, to the SNCC and the same time period because we saw Stokely go from SNCC to more of a black power, more radical attitude. And just your thoughts on that. And some of the members of the... I think H. Rap Brown was in SNCC, and then he went to the Black Panthers. So, would you see the switches happening around the same time for those organizations? JL (00:53:05): Oh yeah. They were. And certainly, I think it had to do with a progression of political learning, going from thinking that the problem was segregation and lack of voting rights to a recognition that the problem was really systemic, and that the systemic part of it for Black people was racism. The systemic part of it for SDS was capitalism. So, it was like, how do you demonstrate? You do not demonstrate against racism; you cannot demonstrate against capitalism. You really have to change them. And so, the way to change them is through revolution. And so, people became much more doctrinaire, and that was certainly a lot of the reason for the downfall of both SDS and SNICC at that time. H. Rap Brown, Rap took on the title of Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party, but he never worked actively with the Black Panther Party. And I was close to Rap during this time. And so, he did that more as a... I am not sure how to describe it, but he did that more as a listening kind of a thing. He really never worked actively with the Black Panthers. SM (00:54:50): I am actually going to be interviewing Ed, E. Charles Brown, his brother. JL (00:54:55): Oh, yeah? SM (00:54:56): Yeah, sometime in the next three, four weeks. I guess Ed has had a stroke, but he's okay. And Ed, I want the story. He was very close to his brother, and it really had an effect on his health, I guess, the loss of his brother, to going to jail out west, and so forth. And he firmly believed that H Rap Brown was set up, and he did not kill that person. It is a total set up. So, I am looking forward to my interview with Ed. JL (00:55:26): Yeah. SM (00:55:27): In your eyes, how important were the Beats in terms of creating what I call an anti-establishment feeling in the (19)60s? We all know about Alan Ginsburg, Kerouac, Cassidy, Ferlinghetti, Leroy Jones, Gary Snyder. We all know that the Beats were very important in their writing, and people were reading them. But they were not large in number, and they were based in San Francisco and New York, in the Village. And we know the Bohemian lifestyle affected a lot of it. How did it affect the African American community? JL (00:56:02): Very little. Certainly, Beat Generation had an enormous impact upon me for the positive. And I certainly saw myself as part of the Beat Generation. Ended up spending the summer of (19)59 in San Francisco on North Beach specifically, because that is where it was happening, and that is where I wanted to be. But the Beat Generation had an enormous impact upon the hippies. The hippies came from the Beat Generation. And from the hippies, you go to Abbey Hoffman and Jerry Ruben and that whole group. And so, the Beat Generation had an enormous impact on the (19)60s through their impact on the hippies. But in terms of Black America, very little impact. SM (00:56:59): Let me change my tape here. Got to turn it over. How is your weather? JL (00:57:06): Today is warm, supposed to be a cold month. SM (00:57:13): Has not been melting the last three days. Well, anyway. JL (00:57:21): We have so much snow on the ground. It will be green, maybe, for a dog gone, unless we hit some 90 degree temperatures in here. It has been a miserable, miserable winter. SM (00:57:26): Oh, yeah. We are expecting snow on the weekend here. So, what were the writings, what were the books that you were reading in the (19)50s and (19)60s? What were the books that had the best... And obviously you are a great writer, but before you became that writer, what were you reading? JL (00:58:09): Well, certainly in our (19)50s, early (19)60s, I was reading, I was reading Kerouac, and I was reading Ginsburg, Henry Miller, D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Thomas Merton. Those were some of the people I was reading in the (19)50s and early (19)60s. SM (00:58:17): In the area of the Civil Rights Movement, and certainly in the anti-war movement, a lot has been written that the women's movement was a direct result of the sexism that took place within both of those historic movements. Your thoughts on that, because I know we had a program within our university that if Dr. King was sitting on the stage today, the first thing they would ask him is, "Why were you such a sexist?" So just your thoughts on the women's role in the Civil Rights Movement, and the anti-war movement, and the importance of, that is the one of the why the women's movement was created. JL (00:59:01): Well, I do not know that I am qualified to talk about that, because it was not something which... I think it is more complicated than people have talked about. It is not as clear cut as people have talked about, and it is just not something I want to talk about. SM (00:59:48): Yeah. I will make just one other comment, and that is, when you look at that March on Washington in (19)63, the only person you see a female, there is Dorothy Height standing to the right, and Mahalia Jackson, who sang, so that is been brought up. The Generation Gap, obviously a very big thing in the (19)60s. The Generation Gap was the differences between parents and students on culture, and certainly the counterculture. Certainly, they are staying on the war in Vietnam, or could have been on any of the movements itself. Was there a generation gap that in the African American community too, between parents and... Because when I talk the Boomer generation years, I am trying... Boomer generation to me, includes everyone, includes all seventy... The question is whether it is (19)74 to (19)79, I do not think we even know how many million we are talking about here, but the generation gap was very important because of the differences between parents and their children. Were there differences in the African American communities? JL (01:00:54): There were differences until the children got arrested. When the children got arrested, there was no more generation gap. The parents... I remember very clearly in Nashville, when the sit-ins happened, and the first arrest happened. The elder generation had been leery up until the point when the first arrest happened. The older generation provided support, food, money, what have you. And within the Black community, there was the generation gap comes later with the more cultural things. When the Afros come in and the wearing dashikis come in, and you have more of a generation gap over the style. But in terms of the politics itself, there was no generation gap. SM (01:01:54): In your book, Look Out, Whitey! Black Power Gon' Get Your Mama, the next part is basically just responding to some of your quotes, if that is okay? JL (01:02:02): Sure. SM (01:02:02): I think we are just responding to some of your quotes, if that is okay? JL (01:02:03): Sure. SM (01:02:04): First off, on number eight then, when you wrote the book, it was right in the middle of one of the most tumultuous times in the (19)60s. Of course, (19)68 is a noun because of all the tragic things you already talked about that happened, including the two major assassinations and what we saw at the Democratic Convention and actually tech, and so a lot of things. But to me, and this is me personally who had read it many years back, to me, this book is really a great description of the times and the divisions between Black and white, plus the feelings of people of color felt toward America that did not care about all its citizens. Could you comment on the following? I am just putting this here for the record. [inaudible] identified with a poor, the spies, the downtrodden, the humiliated. It was different from the students’ citizens in 1960 where people had to dress up in suits and ties to prove they were clean. Now, it is changing where the workers' dress fits the people they were helping through overalls and so forth. Just your thoughts on these changes because the approach that young African Americans took towards the protests at different times, making sure that the people that they were representing felt comfortable with how they looked. JL (01:03:27): Yes, correct. I think it is smart politics. You change your approach depending upon whom you are, what you are working for, and yeah. So, I think it was smart politics. I mean, certainly in the 1960s, early (19)60s with the sit-in movement, it was very, very important to get dignified. And although it was not much a matter of clean as it much was a matter of appearing non-threatening, put it that way. And looking no different than any well-dressed white person. And so certainly in terms of creating an image for the movement, it was the right industry to protect. And then when you begin working-working in a rural area in the south, both practically, it is impractical to go around in a suit and a tie and what have you. And also, you want the people with whom you are trying to organize to be comfortable with you. And so that-that is what some people do. If they were able to be in overalls, I never did felt the need to do that. Never felt that I could not do what I was there to do. Just by guessing like I normally did, and I normally did not wear suit and tie, and I normally did not wear overalls either. So, I think it is a matter of simply being a good organizer. SM (01:05:12): In the marching of Washington (19)63, I think Stokely was right on. But your thoughts on this that, and I just interviewed George Houser a couple of days ago, and I interviewed Elizabeth Lasch-Quinn too about her dad, Christopher Lasch, and we talked about the fact that the Civil Rights Movement was centered on the moral compass. And Stokely said, this is a quote "politics demands a certain rhetoric. It does not demand moral action to fit the rhetoric", is what Stokely said. This was certainly true when John Lewis had to remove one line from a speech that said, "I want you to know which side the federal government is on". I find that prophetic, but just your words and the fact that with John Kennedy and why he eventually allowed the march, it is number one. And in Stokely's comments about it should be strictly about the morality. JL (01:06:15): I am not sure what you are asking me. SM (01:06:18): I am asking you what are your thoughts on Stokely's comments that politics demands a certain rhetoric. It does not demand more action to fit the rhetoric, is what he said. JL (01:06:29): Yeah. Honestly, I am not sure I understand what Stokely said. What he said does not make total sense to me. And I guess I disagree with it. Yeah, I guess I am much more on the side of the rhetoric and the moral action being one and the same. And so, I do not know that I agree with what Stokely said. SM (01:07:04): This is another important thing too, because I grew up in Ithaca, New York area, and I can remember when Dr. King went to Cicero and all the, well, first off, the hatred up in the Chicago area toward Dr. King, but also the real divisions that were taking place within the Civil rights leadership about his decision to go north when Robert wanted to stay south. And you bring this up talking about the fact that segregation was an issue up north, and Dr. King knew it. Yet he was criticized for extending protests to the North because many of his peers wanted him to concentrate in the South. And I thought what Malcolm said about everything south of the Canadian border was south. Which I had not heard before and I am glad I reread your book. How important, well, was Dr. King and how heavily criticized was he within his own community for going north? JL (01:07:57): Well, I think the problem was that the tactics that had worked in the South would not work in the North. And so, he could not export the demonstration style approach of civil rights in the north, because the problems were very different. And I know that Dr. King had an apartment on the south side of Chicago, and I guess tried to live there for a time, but his efforts in the north were really a failure. And SNCCs in the North, SNCCs tried to do some things in Philadelphia, and they were also a failure. Malcolm X had much more sense of the temper of the Northern Black communities. CORE was much more of a Northern-based civil rights group and had much more of a sense of what was an effective way to work in the Northern communities than I think SNCCs or Dr. King did. And so, Dr. King I think was criticized because I think there were people who felt there were still a lot to be done in the South, which certainly there was, and he did not know the north. And so, he basically failed when he went north. SM (01:09:29): What did you think of his Vietnam speech? JL (01:09:41): His Vietnam speech was excellent. I thought his Vietnam speech was really a moral high point of his life and career. SM (01:09:43): And I agree. I agree. Can you talk about that? You already made reference to how important was Fannie Lou Hamer and her challenge with Lyndon Johnson in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in (19)64, but how important really was that in the scheme of things at that time? JL (01:10:00): It was extremely important. The Mississippi Democratic Party was all white, and that basically the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party was organized to go to the convention in Atlantic City and appear before the Credentials Committee of the Democratic Party Convention to ask them to unseat the regular representative of the Democratic Party because there was segregation and to seat the MFDP instead. What the Credentials Committee was, it did not unseat the Mississippi Democratic Party, but it did offer two honorary seats to the MFDP, which they turned down. And Mrs. Hamer was very, very critical in all of that because she appeared before the Credentials Committee and her speech was so forceful and so eloquent that it was interrupted by Lyndon Johnson who came on television to make an announcement about something totally irrelevant because he did not want people to see her anymore on television. SM (01:11:18): Yeah, I remember watching TV when that one was happening. I was really into politics when I was a young kid. Again, this is an important quote from you. This is your quote: "if the press had screamed as loudly for the end of segregation and discrimination as it screamed for law and order, segregation would have a vague memory in (19)68. Somehow law and order became all important. Or when Black people take to streets and burn and wipe out a few of the white man's stores, law and order is never so important when the police are whipping N Heads on the weekend." And then you finally say, "law and order must prevail is the cliche of the (19)60s and the biggest lie because the American black man has never known law and order except as an instrument of repression". Any additional thoughts on that or is that? JL (01:12:14): No, I really had not read that in I do not know how many years, but that about summed it up. I mean, I certainly think that placed it pretty directly. SM (01:12:23): You have a way of really writing down. Your book is full of quotes. I could have had a hundred of them here. You are a very good writer, and you really expressed the feelings of the times too in that book. And then as a follow-up here, Ronald Reagan, if you remember, came to power in California under two banners, law, and order to stop the protests on college campus, IE the free speech movement in People's Park. And then, of course, to end the welfare state that he was against. And these were direct attacks on the protests and the welfare state handouts at work. He came to the presidency on those two goals. So, law and order was what Reagan was all about. So, in a sense, when he came to power in the (19)80s... JL (01:13:15): Well, but the law-and-order thing started with Nixon, and I think in the (19)68 election, it was certainly unfortunate that there was so much violence in the streets of Chicago at the Democratic Convention. And it certainly made it seem like the Democratic Party was the party of chaos and disorder. And Nixon campaigned very hard on a law-and-order platform, and we know the results. And so, Reagan was following up on Nixon. Nixon pioneered the law and order. SM (01:13:54): And also, could you describe the changes in the Civil Rights Movement? I think you put it beautifully in the book where you state in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, "we shall overcome" is the real moral, the singing "we shall overcome", and then we go to black and white together, and then we go to black power. So, would you say, just as you state in your book, those are the three shifts? JL (01:14:18): Yes, I would, yeah. SM (01:14:20): When was Black and white together? We all know that, I think, "we shall overcome" was probably up to (19)64, (19)65. JL (01:14:35): Well, "black and white together" was simply one of the versions of "we shall overcome". And so that as long as "we shall overcome" was being sung, "black and white together" was put off in the last verse of "we shall overcome". And so, they were both going on at the same time. Yeah. So "we should overcome", another important song that came out of Mississippi was "freedom is a constant struggle". But I mean, Black power, the chant was "what do you want? Black power. When do you want it? Now". And that certainly had its call, Larry, with the songs of Jim Morrison and The Doors, "we want the world, and we want it now". And so, there was certainly a shift from, I would say, the more patient and the approach that had more respect for political process being slow. And you certainly find that in the cadences of social overcome, which have a slow dignity to it, but then there is that need for immediate gratification that we find, and "what do you want? Black power. When do you want it? Now. And we want the world, and we want it now". And certainly, if I were to say, if there is one thing that characterizes boomers, the culture has inoculated them with the need for hints and gratification. SM (01:16:28): Yeah. Yeah. You just bring up, what would be the strengths and weaknesses of boomers, if you were to look at this? JL (01:16:36): Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear, dear. I am really going to stay away from that completely. SM (01:16:42): Okay. All right. This is another quote. "It does not matter how many Ralph Bunche's, Jackie Robinson's and Martin Luther King's, the white man projects his models of what the meager should be. Blacks will always be more like Little John and Big Red". This was in 1968. How does it apply to 2011 when MLK Day happens, and Jackie Robinson's number 42 is now being recognized in all the baseball parks? Is this more about white men than Black men today? Explain in terms of (19)68 to 2011. JL (01:17:17): Oh boy, there is really no way to. SM (01:17:19): Is that really in a statement just at the times, the feelings, and you may have? JL (01:17:34): I mean, "Big Red" was written off next to us. And Malcolm X. And I do not remember who Little John was, but there is really no comparison between (19)68 and 2011. I mean, in 2011, you have, I do not know how many black millionaires, I mean, when I looked at professional basketball and pro football, I am looking at a bunch of millionaires playing a game, and majority of them are black, and the majority of them are not doing a damn thing with a million dollars to do anything for Black people. And so that what I said in (19)68, is in no way part of 2011. What we have in 2011, what we really have is so far away from the values articulated by King, the kinds of values that Jackie Robinson represented. We have Black athletes and entertainers now who are totally into the culture of conspicuous consumption and a narcissistic culture. And I think it is shameful and disgraceful. With millions that exist in the Black community now and they are spending it all on jewelry and cars and airplanes, and what have you, while people do not have places to live. And it is absolutely absurd. SM (01:19:11): You are so right on this. I wish you would write about this because I can think of one person who has done really good right now, and that is Magic Johnson, because I think Magic, even though he still has the glow of a rich man, he's given a lot back to his community. And that this is a man who understands where he came from in Lansing, Michigan, and he has never forgotten it. And I would also say Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is another person who has done unbelievable things. And of course, he is fighting cancer right now, but I would put those two that have done good things. But you are right on the majority. JL (01:19:47): Yeah. SM (01:19:55): And it is upsetting. The last quote I have here is just this one on number 19 here, "whenever a Black man asserts what wife try to put him down, but in the act of self-assertion is not a threat unless whites choose to make it so. Yet they always choose Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and Adam Clayton Powell are only three examples of Black men that White America wanted lynched. What whites said to them was what has always been said to the Blacks, and you must think you as good as a white man", Stokely said. Now, just you still any comments on that. And then Silky said, hell, I am better. That is kind of Black pride. JL (01:20:39): Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, that phrase was, even when liberals said it, "you can be as good as a white person", was always kind of condescending. Given the record of white people, I would want to be better than white people when it comes to a lot of things. I do not know that I have any comment on that now. I do not know whether or not I would have to really speak think whether or not what I wrote then applies now. And that certainly, I mean, you do see it applying when a member of Congress tells the President of the United States when he is making the State of the Union address that you're lying. He would not have said that to a white president. And so that I think it may not be the general rule anymore, it certainly does still apply. And that certainly you would not have the number of- it is so odd that nobody challenged John McCain's citizenship, even though he was born in the Panama Canal, that Barack Obama's citizenship is still being disputed by a lot of people out there. And they simply would not do that if you were white. SM (01:22:17): I guess I had one more quote there, and then just in general, if anyone wonders why the anger of blacks is so often turned upon the white liberal is because, while professing to be a friend, the white liberal has generally turned out to be more white than liberal whenever blacks assert themselves. JL (01:22:34): Yeah. SM (01:22:35): Is that still true or was that (19)68? JL (01:22:38): Well, what is sadly true now is that when Kennedy died, the last liberal died. I do not see white liberals anymore. There is nobody, being from the state of Massachusetts, I certainly love Kennedy and miss Kennedy, because nobody spoke with the passion that he did about liberal causes, and there is nobody left, and that there are no white liberals anymore. SM (01:23:11): So that attack on the, remember there were several books out there, the L word. People were hiding from the L word. If they were hiding from the L word, then they were not really liberals. JL (01:23:21): They are not really liberals. SM (01:23:23): If you are proud to be a liberal, you stand up for being a liberal. And remember too, that in the (19)60s, the anti-war movement was against the liberal Johnson, as well as Richard Nixon. So, there was no liberal, conservative, did not matter. And then whites can never be accepted as allies with Blacks until they get rid of their arrogance, which leads them to think that they are greater authorities on Blacks and Blacks themselves until they stop going to the Daniel Moynihan or come to the ghetto and learn for themselves. Is that your direct relation to the Moynihan report? JL (01:23:57): That was in relationship to the Moynihan Report, but it is also just in general. The attitude certainly was, much more in the (19)60s, of the whites knew better than we did. And so, it was an attitude that said, well, you should go slow. You are trying to go too fast. And certainly, that was the attitude of the New York Times and a lot of the liberal journals of the time about the activities of the Civil Rights Movement. Slow down, be patient, what have you. Well, you know, you are not the ones being discriminated against. And whether or not, I certainly think that attitude has changed a lot, that as Black people, we have asserted our authority over our experience. And I think that for the most part, that is respected these days. So that quote would not apply as much now as it certainly did in 1968. SM (01:25:04): And then you also said something that I think is another. You have got some unbelievable quotes in here. "In Black culture. It is the experience that counts not what is said". That is a quote from you. JL (01:25:18): Yeah. I am not certain. Yeah. Well, I mean, you certainly have me at a disadvantage because you have read the book certainly far more recently than I have. SM (01:25:26): I almost memorized it. It is so good. I wish in graduate school. JL (01:25:35): I am certainly flattered. SM (01:25:35): Well, if I was a professor in graduate school right now, I would require students to read your book because, I am a higher education person, I believe they are not being taught anything about the history of higher education, about what happened back then. It is all about theory, and I am tired of it. JL (01:25:53): Yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah. Yeah. SM (01:25:53): Theory-theory, theory. And you got to know your history. And if you do not know your history and theory's only good until you get into the job, then you just simply, you have got to do your job. JL (01:26:05): Tell me about that. Yeah. SM (01:26:06): In your own words, could you define Black power? JL (01:26:16): Well, Black power was very simply the belief that Blacks could be in control of the institutions, of their communities, as well as be in control of the cultural and political definitions by which they are know. SM (01:26:46): You also mentioned in the book, and again, I have got you at a disadvantage because you have not referred to it in a while, but you also mentioned about Dr. King, that he did not "condemn black power outright, but sought to temper with love. It is important for the Negro to gain black power". But the term Black power is unfortunate because, this is Dr. King, "Black power's unfortunate because it gives the impression of black nationalism. We must never seek power exclusively for the Negro, but the sharing of power with white people". And this is Dr. King speaking again, and "any other courses exchanging one form of tyranny for another. Black supremacy would be equally as vile as white supremacy." Then you state "that is what white folks want, wanted to hear". All right. Those are Dr. King's thoughts. What are your thoughts on those thoughts? JL (01:27:35): Well, I would certainly, subsequent to that, to me in the (19)70s, I did write things in essential agreement with Dr. King. That certainly Black nationalism, as it evolved, was basically substituting the word black for the word white. It was simply white nationalism warmed over as it were. And so that essentially, there is no substantive difference between any kind of nationalism. Nationalism is always looking inward. It is always exclusionary. It is certainly, you know, you created them and an us kind of situation. And invariably you can have conflict. And so that now, I would certainly, well, as I did in the (19)70s. The (19)70s, I came much closer to agreeing with things King said than I did when he was alive. SM (01:28:42): A very important thing because you became a Jew at a certain point in your life, and you wrote another great book that I read quite a few years back on this, that you wrote. And what is interesting is, if you may recall on Sunday morning when Charles Kuralt was alive in the nineties, they had a whole program on Sunday morning looking at the history of the relationship between African Americans and Jewish Americans and how people were starting to forget that history as people were passing away. And so, a gentleman with a lot of money put together that conference down at the Carter Center. And so, the whole program was about interviews, and James Farmer was there. I know Rabbi Heschel's daughter was there looking at that historic relationship between the two groups because of the incident of Jesse Jackson and other events that were kind of splitting these groups. Young people may have thought they were historic enemies when in reality they were friends. Could you, in your own words, a person who, not only through your religion, but through your here history as an African-American, the important relationship between African-American is the Jewish Americans from the get-go in the Civil Rights Movement? JL (01:30:03): Well. SM (01:30:03): The partnership. JL (01:30:07): I am one of those who, since, from that point of view, I think that the extent the relationship between Blacks and Jews has always been exaggerated. It has been a relationship primarily between segments of the Jewish middle class and the Black middle class. It never was a relationship that involved the Black lower classes or the black working classes, nor the Jewish working classes. I mean, there were riots in Harlem in 1929 because Jewish storekeepers would not hire a Black person at stores. Same thing happened in Chicago in the 1930s. And so, I really think that it's such a distortion of the history of blacks and Jews, relations between black and Jews, and it paints a much more rosy picture of black-Jewish relationships than actually existed. Black anti-Semitism has always existed in the Black community, in black urban areas. And it came to the surface with Minister Farrakhan. Well, it came to the surface with Malcolm X and then with Minister Farrakhan in the 1980s. It was nothing new. It's been there all the time. So, I have also written about this. I just think the picture has been greatly, greatly distorted. The black Jewish connection was never as rosy as we have been led to think. SM (01:31:49): It is interesting because I interviewed David Garrow over at Princeton when he was here, and I mentioned that Rabbi Heschel was a very close friend of Dr. King and had a great influence. And he said, I am going to correct you on that. And he said, yeah, they were friends, but he did not have that great influence on Dr. King. And I was always under the assumption that Rabbi Heschel was one of the first people that persuaded King to give that speech in (19)67 on Vietnam. And he kind of, well, he did not say yes or no to that, but he kind of lessened the importance of that relationship. In your view, was Rabbi Heschel and Dr. King very close friends? JL (01:32:23): My sense is that they knew each other, and certainly Dr. King was going to go to Passover at Rabbi Heschel's home when he was killed that weekend. But I am fairly good friends with Susanna Heschel and Susanna never mentioned the name that her father and Dr. King were close friends. SM (01:32:51): Oh, okay. Could you talk a little bit about your WEIA radio days? A little bit about your WEIA radio days. JL (01:33:06): We are past 5:30. SM (01:33:08): Oh my god. We are. Okay. Could you have 10 more minutes? JL (01:33:14): 10 minutes, tops. SM (01:33:16): Okay then now I am not sure if I... Just briefly talk about how you became a radio disc jockey and what you did. JL (01:33:25): I was on, I had a show on BAI from 1968 to 1975. I basically got the show, those were my day as a focus singer and I had appeared on other shows in the radio station, and for whatever reason they liked me and began to offer me airtime substituting for people who were sick on vacation and what have you. I got my own show and basically it was a live show, two hours, and I would interview people on the air. For a while, the show was a place where Blacks could appear on the air without fear of being treated as a hostilely by an interviewer. The place where they come and express their views without any fear being condemned for those views. I would read the paper on the air, I would play music on the air. It was pretty much, what do I want to do? I really enjoyed the time I was on the air. I did Thursday evening show for a while and then I switched to a morning show, 7:00 to 9:00 in the morning and I really had a lot of fun when I was on the air. SM (01:34:45): Do you think that the boomer generation that has a problem with healing, that they will go to their graves like the Civil War generation, as a generation not truly healed from the tremendous divisions that tore apart the nation in their youth or young adults? JL (01:35:03): I have no idea. I have no idea. SM (01:35:04): The divisions between Black and white and? JL (01:35:06): And I have no idea. SM (01:35:09): Do you do not think see that? Well, I know that when Jan Scruggs wrote the book To a Heal Nation, he hoped that the Vietnam and Memorial would do that to help not only the veterans, but the generation itself. Have you been to the wall? JL (01:35:22): I have. I have. SM (01:35:26): What was your first reaction when you went to the wall and what was the impact? What were you thinking? Especially as a person who had been to Vietnam. JL (01:36:38): When I was in North Vietnam, I did not go to South Vietnam, but I was very moved by the wall itself and I was also very, very saddened by what a waste of lives. What the hell did those guys die for? They do not know. I do not know. And just one of all my classmates from college name is there, and it is like I was just saddened by the waste of the of lives. I do not know that we heal anything in this country as long as we do not take responsibility for what we have done and what we do. As a nation, we have not taken responsibility for the treatment of Native Americans. We have not taken responsibility for slavery. There are so many things that we have not taken that we have done that have been wrong and we have not taken responsibility for them. And until we do, I do not know that we can heal. SM (01:36:57): Yeah. When the historian’s kind of look at a period, it is usually about 50 to 75 years after an event happens. I know some of the best books now are being written on World War II and that is about 75 years. Well, 50 to 75 years after. What do you think historians and scholars will say about the boomer generation, the (19)60s, the movements, the period, the 65-year period between 46 and 2011, because boomers are turning 65 for the first time this year. What do you think they will say about this period and its impact on the nation? JL (01:37:40): Honestly, there is really no way I can respond to that. I mean, the changes that occur in the time period that you talk about are so extraordinary and so huge, and it is such a complex period and it's getting more complex. Honestly, do not know what they are going to say. I really, really do not. SM (01:38:17): And my last question is basically the last question on the last page is really about how important was music in the Black protest movement and the Black Power movements? I just got a list here of some of the people that I think were big during the period of the (19)50s, (19)60s and (19)70s. But as a musician yourself, and I know I think you performed with Pete Seeger. JL (01:38:42): Oh yeah, I did, yeah. SM (01:38:43): I mean, as an entertainer, really a person, you are an artist, you're a photographer, you are an entertainer and you are a great scholar, you're a professor, a teacher, an intellect. But how important was music on shaping the period? JL (01:38:58): Well, for music was certainly very, very, it is extremely important. Certainly, this Civil Rights Movement I do not think would have had the stuff it did without the music because the music certainly brought people together. A typical mass meeting, you sang for an hour or so and just singing melded together, people who were very afraid about going out on demonstration the next day. And the singing together certainly helped to helped them mitigate their fears as well as in jail situations, people singing it. Certainly, being able to sing, "I ain't afraid of your jail because I want my freedom," certainly was an expression of the spirit. And certainly, the spirit was one of, " You can put me in jail, but you cannot break my spirit." And so, the music was certainly important in the South and Civil Rights Movement. The music was certainly important when you come north and you have the protest song movement with Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton and people like that who were writing topical songs and protest songs. And then you go to groups like Country Joe and The Fish, and Jefferson Airplane and that whole era of rock music where the music was very, very politically oriented. And once again, the music was an expression of a different set of values. And then you find James Brown, I am Black and I am proud, and all kinds of things happening in Black popular music where once again, the music was much more an expression of values rather than Baby I love you and that kind of thing. And so, the music carries the 1960s. It is both an expression of the (19)60s as well as a source of energy and strength for the people who were actively involved. SM (01:41:30): As we end, you have been a teacher in the classroom all these years and then you were side by side with many of the students of the (19)60s. How have the students changed? What the students in the (19)60s and (19)70s were the students of say the (19)90s and today? JL (01:41:49): I retired in 2003 and I am no longer teaching, but certainly it was a great difference between the students of the (19)60s and (19)70s whose many of whose parents had been actively involved as opposed to the students of the (19)90s and into the decades of the new century. The present-day students are really through no fault of their own, are not politically involved. They are not that aware of what has happened or what happened in the past. And there are also a generation that at least as I knew them, resented being given responsibility and being held accountable for their behavior in the classroom. And I certainly could not fault them for being who they were, they were simply products of their parents and their teachers. But it certainly made it difficult for me as a teacher from a very-very different generation. SM (01:43:18): Yes. Well, geez, thank you very much. I really appreciate this, and you will see the transcript and I got your ones, the first three questions that you sent me and I am going to need two pictures of you. JL (01:43:31): Okay. SM (01:43:34): So, if you can email two, it could be a picture of you when you were younger or in your heyday or it could be a picture. I certainly want one current and you can mail those to me through email and I will be corresponding with you as in the summer because I am transcribing starting in end of March for about eight, nine months of hibernation of transcription. So, you will see your interview. JL (01:43:58): Okay. All right. Sounds good. SM (01:43:58): And I will tell you, it is an honor to talk to you. JL (01:44:00): Well thank you very-very much. Thank you very-very much. SM (01:44:03): And your students were so lucky to have you in the classroom. My goodness. JL (01:44:05): Well, thank you. I certainly enjoyed my years in the classroom. I did. SM (01:44:11): Well, you have a great day and thanks again. JL (01:44:13): You are very-very welcome and the same to you. SM (01:44:15): Yep. Bye. JL (01:44:15): Bye-Bye. 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 Julius Lester Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lester, Julius ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Musicians; Political activists--United States; Lester, Julius--Interviews Description An account of the resource Julius Lester (1939 - 2018) was an author, educator, activist, and musician. His work primarily dealt with African-American culture, history, and folklore. Lester received a Bachelor's degree in English from Fisk University. Julius Lester (1939 - 2018) was an author, photographer, educator, activist, and musician. Lester was raised in the South and Midwest and received his undergraduate degree in English from Fisk University in 1960. In 1961 he joined SNCC and became their photographer documenting events like Freedom Summer in 1964, the Civil Rights Movement, and the U.S. atrocities in Vietnam during a trip to the country with other members of SNCC. His photography is well documented at the Smithsonian Institution and is part of a permanent collection at Howard University. After teaching for two years at the New School for Social Research, he joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1971 where he taught in the Afro-American Studies Department and the Judaic and Near Eastern Studies Department.  Since 1968, Lester published 25 books of fiction, non-fiction, children's books, and poetry.  His writings brought him much fame with numerous awards for both adult and children's books. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-03-02 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.10.2016.78a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.78b 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. 213:05 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b5c283fccadf7918c75f56bd48fc090a.jpg dbb17fb20fd2552e16d27af3a9d4280f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c66f08ecf1d856579133f47d17b70fff.mp3 b50e4e4333d44609e4021bc361dd7509 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2004-07-23 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Arthur Levine Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 65:09 Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Arthur Levine is scholar, educator, author and administrator. Dr. Levine is currently the president of of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Previously, he was president and professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University and Bradford College. He is the author of several books and articles. Dr. Levine received his Bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15107,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,16777215],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Dr. Arthur Levine is a scholar, educator, author and administrator. Dr. Levine is currently the president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Previously, he was president and professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University and Bradford College. He is the author of several books and articles. Dr. Levine received his Bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;College in the Nineteen sixties and Nineteen seventies; Baby boom generation; Generation gap; Vietnam War; Civil Rights Movement; Watergate; Vietnam Memorial; Ronald Reagan; Lynden Johnson; Kent State; Jackson State.\n&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:769,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0}">College in the Nineteen sixties and Nineteen seventies; Baby boom generation; Generation gap; Vietnam War; Civil Rights Movement; Watergate; Vietnam Memorial; Ronald Reagan; Lynden Johnson; Kent State; Jackson State.<br /></span> Subject LCSH Scholars; Authors; Woodrow Wilson Foundation; Levine, Arthur--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Arthur Levine Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Levine, Arthur ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Scholars; Authors; Woodrow Wilson Foundation; Levine, Arthur--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Arthur Levine is a scholar, educator, author and administrator. Dr. Levine is currently the president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Previously, he was president and professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University and Bradford College. He is the author of several books and articles. Dr. Levine received his Bachelor’s degree from Brandeis University and his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-07-23 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.79 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. 65:09 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4d2c4734fa58af86dbe533d28c9d04bc.jpg ff78c5b91e27e6ff0482245b4868c94c https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e8bde2fa588015f45463756d67755f93.mp3 6c2f5d77b4cd0aa69245bba8815f0b46 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 ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed John Lewis, 1940 February 21 - 2020 July 17 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Lewis is a politician and was a civil rights leader. He is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving since 1987. Lewis has a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and he is a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">John Lewis was a politician and a civil rights leader. He was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving from 1987 until his death in 2020. Lewis had a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and he was a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 41:28 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;The nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Questioning authority; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Vietnam War; Environmental issues; the Environmental Movement; Dr. Benjamin Spock; Berrigan Brothers; Timothy Leary.&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;:14275305}}">The nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Questioning authority; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Vietnam War; Environmental issues; the Environmental Movement; Dr. Benjamin Spock; Berrigan Brothers; Timothy Leary.</span> Subject LCSH Legislators—United States; Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Lewis, John, 1940 February 21--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Lewis Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;John Lewis is a politician and was a civil rights leader. He is the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving since 1987. Lewis has a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and he is a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">John Lewis was a politician and a civil rights leader. He was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district, serving from 1987 until his death in 2020. Lewis had a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University, and he was a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was the keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.</span> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lewis, John, 1940 February 21 - 2020 July 17 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Legislators—United States; Civil rights movements—United States--20th century; Lewis, John, 1940 February 21--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 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.10.2016.80 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. 41:28 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ee3b44e7d0e80e933c52cbf26cca2490.jpg b4feaffecf8b7b138fce7a3d1181bd96 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7f601bbdb30687ff8efc7d750f8cecb3.mp3 536dac3bfbec1c0fa095cff2e5d26b10 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 2010-08-10 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Robert Jay Lifton, 1926- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Robert Jay Lifton is a psychiatrist, author, researcher, and educator. He studied medicine at Cornell University and New York Medical College. He works mostly on the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence. He has written and published many books on his work.&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;}">Dr. Robert Jay Lifton is a psychiatrist, author, researcher, and educator. He studied medicine at Cornell University and New York Medical College. He works mostly on the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence. He has written and published many books on his work.</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;American Woman; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; SDS; John F. Kennedy; Vietnam War; Platoon; Catholic Church; Dr. Spock; Ronald Reagan; Healing; Vietnam Veterans; Cambodian Campaign; Activism; Civil Rights protest; Ken Burns; Civil War; Empowerment; Parents; College; Birmingham campaign; Ted Turner; Tom Hayden; Jerry Rubin; Timothy Leary.&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;:14275305}}">American Woman; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; SDS; John F. Kennedy; Vietnam War; Platoon; Catholic Church; Dr. Spock; Ronald Reagan; Healing; Vietnam Veterans; Cambodian Campaign; Activism; Civil Rights protest; Ken Burns; Civil War; Empowerment; Parents; College; Birmingham campaign; Ted Turner; Tom Hayden; Jerry Rubin; Timothy Leary.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 104:57 Subject LCSH Psychiatrists; Authors; War—Psychological aspects; Lifton, Robert Jay, 1926--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Robert Jay Lifton Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lifton, Robert Jay, 1926- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Psychiatrists; Authors; War—Psychological aspects; Lifton, Robert Jay, 1926--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Robert Jay Lifton is a psychiatrist, author, researcher, and educator. He studied medicine at Cornell University and New York Medical College. He works mostly on the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence. He has written and published many books on his work. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-08-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.81 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. 104:57 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bf053a933a7ad48848805363478acdd8.jpeg fab299fe840525267b04a61d9de6f0c9 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/41df9253c6a1a05d908b985f06b51e41.mp3 f4fbe6c8a29bde7c537362164b012350 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-01-30 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Paul Rogat Loeb, 1952- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Paul Loeb, a native of Berkeley, California, is an author, journalist, and political activist. Loeb has published five books and has done interviews for TV and radio including CNN, NBC, and PBS. He has written for many well-known journals and newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist and many more. Loeb graduated from Stanford University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:5003,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Paul Loeb, a native of Berkeley, California, is an author, journalist, and political activist. Loeb has published five books and has done interviews for TV and radio including CNN, NBC, and PBS. He has written for many well-known journals and newspapers including the <em>Washington Post</em>, the <em>New York Times</em>, the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>, <em>The Economist</em> and many more. Loeb graduated from Stanford 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 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 64:52 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Silent generation; Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Children of Silent Generation; Newt Gingrich; Senator Edmund Muskie; Ken Burns; Civil War; Confederates; Trust.&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;:14275305}}">Silent generation; Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Children of Silent Generation; Newt Gingrich; Senator Edmund Muskie; Ken Burns; Civil War; Confederates; Trust.</span> Subject LCSH Authors; Journalists; Political activists--United States; Loeb, Paul Rogat, 1952--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Paul Loeb Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 30 January 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:05 SM: Testing. One, two. Thanks again for doing the interview. This is again, the title of my book is called Magic Moments. And it is basically a takeoff of oral history interviews that I have been doing since I was working at West Chester University and then I retired to actually finish the book. The first question I want to ask is one of the writers that really inspired a lot of the boomers was Bertrand Russell, I-I have interviewed so many people and when I asked him Who were some of the influences on the boomers. Russell was one of them. And several people have quoted the very beginning of his book is kind of defining what the boomers are all about. And I like your thoughts on this at the very beginning of his autobiography, it says the three simples when asked what-what is the boomer generation All About and then respond three passions, simple, but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life, the longing for love, search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. What are your thoughts on Bertrand's thoughts there in his autobiography and how they might also be defined with a boomer generation? 1:25 PL: Well, you know, hard-hard question. I mean, I would say that, I mean, I was somebody who admired him, but I honestly actually had not read his work. So, so I am not one of the people who-who is sort of, you know, you know, who he was a pivotal figure for who but, I mean, I think it is probably two parts. You know, one of the things I think is really, really important to, to underscore is that there is no such thing as a monolithic generation. And so, if I looked at the people who were active, including myself, you know, during the Vietnam era, during the civil rights right stuff. You are all the, you know, social justice fight. And I look at the people like, you know, George Bush who are cruising through, you know, as drunken frat boys or-or, you know, or I mean, not just from the privileges, you know, but-but there were a lot of people who were not part of those movements. I think it is important to understand that the experience was fundamentally different. Um, there is a really good book, and-and have you seen it called Beyond the Barricades [The Sixties Generation Grows Up] by Richard Flacks and Jack Whalen? Do you know that? 2:29 SM: I think I have not. 2:30 PL: Okay, yeah. Because they were taking for granted, they did this, I do not know, 15 years ago, maybe they were looking at people in Santa Barbara, who were sort of very active during the period when the Bank of America got burned, although not always participating in it. And people were sort of hostile to those movements, you know, over-over and above the issue of the bank, when they really saw as people kind of following out those paths, you know, to this day, and, you know, so I got really angry when the media was sort of saying these tea baggers are probably the same people who were the radicals of the (19)60s that was like excuse me, where was your evidence? Have you interviewed any of them? No, you know, you know, there is, it is just like this assumption, I think, I think it is important to understand that, you know, those who have gotten involved to a certain, how to describe it to a certain degree. And there is a sort of threshold level. So, you know, if you were really involved and went down to Mississippi, or if you were organizing a whole lot at a college, you know, just doing all these things, the likelihood was that you stayed involved in citizen movement, and progressive movement. You know, if you were at the fringes, you know, I mean, it was not the same thing to me at the edge of a, you know, of a rock concert that, you know, was perfectly fine, but it was not. It is not a political engagement. And I think that there was a lot of conflation so there was conflation on two levels. There was a kind of false conflation of people who-who were kind of coming have shared some of the sentiments but were not involved with people who were involved. And then there was people conflation people who did not share any of the sentiments at all with people who were involved, and so you say, well look, you know, look, there was people on there, they were, you know, supporting regressive candidates or, you know, or whatever. But they never were, they never were engaged in a sort of progressive way to begin with. So, so I think that that that caveat, really important to make clear, and just any-any-any study of the generation. Now, if you were looking at those who were not getting involved, you know, and again, there was sort of two classes, there was two groups of three. You know, there was the people who were actively working for social justice or against the war. And then there was the people who are kind of at the periphery, we sympathize. Now, obviously, the effectiveness says of the movements of that time, it depended on being able to draw in those sympathizers so that their, their attitudes were not irrelevant by any means. But it to now, I think you just have to draw a very careful line where you end up, you know, basically creating a narrative. Somebody said, well, you know, they were a hippie then and look at them now and where did they go? Right. And, you know, so I think that is the point in terms of Russell's statement, you know, circling back to your question. I mean, I think, I think that there was an upwelling of compassion, and, you know, you know, whatever that character’s phrase, you would just use, you know, for something. I mean, I think there really was, and there was a sort of sense that does, you know, why are we-we are listening to us, you know, why are we not living up to our values, we should be living up to our values, and our values include treating people with justice. So, when I say I think that that, you know, that really, really was a current, you know, the need for love. I mean, I do not know, you know, do we need it more than other folks, you get more? Unless you are on that one. I like it, you know, it is like, I like to be loved, but, but you know, you know, my dad who is 81 got it. You know, it means a lot to him to. I am not sure that that is something that is generationally based to be honest. Right. You know, I would hesitate on that one. Um, but I think it was kind of upwelling of compassion. And I cannot remember the third aspect well. 6:14 SM: Well knowledge, the search for knowledge. 6:16 PL: Well, the search for knowledge, but I think that there was a sense that the, the verities of the times, which were sort of forged in the post, in the Cold War, post-World War. Two consensus that they were worth questioning, at least among a lot of people. Now, one of the, I did not tend to think, is that the completely legitimate critique, say from the left, and it has some point, dovetailing with some of the critiques from the right, and sort of helped to dismantle some of that social welfare state. That was a kind of unfortunate consequence. Right? You know, when I say search for knowledge, you know, the knowledge of basically saying, well, let us question everything. So-so I think there was that certainly people were trying to think things through anew. And that was good in many ways. But sometimes it made people a little contemptuous for what had been achieved. And that was- 7:10 SM: One of the things that when you look at the boomer generation is oftentimes the influence they had on their children, which is the generation Xers and actually now, when you go to the colleges, only about 15 percent of the men, millennials are sons or daughters of boomers. So, it is mostly generation X kids is so- 7:31 PL: So here is the thing he really because I did that book on-on students. Right, that really strapped I mean, problem, I think when you are trying to define that, is if you look at the generation X folks, a lot of their parents were from the what everyone calls that previous generation, the silent generation, you know, you know, Korean generation, and now it is kind of to charge but you know, the generation of sort of, you know, Korean age, and you know, came of age in the (19)50s. So, a lot of their parents were from that and again, you have distinguish between early and late boomer, I mean, boomers if you were coming up in (19)62, or three versus (19)68, or (19)69, totally different world, right, you know, and I mean, if you look at them in the figures in, think of this is in Seoul citizen, I could look, probably, I will look it up, because I know I know it is in there and therefore, I can just find it and give it to you, that, hold on a sec. What I am trying to find is the, of Wisconsin. That should do it. Okay, so basically, here is your- here is the figures laid is 19 sentences from Seoul citizen directly. The latest 1966 National antiwar demonstration drew more than 25,000 people. More than 70 percent of students at University of Wisconsin, a future radical hotbed bill approved of America's involvement in Vietnam. In the spring of 1968 not one 39 major newspapers in the Boston Globe survey, favored pulling out our troops? So, you know, when I look at that, what does that say that it is you are coming of age in (19)63 you are coming of age in a period where everyone is supporting the war, now coming age, and not that many are involved in (19)69 very different. So, I think that if you look at the children, the children of the, you know, of that previous generation, or have that sort of first, the non-engaged flights of the boomer generation, tended to be quite conservative. And in fact, that generation that cohort is, you know, is a very conservative cohort. Um, you know, in terms of their voting, you know, when they were they vote Republican. And but I think it is inaccurate to say, oh, these are the children of the (19)60s activists. And then, you know, and again, the millennials kind of split, you know, and obviously, every year, right, smaller, I mean, like, my stepson, graduated from college this year, I was at the tail end of the Vietnam generation. So, he is still the end, you know, Children of the Vietnam cohort, right? But, you know, he is kind of, it is kind of near the end of it. Um, so I think I think that um, again, it gets complicated because all depends on where you draw the dividing line. 10:15 SM: Yeah, I know that there was, there was another book that you are probably well aware of it was written by Wanda Urbanska, which was called Singular Generation. Yep. And she, she is written in 1986. She was a graduate of Harvard. And she mentioned that as other generations had been marked permanently by war, and it is aftereffects. Our generation, which is Generation X has been marked by divorce, which over half of our parents who were the boomers have been divorced in our reaction to the instability through the social protest movements, and a lot more of a stability in their lives? Not- 10:53 PL: Yeah, I do not know. I mean, I think I did. I did not remember the name, but I mean, certainly remember reading that theory. I mean, I am mixed about it, because um, I mean, certainly it is true that they are, you know, that divorce rates went up, but then you know, you know, I mean, my, well, this piggyback generation, but like, my grandparents on my mom's side, my mom's parents were in a 60 plus your marriage. That was a horrible marriage. You know, it worked out. I mean, it was, it should never have been married together. It was awful. And, you know, so I think, yeah, there is a tradeoff of divorce, but there was also the tradeoff of those people sticking it out in truly horrible marriages. You know, like my grandparents. And, I mean, from the outside, it may have looked good, but from the inside, it was abysmal. And they were torture, they were torturing each other every day. I mean, I you know, I watched it every time I did, I went over, right. And I love both of them, but still. So, you know, I think that it is a little tricky to say that they were you know, marked by- I mean, it did shift some things and certainly the entrance of women into the workforce shifts a whole lot. Probably I would say even more, you know, it because suddenly you had, you know women work. But you know, and then there, you know, and then it is complicated because it is the gen X folks, and these are the people that I actually wrote a generation of crossroads on. Mm hmm. Are they reacting against the, say the (19)60s protests directly? No, because they were too young. Right? They were, they were responding to the media's caricatures of those, which is what they have inherited. Because they were, again, they were too young to respond directly, because they did not, you know, they were not born yet. Or they were really tight and really young. So, so I think it is, yeah, so I think I would kind of take issue on that. I mean, I, you know, I think probably they more and more shaped by, you know, by the lull in direct participation, and by the sort of media caricatures of protests, and they were with any direct experience positive or negative. 12:59 SM: Paul, when you um, I want to ask you a question is how did you become who you are, um, when you first, you know, when we brought you to West Chester University back in the early (19)90s. And I remember you visiting the campus and I remember when you left, the students were saying he is so different, and he has got such passion. I wish I had it, because you are a deep thinker, but what made you who you are to be to think so deeply about these issues, not only about your generation, but the generations that followed? How did this happen? Well, who are the role models that inspired you? 13:38 PL: Well, I mean, I, I often say they were sort of a couple of people directly on there was a rabbi. He was in Seoul of a Citizen, Leonard Biermann, he was just very outspoken, and, you know, I was growing up and he was just, I could tell he was thinking off the rip. So, you know, that, um, that that made me more receptive. And there was a very outspoken young history teacher who was taking a lot of risks. And I think those were probably the two biggest models. You know, where I just saw people speaking out. And-and somehow, I just felt like I had a responsibility to do something about things that were wrong about that from the beginning. 14:19 SM: Did you ever in your life ever pay a price for this? 14:23 PL: Well, personally, I mean, I suppose so. You know, it sort of depends on your definition of pain of paying a price. I actually write about this in the new edition of soul citizen a little bit- 14:33 SM: When is that coming out by the way? 14:34 PL: April, March 30th. 14:36 SM: Yeah, because I got that. I got some of your books right with me here, including that generation at the crossroads. First editions of that. 14:42 PL: Yeah. So, um, yeah, I mean, I was very active at Stanford. And we were active around military recruiting particularly corporations tied to military, right and, um, so a bunch of my friend Pete Knutsen and myself and several other people went into a recruiting room where a few pictures of Honeywell was doing cluster bombs and we swiped pictures of their victims, and we refused to leave. And we ended up getting indefinitely suspended. So, you know, in that sense, I suppose I paid a cost in that I, you know, I did not graduate from Stanford. But I actually, you know, as I write, you know, reflecting on it, did it destroy my life did it you know, make, I mean, it was a little hard to make the transition, but I, you know, actually sound like a lot of new I moved to New York, a lot of new possibilities opened up so I, you know, the one of the lessons is, you may do something that looked like, you are paying a cost, but in fact, you are not really paying. I mean, you know, you are in some low abstract level, but it does not really make your life worse. So-so I suppose you could say that that was closest I have come to, you know, paying a cost beyond just, you know, you know what, everyone goes all insensitive. You know, you are going to get your heart broken periodically, you know, and that I suppose that the cost too. 15:59 SM: I know it is. 16:01 PL: You are going to feel like overloaded. You know, you know, too many things. But-but not in the sense of, you know, I am not I have not been tortur- I mean, I have been, you know, I have been in civil disobedience a few times, but I knew I was going to get arrested. So, I was not, you know, that was not an honor. It did not feel like a real cost. 16:18 SM: Yeah. So how do you respond when you I say to specific instances in 1994 when Newt Gingrich came into power, and this is not an attack against republicans or anything, but when he came into power, I read some of his speeches. And he made a lot of commentary about the (19)60s and about the Vietnam generation. And a lot of the bad things that were happening in America at the time he came into power is due directly to that era. Back there, back in the (19)60s, and I know George will oftentimes when he writes, we will, we will take a shot at the right generation and there is several others that put the blame of everything in our society on that era. 17:01 PL: Well, it is garbage. I mean, basically people who read, you know, goof supported nothing but a regressive social order that hand power over to the wealthiest. And when people just shut up and be silent about it, and said they were scapegoating, those times when people actually challenged it, and they do that, of course, by trying to caricature the excesses, because every movement going to have it? You know, flaky moment? And, you know, but I mean, it is, I would argue that it is, it- Well, I mean, maybe it is their belief, but I call it bad faith. You know, certainly bad history. Not that day. 17:38 SM: I know, you cannot generalize a whole generation, because we are talking anywhere between 70 to 78 million people that were boomers, I have got books that say we had 74. But can you- kind of I know there was the-the early boomers, as you mentioned, who were really involved and then you get the later boomers who did not have the experiences as like the early boomers, but can you, can you give some qualities, some strengths and weaknesses of the generation? 18:08 PL: Well, again, I do not like lumping it together. 18:10 SM: Okay. Very good. 18:11 PL: You know, I am very hesitant. Because, I mean, I can talk about the strengths of the people involved in the movement, but- 18:18 SM: That, I think that is what I am going to get at, because- 18:20 PL: Okay, what that I can do, but I just, I just want to make clear, I mean, Gingrich is part of the generation. 18:25 SM: Yes. 18:27 PL: Karl Rove was part of the generation I think he is, yeah. You know, so these people who is, you know, I mean, I feel nothing in common with these people. Is not that I am a carbon, we are both carbon-based life forms, you know, and even their- you know, I feel a hell a lot more common with my friends dogs than I do with a Gingrich or Karl Rove you know, so we are going to random-random dog I meet in the street. So, you know, in terms of the movement itself, Frank, I think, you know, there was a really powerful moral witness and people did have this sense of, you know, I am going to try and actually act on something again, even if there are not, as you mentioned, even if there are some costs. I think that that is very powerful. Now, you know, sometimes it got kind of megaloman- megalomaniacal, I mean, you know, there were people who believed revolution was around the corner. And, you know, and we were things that created a culture of fear, did things that created the juice that people like Gingrich and wail on those folks used to sort of create the caricature. So, to that was certainly destructive. But you know, but it was mostly destructive. I mean, was not really that society. I would it was mostly oh, no, but-but-but destroying the move. I mean, if I looked at the people like the weathermen, or there was this group, where I was at Stanford, strutting around with the little A.K 47 buttons on their jackets, and, you know, they did help destroy the movement. There is no question about that. And, you know, and-and I think, you know, there are some serious, you know, at least criticism or blame or whatever. And some of the people I mean, if you look at somebody like Mark Raj, who is very active with the weatherman has been very-very, you know, publicly self-critical and just said, look, you know, you know, yeah, we did, you know, we did some things, you know, we were important. We did things in good faith, but we were all different things, many, many things that were disastrous. Do not romanticize those things because they are not worth, you know, they are not, they are not things that should be emulated. 20:28 SM: Mm hmm. I am interviewing him Monday. 20:30 PL: Okay. Oh, yeah. Tell him hi. 20:32 SM: Yeah. Yeah. What are they? What are the qualities that many boomers though used to say, and I am this might be across the board in that is this feeling of uniqueness, that we are a very unique generation, we are going to end war? We are going to bring healing to the world, almost kind of a utopian kind of a mentality. 20:54 PL: You know, I think there was an interesting move, if you look to the part of it was the economy and the size of the generation, I mean, I think that there was this sort of sense of profit, there was a sense of possibility that, you know, I felt like, I mean, it was not true for everybody. I mean, if you grew up economically really poor, you did not have that kind of possibility. Or you did not have nearly as much. But I mean, if you grew up, certainly, if you grew up middle class, you really did. And you saw it, okay, things are going to get better. And you can do whatever, you know, you could do whatever you-you know, sit your heart on, and-and you could attack the society could tackle problems. And there was a lot. Yeah, I mean, do not forget, there were I mean, at that point, in right after World War II, I mean, Europe and Japan's economies were in ruins, you know, they had been bombed, you know, and fought over. And so, we were really the lonely large, you know, the large, healthy, advanced industrial power, because, England, but they were a lot smaller, and bombed to, you know, they kind of emerged unscathed, strong and just, you know, dominated that post war era. So, I think some of that rubbed off in the sense of I mean, tendency was arrogance to those who was possibility, you know if it was good and bad, but I think it did say, yeah, we could solve the problem. Now, you know, fast forward to now, it is a lot bleaker. People are a lot more skeptical and cynical. I think that is true. 22:17 SM: Oftentimes, in when you talk about the generalities that the Gingrich’s and will use it continue. I know, Will does that all the time. I have got one of his latest books. He has got a couple essays in there taking the shots. But another thing that was often used against the generation was something that may have been sure that only 15 percent of the boomers were truly involved in activism in their youth. Right, and they use it as a negative knowing that if you really look at the statistics there, you are dealing with 15 percent of 70 plus million, which is a lot of people. 22:53 PL: Yeah, I mean, I just, I mean, I do not know if I would just, I do not think it is a negative. It is just the reality. I mean, it is just as, yeah, you know, this was not everybody. And it usually is not in any context in any social movement. And look at what was accomplished, I would say an awful lot of really important powerful things by, you know, a relatively modest amount of people. And that should be an inspiration. I do not think it should be a knock, knock. And it certainly should not be a knock on those people who acted like somehow there was something wrong with them, because it was not 100 percent of the people throwing them. I mean, that would be a ridiculous argument. 23:33 SM: That is like when you look at the generation X that you have talked about, which are the kids, oftentimes the kids of the Korean War era, or, you know, the (19)60s. These qualities oftentimes come out here. And maybe you can generalize again, even about the generation Xers. Here is some of the qualities, the parents’ divorce rate. They grew up in an era radically different from the one that gave rise to the (19)60s generation. The parents divorce rate, the downturn in jobs, the one in four household where there is a single adult to be financially self-sufficient, singular in loving relationships and that and rebel against chaos and disorder where the boomers were rebelling against the system, that these are certainly some of the qualities that the generation Xers have. But maybe we are dealing with the same thing, Paul. Yeah, I think, cannot generalize about them either. 24:26 PL: Yeah, I think there is divisions within the generation. I mean, it really is, you know, they are, you know, they are the, they are people. You know, I think that the economic instability is real. I mean, let us, you know, recognize it basically, since about (19)73 of the US economy for most people, and going downhill for the rich it is not, most people it has, and so they were very much affected by that. And you know, and so they grew up in that context, so does not you know, as a quote millennial, those of us hearing coming of age in Vietnam, we are, you know, was a period of rising, you know, rising standards of living and rising affluence and, and, you know, surely being fairly distributed. So, you are not fairly but you know, more so than now. So, I think I think that that affects, you know that the insecurity affects people. I think the media stereotype protected people. I think, I mean again, the divorce rate is so complicated because if I looked at the people who did and did not get involved, and the ones who like when I was doing generation, the cross, who had what I would consider sort of generous, or socially engaged sensibility, you know, some of them came from, you know, pro down, you know, intact homes. Some of them came from divorced home. Some of the most just people with the awfulest sensibility came from, you know, very traditional family. So, I do not think you can necessarily, you know, sort of draw on the divorce act, just say, okay, this leads people to withdraw from engagement, this leads people to engage. It is very complicated. And I always try to make four arguments either way. 26:08 SM: In your eyes, when did the (19)60s begin the watershed moment? And what was the watershed moment when it ended? 26:15 PL: Oh, I do not know. You know, I mean, it, you know, it is, there is lots of watershed, you know, I mean, there is the obvious ones, you know, Berkeley Free Speech Movement, there is the, you know, the early sort of second wave of, I mean, the Civil Rights Movement is building and building, but there still was a kind of surge with those effects. I think we were (19)59 even. So, it is like the Greensville the lunch counter said in some of the first places. I am always bad on dates, but, you know, those were in the very beginning and they kind of, you know, took things to a level higher than they have been, you know, so you could date that, you know, when does it end? You know, hard to say I mean, obviously, by the time the Vietnam War ends in mid (19)70s. It is over. But is it still, you know, I mean, I think you would be insane to say that, like the year 1970, which had Kent State, which had the most kind of the highest level of protests in anywhere was not part of the (19)60s, obviously it was? And it was no, you know, I mean, you could say that there is turning, you know, when King or Kennedy was shot, that was the turning point and stuff starts spiraling down. And, you know, maybe, well, attendees pretty early, but you know, are in and, you know, in (19)68, I mean, yeah, I think people started damping hope to at that point, you know, getting more cynical and despairing. But you know, it is hard to know when it exactly ends. I mean, I, I remember I moved after I got kicked out of Stanford, which was it was the spring of (19)72 that I got kicked out. And so, then I moved to New York City to finish school in the fall of (19)70. And I thought, gee, New York, the whole lot less active than then, you know, we were in the bay. area. Well, maybe that was maybe it was not. But part of what we are seeing is the beginning of sort of the diminishing energy of those movements. They are still around, they still were pretty large, but they were definitely less than they had been two years ago. You know, two years before and by another two years, they were markedly less still. 28:20 SM: When we took a group of students when I was the university, I would say about 10 years ago, we took a group down to Washington, we met Senator Muskie before he passed away. And the students were working on questions with me. And the question we wanted to ask is what he felt about that 1968 convention and whether we were heading toward a second Civil War kind of breakdown of our society. And so, I want to read this because this is the event question that we asked him and then he responded in a totally different way than we thought he was going to. Here is the question. Do you feel boards are still having problems from healing from the divisions that tore this nation apart in their youth, divisions between fat black and white, gay and straight male and female divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not? In your view, what does the Vietnam Memorial play in healing the divisions that was primarily a healing? Or was it just primarily 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? And the reason why they said that is because I have taken students to Gettysburg, and we had people there talking about how had not healed since the Civil War. Am I wrong and thinking this or is four years made the statement Time heals all wounds a truth? I am really getting into the question here. Do we have a healing issue in the nation within this generation? That never really came to terms with the divisions? And when the- 29:55 PL: Well, that is a good question I mean, you know, certainly some of the divisions are there, and all the gay, straight one is there less than I think in the younger people, but certainly in older people, you know, if you were gay, it was a miserable time to be gay. But the too there, there was a sort of, there was different kinds of divisions, if you have listened to there was the, you know, the divisions of class and race and all that, you know, which, you know, which our society is still very much wrestling with. And then there was a sort of political division. You know no, I mean, you know, I think that there partly because people did continue on down the, you know, a lot of them, you know, there are certainly still some lingering, you know, if you are really on the other side, and hostile to these movements, you know, I probably have a little bit of mistrust. On the other hand, you know, we have had the sort of crucible of eight years, or I do not know what your congress but-but-but it was that eight years of George Bush, and, you know, so I am like to look at people's response during that period a lot more closely. If they are my age than I do their responses 40 years ago and say, well, where were they? Which side Were they on? Did they respond? Did they do anything? You know? And so, if somebody, you know, if somebody responded, in a way question where I think we are the fastest abuses of the Bush period, and they were on the other side for me during Vietnam, I think my response, if anything is gratitude. It is like, oh, that is great. You know, 30-40 years ago, they were on the other side. And now here, you know, now here, they are, they are recognizing that there is a real problem push. So, if anything, I probably like more Facebook them, anybody who has been active on my own side all along. On the other hand, the people who were like, you know, gung-ho for Vietnam and gung-ho for Iraq and all that. Well, you know, I got to say that I do not think they have been very good for the country, you know. 31:53 SM: Right, yeah. It is kind of the, the way muskie responded was that he did not respond at all about the-the (19)68 convention and, you know, confrontation between the police and the and the young people. He basically said that we have not healed from the Civil War. And then he went on for about 15 minutes to explain why he felt that way. Because he had been in the hospital, he saw the Ken Burns film series when he was in the hospital. And he said, do you realize as young people if you know your history that over 430,000 men died in that war? And it was almost an entire generation that we could have? We could have that we lost because of the best. 32:35 PL: Yeah-yeah, that is kind of interesting. I mean, I would, I would say is that that he, basically, that the Confederates never completely surrendered, and are a destructive force in our society still. I mean, that is, you know, I mean, if I looked at the base of the Republican Party, not all of it, but a bunch of it is in that, you know, old unreconstructed doubt in some ways and those old power structures that just, you know, I mean, they, you know, slavery ended and then there was segregation, and they made a few accommodations. But you know, it the white party of the South, you know, not entirely, you know, but a lot of it is its strongest base. And it is basically, you know, it is the party, though it is the party that resisted any attempt that, you know, those seats resisted any unionization. Right, you know, workers did not have any alternative. The religious institutions will, you know, with every, you know, some really important exceptions, primarily lined up on the the ones in the white culture are lined up on the wrong side in the Civil Rights battles, you know, and are still supporting to me my own kind of culture of plantation politics and greed. And again, I mean, I do not, you know, I know incredible activists in the South, they are doing wonderful thing. But I do think this that sort of unreconstructed Confederacy is, or you know, they are not-not unreconstructed. You know, only modestly reconstructed, etc. inveterate ethic. I think he is still alive and well, and, you know, it was running the show and a lot of ways during the Bush years. So, um, so that would be the way that I would say that from it. The number who died well, you know, that is a long time ago and I do not, you know, they had whatever legacy, you know, obviously those people were not around afterwards. That does not, you know, by now they would have all been dead anyway. So that is a failure. 34:22 SM: But I think the last Civil War veteran died in 1924. They have a statue for him in the Gettysburg Battlefield. 34:30 PL: Yeah. So, you know, it is a politics that is continued and that, that is real. 34:34 SM: You can kind of see it when you go to go to Gettysburg, you go on the southern side to see all the flags and flowers left on the north, you do not see anything. So, I just find that I go over four times a year and it is amazing. Two qualities here that I think are important in the boomer generation, this is all 70 plus million. And that is even though people may not have been involved in that 15 percent that were, you have got to say that the boomers were kind of a movement generation with the civil rights, the antiwar, and certainly the gay and lesbian, Native American, Chicano, environmental movements that came forth. And the second quality is the fact that they are very- they do not trust. And that was for obvious reasons, because so many of the leaders lied to them. And-and so and so, do you consider this generation of very non trusting generation and then a generation that really is a movement generation? 35:34 PL: Well, I mean, I think that there is more. Yeah, I think there is more skepticism. You know, that is definitely true, certainly than the- Well, again, it is tricky, because I think that all the generation now is equally untrusting. So, I think you know, that it is a period of the time, you know, pre (19)60s posting the level of reciprocity, that that is what I would argue the difference is. 35:58 SM: Do you think that some political science professors will say when they teach American government that a little bit of skepticism is healthy for democracy. 36:10 PL: Oh, a little, yeah. I mean, it is definitely you want skepticism, but you do not want it to devolve into complete cynicism and uptake. You know, that is the that is the line that that we have got to be walking its sort of- 36:25 SM: What, Jan Scrunch wrote a book on the Vietnam Memorial called to Heal a Nation, and it was the kick, it came out about 1987 I believe it was pretty good book. And he talks about building that wall not only to heal the Vietnam Veterans and their families and those who died in the war, but in a sense to heal the nation as a whole. With respect to that war. What do you think that wall was done? 36:50 PL: I do think that what is interesting is the people who visited whatever their perspectives are moved by it. The ones who support the war, you know, they sort of see, you know, here are the people who died in the just cause and the ones who oppose the war, like myself see it as a testament to just the complete madness of that war. But, you know, and by-by basically going to, I mean, you know, you should, you know, to really be realistic about the impact of that war, you would have a memorial as well for the Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians. And it would stretch, you know, halfway across Washington, DC, you know, I mean, a million to 2 million people died. But for the at least for the US side, it does come to you know, how do I describe it. People respond and are moved by the death. And everybody's respond by interestingly though, the number of times I have been there, the-the sort of political writing systems that they have this sort of kind of heroic that you nearby of the GIS and stuff, he goes to that I mean, they kind of give two seconds of a look. And it does not ring true, I do not think. But the wall rings true. And wall rings true for everybody. 38:07 SM: Of all the terrible events and good events that happened in the (19)50s (19)60s and (19)70s, is there one that sticks out in your mind more than any other? That may, that may have had been the greatest shock to a generation not only the activists, but the subconsciously affected the entire generation? 38:29 PL: God? I do not know. I mean, nothing, you know, I mean, there is still, there is obvious terrible events, you know, like assassination. Um, and, you know, there is sort of moments of great possibility, like, the huge protests and marches and stuff. But I do not really think that I do not think you can say here is the defining event or something like that. 38:52 SM: In your I think you were born in (19)52? 38:54 PL: Correct. 38:55 SM: Yeah. Obviously, you were very young in the (19)50s. But there was something About that you are talking about boomers. Now we are talking about from (19)46 to (19)64. And then you got the two groups. As we talked about it, everything seemed to be hunky dory, everything was fine. You know, parents were home from the war, giving their kids everything, they wanted. And even though we had the threat of nuclear disaster every day and McCarthy hearings for those that can remember early on about that man yelling on TV that people were communists and the fear and all that other stuff, and then the television shows of the (19)50s where kids seem to always be happy, and there did not seem to be too many African Americans or people of color on those shows. And then all of a sudden, the (19)60s came and some people saw realization that the- what was going on in the (19)50s was really they were hiding things right. I interviewed, Richie Havens, and Richie Havens said the (19)50s was the hidden generation. Everything was hidden and the truth finally came out? Yeah. Yeah. Do you have you when in your studies of young people, when you study them? Do they talk about the media and the-the-the effects that it has had on them? 40:17 PL: No, I do not you know I think I think they take it for granted. I mean, I think to say, oh, you know, it is like, they do not even think that much about oh, you know, I do not think they, they think this is, you know, this is what the media influencing me, this is how the media is influencing. They just think, no, this is what I know about the world, and I do not think they think that much about, like, where it came from. 40:56 SM: What, I am going to ask a couple questions here about specific events, and how but what they mean to you in the big scheme of things for the-the boomer generation and maybe in American history as a whole. What does the Kent State and Jackson state killings mean to you? 41:14 PL: Well, what they meant to me is that they are, you know, a couple of things. I mean, they, they meant that the Nixon, you know, regime, which I sort of blame for them, in some ways, certainly, in the case of Kent State, and I think probably Jackson State too, you know, sort of there was a test that, you know, go ahead, you know, fire on protesters, that they were willing to kill people. And I think it did really scare people make people angry. It had a dual effect. I mean, it, it escalated things. But it but it also, it also kind of, you know, probably did dawn people somewhat but it definitely it definitely raised the stakes. 42:00 SM: What does Watergate mean to you? 42:04 PL: Well, I mean, Watergate, it is interesting because it is it. It is a profound betrayal of the political process. And fortunately, it came to light. What is discouraging though, is if you fast forward, the Republican Party did not stop doing those things. So, you know, the [inaudible] politic was about exactly the same kinds of things. And the abuses in Florida, 2000 and Ohio 2004 that, in my view, both cases elected George Bush and reelected him. Um, those were coming out of the same. I mean, you know, it is sort of like you have got the rules, and you may not like the rules, but you live within the rules. We may try and, you know, you know, whatever at the end, you know, if you act in a certain way and your party gets a little advantage because of the way the rules happened to be written, well, that is life. But when you start breaking the rules, then it can get pretty ugly pretty quickly, which I think it did in the case of Watergate. I mean, I know evil pro was the guy who hired the guy [inaudible] He was the guy who hired G. Gordon Liddy originally. And he said, and he went to jail for Watergate and then really repented. And he said to me, he said, we almost destroyed. He said, as a judge, too. But, you know, when we were talking, I said, you know, we almost destroyed democracy. We are so convinced that the stakes were so high, that we had to do whatever we needed, whatever needed to be done, and we almost destroyed democracy. Pretty scary. 43:39 SM: What does Woodstock and the Summer of Love mean to you? They are two different things. 43:45 PL: Well, I mean, Woodstock was a concert. I mean, I guess it got a solid. Yes, it did get mythologized. But, you know, by the right in the left, you know, left is like, you know, Woodstock nation. You know, the right is like the dirty hippies are taking over. It was a big you know; it was a big concert. I mean, I, you know, if I lived on the East coast, I probably would have gone to it. I did not because I lived on the West coast. But, you know, I think that the idea of inflating it into some statement, or political movement is just ridiculous. I mean, it was, you know, other than the fact that, you know, it shows that there are a lot of people who like rock music and like to smoke. Yeah, we did not take other drugs. And then there was a general sentiment against the war. But it was not an activist effort. It just never was. You know, the Summer of Love was in it was sort of I mean, like, I well, I guess that is a slightly well, no, that is I think that is where that song I was thinking there as there was that Eric Burdon song about San Francisco and stuff and where is flowers near here? Yeah. 44:48 SM: Lee Hazelwood. I think. 44:51 PL: That was Lee Hazelwood without yeah-yeah-yeah. Burton wrote song about? 44:54 SM: I am not sure. 44:58 PL: I cannot, Burton wrote some terrible songs. I just remember always being from whoever gave oh, hold on a second. Maybe the furnace people are here. 45:10 SM: A few more minutes here. Okay, go. 45:14 PL: Yeah, so oh, I always this sort of say I mean, I, you know, I think that, you know, that psychedelic, that you know, mixed effect. And for me, I enjoyed the stuff that I took, but I always really, whoever gave Eric Burdon acid, I was I was just, you know, a tire Hitman because he was so good before he took acid. He was so insipid after he you know, it is bad. Yeah. I mean, there were musicians who said, you know, when they bloomed when they took acid, but he was, you know, again, I look at the Summer of Love and oh, that was what I was thinking of a girl called Dan dos. I mean, I was pretty stupid. You know, it was like, well, yeah, there was a whole bunch of people coming in. Uh, you know, to the Hayden wherever and I mean, it was, I do not know, again, maybe because I am more rooted in the political side, just sort of feel like, it was nice, you know, nothing against any of those folks. But the idea that somehow growing your hair out, you know, well, you know, we are taking smoking marijuana instead of drinking alcohol would somehow usher in a political change is just kind of silly and I think the media kind of inflated that. 46:36 SM: Let me turn my tape here we got fifteen- What-what did the counterculture mean to you? 46:40 PL: Well, again, I think the counterculture was sort of a yearning, you know, and again, I mean, you know, some of it did get realized. I mean, for instance, Vermont politics changed because of the counterculture because a lot of people settled and went back to the land in Vermont, and it was a small state and, you know, if they are, you know, now they got Bernie Sanders. So, it was not completely apolitical, and it was not completely detached to the impact. But I think that, generally speaking, again, it was just it was lifestyle, and it was recreation and no and-and that was fine. I had nothing against it. I mean, I, you know, I would like some of those drugs. But you know, in moderation, you know, otherwise I would not have bought near with, and I am glad I did not go near. Yeah, I have always had a pretty sharp dish and, you know, soft and heartbroken, you know, never touched those other ones. I am glad I did not. Um, but I do think that, you know, the, the idea that you can sort of carve out your own private retreat. I think that that that is sort of a very American fallacy. We are all interconnected, and you got to deal with the big public issue. 47:52 SM: What about the hippies in the hippies. Your thoughts on them? 47:56 PL: Well, I mean, the hippies were an attempt to politicize the counterculture. Anyway. To some extent it worked. I mean, they, you know, I mean, I never liked Jerry Rubin, I always thought he would just be a jerk, you know, and then the kill your parents’ stuff. No stupid. But you know, Abbie Hoffman was a great, I mean, he was a great founder. And he was, you know, he funny and imaginative. And I remember being a teenager being really inspired by him because he was so creative. And there was such a sense of play, and humor. So, I think that that, you know, that that 10th actually was, you know, I liked what they did. I mean, you know, does he could he really make a movement of it? I do not know, but you could, you could certainly use elements of it in any movement that you know, display and the humor and they, you know, I mean, I remember when they scattered money, I think they walled off the stock exchange with plastic, you know, barriers now, but it was true money down on the floor, and all these brokers were like, scrambling for it is, I mean, that was a wonderful moment. And you know, and it was completely nonviolent. It was creative, and I, you know, did-did that move American politics in a good direction? Yeah, I think it did. You know, um, you know versus stuff that created real fear of backlash. So yeah, I liked the moment they did. 49:06 SM: Your thoughts on the Students for Democratic Society/Weathermen. And then the Civil Rights Movement/Black Power, Black Panthers. 49:16 PL: I mean, I think in both cases, that you know, what happened is that a lot of frustration and bitterness is that the pace of change was slow. And so, you know, a lot of these so if you look at some of the people that were, you know, in SDS, even the ones that some of the ones went in weathermen started out very idealistic, and they were an accountant, or were they all the players, but like, you know, they were like teaching in an alternative school in a poor neighborhood and stuff like that. And then I think they just got weighed down by guilt and anger. And, you know, here was what they were doing, and people were dying, which was true, and the war was not ending so you have to escalate and bring it home. And when they did not recognize is a that the peaceful nonviolent protests were having an impact. But Nixon just did not acknowledge that. I mean, was a huge more horrendous stop from nine to stop them from potentially using nuclear weapons and vs North Vietnam. And you know, in his in his memoirs and all those, you know, memories, people worked with them. But people are getting really frustrated, you know, and so and then what they did basically destroy the movement because people looked at, and they thought, this is crazy. You know, both people in the movement, people sympathetic. And then people outside it just said, the fear. And allowed Reagan and George Wallace and all these people to run against it. The same thing is true to some extent on the black, you know, the black nationalist movements from the Black Panthers is you had people who well its complicated. Um, you know, certainly there were good community projects that some of those did, you know, the free breakfast and the free clinics and all that stuff. And they kind of built the political base that led to changing what you know, well in the Panthers, open, good ways, but again, all the sort of militaristic running around all that day is to make them good targets for the cops to, you know, go crazy. And then you add in with that sort of militaristic, you know, kind of style, he will the door for other abuses. So, you have, you know, people like, you know, doing you would not be getting involved in, you know, your bad news, hard drugs and you know, essentially, you know, destroying his own promising life, but also helping again destroy the movement. So, I just think that it is really important to be mindful that that, you know, if you kind of create a culture of fear, it has got a high potential backlash. 51:36 SM: Yeah. And, and again, that could be the reasons why you hear the Gingrich’s and the Wills. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It was like, Richie Havens, when I interviewed him, last week said that his parents raised him to be one of the good people. And that was a very important thing, and he made similar comments that you are making about the fact you know, that make sure that what you do is for the right reasons and so forth. What do you have the last one here is the Vietnam Veterans against the war? Your thoughts on them? 52:09 PL: Hugely important. I mean, usually, I mean, the reason the right hate is John Kerry is because he was involved in that group. I mean, so, you know, what they were, you know, it was the testaments to the death. And nobody had greater credibility. I mean, if you talk about turning points against the war, when significant numbers of veteran turned against for that was when the war had to and, you know, that was when they could not continue it. So, you know, I think that it was tremendously important organization, you know, made a huge impact. And, you know, people in the end, and that is why I always get angry at the stuff about the myth about spitting on soldiers. I mean, it probably happened a couple of times, but by and large, people in the antiwar movement were pretty, I mean, they kind of reach out to the bat, because they knew that if they, you know, they did their compassion. They knew that they were caught in the middle, but also, they knew that most people at least the anti-war movement that you know, if they did speak out, it was a very powerful testament. 53:04 SM: But what did you see when you saw that helicopter flying off the roof at the embassy in in on April 30, 1975. That the war was finally over. 53:15 PL: Well, I think it was anti-climactic. It was like the word gone and kind of wound down but had not quite. And then okay, it was over. I mean, I think it was just finally released that it really is over. Because I think that was mostly- 53:27 SM: When all the things happened in Cambodia with the Kamer Rouge. Did you ever have any second thoughts? 53:32 PL: No, because I mean, basically, not at all. I mean, you know, because Cambodia was a, I mean, it was a stable country. I mean, they call it what it was, they did not call I think they call it like the Paris of Southeast Asia. I mean, it was it was a stable country that we went in, and completely destabilized, destroyed the existing structures created this void that Khmer Rouge entered in and accrue. Of course, they were horrible. You know, but to blame the answer. I mean, you know, the blame the antiwar moves perfect Khmer Rouge is just has no relation to reality. I mean, you know, we were not for Nixon, he would not have happened. You know, and yes, you know, there is probably a handful of people who initially, you know, like, you know, they are not trusting their point then. But I think pretty quickly, you will realize, you know, how awful they were. But again, the number of causation on you know, the causes that Nixon expanded the word of Cambodia and destroyed that country. 54:31 SM: Richie Havens said something last week when I interviewed him, he said that Woodstock served a very important purpose is first off, he said it got us involved in a lot of different types of music, but-but they could not hide us anymore. And he was talking about 1959 was because a lot of the musicians that came out in New York City at that 1959 period, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Richie Havens, and the list goes on and on there, Peter Paul and Mary, they were kind of being hidden by society. And then they exploded in the (19)60s. 55:07 PL: Well, it certainly is true is that there is a lot of, you know, there are a lot and havens is currently one of them. There are a lot of musicians for bearing witness. And I mean, they kind of had a how to put it. I mean, they were voicing, they were voicing the common concern. And that powerful then that amplifies it. But I mean, I think when everyone does that, it is really powerful. I mean, I think that there was I mean, I remember riding on an airplane next to Jack Cassidy from just an airplane. 55:35 SM: Oh, yeah. 55:36 PL: And I was talking with him. And he said, you know, we wanted to play blues and all of a sudden, we were like, asked to lead the revolution, you know what to do? There, there are false expectations placed on or impossible expectations placed on some of the musicians. But-but I also think that, you know, in that sense, I would agree with Havens that, you know, when some when-when you hear a lot of people you are powerful music that talks about the real issues of our time, it has an impact. And you know, and last, I mean, it was not just the phone, you know, I mean, the, you know, it was it was a whole spectrum of people who are speaking out through their music and that was influential. 56:15 SM: He also said it would be he felt that that are not generally we had to create our own voice because we were the last generation that do not speak until you are spoken to generation, and he was pretty emphatic about that. 56:31 PL: Well, I mean, I think that there was there was a loosening up, you know, and that, you know, and, and it is this sort of nostalgia for the old Lord or kind of, you know, be silent and-and-and-and-and accommodate that. You know, I think that that is what they want to go back to. 56:50 SM: Right after you came to West Chester University back in the (19)90s. We did two programs, two major programs, where we brought in boomers and generation Xers, we had it in the theater. We had one in the fall and one in the spring to talk about the issues. The final conclusion, two conclusions came out of that conference is that and regarding the generation Xers thoughts about the boomers, the generation that preceded them, number one, they were tired of hearing about the times, and all the nostalgia that the boomer generation kept talking about. And then the other group said, he was, I wish we could have lived then during a time when there were so many issues and causes. I just wish we had issues like that. 57:33 PL: Well, I think both of those are still running. I mean, so, you know, especially now, he later, you know, the idea of I mean, like, I mean, I remember when I was growing up, and like I was sick and tired of like these World War II vets, like, oh, we were you know, we were so wonderful. And I mean, yeah, it was like, yes, you did a really important thing. I am going to certainly acknowledge you are courage and all the rest of it, but on some level, I was higher. You know, I was tired of grandpa's stories. On a certain level, and even, you know, even though important things were done, and, you know, so I think that there is the, you know, the idea that the be all and end all on the eternal reference damned for any protest or for anybody comes afterwards because you can never meet it because it is sort of an unrealistic standard. The flipside is the as you said, the romanticization of like, well, if I live there, I do not so I am not so yeah. 58:27 SM: Yeah, and finally, the conclusion is here that of those two major programs because we brought in TV personalities to actually moderate in some of our faculty were boomers actually got upset with the students. But another coupl- some of the qualities the boomers have a- the boomers always have to have a cause to be happy. Some of the students said the boomers are arrogant, boomers think they are better than other generations because they speak up more and challenge the status quo. Boomers are quick to judge people's weaknesses rather than their strengths, so that these are like some of the things that came out of those- 59:06 PL: Yeah, but you know, I think he is on the media stereotype. There has been- I mean, again, having I mean, you will, you know, quick was quick to judge me. And I think, you know, if you are, if a country is going in, you know, wrong war, you want to make a judgment about that, you know, if you have a debate on a political issue, you want to make a judgement, what is wrong and make a judgement? You know, I do not see anything with that. I mean, it is, you know, if you say they bill, you know, they are condemning us for not living up to well, I do not know, certainly, there was a feeling that that did, where people who bought the media line, were dismissing subsequent generations far more than sure then that was wrong. So, I did hear I did hear that I mean, I, when I was talking when I was doing generation, the crossword that I am doing a book on student values and people would say did they have any values. And, you know, that was that was born of misinformation that was born of reading these condescending Ed report that was important back to talking with people. And reciprocally. The, you know, the students saying, yeah, they all betrayed their values. They all sold out, the generation X people think, you know, the boomer generation, they all sold out, they betrayed their values. Well, that was garbage too. But again, based on the same kind of media stereotype. 1:00:27 SM: Well, your book, I am almost done here. I got two more questions. Generation yeah, generation the crossroads is one heck of a book and in there you list some of the qualities that about the generation Xers which again, are the- a lot of the kids and I know you can generalize this he could, but he must have some experiences what-what kind of parents do you think the boomers have been? When some of the things that you listen to your book, the qualities that most of the generation had- was is a sense of individualism, a mistrust of social movements an isolation from the urgent, big things that are happening in the world at the time, maybe some historical ignorance. And then you look at some of the other qualities that they are more interested in the smaller picture, when they are in the state of the world, their whole differences in how they parent their interest in the body, which is more important than certainly the (19)60s generation and work seems to be more important, you know, in the generation Xers, all these things, what do you I guess what I am getting at is what had the boomers passed on to their kids. 1:01:43 PL: But see, again I you know, this is where, I mean when I look at, you know, it depends on who you are talking about, right? If I look at so when I was interviewing students, and I said, you know, I looked at these students who are really just, you know, greedy, you know, called greedy or detached or just whatever, because they did not have parents who are social activists, none of them did. You know, and if I looked at the people who were involved, not all but a disproportionate chunk, often did have to parent do I mean, I think that they are these firms have to actually finally get engaged, keep taking these stands, and then they pass it on. And you know, wherever the whatever the, you know the lines of okay, this year at that year, wherever they fall, you know, they are passing something on have a tradition of engagement, and the people pass on the tradition of disengagement. They do that, too. So, you know, it just seems to me that, um, you know, that is just really wrong to say, you know, here is this generation passed on somewhat dubious values, because the answer is which part of the generation did that. 1:02:55 SM: Good point. My last question, Paul, and this is the last one. It is about the university. What did the university, the college learn about from the (19)60s? We know about the Free Speech Movement? We knew about the activism that was happening on college campuses, like- 1:03:11 PL: Like how does the university? 1:03:12 SM: Yeah, and-and it seems to me today, and we know the students are involved in massive amounts of volunteers and probably 95 percent. So, you cannot say they do not care. However, my sense is that universities today still have not learned from the (19)60s because they were afraid of rising activism, which to me is a little bit different than volunteerism, it was 24/7 mentalities as opposed to two hours a week and the universities learn anything from the past, or are they doomed to repeat the mistakes they made back then? 1:03:47 PL: Well, I mean, I think, again, it depends on who you are talking about. But I certainly I think that there is certainly people who are trying to get their students engaged in a [inaudible] the people, you know, and then there is also you know, once you do sort of feel like that okay, why do not they just shut up and let us run this run the university or the college? You know, I mean, and I have seen both attitudes, obviously, I think one produces a better play a better, I will say a better educational experience. You know, even if there is contention, an argument and all the rest of it, I think ultimately, it is a better educational experience. You know, so, I mean, that is the stream that I am much more supportive of. 1:04:28 SM: Right, well Paul, thank you very much. Sure. I will, you will certainly see the transcript. I have got a lot of I am doing all my interviews by May 15. And then the transcripts and all and so I will be in touch with you down the road. Okay, great. And you keep carrying on Paul. 1:04:46 PL: All right. Say hi to Mark Rudd. 1:04:47 SM: Oh, I will, okay, bye-bye. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 1 Microcassette Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Paul Loeb Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Loeb, Paul Rogat, 1952- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; Journalists; Political activists--United States; Loeb, Paul Rogat, 1952--Interviews Description An account of the resource Paul Loeb, a native of Berkeley, California, is an author, journalist, and political activist. Loeb has published five books and has done interviews for TV and radio including CNN, NBC, and PBS. He has written for many well-known journals and newspapers including the <em>Washington Post</em>, the <em>New York Times</em>, the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>, <em>The Economist</em> and many more. Loeb graduated from Stanford University. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-01-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.82 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. 64:52 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/fa20f006fa4673765c4166a2bf351b57.jpg 0e715652ebb2b09023cfa6f79264d906 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e84b6bbc90db2ffe1214b521277f7a90.mp3 f1096149996749649cffc57bd1d784be 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 2011-06-03 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Richard Lorber, 1946- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Lorber is an art critic, writer, editor, teacher, chairman and CEO of a film and distribution company. In 1968, he and his uncle, Ernest Fladell, co-authored The Gap, a bestselling book, which took a conversational approach to the growing cultural divide between baby boomers and their parents. Lorber has earned Bachelor's degree, Master's degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7043,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,1644825],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Dr. Lorber is an art critic, writer, editor, teacher, chairman and CEO of a film and distribution company. In 1968, he and his uncle, Ernest Fladell, co-authored <em>The Gap</em>, a bestselling book, which took a conversational approach to the growing cultural divide between baby boomers and their parents. Lorber has earned a Bachelor's degree, Master's degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Activism; Baby boom generation; Vietnam draft; the National Guard; Draft deferment; Vietnam War; Jean-Luc Godard; Hollywood film industry; Radicalism; Progressive; Student protestors; Trust; John Lindsay.&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;:14275305}}">Activism; Baby boom generation; Vietnam draft; the National Guard; Draft deferment; Vietnam War; Jean-Luc Godard; Hollywood film industry; Radicalism; Progressive; Student protestors; Trust; John Lindsay.</span> Subject LCSH Art critics; Authors; Editors; Lorber, Richard, 1946--Interviews Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 98:24 Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Richard Lorber Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lorber, Richard, 1946- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Art critics; Authors; Editors; Lorber, Richard, 1946--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Lorber is an art critic, writer, editor, teacher, chairman and CEO of a film and distribution company. In 1968, he and his uncle, Ernest Fladell, co-authored <em>The Gap</em>, a bestselling book, which took a conversational approach to the growing cultural divide between baby boomers and their parents. Lorber has earned a Bachelor's degree, Master's degree and Ph.D. from Columbia University. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-06-03 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.10.2016.83 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. 98:24 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7fb4c0124c20c0a1d7dc35a5531c61c2.jpg 25486f633d486634ec88c6398ba5aadb https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/05ebf1741a4dbc56328086182b7ef8aa.mp3 41701facfd1362977109283f4f06768a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-08-09 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Mark Hamilton Lytle Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Mark Hamilton Lytle is a scholar and educator. He received his Bachelor's degree from Cornell University and his Master's degree and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University. He is a professor of History and Environmental Studies, Chair of the American Studies Program at Bard College, and has written many volumes of history and biography.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:5039,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Mark Hamilton Lytle is a scholar and educator. He received his Bachelor's degree from Cornell University and his Master's degree and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University. He is a professor of History and Environmental Studies, Chair of the American Studies Program at Bard College, and has written many volumes of history and biography.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation; Activism; Drugs; Sexual revolution; Healing; Thurgood Marshall; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Equality; Robert F. Kennedy; George McGovern; John F. Kennedy; Voting rights; War Powers Act; Generation gap; Youth culture; Women's Rights Movement; Sexual freedom;Lyndon B. Johnson; Civil Rights Movement; Kent State.&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;:14275305}}">Baby boom generation; Activism; Drugs; Sexual revolution; Healing; Thurgood Marshall; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Equality; Robert F. Kennedy; George McGovern; John F. Kennedy; Voting rights; War Powers Act; Generation gap; Youth culture; Women's Rights Movement; Sexual freedom;Lyndon B. Johnson; Civil Rights Movement; Kent State.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 236:17 Subject LCSH Scholars; College teachers; Bard College; Lytle, Mark Hamilton--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: Mark Lytle Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 9 August 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Testing one, two. In your book, "America's Uncivil Wars: The (19)60s Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon," I have several questions. Question number one. You include Elvis, who was in the (19)50s, and then the fall of Nixon was in 1974, so when you are talking about the (19)60s, you are actually talking about part of the (19)50s and part of the (19)70s. Could you explain that? ML (00:00:34): Well, it is partly said that the tyranny of the calendar does not really help us unlock historical events and historical trends. And so that scene, the (19)60s narrowly as phenomena of a particular timeframe. I do not think it is as illuminating as to think of the (19)60s as a state of mind and a cultural shift that worked itself out over a long period of time. It was also, for so long, there was the notion of the do not trust anyone over 30. And so, as an emphasis on the (19)60s phenomena as a generational conflict, which I think of as naive. It is not that there was the baby boom generation coming of age, with all of their energy and a certain amount of rebelliousness, but, as I argue in my book, if you look at the people who inspired the children of the (19)60s, they were all born prior to the baby boom, and most of them in the (19)30s, anywhere from David Dellinger, who has turned, who was in his (19)50s in the (19)60s, and Paul McCartney, who is born in the late (19)30s, (19)40s, something like that, and he just turned 70. SM (00:02:02): I think he did. ML (00:02:05): But in any case, Elvis is another example. Elvis would be in his, I believe he would be in his- SM (00:02:11): Late (19)70s. ML (00:02:13): Late (19)70s, or even (19)80. SM (00:02:15): Yeah. ML (00:02:15): Something like that. But I do think that, in the way the (19)60s had a kind of populist, the grassroots sensibility, even though an awful lot of the leaders did have somewhat of elite connections. Elvis is a good example of that grassroots phenomena. So that was actually my purpose of, I know it is sort of the long (19)60s, as opposed to the [inaudible]. SM (00:02:50): Do you like these terms? Tom Brokaw has just been written writing up the greatest generation. Then you had what they called "the silent generation," which is a short period of time, which is probably the people we're talking about here. They were not so silent. Then we had, of course, the boomer generation, which I am talking about, those born between (19)46 and (19)64. Then you had generation Xers that followed them. And now were into the millennials, who are college students today, who actually have surpassed boomers in numbers. ML (00:03:24): Uh huh. Actually, makes sense that they would, although I do not know if there is demographically as bunch of a bulge as the- SM (00:03:34): No. Right. Right. ML (00:03:35): I think that is one of the differences, the population's much bigger, so the pure numbers do not mean the same thing. I do think that there is generational experience, something that is, each generation has a few formative events who are shared experience, September 11th, or the coming of the Internet. And then, within generations, there are some people who are very much framed by the Internet, and some people it sort of goes by them and maybe it does not affect them until 10 years later. I can remember when I first went on e-mail in the early (19)90s, was because my son had it at college, and it was an easy way to communicate. SM (00:04:18): Yes. ML (00:04:20): But I had four colleagues at [inaudible] who also had e-mail. So now half the younger generation do not even use e-mail. It is considered to be old foggy stuff. SM (00:04:32): Yeah. ML (00:04:32): And so, there is a certain amount of that in the (19)60s also, that there were these cultural markers, rock and roll being one good example of it that began as a very much a defining phenomenon. And then, over time, there were a certain number of, part of the cultural elite who began to embrace rock and roll, break down some of the artificial distinctions or hierarchies of genres. So, and I think in that sense, they belatedly got on the bandwagon. SM (00:05:11): I think what happens, higher education has this tendency, they want to put everything in little boxes. And so, the boomers of the box from (19)46 to (19)64, because of the large number of people that were born during that timeframe, and certainly the generation Xers and those titles. Howard Straus had written a lot about this. They had the characteristics and so forth. You mentioned something very important before I got to the next question. Todd Gitlin was the first one that said that if you mentioned the word "boomer" one more time, I think we will end the interview. Because he says, "I do not look at it in those terms." He looks at it in terms like you do, about the events, and the fact that the people that experienced the first 10 years of the boomers are totally different than those who, and the second 10 years who were like 10 years old when things were happening. What kind of influence would they have? And one other final point, and then when I interviewed Richie Havens, Richie said, "I was born in," I think, "'41." He says, "I am as boomer as anybody. I am a boomer in mentality," and most of the leaders of the hippies, and the Yippies, and they were all born between (19)40 and (19)45. ML (00:06:20): Right. Like Abbie Hoffman. SM (00:06:21): Yeah. And Tom Hayden and- ML (00:06:23): Jerry Rubin. SM (00:06:23): Yeah. ML (00:06:23): Those guys. SM (00:06:24): That whole group. ML (00:06:25): Yeah. No, I think, and one of the things that I do emphasize in my book, but when I anecdotally test this proposition, my wife's two years younger than I am, and yet her experience was quite different from mine, because when I was in college at Cornell, it was still a (19)50s kind of atmosphere, very fraternity centric. We had huge beer bashes and [inaudible] out of "Animal House" on the weekends. And when I came back in the fall of 1967, or the spring of 1968, somewhere in that range of time, everybody was stoned. It was between the summer of (19)67, there was a kind of title change in cultural practice, at least I suspect it happened slightly later on other campuses, but it was like a page turned. And so, I do think that Todd's right about making the distinctions within a very narrow timeframe. I am actually technically not a boomer. I was born in January of 1945, so I consider myself a very front edge. And then also, the demographically this, the baby boom thing's a little bit misleading, because the population uptick began actually in (19)41, (19)42, as prosperity returned. And also, you have the going away babies and whatnot. SM (00:08:06): Right. ML (00:08:06): So, it was not quite as explosive then. But the demographic trend was upward. SM (00:08:16): It is interesting, because you went to Cornell, and I went to Binghamton. And Binghamton banned fraternities, and so the students at Binghamton had to go to Cornell to join a fraternity. And I remember one of my friends, Rich White, whose dad was, I think, the DA of Binghamton, he had to go to, he was a pre-law major, and he had to go over to Cornell, and he was carrying a tiger around campus. I never forget it. And boy, people kind of looked down on him because he was joining a fraternity. We abandoned him there at that particular time. ML (00:08:47): Did you ever know a guy named Norman Breyer when you were at Binghamton? SM (00:08:49): Norman Breyer, I graduated in (19)70. ML (00:08:56): He graduated in (19)70 also, or somewhere around, that is (19)68 or (19)70, maybe (19)68. SM (00:09:00): I know Camille Pollier was in- ML (00:09:02): Well Norman Breyer lives in Reinbeck. And he is such a character that if you were thinking there is a chance here- SM (00:09:12): Well, he might have. I was actually involved in a lot of intermural events, and I went everything. But I- ML (00:09:19): I think you were stoned pretty much though. SM (00:09:24): It is a great college though, I mean, geez. And this is your interview, but I will never forget, you are exactly right about that 1967, because in 1965-66, (19)66-(19)67, Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass, Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, these were all popular groups. And then The Beatles were coming on too in (19)64, but it was (19)67 where everything changed. Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass, they kind of disappeared. ML (00:09:54): Still has a singing nun out there, and- SM (00:09:57): That is right. One of the things here too, and I just want your clarification on this, everybody I have talked to really believed you, taken off what you said earlier, that period of 1970, (19)71, (19)72, (19)73 is really the (19)60s. So, you cannot even differentiate, well, (19)67, (19)73. The war was coming down at that time, but that was still the (19)60s I would say, wouldn’t you? ML (00:10:23): Well, particularly, if you think of it in terms of the role of the war and Vietnam War as a frame for, as the Vietnam War intensifies, so do the (19)60s, or the political upheavals. SM (00:10:42): Right. ML (00:10:42): Even though I think that the civil rights movement was more of an initially generative, and certainly created the first wave of activists of the Mississippi Freedom summer types, and the veterans who went on to be part of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. But I do think that for many politically conscious college students, the Vietnam War and protesting the Vietnam War was more central, particularly until the draft, the repeal of the draft. So that really is (19)72, (19)73, and could still get people out demonstrating in the (19)70s, with [inaudible]. SM (00:11:32): Oh yeah. I got a question on that. ML (00:11:33): We have talked about defining moments in the (19)60s. SM (00:11:37): Yeah, I interviewed Phil Caputo when Phil was in Vietnam early on, around the (19)65 period. But dissent was really starting even then in Vietnam, from what he says in "Rumor of War." And, of course, he was back, and he covered Kent State. And now he has got the book "13 Seconds," but he was actually back to cover it, because he was a Chicago Tribune or whatever when he got back. So, he really talks about what is going on in Vietnam and everything. And what you are talking about is exactly what he talks about too, about everything was going in a different direction. Explain, I think it is very obvious what it is, but some people have not read your book, and when I interview people, some people said, "Well, just read it in the book." Congressman Anderson kept telling me, "Just read it in my book." Well, people do not have your book. It was printed in 1970. I just interviewed him last week in Washington. ML (00:12:31): May have lost it. SM (00:12:35): And I do not know if you ever saw his book. It is a great book he wrote in 1970. It is a classic book, and if you can get it, it would be great for- ML (00:12:41): Is this John Anderson, or? SM (00:12:42): Congressman John Anderson. A book he wrote in 1970. It is classic (19)60s stuff. He cannot remember a lot of it, because he is 89 years old now. But it is a very good book. But explain what you mean by the "uncivil wars," because we think of a civil war, and oftentimes, the (19)60s is looked upon as the second Civil War. ML (00:13:07): Yeah. SM (00:13:07): People say, "Oh no." Your thought, just your definition? ML (00:13:11): Well, I am just thinking, in terms of correcting racial injustice, the (19)60s are in, at least a metaphorical sense, a second Civil War. But I stole the concept, to some degree, from I think it is Bill Chase in his book on Greensboro and the sit-in movement and was talking about how oppressive the concept of civility was in an increasingly middle-class country. The idea of drawing negative attention to yourself, much less becoming obstreperous to the point of going to jail suffocated any kind of aggressive political action, civil disobedience of that. So, one of the things that happens in the civil rights movement is once all these middle-class kids started going to jail, and it became a badge of honor rather than a humiliation for their families, it really did shift their mentality, and to some degree, radicalize them, holding onto the term radical. Because if you look at the history of the four civil rights students, I just wrote an essay on for one of our books on the sit-ins in Greensboro and the, four of them went on to do stuff that had, one of them became a corporate executive, and one had a career in the military, and one of them runs some kind of public service agency in Boston. I mean, one has died. But none of them went on to be engaged in civil rights politics after that initial event. But I think that the people in authority also used the idea of civility as a way of suppressing opposition, because it was impolite to question your elders. It was impolite to call the dean a fool, to challenge your, challenge faculty authority and whatnot. So, one of the great, if you look at so many, like Ronald Reagan and others, when they're criticizing, during the (19)60s, smells like, I do not know, dresses like Tarzan, and [inaudible] like Jane, and smells like cheetah, or has hair like Jane, and smells like cheetah. It was sort of an attack on the incivility of, in a way, or the rejection of civility. Or when Mark Rudd gets up on the stage, and tells, says, "Fuck you" to the President of Columbia, nothing could be more uncivil. So, then it, to me, it became really one of the central themes of... Because I see so much of what the (19)60s was really about, was really a fracturing of the, I would never use the term "ruling class," because I do not really believe in that structurally, but of the sort of dominant elite, where it fractured, and the loss of the ability to communicate or to rebuild consensus. And I think that was one of the reasons why it was so strident. SM (00:17:06): Do you find it ironic that most universities today, particularly from the (19)90s on, have had civility day? ML (00:17:13): I do not know- SM (00:17:13): Yeah-yeah. We have it at West Chester University. And it is like when we had Tom Hayden on our campus, and we organized activist days, and we had 2 or 3 days of activist speakers. And Tom Hayden thought that was a joke, because activism is 365 days a year, not 3 days a year, but he appreciated what we were doing, because not many were doing that. But I do not know what Bard has it, but the university I have worked at, they have civility day every year, where they bring in a speaker, or say that we are civil with each other. It is important to be civil, but. ML (00:17:47): We actually have a requirement at Bard that has to do with a difference. You have to take a course, at least some course, that deals with cultural, ethnic, racial difference in the course of your career. So that is how we put it in. Bard has a pretty liberal left tolerant filter. In fact, I would say Bard is intolerantly tolerant. SM (00:18:19): Do they tolerate conservative people? ML (00:18:21): They have a little trouble with that, but if you are eccentric enough, they buy it. They like that. They like eccentricity. SM (00:18:27): Was not there a professor that was mad at Dr. [inaudible] this past year, or he got fired, or something? ML (00:18:32): Oh yeah, that was [inaudible]. SM (00:18:34): Yeah, I do not even, I remember reading that in "The Chronicle." ML (00:18:37): No, that was a classic kind of, where Joel still lives in the kind of Marxist frame of the (19)60s radicals, and he had become actively sympathetic to the Palestinians, and considered, he was in this sort of Noam Chomsky camp. Prior to that, he had been very outspoken about, he was a Green Party candidate in New York State, so he was against corporate exploitation of the environment. He always believed that the Vietnam War was fought over oil and the South China Sea. And before that, he wrote about civil rights and whatnot. So, he has sort of followed the trajectory of radical politics. And he had been at Bard as the [inaudible] professor of social studies. But over the course of time, he had become more and more remote from the community, and also more, he remained very doctrinaire, and so there was an increasingly fewer students who were interested in what he had to say. And he communicated less and less with his colleagues. So, when the financial crunch hit, turned out he was being paid a rather magnificent salary for being half-time. And I was on the committee, and one of the committees that has to do with hiring and new positions, and the planning and appointments committee. And Dean asked us to review all these faculty positions and say which ones could we live without, where the college had some discretion. His contract was up and decided not to renew it. And it was because he was, it was not because he was a leftist or pro-Palestinian. After all, Bard has created a liberal arts college on the East Bank for Palestinians. SM (00:20:37): Right. ML (00:20:38): So, there is no one who has put his neck further out on this issue than Leon Botstein. But I think also Joel's feelings were hurt. I mean, even though he, if he would not pretend to be a sentimental guy, I think underneath it all, he is a little bit. And I think if they had been, taken a different tactic with him in severing the relationship, that he might have been a little less upset. And it turned out that to be a tempest with little staying power, and the issue died pretty quickly, I think. SM (00:21:13): He had been there how many years? ML (00:21:15): Eh, probably 15 maybe, 10 or 15. He got appointed to Bard had been good to Joel. SM (00:21:21): He was only part-time too. ML (00:21:23): Well, he had been full-time, but we came in, he had been part-time, and had been on leave, and, I mean, hardly ever saw him. So anyway. SM (00:21:31): What were the most significant events during the period you described, the events that shaped the era, but also had lasting impact on the lives of boomers and the body Politic? I have, you break your book down into three phases, the phase up to present, from the (19)50s through the assassination of President Kennedy, then you have the period from when Johnson came into power through (19)68, that very tumultuous year, and then you have that period (19)69 to (19)73, so, in those three phases, what, of all the events that took place, what do you feel personally has stayed within the body politics? I say this because, when I interviewed the late Gaylord Nelson, who I know quite well from our leadership on the road trips, and [inaudible] to Westchester twice, he said that the Vietnam permanently affected the body politics forever. And he said 100 years from now, the effect will be in the body politics, it will not necessarily deal with the issue of healing, but. So, your thoughts on what you are talking about? ML (00:22:51): Well, I do think, I would say that there is no question that the Vietnam War ultimately destroyed the Cold War consensus. And so, in that sense, that redirected the political dynamics of the country. And to some degree, the Vietnam War absorbed the civil rights protests. I mean, it transferred into the military. But I would say also the assassination of President Kennedy, only because, not because Kennedy was so vital as a president, but because as an icon and a symbol of transformation. Again, he was the first, I think he was the first president born in the 20th century. So, and I also just the way it affected many of us who are these happy-go-lucky children of the suburban era and of the prosperity of the post-war era, and yet we are idealistic, I would say. And my brother, partly in response to the Kennedy magic, joined the Peace Corps. And it is, my brother’s, one of these people who in his heart is a boy scout but is also a cynic. And Kennedy had a little of that quality to himself also. He could appear to be a black scout, but he was kind of cynical. SM (00:24:39): Right. ML (00:24:40): It also, I think, in a causal way, certainly in having Johnson become president, this is hotly debated, people write about it all the time. I have a graduate student who I adopted when I was at University College Dublin, who is writing a book about Robert Kennedy in Vietnam. SM (00:25:03): And you doing it right now? ML (00:25:07): Mm-hmm. And he is, I think it is clear that Kennedy would, to me anyway, that Kennedy would not have pursued the same course in Vietnam that Johnson did. I do not think that he would ever have resorted to escalation, or certainly not on the scale that Johnson did. It seems to me Johnson that, there was a side of Johnson where he essentially threw the dice. I do not know that he believed he was gambling at this level, but that he just believed that if the Americans showed up in force, the other side would wilt, and that would be the end of it, and that he would then do his Mekong River Delta Project, and he would pay help [inaudible] off, the way they do in Texas, and that things would work out, because he is willing to give, as well as to receive. And I think Kennedy had been made all the more cynical, because of his experience in the Bay of Pigs, and was much more cynical about the CIA, about the military. And finally, he did not have that hang-up that Johnson had about his, had virility, different kind of hang, he had the Tiger Woods hang-up. SM (00:26:35): Oh yeah. ML (00:26:35): Predatory hang-up. But I think that Johnson had an experience in Texas politics where you had to be the big enchilada, and it bothered Johnson that he would be seen as a weak sister, or that his mom. And so, I do think that Kennedy would have been a different kind of president, how much they could have held off. Of course, a lot depends on, also on, it is like with a great awakening, or as opposed to the Salem Witch Trials. Some of the historians posit that you have this phenomenon of extraordinary behavior, and you can either choose to stigmatize it, and become frightened by it, and assume that it's the work of the devil, or you can say it is the hand of God, and the spirit is with us, and embrace it. And so that I think that was one of the things that also happened in the (19)60s, is that so many of the people in authority chose to stigmatize the behavior, felt threatened by it, having anesthetized themselves with habituates, and tranquilizers, and alcohol, and what were the drugs of choice of the older generation. They could not see that there was any comparability in the drugs of choice of the (19)60s generation, and chose to criminalize them, and in a sense, declared war. That is again why I call it, partly where the idea of uncivil wars come from. And there were some, lots of exceptions, like a lot of the ministers, who tried to keep the religious vital by tying into this youthful energy and quest for spiritual meaning and moral life and whatnot. But- SM (00:28:56): You raise a very good point there about alcoholism, because I saw it in the (19)50s myself, not from my parents here, but friends and so forth. I mean, everyone's drinking. And I will never forget when I interviewed Steve Gaskin, the communal leader who was in San Francisco, and [inaudible] the farm. He said that Janis Joplin committed a sin when she was around the hippies. She drank. Hippies did not drink. They only did drugs. ML (00:29:30): Yeah, well they- SM (00:29:33): And they were literally upset at her for drinking, because they did not believe in drinking. ML (00:29:38): Yeah. Yeah. Well that certainly was true. I mean, alcohol was the drug of the man, and the drug of the uptight, spiritually dead type. So, yeah. No. And that was why it was interesting to me. I grew up in a totally alcohol-driven social world. Parents were both alcoholics to one certain degree, and most of my parents' friends were alcoholics by anybody's standard of it. I mean, it is just that we also were given that mentality that all other drugs led to heroin, which was this almost like mannequin view of the world. And when we found out that it just was not that simple, that it was sort of like, oh. You know? SM (00:30:55): Yeah, I can remember, because at [inaudible] Bay, when everybody was- ML (00:30:59): Doing drugs. SM (00:30:59): But I did not. Now people, they do not believe me, the people that know me, because they thought I was always high on life. I need to get high on drugs. But I will admit, I inhaled. ML (00:31:12): Yeah. SM (00:31:12): But I did not actually swallow- ML (00:31:14): Well, I never took LSD. SM (00:31:17): I never got into anything of that stuff. ML (00:31:18): I tried a little cocaine once upon a time, and it was good. But it is like, okay, so, I mean, to some degree, I am a little bit like too, I mean, I am a sort of a high energy person, and so I do not need it. I mean, I like to get mellow rather than to get high or get ecstatic. SM (00:31:40): See, when I interviewed Paul Krassner, Paul is, when you talk to Paul, he is a very respectful person. Of course, he was the founder of the Yippies, and he knew Abbie real well, and he makes a lot of sense of drugs. ML (00:31:58): Mm-hmm. SM (00:31:59): And so, my project is not about being a judge of anyone. It is very important to certain people, and it has not affected their lives in any respects, so more power to them. One of the things that, I have talked to a lot of people about the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement and the women's movement, and I talked to a lot of the leaders of the gay and lesbian movement, some of the top people. Have not talked to very many Native American leaders, although I have been trying to, and certainly- ML (00:32:34): Unfortunately, an awful lot of those ones from that era died. SM (00:32:38): Dennis Banks, which you cannot get ahold of the guy, and I interviewed Paul Chop Smith down at the Native American Museum in Washington, but he is controversial. But the question I am coming up with is, you talked a little bit about the new identity movement, which is the environmental movement, the feminists, the gay and lesbian movement, and Latino and Native American. I would like a little more information about how important the Latino and the Native American movements were. I know about the American Indian movement from (19)69 to (19)73, but you do not hear a whole lot about the La Chicano Latino Movement and the Puerto Rican Movement of the young lords that kind of copied the Black Panther. Just your thoughts on the other movements of the (19)60s? ML (00:33:27): I do think that it is probably regional to some degree. That is, if we had lived in the southwest, the Brown Power, Chicano Mexican America, you would have been much more conscious of it. If you are in New York City, Puerto Rican politics would have had a higher profile. I do think, as I said in my book, that the Latino community in America is really diverse communities. You have Cuban community, Puerto Rican community, and- You have Cuban community, the Puerto Rican community, and the Mexican community, and they have very different historic cultural backgrounds, and very weak communication amongst themselves. So, it was hard to coalesce about practically anything. And also, their numbers were not so large then as they are now. And so, I think that it tended to marginalize them a little bit. So, it is a combination of diversity and regionalism. Plus, I think that one of the funny things, the difference is like Cesar Chavez, and he was very Catholic. And I have always believed that the Latin American community has a very conservative side to it, politically, and would be socially conservative, and would to some degree line itself up with some of the (19)70s, (19)80s, evangelical, fundamental, some of their political ...They should be anti-abortion, probably anti-gay to some degree, whatever. But the nativist streak that underlies a lot of conservatives ... Thank you. This is my wife. SM (00:35:39): Hi. How you doing? Nice to meet you. GL (00:35:39): Nice to meet you. SM (00:35:44): Yes. It is going to get in the (19)90s at the end of the day. ML (00:35:51): And the same thing with Native Americans. They tend to be in the northeast, even though their reservations and whatnot, they are really isolated. And to some degree that was true around the country except where you had significant Indian populations within the urban areas. But I think that symbolically, they were important in that it was a constant reminder of the sort of attack on WASP dominance. And that was part of the ideas of social justice and civil rights being inclusive as possible. And so that if you kept discovering these things having not been part of your consciousness as you discovered, "Well here is another group that we have abused and misused and-" SM (00:36:52): From the get-go too. ML (00:36:56): But I could give you a kind of flip side of this. One of the experiences I had when I was in college is that I grew up in an odd circumstance in that I grew up in a totally Jewish neighborhood. There were very few, a couple blocks from where I lived, they were Catholic enclaves and the public school I went to was 80 percent Jewish, 19 percent. SM (00:37:21): [inaudible] was 65 when I was there. ML (00:37:22): Okay. [inaudible] was 85 percent Jewish at one point, and now it is 15 percent. There were only one or two other Protestant kids in that school that I knew of other than my brothers and sisters and my son. And one of the interesting things was that when throughout the (19)50s, we never heard practically any reference to the Holocaust or the World War II experience, except once in a while you would hear somebody say, "Oh, so and so, that they were in Europe during the war. They died in Europe during the war." But no, I did not ever talk about it with my friends at all. It was just not part of their active conscience that I was aware of. Now also, some of my friend's parents would talk Yiddish to each other when they wanted to talk about things, they would not want us to know about. But when I got to Cornell in the 1960s, there really was what I think of, and I think in some literary circles that this is actually a concept of the Jewish Renaissance of ... One of the things that triggered it. So, talk about formative events in the (19)60s. And actually, in many ways, I think this was one, was the Six Days War. SM (00:38:44): Oh yeah, (19)67. ML (00:38:46): Yeah. Because I think one of the things that happened is the Israelis showed a kind of military competence and David flinging Goliath that spoke to the feelings of a certain number of people. But I think even more than that, it gave American Jewish kids a reason to think of themselves as Jewish much more actively than they had ever before. One of my experiences that a lot of my Jewish friends went to a private day school in Buffalo, which was WASP dominated. And so, you had to become sort of Waspy within this, not Jewish, but upper middle-class gentry. Gentrification. And at Cornell there was an awful lot of blurring. Although there were enclaves, there were Orthodox Jewish communities at Cornell. And Cornell had a very large student body as well. But that is really began to shift. And then part of it was the emergence of the whole mass generation of Jewish writers of Saul Bellow and Philip Roth subsequently. And it is just a very high cultural profile, plus a lot of our faculty were Jewish in ways that- GL (00:40:33): I am going to interrupt you for a second. It was just the electrician and the, Whitaker? ML (00:40:35): Yes. GL (00:40:35): First name is Wayne. ML (00:40:35): Whit. GL (00:40:35): Whit. ML (00:40:35): We call him. GL (00:40:35): [inaudible]. ML (00:40:38): Yeah, it is Dwayne Whitaker. GL (00:40:43): Dwayne Whitaker. ML (00:40:44): But he's known as Whit. SM (00:40:47): It is interesting that during my interview process, I had not been thinking about this, but when a lot of the people that I have been interviewing have been Jewish and then the people that were the leaders of the free speech movement that went to Freedom Summer, that were the hippies, the yippies. I just put two and two ... They are all Jewish. ML (00:41:08): It was a very high profile. SM (00:41:09): Yeah, a high proportion of activism. Susan Brown Miller who interviewed was Jewish. She brought it up of some of the ... In women's movement. I got thinking about that. And of course, I think it was Todd. ML (00:41:29): Todd [inaudible] is also Jewish. SM (00:41:30): Yeah, Todd is Jewish, but so is Mark Rudd. And Mark Rudd said ... There is no question in his book, The Underground, the links between what happened with the Holocaust having an effect upon him that never again. But you speak up and you speak up not necessarily about Jewish issues, but about justice. ML (00:41:46): Right. And then I think one of the things is that people started talking about the Holocaust in the late (19)60s. They began to go back and reconnect with their historical experience in a way that was very redefining. SM (00:42:04): And the history too, and I will get back to my questions here. We had James Farmer on our campus during the time of the Hymie incident with Jesse Jackson. And James Farmer had always been very close to the Jewish Americans and the Civil rights movement had been an African American. Jewish and African American were together so many times and it was making it look like they were enemies when historically they have been so together. It is amazing. And the conference that was at the Jimmy Carter Center. That was on Charles Corral one Sunday morning where this gentleman said, "Well, I am going to bring back the African American leaders and the Jewish leaders because they are all passing away to document these things at the Carter Center." And so, I saw that in Charles Corral. Then I drove down to Washington DC, went to the Jewish Center there, and I spent two solid days watching the tapes. I just felt I had to watch them. And they gave me a total access. And so, I have taking all these notes down. And so forever in a day, if anybody ever says that the alliance between Jewish and African Americans is a weak one, they do not know what they are talking about. They do not know their history. And that is why history is crucial here. They are more friends than they ever were. ML (00:43:18): No, there was question that certainly in the (19)60s, that civil rights consciousness was much more intense among the Jewish kids that I knew than it was anywhere else. It was not exclusive, but it was very disproportionate. And the Jewish students at Cornell tend to be the most liberal, the most activist. SM (00:43:45): I am from Ithaca. ML (00:43:46): You are? SM (00:43:48): Yeah, I am from the Ithaca, Cortland area. I grew up there. My aunt went to Cornell in 1927. My mom was five years old. I remember jumping on her bed the year that Babe Ruth did all those homerooms. And she was older than my mom. And then my cousin Nick, he graduated in Cornell School of Architecture. He married the homecoming queen. He is a successful architect in Boston. I got in there too, to Cornell. But my parents were now well off. And even though I could have lived at home, the tuition and such, I got into Binghamton. They thought it was important for me to go to SUNY Binghamton because it was a little bit farther away and it would not be as expensive. And I was always back because Stuart Park, we did functions with Cornell students a lot. And we were over going, and we brought our girlfriends over to Stuart Park. And that was always the place where the Cornell and Binghamton students’ kind of met. They were friends. A lot of people do not know the relationship between the two schools. And I have never [inaudible] the college students there. ML (00:44:51): Anyway, you asked about the defining events. I did write this essay for when I did the contrast with Andy Rotter at Colgate. SM (00:45:01): Yeah. How do you spell that name? ML (00:45:01): R-O-T-T-E-R. SM (00:45:08): Okay. ML (00:45:09): And where they were talking about 1968. And so, I was making an argument that you could consider 1964, 1973, to be every bit as transformative as 1968. And then I made another argument that there was actually an event that occurred, although I was torturing the chronology here a little bit, but that is probably the most transformative event of the (19)60s that nobody ever talks about. And that was that in 1968, the State Department announced that America's domestic oil production would peak within the next year and then begin a steady decline. And it began in 1970 that when demand kept rising, but oil production began to fall. And so, the US became more and more dependent on foreign oil resources. Well, we get most of our imported energy from Canada and Mexico coming from the Western hemisphere. But one of the reasons it was so vital is that for the entire 20th century, the United States had always been the country with the reserve capacity. So that when there were disruptions in the international markets, the United States could correct them at least over the short run. So, during World War II, we supplied Britain and the Western allies with a lot of their petroleum resources. I think a statistic was something like 40 percent of all goods shipped overseas during the war. It was petroleum or petroleum byproducts. So, one of the things that happens is that what this had meant is that after 1970, the United States could no longer play that role. We could not control prices and production. Saudi Arabia could. And so, we became dependent on our ties to Saudi Arabia to manage the world energy market. And so, one of the consequences you have in 1973, we are in the OPEC Boycott. SM (00:47:29): I was in the lines in Columbus. ML (00:47:32): And American middle-class prosperity has never recovered from the recessionary impacts. The middle class has been shrinking, that a lot of the major sectors, say, just think of auto workers as perfect example of this. Their wages have been declining in real terms ever since and their number of jobs has shrunk. So, what had created that sort of prosperous world that was part of the magic of the 1960s really begins to unravel. And then again, if you then project out into the future and think of all of the major war threatening crises or actual war events, you have the Iranian Revolution. You have the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. You have the first Gulf War and the second Gulf War. You have the constant friction between the Arabs and Israelis. So that for the United States, really in the post-Cold War era, it is the Middle East is our Balkans. And so, one could argue that in the 1960s also, one of the failures of the era was that even while we are focused on Vietnam, was the failure to respond to the growing energy crisis and to think about what it meant to have a society that basically ... It is the preference of the post-war, World War II model was to solve social problems through growing the economy by creating more and more wealth so that even though you were not going to seriously attack income and wealth inequality, you going to improve the standard of living for everybody. And that was essentially what Johnson was doing with a great society. That was part of his trying to revitalize the post-war, World War II Economic Opportunity Acts and the GI Bill and the whole apparatus that came into play after World War II. Johnson was trying to extended out into the future and reached more broadly with it. One of Nixon's most enduring acts in the early seventies was to extend Social Security benefits much more broadly and to put in cost-of-living indexes in the Social Security. So, I think that when we get focused on the political (19)60s, the cultural (19)60s, we sometimes lose track of these sort of deeper forces or determining elements of the world that we have constructed, that we live in. SM (00:50:37): I do not think it is doing a very good job for costal living increases. ML (00:50:41): Yeah, well that is probably certainly true. SM (00:50:43): Yeah, because my dad, when he passed away, he did not have any. Yeah, I do not remember him getting ... He had the same check, the very same amount every year. ML (00:50:54): Really? SM (00:50:55): Yeah, he died in 2002. ML (00:50:57): Yeah, but it was supposed to be indexed to some degree though. SM (00:51:02): It was not. They said that from last year, this year there had been no change. ML (00:51:06): Well, that may be. They may have frozen the for the time being. SM (00:51:11): What are your thoughts on that? This is a very controversial subject because at the very beginning of the Students for Democratic Society, they were a good group. I will admit they were. A lot of people did not like him because they were anti-war, and they protested and all the other things. But then they eventually moved as ... Mark Rudd [inaudible] in his book The Underground. And he is the one member of that particular group that is wrong. The only one that I can remember, Bernadine Dohrn spoke at the Kent State Conference, and I particularly do not care for her. But I know he considers her a sister. But I want your thoughts on, if you feel this was really the end of the movement was when they turned to violence. And that is not only SDS to the weatherman, but there is a question whether the Black Panthers were violent, even though they had the food programs. The Young Lords, the Puerto Rican group, they followed the Black Panthers in many ways. So, what the Black Panthers did, the Young Lords did in the Puerto Rican community. Then you had the American Indian Movement which started out with Alcatraz, which was a very good idea of a consciousness raising with Jane Fonda and so forth. And then he ended up with Wounded Knee and Violence in (19)69. Then you even had a (19)69 Stonewall, which was, it was about time the gay and lesbians’ kind of said, "We have had enough." But there was a lot of violence there at Stonewall too. And there was a lot of violence after Harvey Milk's murder in San Francisco. I was out in the Bay Area back then and I could not believe the violence in downtown San Francisco. They just went after windows and everything else. Just your thoughts about when movements go violence. ML (00:53:00): Well, first, I always argue that there was no movement per se, that there never was a kind of umbrella thing, that there were lots of interactive. People often had beat in many camps, that as you beat anti-war and pro civil rights and pro women's rights and smoke dope and whatnot. And so, there were constellations of causes and commitments about the affected people across quite a range. But also, well that every one of the movements, whether it is the anti-war movement, whether it is civil rights, whether it is gay rights, and not, every one of these movements when you look at them have a kind of conservative wing. They have a kind of liberal progressive wing and then they have a radical wing. And one of the arguments I was making in my book is that lots of times what the public sees, but partly because of the way the press both demonizes but also zeroes in on the outrageous so that they are intrigued by some of the outrageous, outlandish things. It is like the burning bras at the Miss America pageant, as we know never happened. But I mean the pageant happened, but the bras did not get burned. And that one of the problems that every movement has is that notice that, how do you find across those divides of conservative, liberal radical, how do you find a common agenda? So, like the feminists for a while settled on equal pay for equal work on abortion rights on ... I do not remember. They are very important. They wanted take care for women. They want to get rid of the barriers making women equal. But then you have got these constant things where the feminists who believe that patriarchy is the handmaiden of capitalism and that it is inherently exploitative. And so as long as you have a capitalist culture, you are going to have female oppression and you are going to have black oppression and you are going to have minority oppression in general. And so, in fact, you cannot, cannot ultimately reference. So, these movements, because one of the things, again, I would argue in a sense, they start looking at the world through an essentialist lens, which is anti-liberal, that liberals always tend to look for the common thing that makes us commonly human. All men are created equal. All people are created equal. Jefferson would have said it. He wrote that a little later. And I think what the radicals tend to argue is that ... There is a wonderful little essay that I use with my students in environmental history, which is about this idea, it is called the Search for Root Causes. And it is about the battle between Joel Cabal. He is one of the participants in this and Murray Bookchin. And then people like Paul Ehrlich and Barry Commoner. They all want to save the environment, but they all want to say, "Is it technology that is to blame? Is it capitalism to blame? Is it patriarchy?" Why is it that human beings are just destroying the natural world around them? And so, the environmental movement, like all these other movements, fractures. And often that many of the participants, and this is often a case where egos are involved or self-promotion gets involved, that they wind up spending more time lacerating each other than they do in fighting their common enemy if they put a degree on who or what that was. I often remember going to rallies and SDS meetings and whatnot. And this partly my peculiar personality, and it's not unrelated to one of the inherent qualities of (19)60s politics that is revived in the Tea Party Movement. And that is the suspicion of authority and also the assumption that people who want to run things or rule things are dangerous, this kind of anarch equality. But I was constantly made aware of the kind of presumptuous of my contemporaries getting up and making these profound moral judgments about other people's behavior and calling for violent overthrow of this, that and the other thing. And I kept sitting there thinking, but the other side, they have got guns and they know how to use them. And violence has been there. It's how they rule. It's by controlling the instruments of violence. You are going up against that. All you are going to do is get a lot of innocent people killed. Because I always believe that the revolution had to be cultural rather than cultural and take place in people's hearts and their heads rather than ... I really do not buy the model of political revolution. SM (00:59:06): Everything I have read shows that violence leads you nowhere. And if the experiences of activists in the (19)60s and early seventies is anything for today's young people, they can learn from people like you and me in our age That violence will get you nowhere except for a bad label. People who will not like who you are and what you stand for because of your actions. Also, universities are somewhat afraid, I think, of activism today like it was in the (19)60s. They like volunteerism because that is safe. Activism is a little threatening. But again, if activists are right on top of things, then if activists from the (19)60s are great teachers and role models for young people today, you do not disrupt the classrooms because you do not disrupt someone's education for the sake of a cause. And I think that is something we hopefully learn from. ML (01:00:04): Yeah, sometimes you do come up against the problem of civil disobedience. And what Martin Luther King would say, "It is never a good time. There is always a reason not to do it." But at some point, you have too actually. Have to move. But I think in King's case, he paid his dues and he put his body on the line. And some of these, not those middle-class kids, I am speaking my generation get out there. And like I say, are passing, just standing there, passing moral judgment. And they had almost no experience doing anything. Even at the time, I thought this had been presumptuous. And it certainly is not the stuff of which real politics, effective politics has ever constructed. So that I always often found myself walking away from these meetings saying, "This ain't for me." So, I never joined SDS. I mean, I was sympathetic to SDS. And for me, one of the most grueling episodes I ever lived through in the (19)60s is that I got married in 1968, which was a very crazy year, a crazy year. And because I had spent a year after my undergraduate years teaching in Buffalo, and I wound up the year they eliminated the graduate school to ferment for first year graduate students, but not for second year graduate students. So, I was subject to the draft and my parents knew the local draft board and they said, " Your boy, he is high on our list. So, you got to get him into the reserves or something." And my grandmother, who is not this kind of person at all, but she was worried about me, knew somebody who turned out to be very highly ranked in the New York State National Guard and got me in the National Guard. So, I was what I would call a conscientious acceptor, a term that I had stolen. SM (01:02:29): CA instead of CO. ML (01:02:31): Right. And it turns out that when I was at Yale, there was a large cohort of us who had decided that we wanted to go. We had found our calling in life, that we did not want to go to Canada, but we were sure as hell we were going to go to Vietnam. We are just looking for a convenient way out, call it George Bush. And so, I got two or three of my friends into the Connecticut National Guard, got them transferred from New York to Connecticut. And lo and behold comes 1971. And then we have the Bobby Seal trial. SM (01:03:11): Oh, I remember that. ML (01:03:12): In New Haven. And every radical group, including Jerry Ruben and Abby Hoffman descended on New Haven with the intention to burn the place down and destroy Yale and stick it to the man and whatnot. And we all got called out for this. And so, our friends on campus are all planning demonstrations and political events and whatnot, and we are being told to go and police the streets. And we were traumatized by this because our political sympathies were somewhat divided in that we were sympathetic to the politics and the injustice being done to the Black Panthers. But on the other hand, we were also sympathetic to Yale in that Yale had changed its institutional dynamic dramatically in the (19)60s, changed its whole admissions profile and had become a real progressive academic institution in ways it had never been before. And so, it seemed to me that Yale was really one of the decent forces in the American world. I mean like contemporaries at Yale, Hillary and Bill were there. Clarence Thomas was a student there. There were a whole slew of- SM (01:04:40): The mayor of Baltimore was there, Kurt Schmoke. He was a good leader. ML (01:04:42): He is a little bit later. He is a little bit later than that. But anyway, we did not get called out for that event. And I tell this story about historical contingency because part of the narrative of what happened in New Haven at that time was that Yale had such incredible connections both in a government through George H. W. Bush, the CIA and this and that. Six of the nine Supreme Court Justices at the time, they had Yale connections. And there was one episode before the event where a shipment of 48 M-16 rifles that were going to a Connecticut Army Reserve post got hijacked. And there was this panic about who has got them. And so, Yale, through one of its connections, asked the mafia people if they had them. And they said, "No, but we know who has got them." And it turned out it was a right-wing paramilitary group of wow who took them. SM (01:05:54): Wow! ML (01:05:55): I think they assumed that they were going to defend Connecticut against all these communists who were coming in. SM (01:05:59): Oh, wow. ML (01:05:59): And so, the day of the event, or the day before the event, my wife dropped me off at seven in the morning at the Armory. You take your duffle bag. You are skipping out to the war. And I go in and the first sergeant says, "Oh." I was in OCS at the time. He said, "So you do not have a regular slot, so you do not have to be here." I said, "You have got to be joking. I do not have to be here." So, I rushed out. I called my wife, said, "Come get me. I do not have to be here." So, I go out on the street. I am waiting for her to take me away, and there is an NBC News crew there. And so, they start interviewing me. SM (01:06:46): Oh my God. ML (01:06:48): And I tell them ... They said, "What do you do when you are not in the [inaudible]?" I said, "I am a graduate student at Yale at like Jean John Chancellor." And all of a sudden out of the building, these guys come running out of the building and physically grab me and drag me back into the building. SM (01:07:03): Oh, no. ML (01:07:04): And am I worried about my first amendment, right? Not one bit. I am thinking I am going to have to spend four days in this stink hole and this is going to be awful. And also, my wife pulls up again and I said, "Look at those dogs over there. Is not that disgusting?" And grabbed my duffle back and ran out, got in the car. I was not there. And then afterwards, the first sergeant said, "Oh, I forgot what I meant to do. I was going to ask you to go out and collect intelligence for us." Send me out as a spy. Fat chance. But my friends did have to stay there, said that one of the scariest things, they were in the army with a detachment of Connecticut State Police. And the state police were so bloodthirsty. They wanted to get out in the street with crack heads and shoot people. And really... create crackheads and shoot people. Really, show them what it is for. They were morally and politically outraged, but the other thing about historical contingency is that Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, they are all trying to stir the crowd up and get them to tear the place down and whatnot. Partway through this, a bomb went off under the entrance to the skating rink at Yale. It was an Eero Saarinen designed building. Looks like one of the terminals at La Guardia or at JFK. But nothing quite jelled but one of the people who was subsequently when I was assigned to a Connecticut National Guard unit full regular assignment. My platoon, our battalion had been patrolling the streets that day. The platoon I was in, the mortar platoon had a lot of vehicles, so they were driving around doing peripheral, periphery patrols, and crowd observation, and management, and whatnot. The Guard at that time, a lot, a disproportionate number of people were police officers because police were not allowed to have second jobs- SM (01:09:22): Oh, wow. ML (01:09:23): ... because they had to be available at any time. But they were allowed to be in the Guard. So, it was a way to pick up some extra income, so there was this jeep with three guys in it. All the guys had been told that they were not to load their weapons. So of course, they did and one of the things I observed when I went into the company headquarters and whatnot was that almost all the guys in there were packing private handguns. Or just secreting them away in their back and on their- SM (01:09:54): Wow. ML (01:09:56): ... duffels and whatnot because they were afraid, they were going to be out in the street and people are going to start shooting at them. SM (01:09:59): Wow. ML (01:10:00): They would not be allowed to use their Army weapons so they said, "Damn, if I am going to get shot, I will ..." SM (01:10:04): Oh, my God. ML (01:10:07): So, these guys are driving along, and this guy is sitting in the back of the jeep. I think with his rifle and his rifle's loaded. As they are driving along, and these are nice Catholic boys from the Naugatuck Valley. All these young women are coming up to them pulling their shirts up and saying, "Would not you like to fuck this, you pig?" These guys are just ... They do not want to be there. They have no interest in being there you know what I mean? SM (01:10:36): Yeah. ML (01:10:37): All of a sudden, out of the crowd comes this guy wearing Army fatigues, obviously secondhand Army fatigues. He reaches in and he pulls out a gun and points it at the guys in the jeep. The guy in the jeep who is a police officer, has some weapons training turns around, and is about to blow this kid's head off, when the kid says, "Bang, bang. You're dead." It was clear that it was a cap gun and so this guy was a nanosecond from blowing this kid's head off. If he had pulled the trigger, the whole narrative of that weekend in New Haven could have been absolutely different, I mean. SM (01:11:15): Unbelievable story. So that was 1960- ML (01:11:19): (19)71. SM (01:11:21): (19)71? Wow. ML (01:11:22): Yeah. SM (01:11:23): Can I use the restroom real fast? ML (01:11:25): Oh, sure. SM (01:11:26): I am going to turn this over. We are halfway through here. ML (01:11:27): Okay. SM (01:11:27): This tape must be going ... There we go. One of the things that I had mentioned in several of my interviews, the last couple interviews, is that when I look at the 1950s, this is just me now. Three adjectives come out quite clearly for if you use the term boomer, which I do not ... I am really starting to not like the term myself and we will certainly raise this in the book, but if you still do use the term from (19)46 to (19)60, there are things that I remember as a little boy that now, upon reading history and understand history better, I define the (19)50s with these three terms, fear, being naïve, and being very quiet. ML (01:12:16): Hmm. SM (01:12:18): And let me explain. We all know about McCarthyism, but I see the McCarthyism as a little boy on the floor watching the television set and hearing this man, " Are you or are you not?" I just remember that and the HUAC Committees as well. Then of course, we have COINTELPRO and then we have the threat of nuclear attack. Then this feeling that you needed to shut up because I knew several teachers who were fired because they were communists. One was in my high school. Then of course, the Enemies List that we had from Richard Nixon, which is actually a (19)60s thing. Naïve is because I think (19)50s TV made us naïve with Howdy Doody, Walt Disney, (19)50s Westerns, the John Wayne mentality. Very few Blacks on TV. I think with Amos 'n' Andy, which was slapstick and a six or seven-week Nat King Cole Show and that was about it. When I interviewed Martin Duberman, you never heard anything about gays in the (19)50s. ML (01:13:24): No. You did not. SM (01:13:24): They were totally hidden and then of course, women were mostly in positions of housewife or teachers, which all my teachers were young, not married yet. ML (01:13:35): Right. Actually, wrote an essay about that. Also, it is in After the Fact. We have this chapter that is called, From Rosie to Lucy. SM (01:13:44): Oh, I get it. ML (01:13:44): Rosie the Riveter to Lucille Ball and the question of the chapter is, that if the theories about cultural conformity in the (19)50s were correct, and they're about the suffocating impact of the media, where did the women of the (19)60s come from? SM (01:14:04): Good point. Yeah. The quiet thing was just shut up or lose-your-job type of mentality. ML (01:14:14): Well, actually you could relate the quiet thing to the point I was making about civility. SM (01:14:18): Right. ML (01:14:19): I mean, they are not unrelated notions. SM (01:14:22): Yeah. C. Wright Mills' White Collar was a very important book that we read in sociology class. So, your career depended upon promotion. You had to fit in. You could not speak up. Tell me what I want to hear instead of what I need to hear, which is very bad role modeling for leaders today. But your thoughts on whether that is really right on, if those are three good adjectives to describe the (19)50s boomer- ML (01:14:47): Well, I think that they certainly define the sort of middle-class, conventional (19)50s as we look back and think about it. But I think when you pry the door open a little bit, you got a somewhat different look in that I would say that in terms of generative-cultural phenomena, the (19)50s were probably more lively than the (19)60s. There was sort of the introduction of modernism into American literature, and architecture, and painting, and certain kinds of music. So that it was a real kind of innovative spirit and there was all kinds of transformative technologies that really began to have a big impact on American life. So that this idea of conformism is more like just sort of reading America as a mourning middle-class society. I mean, that became the real center of gravity of American life. So, I think that and again, you sort of have to, as you said yourself, these things are so determining and so shaping. But where does all the turmoil come from? What caused people suddenly to reject, to stop being quiet, and stop going along to get along, and whatnot? So that was part of the puzzle I said for myself, but I think that this is sort of the accident of history writing history. I started the book on the (19)60s in 1990, 1991 and did not publish it until 2006. In the interim, I put it down a number of times. My publisher lost interest in it. The editor who had signed the book moved and it was clear that he had envisioned this series of books. It was going to be The Home Front During Major Wars and he originally suggested to me that I do the Korean War. I said, "How about I do the (19)60s?" He said, "Fine." But none of those other books ever happened and so mine was just this oddball thing sitting there. SM (01:17:19): Glad you got the oddball. ML (01:17:21): So eventually that editor went to Oxford, and I switched publishers, so that my publisher was Oxford. Instead, it was McGraw Hill, but in the process, one of the things that happened is that I really began to work intensely on the book again around when I was in Ireland in 2000, 2001. Part of that was also there was the parallel between the Troubles in Ireland, which began with the civil rights upheavals in the United States. Most people in Ireland were very much connected, the Irish part of the sense that the Catholics had in Northern Ireland for- SM (01:18:02): In Dublin, yeah. ML (01:18:02): ... being oppressed and whatnot. The idea of civil disobedience and protest, pardon me, in part came out of mirroring the American experience. But I lost my train of thought there for a second. But the parallel with Ireland got me off the track. Where was I? SM (01:18:37): You were talking about the (19)60s, how you are writing your book. ML (01:18:42): Oh, yes. That is, it, sorry. So, what happens is that in 2000, 2001, George Bush gets elected, and you have the 1994 conservative landslide in Congress. You have the emergence of the Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reillys of the world and FOX News. This idea that there is this revolutionary conservative movement and you think to yourself, "Well, a lot of these guys cut their teeth in the (19)60s." So, one of the things that I began to realize is that one of the real political revolutions of the (19)60s was really the conservative revolution. It was the Barry Goldwater to Ronald Reagan phenomena, and it was many ways more enduring politically, certainly, than the politics of the left of the 1960s were. Also, many of the divisions that existed then and created a lot of the friction and even some violence never went away. The people remained divided about their political values and there were always issues, drugs, which remained contentious. They got redefined in the (19)80s with the crack cocaine thing. But then, abortion rights stayed out there and also the cultural content of media. These are all issues that stayed on the front burner for a long period of time. So, it was one of the reasons that originally, I had thought about the book that the historical puzzle is, where did the (19)60s come from? We have the placid conformist (19)50s. How did all of a sudden it blow up? Well, there was civil rights and there was the war in Vietnam, but I think it is one of the things that are needed. I do not think I satisfactorily, to my satisfaction developed this in the book, was that it was a religious revival moment, and it was a spirit. A lot of it was spiritual, I mean, you can think of the shtick of Timothy Leary. You could think of him as kind of a barnyard huckster, a [inaudible]- SM (01:21:11): Ram Dass. ML (01:21:11): Yeah. But these guys were selling smoke and mirrors but in a sort of Aimee Semple McPherson realm, but I do think that there was a profound spiritual yearning because the Jesus freaks and the campus evangelical movement. The reidentification of Jewishness and there was a lot of interspersing with Catholic politics and the era of Vatican II, and of the Berrigan brothers. SM (01:21:56): Zen Buddhism was very big. That is Peter Coyote. 35 years is in this. ML (01:21:58): But I think that was all part of that. An awful lot of what was going on was this kind of religious sensibility. Again, when you think about the hippies and how self-consciously apolitical, they were. They were not only against alcohol, they were also against political engagement. SM (01:22:15): Right. ML (01:22:15): And so does trucking. Well, how different was that from the tradition of the evangelicals in the United States? A remarkable number of the hippies did come from socially conservative, Republican middle-class families. So that was one of the things that had I published my book a few years after I started, it would have been a very different book than I wound up writing from the perspective of the Bush years, so. SM (01:22:45): Yeah. Those people like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. I think Pat or was it Dobson, Bob? ML (01:22:51): Yeah. SM (01:22:53): They are major figures in this time frame, Ralph Reed, who is a history professor and very smart, but certainly the epitome of the- ML (01:23:02): Well, one of the most intriguing guys is Richard Viguerie. SM (01:23:05): Yes-yes. ML (01:23:07): So, he is a (19)60s figure. SM (01:23:12): It is amazing because that gets into ... I got to make sure the tape goes. It will come to an abrupt end here and then it will ... It seemed like in the (19)50s people went to church. We went to church. Even my friends SUNY Binghamton, most of them are Jewish. At one point, when they got to Binghamton, they even got a synagogue now. As soon as they said, "Goodbye mom and dad." But there is also a lot of experimenting too, because students used to go to ... I went to a synagogue, and I went to a Catholic Church. I was a Methodist and I think that there is a lot of experimenting on the parts of many students just to experience going into a different church. I do not understand it and then there are a lot of people who did not do it at all. They just felt more of an inner peace, something inner and I think that was a lot of the change it seemed like. Religion was very big in the (19)50s and it kind of waned in the (19)60s. ML (01:24:02): Right. SM (01:24:04): Then we get into the (19)70s and we can look at the Beatles and what happened to them. It happened to a lot of people too. ML (01:24:12): Well, I think that it seems to be conventional wisdom now. The (19)50s is that the religion of the (19)50s was much more of a social than a spiritual phenomenon and that is you have an enormously transient population. You moved from one place to another. How are you going to make contact with people who are like you? You join a church, or you join a synagogue. So that you are going to church not because you have a need for faith, or bearing witness, or whatnot. It's because you want to meet people who share your values. SM (01:24:48): Right. ML (01:24:48): So that was big in the (19)50s and I think what happens in the (19)60s is that a lot of kids who grew up in that kind of what they saw as a kind of spiritually vacuous or emotionally- flat, religious life in the (19)60s were looking for some kind of spiritually transcendent. So, drugs is one. The transcendental notion of LSD that Timothy Leary is selling or the Zen, Eastern religion, or evangelical Christianity. So that the evangelicals do very well, grow a lot. I think the mainstream denominations were shrinking in the (19)60s and continued to shrink in the (19)70s, then you have evangelicals. So, during it, it is just that most of us were virtually unaware of the phenomena. I saw little bits and pieces of it when we visit friends of my parents who lived in Upstate New York, in these small little towns. But you knew about Billy Graham. But you never knew that there was this vast- SM (01:26:02): Yeah. Alan Watts wrote a book of Zen. Anyway, Peter Coyote, when I interviewed him said for 35 years, he has been a Zen Buddhist and he said, "I would if it was not for my Zen ..." Zen Buddhism to him is the most important thing in his life. If he cannot take that time to be quiet and reflect during the day. And I said, "Are you meditating?" I had done a little study in Zen Buddhism before I asked him these questions. And he said, "Obviously you do not understand Zen Buddhism. It is not like people tell you. You look at a dot and you try to look at the dot. Close your eyes and not think of anything for 30 minutes. That is not the way it works. You could have your eyes open. You have got to just not think about anything else except spiritual or ..." I do not quite understand it but one of the things here, you discuss the three phases. I would like your response to three events as symbols of what you are saying about the three phases you talk about in your book The Uncivil Wars. Phase one is of course, that period from the 1950s through Elvis, through the assassination of John Kennedy, and to me, values was very important during that time frame. Nothing better than Kennedy's inaugural speech where he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Then secondly, "We will bear any price, or we will- ML (01:27:35): Bear any burden, pay any price. SM (01:27:37): ... yeah, to guarantee liberty." Of course, a lot of people felt that is the beginning of the Vietnam War. The Cold War mentality continuing through Kennedy that was transferred from Eisenhower. Then of course, the concept of service. Are you really saying this? Is that a good example of what that first phase was all about? ML (01:28:00): Well, I guess it is a political marker. If I had to pick something that was a good example of what the first phase was all about, I would be more inclined to look at something like the emergence of popular folk music as being more sort of a cultural phenomenon that anticipates a kind of shifting set of values. There are certain events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is certainly defining too because we all sat around thinking, "This is it." SM (01:28:43): Oh, yeah. I know what you mean. ML (01:28:47): "Sayonara." And it pretty nearly was, so again, it is one of those things. If when you want to find something that is emblematic, I mean it is sort of emblematic of what? So again, I am more inclined to look into the cultural realm. SM (01:29:04): Okay. ML (01:29:05): So again, it would be things like the introduction of the birth control pill or these things that have unintended consequences or are liberating in some fashion. That was one of the reasons when I constructed the book also, I have a chapter about ... It is a bit of a potpourri, but of cultural literary events like the making of Dr. Strangelove or the publication of The Feminine Mystique. That is when I first wrote about Rachel Carson was because of the impact Silent Spring has in 1962. SM (01:29:49): Oh, yes. ML (01:29:52): So that is why I guess it would be hard for me to think of a single, encapsulating, to some degree, it is like people said. It would have been the 1964 New York World's Fair- SM (01:30:14): And which I went to. The Globe was still there. It used to be outside Shea Stadium. The second phase then is probably cultural too, but one that is really stood out between (19)64 and (19)68, which was when there was so much antagonism between groups. I put the epitome of it was when Senator Abraham Ribicoff was speaking at the Democratic Convention and he is saying to Mayor Daley, "Your gestapo police." or whatever. He is swearing at him. That was the epitome of the- ML (01:30:47): It was and one of the ironies of it is that in private, Daley was opposed to the Vietnam War. He thought it was a loser, but he is a loyal Democrat. SM (01:30:59): Yes. ML (01:31:01): I would guess it would be a toss-up between the riots in Detroit, and lots of riot. Detroit, Newark. That was one thing and then the march on the Pentagon. S M (01:31:22): Yeah. That was the levitating? ML (01:31:23): Yeah. They were going to levitate. It was where Norman Mailer ... I still think Norman Mailer is book Armies of- SM (01:31:29): Armies of the, yeah. ML (01:31:31): ... the Night is one of the best books written in about the 1960s. Norman Mailer drives me crazy. I am being such an egotist and whatnot, but sometimes he is so acutely tuned in. He gets some things, either he gets them right or at least illuminates them in a way that I find really effective. So anyway, I think that there are cluster in more of 1967 events really than (19)68. There is no question that the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were also importantly transformative. I mean, I think that is when people who believed there was a middle way lost all hope. Thought that the world was going to hell in a handbasket no matter what we tried to do. Some people like Mark Rudd went one way and others just sort of divorced themselves and drew back in other things, but- SM (01:32:34): Have you read Underground? ML (01:32:35): Underground, his book? SM (01:32:36): Yeah. ML (01:32:36): It is a good book, yeah. He always annoyed me, so. SM (01:32:39): Yeah. Well, I interviewed Daniel Bell. He is 91 years old. I am not sure if he was all there when I was ... He was eating his food and he had a maid ... in his home not far from Harvard Square. He kind of spent all his time blasting Mark Rudd. ML (01:32:59): Yeah. Well, you see, I think that Daniel Bell was part of the group that became the neocons and who found the incivility, the crudeness, and what they would have thought the insanity of these people like Mark Rudd were, and how destructive they thought that was. I think also, as Jews who struggled so hard to enter the establishment, to have somebody, have these young, sort of bad-mouth poorly, what he would say poorly educated kids come along and essentially attack the structures of the things that they had fought so hard to become part of, that were profoundly offended. SM (01:33:47): Oh, I tell you, when I interviewed Daniel Bell, I really appreciate the hour I had with him, but he got retired very fast because he is up there in years. But he responded about Mark Rudd and then I asked him about books that I thought might have been the most influential. I wanted his thoughts on Charles Reichs Greening of America and Theodore Roszak's The Making of a Counterculture. ML (01:34:15): He had nothing but contempt for either. SM (01:34:16): He hated them both. He said, "There is no ideas in there. They are nothing. Actually, they are nothing. There is no thinking at all in there." Then I said, "Well, how about Eric Erikson's books and also Kenneth Keniston?" He says, "Those two guys are fakers." ML (01:34:36): Right. See, but they were both sociologists and contemporaries of his. I actually knew all of them a little bit at Yale, not well, because they were all around the campus, at least Charlie Reich was and Eric Erikson. SM (01:34:53): Keniston? ML (01:34:58): Keniston, I think was not he in- SM (01:35:01): He was at MIT, I think. ML (01:35:03): Maybe he was there. Maybe he was not around, but so it was Eric Erikson. Anyway, it was Bill Coffin was married to ... Was not he married to ... SM (01:35:21): They had him on campus too. ML (01:35:24): He was married to oh, Erikson's. Was he married to Erikson's sister or something like that, Gretchen? GL (01:35:36): Who, what? ML (01:35:38): Bill Coffin. Oh, no. No, no. He was married to Arthur Rubinstein's daughter. SM (01:35:47): Oh, okay. GL (01:35:47): Daughter, yeah. SM (01:35:48): On the third phase here, I just said something from my interviews of Vietnam vets that really upset them. It was Nixon's peace with honor in Vietnam and as many Vietnam vets says, "What a joke. Peace with honor after killing all those people and destroying the land?" ML (01:36:05): Oh, there is something in a way deeply cynical about it from Nixon's point of view is he wanted to get the U.S. out of the war from 1969 on. But he wanted to do it in a way that would not interfere with his ambition to create that permanent Republican majority. I mean, I think one of the dynamics of the era in a sort of presidential political level was that Kennedy and Johnson both realized that the problems of Korea killed the Democrats in 1952. That part of Kennedy's appeal, as you said before, his Cold Warriorism was a way to take back the national security issue to the Democratic Party. It did lock both of them into a position where they could not give much ground. You could not lose Vietnam, or you could not lose the Dominican Republic, or just the way the Republicans lost Cuba. That is one of the reasons why Kennedy got trapped into the Cuban fiasco was because part of his new frontier was going to be to solve the problems of Eisenhower, to reinvigorate the Cold War. But I think one of the things that make Kennedy different, which ironically, he shared with Ronald Reagan is a profound anxiety about, and distaste for nuclear weapons. I think that is one of the things that guided him throughout the Cuban Missile Crisis. But if there was an event ... To some degree the object of a war is more I think, had more impact than the end of the Vietnam War because it also, it pointed to the kind of structural weakness of the American economy at the time because remember we have been through- SM (01:38:05): Yeah, you just told us that. ML (01:38:05): ... the stagflation crisis. SM (01:38:07): Right. ML (01:38:08): The economy was really tottering. Inflation was aggressive. I think it was five, 6 percent range by then, so it was one of the major lines of assault against the environmental regulation was the charge that environmentalists were driving. Making the U.S. less competitive and driving up the cost of goods, and creating employment, and whatnot. SM (01:38:34): In your own words, please define these time periods since World War II and I always put them down here because these are the years that defined term boomers have been alive. The oldest boomers are now 64 and the youngest are 48. So, there is no spring chickens anymore in the boomer generation. Their youngest are heading toward 50, but I am putting these terms down and it could just be a few words. It does not have to be anything in-depth, but just something that when you define the period. So here is the first one, 1946 to 1960. What does that period mean to you? ML (01:39:16): I would just say that it means the Cold War, domestic and foreign, and it means prosperity. Probably the period of the greatest economic growth in the history of the American economy in loan percentage terms, I mean. SM (01:39:34): The period 1961 to 1970. ML (01:39:39): I would say upheaval. SM (01:39:41): Yeah. ML (01:39:44): Uncertainty and factionalism. SM (01:39:51): 1971 to 1980. ML (01:39:54): I already labeled that in our textbook as the age of limits. SM (01:39:59): Age of limits. 1981 to 1990. ML (01:40:05): A conservative moment. The conservative revolution. SM (01:40:08): 1991 to 2000. ML (01:40:14): That one is a little tougher. I would say that is the internet era. SM (01:40:17): That is the Bill Clinton era too. 2001 to 2010. Is that 9/11? Is it- ML (01:40:29): I would say that this is the beginning of the end. This is the era which the Americans got so far off track and failed so deeply to address the structural weaknesses that it is what I will always hold against George Bush. Did not respond to global warming, did not respond to the energy crisis, misdirected the American response to 2001, and of the World Trade Center bombing, that he just misread. He had no sense of the historical situation of the United States, and he had too much of a Texas mentality because one of the things I suggest that is happened in the United States over the period since the (19)60s and was happening in the (19)60s it became more and more Southern. The popular culture becomes more Southern with NASCAR and country and western. The culture of Bubba and SUVs. Just the shift of population and wealth. SM (01:41:46): Even brought us a Southern president, for sure, too. ML (01:41:50): Brought us a whole string of them if you think about it. They are all Sunbelt- SM (01:41:51): Yeah. Both Clinton, Jimmy Carter- ML (01:41:54): Ronald Reagan, they are all Sunbelt presidents. They have been until Barack Obama. SM (01:42:01): You even saw that when President Kennedy was in power because he knew- ML (01:42:03): He even saw that when President Kennedy was in power, because he knew that the Democrats at the time he became president, the powerful Democrats were for segregation. And when he had to make decisions on whether to allow the march on Washington in (19)63, he was afraid of a riot, possibly, he brought them in. He was fearful that he would lose the Southern Democrats. So, the pragmatic politician that he was, he was a little hesitant at the time. That is why people did not think he really had to push John Kennedy on civil rights at times. SM (01:42:35): Oh, absolutely. No, I think that Kennedy and Johnson both knew that that civil rights was going to be the end of the Democratic party of [inaudible]. And persuaded one of the reasons that Johnson was so aggressive about jobs and public programs that were designed for lower income, lower middle class, it was to win back and win new Democrats to make up, to cover the loss that they were going to experience from civil rights. Although, one of the things that apparently, I do not know who has done the work, but that have made a pretty, was convincing to me, argument that the shift in southern politics had less to do with civil rights and more to do with suburbanization in the South. That as the South became more prosperous and whatnot, middle class southerners became Republicans. And they created middle class white institutions, Christian schools and churches and whatnot, that were pretty heavily segregated. So that is been a real trend, that the center of gravity of American life shifted southward. ML (01:44:03): Yeah, I would want to just put this for the record in the interview. These are things that really stood out in the (19)50s. And you have already talked about how important you think the (19)50s were, even some respects from the (19)60s, in terms of helping shape the (19)60s. So, I am not taking away from anything you have said, but again, it is getting back to some of the history that people see when they think of the (19)50s as being the groundwork for the future. Obviously, the Cold War, the fear of communists in all walks of life. We all know about the Hollywood [inaudible] movie out recently about one of them. I know that university professors and government employers were fired because of their links. And I know from college and high school, some teachers that were fired. Sputnik in (19)57, because of its importance in terms of the beginnings of a being strong in science and math and the whole business about education, which is real important, we have not talked about. Suburbia. Of course, lots of babies were being born. When we talk about juvenile delinquency, I think in terms of gangs back then, white gangs. Because I grew up in the Cornell, Ithaca area, and I saw gangs. They met at parks, but they were not going to kill people, they were just going to beat people up. Kind of the Jimmy Dean kind of thing. Women were most of the teachers, there were not too many men. Higher ed grew, the knowledge industry, as Clark Hurst said. That capitalism seemed to be revered. And then I say here, black and white, very innocent. But we did have Edward R Murrow, Dave Garaway, and Mike Wallace on TV, so we did have some really good news people. And then I always think of Arthur Godfrey, Steve Allen, the game show, the Breakfast Club. These are the kind of things that people in the (19)50s grew up with. This leads me into my question here. Oftentimes over the past 30 years, we have heard general statements from conservatives like Newt Gingrich, George Will in just about any book he has ever written. Some of his essays. Mike Huckabee today on TV, others, that the reason we had problems in today's world is due to the times in the (19)60s when anything goes i.e., very negative on the family structure, values, the destruction of an America we loved in the post-war era. That is Reagan kind coming into power. And so, what Newt Gingrich, when he came to power in 1994, he made comments about the breakup of the American family, the welfare state that Johnson created, the attack on the system of government, economy, the increasing divorce rate, the ongoing drug culture, the lack of respect for authority, the creation of special interest groups that only state what is in it for me rather than what is in it for us. Your comments on these statements, that even today are being made by people on television, that a lot of the way we are today is negative because of that era. SM (01:47:22): Well, one has to ask, how negative are we today, really? How profound is the negativism? I do think the economic downturn has darkened a lot of people's mood and whatnot. But I think to some degree, the media invents these narrative frames as ways of presenting presidential administrations, errors in history and whatnot. And they are fictions. They are organizing fictions that have some truth to them, but do not really accurately describe what's going on. And so, if you were to go back to the (19)60s and say, "Okay. Well, who was it that destroyed," for example, faith and government? Well, they would say, "Well, it was the radicals and the attack on the military during the Vietnam War and whatnot." Well, there was nobody who was more visceral in their attack on the government and governing institutions than the conservatives. And particularly the far-right conservatives, who thought the government was the government of communist conspirators. Accused Eisenhower of being a Commie. And then if you look at the agenda of the Buckley conservatives, part of it was that they wanted to tear down the New Deal and the idea of activist progressive government as a force in their lives. Was a wonderful quote, that some article that was just written in a Massachusetts newspaper by one of his colleagues at Mount Holyoke, where the guy said, he was talking about Tea Party libertarianism, which is a big part of the 1960s, I believe. That is do your own thing in your own time, easy rider mentality. A lot of that is Tea Party-ish. Just leave me alone, man. And this guy drew the analogy, he said, "This rhetoric of anarchic libertarianism and whatnot." He says, "It is great. He said, "It is like if somebody dropped you in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in a rowboat with a couple of oars. You would be free to go any direction you wanted." ML (01:49:36): It is interesting, when I interviewed Noam Chomsky, I got an hour with him up at MIT, and we talked about anarchism. Because everything about his life is linked to it. Everything. So how serious was the generation gap between parents and their kids, who were reared after World War II? We had parents obviously born and raised in the Depression. And they were very young as World War II began. So, we had this generation gap that, remember, I do not know if you remember the front cover of Life magazine with a guy with the glasses and the guy, I had the magazine framed, and the father screaming at the son and whatever. And the divisions were obviously many. In The Wounded Generation, the book that came out, I think in 1980, there was a symposium which Phil Caputo, James Fallows, James Webb, several people were in there, and they were talking about the generation gap between their parents and the kids. And what really came out of it was really revealing. That yeah, we all know about the generation gap between the parents. It is well documented. But we do not talk about the real generation gap. The generation gap within the generation, between those who's went to war in Vietnam and came home and served their country, and those who did not serve, who protested against the war, became conscious objectors, particularly those who evaded the draft, as James Fallows admitted he did. And even James Fallows will say that, to evade the draft, and at the same time, not protest against the draft, he said That was wrong, that was wrong. And James Webb, who is now our United States senator, who I am trying to get an interview with, said that really, what we have to think of here is, we talk about the (19)60s generation as a generation of service, that came to the ideas of Kennedy. "Ask not what your country can do for you." So many went into the Peace Corps, many went into Vista, many went to the Vietnam War. But in reality, they are not a generation of service. Because a generation of service will, when your nation calls, you go to war. SM (01:52:18): Yeah, but what if the war is on poverty instead of on Vietnam? They are being very simplistic about this. There are wars and there are wars. I think that many people felt they were doing their country a service by protesting the war in Vietnam, which was destructive for the United States, destructive for Vietnam, and was fought on false premises. One of the things, again, that makes, you talk about the veterans talking about [inaudible], when Henry Kissinger wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Or Nixon could have had the peace that they got in 1972, (19)73, they could have gotten it in 1969. He just did not feel like he could deliver it politically and persuade his base well, that he had done the right thing. But part of this is, I think it is the destructiveness of a certain part of the conservative American political mindset, which has been slaying false gods and creating monsters where they do not exist. They have consistently, from the beginnings of the domestic Red Scare, used the Cold War as a political device to attack New Dealism, to attack social democracy, to resist the Civil Rights Movement. And that they created, I believe, their mentality created a sense of division where that was not nearly as serious as they felt. Or many of them, I think, honestly believed this. But I think that the idea, they totally misread the Soviet threat, misread Khrushchev. The threat that the neocons really sold in the late seventies and that Reagan made the cornerstone of the thing, was false. We know the Soviet military buildup was based on a lot of profound corruption and ineptitude. Look what happened to the Soviet army when it got into Afghanistan. This was the army that was supposed to bring us to our knees. I feel like what the conservatives has consistently succeeded in doing is to move the political discourse, move the center in the United States to a place where it should not be. So, for example, the incapacity now to respond in any meaningful way to the energy crisis and global warming. The bankruptcy of the whole process over healthcare. This is one of the things that came out of living in Ireland and living in a social democratic culture for a couple of years. Quality of life in Ireland is every bit as high and higher than it is in the United States. And the materialism is not quite as grandiose, but it is getting there. But you have had this sense in Ireland, the way I always put this, my poor wife hears these things over and over again, but American conservative culture demands losers. There is a need to have somebody to stigmatize, some other by which you can demonstrate your own virtue. I did it. I say, "I am a hard worker, I did this. I am taking care of myself. I am taking care of my family; I am taking care of my community. I am not like these losers, who always want to be on the government doll, who always need a handout and whatnot." But they also are not willing to commit public resources to education, to job protection, to a whole series of things, that often forces people who are on the margin, turns them into losers. So, they do not want to extend jobless benefits, they do not want to put in program, they do not want to do deficit spending for jobs creation and whatnot. Because they do not like the government and they do not believe the government can do a good job. And they keep arguing the private sector, all you have to do is cut taxes. That is just horseshit of the first rank. One of the things that, what is interesting, the Irish are filled with prejudices, as I am sure you know. They are homophobic, they are racists often. They do not get stigmatized for, say, racism because it never was that much of a racial problem. But we saw evidences of it all the time. ML (01:57:06): And we know about England too. SM (01:57:08): Right. But one of the differences is the Irish are embarrassed by it. They are not proud of it the way Americans often are. And they punish it. Like when bus drivers would treat Africans badly, they would fire them. Or fine them or whatever. But it also, you saw in their healthcare system. Was not terrific, but everybody had it. And they had a parallel system of private insurance, of people who felt they wanted it to pay for it. But you could go to a public facility, and they would have things taken care of. And they were not overmedicated, and they were not over CAT scans and whatnot. And I just feel that one of the reasons, underlying reasons, is that particularly in the conservative Republican community, again, nativism is one of the core values of an awful lot of people, that they resent profoundly the darkening, the Africanizing, the Latinizing of American cultural life and the social life and what. They feel like they are being marginalized in their own country. To some extent, they are, compared to what it was in the (19)50s. That they are romanticizing. But it prevents them from doing, if you take the flip side and say, "Well, how do the Irish suddenly become wealthy?" Well, one of the things they did is they committed themselves to universal education. Anybody in Ireland who wants to go to college and qualifies, goes for free. So, when the companies of the world were looking for a literate, educated, English speaking, technically competent workforce, bingo, they came to Ireland. Now, Ireland is such a small economy, such a niche, it's hard to say that this would work on the grand scale. But I think that it is clear now that in a world where, I cannot remember the statistics, they said if you are one in a million in China, there are a million people just like you. But- ML (01:59:36): Yeah, you are probably right with the population. SM (01:59:36): Like in India and China, where they are cranking out 300,000 engineers a year and we are turning out 30 to 60,000. And where, now, they are outsourcing legal work. I guess. They are all of these hungry college university, English-speaking people out there who will do the same work for a lot less money. And Americans have to figure out how to maximize their mental resources if that is the future, as far as I see it. ML (02:00:18): One of the things that I think has come out of the (19)60s on, I would like your thoughts on this, then I will go to these last three pages here, is that there seems to be... Bill Clinton was often looked upon as a centrist. [inaudible]. SM (02:00:34): Yeah, mm-hmm. ML (02:00:35): He's a Liberal. Even President Obama, when he came in, says he was more, even though they say he is as liberal as you can get [inaudible] the extreme right. Yeah, I think he looks upon himself more in the center as well. But other people look at him differently. There seems to be a fear in America toward those who were on the extreme left or the extreme right, whether it be the new left or the Evangelical Christians. Everybody is okay if they kind of go toward the center. But is not it true, when you talk about people like her, she was not a centrist. Not in the area of the environment, because she was a subversive who did her homework, did her research, got her knowledge. And with knowledge is power and knowledge is a threat. And I think a lot of the people on the new left, some of the writers you talked about, and even the ones on the extreme right, who I do not care for, whether they be, Ralph Reed's a perfect example, because I think he is very well-educated and I think Newt Gingrich is very well-educated. So, they are a group that I think you have to listen to because they have knowledge of power. SM (02:01:48): Oh, I think that one of the things that happened is that there was a major shift where, from the New Deal into the (19)60s, most of the ideas about public policy came from the left. If you look at the major academics and whatnot. Now, a lot of those people shifted from the left to the right. And so, they took their intellectual baggage and their energies to the conservative movement. But the conservatives had been the consumer of and generators of ideas in the recent past, and sort of big ideas, more than the liberals are. Now, it does not mean I like those ideas or that I feel that they are constructive or appropriate, but there is a kind of intellectual vitality there. And although I love these things, it is like there are a lot of pretenders also, people who pretend to be [inaudible]. I cannot remember the evangelical from Houston, who is the guru to Marilyn and Dan Quail. And Garry Wills has an essay about it in his book on religion in America. This was from the eighties or nineties; this was a while ago. But he went down to interview the guy. And the guy always claimed, because he was educated in Greek and Latin, that he could read the ancient scriptures and interpret them in ways that were far more powerful and meaningful than the less educated clergy could do. Well, little did he know that Garry Wells is a classist and really can read. He can really read ancient Hebrew and Latin. And Wells, who [inaudible], this guy totally misreads. Does not really have a clue what half this stuff means anyway. But that is a pot shot. But I really feel like, it is obviously a clash ultimately, a clash of values or sensibilities or attitudes. But I just think the European model is a much healthier model for constructing an effective civil society. I think that one of the things that Bush tax cuts and a lot of the economic planning that happened in that era, besides just creating massive mountains of debt, public and private, was to increase the bankruptcy of the middle class or the marginalizing of the middle class, on the presumption that the old Republican notion that the creation of wealth would lead to the creation of wealth. But what you did not anticipate was that these Wall Street geniuses were going to figure out how to create obscene amounts of wealth that was going to be almost all fictional money. Is it going to be things that were purportedly had value, that had no value whatsoever. And I think that the failure to read that was almost criminally negligent. There was a lot of criminality involved. And it was just, when you look at what various regulatory agents [inaudible] you are talking about minerals management or you are talking about the SEC, or you are talking about the Federal Reserve. Here, Allen Greenspan, we now know, turns out to be a fool. That he sat upon it and nurtured and financed, with low interest rates, financed a lot of the subprime mortgage pool. And refused to accept any of the doubters, who could point out with some substance, how really fraudulent a lot of this was and how dangerous these instruments were. 2005, when Hank Paulson shows up as the head of Goldman Sachs, that persuades them to suspend the reserve limits that were on the big New York brokerage firms. And so, they went from 13:1 debt ratios to 35:1 debt ratios. ML (02:06:47): A lot of inbreeding in Wall Street and government. SM (02:06:47): It actually was not so much inbreeding. There were two crippling things. One was the suspension of Glass-Steagall in 1997, so that commercial banking and investment banking got reintegrated. And the other, it was the thing that happened in the 1980s. This is Michael Lewis, when he wrote Liar's Poker. Well, it happened at Bear Stearns, under, what is his name? Gutfreund. John Gutfreund was the head of Bear Stearns at the time. Or Solomon. It was Solomon. Anyway, Solomon [inaudible]. Took them public. Gretchen's uncle worked for one of the old time, classic New York Wall Street investment firms. They were partnerships. So, when you underwrote a bond or stock offering, it was your money, ultimately. The partners, it was their capital that they were using to make this. What Gutfreund succeeded in doing is the people who ran the brokerage firms, it is the stockholders' money that they are playing with. So, when they award themselves $200 million in bonuses, they are taking it from the stockholders. And they're paying themselves, all they added to this was chutzpah. Maybe a little vision here, a little shenanigans there and whatnot. But they had no downside risk, as became evident when these guys would get $50 million payoffs after having bankrupted their investment firms. And I think that this was partly a process that has got set in motion in the seventies, when the Americans really went to a paper debt economy far more aggressively than ever. That is the world that, remember when you got your first credit card? ML (02:08:49): Yeah. When was that? When I got out of grad school. I did not have one in grad school. I did not want one. SM (02:08:55): No. And that is what happened to us, like mid to late seventies. And I almost always thought that the thing was a little bit of a devil. I was dangerous. I did not trust it quiet. And Gretchen and I were talking to some friends about this the other day. How what for most of our married life, at the end of the year, when we wanted to do our taxes, we would have a stack this high of canceled checks. Now, we have stacked, we do not even get the cancel checks anymore, just get pictures of them. ML (02:09:26): That is right. Yeah. The checks are going to be a thing of the past. SM (02:09:30): Right. And actually, they are ending checking in Britain within five years or something like that. Yeah. ML (02:09:36): That is what the debit and credit cards are all about. SM (02:09:38): Yeah. Well, right. But it is a way of changing how one does business and how one manages one's money and whatnot. But it has made debt just an incidental part of everybody's everyday life. That was certainly not the case in the (19)60s or the (19)50s. ML (02:10:08): No. Yeah, it is amazing how... Yeah, nobody had credit cards. But I think they put it [inaudible] you owe so-and-so. There was trust in customers. Put it on layaway. Layaway was a big thing. SM (02:10:21): But there was store credit cards or store credit accounts. ML (02:10:24): Yeah. Store credit accounts, where you have until so many months to pay it off or whatever. [inaudible]. SM (02:10:28): But I do think it has been transformational. But in a way, it's sort of unfortunate. I sent one of my friends a check the other day and I said, "I am not sure if it's legal to use non-electronic money anymore." ML (02:10:43): Oh my God. Sometimes people say that the only boomer presidents have been Bill Clinton and George Bush II. I call him George Bush the second. SM (02:10:55): George, the... ML (02:10:57): Yeah. And they say, "Well, it is very obvious they are boomers." What do they mean by that? SM (02:11:03): Well, it means they are using that shorthand that they grew up in the sort of go-go prosperity of the (19)50s and that they are part of this generation that sees themselves as better educated, more socially mobile than their parents' generation were. That they went through a time of great opportunities and of material growth, wealth creation and whatnot. And also, they have been part of the generations who's basically its preoccupations have defined the public agenda almost all the way through. In the (19)50s it was about creating schools and housing for the baby boom generation. And the (19)60s was expanding colleges and creating enough space for the baby boom generation. Now it is social security and retirement benefits and pension funds for the baby boom generation. And I think it is partly because they represent a huge market, in so far as markets to determine- ML (02:12:28): See, right now, if you stay till (19)66, you can get your full social security. But the majority of people are not dead, they are retiring, and they are getting it ahead of time figuring, "Well, I can get it for so many years. And then if I die." So, the difference would still be, I would still make- SM (02:12:48): The actuarial, I think the consensus that I have gotten from people who do not need it but collect it, and others, is that it is best to wait till you are 66. ML (02:13:00): Yeah, you get more. SM (02:13:02): You get more, but you get even more if you wait till you are 70. I think the difference is between getting, say, I think you get about, I cannot remember what it is now. It is about $2,300 a month, if you are maxed out. But it goes up to $2,900 a month if you retire when you are 70. But the kicker is, that when you do the math in your head, you got to live to be 80 something to make up the difference of income you have let go by-by not collecting. And also, if you continue working, your benefits still go up some, not as much as- ML (02:13:43): You can get, I know, because- SM (02:13:45): You are paying into social security while you are collecting. ML (02:13:47): I am 62 now, so I am collecting it because that is how I... But I took a big cut in what I would get, but- SM (02:13:56): But you also collect, you are going to collect it for four years or five years. So, in those five years, I do not know. I am just going to guess there is probably, say you get 1,600 or a month or something like that. ML (02:14:10): Yeah. Then you got to take the taxes out. SM (02:14:11): Right. No, but I am just saying, so what you are giving, what you are going to give up is $700 a month, say $10,000 a year when you are 66. But you will already have collected 70 or $80,000, so it will take five or six years before it crosses over. ML (02:14:34): Yeah, and you got to- SM (02:14:35): And you will actually be at a disadvantage. ML (02:14:37): Yeah, and you got to live. And if you die, you are- SM (02:14:40): Right. It is all gone. ML (02:14:41): There is no heir to anything. So, it is like- SM (02:14:45): So, I think it is not a bad calculation. And if you need it, you need it. ML (02:14:50): Well, I need it [inaudible]. But you can get the $14,300 in earnings if you want to. It does not affect your social security. When you go beyond that, then they take one out of every $2 at that point, and then they, yep. SM (02:15:04): Because I think after 66 you can earn as much as you want. ML (02:15:06): You can. SM (02:15:06): It does not matter. ML (02:15:10): This is an important question I have asked everyone. We took a group of students to Washington DC in 1995, part of our leadership on the road programs. Where we met Senator Ed Muskie. Gaylord Nelson organized this meeting for us. He had just gotten out of the hospital, and he was not doing too well, but it was a great meeting. Students came up with some of the questions, and this was one of the questions they came up with. Keeping in mind that none of these students were born in the (19)60s, but they had seen videotapes [inaudible] up and everything. Their question was, due to the divisions that took place in the (19)60s for the boomer generation, the divisions between Black and white, male and female, gay and straight, with all the riots taking place during the (19)60s, they had seen these things, and they had also saw what happened in the 1968 convention where police were clubbing students- SM (02:16:03): ... convention. So, the police were clubbing students, and there were assassinations that year, and the president resigned, or withdrew from running for president. All the crazy stuff was happening. Do you think the boomer generation, the generation of the (19)60s, the Vietnam generation, is going to go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not healing? That the divisions were so intense, particularly between Vietnam vets and those who were anti-war, and vice versa. The people that fought for Black rights, because my books about everyone. Someone said when they saw the term "boomer", they thought of white men. But boomers are everybody. They are African American, Latino, gay and straight, Native American. It is everybody. I encouraged students to come up with this question because if you go to Gettysburg, there is a statue there of a man who the last survivor of the Civil War was. He died in 1924. So, the last person who participated in the Civil War died in 1924. Over there, I have been to some symposiums where that generation never healed, obviously. Do you think there is a problem within the Boomer generation? It is like Gaylord Nelson said, "They do not walk around Washington DC with, 'I have not healed' on my sleeve," but do you think there is a permanent split between some of these people, particularly those that were involved as activists, that they are never really getting over the divisions? ML (02:17:51): Actually, no. I mean, yes, there is some people who never get a life or whose experience of that time or its impact on their lives is so profound or defining that it frames them forevermore. Then there are also like the Bloody Shirt Generation. They are all kinds of politicians who are going to flog that dead horse forever and ever. But one of the things people forget is that when they held Civil War reunions, they would go to Gettysburg and the Confederates, and the Union guys would all come, and they would camp out together and they would reminisce and whatnot. It was the politicians who kept alive, because the issue of race and segregation in the South and Jim Crow. It was the politicians, I think, who exploited the divisions as a way of seizing power and looting the South to some degree. There are certain issues from the Civil War that have never been reconciled about state's rights, the extent of federalism, the degree to which the federal government can enter into people's lives, create rules and regulations and whatnot. I think those were flaws that were inherent in the original Constitution. The Constitution never took on the problem of race. It created a fiction. It solved the problem. So, I do not think it has to do with the (19)60s so much. So, it is like when somebody interviewed me about the Tea Party phenomena, I think the Tea Party phenomena is a version of populism that comes back over and over again. There is a libertarian sensibility to it. There is an anti-elitist sensibility to it. There is a nativist wing in it. There is a kind of evangelical part of it. But these things are always out there. They are always there. They have been there since almost the founding, but certainly since the 19th century and with immigration, whatnot. And so, one of the things that makes the United States distinct from, although this is also [inaudible] one of the reasons we do not have a social democracy is because we have these much larger racial ethnic divisions. And so, like in Ireland, if somebody says, "Okay, well, I am being taxed for social security." They are thinking, "Well, it is going to go to somebody who is like my mom." Not maybe my mom or maybe my mom is dead, but "It is going to go to somebody who is like me." SM (02:20:40): Who needs it. ML (02:20:40): Whereas here, people say, "Well, it is going to go to those welfare queens and it's going to go to things. And I do not want that, I do not want that." SM (02:20:48): It is a different mentality. ML (02:20:50): It is a very different mentality. And I think what happens is that as has happened in Yugoslavia under the Serbian nationalism, that people step in and they exploit these anxieties, these fears of marginalization, these economic uncertainties. And they say, "Okay, if you are a Serb, the only one who is going to take care of you is a Serb. If you are a white middle class male, it is white middle-class males who are going to take care you. Those other guys are trying to pick your pocket and give your money to the undeserving." So back to your question somewhat, the sense that we are hopelessly forever divided. Yeah, Americans are a nation that... The idea of the nation itself is a fiction. It is like Ed Morgan wrote a wonderful little book called Inventing the People. And there is another wonderful book out there, Imagine Nation. It is Benedict Anderson's book about nationalism and national identity. SM (02:22:10): Are they recent books? ML (02:22:12): Ed Morgan's books about 15 years old, 10 years old. Benedict Anderson's book is from the 1980s. It is called Imagined Communities. But one of the things that Anderson, he was a professor at Cornell, an Irishman, my background. It is the most often cited book in social science literature. Imagined Communities. SM (02:22:36): What is his first name? ML (02:22:37): Benedict. SM (02:22:38): Benedict. ML (02:22:39): But one of the purposes of the book, it is a very brief old book. It is like 200 pages, and he is a specialist on Southeast Asia. But one of the ways he put it is, "Why is it that if some guy from California gets kidnapped in South America?" He would not have used this specific, but an example like this, "Why is it that you and I feel aggrieved? We will never meet the guy. We do not live in California. The guy lives 3000 miles away and we are pissed off. What is it that makes us see ourselves as part of the same community?" And he develops some theories in there about that. But one of the things that I argue to my students that creates division is a lot of people live in different cultural space and different cultural time. Some people embrace metro sexualism and multiethnic and multicultural. They live in a world that they do not think it is odd to see somebody who is Japanese with somebody who is Nigerian. It is the world they live in. They both got good jobs. They both love the party. Of course, they are together. Whereas in our generation, if you saw something like that, people would be absolutely agog- SM (02:23:57): Guess who is coming to dinner [inaudible]. ML (02:23:59): But one of my colleagues was saying, she is an African American woman, grew up in the Catskills, and she was down on the subway in New York City in the last 10 years or so and they have got down towards the battery and whatnot. And I think the train was headed to Brooklyn ultimately. And she looked around the car and, in the car, I do not think there was a single white person in the car, but Asians and Africans and Indians and this and that, just this mélange of people, classic New York City. All of sudden the door opens, these four people get on it, and they are wearing satin Ole Miss baseball jackets. And they take one look at this car, one guy turns the other and he says, "Are we in America?" SM (02:24:49): Well, that is America. ML (02:24:53): Yeah, exactly, it is. And the question is, for them in Mississippi, and this was not a racist... This was not some guy who has called the Klan to attack the car. It was just they had never experienced this. And it is like whenever we are in New York, you just look around yourself and you think, "I live up here in vanilla heaven." But New York, the diversity is so profound. And I think that there are people who embrace that and live in it, are cosmopolitan. And there are people who are frightened to death of it. And they are all Americans. And those divisions, the biggest divisions in the US have always been east versus west and urban versus rural and Protestant versus others. So, those things are still with us, and I think always will be. SM (02:25:56): Well, Senator Muskie, he said that... He did not even comment on 1968, was he thought the students... Because he was the nominee. He thought they would talk about the convention. And he said in very simple terms, he did not answer right away. We have this. I had the videotape of this too. He died six months later. And he said, "We have not healed since the Civil War on the issue of race." And he started going and talking about it. And then he said, "We lost 430,000 men." He had just seen the Ken Burns series in the hospital, and it really touched him. Almost an entire generation had been wiped out. The other thing I wanted to ask is the issue of... Well, a couple things. Many members of the boomer generation thought they were the most unique generation in history because they were going to be the change [inaudible] for the betterment of society. They were going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, war, bring peace. Nothing was ever going to be the same again. So, there was a real optimism, a sense of community, a sense of comradery, togetherness, the movements, there seems to be arm and arm. Whereas today, many people think that that arm and arm has now become very special interest. Rarely do they come together except in crises, which we see on university campuses. Do you think this generation was the most unique in its history? And secondly, is one of the major characteristics of this generational a lack of trust, that they just do not trust people because they saw so many government leaders lie? ML (02:27:30): Well, Americans have always been [inaudible]. Remember Mr. Finley, Peter Dunn, Mr. Dooley, "Trust everyone, but cut the cards." I think cynicism about public figures and about public life is fairly entrenched. Whether it is the most unique, I think only demographically, only by size. Not in terms of its culture or cultural values. Every generation is unique, just different. I think that one of the ways to get a handle on this, and I think that Thomas Frank, he had a book on advertising- SM (02:28:19): Oh, not that one. ML (02:28:20): What is the Matter with Kansas? SM (02:28:22): Yeah, that is the one. ML (02:28:25): He, I think, was really on to something. And I think that what has changed America that makes it seem like... Leads to the world of Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone. The Bowling Alone one. Part of it is just that the shift of women into the workforce, so that a lot of community building that went on in the (19)50s and (19)60s had to do with women who created community organizations, PTAs and this and that. Well, now that women are working full time and whatnot. There is much less time and energy left for civic engagement or even social civic engagement because there are all kinds of organizations and whatnot that are troubled, are struggling to survive, struggling to keep volunteer fire companies that... And the other thing I think that happened is that from the (19)20s into the (19)50s, you really had truly the development of mass media. And that is somewhat uniform, with some exceptions. There were local... Say local newspaper, local radio. But you really did get this creation of a broad mass national culture and mass national institutions like those Hollywood studios and the broadcast networks and big publishing houses. The music industry was dominated by five record companies, that sort of thing. And it is really the advent of cable television and the internet. And also, this is one of those arguments that also James Gilbert made his argument in his book on the (19)50s on juvenile delinquency, that advertisers began to shift away from seeing broad mass audiences to which they wanted to sell Marlboros or Chevrolets or Whirlpool dryers, to demographically fragmented markets. Teen market that you could sell teen products, you could sell Clearasil, or you could sell transistor radios and whatnot. And that increasingly, when growing up as a kid, you knew exactly what your friends watched on television because you had one or two... Now, Ithaca was different to some degree because they had cable television early because there was no transmission into that area. So, they had to bring it in by cable. So, you may have had two- SM (02:31:15): We had four. Well, we got Syracuse because my mom liked Kate Russell. Do you remember her? ML (02:31:21): Yeah. SM (02:31:22): She was on. And then there was Ed Murphy, with Hollywood Matinee on the... But in the (19)50s, they showed a lot of those films during the summertime. But we watched ABC, NBC, CBS. We got cable. We had a cable channel. ML (02:31:38): Well, that is what I am saying is that was... Because I remember that in Ithaca when I was a student there, you could sometimes get New York City stations, they would come on the cable. But I think that what has happened is that the market is now heavily fragmented. So, you have programming that is designed for old farts, the news, 60 Minutes. And advertising that is targeted for specific demographics. And so that what the mass media has become factional, meek media. You got 200 plus channels that you can watch so that, you have 500,000 people watching the Food Channel and 500,000 people watching Comedy Central and 500, 000 people watching AMC and maybe have a few million who are watching ABC. SM (02:32:36): Then you got the college students watching Family Guy. They do watch it. ML (02:32:44): And I think that what means also is that people now get their news from their evangelical station, from Fox News, from PBS, depending on what your prejudices are. So, you can educate your prejudices. You are not forced to negotiate contested space. And so, I think that feeds this sense of self- importance or you can be anything you want to be or have it your way. It is this celebration of self and that every life is a project self-creation in which we underplay the degree to which we are dependent on- SM (02:33:35): It is like the [inaudible] now that the advertisement that is geared toward the boomers, it is because they taught the constant retirement. The advertisement is about retirement. Dennis Hopper, before he passed away, was on that ad, "You are going to be different here." ML (02:33:47): But it used to be James Whitmore who advertised to the elderly. Now it is the boomers themselves. But yeah, and the advertising, it is sort of like, "Where's the money? Where is the market?" And it is always a question of identifying markets. But now, the biggest demographic is 24 to 45 because they are the highest spending demographic, and they buy big ticket items, cars, and whatnot. Whereas people, when they get over 60, they already have their house, their furniture, their this. They are not consumers in the same way. So, they will buy health insurance, or they will buy a retirement property or something like that. Again, it is the way election campaigns are now run. And it is why the national parties are increasingly irrelevant because there is a local demographic that determines how every congressman's going to run, how every senator is going to run, whatnot. Because they have their peculiar local demographic, which through gerrymandering, they can make exquisitely the way they want it. SM (02:35:12): Were there specific books that you felt were important to you, books that you read when you were in high school and college that were very influential and because you liked them, and you read them, and they influenced you? ML (02:35:33): There definitely were things like Catcher and Rye, Mark Twain. I tended to like cynical types. I read all the things that other... Lord of the Flies and that generation of literature. But I was interested in history early on and read about the Rise and Fall Reich and read a certain amount about politics. SM (02:36:01): And were you a Landmark Books person? ML (02:36:03): I was. I read them all. When there were 50, I read them all. And I read Battle of Britain, I read about 12 times. SM (02:36:09): By golly, I still have mine. Do you still have yours? ML (02:36:10): Yeah. SM (02:36:12): Yeah. And how about the Bruce Catton books on the Civil War, which were popular? ML (02:36:17): I did not read those. I was never a Civil War buff, though since then I have taught the Civil War [inaudible]. And I am interested in the Civil War as a historical phenomenon. And I also, I think the episode of Ken Burns thing, when they get to Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Address. I get tears in my eyes. Listening to the Gettysburg Address in the context of the battle and whatnot. SM (02:36:46): They have redone the building. I go about 10 times a year. I only live an hour and a half away. And I see something every time I go, different times a year. And they would redone where he wrote... Well, he arrived on the train, stayed at this hotel, and [inaudible] paid $3 to look into a room, which was the most ridiculous thing. I refused to do that. Now you go into the hotel. It is really the way it was. He redone it the way Lincoln... Exactly the way it was. Yeah, I just wrote down some books here that the people were influenced on. I had talked about The End of Ideology, because I think Daniel Bell's book was a major piece of literature. And Charles Reich's Greening of America and Roszak's Making of a Counterculture was required reading in our graduate school program. ML (02:37:32): But see, I think those were later. A lot depends on when... One of the things I argue in my book also is that there were certain kinds of mildly subversive, or like The Affluent Society or Organization Man. SM (02:37:50): White Collar. ML (02:37:51): White Collar, C Wright Mills. The people who said to you, "Things are not what they seem," or "There are other ways to think about this, that all is not perfect in the kingdom. And check out the emperor's clothes." And there was a whole string of his and Betty Friedan and Rachel Carson. SM (02:38:11): And certainly, the beat writers. ML (02:38:13): The beat writers, also. Michael Harrington. SM (02:38:16): Oh yeah, the other America. ML (02:38:18): And then there was... What is his name? Paul Goodman and so forth. So, there were a whole range of these things out there if one had an appetite for them. And actually, one of the most formative mind shifting moments for me came when I was taking diplomatic history at Cornell from Walter LaFeber. SM (02:38:39): He is a good get. ML (02:38:40): I think he was a new left historian, a student of Fred Harrington's and William Appleman Williams at Wisconsin. Where you got to the end of the World War II, and we are talking about the decision to drop the atom bomb. And this was the year that Gar Alperovitz published Atomic Diplomacy, which none of us were aware of but Walter LaFeber clearly read it. And he said to us, "People have always thought that the had a bomb was dropped on Japan to end the war quickly, which is what Truman explained." He said, "But in fact, there is serious evidence that indicates that the bomb was dropped on Japan, not to end the war quickly, but to send a message to the Soviet Union." And this was just one of those accepted truisms of Cold War America. It never occurred to you that it was anything but the way it had been always explained to you. And then the idea that there was another way to understand this phenomenon. It was like, "Huh?" It really shook the foundations. And it was not that... I was capable of certain amount of cynicism. It was just that there were just certain building blocks that no one had ever had the courage to publicly attack him and until Alperovitz. Now most of us do not agree with Alperovitz, we think that his case is distorted, et cetera. And there's truth to it. But he certainly changed the debate about the decision to drop the atom bomb. SM (02:40:20): What is amazing is one of my last interviews, a person I talked about the first time he became cynical, he said, "It is because I admired Eisenhower. I looked up to him. He was a World War II hero. But I also watched him on television when he said that Gary Powers was not a spy. And then within a week or two later, they had to admit that he was a spy. He lied to me on television and all of a sudden, a light bulb went on." ML (02:40:51): Yeah, right. I do think people do have those defining moments where the unthinkable, you see, it is right there in front of you. And that belief is not viable any longer. SM (02:41:05): I had these... These were mostly (19)60s books, but the Soul on Ice with Eldridge Cleaver, and certainly... Harold Brown wrote a book that I thought was very influential. ML (02:41:14): Love Without Fear. Or that was Norman- SM (02:41:16): How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. Do you remember that book? ML (02:41:19): I do not know that I do remember that. This was not Harold Brown who went on to be Secretary of- SM (02:41:26): No-no, no-no. The Harold Browne that ran on the... I think it was a Green Party ticket for a while. He was an independent, he passed away. ML (02:41:34): I was thinking of Norman O'Brown who wrote a book on love and death or something. SM (02:41:39): Yeah, this guy was... He wrote a book, How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. And then the other one was Dr. David Rubin, What You Need to Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask. ML (02:41:52): That was big. And I also included Playboy and Hugh Hefner and Mad Magazine. Mad Magazine was big. It was so irreverent that... SM (02:42:06): I still have some old Mad Magazines here. ML (02:42:08): Have you ever read, by the way, there is this wonderful book, The Wonderful World of Kavalier and Clay? SM (02:42:14): No. ML (02:42:15): Michael Chabone, I think his name is. SM (02:42:17): No. ML (02:42:18): It is such a wonderful read if you like the world of comic books and whatnot. SM (02:42:21): Oh, yeah. Well, I have a box of comic books that are from the (19)50s, but most of them are all Westerns. I kept all my Westerns. ML (02:42:30): All I can tell you is this is mostly about creating the superheroes and whatnot. But it is a wonderful read. I highly recommend it. SM (02:42:39): I am getting down to my last two questions here. This tape goes for about two hours, I think. So, we are getting near the end there. These are some questions about Rachel Carson. Because I just think... I have two other biographies on her, so I want to learn even more about her even from... This is so good. But I just have to say it. You indicate in your book on Rachel Carson that she was different from the outset in many ways. A female scientist where men dominated the profession. She had role models like [inaudible] where money was less important than ideas. Is not her story, like many of the boomer generation who recognized injustice and tried to write it or, like her, saw nature threatened and tried to do something about it, this kind of, what I consider, a selfless as opposed to a selfish reason for doing things? The second thing I say here about Rachel Carson, Rachel Carson was a woman who was aggressive in her style, very obviously she was. And she spoke up at a time when women were supposed to be seen and not heard. A great role model for feminism and the environmental causes that were to follow her life, especially with Earth Day in 1970 and the women's movement that was searching for role models. I think this book, as well as other books, need to be read more by more people because her life has meaning. I have read Silent Spring a long time ago as a book, but I really never read in depth about her as a person. So, I just think she is an unbelievable... She is a one of a kind. ML (02:44:28): She is a uniquely talented person. One of the things that you wanted to do, psychologize her, if you look at... She is like Franklin Roosevelt in that she is her mother's special prize. SM (02:44:45): You are right. Marian or is it, Maria? I forget. ML (02:44:49): Maria Carson. SM (02:44:50): Maria, yes. Yeah. ML (02:44:50): But this was a case where her mother essentially devoted her life to Rachel. So, in many ways it was confining, but in other ways it was very liberating. And I think that it gave her a sense of specialness all her life. And one of the things I always found remarkable is she never seemed to resent the demands her mother made on her. Although I think they became more extreme as her mother approached the end of her life, and that she was always very satisfied with the living arrangement that they had because it did free her to do her work in a lot of ways. And also, to have somebody who teaches you how to notice, who teaches you how to record and to discriminate and just spends a lot of intimate mental time with you. And I think that it made Rachel Carson different from other kids. I am sure any community she was in, that people always saw her as a little bit over there. Not dangerous, not offensive, not threatening really, but different, very different. But she was comfortable with the difference. So, I do not think she was one of these people who was particularly vulnerable to the potential taunts and jeers of... I do not think she really provoked them, does not seem that she provoked them very much. And I think that this is also somebody who was always basically quite serious. It was not that she did not have a sense of humor, but I think she took the world very seriously and her causes profoundly seriously. And in that sense, she was an extremely private person who in some ways lived a public life. Always that kind of contradiction. But she's somebody who hated public speaking, much preferred to write. And as I say, that is one of the things that intrigued me about her and also daunted me when I took up the book is how do you write a book about somebody who was such an elegant writer, but the person you're writing about is in a sense so much more...? SM (02:47:28): Well, you bring up also very important in here because I am a higher ed person about role models and people. You referenced several faculty members, and I had very important faculty members when I was in graduate school too that had an influence on me and pushed me to be better than I could ever be. They had faith in me, and she had people who had faith in her, a couple women, the one at Johns Hopkins, and one was even going to get married, but decided not to get married, her career was more important at that particular juncture. That was a very important role models, because we were talking... She died in (19)62, but we are talking the 1950s here. Is she truly symbolic of many women who were smart, well-informed, well-educated, but because of the attitudes that men had toward women in those days, do not speak up, be seen and not heard, she is the epitome of a role model that... "No-no. We have something to offer." ML (02:48:31): There was the occasional person like Paul Brooks, her editor or her boss at the Fish and Wildlife, who recognized her talent and nurtured it and created opportunities for her. But yeah, if you think about the job she had, she was basically an exquisite secretary for all the scientists who were too lazy or too incompetent to write literate reports for the Fish and Wildlife Service. They went to her, and she edited them and published them. And so, she was taking care of their business for them. She ran a small publishing company that served their interests, though she was paid decently for it and whatnot. And within her little realm, she had some authority. But by and large, hers was a service operation, not... And somewhat secondary to the primary purpose of the agency. She did however, being a resourceful person and socially adroit in some ways, she created lots of opportunities to go to visit facilities around the country and develop her network of friends in the science community and whatnot. And so, she was the author of a lot of her own success. I wish I had asked questions when I interviewed Senator Nelson about her because his- SM (02:50:01): ... about her because his hero or the person he really looked up was Leopold. ML (02:50:07): Oh yeah. He is from Wisconsin. SM (02:50:08): Yeah. ML (02:50:10): [inaudible] a homeboy. SM (02:50:12): And of course, during the anniversary this past year, because I interviewed Tia, his daughter. ML (02:50:20): Tia Nelson or Tia LaFeber? SM (02:50:21): Tia Nelson, a daughter of Gaylord. ML (02:50:23): Was that your classmate, Gretchen? GL (02:50:26): Who? ML (02:50:26): Was it William Proxmire or Gaylord Nelson's daughter who was a classmate of yours in high school? One of them, I am pretty sure you said was. GL (02:50:36): Do not remember. ML (02:50:38): He is the senator from Wisconsin. I thought it was Gaylord Nelson. GL (02:50:46): No, I do not think so. SM (02:50:48): Tia said that... This was the big anniversary year of Earth Day. ML (02:50:54): Yes, the 40th. SM (02:50:55): She was fearful that they were starting to forget Gaylord Nelson, that other people were. ML (02:51:01): Some of us remember. SM (02:51:04): But I bet you if Gaylord Nelson, if she had been alive, probably he would have picked her to be one of the main speakers at Earth Day. ML (02:51:11): Oh, absolutely. She would have been natural for it. And she most certainly would have written another important book in the interim. And actually, there were a whole series of majors. I just happened to read just before you came, I finished a manuscript for University of North Carolina Press, which is sort of a history of DDT in which she obviously figures quite prominently. SM (02:51:36): Oh, you are writing a book on it. ML (02:51:38): No. This is a book I read the manuscript for the press. Should they publish it or should not they? And one of the things he talks about is the later thing where there was this series of in Michigan, then Wisconsin, and then in Washington of legal battles over the toxicity of DDT and the ability of state or federal agencies to regulate or eliminate it. And so, she certainly would have been very centrally involved in that discussion. It would have interesting to see where she would have gone next. SM (02:52:20): How old is she? She was... ML (02:52:21): She was 57 when she died. SM (02:52:23): Too young. Too young. Too young. I just mentioned here that there is the light bulb thing. Obviously with Rachel Carson your book goes into when her light bulb went off in terms of pesticides and so forth. But Jane Fonda is a very controversial figure within the anti-war movement. And I have had people for and against her, but one of them has said point-blank that she really wanted to get out of the Barbarella mentality. She talked about Vietnam and came back from France because she had a mind, she just was not a body. It was kind of a light bulb there too, and certainly Betty Friedan being the housewife. How did you become who you are? What were your college years like and how did you become professor? ML (02:53:21): Well, my interest in history, partly probably the person who most shaped it was my grandmother, who was a professional librarian but always interested in foreign affairs and read history. I was quite close to her. And also, it was just partly I was intrigued by her history, because her father had been in the New York State legislature with Theodore Roosevelt and her husband was, I think he was editor of the Princeton newspaper, yearbook, something, when Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton. And that is how my mother's family became Democrats. They came from a very Republican world, and they converted to being Democrats because of Wilson's influence. My parents were both heavy readers. But the big thing after that was when I went to... And I always did well in history; I have a memory for it. I read, like you read, the landmark books and was interested in biography and intrigued by the people's life stories and whatnot. And when I was an undergraduate at Cornell, the history department there was fairly young and filled with people who became real luminaries, but who were real teachers and in some ways mensches. David Davis was there, Don Kagan, the [inaudible], was the conservative. He's father of Bobby and Freddy Kagan. SM (02:55:07): Wow. ML (02:55:07): And good, close personal friend of George Will. But Don was there. And Michael Kammen won the Pulitzer Prize when I was an undergraduate. So did Davis won it. And Walter LaFeber was my advisor. SM (02:55:26): He wrote a book on Vietnam, I think. Did not he? I thought he wrote something on... ML (02:55:29): LaFeber? SM (02:55:30): Yeah. ML (02:55:30): He did eventually, but his big book at that time was called The New Empire, and it was sort of the basis for his career, where he revisited the causes of the Spanish American War and argued against the idea of accidental empire. It is really a book about empire by design. But it was about the new colonialism, the non-administrative economic colonialism. Anyway, he is somebody who you develop a kind of hero worship when you are a kid. Well, I admire him as much today as I did when I was an undergraduate. He had enormous influence on me, partly because he was a really wonderful family person. And then at the time, most of the faculty children are crazy. And I thought the price of going into higher education is to have a nutso family. Well, I think a lot of the people who entered into academia in the (19)50s and (19)60s were not tradition, because there was so much expansion that a lot of non-traditional types, Jews and ethnics and whatnot, went into academia. And they were very ambitious. They wanted to be accepted and be as good and better and whatnot. And I think he took a big toll on their family lives. But from Walter LaFeber, I thought you can be politically relevant and engaged but still be an academic and you can be a family person. One of the things that was a characteristic of the (19)60s, it was in my graduating classic at Cornell, of the 25 top ranked liberal arts students, 23 of them, and I was not one of those 25, but all went into non-for-profit career tracks. And I would guess from the 1980s and on, the pattern was reversed. That 23 out of 25 probably went into finance, law, business of some kind. And so, relates to your question you asked earlier about service and whatnot, I do think that there was a sense of wanting to make a difference, of contributing. It did not mean military service. And I am now a powerful, I feel this powerfully, I am not doing much about it, but a real believer in public service. That at some point, whether there probably should be two moments in somebody's life, either when you graduate from high school or when you graduate from college, where you have to do a year of public service. It does not have to be in the military; it could be in the military. It could be in the forest service. It could be health service. It could be Peace Corps. It could be create some [inaudible] job corps where you work, mentor to inner city kids, or you work in retirement communities, or whatever. But for a year you have to be trained to do something useful to help other people. SM (02:58:45): Buckley talked about that in his book, Gratitude, William Buckley, which I supported. Of course, students do not want to be told what to do, but I support two years of public service, similar to what happens in Israel. You do not have to go in the military, but I believe you need to give back in some way. And I think we have a president now that if he saw more of that, then it would help them toward their graduate degrees if they want to go on to graduate school and things like this. ML (02:59:17): Well, and also, I think it would change people's trajectories. I think a lot of people who just, for the lack of imagination or the lack of exposure, just fall into, "Oh, my father is a lawyer; I will be a lawyer." Or "Bankers make a lot of money; I will be a banker." Or whatever. I think that if you got training in something, you might decide, "I could make a life out of this. I could do this." Not everybody would, but not everyone should. But it would make a huge difference. And I think people would value themselves more than they do. SM (02:59:54): Can you list some of the tangible results or deeds of members of the boomer generation? They are 48 to 64. We all know about Bill Gates, we know what he has done, and Steve Jobs. We know they are boomers. But are there boomers that stand out? I only got about 10 minutes here left. And this might end, and I got a little dinky tape in here to end it. Are there boomers that really stand out, that you think really they had lived the idealism of the (19)60s throughout their entire lives? ML (03:00:26): Oh, maybe somebody like Paul Farmer. SM (03:00:29): Now, who is Paul Farmer? ML (03:00:35): Way out in the mountains, the guy who is in Haiti, the doctor in Haiti. There certainly have been a fair number of creative people who left an imprint. Funny the way you have framed the question, are there heroes of sports, heroes of science? SM (03:01:03): I did not say anything about sports. ML (03:01:06): Well, there have been some sports figures. Well, he was not a baby boomer, so... Oh, he may have been actually, like Curt Flood. SM (03:01:14): This is my last question here, so I am going to get to it. ML (03:01:24): I have had friends that have gone on to high achievement and people that I know who have lived good life, my older brother. Although he was not a boomer, because he was born in 1940, but he was involved in public education his whole life and always committed to it. There have been academics, like one of my classmates at Yale also. Again, I do not know if he is quite a baby boomer, but Donald Worcester and Bill Cronon as historians have been pioneers in the environmental studies movement, environmental history. So, there are not any, probably when you are gone, I will think six right in a row, particularly impressed with or done great things. A lot of courageous women who have broken a lot of barriers along the way. SM (03:02:38): [inaudible] the tape. ML (03:02:40): Hillary deserves a lot of credit. SM (03:02:42): Oh, definitely. ML (03:02:43): What she is accomplished, not without controversy. SM (03:02:53): This is getting down to the last question here really before I have a question on a legacy that ends it. Here it is. It is a little takeoff of what I just asked. What personalities between 46 today do you feel had the greatest impact on the generation that came of age after World War II? I broke it down into names, events, and trends. I like your comments. These are the people that I felt were the most important to the boomer generation and they had the greatest impact on. JFK, Martin Luther King, Richard Nixon, Jackie Robinson, Lyndon Johnson, Walt Disney, Hugh Hefner, the Beatles, Elvis and Reagan. Now those are the people that I thought had the greatest impact on the boomer generation. ML (03:03:47): And do you mean outside of the context of the (19)60s? You mean in the entire post-war era? SM (03:03:56): Yeah, both good and bad. ML (03:03:57): Okay. Nobody mentioned Jim Morris. I am joking. SM (03:03:58): Yeah, I know. ML (03:04:03): I am joking about that. I would have to say that there have been some writers, certainly. I think of people like Barry Commoner. SM (03:04:13): Okay. ML (03:04:15): Ralph Nader. SM (03:04:17): Let me- ML (03:04:25): ... coming up behind us. But then we have got to be careful that we are looking through a clear windshield and we see the road ahead as well. That is best I could put it. SM (03:04:37): The free speech movement in 1964, which was at Berkeley in (19)64, (19)65 was the precursor to many things that filed on university campuses in the late (19)60s. But keeping in mind that the free speech movement also was linked to Freedom Summer when many of those students who were down, a lot of them, Jewish, white Jewish students, and Catholic students, and Catholic priests, and African Americans who went south and came back to college campuses, and Berkeley was one of them. And of course, their whole free speech movement was about ideas and challenged the corporate mentality. And that, from one thing to the next, and freedom of speech is important, and liberty is important, because I know you are a man who loves liberty. And liberty is what it is all about, and freedom of speech is a very important part of it. And I think when you talk about what you talked about-about Chicago in (19)68, I think what you are saying is that it was sad that there was confrontation there, but that freedom of speech should always be guaranteed no matter what. And that liberty is why we are all here. I hope what you are saying is that liberty, some things, like you talked about the Republican Party, they are doing things that from the past they should be reinventing themselves or whatever, but liberty is forever. And so, whenever freedom of speech is denied, we need to be out there guaranteeing that it continues. Are there any thoughts you have on this generation that grew up after World War II? They are now 64 years old; they are going into senior citizen status right now. They probably will change it. But any thoughts of how the history books will write about this period in terms of- ML (03:06:39): Well, Tom Brokaw has already written about the Greatest Generation. You are wanting me to look ahead beyond that, I guess. And somehow, I have the feeling that they are going to do all right. I am not a purveyor of doom and gloom. SM (03:07:01): Good. ML (03:07:02): I do not think the world is going to end tomorrow if somebody's political program is not adopted in haec verba, in all particulars. I think we will find a way. I have great reverence and respect for the capacity of the free American spirit. Sometimes it lags a bit, takes some time to catch up, but I think our freedoms will endure. SM (03:07:40): You were in Congress in probably one of the most exciting times in American history, the (19)60s and seventies. To me, they were exciting times. Because you even talk about the constant of change, which is what the boomer generation wanted, but a lot of the people in politics were doing the very same thing. Just from the going to work every day and working with other congressmen, senators and having people come in that cared about civil rights and all the other issues that we were facing in America at the time. You talked about the moment you are most proud of, which was the 1968 law that was passed. You obviously talked to a lot of people. Give me a feel, because when we are talking about boomer times, we're also talking about congressional times. (19)60 to (19)80 was the key time when young people were growing and evolving from that generation. And you were in Congress at the time. What was it like? Who were your best cohorts? Who did you love working with? ML (03:08:54): Mo Udall. SM (03:08:55): Oh, what a great man. ML (03:08:56): Mo Udall from Arizona was my bosom friend, and I wish he had won the nomination and been elected president in 1976, because then I would not have had to run in 1980. He would have been running for his second term, and I would have been supporting him. So, I think that good men and good women are going to arise as the need occurs that will keep us on the path that we should be on. I just have a great feeling of confidence in the capacity of the American system for renewal and for a new generation to provide the kind of leadership that is needed. I am not one who believes our best days are behind us. I think that they still lie ahead. SM (03:10:07): And Mo Udall was your best friend then? ML (03:10:09): Yes, he was. Head and shoulders above anyone else. SM (03:10:14): He was a good man. No question about it. I think his brother just passed. ML (03:10:20): Well, it has been great talking to you. SM (03:10:21): Yep. Thank you very much. Let me take four more pictures and then I will go. ML (03:10:23): Yeah, that is right. You have got to take some at the end. SM (03:10:24): Yep. ML (03:10:28): I did not even look to see whether my hair was combed very well. SM (03:10:32): You are fine. ML (03:10:32): I hope it is. SM (03:10:34): You are fine. ML (03:10:34): And I am sitting here in my stocking feet and my leisure clothing. SM (03:10:43): You still talk to any former congressmen now, that you worked with? ML (03:10:48): Well, occasionally. SM (03:10:59): Was not there one, a powerful one? Phil Burton from California. ML (03:11:03): Oh, Phil, yes. SM (03:11:05): He's still alive, I think. He was a powerful congressman. And then of course there was Ron Dellums. ML (03:11:12): I am not sure that Phil is still alive. I think he has gone. SM (03:11:15): Oh, is he? There is Ron Dellums, who is now the mayor of Oakland. ML (03:11:20): Yes, I remember him. SM (03:11:20): All right. ML (03:11:24): All right, well, can I just sit here and look at you? SM (03:11:27): Yep. I am going to have one last picture in front of your books, because I always like to take pictures. Bear with me as this focuses here. Ready? Sit. ML (03:11:38): All right? SM (03:11:40): And one more from here, then two by your books, and then we are done. ML (03:11:43): All right. SM (03:11:47): And then I guess two over here with your books. ML (03:11:49): Do you want me standing over there? SM (03:11:51): Yep. Is that your congressional, did you have that in Congress? ML (03:11:58): What? SM (03:11:59): This at your desk. ML (03:12:02): That was given to me while I was in Congress, yeah. I cannot remember who gave it to me. SM (03:12:07): All right. ML (03:12:09): I have got another one over here. Mary. Yeah, I guess it is the same thing. You want me here? SM (03:12:16): Yep. ML (03:12:18): All right. SM (03:12:18): You are not allowed to take anything away from Congress? ML (03:12:21): No. SM (03:12:21): You cannot take your chair and all desks have to go back? ML (03:12:25): The desk? No, I bought that. SM (03:12:28): That is your congressional desk? ML (03:12:29): You are allowed to buy your desk. That is a congressional desk. SM (03:12:31): That will be my last shot, you at your congressional desk. ML (03:12:34): All right. SM (03:12:34): So, this is the desk to used when you were in Congress? ML (03:12:37): Oh yeah. That is from my office from my 20 years. SM (03:12:40): My gosh. It is nice. ML (03:12:43): It is a little untidy right at the moment. SM (03:12:46): Well, that is pretty tidy to me. ML (03:12:48): All right. SM (03:12:49): In fact, I think this is one of your books right here. That is the one. I have that book. ML (03:12:54): All right. SM (03:12:56): Okay. ML (03:13:01): I definitely agree that people, even though I am not totally sympathetic to them, but people like Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan had a heavy political footprint, but there have been people like Steven Spielberg or more of John Lucas have been creative. Steve Jobs. I know they are people in there. Stewart Brand. SM (03:13:39): The Whole Earth Catalog. ML (03:13:40): But he created Wired magazine also and has been continually active and generating ideas and connecting people from interesting walks of life. There are obviously some of the people like Sabin and Salk. And I have forgotten the guy who did the birth control pill. SM (03:14:04): Sanger? ML (03:14:05): No. There was some guy who was at, I think, the clinic in Worcester or whatnot who developed the birth control pill. I cannot remember who it was, but there is some person who is centrally identified with it, although it has been a variety. Obviously, someone like John Wood, the realm of sports, at least as a role model. Or Vince Lombardi, a different era. SM (03:14:44): I have not been doing any sports business related to this, although [inaudible] Jackie Robinson and Curt Flood and Muhammad Ali. ML (03:14:52): Muhammad Ali was a big deal. He was in many ways, embodied a lot of the (19)60s characteristics. I would say Barack Obama recently. I was amazed how politically re-energized many of my friends became, my contemporaries, who got interested in politics in a way that they either never had been or had not been for 30 or 40 years. And I think that they found in him a sensibility that, partly it is because he just embodies the idea of merit. Now, it is a very privileged kind of merit. He is well-educated from beginning to end, and he is the essence of professionalism in a way, but with charisma. A professional with charisma. I used to like to think that Barack Obama and Tiger Woods were similar and that they were the best at whoever did what they do, except now we know Tiger Woods is- SM (03:16:08): Falling apart. ML (03:16:09): Deeply corrupt. And so, the analogy is not all that flattering any longer. SM (03:16:16): His wife got a certain lot of money. How many millions? But the events that shaped the boomers more than any other events, I just listed these. And again, you can add or subtract, just terms. Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the three assassinations: JFK, MLK, and Bobby Kennedy, the Chicago Convention of (19)68, Kent State, the McCarthy hearings, the Free Speech Movement, the Vietnam Memorial opening in 1982, the Civil Rights Acts of (19)54, (19)64, (19)65, and (19)68, Watergate, the Berlin Wall coming down, the hostage crisis in Iran, the communism falling all over the world, and 9/11. Those are the events that I consider to be the... And I did not say Yom Kippur War, which I should have. ML (03:17:19): They are also, they are events of several different orders. They are like apples and oranges in a way when you think about them. Some of them are public political events and some of them are cultural events or whatnot. A lot, again, depends. That is why if I made the argument that it is about something to do with demographics or some tipping point in an argument I made about the decline of US oil production, something like that. You already did Sputnik. I think that was a biggie. I think that there have been some cultural moments that are like The Graduate. I would say The Graduate probably had more impact than, say, The Greening of America or any of those books, because it had a much broader, wider public audience. SM (03:18:34): Plastics. Have you thought about plastics? ML (03:18:42): A cute moment. I think that that was either Buck Henry or Terry Southern wrote that line. I am not sure. SM (03:18:51): I do not know. It is a great line. That was 1967, and he was 29 years old. Dustin Hoffman was no youngster when he did that. ML (03:19:01): No, actually he was in his thirties. I think he was 32. But you know what the age difference between Mrs. Robinson and Ben Braddock really was? SM (03:19:11): Oh, probably only about two years. ML (03:19:13): It was six years or seven years. She was 38 or 39. SM (03:19:17): And he was 32? ML (03:19:18): He was 32 or something like that. SM (03:19:20): I never could figure out why she married Mel Brooks. ML (03:19:23): Well, she is a nice Italian girl. Mel Brooks has got to be one of the funniest guys there is. SM (03:19:30): Yeah. That was quite a marriage. ML (03:19:32): But they stayed married, I think. SM (03:19:34): Yeah, they did. And then course she passed away. The movies obviously that come out are certainly Easy Rider and Zabriskie Point was another one that I remember. Or Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice. ML (03:19:48): Although I think that the movies that really had it, Bonnie and Clyde, have had more impact. Because I think that one of the things that happens culturally in the late (19)60s and seventies and affects movies, but more broadly American culture, is the conflation of pornographic sexual and pornographic violence. And that is really what Bonnie and Clyde was about. It was sort of the pornography of violence in which the eroticism of the most erotic moment, in a way, is that balletic death at the end of the movie. There is another version of it in The Wild Bunch, which comes out shortly afterwards, which is Sam Peckinpah. It is where, I like to point out to my students, if you watch a Busby Berkeley movie in the 1930s, there will be these moments, the [inaudible] will be marching towards the camera. The camera will be down low, and the shot will be from low to the high. And they are coming at you, and the camera is focused almost on their crotches. And you start to get a little embarrassed. Should I be looking at this? Is not this getting a little too intimate? And then the person turns away; it cuts away. So, you had this certain confidence that the camera would never let you see more than you should see. In the 1940s and (19)50s, you watch a lot of the westerns, and somebody gets shot, you do not see blood on the wall. They collapse. They get shot; they die. But what happens in these movies is the camera lingers over the scene, and then you think to yourself, "I am watching this, and I am fascinated." I am also repulsed, and I am shocked, but I am watching. There is a certain voyeurism involved in it, just as there is with pornography. And I think that this is one of the things that you see as a consistent trend. So, if you think of a movie like Pulp Fiction in the nineties, where it has now become comedic, where the same things happen. And it is like John Travolta accidentally blows the kid's head off in the backseat of the car, and kid is spattered all over the car and whatnot. And it is sort of like, "Holy shit, why do we do that? How do we fix this?" And I think that that was one of those shifts in the cultural sensibility, which is one of the things that conservatives, and particularly evangelical conservatives, what they are most offended about, is the pornographic elements in contemporary culture. The rules are gone, the censorship is gone, and it has gotten into television. It was already in publishing, in books. So how do you protect your world? SM (03:22:53): I know that people were upset with the play Hair, and because I am in Columbus, the nuns were protesting in front of the theater downtown as we walked in, saying we were all going to hell for going to see Hair because of nudity that was shown in there. So, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Hair, and a lot of the other movies or plays were interesting. And certainly, the movie Taxi Driver too, which was, "Are you talking to me?" That kind of the psyche of the Vietnam veteran coming back and the Vietnam movies. ML (03:23:27): And again, also this dystopian, pathological world. There is a certain kind of psychological disarrangement in the (19)50s, and a lot of it has to do with Freudianism and madness. But this has to do with a kind of profound pathology. SM (03:23:46): And Coming Home and Klute with Jane Fonda. That was her big role. She won the Academy Award. The last thing is trends. I had already talked about events and names. Trends to me, the Beat Generation and the (19)50s... trends to me, the Beat Generation now, the (19)50s, and it seems like Ginsberg went through it all. You could see him everywhere. The counterculture, the communal movement, the alternative religions that we talked about, and certainly LSD and Leary. Those are the kind of trends that I saw that developed. I do not know if there is any more that you... ML (03:24:28): Well, part of it is just different order of trend. There is this way in which capitalism and technology are very restless, and where broadcast technologies are redefined, where the internet emerges in the late (19)60s. ARPANET was created in the late (19)60s, where there is this endless flood of consumer technologies. There is a wonderful book, by the way, which I have out there. It is called The Way We Were. SM (03:25:08): I saw this movie. I saw the movie. ML (03:25:10): But this is a book, I have forgotten her... The woman who wrote sounded like Roberta Kleinfeld or something. But it is just an almanac of events from the mid-(19)50s through the mid-seventies. Each year, it tells you the big events of the years, new technologies, new terms, sports firsts, movie firsts television firsts, the top hit songs of the year. It is this catalog of stuff. And you go back, and you look at it, "Well, this is the year that Pop Tarts were created. This is the year that the term walk became popular." Or whatever. It is sort of like- SM (03:25:49): The Walkman. ML (03:25:50): And one of the things you are amazed at is the varieties of new cultural references and whatnot. The term WASP becomes popular in 1968. SM (03:25:59): Do you know what the number one hit was in America the week that John Kennedy was killed? ML (03:26:05): I shudder to think. SM (03:26:06): (singing) ML (03:26:10): It was the Singing Nun? SM (03:26:10): Yes, it was. ML (03:26:11): Yeah. SM (03:26:13): Because there was a song, you have to go into YouTube, there was a song that was from the... I forget the name of the group. It was the first two days of that week, but then Dominique came in on Wednesday, he was killed Friday, so the number one hit changed, and it was the Singing Nun. ML (03:26:38): There are trends. I guess the biggest trends I would say in the (19)60s really was the shift of the American cultural center of gravity, South and West. And also, demographics, the population moves as well. It becomes so that you have booming populations in the Carolinas and Florida and Texas, Arizona, California. SM (03:27:03): You see the shift of what it was like in the late (19)40s and (19)50s, then you go into the (19)60s, then you see with Reagan, the desire to go back to the (19)50s again, because Reagan came to... I interviewed Ed Meese. I booked an interviewed him for an hour in Washington, and I only talked to him, not about his years with Reagan in the White House, I wanted to talk about his years in California under the governor. ML (03:27:27): Well, because he was Attorney General, was not he? SM (03:27:27): Yeah, and he was- ML (03:27:27): In California? SM (03:27:30): Yeah, he is the guy that oversaw People's Park. ML (03:27:32): Oh, right, yeah. SM (03:27:32): He is the guy, and he was also the assistant DA in Oakland at the time... Excuse me, Alameda County, when the free speech movement was happening, so he was dealing with that too, but he was not dealing... He was not reporting to Reagan. He was reporting to someone else, but Reagan heard about him during the free speech movement (19)64, (19)65. ML (03:27:56): Oh, this is the kind of guy he likes- SM (03:27:56): And that is the kind of guy he would like. And I will tell you a story at the very end here, about him and another person. I know I said this was the last thing, but this is just quick one or two word, just quick responses to these words. These are all people from the (19)60s or events in the (19)60s. You do not have to go into any elaborate... ML (03:28:18): This is a free association. SM (03:28:19): Free association. Alcatraz? ML (03:28:25): Indian takeover. SM (03:28:27): Anita Bryant? ML (03:28:29): Orange juice and homophobia. SM (03:28:33): Hard hats versus long hairs on Wall Street. ML (03:28:37): Yes. John Lindsay and the beating up... Or the war protests. SM (03:28:44): University response to student protests nationwide? ML (03:28:49): How can we shut them up? SM (03:28:50): Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg. ML (03:28:53): A shock. SM (03:28:57): Watts. ML (03:28:59): Disturbing. SM (03:29:00): Earth Day? ML (03:29:02): Earth Day? Hopeful. SM (03:29:04): Ford pardons Nixon? ML (03:29:07): Politically necessary, politically unfortunate. SM (03:29:13): Nixon's Cambodia speech? ML (03:29:17): Final, desperate effort. SM (03:29:19): Chicago Eight or Seven Trial? ML (03:29:23): Farce. SM (03:29:27): Hippies? ML (03:29:29): Hippies were kind of naive saints. SM (03:29:31): Yippies? ML (03:29:31): Yippies? Cynics. SM (03:29:31): FDS? ML (03:29:40): Flawed. SM (03:29:42): The Weathermen? ML (03:29:44): Dangerous. SM (03:29:46): Cesar Chavez. ML (03:29:47): A secular saint. SM (03:29:53): Muhammad Ali? ML (03:29:55): Admirable. SM (03:29:56): Jackie Robinson? ML (03:29:59): Equally admirable. SM (03:30:00): Curt Flood? ML (03:30:02): Somebody I have great respect for. SM (03:30:05): I met him. He was the Oakland A's. He was at a game. ML (03:30:08): Yeah. SM (03:30:09): Got him to sign a thing I had. It is a- ML (03:30:11): One of my students at Bard wrote his senior project about Curt Flood and free agency. SM (03:30:16): But did he get Kurt Flood's book? Did he read his book? ML (03:30:20): I think he read his book. I do not think he ever met... I do not know if he ever got to meet Kurt Flood. SM (03:30:22): He died so young. He was 50. He was the same age Jackie Robinson... 51, 52? ML (03:30:28): Yeah, yeah. SM (03:30:30): Benjamin Spock. ML (03:30:31): Benjamin Spock? Patrician. SM (03:30:37): Henry Kissinger? ML (03:30:38): A criminal. SM (03:30:41): Robert McNamara. ML (03:30:45): Unfortunate. SM (03:30:47): Dwight Eisenhower? ML (03:30:49): Avuncular. SM (03:30:51): Harry Truman? ML (03:30:53): Over his head. SM (03:30:55): John Kennedy? ML (03:30:58): Admirable, but corrupt. SM (03:31:01): Lyndon Johnson? ML (03:31:03): Egotist. SM (03:31:04): Hubert Humphrey? ML (03:31:06): A weak-kneed liberal. SM (03:31:10): Richard Nixon? ML (03:31:11): A Black Irishman. SM (03:31:17): Spiro Agnew? ML (03:31:19): A crook. SM (03:31:21): Eleanor Roosevelt? ML (03:31:23): An admirable woman. SM (03:31:27): The United Nations? ML (03:31:29): In over its head. SM (03:31:31): Robert Kennedy? ML (03:31:33): Robert Kennedy? Combative. SM (03:31:35): Eugene McCarthy? ML (03:31:37): Lazy. SM (03:31:39): George McGovern? ML (03:31:41): Well-intentioned. SM (03:31:43): Geraldine Ferraro? ML (03:31:45): A person before her time. SM (03:31:50): Angela Davis? ML (03:31:52): A striking figure. SM (03:31:56): George Jackson? ML (03:31:58): George Jackson? An unlikely hero, I guess. SM (03:32:05): Tom Hayden. ML (03:32:06): Tom Hayden? Embodied the inability of moral consistency in politics. SM (03:32:17): Jane Fonda? ML (03:32:19): Jane Fonda? An idealist. SM (03:32:22): Bobby Seale. ML (03:32:23): Bobby Seale? He was complicated. I met him. SM (03:32:29): That is all I need. How about Stokely Carmichael? ML (03:32:32): He was very charismatic. SM (03:32:35): Huey Newton? ML (03:32:36): Huey Newton was a fraud. SM (03:32:38): Eldridge Cleaver? ML (03:32:40): A little less of a fraud. SM (03:32:42): Kathleen Cleaver? ML (03:32:44): I do not know Kathleen Cleaver well enough to... SM (03:32:46): H. Rap Brown? ML (03:32:48): H. Rap Brown was also a bad dude. SM (03:32:53): Yeah. His brother came to a conference we did. George Wallace? ML (03:32:56): George Wallace was slicker than Willie. SM (03:33:00): Barry Goldwater? ML (03:33:05): Righteous figure, I guess. SM (03:33:09): William Buckley? ML (03:33:11): A glib intellectual. SM (03:33:14): Thurgood Marshall? ML (03:33:17): A man who earned his stripes. SM (03:33:19): Ronald Reagan? ML (03:33:20): A man who was not as bad as I thought. SM (03:33:24): George Bush, the first. ML (03:33:28): A solid public servant. SM (03:33:32): Bill Clinton? ML (03:33:33): Bill Clinton is a morally flawed human being. SM (03:33:38): Bush II? ML (03:33:39): A man who is profoundly over his head. SM (03:33:42): And Obama? ML (03:33:45): Person with the best qualities to be president who has ever been president. SM (03:33:49): Gloria Steinem? ML (03:33:51): A very interesting conversion, I guess. SM (03:33:57): Bella Abzug? ML (03:33:59): She was florid, shall we say? SM (03:34:02): Betty Friedan? ML (03:34:06): She was another person who is quietly subversive. SM (03:34:11): Jimmy Carter? ML (03:34:13): A righteous populist. SM (03:34:14): AIDS? ML (03:34:17): AIDS is tragic. SM (03:34:21): Let us see here. The hostage crisis? ML (03:34:25): Hostage crisis was... I do not know, it was humiliation, I guess. SM (03:34:35): Stonewall? ML (03:34:36): Stonewall? Liberation. SM (03:34:39): And then the POW? ML (03:34:45): POW? I would have to say that was a phony issue. SM (03:34:48): Okay. The Ho Chi Minh? ML (03:34:53): A Vietnamese nationalist. SM (03:34:56): General Ky? ML (03:34:58): A kleptocrat. SM (03:35:01): President Thieu? ML (03:35:03): Another kleptocrat. SM (03:35:05): And Wayne Westmoreland? ML (03:35:07): He looked like a general but was not. SM (03:35:10): And Dennis Banks? ML (03:35:11): Dennis Banks? Let us say- SM (03:35:14): The Native American Movement. ML (03:35:15): I know, I was trying to capture him as a tragic hero, I guess. SM (03:35:23): And Harvey Milk? ML (03:35:24): Another tragic hero. SM (03:35:27): And the last three here is, I have put these on... This ends at, what does the wall mean to you? The Vietnam Memorial? You have probably been to the wall. When you- ML (03:35:38): I have. I wrote a little piece about that also, actually, about- SM (03:35:43): Did you go to the wall? ML (03:35:44): I have been. Yeah, I think it is one of the most powerful and effective pieces of memorialization. I just think that we had an interesting experience out in Seattle, of going to see an installed exhibit of Maya Lin's work. And she is one of these people that has the ability to redefine space. She is a genius. We actually have a portrait of her [inaudible]- SM (03:36:19): Yeah, there is a sculpture at Yale too, was not there? ML (03:36:22): Yeah. She is a Yale graduate, but- SM (03:36:26): What was your experience when feeling, because you were... This is part of your life too, and your wife as well. When you went to the wall, what was the feeling? What was going through your mind when you saw it for that first time? ML (03:36:42): I felt that what it did was, instead of focusing our remembrance on the war, it focuses our remembrance on the people who died in the war. It made the war about them, which it should be. The memory of it, since the war is so hard to remember, that making the soldiers the subject, rather than some heroic or nationalist image, the way the second sculpture, to me is, it represents all that is wrong about the wars. SM (03:37:21): The three-man statue? ML (03:37:22): Yeah, it is too artificial. It is too contrived. Whereas I think what she did was that she found a way to our hearts. SM (03:37:34): They say that the three-man statue is always overlooking the wall now, and the Women's Memorial is very important for the women as well. ML (03:37:42): Yeah, but those were political gestures, I think, more than they were... They do not have the kind of innovative way of... SM (03:37:55): What did Kent State and Jackson State mean to you? May 4th, 1970, to me, is one of the... November 22, 1963, obviously, but for anybody in that first wave of boomers, May 4th, 1970, is another one. And then 10 days later, Jackson State. ML (03:38:13): Oh yeah, no, those things were truly stunning. I went to a series of public gatherings on the Yale campus, where people were trying to make sense out of it. In some ways, it seemed to be just one more step towards, we are at war with ourselves. It is one of the refrains that we picked up from Vietnam. Who is the friend and who is the enemy? And it seems like it was emblematic of a gulf that had... Or wrenching a rift in America that had grown too wide to bridge. Turns out it was not altogether the case, but that was how we felt at the time. Kent State, yeah, if it had been Wisconsin or if it had been Berkeley or Yale even, it would have still been tragic, but it would make more sense. One of the things that always struck me is the people who were in the guard were not that different from the students who were on the campus. SM (03:39:28): Yes, you are right. Same age. ML (03:39:29): Yeah. SM (03:39:30): Watergate. What did Watergate mean to you? ML (03:39:33): Watergate was some of the most absolutely intriguing political theater I have ever witnessed. I think the ultimate moment of Watergate was when you could not believe... It is like one revelation after the other and you say, "Cannot get any nuttier than this. You cannot believe it." Suddenly it turned out that Spiro Agnew was resigning, because he was taking bribes in the White House. I thought, this is melodrama becomes farce. SM (03:40:05): Do you think John Dean was kind of a hero on this? Because a lot of people thought he was a culprit in the beginning, but he was the beginning of what they call the... And Ellsberg, the same thing. They were the tattletale people that- ML (03:40:21): Yeah, right, and being a snitch is always frowned on in America. They did make On the Waterfront to help us explore that terrain, but I do not think that Dean has quite the moral fiber to be heroic, but I do think that he shows the capacity for self-reflection and for reinvention in a constructive way, and so I admire him for having pulled himself together. I think partly it is hard to distinguish how much of what he did was to save his own skin and how much of it was that he was morally offended by what was going on around him. I think it was a little of both and I think over time, the latter, the moral offense, took over from the self-serving side of it. I think Daniel Ellsberg was truly troubled. Ellsberg had been in the war when it was like that. SM (03:41:17): Yeah, he had been a Marine too. ML (03:41:20): He had done the dirty. He had been there. And I think that Ellsberg, again, was somebody who ultimately just became morally burdened. And actually, one of the things that I was curious about that event is that the Pentagon Papers were not a problem for Nixon, they were a problem for Johnson, who was not quite dead then, but was about to be dead around the time. Oh, actually he might have been dead by the time they came out. SM (03:41:50): I remember the day he died- ML (03:41:51): He died in (19)72. SM (03:41:53): ... in (19)72 was the same day something else happened. ML (03:41:55): I think it was the day they signed the Paris Peace Accords. SM (03:41:58): I think you are right. Yes, that is right. Nixon made a reference to the death of the President in a speech, yes-yes. ML (03:42:06): I do not know. SM (03:42:10): In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end, and what was the watershed moment? ML (03:42:14): I still would argue partly that they begin sometime in the mid to late-(19)50s. I think, for a variety of reasons, again, some of the cultural reasons, that the groundwork for the (19)60s... Because I think that what you needed first was a process of delegitimization. Somebody, I think Robert Darton, did a similar study where they discovered that pornographic representation of establishment figures increases on the eve of political revolutions. It is sort of like the delegitimizing of... Mockery of... First, you have to destroy authority before you can overturn it. I think that was one of the things that happened. That black comedy, for example, black humor of the Dr. Strangelove types was, we took the strategic air command, which had this image of technical and vulnerability and of space age candoism, and turned it into this rip-snorting nuthouse, so that you never could look at this Curtis LeMay and the Strategic Air Command the same way again. SM (03:43:31): That was Andy Devine, was not it, that was on the missile, going- ML (03:43:34): No, that was Slim Pickens. SM (03:43:35): Oh, Slim Pickens, okay. [inaudible]- ML (03:43:36): You have got the wrong... Andy Devine was a regular, both the Roy Rogers Show and in John Ford movies. SM (03:43:47): When did the (19)60s end? ML (03:43:50): I would still argue, I have not shifted, even though I do not think there is a specific moment, but the coincidence of Watergate and the end of the Vietnam War, the end of the draft, the end of around (19)73, (19)74, the turning off the fuel supply, so that there's nothing to keep the fires burning as hot or bright as they had. SM (03:44:20): Was Vietnam a watershed moment? Just the ongoing from (19)59 to (19)75? ML (03:44:25): Well, we did not even know from Vietnam until about 1962- 3, somewhere in that. We still did not think about it even until the Gulf of Tonkin. That was the first time we really thought about it. SM (03:44:38): (19)64, yeah. ML (03:44:38): And I think people stopped thinking actively about it as the Vietnamization of the war, and one of the interesting things... The point that Phillip Epstein pointed out a long time ago, when he was talking about the distortions of news, but right around the time that the Peace Talks started in (19)68, (19)69, the news media stopped actively photographing the war and shifted their attention to the peace talks. Even though the war was far more violent from 1968 on, you saw much less of it, so it was not a constant reminder. Every so often, there would be an eruption of protest or an eruption, like Kent State would happen, or a Cambodian incursion would happen. Then things would gear up again, but then they would fade again. I do not think it was the same time. SM (03:45:40): Is there one watershed moment that you can define, or just... ML (03:45:44): Yeah, I met my wife at the [inaudible]- SM (03:45:45): Okay, I got that on record. ML (03:45:53): No, I would say, probably in terms of just emblematic experiences, probably the first time I smoked dope, that was sort of crossing a line. SM (03:46:07): You are the second person that is said that. The first one was the professor of history and political science at the University of Delaware, Dr. Smith. Do you know him? He wrote a book on Vietnam. ML (03:46:16): I do not know him personally. SM (03:46:18): Yeah, he is really good. He is a top political scientist. He was heading to become a priest. He was at the... I do not know what church it was, and a friend of his came by accident with his brother, and they said, "Hey, you want to try a..." He said, "No, I am going to be a priest." "Oh, come on." They went into the church and went up into the steeple someplace and he is smoking... Anyways, that was a very important moment for him. ML (03:46:47): I think the only reason I would say it-it was not that anything so unusual happened or anything. I enjoyed the experience. I was at a party at Johns Hopkins visiting at friend, and Johns Hopkins is a pretty straitlaced place. This was the fall, I think, the fall of 1967, something like that. But I think what it was is that once you crossed over to the world of dope, that you were willing to do things that were illegal. And also, you deepened your identification with the anti-authority, anti-establishment mentality. It was a kind of, I guess, what I would say, it was like an initiation ritual. SM (03:47:41): The Vietnam War, it ended. In your reason, why did it end? Some people say it ended because when body bags start coming home, when Middle America saw their sons coming home, they said, "It is time to end this war." And most of them were White. Now, we are not talking about the African Americans now, we are talking about the White... Others think that Kent State was the magic moment, that it is all over from there. ML (03:48:06): In 1967, when McNamara resigned, he knew the war was lost. Johnson could not persuade himself to wrap himself around that realization. He was too politically invested. It was too much his war. And Nixon was very cynical about it. Nixon knew the war was a loser. He wanted to get out as soon as he became president. He just wanted to get out on his own terms. I think that the war... And the war did not end. In many ways, the war did not end, certainly did not end in (19)72, it did not end in (19)73. It sort of ended in (19)75, but there was still violence galore going on. And so, it is when did the America's Vietnam end, is what [inaudible]- SM (03:49:02): Yeah, the American War, as opposed to the Vietnam War. Two more associations real fast. Timothy Leary. I did not get your ML (03:49:11): Huckster. SM (03:49:11): And the last one is the Free Speech Movement, (19)64, (19)65, of Berkeley with Mario Savio and Bettina Aptheker in that group. ML (03:49:19): I would say, transformative. SM (03:49:22): Very last question, and I swear to this, and your wife can verify this now, I have been here a long time; the best history books are written usually 50 years after an event. A lot of the best World War II books are 50 years after. I remember Stephen Ambrose being interviewed, and he talked all about this. The best history books are history, sociology, whatever books are written after the last boomer has passed away, the last Civil War, and I am sure we will be able to document that someday down the road, in the census. What do you think historians who were not alive, or sociologists who were not alive when all these things happened, will say about this generation and this period? The 74 million that... What do they say about it? ML (03:50:15): I think they're going to say that around the Vietnam War era and around the failure of this generation to come to grips with some of the fundamental contradictions in American history, some of the big ones being environmental, actually, that this was the beginning of the decline of the American Empire, a little bit in this period. Whether they will specifically say it was the Vietnam War era or the Bush era, one of the two, but they are going to mark this as the decline of American hegemony and new age globalization, a different kind of globalization. That is what I think. SM (03:51:03): What is really interesting about President Obama here, he has stated outright that he does not want to be identified with the (19)60s generation or the boomer generation. Of course, he is a boomer. He is only two years old, but- ML (03:51:17): He is the tag end of the- SM (03:51:18): Yeah, but his biggest critics say he is the reincarnation of the baby boomer generation. They say he is the most liberal president we have had since Roosevelt. ML (03:51:27): Yeah, but the- SM (03:51:28): Here, we got a president who does not want to be identified with it. He has so many people in his administration that are some of the leaders of the (19)60s in that particular respect. Most of them are brought up in the (19)60s, and yet he is being criticized for being the... ML (03:51:48): Yeah, but who is doing the criticizing? SM (03:51:50): Well, the conservatives. ML (03:51:54): Because I do not see him as the most liberal. I see him as a Rooseveltian pragmatist. He is somebody, he will take what the times will give him. He has an agenda that is liberal, it is social-democratic, but he also inherited an agenda that demanded social democracy, because the privatization of America bankrupted it. That is what Bush accomplished. We are going to have public services, we are not going to pay for them, and where we need regulation and controls, we are not going to have them, and he created financial economic anarchy. I think that Obama, part of the success that I measure, it is one of the reasons that I think Theodore Roosevelt stands out somewhat, is that he created political movement more theatrically. It was not like the outcomes were there to be grabbed, it took real presidential manipulation, management and whatnot to achieve some of the things that he did. I think that Franklin Roosevelt was less successful in that regard, that he had a potentially more opportunity to seize than he had the temperament to seize. That is, he could have been far more progressive and liberal than he was, but he was really... He had some very conservative side as well. I think that that Barack Obama is more disciplined and intelligent than any president who's ever been... Modern president; I cannot compare them to Jefferson or Lincoln or whatnot, but in the end, it almost does not matter, because it's how you play the hand you're dealt. George Bush was headed to oblivion in a one turn presidency until September 11th came along, and then when the country needed a cheerleader, man, he was golden. Then he got a cheerleading opportunity, and lacking an agenda, but wanting to be in charge and being around all of these ideologues and dark visionaries, he went right down the toilet. SM (03:54:09): Yeah. I tell you, President Obama, in the (19)60s, families were split and torn apart. Well, even my family, my brother's a diehard, cannot stand Obama, I cannot understand it. He knows it upsets me, yet he still sends it. Everything is about getting him out in the next four years, or the next two years or whatever, and it bugs me. He prefaces it by saying that... And this will not be on the tape, but that it is... I am not doing this because he's Black, I just do not like... I was taught in graduate school, I will not say this to my brother, because my advisor was Dr. Johnson. He was at Johns Hopkins University, and he said that whenever you hear somebody saying, "Well, I am not doing something, because my best friends are..." Or "It's not because he's female or male." You do not say that, just say it. You do not need to- ML (03:55:10): Preface it, yeah. SM (03:55:11): Yeah, if you do not like the guy, just say you do not like the guy. ML (03:55:14): Right, right. No, and I think that part of the reasons people do not like him is not because he is Black, it is because they feel diminished by him. They feel he is too good. SM (03:55:26): I think he is very good. ML (03:55:27): He is too smart. SM (03:55:28): Oh, I agree. ML (03:55:28): They do not trust him, because they think he is going to outsmart them and whatnot. SM (03:55:33): Just like her. ML (03:55:34): Yeah. SM (03:55:35): What we teach students and what you probably do in the classroom, and that is what another lesson that the (19)60s activist can teach young people. You do not just do things based on pure emotion. You study, you research, you understand your point of view, and also you study the other side. ML (03:55:52): That is what the conservatives under George Bush refused to do because, as they said, "While the liberals are studying and coming up with good policy proposal, we are changing the agenda. Reality is what we say it is. It is not what it is, it is what we say it is." SM (03:56:08): Is there any question I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask? I think I have asked a million. ML (03:56:13): If there was, I have forgotten. (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. Mark Lytle Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lytle, Mark Hamilton ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Scholars; College teachers; Bard College; Lytle, Mark Hamilton--Interviews Description An account of the resource Mark Hamilton Lytle is a scholar and educator. He received his Bachelor's degree from Cornell University and his Master's degree and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University. He is a professor of History and Environmental Studies, Chair of the American Studies Program at Bard College, and has written many volumes of history and biography. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-08-09 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.10.2016.84a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.84b 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. 236:17 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7f48faf363937b460ff58a641bfc917b.jpg d29da20a559336af4fe4dadd5ff4e262 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c2f6442516cbced88191f47fb61fd983.mp3 596a67f57590ccbbaa5dcefd186632dc 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 1996 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Eugene J. McCarthy, 1916-2005 Language English Biographical Text Eugene McCarthy (1916 - 2005), a native of Watkins, Minnesota<span class="sew5qqwksuk5ykc"></span><span class="sew5qqwksuk5ykc"></span> was a politician, academic, author, and poet. He spent twenty-two years in the halls of the United States Congress representing the state of Minnesota; ten years in the House of Representatives and twelve years in the United States Senate (1948-1970). &nbsp;He received a graduate degree from the University of Minnesota and became a professor of Economics before serving in World War II. The nation and the world got to know Senator McCarthy during the 1960s as the war in Vietnam escalated for he was a major opponent against President Johnson's handling of the war. &nbsp;He was the first Democrat to challenge President Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 primaries. The happenings in Vietnam, TET, played a major role in these stunning developments since McCarthy was running on an anti-war platform. Senator McCarthy could not overtake Hubert Humphrey, President Johnson's choice as the Democratic nominee for president. &nbsp;In later years, he ran for president a few more times but did not receive the widespread support he had in 1968 as the first courageous Democrat to challenge a sitting president of his own party. Eugene McCarthy was a very gifted writer and poet throughout his life, publishing more than 20 books. Senator McCarthy passed away in 2005 and was honored at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC where President Clinton gave the eulogy. Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 89:31 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation; College students; Activism; Generation gap; Technology; Scott Fitzgerald; Vietnam War; Civil War; Hubert Humphrey, Thurgood Marshall; Abbie Hoffman; Jerry Rubin; Ralph Nader.&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;:14275305}}">Baby boom generation; College students; Activism; Generation gap; Technology; Scott Fitzgerald; Vietnam War; Civil War; Hubert Humphrey, Thurgood Marshall; Abbie Hoffman; Jerry Rubin; Ralph Nader.</span> Subject LCSH Legislators—United States; Poets, American; Authors; Presidential candidates—United States; McCarthy, Eugene J., 1916-2005--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Eugene McCarthy Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McCarthy, Eugene J., 1916-2005 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Legislators—United States; Poets, American; Authors; Presidential candidates—United States; McCarthy, Eugene J., 1916-2005--Interviews Description An account of the resource Eugene McCarthy (1916 - 2005), a native of Watkins, Minnesota was a politician, poet, academic, presidential candidate and critic of the Vietnam War. McCarthy served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971. After leaving the Senate, McCarthy spent his time to speaking engagements and writing, publishing more than 20 books. Eugene McCarthy (1916 - 2005), a native of Watkins, Minnesota was a politician, academic, author, and poet. He spent twenty-two years in the halls of the United States Congress representing the state of Minnesota; ten years in the House of Representatives and twelve years in the United States Senate (1948-1970).  He received a graduate degree from the University of Minnesota and became a professor of Economics before serving in World War II. The nation and the world got to know Senator McCarthy during the 1960s as the war in Vietnam escalated for he was a major opponent against President Johnson's handling of the war.  He was the first Democrat to challenge President Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 primaries. The happenings in Vietnam, TET, played a major role in these stunning developments since McCarthy was running on an anti-war platform. Senator McCarthy could not overtake Hubert Humphrey, President Johnson's choice as the Democratic nominee for president.  In later years, he ran for president a few more times but did not receive the widespread support he had in 1968 as the first courageous Democrat to challenge a sitting president of his own party. Eugene McCarthy was a very gifted writer and poet throughout his life, publishing more than 20 books. Senator McCarthy passed away in 2005 and was honored at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC where President Clinton gave the eulogy. 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 1996 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.10.2016.85a Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 89:31 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6db30f7b0eebebd5666c4cc4edd96e31.jpg 0ca449ba5a3f787ba95ebe278fedeeeb https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c63f658341d98781e2861cd788225c39.mp3 909babadca86acac1b241e454bd3cef1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-08-13 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed George S. (George Stanley) McGovern, 1922-2012 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;George McGovern (1922 - 2012) was a professor, author, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election. McGovern earned a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University and taught at Dakota Wesleyan University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7051,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">George McGovern (1922 - 2012) was a professor, author, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election. McGovern earned a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University and taught at Dakota Wesleyan 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 MicroCassettte Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 55:06 Keywords <span>Baby Boomer;&nbsp;Gary Hart;&nbsp;Bill Clinton;&nbsp;Richard Nixon;&nbsp;Dwight Eisenhower;&nbsp;Robert Kennedy; Henry Ford;&nbsp;Henry Kissinger;&nbsp;Robert McNamara;&nbsp;Depression Era;&nbsp;New Deal;&nbsp;Vietnam;&nbsp;Viet Cong;&nbsp;J. William Fulbright;&nbsp;Mike Mansfield;&nbsp;Frank Church;&nbsp;John Sherman Cooper;&nbsp;Dissolution ;&nbsp;Mistrust;&nbsp;Paul Zhan; Jerry Rubin;&nbsp;Benjamin Spock;&nbsp;Tom Hayden; Ralph Nader;&nbsp;Martin Luther King Jr.;&nbsp;Eugene McCarthy;&nbsp;Lyndon Johnson; Spiro Agnew;&nbsp;George Wallace;&nbsp;Bobby Seale;&nbsp;Eldridge Cleaver;&nbsp;Huey Newton;&nbsp;Betty Friedan;&nbsp;Bella Abzug;&nbsp;Gloria Steinem;&nbsp;Shirley Chisholm;&nbsp;Shirley MacLaine;&nbsp;Bob Dylan;&nbsp;Joan Baez;&nbsp;Jimi Hendrix.</span> Civil Rights Movement; Great Depression; WWII; Women's movement; Vietnam War; Abbie Hoffman; Jane Fonda; Malcolm X; John F. Kennedy; Berrigan Brother; Black Power Movement; Hubert Humphrey; Muhammad Ali. Subject LCSH College teachers; Authors; Legislators—United States; Presidential candidates—United States; McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922-2012--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Senator George McGovern Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Carrie Blabac-Myers Date of interview: 13 August 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:04 SM: The first question I wanted to ask you is, one of the concerns that I see as a person who is a boomer is a lot of the criticisms that are being directed toward boomers today, whether it be politicians or media critics, basically claiming that a lot of the reasons why we have problems in America today is because of the boomers: break up the family, increase in drugs, lack of respect for authority, and a tremendous amount of lack of trust in all leaders in America. Could you comment on whether you consider that criticism really fair for this generation, which is basically individuals born between 1946 and 1964, sixty million strong? 0:47 GM: Well, all five of my children are baby boomers. They came in at that period in the ten years, that marks the last year of the war and the next ten years afterwards, and I would not accept that criticism about any of my youngsters or most of their peers. I think it is overdone. To me the greatest difference between the baby boom generation and my generation is an economic difference, and that they did not experience the Depression. They did not experience World War II, money came easier to them. They did not develop the sense of sacrifice and struggle, it was characteristic of my generation. And that obviously, may have produced a somewhat softer generation I use that term soft not in a derogatory sense but to indicate they have not been hardened by the fires and the discipline and the struggle of the Depression the years of scarce income in the home and money available for other things. This is a generation that has grown up expecting to get what they want. If they want $120 pair of shoes, they expect it. If they want a hi-fi set and CDs and Cokes and Big Macs and movies, things that I could only dream about as a child my children have always taken for granted. And I think that in that sense the economic circumstances may have produced a softer generation and one may be less appreciative of struggle and discipline and effort. I noticed in politics, I am kind of racing ahead of your questions here but, I just had said some things I wanted to say about this generation. I notice in politics that they do not bring the degree of passion and deep personal conviction to public issues that I think characterized an earlier generation, they had that kind of reaction to the Vietnam War. But I became somewhat disappointed to discover that a lot of it had to do with the immediate impact of that war on their own convenience and their own lives and plans. And I do not see other issues that they have seized on with the same passion that they brought to their opposition to the war. Even a person like Bill Clinton, it seems to me does not bring the degree of personal conviction to politics that I would like to see it is more management of politics, use of communications, a skillful employment of techniques and pull with consultants. And I saw some of that same thing with some of the other political figures produced by this generation, not in my opinion, the degree of conviction and, personal passion about issues that I have always thought were important aspects of public commitment. 5:09 SM: To follow up on that question. As a boomer, I have always felt in comparing today's college students and young people today who were the sons and daughters of boomers and comparing them to their parents of another, that the people of the (19)60s and early (19)70s had more passion than the young people of today. Could you comment on the impact or lack thereof of what the boomers have done with their kids, today's young people? 5:38 GM: Well, there was somehow we have inculcated this current crop of young people with much more skepticism about politics, much less faith in the capacity to use political effort to achieve worthwhile goals. Much less confidence in the leadership of the country. And I think there is some explanations for that. The whole series of shattering events that has taken place beginning with the assassination of the two Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, my overwhelming defeat in 1972. And then the accompanying dissolution over Watergate, Vietnam, Irangate, the [inaudible] scandals and subsequent events I really think has had a shattering impact on both the boomers and their children and undercutting a lot of the enthusiasm and passion that we had in the 1960s and at least the early part of the (19)70s. My experience on college campuses over the last ten years, which is very extensive, I have been on over one thousand campuses since I left the senate some fifteen years ago, has led me to believe there is a lot of decency and a lot of admirable qualities in these youngsters today. But there is also a kind of a clear disillusionment and turning away from what was very important in my life, which was active participation in public issues and Public Affairs. 7:38 SM: Getting back to the boomers again, that sixty plus million born between (19)46 and (19)64. And obviously, even within the boomer generation, there is a lot of differences between the older ones, some Bill Clinton's age, and the younger ones who are like thirty four - thirty five years old right now. Could you in a few just give a few brief story perceptions of the positive qualities that you saw in the boomers and then some of the some of the negatives? 8:07 GM: Gary Hart generation yes. 8:08 SM: And Bill Clinton and the positives and their negatives. 8:12 GM: Yeah. Well, one, they have a more cosmopolitan exposure to the world through the communications, advances through television, through proliferation of information of all kinds, and I am very much impressed by the wide information and knowledge that these young people have about the whole culture as a scene I do not mean by that they are better educated than we were fifty years ago, but I do think that they have a broader range of information, I am struck with my own grandchildren on what they know about the arts and that whole scene, the world around they know an awful lot that went beyond my horizons with the time I was that age. [Hello!] I also think that I have to say this carefully that the measure of skepticism that they bring towards public figures and towards our political process is not entirely bad. Perhaps there was too much naiveté in my time about public leadership and what the governments were doing and so on a certain measure of skepticism probably is, to be admired rather than scorned. You can carry that too far as you know, to the point where it becomes inaction and non-involvement but a certain healthy skepticism is a good thing. And I think in the long run these young people may be able to balance out their skepticism with their need to do something about things that they are skeptical about. 10:21 SM: Those are positives and negatives. If you were to, again, another term to look at the boomers because boomers are now just reaching fifty. 10:28 GM: Yes. 10:28 SM: And so they got a lot of life is still ahead of them. 10:30 GM: Clinton just turned fifty this year. 10:31 SM: Right. And Al Gore, I think, turns fifty next year, and Mrs. Clinton turned fitty this year, too. As you see the boomers today in 1997, what has been the greatest impact they have had on America to this point? 10:50 GM: I suppose it is on our lifestyle. The values and practices that they brought to relations between the sexes. The kind of entertainment that is popular, the kind of television and radio and press stories and features that we get. I think this generation does have a unique lifestyle. It is more relaxed compared toward the old guidelines on marriage and sex relations and, the races and [inaudible] even clothing styles. I think our culture to a great extent today is shaped by these boomers and by their children. I noticed one of the ads on the Super Bowl yesterday run by Holiday Inn which you think is one of those establishment places with a transvestite, trans, uh. You can get away with that on television ten years later, with this gorgeous looking woman ̶ 12:14 SM: Bob? Or something like that! 12:16 GM: That kind of thing bring a laugh now to everybody but it would have brought a gasp of horror when I was the age of most of the people that are watching that game yesterday. That is an impact. That is a contribution to the youth culture and a dramatic change in the role of women in our society that is a real revolution. It is a bigger revolution than the racial changes that have occurred. The fact that women are now filling up the rosters of basketball teams, races, stock market, driving their own cars and managing their own portfolios. I think that the boomers and their children did that. They brought they brought about the change in the role of women in our society. 13:25 SM: How do you respond that the Christian Coalition says that is a negative? 13:28 GM: Well I disagree with the Christian Coalition on that part. I think it has been altogether good. It is brought about strains on the family we have not learned how to deal with yet. There is no doubt in my mind that the divorce rate increase is associated with the emancipation of women in the workforce and their greater sexual freedom, all of these things it has had an impact on the family that at least is transitionally difficult. I think we will sort that out in due course. Learn how to share the raising of children between the sexes and sharing the work and sharing career opportunities. These things are difficult, but I think they will come with time. 14:16 SM: Looking, talking about the women's movement but when you look at the issues that are identified with boomers, certainly the ending of the Vietnam War, protests against the war and certainly the civil rights movement. Could you comment on your thoughts in terms of why did the war end? Were the college students on college campus ̶ The main reason for the war ending or why did the war end? Okay. 14:42 GM: I think the young people probably did force an end to the war in Vietnam, it was not only those who were protesting on this side but the morale collapsed in the forces that were fighting in Vietnam. General Abrams told me his biggest problems are not the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese but morale problems and venereal disease and drug addiction and desertion. So I think the morale was collapsing over there. At the same time that it was quite clear, young people were resisting the whole war ever here and I think they were the decisive factor in forcing an end to it. I probably couldn't have won the nomination in (19)72 on a straight out antiwar platform had it not been for that. Not that there weren't a lot of older people with us too but they provided the shock troops and the volunteers and a lot of the emotion that carried me to the nomination. I do not think I could have won without the young people, the boomers in other words ̶ 16:00 SM: Looking at that time again, knowing how you just stated that there were a main reason why we left Vietnam. Looking at the divisions that were in America at that time, tremendous divisions. 16:14 GM: Yes. 16:15 SM: And certainly in 1982, the Vietnam Memorial was built, hopefully to heal the veterans and to heal the nation as Jan Scruggs said in his book. 16:23 GM: Yes. 16:24 SM: Have we really healed since the Vietnam War, in terms of the divisions for those who were for and against? What are your thoughts on the whole concept of healing? Have we healed or do we have a long way to go? 16:39 GM: We have made progress on it in considerable part because so many people who then supported the war now say that it was wrong. I think that it comes as close as you can get to a confession and redemption for the people who supported the war and McNamara's book is he most celebrated example of that. But I think now most Americans who lived through that recognize the war was a mistake. And that general acceptance has been a big healing factor. The fact that we are opening up relations now in Vietnam has been another factor. But I would say there are still continuing scars in those divisions. I do not entirely trust people who were so gung ho for the Vietnam War, and I do not think that some of them fully trust me, just to put it in personal terms. The divisions were so deep that I was totally convinced the people that supported that war effort were out of their minds and I think they thought those of us who were opposing it had lost our balance so they ran very deep, as you know, and it takes a long time for that to heal. We have not gotten over the scars yet of the Civil War entirely. 18:00 SM: Yeah, I want to thanks for bringing that up because when I took students to meet Senator Muskie, a couple years before he died at his office. It was arranged just like we did and Gaylord Nelson arranged it for us. We asked a question about the 1968 convention and the lack of trust in America at the time, and it was a pinpoint question. And I as a boomer wanted to reiterate to him that I still have a problem with trusting people in positions of power and authority based on that timeframe. And some of the students remember looking at me saying, what are you saying, Steve? But then Senator Muskie In response, was almost like a one minute silence. And then he had tears in his eyes. And then he said, he talked about Ken Burns' series about the Civil War and he said, we have not healed as a nation since the Civil War. Do not just do not talk about Vietnam. 18:52 GM: I think that is so. 18:53 SM: And the question I am asking, if so many people in that generation went to their graves still having bitterness toward their opponent, the north and the south, despite all the Civil War reunions that took place. Are the boomers going to be in the same trap of, you know, many people say what really does not affect my life but does consciously and subconsciously affect most people? That the divisions were never truly healed and they are all going to go to their graves, with a lack of healing? 19:19 GM: There will be some of that. I think that I guess what I am saying I do not think the healings complete. I think we have made a lot of movement in that direction. And you can now talk about this issue with less heat and passion and [inaudible] But no, I quite agree that people probably will go to their graves with some measure of hurt and injury from the Vietnam, especially the veterans. I do not think that a lot of them have healed at all. And I think that a lot of the verbal participants in the war, those of us that were out of the combat zone that were waging the arguments verbally here at home. I think those arguments left wounds too. I am sure they did. I am sure that Dean Rusk you know, went to his grave, with deep scars and Rich Bundy who died recently. 20:20 SM: Oh, he did? I did not know that. 20:22 GM: I think that people were scarred as committed hawks on the war. But I also think that the critics of the war still have problems dealing with that war situation. 20:40 SM: How do you feel about Robert McNamara who wrote the book In Retrospect that seemed as draw the ire are so many Vietnam veterans and it is like too late is one of the ones we always hear. What were your thoughts on McNamara then and that effort through that book was actually about healing, really. 20:57 GM: I thought at the time that he was one of the most [inaudible] wretched and wrongheaded people on the national scene. All during the war, I couldn't see any indication of doubt or openness on our policy there. It seemed to me that he was a total apologist for what we were doing there and had a kind of a gung ho, straight ahead, attitude about it. I am glad he wrote that book, and confessed, however late in the day that he was wrong during all of that period. We have not had books like that from some of the people who were just as wrong as he was including Henry Kissinger, others who will probably never concede that they were wrong. But I think that it was just woefully late in the day. It is better than he did it too late and not at all. It is terrible that it took so long and baffling to me how anyone, supposedly intelligent person could have been that blind to the historical forces that are opposing it. He says in that book, he did not know until I think he said 1988 and Ho Chi Min was more of a nationalist than a communist and that was brought out in the most elementary teach-ins way back in the early (19)60s and mid (19)60s. Day after day it was reiterated and reiterated unendingly on the Senate floor by Fulbright and Mansfield and Church, Cooper and McGovern and God knows how many other senators that were painstakingly spelling out all these things in the mid (19)60s. Then McNamara said he did not learn until the late 1980s. He said it was because the Joe McCarthy drove the Asia experts out of the State Department. Well what about the experts in the Congress and in the universities, and about Walter Lippmann and the other respected journalists who are spelling all these things out day after day, you do not have to depend on the experts in the State Department for common sense. 23:14 SM: I want to get back at that issue of trust, because it seems to be a problem. I have a problem with it still. And I am, as I approach my late forties and so forth, and I think a lot of boomers still have that problem of trust. And getting back to the ̶ we were the TV generation, the first generation really grew up in the (19)50s and (19)60s, looking at television, seeing the body counts and everything they were coming back. Could you comment on not only the way Lyndon Johnson dealt with the Tonkin Gulf resolution, which lots of people do not trust him on that particular issue because we have and then I am going to go right into the Americanization of the war with Richard Nixon? So we had two presidents back to back then we also had presidents who preceded them with John Kennedy, who we find out later may have been involved with the killing of Diem and so forth and given the okay, so, and then we actually really got involved even when Eisenhower was there. So we were seeing a succession of presidents from Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson, Nixon and then Ford getting us out of there. But your thoughts on the national leadership in the president's office during those five presidencies? 24:25 GM: Well, I think they all failed as beginning with Eisenhower on Vietnam, there was an awful lot of clandestine movement, beginning with the Eisenhower administration going through Kennedy on to Johnson and Nixon. All four of those presidents were mistaken on Vietnam, Johnson and Nixon more than the others and practically all the killing took place during the Johnson and Nixon years, but the seeds for our involvement there were sown in the Eisenhower and Kennedy period. I thought that the Gulf of Tonkin was just a flagrant piece of deception, in which the Congress of the United States was deceived, the American people, the press; everybody was deceived by this phony contention that our ships had been attacked in an unprovoked way on the high seas. It turned out later those ships for on missions themselves that are not entirely [inaudible] there is a grave doubt and lack of any kind of proof they ̶ where ever attacked. So that was a major deception in the war, but so was this whole Nixon policy for four years he kept talking about peace with honor while we were just obliterating Southeast Asia with the heaviest bombardment of the war. So that the whole Nixon policy on Vietnam is a deception. It is true that he disengaged most of the American forces during that period, but all the while accelerating the war in the air and from the sea and the artillery attacks and napalm to defoliate. And people knew about that eventually. So that produced enormous disillusionment, I think on the part of well-informed people. 26:29 SM: When you look at, you know, it is tough to define sixty million young people, but the boomers were between 60 and 65 million at that time. Maybe I am wrong in this, but I personally feel that the subconsciousness of all boomers, not just a 15 percent of people say we were involved in some sort of activism during that timeframe. But even the eighty-five who just went about with their daily activities in their lives, is somehow in some way, they were all affected by what happened when they were young. 27:02 GM: No, no doubt. 27:03 SM: Many may deny it. But I sense it. 27:06 GM: I agree with that. It is very hard to prove, because of the absence of active political participation. But I think that continues to this day. An awful lot of that 50 percent of the people who do not even bother to vote, are disillusioned with the political process, even though they have no investment in it. They have not bothered to register and go to the polls. But I talked to those people just as I talk to people who were not actively engaged in the (19)60s and (19)70s. And there is no question but they are influenced by the prevailing political culture the time in my opinion, I think it infects the whole society. You know if I can personalize this a little bit, I got I got a little less than 30 million votes in 1972, I would dare say that most of those people thought that I was an absolutely honest, straightforward, sincere person, which I think I was. They also, they also came to feel that Nixon was a crook. And really a disgrace to the presidency of the United States. So when they saw him win in of the biggest landslides in history, that was a massively disillusioning experience for the thirty million Americans that voted in worked and sweated the other way. I have had people tell me that we had a choice between good and evil in 1972, and it makes me feel a little self-conscious even to use that phrase again, because it sounds so self-righteous, but I think basically, that is true that you had a candidate who leveled with the public and who said what he thought and he was honest about public questions, defeated by one of the most deceptive and clever and unethical men ever occupy the White House. He not only won, he won overwhelmingly, and I believe that left a tremendous, malaise in the country on the part of the nearly 40 percent of the public or for me, and then those who were for Nixon, they shared the disillusionment after the Watergate thing began to unfold, they felt like fools, I assume they did, they should have if they did not. And so that; nobody's ever really measured the impact of that (19)72 experience. We know about the impact of the assassination of John Kennedy. We do not know about the trauma (19)72 and what that did to recovery. 29:55 SM: I am not aware of any studies being done by any scholars at the present time. I want to get into the area of civil rights too, because we talked about the Vietnam War and civil rights was another issue that were on the minds of a lot of the boomers. Freedom Summer in 1964. People remember that. But basically boomers were about sixteen at that time. They were just coming to the fruition but they saw these things. The Free Speech Movement at the Berkeley campus started in (19)63. Boomers are really coming to themselves in the late (19)60s. But in 1970, there was a split between those who were against the war in Vietnam and those who were involved in the civil rights movement and I noticed on college campuses, black students would no longer be seen Vietnam War protests. And the white students. There is a big split there. And of course, 30:45 GM: That was in the (19)70s, the mid (19)70s. 30:47 SM: Right. Well, I know in 1970 at Kent State, when the protests happened, African Americans were not to be seen anywhere. There was a direction on the campus I was at SUNY Binghamton at the time, but I went to Ohio State [inaudible] and I remember we were reading about it. 31:01 GM: Even Martin Luther King was grappling with that question. 31:04 SM: Right. Can you comment on the civil rights movement and the civil rights movement in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, with the rise of black power, certainly Doctor King dying in (19)68, there was a big struggle going on at that time. But still, there was a hope that we were working together to solve the problems of the nation, to solve the problems of the poor seemed like we all cared. What has happened between again another issue of those times in terms of division of America. Is it still the most important an important item on the part of many Americans and where the boomers? 31:07 GM: The civil rights issue? 31:12 SM: You had a civil rights issue that was on the minds of many boomers. How important is that and Boomer lives now? 31:52 GM: Yeah, I do not think it is all that important in boomer lives. I think that is one of the disappointments about the contemporary scene and American politics is that we still have not really seized the high ground of the civil rights movement to finish that effort. There does seem to me to be a kind of an indifference towards it on the part of whites, young and old across the country. It is lost some of its passion and enthusiasm. I suspect that part of that is a reaction to the fact that a great many whites, especially white males, are fearful that the civil rights emancipation has brought into the workforce a lot of people who have been shown favoritism, the affirmative action programs and they have seen a lot of the top jobs go to blacks, Spanish Americans, to women and others who have been assisted by affirmative action, and they were not always comfortable with that. They have also seen, you know, related thing, Michael Jordan, earning twenty-five million a year in the top slots in professional sports and television anchors and other high paying jobs go to blacks and so on. And I think that has created a kind of an unease in the country that maybe we have gone too far. And trying to deal with the concerns and the aspirations of blacks and a lot of other people are having some difficulty with recognition and advancement are cooling off somewhat in their passion for the civil rights movement. I do not know whether that is a major part of the explanation, but I think it is one part of it. 34:05 SM: Of course, the statistics will show that really there aren't that many positions being taken by African Americans. Carl Rowan writes in his latest book, The Coming Race War: A Wake Up Call. It is one of those misperceptions. It is a myth. 34:18 GM: I think is a misconception but it is a reality that perceptions do influence public attitudes. I hear these concerns expressed all the time. That is why I am bringing it up. 34:35 SM: Do you consider? Would you? One of the slogans of boomers used all the time was the ̶ we are the most unique generation in American history. We are different than any other generation that came before, or probably will come after. We are. We are the change agents of society. We are going to change the world for the better. Could you comment on that kind of mentality? Because I know I heard it when I was in college. We are very proud in many respects of the things we were involved in. We felt empowered. There was a concept of feeling that we could do things. A status quo was no longer something that we accepted. That IBM mentality of the same of everybody coming out of the house, kissing his wife wearing a hand getting into the same car. Not us. 35:21 GM: And four kids. 35:21 SM: Right? Not us. But then we were going to save me the changes for the world. And now here we are, in 1997. Boomers are most of them are in middle age. Your thoughts on that kind of mentality and were they the most unique generation our history? 35:39 GM: I am not sure that they were and I am not sure that the changes they were talking about were always that fundamental. When you consider the change that took place in American society, Depression, the New Deal and World War II. And I am speaking now about my generation. I think those changes were more fundamental and terms of American society than the changes the boomers had in mind after World War II. There was ̶ were more changes in lifestyle, ours were changes in the possibilities for justice, for opportunity, for equality, for collective action and dealing with international problems. I do not know that we have had anything from the boomers yet on the scale of the New Deal in terms of the impact it has had on American society. I used to listen to Gary Hart talk about change and I have listened to Bill Clinton talk about change and listened to Paul Zhan let us talk about change. These are all boomers who were very much into the rhetoric of change. But when you look at the changes, they were advocating, in most cases, they weren't that fundamental, they tended to be style changes in procedural changes. Watch Bill Clinton today, the changes he is proposing are really quite minor. And some of them are more symbolic more than substantive. So I think somehow that boomers may have exaggerated the extent of their commitment to genuine change. They were throwing off some of the restrictions and some of the inhibitions and some of the traditional ways of doing things but I am not sure to what extent they were really fundamentally altering American society with the exception of the women's movement, which I did not want to minimize that was very important. And I give a lot of credit to young people for bringing about that change. 38:19 SM: When the best history books are written about this era. What do you think the history books are going to say about the boomers? 38:26 GM: Well, they'll give them high marks for rejecting the Vietnam War. We will give them high marks for the women's movement to whatever extent they enlisted in the civil rights movement, they will get high marks. Beyond that, I do not think history will single them out for a really unique and powerful instrument for constructive reform and change. They may not come off as much as my generation did. To think the New Deal, Depression, World War II generation it was remarkable truly. Shaped by history. It was the said somewhere just recently that it takes great events to produce great people and we certainly had the challenges. The Depression and war and the leadership of Roosevelt in the New Deal was really great events with great leaders. 39:45 SM: Things I have been trying to do with most of these interviews is to list some of the names of the individuals who were from the era. And just give a couple quick words in terms of how you feel about these individuals. Because these individuals are identified with the boomer generation; the (19)60s many some of them have passed on, and others are still alive today. The first two would be Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. 40:10 GM: I do not think they were major figures. I always thought they were somewhat frivolous in their impact on American politics. They played absolutely no role at all in my campaign which was one of the more serious efforts in that period. I never took them very seriously and I still do not. 40:33 SM: How about Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden? 40:36 GM: More serious, more perceptive more important. More correct in terms of identifying with the real problems of the time. Both serious people. 40:51 SM: How about Benjamin Spock? 40:55 SM: Another thoughtful, perceptive emancipated man who did a lot to improve our understanding of children. That was his major contribution in terms of his contributions on the international scene, and American policy. I thought he was a serious, thoughtful man, but probably not very effective as a political spokesman. 41:26 SM: Ralph Nader, 41:27 GM: Very serious, constructive reformer, genuinely committed to improving the conditions of life for Americans. I always had a high regard for him, I think history will treat him very kindly. 41:45 SM: Two African American leaders of the time, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. 41:51 GM: Well, Malcolm X was an important figure he spoke to the angrier, more disillusioned, more troubled the members of the black community. I think he tended to frighten whites. I think that the ̶ did not from that standpoint, broaden the civil rights movement, he may have narrowed it and focused a bit more on the understandable anger of blacks. Dr. Martin Luther King was a leader who spoke not only for blacks, but he spoke to the whole conscience of the nation. He probably had a bigger impact on whites than we realized at the time. I think he was the central inspiration for the civil rights of the civil rights movement for both blacks and whites. 42:49 SM: John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. 42:53 GM: John Kennedy was a cool calculating politician who is not marked by personal passion for public issues as much by a desire to lead and to achieve power. And who had a sense of history, a knowledge of history. A more cautious, less passionate figure than Robert Kennedy. Perhaps the time that something to do with it. Robert Kennedy was more of a product of the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. John Kennedy really came out of the (19)50s and emerged in the (19)60s when he was elected that that year but he there was even there was a rather marked difference in the personal passion and commitment that they brought to public issues. I think the civil rights movement and the war on poverty and Vietnam, those three things all engage Robert Kennedy in a way that John Kennedy never experienced. 44:21 SM: Eugene McCarthy. 44:23 GM: McCarthy was an important figure in that he had the wit and imagination to seize on the antiwar leadership by coming up to the presidency in 1968. I thought that was his central contribution and that he was willing to challenge a sitting president in his own party in the primaries, and was willing to do that before anybody else. 44:52 SM: Lyndon Johnson 44:55 GM: Probably one of the most talented and able domestic political leaders we ever had. I think he was on the level with Franklin Roosevelt and others in terms of domestic politics. I think he was remarkably effective, and strong senate majority leader and he knew how to marshal political support for domestic political objectives. I thought he was lost in international affairs. I think Vietnam, almost destroyed the Johnson presidency. 45:36 SM: Get into Richard Nixon and his vice president Spiro Agnew. 45:41 GM: Well, Nixon was, was a tragedy. He was a pretty good president in terms of domestic issues. He had a pretty good knowledge of Foreign Affairs, but he demagogue’d the Cold War and its domestic side fights from the very beginning. He just simply showed no standard for decency and fair play, in the way he handled the anti-communist mood of the country and the way he exploited that for his own political ends. Which explains his whole difficulty later on his willingness to use politics without any ethical underpinning at all. Agnew is cut from pretty much the same cloth, not as clever as Nixon but equally lacking and moral guidance. 46:45 SM: Well, he certainly created a lot of enemies within the boomer generation. They are going on the college campuses. 46:52 GM: Agnew you mean. 46:52 SM: Yes, Agnew. 46:54 GM: Effective in the role he played. 46:57 SM: I hear Pat Buchanan wrote a lot of his speeches too I heard. 47:00 GM: Yes, I heard. 47:01 SM: George Wallace. 47:03 GM: Wallace got better with the passage of time he got religion on race relations and he really did have a concern about the poor the disadvantaged. He was a demagogue on race issues and the first years of his career, he was terrible on the Vietnam issue. But I will say for Wallace that he had a genuine popular streak, which some other races in the south had, that he used to advance the well-being of poor people, whites and blacks. And in the last years of his political career, he was pretty good even on race relations, 47:43 SM: How about the Berrigan brothers, the Catholic priests, 47:46 GM: They were two interesting and dynamic figures. I think they brought clean hands to everything they did. I rather admired them. 47:59 SM: The Black Power Advocates Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, that group. 48:05 GM: Well, I put them sort of in the Malcolm X category, they really angry young man of the black movement and I think they played a certain role in advancing civil rights and that they send a signal to the United States and to the American people of what was in store if they rejected the more moderate appeals of a person like Martin Luther King. 48:34 SM: Guess we get into also some of the women of the time, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug. Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm. 48:43 GM: Betty Freidan was very important. She was a pioneer in the women's movement and very intelligent and a somewhat pragmatic one. Bella was more the political activist. More of a front for women's activities. Gloria Steinem is a unique figure I always admired Gloria in that she obviously brought high intelligence to everything she did. And I think she thoroughly understood the women's movement. I think she also understood some of the hazards of the movement, in terms of the political fallout. I found her quite pragmatic as I did Shirley MacLaine during the (19)72 campaign, in understanding that you had to move on women's issues with some measure of respect to the difficulties that we had to overcome that you couldn't accomplish everything in one sweep. If I had any criticism of Gloria, it would be that I think she did not always fully understand as well as one would have hoped the somewhat differing perspectives that housewives and young mothers had about women's issues. Gloria have seemed to speak more to the emancipated career woman 50:15 SM: How about Gerald Ford. 50:16 GM: I always thought Ford a congenial, decent, somewhat nonpartisan man who played a useful role in helping the country heal its wounds. An unfortunate person to have to come in at that time. I had rather pleasant feelings towards Ford then, as I do now. 50:47 SM: How about out Hubert Humphrey? 50:49 GM: Well, Hubert was a great enthusiast of liberalism. I greatly admired his total commitment on civil rights and the welfare of working people and farmers and small business, he understood those issues as well as anyone in American politics. Really a great champion of the American worker, the American farmer, as he was for minorities all over the country. He was in 1948. He was the bugle calls in the Democratic Party on civil rights. And I think he deserves very high marks. He was very good on international affairs with the exception of Vietnam. He overdid the Cold War. That came to unfortunate fruition in his support for Vietnam that was a great blemish on his career. 51:45 SM: You know, some people say that if he had gone against Johnson, he may have been he may have been elected. 51:52 GM: I think he might have even if he'd spent a little more. I think he might have made it. 51:58 SM: Okay. Okay, two more and that is Muhammad Ali. 52:02 GM: Well, Muhammad Ali was a very talented, brilliant, man. I am sorry, I am getting carried away in my mind is jumping back to Malcolm X. Muhammad Ali was not a political figure, in my judgment. I think he had no impact on American politics. But personally I found him one of the most lovable and endearing athletes that we have produced in this country. I think it is a tragedy what has happened to him physically. 52:34 SM: I guess the last one then would be how you look at the musicians of the year of and how the impact that they have had on boomers, the musicians like Bob Dylan, and then Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix and music of that era seem to have a tremendous impact on Boomer lives because there was clear cut messages in the music. 52:53 GM: Yeah, I think on balance that was very positive. A guy like Bob Dylan and it says great songs. He wrote to were sung by Peter, Paul and Mary, I loved it. And I think Joan Baez, I love her music and the messages that she brought. They definitely had an impact on the anti-war movement and civil rights. 53:16 SM: Okay, are there any other comments you would like to say about the boomers themselves? How you have looked at them over the last twenty-five years when you were running for president, obviously, many of them, millions of them supported you. But you are just last question your overall analysis of the boomers over the past twenty-five years. The ones that work for your campaign and where they are today. 53:39 GM: The one things that pleases me is that most of the ones who were involved in my campaign stayed involved. I mean, it is not an accident that that effort produced two presidential contenders Gary Hart and Bill Clinton. It is not an accident that over 100 of them went to the congress. And that as many as twenty to twenty-five went to the United States Senate, dozens of governors and state legislators, city councilmen and all across this country. To me the most personally gratifying thing is that the McGovern boomers stayed involved in politics. Lot of them became disillusioned with the process but a lot of them stayed. 54:27 SM: When you look at the lasting legacy of boomers was still has to be written. It is ̶ we look at the voting. Boomers do not vote. Their kids do not vote. And that amazes me, especially when there was so much passion at that time. And of course, certainly boomers wanted to vote, they fought for the right to vote. 54:43 GM: I think. I think there is still a pretty good turnout among the boomers, I am more concerned about their children and the lethargy, they seem to break to voting. 54:55 SM: Senator McGovern, thank you very much. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 1 Microcassette Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. George McGovern Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;George McGovern (1922 - 2012) was a professor, author, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election. McGovern earned a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University and taught at Dakota Wesleyan University.&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;:14275305}}">George McGovern (1922 - 2012) was a professor, author, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election. McGovern earned a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University and taught at Dakota Wesleyan University.</span> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922-2012 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; Authors; Legislators—United States; Presidential candidates—United States; McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922-2012--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 2010-08-13 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.10.2016.86 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. 55:06 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b4a39b6ab42e4ce7bd39a2932454e995.jpg 83b615680d3329309789e16c0bb7c289 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bc9ed303608c04b20c61d2f85c166148.mp3 bc526d22b9f9febdf5aae322d77e0427 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 2010-08-14 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Edwin Meese Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Edwin Meece is an attorney, law professor, author and member of the Republican Party. He was a professor of Law at the University of San Diego until 1981. From 1981 to 1985, Meese served as Regan's counsellor. He was then appointed as the United States Attorney General. Meese is currently serving as the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at The Heritage Foundation. He has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Yale University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15107,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,16777215],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Edwin Meese is an attorney, law professor, author, and member of the Republican Party. He was a professor of Law at the University of San Diego until 1981. From 1981 to 1985, Meese served as Reagan's counselor. He was then appointed as the United States Attorney General. Meese is currently serving as the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at The Heritage Foundation. He has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Yale University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. </span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 62:19 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Healing; Vietnam Veterans; Nineteen sixties; Activism; Free Speech Movement; Women's Rights Movement.&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;:14275305}}">Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Healing; Vietnam Veterans; Nineteen sixties; Activism; Free Speech Movement; Women's Rights Movement.</span> Subject LCSH Lawyers; College teachers; Authors; Attorneys general--United States; Meece, Edwin--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Edwin Meece Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Meece, Edwin ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Lawyers; College teachers; Authors; Attorneys general--United States; Meece, Edwin--Interviews Description An account of the resource Edwin Meese is an attorney, law professor, author, and member of the Republican Party. He was a professor of Law at the University of San Diego until 1981. From 1981 to 1985, Meese served as Reagan's counselor. He was then appointed as the United States Attorney General. Meese is currently serving as the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow Emeritus at The Heritage Foundation. He has a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Yale University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-08-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.87 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. 62:19