36 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/82aa8f48ad1c9a9dffebaa5cf118bb37.pdf 09bf5540a432d6f28651b593d44c6296 PDF Text Text STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BINGHAMTON DEPARTVENT OF MUSIC presen ts THE LENOXY STRING QUARTET Toby Appe l , viol a Peter Marsh, vi o l in Delmar Pet tys , vi o l in Donald MeCall , ce l lo Saturday, September 23, 1772 Don A . Wat ters Theate r – 8 : 15 p . m. PROGPA! Quarte t i n A "'ajo r , Op. 20, No. 6 Alle gro d i mol to e scherz ando Adagio cant abi le Haydn I"enue t to, A l le g re t t o Fuga a 3 sogge t t i (Alle gro) Quarte t No. 2 (1958) Moderato – Al le gro modera to Adagio Al le gro mol to Zirchner INTERMISSION Bee thoven Quarte t i n F Mino r , Op. 95 Al le gro con br io Allegre t to ma non troppo Al le gro assai vivace ma serioso Larghe t to espres sivo – Al le gre t to agi t ato The New York Woodwind Quin te t w i l l give the next Chambe r Series Concer t i n the Watters Theate r on Saturday, September 30th at 3: 15 p . m. � 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/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: PDF / Rosetta PDF with Rosetta audio/video link Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 audiotape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 41:51 22:12 22:55 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE243497">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE243497</a> 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>. 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 Lenox String Quartet, September 23, 1972 Recital tape 1972-9-23 Description An account of the resource Works of Haydn, Kirchner, and Beethoven. Held at 8:15 pm, September 23, 1972, Watters Theater. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lenox String Quartet 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 1972-09-23 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/aa6714ac1373e3e0291339a997b1fb26.jpeg b22dfcc2a2a1fc731506083d55ec02ec https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/20ebb2699282f659b6de50de5f8f96a7.MP3 2f0ec11b4235a21ed16da008d2d2a0b1 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 25 August 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Frye Gaillard Biographical Text Frye Gaillard is a historian, educator, and author. He has been the writer-in-residence in the English and History departments at the University of South Alabama since 2007. He is the author of more than twenty-five books, including With Music and Justice for All: Some Southerners and Their Passions; Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award; The Dream Long Deferred: The Landmark Struggle for Desegregation in Charlotte, North Carolina, winner of the Gustavus Myers Award; and If I Were a Carpenter, the first independent, book-length study of Habitat for Humanity. Professor Gaillard specializes in Southern culture and history. He graduated from Vanderbilt University. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 2:06:14 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 Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Book; South; Thought; Joh F. Kennedy; Vanderbilt; Martin Luther King; 60s; America; People; Americans; History; Young generation; Issues. Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Frye Gaillard Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Oral History Lab Date of interview: 25 August 2022 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) FG: 00:00 All right. All right, we are ready. Okay. SM: 00:03 Again, thanks again for agreeing to be interviewed. My interview today is with Professor Frey Gaillard, author of the book, A Hard Rain: America in the 19(19)60s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost. Could you talk a little bit in the very beginning, I do this with all of my interviewees? Talk about- FG: 00:24 Sure. SM: 00:25 -your early life, your parents with their parents’ occupation, where you lived, and your high school years. FG: 00:32 Okay, sure. I grew up in Mobile, Alabama, was born in 1946. And so, I found myself coming of age as a- when I entered my teen years, during the Civil Rights' years in the Deep South. My family was sort of quietly part of the status quo. It was an old white southern family, my father was a judge, his father was a lawyer. They were not particularly wealthy, but they were prominent and, and did not really- they were not mean-spirited people in their support of the racial status quo and segregation and that kind of thing. But they were part of it. And, and did not question it. As far as I could tell, and I was raised not to question it, either. You know, there was interaction between Black folks and white folks, but it was always on a basis that was, you know, that was not equal. It could be, it could be kind and civil and polite, but-but, you know, white people just occupied a higher place an order of things. And, you know, all of us were raised to assume that was how it should be. I always, in the back of my mind was not comfortable with that. But I tried to push it away. And I was a kid and had other interests. Anyway, I was a big fan of Alabama football and, you know, love to play those kinds of games, myself. And then, but then, as I talked about, in-in the book, A hard rain. I just happened to be on a high school field trip in Birmingham, when I saw Dr. Martin Luther King arrested. And there was just something about that moment, that was deeply troubling. And I still- I have to confess, tried not to think about it very much, but I could not help it. And it just kind of not at the back of my mind until I went away to college at Vanderbilt in 1964. And got there were the first class of Black undergraduates. And they were just very bright, impressive young people. And, and so there was a lot of talk, you know, private, constructive conversation about these kinds of issues on campus for those four years. And, you know, it just, it was where my identity as a writer and as a human being really kind of formed. I think. SM: 02:30 Mm-Hmm. Mm- Hmm. I remember reading that part of the book where you are on that field trip. And you just happen to see Dr. King being arrested, I guess. And- FG: 03:39 Yeah. SM: 03:39 -you talked, I am remember reading it. You looked at his face, and- FG: 03:46 Yes. SM: 03:47 -he-he thought he was smaller than you thought he might have been. He was shorter man. But the mere fact- FG: 04:03 Right. SM: 04:03 -his face, could you explain that? Because that was very descriptive. FG: 04:07 Yes. So, I mean, I walked out of the hotel where we were staying, and there he was being shoved roughly up the sidewalk by these Birmingham policemen, and he could not have been more than five feet away from where I was standing on the sidewalk. And his- I do not know. And so, I just look, I found myself looking right into the face of Dr. Martin Luther King. You know, who I knew about but, you know, had not had, had been raised in such a way that I did not have any particular sympathy for him prior to that, but there was something in the sadness of his eyes. You know, there was neither fear nor anger, but I thought at least I did not think so in my 16-year-old mind, but-but I did- I think that I saw this deep sadness, and it just, it was just deeply moving in, and I felt later looking back on it, I felt like history had a face. And it was the face of Martin Luther King. And, and it was so human, you know, and so vulnerable and yet so strong all at the same time. So, there was such, you know, dignity and grace about it, but like, you know, I just thought, you know, he is so sad about the way things are, you know, and that is how it felt to me as a kid. And, you know, I do not know what was in Dr. King's mind, for sure, obviously. SM: 05:19 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 05:29 But you know, but we all you know, a lot of us in my generation had some kind of epiphany moment like that- SM: 05:52 Mm-Hmm. FG: 05:52 -if we grew up in the South, where we came face to face with the injustice of it all. And we were moved to think about it. And-and so that was the moment for me. SM: 06:03 Yeah, it is interesting that in close proximity to this experience, was the letter from Birmingham jail that he wrote himself on scrub paper- FG: 06:13 That is right. SM: 06:13 -in the prison. And I am going to have a question on that later in the interview. FG: 06:17 Okay. SM: 06:18 I-I, your book goes into a lot of these things in terms of your interest in history, your interest in journalism, and I know you were- I think you have worked in your high school paper. And then in college, could you- how did you become interested in history itself in journalism, and, and please give us those early experiences in high school in college, where that kind of grew? FG: 06:43 Okay. When I was in high school, my parents sent me to a private school for high school. That was all fight. They did not foresee, I do not think that that we would have some of the best teachers of history of- there was a course called humanities where all the, you know, those kinds of disciplines, literature, history, religion, science, all of these things were kind of woven into a sort of them, you know, this-this reflective course on just on mankind and stuff. And these were some really brilliant young teachers in their 20s, who were teaching us, and they just all happen to be there. And, you know, one of them went off and became head of the Russian department at Georgetown, another one became an English professor at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, and other one became the dean at the University of Alabama, so on and so forth, four or five of them went on to teach in higher education. SM: 07:36 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 08:02 And they were just wonderful. And so, it- you know, I just developed an interest in history because they made it a story, you know, and, and as I went off to college, I had, yeah, I had worked for the high school paper, and I worked for the college paper, but I did not necessarily plan a career in journalism, until, you know, it became a way to connect and think about all these powerful events and movements that were shaping the country in the (19)60s. And, and I just thought, you know, this is a way to, I mean, I want to, I want to be close to those- SM: 08:44 Mm-Hmm. FG: 08:45 -changes in those events. And yet, I did not want to be swept away by them. I have sort of never been a joiner, I do not think and, and so I just found I really liked writing about them. And, you know, being involved in discussions and you know, that kind of stuff. So. So, increasingly, that is what I did, you know, in and then, in college at Vanderbilt, I had some wonderful, wonderful professors also, I majored in history. There was no journalism major, and I am not sure I would have done that, anyway. So, I majored in history and took a lot of humanities and you know, other courses like that a lot of literature or religion, philosophy. And so, the, the unfolding story of history, kind of had a broad context based on my education. And then the other thing that happened was at Vanderbilt, there was a student organization that I became part of that that was free to bring any speaker we wanted to-to campus. SM: 08:58 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 10:01 It was totally student run. And that was an exercise in academic freedom that the Chancellor of the University a wonderful man named Alexander Hurd was very supportive of. And so, you know, we brought Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and, you know, in some people on the right to William Buckley and George Wallace, and but, you know, you know, we even brought Black Power advocates Stokely Carmichael. And so, there was a kind of engagement with the, with the great voices of the (19)60s that was-was pretty direct, you know, for students at Vanderbilt in those days. And so, all of that, you know, just what happened for me is that journalism and history became kind of the same thing. In my mind, it was like journalism is just the first cut at it. SM: 10:57 Mm-Hmm. FG: 10:57 You know, but if you are a journalist, you have a chance to come not in every story you write, but kind of overall to, to try to guide your own career and write about stuff that matters. And so that is what I wanted to do about how I got out of college. SM: 11:16 Well, I would tell you just-just these few seconds here, minutes of talking about the kinds of speakers you brought there when you were a college student. Have you ever thought yourself of writing? I know, you have written you were writing books? And have you ever thought of just concentrating on that college experience at Vanderbilt and the speakers you brought? I think it is amazing that you brought conservative and liberal speakers, and, and that the school was very supportive of academic freedom. That did not happen everywhere. FG: 11:47 No, it really did not. It was kind of a, you know, the opposite experience from-from Berkeley, for example, you know, where, you know, in in 1964, the reason there was a free speech movement at Berkeley was because students there could not do what we could do it Vanderbilt, you know. And so, you know, and that movement produced, you know, some amazingly eloquent voices like Mario Savio, who was the leader of that we can get into that later. SM: 12:06 Right. Yeah-yeah. I have a question [inaudible]. FG: 12:22 But Vanderbilt was the opposite. We did not have to push for it. It was just an opportunity that was there because-because Alexander Hurd was the Chancellor of the University. And he thought this was what education was all about. And, you know, there was a, you know, it would be good to write a piece about those, or maybe a short book about those-those-those years at Vanderbilt, because it was it was an extraordinary time, you know, and interestingly, despite the occasional spasms of controversy, it was a time when Vanderbilt sort of skyrocketed to national prominence in a way that was, you know, it became a national university based in the south- SM: 12:26 Mm-Hmm. Right. FG: 13:09 -during that period of time and raised a whole lot of money because people respected what Chancellor Hurd was presiding over. You know, there were some similar things. Emory University, defended the right of one of their professors, Thomas Altizer to write about the Death of God and, and you know, even during a major fundraising campaign, and it was controversial, but Emory flourish. So, it is interesting that some of these, and Duke University had some, you know, a lot of student activism. So, some of these southern- SM: 13:11 Mm-Hmm. FG: 13:33 -universities that were brave about this kind of stuff, made an important contribution, I think. 13:54 Yeah. And obviously, the school and the students involved in this are helping to prepare the youth of America in the South for their future. FG: 14:04 Yes- SM: 14:04 -Where all points are all points of view matter. FG: 14:08 Yeah-yeah. That is the that was the great lesson that many of us took away from those Vanderbilt years. SM: 14:15 Mm-Hmm. FG: 14:15 You know, it was, it was a, it was a powerful thing, a powerful moment. SM: 14:21 When you titled your book, A Hard Rain. What did you mean by how did you come up with that title? FG: 14:30 It is, you know, I -let us see, what would the cane phrase be? I borrowed it from Bob Dylan. You know, is his song A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall- you know, was such a was such a metaphorical look at the same kind of stuff that I was looking, you know, it was it was a, it was this poetic meditation on the times and I [inaudible] I was working on the book for two years, but I had the title, I had the subtitle- SM: 14:44 Yep. Mm-Hmm. FG: 14:58 -exactly as it is now. But I could not come up with the title. And then one day I just happened to have the radio on. And that song played on the radio as a as an oldie, you know, and I thought, "Ohh" if I am not poetic enough to come up with a title, I will let Bob Dylan do it, you know, and so-so, you know, with-with-with attribution, I, you know, I, although you cannot copyright a title, so I was really okay, in a way, but-but, you know, I just that that just became the title of the book, it just seemed to be a poetic way of phrasing what I was writing about. SM: 15:48 You do a great job and several year chapters on looking at President Kennedy. I think the one thing that struck me was early in the book where you talked about the ugly American, the book written by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick, and-and how it really touched Kennedy, saying Kennedy felt that was very truthful about what was happening in America today. Because- could you explain why that book was that way? Why he was so touched by it, because I remember he gave books to most of his staff, please read this. FG: 16:04 Right. Yes-yes. SM: 16:15 Explain what the main- FG: 16:26 Yeah- SM: 16:27 -message was in that book? FG: 16:29 Yeah, it was a book that, you know, it has been a long time since I have read it. And I do not remember all of the plot lines in the book. But basically, it was about how Americans were behaving, you know, diplomatically, officially and unofficially, to and their engagement with the world, particularly in Asia in that book. And, you know, how we seem to arrogant and how we seem insensitive, and manipulative and all of those things. And so, I think that became part of Kennedy sensibilities, and, and was part of the reason that one of the first things that he did was, was to begin the Peace Corps, you know, where he wanted to put, you know, send young people out to represent the best in America. And, you know, it was even as it was, Kennedy was also a, you know, a product of World War Two in the Cold War. I mean, he was a young, a young naval officer, I think, and, you know, the, during World War Two, and was genuinely, you know, a war he wrote- almost was killed in combat. And so, all of that view of the world, you know, the cause the contest between communism and democracy, in his mind also was one of the defining things. And so, you know, he became caught up in the early years of [inaudible] in increasing involvement in Vietnam. SM: 17:50 Mm-Hmm. FG: 17:50 And I always wondered if he had not been killed, whether which would have prevailed in his instincts, would it have been the-the Cold War imposition of, you know, of communism versus democracy onto this little country in Southeast Asia in a way that did not really fit? SM: 17:50 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 18:41 Or would it have been the ugly American in wanting to avoid that and-and try to think about letting countries find their own way, you know, with-with those Peace Corps type sensibilities have restrained him ultimately, from what proved to be the futility of the Vietnam or in the deadly futility, that horrible tragedy of that, or in so many ways, you know, and we will never know. But, you know, Kennedy was a fascinating figure to me, certainly had his flaws and feet of clay. But, you know, had this amazing ability to inspire hope and idealistic commitment among people in my generation, for sure. SM: 19:35 You-you-you mentioned the in your book, also a little section where Kennedy is at Hyde Park meeting Eleanor Roosevelt. And-and I think it was the second visit in August of 1960, that she finally gave her support him, because she had always supported Adlai Stevenson, and she still had reservations about Kennedy but-but I just want to let you know I was there that day. FG: 19:45 Right. Oh, you were [inaudible]. Oh my gosh! Wow! SM: 19:59 Yes. Several ironies here. There is several things in your book where I was there to where I had met this person. And I had time with this person- FG: 20:11 Oh my gosh! Wow! SM: 20:11 -Julian Bond, I knew quite well. And this particular situation is we were coming back from her summer vacation. And my mom said, “Let us take the kids over to Hyde Park. We are not that far away.” And so, we got there, we got there. And [inaudible] was only $1 to get in. But my mom had a headache was staying in the car. So, my dad and my sister and I, we walked across the street, and there was a man for humanity, just walking in. And my dad asked what was going on John Kennedy was in the library with Eleanor Roosevelt. FG: 20:11 Oh wow! SM: 20:12 And so, and we were at the end of this group of people at the library and there was a limo up there on the end there, and we were there, not very long, and someone yells, he was coming up the side door. And then I split I am a little kid. And I split. FG: 21:00 Uh huh. SM: 21:00 And my dad was fast. My sister was on his shoulders. And he got into the car. And as he was getting the car, he only shook one hand, and I grabbed the hand of the man who was shaking his hand, he looked at me, and my sister touched his hair. And FG: 21:16 Oh, wow. SM: 21:16 And he got in. And that was it. They drove off. And, FG: 21:19 Oh wow. SM: 21:20 -and so, you know, we just happened to be there. And of course, as history proved, he ended up winning the election and becoming president- FG: 21:27 Right. SM: 21:27 -and he was assassinated. And it all goes back to me, you know, and the one thing- FG: 21:32 Yes, yep. SM: 21:32 -the one thing that always goes back to me is as a kid, why did not they go in the library and meet Eleanor Roosevelt? Because- FG: 21:38 Yeah. Yeah. SM: 21:40 -you cannot see her. But, you know, I was only I was only in fifth grade. So anyways- FG: 21:45 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. SM: 21:46 But I want to say that touched it. Now, you are interested in Kennedy, you touched on several times how you felt and some of your peers felt that they liked him. Certainly, when that book, The Ugly American came out to the one of the things that struck him was that these diplomats in that novel, had no interest in the [inaudible], the language, no interest in the culture of- FG: 22:08 Right. SM: 22:08 -the people they were serving. And Kennedy- FG: 22:11 Right. SM: 22:11 -did something different. And you brought up the peace score. But you know, that he also was involved in the Alliance for Progress and volunteers and service to America. Could you talk about all the things that he tried to do, where people were serving, trying to, you know, show that we cared about people and that they need the need to learn a language? FG: 22:19 Right. Yes-yes. And that was, you know, there was just something qualitatively different, it seemed to a lot of us in that stance that he took, you know, I mean, we, it was easy to believe him easy to believe that he meant it. And, and it just seemed, in a profound way, like the right thing to do. You know, it was, you know, and it was not that, you know, the Peace Corps, you know, instantly transformed the whole world or anything, but it, but that in the Alliance for Progress, and other things meant we were trying, we began to try to engage with the world in a different way, a less arrogant way, less insensitive way. And, and that, you know, those sensibilities went along with what was happening at home, too, with the Civil Rights Movement. And, you know, and sort of, you know, reframing that sense of privilege that-that a lot of white Americans had, and it is a long process, you know- SM: 23:39 Mm-Hmm. FG: 23:39 -kind of working through that and working past it. And I am not saying, Kennedy, you know, achieved the pinnacle of all of that. But, but, but clearly, that process was something that mattered to him. That is what we felt. And-and so it made it something we began to think about to as young people. SM: 24:00 You use, you mentioned, I remember the section perfectly where you said in your senior year, you felt he was leading the young people in the right direction. FG: 24:12 Right. SM: 24:13 He was he was a good role model. That says something. FG: 24:19 I am sorry. SM: 24:20 That says something when you in those times when a lot, he was a young politician, and he- FG: 24:27 Right. SM: 24:27 -he gave a great inaugural speech as not what your country can do for you and what you can do for your country. But still, he- FG: 24:33 Right. SM: 24:33 had he had the Creed the deeds. FG: 24:35 Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, there were critics, and I understand this, who thought he moved too slowly on civil rights, you know, who that he did not, you know, embrace that cause as fully or as quickly as he should have. And, you know, I think you can certainly make that case. You know, he was also a very pragmatic politician and yet, you know, in 1963, when George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door, you know, Kennedy gave a speech that night, embracing the moral validity of the civil rights movement. And, you know, and right around that time, you know, they introduced the Civil Rights Act that passed in 1964. And so, you know, we do not know how far he would have gone if he if he had not been assassinated. And, you know, certainly props to Lyndon Johnson for, you know, having the legislative skills to get that important legislation, and maybe the even more important Voting Rights Act of 65, through Congress on a bipartisan basis, you know, but Kennedy, you know, kind of set all that, in motion, I think, in terms of the sort of moral framework, in terms of the governmental response, the white response to the issues being raised so powerfully by the Civil Rights Movement- SM: 24:47 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 25:45 -Dr. King, but also the young people in snick, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, people like John Lewis, and Diane Nash, and CT Vivian and Bernard Lafayette. And, you know, just this remarkable cadre of very young people who, who were in their own way, kind of setting the moral agenda for the country in a way that you know, that people of power, like the Kennedys eventually had to respond. SM: 26:45 Mm-Hmm. FG: 26:45 And so, I do not mean that Kennedy, I do not want to take credit from the activist and give it to Kennedy. But-but Kennedy, there was something moral, I thought, ethically in tune about his- the instincts, he brought in his response, most broadly speaking to what the civil rights movement was saying, and then Robert Kennedy after his brother's death, and we can talk about this, too. SM: 27:15 Mm-Hmm. FG: 27:15 I think became even more viscerally committed to those kinds of those kinds of causes. And, and it was Robert Kennedy, who I would later actually have the good fortune to meet, personally. And so and so his humanity became a real thing to me because of the encounter with him. When he came to speak at Vanderbilt. SM: 27:41 He seemed to back to what we are talking about, but Bobby Kennedy seems to after the after the death of his brother, and I think you brought this up as well, that he became his own man. FG: 27:55 Right-right. SM: 27:55 He became his own man. And in the one thing he always stood for, was those that did not have anything the poor- FG: 28:02 Yeah. SM: 28:03 -the underdog. Everything was about the underdog. FG: 28:06 Yeah-yeah. SM: 28:07 You explain? Could you explain that? And that is why he was really evolving to the time of his assassination. FG: 28:15 Yeah, absolutely. You know, one, one theory of that, that some, some others have written, and I knew in Nashville, a couple of people who knew Robert Kennedy Well, and, and what they thought was that, you know, he was always sympathetic, but-but not. But-but was pragmatic on behalf of his brother, he was always sympathetic to the basic idea of civil rights. But he was also when he who is his brothers, man, almost his brothers, you know, I mean, political, you know, advisor almost like a fixer or- SM: 28:59 Mm-Hmm. FG: 28:59 -something. In those days, he was always very pragmatic about how that was expressed. SM: 29:07 Mm-Hmm. FG: 29:08 But after the death of his brother, people close to him, thought that his incredible pain that he felt over the over the loss of his brother, meant that he had identified powerfully viscerally with people who hurt with people on the margins. That is just how that that grief played out for him was, was a sense of what it meant to hurt in a profound kind of way. And so and so that is what he began to talk about was-was-was people who hurt wherever it was, whether there were, you know, as African American people in the ghettos or, you know, unemployed miners in in white miners in Appalachia or industrial workers in the Midwest who were- SM: 29:58 Mm-Hmm. FG: 29:59 -being laid off-off during rustbelt years or Native Americans on reservations, or Mexican American farmworkers in California, or, you know, he went to you went to South Africa and-and, you know, and created a profound response there among both whites and, and Blacks during, during the height of apartheid, you know, and he, he did not so much scold whites as to say, you know, we have to do better all of us who are caught up in this white privilege have to do better and-and, and you know, and with Black audiences it was like, you know, I see you I am here with you-you have my support, you know, those-those things, I think, you know, mattered profoundly in the sense that they were inspiring to so many people. You know, you look at the, the voting patterns when he ran for president (19)68, and just the turnout that he got, and- SM: 31:12 Mm-Hmm. FG: 31:12 -Black neighborhoods and, you know, I think on one Indian Reservation in South Dakota, or somewhere he got every vote that was cast, you know, in-in the, in the primary. But, you know, he also committed himself to reaching across the divisions and so at-at Vanderbilt, and at the University of Alabama, the same day in in March of 1968. You know, he talked about how the things we have in common go deeper than the things that divide us. SM: 31:21 Wow. Mm-Hmm. FG: 31:47 And so, you know, he was one of those politicians that did not want to exploit division, he wanted to heal it. SM: 31:55 Mm-Hmm. FG: 31:55 And, you know, that was a, that was a powerful thing, also. Now, all of that has to be translated into policy if he had won, and I am not saying that it would have been heaven on earth with Robert Kennedy is as president, but it would have sure been different than Richard Nixon is president. And, and so, you know, again, that that sort of moral inspiration that came from that family, even though the you know, even though all of the Kennedy brothers had their feet of clay, still, you know, still there, they were one of the richest- SM: 32:36 Mm-Hmm. FG: 32:36 -families in America, you know, caring, profoundly meaningfully about people on the margins. And for some, I was raised in privilege, that was a powerful lesson. SM: 32:48 And Teddy is probably the greatest Kennedys senator in history. When you look at Teddy- FG: 32:55 Yeah. Yes. SM: 32:55 -Kennedy's whole career when he did when his whole career stood for, I just want to get a couple more things on Bobby Kennedy, as you probably- we all saw this after King was assassinated. And the funeral was taking place at the church in Atlanta. And Bobby Kennedy was in the audience and the sun was coming through the side window, and it was shining on him. I do not know if you remember that. It was, it was on him and only him. And that- FG: 33:26 Yes. SM: 33:26 -that-that stood out. Like, I mean, I remember that watching that he could have the whole church and it is on him. And- FG: 33:34 Yeah. SM: 33:34 -just and then, of course, what he did in Indianapolis, the night of the assassination, the courage to go into the ghetto, and say- FG: 33:44 Right. SM: 33:44 -what you said, and it was off the cuff. FG: 33:49 Yeah, it was just an amazing, I mean, I wish I had been there and it was not, but I have heard the-the, you know, the tape of the speech, and I have seen the verbatim transcript of it and, you know, just the, just the, the spontaneous impromptu power of it, because, you know- SM: 34:07 Mm-Hmm. FG: 34:07 -he was not speaking from notes, he was speaking from his, from his heart and, you know, ending it with a with a quote from Escalus. You know, I mean, you know, and, and knowing, I guess he felt sure his audience would understand what he meant, what you know, and-and, you know, in the, just the fact that there were no riots in Indianapolis that night, in contrast, almost- SM: 34:16 Yes. Yeah. Yes. FG: 34:37 -every other American city, I mean, speaks to speaks to the power of one man's not only eloquence. But-but, you know, but just the massive the power of his massive goodwill on those kinds of issues. I mean, I just do not think you I see no reason to doubt the utter urgent sincerity of Kennedy in those years and what he was trying to do. And, you know, and then the next day he went to speak to and I think it was mostly an all-white audience, but business people, I believe in Cleveland. And he talked about the stain of violence on America. And, you know, the assassination, the riots, but also the violence, of a more subtle kind that having to do with the living conditions of the poor in America. And he cast that as part of the American violence that had to be had to be dealt with. So again, there was some, there was some profundity there in in the way he was framing issues that. I just feel is almost qualitatively different from most of the politicians that we have today. And I am not saying there. There was nobody who believes that but Kennedy had this way of not only saying it, but meaning it so obviously, that, that it just captivated people's attention. SM: 36:22 Yeah, I agree. Get just a couple more things on President Kennedy. And that is, you bring these up all throughout the book. In that first part of the book, some of the good things that he tried to do his-his speech at American University was very important because it talked about the Test Ban Treaty. FG: 36:40 Right. SM: 36:41 And it was, it was something that he wanted to do that was good for humanity. It was not going- FG: 36:46 Right. SM: 36:46 -to end the proliferation, but he wanted to have this. He was also when you look at the Bay of Pigs, he admitted he made the mistakes. I have always- FG: 36:57 Right-right. SM: 36:57 -thought how many people admit I blew it? He did? FG: 37:02 Yep. SM: 37:02 And he was very- FG: 37:03 Yep-yep. SM: 37:03 -honest about it. And he wanted to make sure he would not do it again. And then also- FG: 37:08 Right. Right. SM: 37:08 -of course, there are some things that you question because the coup for Diem and Nhu in Vietnam, a couple, you know, about a week or so before or two weeks before he was assassinated? We all thought I wonder, did he? It is my understanding. He did not he did not expect them to be killed. He thought they were going to be taken away from the country. Is that true? I do not even know. FG: 37:30 Yeah, I do not know, either. You know, there is all kinds of speculation and I confess, I do not know the answer to that. But, you know, it was, you know, it was a moment that I think just got us in deeper. And, you know, and so it was, you know, and it certainly you know, I mean, it shows the competing instincts that he still, that he still had, I mean, he was still kind of groping, I think, for yes. SM: 38:05 Right. FG: 38:05 -an understanding of that issue. And, you know, and we just do not know which way it would have gone head he had he lived because the, you know, the-the United States was being pulled deeper and deeper into it, you know, because of Cold War sensibilities that may have fit in Europe, but-but did not fit as well in, you know, in Asia, where, you know, in retrospect, it was clear that Ho Chi Minh and the North Vietnamese, you know, had their agenda for national liberation, but not to be a stalking horse for any other power China or Russia or anybody they, you know. So, you know, the famous quote from or one that I had not known, but I read with, I think, from David Halberstam or somebody, but how Ho Chi Minh said something like, "One day the Americans will be tired of fighting, and then we will sit down together and drink tea." And, you know, and that is what happened, you know, when the- SM: 39:10 Mm-Hmm. FG: 39:11 -Vietnam War ended, you know, all of a sudden, you know, here you have, you know, Americans traveling freely to that place, John McCain, who was tortured- SM: 39:23 Mm-Hmm. FG: 39:23 -as a political, you know, pow going-going there. And, you know, and being treated with dignity and honor after-after the hostilities subsided. So, you know, it was, but we do not know how far-sighted Kennedy would have been about all of that. SM: 39:45 He-he-he did- FG: 39:45 I have hoped, you know, I mean, retroactively, retrospectively I-I think he might have been, if nothing else, more pragmatic than Lyndon Johnson, but who knows. SM: 39:58 You know, yeah, and of course, He-he knew when he was in Dallas for obvious reasons, because- FG: 40:04 Mm-Hmm. Right. SM: 40:04 -he knew that the that he needed to get the Democratic vote and the election, the (19)64. And that is why-he was going down south. So, he was pragmatic there too, as well. He knew what he was doing was right with his civil rights bills. But still, he was pragmatic, and he had to be pushed. FG: 40:22 Yep. SM: 40:23 And- FG: 40:24 Yep-yep. SM: 40:24 -one thing I want to say, too, I think Bobby Kennedy was very important for President Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Because- FG: 40:31 Yes. SM: 40:31 -all these views coming in from, you know, you go bomb all these other things. But if Bobby was a man, he could go with Bobby. And they go into a room by themselves with no one else around and [inaudible]. And so, I think part of the reason why this all worked out in the positive is that Bobby was by his side. FG: 40:52 Yes. SM: 40:53 I do not think there is any question about that, during that Cuban Missile Crisis? FG: 40:58 Yeah, I think, I think that is absolutely true. It was, it was a remarkable moment of presidential decisiveness, not to bomb Cuba. And it turns out, you know, it could easily really have triggered a nuclear strike, because some of those missiles were, in fact operative. And the generals, you know, who were urging Kennedy to-to, you know, to attack Cuba. I mean, they did not know that that Cuba already had access to nuclear missiles that would reach Miami at least. And, you know, who knows what would have happened, but Kennedy had the will to John Kennedy had the will to resist the generals. And I think- SM: 41:41 Yep. FG: 41:41 Robert Kennedy was was-was part of this of the source of that strength, you know, he, he more he just thought morally, it was wrong. Just queasy to him to have a country our size attacks a country Cuba's size, he just did not like that whole idea. But then, you know, and then there was that moment when Khrushchev sent two competing messages. One that seemed to be coming from his heart and favoring a peaceful solution, and the other one very bellicose and really belligerent. And they were thinking, well, how do we respond? What do we do? And- SM: 42:21 Mm-Hmm. FG: 42:22 -Robert Kennedy was one of those who said, Just answer the one we would like. SM: 42:26 Yeah. FG: 42:27 I mean, it was such a simple human thing. But you know, his human instinct said, the first one, the peaceful one. Sounds like something Khrushchev really means. And it, it turned out to be to be right, you know, so it was. Yeah, it was, it was a pretty amazing moment. And you think about what might have happened in subsequent administrations and a similar moment and use your shutter you know. SM: 42:58 Yeah, he was very good, because he had gone to the Vienna conference with Khrushchev, and he was kind of, you know, he was young and not quite sure of himself. And so that was the time- FG: 43:08 Right. SM: 43:08 -that crew chat to really put the pressure on him. But then you learn from studying history that Khrushchev liked the bully people. However, he liked leaders from other countries who were adversaries who would make a decision. And Kennedy- FG: 43:22 Right. SM: 43:22 -made a decision not only on the quarantine and the Cuban Missile Crisis, but also what was happening in Berlin at that time. And thank- FG: 43:31 Right. SM: 43:31 -the Lord that the leader of East Germany decided let us build a wall, because that correct- FG: 43:36 Right. SM: 43:36 -because everything happened, and I think Khrushchev respected him for that. I- it is just like, so anyway, so is, so you did a wonderful job bring authors and musicians and artists into this book. I? I am a big right. I am a big reader. And you-you mentioned some of the great ones here. Could you talk about it? I obviously you are very well read. And you can see the importance about not only nonfiction, but fiction, great writers- FG: 43:44 Right. Right. SM: 44:12 -I can write books that really tell the times the temper of the times, but done in the in a fiction wet fictional way, could you talk about the Eudora Welty and Harper Lee and in those- FG: 44:27 Yeah. SM: 44:27 -times, especially during the what was happening in Mississippi. FG: 44:32 Yeah, well, you know, Harper Lee, was To Kill a Mockingbird, which came out in 1960. You know, that book retrospectively is- has been criticized, you know, for having a sort of paternalistic view of race relations. In some extent that is true, but it also gave us a in the south especially I think gave us a portrait in the person of Atticus Finch, of what decency might look like. And, and then that became even more sharply defined by the movie and Gregory Pecks interpretation of Atticus Finch which, you know, which Harper Lee is said to have, have loved. She and Gregory Peck became close friends. And so, you know, just that powerful depiction of an inclination to be fair, and just and, and believes that there should be equality in the eyes of the law. You know, those were powerful themes in 1960. Now, they may sound more like truisms today, but, but she was swimming upstream as a white writer from the south from Alabama, lower Alabama, southern Alabama when she when she wrote that. So, you know, I think that was a was a powerfully important thing. And then you had Eudora Welty in Mississippi who, when-when Medgar Evers was assassinated in 1963, right in the same 24-hour period that George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door and John Kennedy gave his marvelous speech about civil rights. Medgar Evers, who is the leading civil rights proponent in Black leader in Mississippi is shot and is in the back and his own driveway by Klansmen named Byron de la Beckwith. And Eudora Welty wrote a piece for The New Yorker, in which she tried to get in, into inside the mind of, of that white assassin. She did not call him, Byron de la Beckwith, but she was, you know, but she was, she was trying to, you know, imaginatively understand that toxic hate, that would produce such a person. And, you know, this was, this was 23 years after, you know, she, she, she both burst onto the scene as a short story writer with-with a marvelous story in 1940, called "A Warren Pass," where the where the heroin is an elderly African American woman, impoverished, trying to take care of her severely injured grandson. And, and the humanity of this Black woman puts the white characters to shame in this novel. And here is, here is a white writer in the heart of Mississippi, writing this in 1940. And that had been Eudora as Eudora Welty his legacy of empathy and understanding through throughout her time as a, as a writer continuing on into those (19)60s with that short story that appeared in the I am pretty sure it was the New Yorker. SM: 45:56 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 47:46 I am saying that from memory, but I think that is right. And, you know, and so, you know, that is, that is kind of amazing. And then, you know, you had and you had Joseph Heller's Catch-22 about the foolishness of war that was published right on the eve of, of our escalation into Vietnam. It was, it was set during World War Two, but-but-but it marked the stupidity of war in a way that was hilariously funny, but also, but also profound, you know, and so, so you had those kinds of, you know, of-of, not provocative novels that were, that were appearing, you know, in the (19)60s. And you also had, you know, powerful other powerful works of nonfiction. You know, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962. And Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, about gratuitous violence in 1965 or (19)66. Whenever that came out. Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize winning the Armies of the Night about the protests at the Pentagon. You know, you had Willie Morris's Harper's Magazine without with Writer's Life, David Halberstam and others, putting a human face on. The dramas of the of the of the era. You know, all that was, I think was just so important in deepening the country's sensibilities during-during that time. SM: 48:41 Mm-Hmm. SM: 50:10 Yeah, I just open the book. That section that you have on Rachel Carson is just so well written with some of the quotes. And if you do not mind, can I just read a quote you have from her in the book? FG: 50:23 Sure. SM: 50:24 -yeah, it is on page 89. And there is a short one on page. I think it is 91. But I think these words from Rachel Carson 1962 are very important. FG: 50:34 Mm-Hmm. SM: 50:34 These, these sprays, dust and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests, and homes. Non selective chemicals have the power to kill every insect, the good and the bad, to steal the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams to coat the leaves with a deadly film, and to linger in the soil. All this though, though, the intended target may be only a few weeds, or insects, future historians may well be amazed by our distorted sense of proportion. How could intelligent beings seek to control a few unwanted species by a method that contaminated the entire environment and brought the threat of disease and death even to their own kind. And then on the second page, here, I just have just a rubbery briefing, Carson- FG: 51:26 Mm-Hmm. SM: 51:27 -Carson was rushing to the finish the book, she knew she was dying, her body was ravaged by a rapidly with metastatic breast cancer, and who knew what poisons may have been the trigger toward her? And it is, it is like, she was such a great writer, but, you know, but that book came out in 1962, as well. And in rain, Kennedy read all her books. FG: 51:54 Right. SM: 51:55 All three of them. FG: 51:56 Yes-yes. It was sad that, that his copy of her earlier book, the sea around us, was next to Henry David Thoreau's book on Kennedy's bookshelf. So he was deeply impressed with Rachel Carson, and kind of in subtle, but important ways. You know, he took her very seriously. And I think he appointed a commission to study this kind of thing. And, and, you know, so she became, you know, for one thing she was, you know, silent spraying was kind of a polemic about, you know, the downside of the chemical, pesticide industry and all of that. But as you just read, it was such a beautiful writing as well, you know, she- SM: 52:48 Right. FG: 52:48 -had this sort of literary quality. And then, and then, you know, she pushed back and with-with support from Kennedy and some others, against the notion that, you know, gosh, you are only a girl, what do you know about science, you know- SM: 52:48 Mm-Hmm. FG: 53:02 -people who were literally saying that, and she just stood her ground and in-in this powerfully eloquent way. So in a way, she was kind of like a feminist figure, as well as an environmental hero early on, you know, who-whose writing kind of help triggered and environmental consciousness. So, you know, I mean, we have these amazing figures during that time that, and I am sure I left out, some- SM: 53:31 -you left that 1/4, one that sound the very same page. And that is Michael Harrington. FG: 53:35 Yes. SM: 53:35 And the he wrote the other America and- FG: 53:39 Right. SM: 53:39 -Kennedy- Kennedy read that book. And a lot of his policies were geared toward the poverty and the poor. But I just want it this is just a very brief quote. And I will not be quoting anymore, but this is a quote from Michael Harrington, in your book, "Here are unskilled workers, the migrant farmworkers, the aged the minorities, and all the others who live in the economic underworld of American life. If these people are not starving, they are hungry, and sometimes fat with hunger for that is what cheap foods do. They are without adequate housing and education and medical care. But even more basic, this poverty twist into forms of spirit, the American poor, pessimistic and defeated. And truly human reaction can only be outrage." And then he quotes here who did not wrote, "We must love one another or die." And that was Michael Harrington from the other American and I just remember when it came out that Kennedy was reading it. FG: 54:39 Yes-yes. He was apparently a voracious reader and, and in one of his very last cabinet member meetings that Kennedy attended, you know was part of before he was assassinated. There were there was the story about him sort of doodling on a yellow legal pad. and just writing the word poverty- poverty-poverty. SM: 55:03 Wow. FG: 55:05 And, you know, and so it fell to Lyndon Johnson to really try to get, you know, translate all of that into-into policy. But, you know, Kennedy was clearly, you know, changed in his understanding of that issue by-by Michael Harrington, who was, you know, who was a writer of great profundity and compassion? SM: 55:33 Could you talk a little bit also, as it is hard to say a little bit, because this is a lot of the musicians of that period of the importance of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan beyond the mere fact that they are saying music, they also wrote it. And they and writer- FG: 55:51 Right. SM: 55:51 -music became great hits for many of the rock groups of the (19)60s and (19)70s. But could you talk about the importance of Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Nina Simone and Sam Cooke, Elvis Presley, and- FG: 56:07 Yeah. SM: 56:09 -Mary and a whole group? FG: 56:10 Yep. Yeah. You know, it is music is, in the whole book that we are talking about music was a theme that I returned to, you know, from 1960 on up through 1969. I mean, I thought it-it very often captured, you know, what was what was what was going on, you know, the, the similar in 1960, just the similar musical sensibilities of Sam Cooke and Elvis Presley, one Black, one white, both from Mississippi. Elvis, being a huge fan of fan of, of Black music, and Sam Cooke actually being a fan of, you know, white music. I mean, love country music, you know, he was, he liked Hank Williams, he recorded great country song Tennessee Waltz, and did it in his own way. And so, that sense of, of music being our common ground that these two iconic performers had, you know, that was, that was important. I mean, they Sam Cooke later became, you know, more-more direct and his social commentary with the song like a change is going to come, which he wrote, and it came out in 1964, I think. But then Elvis, you know, in 1968 or (196)9 whenever it was, you know, did that really powerful song in the ghetto- SM: 57:49 Mm-Hmm. FG: 57:49 -which was actually written by a country singer named Matt Davis. But-but-but-but it was, you know, it was a powerful attempt at empathy by-by this white musical icon, so, you know, there, there is that, but then there is a sort of direct witness of, you know, Pete Seeger. And, you know, and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Odetta and Nina Simone, you know, singing about injustice and injustice, so, you know, the possibilities of justice and, and the, and the reality of injustice. You know, Peter, Paul and Mary, you know, during the, the Selma to Montgomery march she had Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary and interestingly Tony Bennett, coming to perform on the last night of the march to kind of the-the weary spirits of the marchers, you know, you know, in 1965, the birds recorded a rock-rock group cut folk rock group recorded Seeger’s [Pete Seeger] song Turn! Turn! Turn! which was mostly the just a quote or slight paraphrase of the book of Ecclesiastes To Everything There is a Season. Seeger, who always had this sort of dry, self-deprecating sense of humor said, but yes, I did add six words. SM: 59:33 [chuckles] Yep, yeah. FG: 59:35 And, and the six words were, I swear it is not too late. SM: 59:41 [chuckles] Yep. FG: 59:41 And that comes right after his right after the part of Ecclesiastes, where they talked about how it was a time for peace, you know, and so, the Ecclesiastes is-is this wonderful literary meditation. But as I say in the book, you know, Seeger added six words that made it more intentional and indirect, and-and then the birds beautiful rendition of it, you know, made it something that people thought about, you know, it was, you know, so again, all of that is, is so important. And then you have, you know, somebody like Johnny Cash, who, in 1964, has a top five country hit with, with the Ballad of Ira Hayes, which is about wretched conditions on Indian reservations. You know, that-that was, you know, so it was not just, you know, the folk musicians who were, you know, thought to be left leaning, but you know, who have Johnny Cash from the heart of the Country Music mainstream- SM: 1:00:59 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:00:59 -this powerful ballad of empathy. And then, you know, in 1969 cash has his own television show where he deliberately brings musicians from whoever identified with opposite parts of the political spectrum together on his show. So you- SM: 1:01:17 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:01:17 -have Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard, you know- SM: 1:01:21 Right. FG: 1:01:22 -Arlo Guthrie, you know, Judy Collins, people like that on-on this country music show. And then, you know, in 1969, at Woodstock, you know, the last song, played at Woodstock was the Star-Spangled Banner. But it was played by Jimi Hendrix- SM: 1:01:43 Yep. FG: 1:01:43 -on electric guitar. And, you know, there is something powerful about-about that, I mean, a very iconic rendition. But-but-but there it was, you know, right. So anyway, yeah, music is an amazing force, and that whole decade, so creative, and so heartfelt, and so intelligent. SM: 1:02:07 Yeah, very well said. I want to get into the area where Dr. King, we talked a little bit about him. We talked earlier about the time you saw him being arrested, and then he wrote the historic letter from Birmingham jail. FG: 1:02:23 Right. SM: 1:02:23 You said something very important in in that little section there you stated that he could. He was very good at kennel. And what is the word I want to use defining the debate, but he- FG: 1:02:41 Yes. SM: 1:02:41 -lacks strategy. And he had people behind him that worked with him like Andrew Young and James Bevel and Dorothy cotton. I met all these- FG: 1:02:50 Right. SM: 1:02:50 -people at my university. FG: 1:02:53 Yes, yeah. SM: 1:02:53 But-but-but he had these people that came up with a strategy. Could you talk about this is not Birmingham now with the protests after the killings of the four young girls at the church, the protest Bull Connor and everything and he wants a James Bevel came up with the idea of children. Let us bring the children out and protest and Dr. Golding hesitated. FG: 1:03:17 Right. SM: 1:03:18 -your thoughts on that. Yeah. FG: 1:03:19 Well, you know, if bevel in and others thought, you know, we are, we are running out of adults to-to who are willing to risk or who can even afford to be arrested and go to jail. So, so let us bring the children let us bring college students, let us bring high school students, you know, sometimes maybe even younger people than that, and let them be arrested and see what that if that does not grab the conscience of America. And it did. But you know, King's, you know, paralyzing hesitation was, yeah, but do we have the right to, to put children at risk, you know, and-and, you know, and then and then later, as you alluded to, for children were killed because they attended the church that had been the staging ground for-for-for this movement, you know, when that church was-was bombed, and, you know, so King felt all of that deeply and sometimes, you know, his-his-his gift was not so much decision making as it was, you know, framing the moral issue, not that he was not personally brave, he absolutely was and he you know, he, he sometimes took great personal risks and all that but-but he was surrounded by these strategists, and I think it is a good thing you know, Andrew Young and you know, bevel and some of those others. But-but kings great gift was putting these issues is in a way that you just even if you wanted to disagree with him, and you still could, but you could not dismiss him. And, you know, that was just his, you know, I mean, he used time honored principles as the anchor for this really quite radical change that he was calling for. SM: 1:04:55 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:05:21 He talked about, you know, our founding documents in America that we are all created equal, and the whole Judeo-Christian idea that we are all children of God. And if that is the case, then we are brothers and sisters of each other. And he evoked and invoked those things. to great effect is, you know, his-his whole, his whole, tragically short life. SM: 1:05:49 The Birmingham bombing of the church where the four girls are killed. He gave the eulogy. FG: 1:05:56 Right. SM: 1:05:57 And the basic premise of his eulogy was to forgive not to have the bitterness. FG: 1:06:04 Right. SM: 1:06:05 And then you, as a young reporter, interviewed one of the parents of the for one of the four kids that was- FG: 1:06:14 Right. SM: 1:06:15 -killed. Could you talk about that interview? FG: 1:06:17 Yeah, the-the person that I was honored to interview and it remains, maybe the most singular experience of my whole life as a writer, was getting to talk to Claude Wesley, whose daughter, Cynthia Wesley was one of the young girls who was killed in the church bombing. And it was a few years later, but what I always had wondered about was, if you were, if you were Mr. Wesley, and a few days earlier, your-your beloved daughter has been killed. And Martin Luther King comes to town and says, forgive, and do not be bitter. How does that land with you? You know, and-and so finally, in the interview after talking, you know, more historically and abstractly, I just went ahead and asked Mr. Westley that question, and-and I will never forget, I mean, I think I can quote it all these years later, almost exactly. But he said, you know, I said, "How does it feel to be called forgiveness when bitterness and rage would be a more natural instinct," and he said, "Oh, we were never bitter." He said, "We tried to treat Cynthia's death, in the same way we treated her life in bitterness had no place in that." And then he said, "There was something else we never did. We never said, Why us? Because that would be the same thing as saying, why not somebody else?" And he said, "A Christian cannot ask that question." SM: 1:08:03 Hmm. FG: 1:08:04 And, and it was just the most profound affirmation of the moral grounding of the Civil Rights Movement. I thought that I had ever heard. I mean, it was, I mean, yes, Martin Luther King put it beautifully, powerfully in into abstract concepts. But, but here was Mr. Wesley who just embodied it in his very, life, you know, I mean, it was humbling to, to see this, you know, this short, wiry, wispy, 70-year-old at that point, little man who had been a marvelous high school principal in Birmingham, but always done his part. But there he was just in just-just give just, you know, it is like that biblical idea of the word becoming flesh. I mean, Mr. Wesley just embodied all of this stuff in such a powerful, profound way that, you know, I just, I just sat kind of in quiet off for a few minutes. SM: 1:09:19 Wow. That is one heck of a story. And what became of him? FG: 1:09:28 You know, I do not know, he, I never talked to him again. I think by then he had retired as a principal and, you know, he got older and finally died. But, you know, he was just such an impressive person. And, you know, there were others too. I do not mean to say, you know, I mean, obviously, other parents who dealt with that same tragedy and horror and, you know, and others who were deeply influenced Little Angela Davis who later became the radical voice of Black power. You know, she was from Birmingham and some of those girls who were killed were her friends. And so it was this radicalizing moment for her different people did different things with-with that. But that is what Mr. Westley did. And, you know, it was there was something. SM: 1:10:25 In your chapter on Freedom Summer, a very historic event in 1964. In the summer, he talked about another book. And I know this book very well. Charles Silverman's Crisis in Black and White. Let me mention to you that I went to-I was a history major here at Binghamton University. I took a sociology course in 1967 68 with Dr. Liebman. He did not he did not last too long here. He was, uh, he got too involved in activism, I think but, but what happened is, that book was required reading. FG: 1:10:32 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:11:00 Yes. Yes. There was a line in there that I will never forget that Dr. King said it has stuck with me my entire life. And this came from Silverman it was the two sentences something like the fact that Dr. King said "I never feared the bigot." The people I [crosstalk] people- FG: 1:11:20 Oh, okay. SM: 1:11:21 -were the people that were the fence sitters. FG: 1:11:24 Yes-yes. Yes. SM: 1:11:26 And that has stayed with me my entire life because that is truth. FG: 1:11:32 Yeah. SM: 1:11:33 -there was truth. FG: 1:11:35 Yes-yes. Silberman's book, I thought was just a wonderful primer for some of us who were, you know, just beginning to seek a deeper understanding of that issue. And, you know, and that is what Silberman had done, you know, he was not Black, he was Jewish, but he, but he wanted to understand and so he just dove into it as a as a really gifted journalist, historian, writer. And, and, and, you know, there is a lot of wisdom in the book, but just that very deep attempt at empathy and understanding thought was one of the great legacies of that book as well. SM: 1:12:19 Yeah, I have a quote, I will do this. It is a brief quote you have in your book again, and it is from Dr. Sherman's introduction, and I am glad you put it in the book. "For 100 years, white Americans had clung tenaciously to the illusion that time alone would solve the problem of race. It has not. And it never will. For time, as Reverend Martin Luther King points out is neither good nor bad, it is neutral. What matters is how time is used. Time has been used badly in the United States so badly, that not much of it remains before race, hatred completely poisons the air we breathe, what we are discovering in the United States, all of it north as well as South West as well as East is a racist society in a sense, and to a degree that we have refused so far to admit, much let us face." And then I have one very soft quote here. From him, if I can read this, More than anything, I was struck by this as you were struck by the fact that he was fearless. Rather than cringing at the philosophy of Malcolm X. Silberman set out to understand its appeal, this emerging alternative in the minds of many Blacks to nonviolent message of Dr. King. And that gets sent to the fact that he was quoting a lot of Malcolm X here in this book as well. FG: 1:13:40 Right. Right. Yes. Yes. And, you know, and Malcolm X was, you know, was such an important figure also, you know, I mean, he was, you know, he was not an advocate of violence, he was an advocate of self-defense. SM: 1:13:58 Yep. FG: 1:13:59 But as, as, gosh, now, I am blanking, but when the great African American actor who spoke at Malcolm X his funeral. SM: 1:14:09 Ossie Davis. FG: 1:14:11 Yes, right. When did Yes, sorry. When-when did he, meaning Malcolm ever do a violent thing? SM: 1:14:19 True. FG: 1:14:19 Well, he, he, you know, he was very disciplined. And, you know, and his philosophy was very dynamic and was continuing to evolve. And, you know, one of the one of the best understandings of Malcolm X to me was, was, you know, Alex Haley, who co-authored the, you know, with-with Malcolm The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Alex Haley was from the south. He was from Tennessee, and he had slightly different sensibilities, but he came to love Malcolm X and respect him and in the afterword to- in the autobiography of Malcolm X, you know, Hailey just gives such an-an empathetic understanding of the humanity of Malcolm X. And I also write in there about what I think was Malcolm X is only real trip to the South, where he came to Selma, just before the Selma to Montgomery march and spoke in favor of- SM: 1:15:26 Yes. FG: 1:15:26 Dr. King's efforts- SM: 1:15:27 Yes. FG: 1:15:28 in Selma. SM: 1:15:28 Yep. FG: 1:15:29 And so although they were often pitted as, you know, intellectual adversaries, and, you know, people who propose different paths for Black America, and to some extent, may have even seen themselves that way. There is that indication that they also at heart viewed each other as allies. SM: 1:15:52 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:15:52 And, you know, in the broadest sense, and one of the ironies of history is that when Malcolm was assassinated in 1965, he was 39 years old, when Martin Luther King was assassinated three years later, he was 39 years old. So these were two very young men who were on the public stage for a relatively short amount of time. But because of their strengths of character that they brought to it, even with different and evolving philosophies, you know, they just had such a powerful impact in providing momentum to the movement for Black freedom and liberation and racial equality in America in the (19)60s. 1:16:46 There, well said, Dr. King, of course, won the Nobel Peace Prize. And- FG: 1:16:52 Right. SM: 1:16:53 -you talk about that in your book, I mean, your book is so you, you hit everything about, and anybody who grew up in this period, like I did, you know, it makes us think even more about those times. When you have a, I just want to quote this, and I want your thoughts on this very last thing, and its speech, and a union talking about comparing science and technology and all the accomplishments we have made as a people in this area. "Yet, in spite of the spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited wants to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit, which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance, the richer we have become material, materially, the poor, we have become morally and spiritually, we have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. FG: 1:17:52 Yes. SM: 1:17:52 And that is speech. FG: 1:17:55 Yeah. I mean, you know, what a way with words, but also what do I do with the ideas? You know, I mean, it, you know, he could speak with such towering eloquence, but there is substance there, you know, it is not just poetic fluff. And, you know, and he, and he was a prophetic voice. I mean, he was edgy, you know, we can sanitize him all these years later, and kind of sweeten up his message. And when we look at the “I Have a Dream” speech, only look at the Olive Branch, you know- SM: 1:18:02 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:18:33 -the dream of the day will, you know, racial harmony, but not look at the demand for justice without which that harmony cannot exist, which was present in that speech, too. And, you know, King, the longer his life went on, the more the more edgy, his demands for justice became, and, you know, some-some people who had been his supporters began to criticize him after his speech against the Vietnam War at Riverside Church in 1967. You know, even liberal newspapers like the New York Times, and The Washington Post, basically wrote editorials saying who this King think he is, you know, he should stick to, to what he knows. You know, the Detroit Free Press was one of the only papers under a great editor named Mark Etheridge, who, who understood what King was trying to do in the Vietnam speech and supported him. And it is also interesting that he was King was introduced at Riverside Church by Rabbi Abraham Heschel- SM: 1:19:18 Mm-Hmm. Yes. FG: 1:19:43 -who had marched with him and Selma and they became, you know, powerful spiritual allies. You know, this Jewish theologian who was a seventh-generation rabbi and this, you know, American Baptist from the From the southern part of the United States who felt this great affinity for each other, and again, it just speaks to the fundamental grounding and seriousness of purpose that that King had, but that others had too and then King had turned his attention to economic inequality. And that was where he was when he was killed. And, you know, and we are no better off on that front. I mean, income inequalities is bad now, maybe worse than it was then. So, you know, could King have made a difference on that front? I do not know. But he certainly intended to try and was willing to risk the claim that had come his way for more and more profound changes that he thought were necessary to make America what it should be. SM: 1:20:54 That is why I think having Byard Rustin by his side was really important because Byard Rustin was always trying to tell us about the king. And Dr. King believed this too, that it is not just race, it is about class. FG: 1:21:05 Yes. Yes. SM: 1:21:06 And-and Ruston was an that when Dr. King went north, he some of the critics in the South are saying, why are you heading to Chicago, weighing the weighing on North, because there is racism there as well. But there is also- FG: 1:21:20 Yeah. SM: 1:21:20 -a class issue, what was the, you know, where he was killed, was a strike over wages- FG: 1:21:27 Absolutely. for sanitation, [inaudible] yeah, absolutely. SM: 1:21:36 -for many years, and he was a great organizer to the-the teachings were very important. And this is another positive thing for Vanderbilt University. Because you talk in the book about the teachings that were taking place at Michigan, and then of course, the big one at Berkeley. But it also happened that your school, could you talk about the importance of the teachings, and they were a threat to Lyndon Johnson, he did not like him. Yeah, sanitation workers, so it was about class. So Byard Rustin was a very important person to be by his side. FG: 1:22:03 Right? Yeah, the antiwar teachings that began, where, you know, you had professors and students who, who were opposed to the Vietnam War, and the deepening American involvement, and who saw what it was doing, certainly to Vietnam, where, you know, where so many people were getting killed, including civilians, and were American troops who were sent there, many of them brave, determined, you know, admirable young men, and they were all men at that point. But they sometimes did not even know who the enemy was because of the broad opposition to us, among the Vietnamese population. And so the troops were in a terrible position as well. And so some of these professors, we had one or two at Vanderbilt, but also, you know, students set all of these places thought at first, well, if we can just use information about what is happening, what is really happening. We can change people's minds, you know. SM: 1:23:11 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:23:13 They have faith in the, in the basic goodwill of policymakers and Americans in general. And Lyndon Johnson, you know, who had been so played such a heroic role in terms of civil rights and, and in his very dramatic attempts to address the issue of poverty. But boy, he hated people who opposed him on Vietnam. And so he hated the [inaudible]. And you know, there was a lot of red baiting of stood in not [inaudible] is what I meant to say, hated that. And, and there was a lot of red baiting of the motives of people who were involved in all of that. So, you know, I treat the Vietnam War in the book as a great American tragedy. I try not to demonize the young man who was sent to Centrify and I tried to interview some about their experiences and the trauma that they experienced, sometimes physical, PTSD, sometimes moral horror at what was happening around them. And so in some, you know, who were proud of what they had done, but, you know, and to also recognize that, that, you know, the horrors were, you know, not all just committed by Americans. I mean, the torture of John McCain was-was an example of that, and, you know, in his bravery is beyond dispute. But he also was, you know, on the impersonal mission of dropping bombs in you know, on the outskirts of, of Hanoi, and-and, you know, and so when he was captured, they hated him, you know. And so all of that, to me is part of the great tragedy you know of Vietnam tragic for the Vietnamese tragic for its divisive impacts on America tragic for the loss and suffering that American soldiers and their families experienced. Tragic for the moral standing of America, in the world. SM: 1:25:34 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:25:34 And finally, is how he men predicted we did just get tired of it and stop, you know- SM: 1:25:41 Yep-yep. FG: 1:25:41 -without achieving what we had set out to do and yet no direct harm came to us from Peace. Only from the war- SM: 1:25:51 -as the helicopters went off the Embassy in Saigon on that April day- FG: 1:25:56 Right. SM: 1:25:56 -what and then- FG: 1:25:57 Right. SM: 1:25:57 -a gross going then you see on the aircraft carriers, I am throwing the helicopters into the ocean. It was what a sad day. So several days, in fact. I You mentioned also in the book that there was a religious organization that came together when people would read bait or accuse people of being communists. They used to do this for a lot of the civil rights workers or any of the protesters and certainly a lot of the anti-war people. And I remember it was Father Barragan, Daniel Barragan, and Rabbi Heschel that were two of the leaders who- FG: 1:26:31 Yep-yep. Right. SM: 1:26:31 -responded to somebody who had made those kinds of charges. And they said, That is ridiculous. They are patriots. They are not communists. FG: 1:26:40 Right-right. Yep. Yep. Those were, you know, that is another theme that threads its way through the book is the is the power and the significance of faith and, and the ethical grounding. That faith provided some people from Dr. King to Rabbi Heschel to Father Barragan. You know, and a lot of others, and then there were other manifestations of it, too. I mean, Billy Graham was a was a very interesting figure during that time, who, you know, had more or less decent instincts on-on the issue of race, and yet he was a committed cold warrior, but also kind of timid about taking any kind of social stand. And then you had emerging late in the decade, the Christian right, led by Jerry Falwell. So, you know, that is another thread that you- SM: 1:27:43 Yep. FG: 1:27:43 -tug on during that during that decade. And it is, it is very empowering. It is very important. And I tried to catch a sense of its importance as best I could. SM: 1:27:56 In the 1964 elections, we all know, I will be Jade, the Goldwater in a landslide. I think Goldwater won six states, but a Goldwater changed the Republican Party forever. And Change Politics forever. Of course, that is when Ronald Reagan came when he gave that speech in favor of Goldwater and he came on the national scene as well. But then on the other side of the Democratic Convention, Johnson had more problems than we thought, because of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. And what was going on there. I mean, so (19)64 may have been a, a landslide for the Democrats, but in reality, a lot of history was happening. FG: 1:28:36 Yeah, that is right. And, and I think that it was an elusive landslide. You know, it was the, the sort of Lyndon Johnson consensus was starting to crack apart in (19)64. And the conservative forces and America conservative movement was-was taking shape and, and the spokesman for it, you know, the figure who embodied it, you know, first it was Goldwater, but then it became Ronald Reagan- SM: 1:29:18 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:29:18 -who was a politician we learned, some of us to our chagrin, have enormous talent, who really put an appealing face on the-the, on the conservative movement in this country. And, you know, and so it became a powerful force in the same decade, where, you know, a lot of historians including me, were inclined to write more about the liberal movements in the decade but you know, there was this-this-this powerful emergence of the American right, that began to take shape. During that time as well. SM: 1:30:01 Mm-Hmm. the and of course we in Buckley live formation of National Review. FG: 1:30:09 Right. SM: 1:30:09 And of course, the young Americans for freedom. I have had a couple interviews where people are upset that we never talked about the Young Americans for freedom and the conservative movement that was also against the war. FG: 1:30:21 Right. SM: 1:30:22 So-so that is. FG: 1:30:24 Right. SM: 1:30:24 Something for another day, but there is certainly no question that Buckley was a major figure in the (19)60s. FG: 1:30:28 Major figure. SM: 1:30:31 Yep. [crosstalk] go ahead. FG: 1:30:34 He came to Vanderbilt Buckley came to Vanderbilt in 1968. And debated Julian Bond. SM: 1:30:40 Yeah, what was the main thrust of that debate? FG: 1:30:43 It was, you know, we were talking about the role of dissent in American society. And the interesting thing is, I do not, it was so overshadowed by what had happened the day before they spoke in that debate the day after Dr. King was killed in Memphis. SM: 1:31:01 Oh, wow! FG: 1:31:02 And so there was a very somber mood at the, you know, there were 5000 people listening to them. SM: 1:31:11 Wow. FG: 1:31:11 And, you know, Buckley was more subdued in his sarcasm, then he, you know, that was his kind of debating trademark. And- SM: 1:31:19 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:31:20 -you know, it was funny, a little human aside, Julian Bond was terrified or die do debating Buckley. When I was getting bond to come, he said, Buckley will chew me up, "I am not coming to bite him." And I sort of jokingly said, "You have got truth on your side, Mr. Bond." And so anyway, he came in, I really liked Julian Bond, he was a funny, smart as a whip. You know, deeply committed guy. And William Buckley was, you know, just incredible intellect himself. So it was kind of the philosophical. They were sort of philosophical embodiment. So these two electrical currents running side by side and in American life, so it was a real privilege to get to see them together. SM: 1:32:20 Yeah. You mentioned about he made a comment that if we were going backwards in the area of race, he would like to own somebody. Well, I think that was. FG: 1:32:27 Oh, yeah. Julian-Julian. They were having a this is an anecdote. [crosstalk] I was told Ray Charles, she says that all the snick activists were sort of saying, you know, the white people are so racist, that they probably want to bring back slavery and bond in this right [inaudible] said, "Well, if it slavery does come back, I think I would like to own Ray Charles." I mean, it is just hilariously funny. It is I do not know what it means. I mean, he was, you know, I mean, he was just, he was just that irreverent and right, human. SM: 1:33:04 I brought him to West Chester University. And we are Martin Luther King speaker one year, and I picked him up to the Philadelphia airport. And I always got, well, I had already gone down. I- he invited me to his class, I spoke about oral history interviewing to his class at American University. I interviewed- FG: 1:33:22 Cool. SM: 1:33:22 him for the-the-the-the Center for the Study of the (19)60s A long time ago. So that interviews on site, but what happened- FG: 1:33:31 Right. SM: 1:33:31 -is this. We are getting off. We are walking out of the airport, and someone says, "Hi, Mr. Lewis," and he it without a strike. He kept going. He said, "You are right. I am John Lewis." And he just kept going. Like he was, you do not even know me between him. And that was the first thing, then riding- FG: 1:33:50 Yeah. SM: 1:33:50 -back to the, to the university. And I noticed he was smoking. Well, he was not a smoker. He had not been but occasionally he did. FG: 1:33:59 Uhm-huh. SM: 1:34:00 And we got to the back of the university, we always want in the back way, because of the fact that goes right up to the elevator. And so we were going in the back way. And he said, "You know, Steve, I spent my entire career trying to go in the front door, and here we are going in the back door." And then I got in the elevator and he said, "I need your opinion on this. Do you think my wife will know if I smoked? Because the smoke beyond my raincoat because, you know, she does not want me to smoke." He-he was unbelievable. And then when we took him to Washington when it took some more students to Washington to meet him. But one of our African American students said I am never going to vote in the election. So let us not talk about that issue. And they will somehow, he brought it up. FG: 1:34:45 Uh-huh. SM: 1:34:47 And "You are of course you will all believe in voting, no" to and she said "No." Would you know for the next 30 minutes the conversation was between him and her. FG: 1:34:56 Well, interesting, well. SM: 1:34:58 About importance I wish I had taped. It was about voting. And so anyways. FG: 1:35:03 Yeah. SM: 1:35:03 So he had a sense of humor. He was a great person when he died. I was very sad. Very-very sad. Yeah. Yeah [inaudible] [crosstalk] I want you to comment on of course, Mario Savio and Cesar Chavez. Okay. He is very important. And because he was part of Freedom Summer, and he was only 21 years old. And could you talk a little bit about what you said in the book about him? FG: 1:35:27 Yes, Mario Savio was a fascinating figure to me, because he was, you know, more or less a contemporary he was few years older than then I was, but not much. And, you know, he went to Freedom Summer as a volunteer in 1964. And was powerfully moved by the sense of community among African American people in Mississippi. And he had, Savio had been raised Catholic. And though he had become much more secular, in his view of the world, still, he, those some of those Catholic patterns of thought, remained, even if the content had changed. And he wrote that, that while he was in Mississippi, he felt like he was being held in the bosom of the Lord, as he said, I mean, there was something almost sacred to him about the sense of community and the struggle for equality that he encountered in the Mississippi, in Mississippi when he when he went there. And so he came back to Berkeley with that powerful sense of having been moved by the bravery of these of these African American people who lived with so much oppression, and were fighting back against it was such extraordinary courage, and then discovered that he was not allowed to talk about that, or pass out flyers about it on the University of California Berkeley campus because of limitations and freedom of speech. And so that was part of what helped trigger the free speech movement and, and some of Savio speeches, some of them impromptu that he gave as a as a spokesperson for that movement. And he-he never thought of himself as the leader of it. It was more diffuse and democratic than that, but he became the spokesperson because of his power with words. And, you know, it was almost in Martin Luther King territory. I mean, he was just amazing in the way, you know, he tried to frame all of that, and you know, Joan Baez, came in and sang and supported that movement. And, you know, Savio was viewed as an extreme radical by the Berkeley administration. But, but a lot of what he said, you know, holds up all these all these decades later. So, you know, he died relatively young. And, you know, and I was sad about that, I never met him, but, but I did follow him. And, and, and thought he was a pretty remarkable figure, you know, he studied with equal enthusiasm, both physics and philosophy, you know, I mean, it just spoke to the, to the depth and breadth of his intellectual interest to go along with his activism. And then Cesar Chavez, you know, and all this is the, you know, the sort of the, the California, the West Coast, contributions to the (19)60s, we have spoken about the emergence of Reagan and California. SM: 1:38:21 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:38:43 But you had Berkeley free speech, and then you had the farmworkers strikes, and, you know, say as our Chavez giving voice to the same kind of non-violence that Martin Luther King did and leading, leading essentially a labor strike on behalf of better wages and safer conditions, and making common cause sometimes with the emerging environmental movement, because of the use of pesticides and so forth in the in the fields. And so very powerful witness by-by this Mexican American man who found a powerful ally and Robert Kennedy who, who spoke up for the for the farmworkers. So, you know, if a lot of the (19)60s flowed out from the south and then from the, you know, universities in the Midwest during Vietnam, you know, here was, here was the West Coast- SM: 1:39:32 Mm-Hmm. Right. FG: 1:39:48 -know, another powerful tributary in this great river of events in the (19)60s. 1:39:52 He believed in nonviolent protests, just like Dr. King, and he was also not afraid to go to jail, and there is a scene. FG: 1:40:00 Right. SM: 1:40:00 You in Your book where you talk with his wife went on a protest. And they were told not to say a certain word. And he said, I" want all of you to yell at this highest as everybody can hear it, "and- FG: 1:40:11 Yes. SM: 1:40:11 -believe that they would be arrested. That that is kind of like the philosophy of Dr. King. If you if you are afraid to go to jail, but you should not go to the protest, if- FG: 1:40:20 Right. Right. SM: 1:40:21 -you know what it is, there comes a price for everyone eventually. And- FG: 1:40:26 Yes. SM: 1:40:26 -certainly, Cesar Chavez was in the same light as Dr. King. FG: 1:40:31 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I never met him either. But I wish I had, because he was a, he was a major figure during that decade. And we have not even really talked about the women's movement. SM: 1:40:45 No- FG: 1:40:47 That also gained so much momentum during that time. So it was- SM: 1:40:51 -Lesbian movement as well. And I kind of- FG: 1:40:54 Yeah. SM: 1:40:54 -just general questions here, and then we will end, I was wondering if I could interview again, sometime later in the year, to maybe do more of the second half of your book. I have read everything, but I wanted to get this first half really covered. And I have some general questions here. Of all the stories in your book, you may have already said this, but could you pick out two the standout in your view, all the things you described? FG: 1:41:24 Oh, my goodness. You know, it is, that is really, that is really hard. Or for me to do in a way, I mean, in a generic sense, they, you know, the assassinations of the (19)60s were so heartbreaking. And so history changing, you know, that I would have to talk about the assassinations of both Kennedys and Dr. King, not to mention Malcolm X or Medgar Evers or those others, but so that would be one thing. But on a personal level, you know, the two most important things to me that I sort of dropped into the book, were seeing the rest of Dr. King and Birmingham and, and meeting Robert Kennedy, when he came to Vanderbilt and- SM: 1:42:19 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:42:19 -confirming to my own satisfaction that he meant everything he was saying, you know, on the- SM: 1:42:24 Yep. FG: 1:42:25 -campaign trail, I just had that feeling. So those were the two most important things personally. But you know, but-but the assassinations, the, you know, some of the brave affirmations that, you know, King and the Kennedys made, you know, those were, those were powerful, too. So I know, I am not narrowing down as much as you [crosstalk] SM: 1:42:52 Mm-Hmm. That is very good though. FG: 1:42:56 Right. Yeah. SM: 1:42:56 All the assassinations. By golly, it is, you know, my next question is when you look at America of the (19)60s, the period (19)60s, (19)75, period, what are the issues that are still with us today that have not been corrected? FG: 1:43:14 You know, I think almost all of them. You know, I think race is still an issue in America today. You know, the backlash against President Obama proved that we had not driven a stake through the heart of racism in America, and then the, the ability of President Trump to appeal to the worst in people with, you know, whether it was, you know, defining Muslims or immigrants as the other, or, you know, or later, more directly, you know, demonizing the Black Lives Matter movement, whatever, whatever it might be. I mean, those kinds of racial divisions are still with us. So that is one thing. Income inequality is as severe and destabilizing in America as has ever been. You know, the women's movement, you know, the reversal of Roe v. Wade, a lot of women see as, as an attempt to push back on the ability of women to control their own lives, and they think that is, but it is actually the unspoken motivation of it. So there is that. And then, of course, the environmental movement, which was taking shape near the end of the decade. You know, now we were living on the edge of climate catastrophe. SM: 1:44:46 Right. FG: 1:44:46 So, you know, those things at the at the, at the very least. And then there were labor struggles during the (19)60s and the- SM: 1:44:55 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:44:55 -labor movement is, you know, there is little glimmers that it might be experiencing some revival after- SM: 1:45:04 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:45:04 -going pretty, pretty dormant for a while, although we do not know. But anyway, I think, you know, I think most of the things that we were talking about in one way or another police brutality, which triggered the hot summers of the late (19)60s- SM: 1:45:21 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:45:22 -and in almost every case, the riots were triggered by moments or allegations of police brutality, you know, we see again with George Floyd. So, so, so there it all is, you know, plus, plus the philosophical debate between the conservative movement and the- SM: 1:45:42 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:45:42 -progressive or liberal movement, I mean, all of it, all of it is, is still with us. The (19)60s, raised hopes and caused divisions and gave us people who wanted to heal, but also gave us people who wanted to exploit divisions, and we see a lot of that today. SM: 1:46:06 History is-is something we should all learn from. So the lessons learned are never lost. What are the- FG: 1:46:14 Right. SM: 1:46:14 -what are the lessons we have learned from that period that we were, we have been discussing today? And what are the lessons lost, if any, in your view? FG: 1:46:25 Well, you know, I think that, that one lesson is that we can ensure broaden the meaning of American democracy, that we should make a place for more and more people in it to live full and valued lives, whether they are people of color, whether they are women, whether they are, they are people who are gay, or transgender, or, or whatever. That that that is the fundamental. That is, that is the fundamental American story, if we want it to be, I mean, Thomas Jefferson raised that possibility that was sort of a guiding star for the country, potentially, when he said, We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. And, you know, it has been a long journey in the direction of that and to expand it from men to women, as well. And- SM: 1:47:25 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:47:25 -you know, and so that is part of the American story, and in my view, needs to be the American story. But the opposite, the pushback against that hope, is also there, and the guy who wrote those words on slaves. And so, you know, that is the other sort of schizophrenic part of the American character. And that is still with us to the dark side. SM: 1:47:50 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:47:51 So-so, you know, so that is the, that is the, that is the warning of the (19)60s that our lesser angels are still alive and well. SM: 1:48:02 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:48:03 And, and so here we are, you know, SM: 1:48:07 I think one key word or two key words regarding this period is that truth matters- FG: 1:48:16 Right, yes. SM: 1:48:17 -matters. And when you look at a lot of the people that all these protests for all these causes, and all of the unjust strife- FG: 1:48:25 Right. SM: 1:48:25 -and inequalities and being treated poorly, all these things, the people that were doing, it knew that truth matters. FG: 1:48:34 Yes. Yes. SM: 1:48:36 That is a very important two words. Just three more questions on done for today. FG: 1:48:42 Okay. SM: 1:48:42 Jean Scruggs, the founder of the Vietnam Memorial, wrote a book called To Heal a Nation. FG: 1:48:47 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:48:48 And certainly the wall was built in 1982. The veterans came together for the first time really, where they felt like they were, you know, cared- FG: 1:48:58 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:48:58 -and cared about. So- FG: 1:48:59 Right. SM: 1:49:00 -but how can we heal as a nation from this war? FG: 1:49:05 From the Vietnam War? SM: 1:49:06 Yes. FG: 1:49:08 You know, we have not yet I do not think we need to, you know, I thought that, that we would, I thought when Jimmy Carter, in his first act as president granted amnesty to people who had left for Canada and said, "Come back home." I thought that was powerful. And then when the Vietnam Memorial happened and-and-and officially said to American soldiers who had fought during that era, we honor your courage and sacrifice. I thought that should have been those two things. Oddly, were kind of the book ends of what should have been healing from the war. At least from the American perspective, and, you know, but then, but then we did not, we did not learn anything from it on the po- on the policy level. And so, you know, along come, you know, you know, the-the, the first Gulf War in the 1990s. And then- SM: 1:49:33 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:50:25 -you know, and then George W Bush's- SM: 1:50:27 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:50:28 -foreign policy that destabilize the Middle East and proved once again, the limits of American military power. And so and so those, you know, and then and then the, the attempt to appropriate the meaning of the Vietnam War, and in, you know, and only try to retroactively view it as some kind of heroic chapter in American diplomacy or American history, you know, in taking nothing from the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers. But, you know, it was not a triumph. In-in any way. It was. It was a, it was a tragedy. And we have- we are not very good in this country, at-at an honest look at our own tragic mistakes. SM: 1:51:17 Mm-Hmm. Yeah, I know that a lot of the soldiers that came back from the Vietnam War, appreciate being, at least for a while, being told welcome home because they were not during that- FG: 1:51:30 Yes. SM: 1:51:30 -period from (19)75 to (19)82. No question about, but the thing. FG: 1:51:36 And-and they should be, they should be welcomed. I mean, that is, you know, that is part of the part of the healing. But anyway, go ahead with [crosstalk] Right. SM: 1:51:43 -are tired of having people tell them Welcome home, because they know they do not mean it. It is just a slogan to them. But then I have- 1:51:43 -My I go the wall every year for the last two years from Memorial, our last 20. Some years. I am a [inaudible] they have veterans, they I talked to veterans, and a lot- FG: 1:51:59 Right. SM: 1:51:59 -had a couple of them, tell me now that have reflected on it over a long period of time, that why would we be welcomed home? I mean, we lost the war. We came home. FG: 1:52:12 Yeah. SM: 1:52:12 That was an unpopular war. So why did we were not going to have parades like World War Two? Korea did not have any parades either. But- FG: 1:52:21 Right. SM: 1:52:22 -so why, why do you expect us to be welcomed home when it was such a catastrophe in the first place? So a lot of the veterans are thinking deeper now about this whole welcome home business too. So. FG: 1:52:35 Right. SM: 1:52:36 And of course, the main thing is they are all getting old. And-and they are- FG: 1:52:40 Right. SM: 1:52:40 now realizing like World War Two veterans that they are only going to be here so long. So they are, so what is happening in during this period needs to be told and needs to be recorded down for history. FG: 1:52:53 Right. SM: 1:52:53 There is a lot of going on there. FG: 1:52:57 Right. SM: 1:52:57 One of the things is, I am not going to add, I will just say this. I have gotten a lot of answers. When did the (19)60s begin and when did it end? Well, I do not think it was ever ended. I know, George Bush- FG: 1:53:07 Right. SM: 1:53:07 -George Bush said in 1989, the Vietnam syndrome was over when I heard that I just about laughed. You remember when he said that? FG: 1:53:17 Yeah-yeah. I do and, you know, I thought it was wishful thinking and off base? SM: 1:53:23 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:53:25 So, you know, yes-yes. No, I think I think it is the issues that the (19)60s represented. You know, and, you know, that were so apparent, then those issues are just absolutely alive and well, and all of the debates and struggles and so forth, continue. And maybe that is just the way of history, you know, it has it has never contained in-in, you know, in the way that historians would like to, you know, I could write a book about a 10-year period. But, you know, it did not really start those things in 1960. And they certainly did not end in 1970. So it is just an abstraction. That is a convenient way to start and end the book. But, but history does not start in the end and- SM: 1:54:15 Right FG: 1:54:15 -in, in those neat kinds of ways. Yeah. SM: 1:54:18 I have two more [crosstalk] FG: 1:54:19 I would be glad to talk to you. You know, later if you know about the other parts of the book. SM: 1:54:25 Oh yes, Certainly-certainly, I would like, having a second interview regarding the women's movement. Certainly the movements for the Native American movement of the gay and lesbian movement, and certainly a lot more to about the latter (19)60s. I want to end this by saying this make a comment and you respond to it. When I look at the year 2022. I see a nation and extreme divide, just like the (19)60s the people and the characters are different. What some of the same issues are still with us. In fact, some of the issues seem to be returning through an effort to return to an earlier time before so many, many battles for justice had been won. Are we going to read this? Are we a nation going forward or backward? FG: 1:55:15 I think that we will have a much clearer answer to that question within the next two years. I have recently written a new book with another writer appeal, it is a prize-winning columnist named Cynthia Tucker. SM: 1:55:35 I have the book. FG: 1:55:36 Call this other, yeah, and Southernization of America: Story of democracy in the balance. SM: 1:55:41 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:55:41 And we in that book by saying, it could go either way, you know, we were, we could go forward or we could go way backward. And, you know, the structural challenges to the very way of doing our democratic business in this country are being put in place, and if those carry the day, along with this very energetic set of, in my view, far right, way beyond conservative far right priorities. That, that, you know, that make it hard to have honest civil discussions of our, of our problems, and we could be in for a really dark and difficult generation in this country, if not more- SM: 1:56:39 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:56:39 -or, you know, we knowing that maybe we can stave off the worst, but in the meantime, the depth of division in America right now feels to me, at least as deep as it did if the end of the (19)60s. SM: 1:56:56 Mm-Hmm. Yes, I will end this by a quote that I think Barbara Tuchman said, but I think it is well known that the first casualty of war is truth. FG: 1:57:08 Right. SM: 1:57:09 And it is so true. And I end each of my interviews with a question. The people that will be hearing these interviews are many of them are not even born yet. At the center- FG: 1:57:21 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:57:21 I study the (19)60s, these interviews are put on to CVS and Aviva studied and researched. Our goal, I think, hopefully, is that we also finally will get PhD candidates who want to concentrate on that period between 1960 and (19)75, history majors- FG: 1:57:37 Right. SM: 1:57:37 PhD, right. So these are all important. And so that you your voice, your picture, and your books will be here forever. And so what you said, we will be having influence on people long after we are long gone. Could you if there is a word of advice that you would give people down the road that are no that are that we will be hearing this 50 years from now and beyond? What would you say to them? FG: 1:58:06 Well, you know, I think the (19)60s began as a period of time when people thought they could make a great country even better. That was the sort of idealistic heart of the (19)60s at the very beginning. And as it count encountered the intractable reality of our problems, the depth of our problems, whether they are economic or racial, or having to do with gender or the conflict between, you know, our, the engines of our economy and, and our environment, whatever it might be, that generated the pushback. You know, that that idealistic goal- You know, in some cases turned bitter, in some cases led to deep disillusionment, but the but the heart of it, that belief, that, that we have the potential in this country to be special, and we need to make it true. You know, that still, it seems to me has to be our north-north star as Americans- SM: 1:59:29 Mm-Hmm. FG: 1:59:29 -and, and the (19)60s emphasize that. SM: 1:59:34 Well, thank you very much. I am going to turn the tape off and I will talk to you on the other side. Hold on. Thank you. Okay. All right. I am back. That was great interview. Great interview. Yeah, well, what will happen is, I interviewed six people about four weeks ago, and then I interviewed a person yesterday and you today. So there is going to be a new-new tapes that are going to be have to be digital. I think they are already. Yeah, they are already digitized, they just have to be sent to you by email. And then you will listen to them and approve them. And then once they are approved, then they will be placed on site with the other 100-238 that are already up there. And so that and-and I am going to be keeping-keeping doing this as long as I can. So I am going to keep adding and adding to the process that down the road. I am interviewing six more people in a month. So it would be a while a while from now to interview you again, would you be able to be interviewed in late October? FG: 2:00:40 [inaudible] what you are doing is important. Interview [inaudible] SM: 2:00:53 Okay. FG: 2:00:57 You know [inaudible] what we talked about is what I think [inaudible] SM: 2:01:13 You know, I believe, I have conservatives and liberals that I have interviewed. I remember I interviewed David Horowitz. And I brought David to Westchester. He is not liked by a lot of and, and he is kind of crazy in some of his ideas, but I have always liked them. And, and he agreed to do an interview with me and he said, You are the only one you are only a liberal. And I had an interview with I hate because I liked him because when he first came to our campus, some of the liberal professors were ready to go in his throat and we walked out of the room, I said that we are not here for that. He just heard David's here to give a lecture on this is about six. This is about 10 years ago, but-but I read his book, radical son, I do not know if you have ever read it. It is a great book to read because he was the world's number one leftist for a long time. He came from a leftist family. And I think he is kind of gone overboard now with his thinking, but, but I know what he has gone through. He has lost a daughter. He has had cancer. He has done a lot of things. He has written a lot of books, David [inaudible], and he has written books with and Mr. [inaudible] just recently passed. So I just, you know, he is on here, and he agreed to do it. So anyway, but I find that you-you are one heck of a writer, I-I could not put this book down and I underlined it-it is almost ruined with underlines. But the thing is, it is so well, it is, it is, it is history, and I kind of live that history. But I lived it up in New York state while you were living in I was born in 19- December 27, of (19)46. So we are the same age. yet and I admire your time at Vanderbilt, I spent my career in higher education. And I love any university that allows all points of view to be heard, no matter what era. FG: 2:03:10 [inaudible] SM: 2:03:25 Well, I, in my career in higher education, I have met just about everybody from the (19)60s because they all came to campuses. You know, I brought him I was at Westchester for 22 years. And then I was at Ohio State for a few years and I was at Ohio University. I brought David, I do not know if you ever heard of his name? Oh, my golly, people's Bicentennial commission from 1976. I forget the name. He was he was a radical now he is a multimillionaire businessman. But anyways, so I will get you will get this in the mail sometime in the next two to three weeks. And then make sure we have a picture of you that has been okayed, you can mail that to my email address so that we placed on site and a brief interview, then more extensive interviews will be coming forward down the road. And- FG: 2:04:21 [inaudible] very enjoyable [inaudible] . 2:04:30 It is just, yeah, it is the Center for the Study of the 19(19)60s at Binghamton University. You can go on site. There is 238 interviews on site right now. A couple a couple of them have some damage to them. I know Ed Rendell when I interviewed him, the former mayor of Philadelphia. I was supposed to I was supposed to interview him in his office. Well, he got too busy and he says come with me. And so I am interviewing him in his limo going to a funeral. funeral of a fireman. And what happened is he never turned the tape on when I asked him the question he only put the [inaudible] he answered the question. So-so yeah, and we tried to get his family to okay the tape but he has got Parkinson's now and I cannot even be contacted. So we got him on site even though it is just him answering questions. Yeah, but anyways, at least we got so I kind of consider you the CBN Woodward or the south. FG: 2:05:31 Well, that is very flattering. SM: 2:05:34 Yeah, because you know, you are you really are on top of the (19)60s and everything you are right. I do have your new book as I did order it. I do not know what I am going to get a chance to read it. But, but I will be contacting you myself in terms of trying to set up the next interview. And you would be safe and continue writing. Thanks, have a great day. Bye. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Frye Gaillard https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6b3ce70f63f39ade40bb7933b8dfbcbe.jpeg 861a5a56666b99a4dc9386e13c2901ed https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/111ffdd478bb5debea1b363cc14b212c.mp3 048f8020713e74a3d57c1c88d93b729d 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 24 August 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. J. Keith Saliba Biographical Text Dr. J. Keith Saliba is an associate professor of journalism at Jacksonville (Florida) University, where he teaches narrative nonfiction and mass communication theory. He has been writing about the Vietnam War and military affairs, first as a reporter and columnist, and later as an academic. He is the author of "Death in the Highlands: The Siege of Special Forces Camp Plei Me," a Military Writers Society of America 2021 gold medal winner in history. Dr. Saliba has a Ph.D. in Mass Communication and International Relations from the University of Florida. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:38:49 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 Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Vietnam; War; Veterans; Book; Special forces; South Vietnamese; Camp; Americans; Helicopter; Supplies; Vietnam War Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: J. Keith Saliba Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 24 August 2024 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:00 All right, I think we are going to start. Again, I am interviewing Dr. Jay Keith Saliba, is that the correct pronunciation? JS: 00:11 That is the correct pronunciation. SM: 00:12 Yeah. Well, thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed today. I would like to start off with a question about your upbringing. Where were you born? Your early experiences in high school and college, so forth in your beginning years. JS: 00:30 Born in Alabama, did not grow up there, though. I went back to visit quite a bit, had a family and so forth, but lived most of my life in Florida. And that is where I live now. Experiences, basically, kind of run a mill, you know, school and so forth. You know, nothing really to write home about it, they say, but you know, I do not know, maybe as it pertains to your book, some of my earliest experiences were, you know, sort of seeing in the 1980s, you know, the first generation, if you will, Vietnam, you know, gotten some separation from it. You know, and so I just, for whatever reason, I think it was a documentary, it was narrated by Richard Bass Heart, and it was called, "Vietnam: The 10,000 Day War," was playing, I do not know, maybe on PBS or something. But I was always a kid who's very interested in this sort of stuff. I know, I read the papers about foreign affairs, you know, at 11 years old, or whatever. And it is something about Vietnam just really struck me as fascinating. And I, of course, at that point, I knew nothing about, you know, all of the conflict and strife that, you know, that did in January in the United States or whatever. I just thought of it as just being a very fascinating subject. And I, I sort of looked at that, that documentary is the thing that introduced me to at a very young age, and I continue to revisit it, over all these years. SM: 02:13 Now, what year was that? Was that in the early (19)80s, that program? JS: 02:18 I want to say, I want to say it was. I do not think that is when it was actually created. But it was probably when I saw it, it was either late (19)70s or early (19)80s. SM: 02:28 What was, what was it about that, just seeing that war? Because obviously, you knew about World War I and World War II and Korea, what was it about Vietnam that, that really perked you up? JS: 02:42 Well, you know, it was, it was probably the tragedy of it, you know, the, even at that young age, I kind of knew that there was something that, that was very hurtful about the whole thing. And, and, you know, I saw all these guys who have gone and done, done what they were asked, what their government asked him to do, and I thought that they were not very well treated. And in some of the news accounts, and some of the popular media, I remember a time it is sort of, it is kind of been a theme that I have seen, you do not see it nearly as much anymore, because, you know, Vietnam sort of faded in the background. But you do see it with, like Afghanistan, Iraqian war, and an Iraq war, but it is the same sort of thing. It is sort of like the crazed, dysfunctional, you know, vet who, you know, you never know what he is going to shoot up or blow up, or you always has all these different problems. But I remember, that is what I saw sort of Vietnam, as being portrayed as in the popular media, movies, you know, that sort of thing. And now, again, you do not see that so much anymore with Vietnam, because it has faded in the rear view, but you see a lot of movies and shows, that depict these really dysfunctional Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, and you know, all of that stuff just sort of rubbed me the wrong way from even, even from an early age. SM: 04:08 Oh yeah. JS: 04:09 But again, we are just kind of talking about Vietnam. No, obviously, at this point. And so yeah, I, I do not know. But it was fascinating too, there is so many facets to this, the story. Some of it was, political, military, you know, protests, all of these different things really, you know, sort of tied into this very, very interesting story that, again, I continue to come back to time and time again. SM: 04:35 What is interesting is when you saw this program, narrated by Richard Bass Heart, that is the era when the Vietnam Memorial was opened, in the early (19)80s, 1982 which was when the wall was opened and all the veterans- JS: 04:50 Steve, Steven you are breaking up here, can you hear me? SM: 04:54 Yes, I can hear you. JS: 04:56 Okay, maybe sometimes, if you call me right back, it might reset because you are really breaking up badly. SM: 05:03 Okay let me, let me call you again. And I will stop this right now. Okay, thanks. Here we go, very good. Yeah, I was just trying to say that, the, at the time you saw that documentary that was the time that the Vietnam Memorial was opened. And the timing was interesting, because that is when Vietnam veterans for the first time felt welcomed home. And, so kind of interesting that you got into it at that particular time. Before I actually start asking you questions about [inaudible], I would like to ask two things that I saw on your biography. You had done your master's thesis on Esquire's coverage of the Vietnam War. What did that, what, what did you learn from that from, from that project? JS: 05:06 Okay. Well, the you know, Esquire, as you may know, was sort of a hotbed of what was once called, "new journalism," or literary journalism, right, where you sort of use the tools of a novelist to tell nonfiction stories. And it is a, you know, it is a genre of writing that I have not only taught, but I have tried to employ some times in my own career and something I really enjoy. And so, I just looked at this unique partnership between Harold Hayes, who was the editor of Esquire at the time, and two, sort of gifted writers, John Sack and Michael Herb. And you are probably more familiar with Michael Herb, his work with dispatches- -and his, you know, screenwriting work with-with films like, "Apocalypse Now," and, and, and "Full Metal Jacket," right. You know, but John Sack was, you know, sort of a celebrated literary journalist who covered war, pretty exclusively, he did other topics, but he was always the type of guy who was drawn back to conflict, so. And so, they had a very unique partnership, and they really, you know, sort of gave some, a unique perspective to journalistic coverage of Vietnam, and, you know, sort of Esquire and Harold Hayes and his support, allowed them to go and just kind of roam around the country and, you know, absorb different stories and different perspectives, maybe you were not seeing as much in, you know, mainstream coverage. So that was what the thesis was about, was just sort of, you know, exploring that technique. And, you know, what those guys found out, you know, the, you know, with dispatches her, you know, it was really more of, even though it was kind of a nonfiction take, right of his, his experiences there. There were also some fictional elements in it. Whereas John Sack M, right, where he followed that empty infantry company through basic training all the way through their first action, Vietnam, that was, you know, much more factually accurate. And he did not take as many sort of literary licenses as her did. Both of them had their unique approach, and they were both supported by, you know, both financially, and, and, you know, journalistically by Harold Hayes and Esquire so they, they-they gave us a, you know, a unique way of looking at the Vietnam War that maybe in that mid (19)60s area that was not really coming out yet. SM: 06:31 Oh, yes. Yeah, you mentioned those movies. I used to bring quite a few veterans back to the universities I used to work at. And they had a lot of problems with a lot of the Vietnam movies that were made. Because they do not think, they did not think they were real. There were two that, there was the one that really bothered them the most believe it or not, was "Platoon". And I do not know, I do not know what you thought of the movie. But it was, I had three distinguished Vietnam veterans from Philadelphia and they disliked the film, they talked about it, but they thought it was Hollywood. And, and so, if there was one film and I am going to get back to what we are talking about here, what is the number one film that you have seen on the Vietnam War that you like? JS: 09:19 What did I like? SM: 09:21 Yeah, that is real. JS: 09:23 I like a lot of them. And of course, I am not being there, not even really being born for most of it. I do not know what it was actually like, but certainly what I have heard from some Vietnam vets when asked that same question, they sort of say that "Full Metal Jacket," to them represented a more accurate military life but of action in Vietnam. "Platoon," what, sure, Hollywood right, Oliver Stone, it was well done from a Hollywood perspective, but you could definitely see why vets would not like it. They were not portrayed very well in that film. And, you know, everyone, anyone is perfect in the first place. I always liked "Apocalypse Now," too, I even have the four-hour version of it. I liked " We Were Soldiers." You know, I got to meet and talk to Joe Galloway on several occasions, including through my book. And that was, you know, exciting. And, and to be able to kind of, you know, meet the guy that was, that wrote that and participated in that was, was great to me. So it is hard for me, Steven, to narrow it down to just one. SM: 10:38 Right. JS: 10:39 Those are certainly some of the ones that I liked the best. SM: 10:41 I know Jan Scruggs liked "Coming Home," because that was his inspiration to create the wall. JS: 10:47 Yes, yeah, you are right, that going back a little ways to that, but that I remember that one now, too. Yeah, another great one. SM: 10:54 And the other item before we get into the main reason I am talking to you is, you also had an experience recently talking about the psychological effects of the Tet Offensive. And I have done a lot of reading on that subject matter of 19, early 1968. But, could you just briefly describe what you were saying, when you gave that presentation in Texas? JS: 11:18 And I sort of combined two things. It is weird, because that Texas conference is really mainly historian that I came at it from a, you know, more of a mass communication researcher perspective, right? We have framing theory and-and, and confirmation bias, were the two perspectives that I linked to sort of look at the coverage of that. And so, my contention was that, by that time in the war, the journalists who were there had pretty much decided on what it was all about. And they you know, one thing about confirmation bias is it says that we humans, and that means all of us, not just you know, not just the-the unwashed masses, but everybody, including the most learned people in the world tend to see things through a certain prism, once we have decided that we have, we have just know what is going on, right, we start to see information only that confirms what we already believe. And so my contention was, as a journalist, at that time, were sort of immediately framing and putting into certain categories, what they were seeing, and they could not see anything else. And so, one point that I made was, is that that is why the narrative quickly changed from the Vietcong are winning on the battlefield, right. And I believe they pushed that to be at the beginning, but then they sort of changed it, even though the Vietcong were being devastated, actually, and really, they never really recovered as an effective fighting force after that. Both, either politically, or militarily, they had to really be, you know, their numbers had to be stocked with people from the north-north-north Vietnam. They, they then sort of morphed into this narrative of how it was a psychological victory. It was a, the Tet Offensive, was a moral victory. You know, because they, you know, just simply because they could do it, and all the rest of it. And so the journalist would push back on that, they would say, Well, this was in reaction to all the rosy proclamations that the, you know, the five o'clock follies, and all the rest of them would put forth, you know, every day. And so, you know, that is why maybe we have swing the, in exactly the opposite direction that we went from, well, they were telling us that we were winning and then this, they were able to launch this big, you know, attack. Right, so then it became, the narrative became that it was, okay, well, we will admit that it was a military defeat, and it devastated that political infrastructure, the Vietcong infrastructure, as well. But we were going to say, we were going to let everybody know that it was a psychological victory, it was a moral victory. And in the end, that is all accounts is that they were able to pull this off. So, that was really what I was kind of contending there that, you know, we all have blind spots. And when we, when we decide how things are, we tend to only see information that supports our preconceived notions. And my, my ideas were that by that time in the war, journalistic presence in Vietnam had been well established, and they had kind of, they all kind of decided this is how things are going, this is how it is. And, and even though they were looking at really a massive defeat for the Vietcong, they just could not, I do not know, allow themselves to-to put it that way or even just to, even see it for themselves. They had to almost invent a new, you know, a new outcome and a new standard for victory. This was not winning on the battlefield, but winning psychologically. SM: 15:06 Right? Well, I, I can tell you from all my reading and studies, I think it certainly surprised L.B.J. And, and I love that surprise of the Tet Offensive as being the beginning of many dots leading up to his surprise of withdrawing from running for president. I think there is two direct links there. I am going to get into the main portion, now of what I want to talk about, but I want to say it because of your book, I look at cities and locations as linking different eras in the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Certainly, these cities are part of that (19)60s, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham, Chicago, Kent, Ohio, New York City, Berkeley, Saigon, Hanoi, the [inaudible] valley, [inaudible], Miami and San Francisco. Cause, the major happenings happened during those, that era in those locations. And now, because of your book and learning more about Plei Me, I put Plei Me right in there. I just want to say that. My first question is, you know, I also read Joe's book on the [inaudible] valley, and I saw the movie. And he was very vociferous, when he always talked, I brought him to Westchester to speak, that the [inaudible] valley was the first major war of the Vietnam and during that period. And then of course, when I read the back of your book, he praised you, and what happened. I guess the question, the main, the main reason I am asking is why Plei Mei?. Because you know, you-you do so brilliantly your book, all the other locations, the small villages, this, different locations, and I know about Plei Mei's location near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But why Plei Mei, just your thoughts? JS: 17:06 When you say why-why did the North Vietnamese choose it, or? SM: 17:10 Why, Why did they, they were doing things out in the highlands, they were doing a lot of things, but why Plei Mei? JS: 17:18 Well, I mean, as you mentioned, it was, its proximity to home Chi Minh Trail complex was-was, you know, an ideal ingress point for them, right. I mean, they were able to stash a lot of supplies, a lot of men and material, across the border, but I will say that they tried to do something similar at Duco, a few months earlier. And, but they had two, they separate from two main drawbacks, from the Vietnamese, North Vietnamese perspective, and that was that, Duco, they did not have enough combat power to overcome what was, what was able, what the allies were able to bring against them. And two, and that, and this sort of correlates with that, was Duco's location was on a major highway. And even though it was right on the Cambodian border, you know, the South Vietnamese and their American allies could get supplies and things into Duco a lot easier even though it was surrounded, and Plei Mei was much more isolated. So, that is really what happened was, is they had been trying to do this sort of stuff for years. You know, this sort of, this lure and ambush where, you bring a remote outpost under, you know, siege and then not only crush the outpost, if you can, but you know, destroy the, the responding force, right, they just want to take these big chunks out of the South Vietnamese army whenever possible. And so, they tried it at Duco. But they did not have enough combat power, they did not have enough troops committed. And it was also in an auspicious location even though it was close to their base areas in Cambodia. They, it was, you know, you could get to it pretty easily you know, you could bring armor in there to Duco, pretty easily. And so, Plei Mei was much more isolated, it was a little farther away from the border. But you know, there was just that provincial route five, which linked it with highway 14, and you know, you would have to, that is a single lane dirt track, and it was a perfect spot for an ambush. So they could you know, they could secret all of these, these regular army forces around Plei Mei, and make them think that they were about to be overrun, right, make them, bring them under enough attack to where the south Saigon would have to send, or at least [inaudible] who would have to send in, you know, rescue force and then, then you could, you could isolate that rescue force on that little spin dirt track that was heavy foliage on both sides of the road, and then just destroy it. That is what they dreamed of, is destroying a large Arvin formation and then once that happened, once all those defenses were wiped out, they could pretty much roll through what you know, [inaudible] and [inaudible] because there would not really be anything else, you know, to stop them, I think [inaudible] even, they stripped down to where they really only had maybe a battalion in reserve to defend what was pretty, a pretty large town at that time. And so they had to bring in, you know, the-the first cab to, you know, that was part of the whole thing, right introducing the first cab- SM: 20:30 Right. JS: 20:30 -and kind of, sort of guaranteeing the provincial capital-capital safety so that Arvin could then go and rescue this besieged camp. SM: 20:40 One of the, one of the things that is very important too, is that the, we are talking about the early stages of the Vietnam War, and the Gulf of Tonkin was in (19)64. So, everything starts going forward there, even though we are there from (19)59 on, in support and somewhat. With McNamara, and certainly with Westmoreland being the general there at the time, they were all about numbers, it was bringing in the numbers, kill, the kill ratios. And we all learned about that, I, that we were all growing up with that. I, we all experienced it as young people as members of the boomer generation that reports every day about how many were killed on T.V., and so forth. So, it was all a numbers game, in the beginning, the feeling that America could just keep killing, and killing, and killing, and the Vietnamese would finally submit. And then, then some of the critics of the war, the very early critics would say, "Well, wait a minute, you do not really know about the history of Vietnam, and what the battles, they fought for centuries were against their enemies, their most recent being the French and now the United States." Your thoughts about, the numbers game that was being played at that particular time, right, before Plei Mei, and the American strategy up to that point that it was a numbers game? JS: 22:01 Yeah, and I think that directly stems from Westmoreland's, you know, restrictions. And the restrictions that were placed on him by, you know, the higher ups, L.B.J., number one. He did not want a wider war, he did not want American forces in Cambodia, or Laos. And, you know, when you allow an enemy to have that kind of freedom of movement and sanctuaries, just across the border of not one, but two countries, with really rugged terrain, with mountainous terrain, areas, you know, canopy jungles where you can, you can hide entire regiments without being seen from the air. And indeed, in the [inaudible] massive complex, that is exactly what they did. They had supplies, secreted in there. And they have would place it, the North Vietnamese could go and rest and recuperate and build up, you know, supplies and all of which can be completely covered from any aerial observation. So, so I guess, if I mean, looking back, in hindsight, you look at it, and you think, that does not seem like a smart way to go, it is just trying to, you know, you know, because if you are, if you are going to go by body count, you are going to go by, so this war of attrition, then it automatically incentivizes field commanders, who are, you know, looking for, at the very least some sort of success, you know, to maybe inflate what they see, or inflate what, with the counselor, right. So in hindsight, you look at it, you say, "Well, that does not seem like a very smart way to fight a war," is just, you know, trying to out kill the other, without destroying base, sanctuaries, and cutting off access, and all the rest. And there were various plans that were in the works to do that, invading Laos, and you know, completely cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail and, leaving that whole area occupied by strong forces, you know, none of that ever came to fruition. So I, to me, it just seems like, you know, that is what Westmoreland was dealing with. You know, in the book, "The Best and the Brightest," you saw sort of the calculated mentality, of a lot of the, president's advisors, and top military men at the time, it was all statistics and all, you know, analytics, and this is how you win is by you know, x number of this versus x number of that, all the, all the rest of it. And, and I do not know that it just seems like that belies, like thousands of years of human history that, that is not really, you know, that is not really how wars fought or won, certainly. SM: 24:40 You brilliantly talk about some of the leaders of South Vietnam, DM and, and his, his lack of leadership, I believe, because he has enemies himself. But, you talk also about the importance of morale. And what, and-and Plei Mei was really about morale as well. Because if it went down, that would look terrible to the people in South Vietnam who, and certainly the United States who were supporting the Vietnamese. And we lost this very important thing, because we knew that morale was also important to the North Vietnamese, because that is why they trying to do these surprise attacks, which ended up being the main goal of Plei Mei, by killing as many people as possible. Your thoughts on, the both sides trying to win this morale battle, so that whoever wins this or that, that will get rid of the government of South Vietnam or make the leaders of the North Vietnamese look bad? JS: 25:45 Yeah that and that was, that is part of the other aspect of it is, you know, Plei Mei was not just sort of this isolated thing, right. The real goal was to destroy large Arvin formations whenever possible- SM: 26:00 Right. JS: 26:00 -but what was [inaudible], you know, so a secretary of North Vietnam, what his, his ultimate goal was, was not to inspire an uprising among the South Vietnamese, right. And so, they figured that if they could make the quote, puppet, in Saigon look bad enough, that they could destroy enough of this forces, and winning up victories on the battlefield, it would make the people say, "Look, this is, you know, at the very least, this is inevitable, we need to rise up and get with on the winning side," at the very least, right, and you are right, that is about crushing the morale and inspiring this general uprising, he had hoped for the general uprising all the way through the 72 Easter offensive again, and it did not materialize again. Even though the North Vietnamese through, you know, upwards of 200,000 troops in a holy conventional invasion of the south in (19)72, it still did not inspire, it inspired a lot of panic, it inspired a lot of people fleeing, but it did not inspire this, this sort of general uprising that he, long hoped for, right. So that is, that side of things. And yeah, I mean, even though there were only a handful of Americans at Plei Mei you know, your-your prestige, becomes- SM: 26:00 Right. JS: 27:17 -entwined with holding on, that maybe even though these camps were, you know, part of the CG program, and offensively under the South Vietnamese special forces, it was really the Americans who were running it. And, you know, to lose something like that, and to have these guys overrun, and more importantly, to lose a very important, you know, government outpost like that would be, would be terrible. And I think that is why, you know, one reason anyway, right, why the first cab was introduced to kind of come in- SM: 27:55 Right. JS: 27:56 -and, and, and help save the day. But it was also this idea that, you know, we need to get the Americans in there, we need to test this new air mobile division, and we need to show what we can do. We need to, you know, it is time for us to take over, and it is time for us to actually win this war, because the South Vietnamese are not capable of doing it, you know. SM: 28:15 Right. JS: 28:16 And I think that was, there was a lot of, that was part of it too, this eagerness to get the first cab in there. SM: 28:24 Yeah, I think, at the very beginning of your book, you talk about President Kennedy and the fact that he liked Special Forces and, and he was he liked it because they were more flexible than, during Eisenhower's reign as president, where he still used the nuclear deterrent as a, as a force, a threat, to prevent conflict. And then, of course, we lost President Kennedy, he was assassinated. And of course, it is interesting, that within three weeks, Diem, and [inaudible] both, were both assassinated or killed in a coup. So, a lot was changing there. And also all these other leaders that came in, in the South before [inaudible] and [inaudible]. They, I do not, were there any decent ones that, that the people supported, before [inaudible] and [inaudible]? JS: 29:19 You know, it was, it was, it was a rough time, was not it? I mean, that is what coups do is that is they, they-they destabilize. And you know, Diem was, you know, even though, yeah, he was, he had his corruption problems, that is for sure. And he, you know, was not well loved and he cracked down on the Buddhist. I mean, they had their problems as well. I mean, these armed factions, some of them infiltrated by communist agents. I mean, there is all of these different facets, right, that is going on. So, I mean, he was dealing with a, a rough situation, and he was also paranoid, but he was also an ardent nationalist, and he was an ardent anti-communist. SM: 29:59 Right. JS: 30:00 So you know, and he, there was a certain level of stability with him in power, and, regardless, right, and so with his loss, then you were ushering in, you know, almost like, you can go back to Roman history, like this time at the barracks emperors, where there is just- SM: 30:16 Right, yeah. JS: 30:16 -one after an uprising, you know, and then being, you know, as either assassinated or, you know, at least put out of power. And then you finally get to, as you say, to event two, and, you know, things stabilized there, but also probably because the war had stabilized a lot more by the time, you know, [inaudible]'s presidency sort of matured. But, you know, good ones. I mean, I do not know [laughs]. You are right, yes. I mean, it is, it is just, you know, it, you are just wondering, you think back what, all the intrigue that was going on, and the different factions and, you know, not knowing who was who, and who you could trust and, and, and Diem was, was, you know, often vilified for, you know, putting people in power that he could trust rather than who were necessarily the most effective. SM: 31:11 Yeah. JS: 31:12 But then when you, you know, this is also the guy who gets overthrown in a coup and executed. So, I mean, there was probably some reason, right, some good reason for that paranoia. SM: 31:23 Yeah, he was also paranoid about the people that were helping the Special Forces, the Hmong, and the mana guards. I would like you to talk about, first off the twelve-man units. I, I learned a lot in your book, I learned an awful lot. And I have got to underline all of it, because I have learned so much. And could you talk about, when you talk about the special forces, these twelve-man units, what were they, and who were, what were the characteristics and qualities that was necessary, they were Americans now, but to be successful? JS: 32:00 Yeah. So as you rightly point out, President Kennedy saw a lot of value in so called coin, you know, counterinsurgency, and he thought it well, I do not know how much thought he gave it, but certainly some in, in the echelons of the military and political establishment thought that, you know, some of the lessons of the counterinsurgency, lessons from World War II had been lost, had been forgotten. And it was time, if you were going to take this flexible response approach, it was time to sort of reinvigorate them again, and Special Forces was, was a vehicle through which that could happen, at least from the Kennedy perspective. Where they, they were twelve-man alpha detachment, and they usually had two officers, a captain and a first lieutenant, First Lieutenant serving as executive officer. And then ten, ten enlisted, and enlisted usually were, you know, senior enlisted, at least, to the level of sergeants, and so forth. But you know, you would sometimes you would have other specialists in there as well, but, you know, especially some of these early guys, and some of the offshoots like, Delta, the Delta project, which I have mentioned in the book as well, I go over the book, you know, these are some grizzled characters. These are some hard-nosed fighters from Korea, and World War II paratroopers, and this is what you know, the type of guy that was drawn to Special Forces, who were the independent minded. They, they, they were very well trained, trained in weapons, and communications and demolition, and, and medical, you know, medical treatments and so forth, right. And they were often cross trained. So that you get, if one guy goes down with that specialty, someone else has training that can step up. But, there is a whole idea of really between, about these, alpha detachments was that they needed to be able to operate alone, they needed to be back in the back country, working with indigenous forces to organize them to, you know, talk [inaudible], whatever enemy they were fighting against. And again, this was not just in south, southeast Asia, but we were talking about even in Europe, they had units like this in place to try to, in case the Soviets actually did invade, then you would be able to operate behind enemy lines and organize you know, European citizens to put up a guerrilla resistance, and all this right. This is all tracking back to those old-World War II units. And so, the reviving this kind of stuff. And so what was the average Special Forces Trooper like he was, you know, he was not really young, he almost surely had conventional military experience. And, it was an air airborne billets. So, you know, they all had their jump wings. And they, but they were also sort of Mavericks, you know, kind of independent. SM: 35:09 Yep. JS: 35:10 And, you know, the conventional army looked askance at them, they thought, you know, you know, what are these guys doing, they were off on their own and these camps, so they were kind of running their own show, and, you know, they grow their beards, and they got their hairs- -into [inaudible], and, you know, all the rest. SM: 35:23 [laughs]. JS: 35:26 Uniforms and rags, and all the rest and, and, and, you know, but when it came down to it, and you are in the middle of nowhere, and you are in this little bunker, and all you got, besides you as a few other Americans and some [inaudible], who probably do not speak very much of their language. And then the beast out there in the darkness waiting beyond the wire, you know, these are the type of guys you want out there, and do not need nearly as much support and can think on the own, and can act on the own. And, you know, so, I guess in a way, that is what it is what it was, he was talking about Special Forces and these-these teams, you know, they were, they were unique and, and I again, a lot of them told me that this some of them were assigned there, they did not volunteer, some of them were assigned to it to fill out the ranks. And they said, it was not exactly career enhancing in those days, we, we sort of think of Special Forces now is like the greatest thing, you know, the average person thinks of him as like, you know, on a pedestal. But in those days, the regular army despised them, and, and even the guys who were, who were put into Special Forces, they knew, I mean, in a big, Cold War environment, the best way to advancement in the military was commanding of infantry battalion, or commanding an armored squadron or something like that, or even our artillery battery, you know, those were the names because they were expecting the big, the big set piece battles of the Cold War. And to be in Special Forces, some of them as one of my sources call them you know, "Those weirdos over on Smoke Bomb Hill," you know, they were always out there, eating snakes or whatever. SM: 35:26 Yep. [chuckles]. JS: 36:25 But now, I mean, we look at him as like, you know, we are, we do it, we think, the highest the highest about Special Forces operators these days. SM: 37:20 Well, I tell you, when the when the reinforcements had to come in to save, Plei Mei, getting Charlie Beckwith was very important. And I think, could you talk about, this is just one man we are talking about here. I think you had also said that he had, had not been in combat or something like that. You gave him a really great description of his whole background before he was given the, in charge of Delta Force. But, how he picked his men and what they had to possess to be, to pass by him so that he would be okay, you know, fighting by their, by his side, just talk about Charlie Beckwith, who he was and how he picked them, and what kind of men he wanted by his side? 38:10 He was, he was an irascible fellow, from all accounts, I mean, he had died before this book came out, so I was never able to talk to him. But just from talking to people that knew him, looking at, archival documents and so forth. He just was a, he was a character. And he, and, you know, he had his-his way of that he, he wanted things done, he wanted sort of an American version of the SAS the British, the Special Air Service of the British, right? He wanted those independent, tough operators who could do all kinds of things behind enemy lines. And, and, you know, he finally ended up getting the chance to do that when he was given Project Delta, which eventually, as you noted earlier, morphed into the current incarnation of what we call Delta Force. JS: 39:02 Right as operational, Operation Detachment Delta. So, we colloquially call it Delta Force. And so you know, that is what he wanted. He, one of my sources the late, great Yule White, who was at Plei Mei and recently passed. He passed maybe, within the last year. He said that Beckwith had, had an idea about the two types of men, there were two types of men in the world to Beckwith, they were either piss cutters, or dipshits. SM: 39:02 Right. [chuckles] JS: 39:35 And you really did not want to be in the latter category with Beckwith, right? SM: 39:38 Right. JS: 39:39 If he liked you, you were a piss cutter. And that meant, you know, you were a hard charger, you were someone who could get the job done. You were someone who, you could, someone you could depend on, especially in a fight. And if you were a dipshit, you better just stay away from them, you know, and get out of the unit if you can, and get away from them. And so, Yule White was, Beckwith referred to him as a piss cutter. But even then, years later, White told me I do not think I put this in the book. He told me, he said, he met Beckwith later on, and Beck tried to get him involved in some other thing, years later that he was doing and, and, Yule wanted to no part of it, he said he had [laughter] enough of that in Southeast Asia in those crazy times in Plei Mei, of course, he was wounded pretty grievously. SM: 40:26 I think, I think Beckwith, he wanted these people to be volunteers in Vietnam for six months, they must have earned a Combat Infantry Badge, and, and it be at least a sergeant. Now, I think there is one person that he ended up wanting, who did not qualify for hardly any of those. [chuckles] Because he considered him the first category. JS: 40:57 Yeah, that was Yule White. SM: 40:59 That was Yule White. [chuckles] JS: 41:00 Yeah, he had airborne and all the rest of it, but and he told me and again, he corroborated this, where I found elsewhere. But, you know, Beck would sent out these flyers, as soon as he took over Project Delta. And he said, "I can promise you a metal, a body bag, or both." And he stuffed them in every outgoing mail bag that was going to go out to Special Forces, eight camps around Vietnam, and he dumped a bunch of those fliers in there. And he says, the response was overwhelming. There was a bunch of guys who wanted to go, they were already out there on the fringes, already out there. You know, in these, in these camps, pretty much doing whatever they wanted, there was very little oversight, you know, so they were just they were on their own. And, they wanted even more they wanted to, they wanted to take it up another notch, and do some Long-Range Reconnaissance and all the rest of, is what, you know, Beck would get started with Project Delta. SM: 42:00 Did not he-he- he promised them they either get a medical badge, or body bag or both? JS: 42:10 Yeah, well. Medal [inaudible] SM: 42:12 [chuckles] Yeah. JS: 42:15 That is, that is a heck of a sales pitch, whatever group that worked. And so you know, and as I said, when he got to, you know, he had been clamoring for such a command for years, and nobody wanted to be part of Beckwith right in the upper but he had a few friends. And they finally said, Look, we were giving you this project, Delta, you know, go to go to Vietnam. Mm-hmm. And he showed up in in, I believe, was NhaTrang. And tried to, you know, see what his guys were up to, they were all nowhere to be found. They were all party and downtown, and you know, with the bar girls and all the rest. And he just, you know, he went ballistic and fired nearly all of them. And that is when he put that call out. He says, if these guys do not want to do what I want them to do, then they were going to go- and then I am going to find my kind of guys. And that is that is how we did it by reaching out with those flyers and saying, look, I can promise you a metal of body bag or both. And you got to be these certain things and come on, but he liked [inaudible] even though he was not he did not have the CIB. At that point. He liked White. And he thought he was a peace guard. And he was older, you know, 31 I mean, that is, that is what Beckles was looking for, you know, they one of the sources said, These guys made you feel good, because they were older. You know, they had they had their brizzle they that white and their beards and-and you know, they had been through some shit and Korea and World War Two, and you just felt safer and better when those guys arrived on the scene? SM: 43:03 Yep. Yeah, when I visit the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day, Veterans Day, I always see people who are a few of the Montagnard who are there. And they make reference to it sometimes in some of the guest speakers, but I do not think there has been enough written about them and-and their importance in the Vietnam War, especially being our fighting side by side with Americans. Because in reality, I believe you state pretty emphatically that they did not like the Vietnamese that well, because they were treated as less than human almost by them. And could you talk a little bit about the role that the Hmong and the Montagnard have played in the Vietnam War? Now you describe it in the very early part of the war and in 1965, and 64. But they were they were there throughout the war. So who are they? Where did they live? And-and how important were they in the war for America? JS: 44:54 Well, um, the and I will hasten to say this, I do not know about the Hmongs but I do know about the mind yards that not all of them were on our side. There were minors who sympathize with the Vietcong. And were, you know, be a con agents. So there was always that danger, right. And several special forces camps were sort of attacked from within. Because the Montagnards that were in there were actually Vietcong agents, even though they were ethnically Montagnards. You know, so I think that sort of disdain, you know, went, you know, kind of both ways, right, I oftentimes think of the way the Montagnards were looked upon by the Vietnamese is the way that like the Americans of the Old West looked upon the Indians, right? The Native American tribes, it has been there a long time, but they just did not, they did not like them. And they did not treat them well. And they were different. And they were primitive by their standards, and all the rest of this sort of, and of course, that empathy was returned heartily by, you know, tribes to the Apache and Comanche and so forth. Right. Same thing with the-the Montagnards. So they were not uniformly on the American side, but they were there, enough of them were, especially when they could be with Americans. And they could see sort of, like the broader advantages of being with Westerners, right, with new technology and education and improved agriculture, and things like that, they can kind of see their own their own self-interest. And plus the, you know, largely the Americans that they dealt with did not, you know, they were not, they were not conscripting them, like the Vietcong were and so forth, it was more of a, a little bit more of a partnership rather than kind of conscripting you into the service of the infrastructure. So they were they were very valuable. And, you know, the, the civilian regular Defense Group. CG, right was something that was valuable early on, because it helped secure, otherwise endangered villages from being taken over by the Vietcong in the back country. It sort of taught though, in law, these were mountain art villages, right. And so it taught them to defend themselves. And, and it is sort of spread, if not total allegiance to Saigon at least resistance to being taken over by the Vietcong. Right, so this is something they were happy with. But when one the program began to morph into an offensive instrument, rather than self-defense, but actually organizing the Montagnards and into strike forces, and saying them out and putting them on ambushes, and, and really even more so uprooting them from their, you know, their ancestral lands and moving them into these heavily fortified camps, it is sort of, you know, you got some manpower, and at least for the most part, this manpower was not being used against you. But it was not quite that organic, you know, self-defense, vibe that was going on early on the program. And a lot of the reason for that is, you know, because it was the control that was devolved from CIA and Special-Special Forces to, you know, MACV. And so they wanted, they wanted to, they had all these guys on their arms, they want to put them out there and do interdiction and, and, you know, ambush and offensive operations against the Vietcong. But they were they, you know, it just like we were seeing, you know, just like you see all the PTSD that people in Iraq, who helped us, you see the people in Afghanistan, who helped us the interpreters and all the other people who put their faith in the United States, you know, in the end, they get abandoned. And that is what happened with the Montagnards. SM: 49:03 Yep. JS: 49:05 And they have got, you know, and you know, some of them really had some pretty terrible experiences, and so-called reeducation camps and all the rest after the war, and, you know, horrific injuries, and, you know, all the promises that were made for pensions and, and health care, and all of these things that, you know, they were promised earlier on in the war, obviously, they cannot be fulfilled, that there is no longer a South Vietnamese government in the United States long gone. And so they were left just left out to dry and, you know, it is just, it is tragic. And it is, it is, it is infuriating. And, and I guess it is just, you know, the way we do things, you know, because you see it repeated in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to this day. SM: 49:53 When you look at the-the early part of the war in 64 and 65. I looked at the leaders that were leading at the time in South Vietnam and in America, and all of them were under a lot of pressure, they felt that- Johnson did not have it in the beginning because he had a lot of support for the war and everything. But the one person that stands out as a leader is Ho Chi Minh. I remember reading a book that said the in before he died, that he was Vietnam. There was no question even the people in the north and the south, he was admired by a lot of people because of who he was and experience and he had one- is the one that wanted to support the Geneva Accords. And-and of course, the United States and South Vietnam would not have anything to do with it. But that because they probably knew that, you know, he would be the one that they would be elected or whatever. But that just I do not know if you have ever thought of that. But they-they revered him. So people have been off for the on their side revered Ho Chi Minh. JS: 51:07 Yeah, one thing that I would- that I learned over the course of all this is that by the time all these figures died in 69, and so by the time a lot of this stuff was transpiring, even the early part of the war, he had already become something of a figurehead. SM: 51:21 Right. JS: 51:21 And, but he was still a symbol, right? SM: 51:24 Mm-hmm. Yes. JS: 51:26 -Calling many shots anymore, even-even into the even into the early and mid (19)60s. He just getting old, you know, but SM: 51:33 Right. JS: 51:33 -he had been around a long time. And he had to gather gravitons. He has had the chops. And you know, and I think to do from a strictly real politic perspective, he was willing to do or say whatever it took to get, you know, what he wanted? And that was the independence of Vietnam under whatever government. SM: 51:51 Mm-hmm. JS: 51:53 You know, so, but you are out and you are right. I think the average person in Vietnam would look at him and say, you know, that is, you know, that is Uncle Ho, that is the leader. SM: 52:03 Yeah. JS: 52:03 That is the That is the guy. Right? Who's, who's been at this for decades? SM: 52:09 Yes, yes. JS: 52:11 Yeah. And that another reason why Giáp was so revered too, because he had, you know- -not only was he effective military commander, but he-he paid his dues. He been in there for so long. And of course, you know, all when you start getting into political machinations of what was going on in Hanoi, you know, Lai [inaudible]. And, you know, he had usurped you know, they were on two opposite sides of things. SM: 52:17 Yep. JS: 52:19 Mm-hmm. -And, and, and he had you serve both-both Ho Chi Minh and Giáp and, you know, marginalize them, but still recognizing that, you know, they, they had their people who revered them. So, it is interesting to see the different, you know, leadership qualities, but they were always [inaudible] Giáp and his, his, his supporters were always going for the big, dramatic win, and Ho and Giáp we are all about, you know, let us take it slow. What is going -on mental it is going to happen, you know, let us not you know, and, and believe me, the Vietnamese are South Vietnamese, South Vietnamese communists, were, you know, quite skeptical of Lai's wild strategy, because they knew they were going to be the ones who took the [inaudible]. And they did in (19)68, when they rose up in Tet, they took horrific beating. And they destroyed all these carefully built, you know, cadre and infrastructure over the years and not to mention, you know, just plain old main force units just wiped out. And they took a huge hit for My Lai’s desire, this dramatic victory in this this win-win now mentality. Right. Right. Right. SM: 53:49 Early on, when he early on in your book, you talk about the first group that was taken care of Plei Me and then the tragedy were four, four were killed in a helicopter crash. And I think it is important that people read your book, because not only do you describe this important whole event itself, and it is linkage to early part of the history of the Vietnam War. But the fact is, it shows that Americans are dying little by little by little by little. If you look between (19)59 and (19)65, how many really died, you go to the Vietnam War and you see that there is, you know, how it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. We are, we are, we do not talk about the Americans who are dying now in (19)64 and (19)65 advisors. And so you really do a great job of that, you know, itis sad to hear about number six died here for died here, but those add up JS: 54:54 Mm-Hmm. SM: 54:54 -and they are Americans. And I almost cried when you when you talked about the helicopter that crashed and the four young men, the four men who died their age, whether they were married, you know where they came from. And you-you did a great job. And in some in sections of the book about their backgrounds where they came from how they ended up in Vietnam, I mean, a tremendous job, just but could you talk about those four their pictures or in the book two of those four that were in that helicopter? JS: 55:30 Yeah, that was, that was the-the helicopter gunship that was trying to get- they had been running. They have been running close air support all through the night, up until that point, and because, you know, the Air Force could not get there soon enough. So they were really the kind of the first responders if you will, and they, you know, they had run story after story. They had gone back. refueled rearm that on how many times and then they were tasked with putting in Captain Lanny Hunter who was the-the C two surgeon, and they felt like if they could get him into the ground on Plei Me , then they would- he would be able to do things not only you know, care for the wound and everything but also it was something that he called the physicians mystique, it would make the-the guys who were there kind of look and say, you know, the doctors here the real doc, not a medic, but a real surgeon, a real who knew a lot of the guys who was well respected. And they said it can it can it not only it can, he can do things and help save lives that an average medic could not do but he could also inspire he could also be you know, a real morale boost. And so he agreed to do that he talked it over with his-his commanding officer and they said what you are doing at first light and this was the very first morning of the of the Plei Me siege. And so but the you cannot just fly a medivac chopper in by itself, you got to have some kind of gunship support. And so these two crocodiles, which is what the-the 119th called, they were, they were gunships. They were, they were alligators and crocodiles, right the alligators with slicks, they were the ones who killed the troops and, and supplies and so forth. And the gunships were the ones who were just the bristling helicopters with weapons. And so they say you got to fly in. And that is what happened is they flew in, and they were going to, they needed to get Lanny Hunter into the camp. But they also needed to get some wounded out, they needed to drop off some supplies. So you tried to get make the most out of every helicopter run into this into the teeth of all this anti-aircraft fire. And, you know, what happened was they- you know, they went in the metabank, that love Lanny Hunter was on came in, and sort of when he went into his flare, he came in too fast, maybe and caused them to be a little too high. And so he was a sitting duck. And so what happens is the gunships have to go and draw fire away from them. And they did that. But they unfortunately went right into the teeth on the southern portion of the camp of where most of the North Vietnamese anti-aircraft fire was concentrated. Got shot down. And you know, and the real tragedy for the whole unit 119 was they-they could not go get those guys, the area was just too hot. And they just, you know, they died like that in there. They crashed SM: 58:47 Mm-Hmm. JS: 58:47 -molting bolt in flames, and they all burned. And they were just young, you know, young guys, SM: 58:53 Right. JS: 58:53 -wives and kids on the way and everything like that. But they could not go get them until the siege was over, because it was just too much fire too much, too much any enemy activity. So they just stayed out there for days and days and days. And finally, you know, as you know, for the book, I was able to talk to one of the guys who went on the mission to get them. And it was just a really, really horrific event and heartbreaking to say the least. SM: 59:18 And you lost another one there and Mr. Bailey. JS: 59:22 Yes. Joe Bailey. Yep. Yep. And he was he was on the ground, right, one of the one of the Special Forces troopers occupying or, you know, garrisoning the camp SM: 59:36 Mm-Hmm. JS: 59:36 and then to go out and try to rescue these guys who had been shot down and the way they were man, the way they described it was this, you know, because I asked them all the same question. I said, "Why would you risk yourself to go and get someone you did not know" or "Why would you risk yourself to help some guy on the ground that you did not know?" And they all said the same thing "It was because they do it for us, you know." So it is like reciprocal agreement, that even though we may not know each other, we were all we were on the same team, and we were going to try our best to save you under any circumstances. So the guys that were in that helicopter that got shot down, we were trying to help the guys on the ground, and they had been helping them all night running gun runs, you know, to try to suppress the NBA attacks. And, and on the flip side of that, the guys on the ground saw that helicopter go down, and they said, We got to go get them. SM: 1:00:36 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:00:37 It does not look good. But we got to go try. And they went out onto the wire, and they got ambushed, and they got, you know, Joe Bailey lost his life that day trying to help guys who he did not even know, but who would have to help him. SM: 1:00:52 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:00:52 And that is that free to call that thing that is in the military that that so many of them say they miss that you just you cannot you know, just some average civilian or something who did not know who you can trust. You know, meanwhile, this guy, they do not know each other, but they were, it is just part of the ethos. They tried to help me so I am going to go try to help them and I made and lose my life in the process. SM: 1:01:13 We need that in America today. JS: 1:01:17 Well, the [inaudible] right- SM: 1:01:18 -[inaudible] about everybody. JS: 1:01:22 That is what a lot of these guys coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan have said in the past is like, you know, how do you know who to trust? -You do not have that camaraderie. You do not have that, that that brotherhood, that sisterhood that you had, while you were downrange. And, you know, Sebastian, younger, I do not know how what you know about him. But you know, if you are interested in such things, he has written, you know, very, very passionately and persuasively about, you know, young men in combat and what they miss, about being in combat- SM: 1:01:55 Hmm. JS: 1:01:56 -and about being military and so forth. SM: 1:01:58 Hmm. JS: 1:01:58 And, you know, he is a guy, you know, he is one of those, those long form journalists, as literary journalist who goes and does the thing. You know, he is with the guys. Right. And that is one thing that is, that is always impressed me is the, you know, he spent [inaudible] spent months in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan with his group, and he did a 3-3-3 documentary films and- SM: 1:02:23 Wow. JS: 1:02:24 -at least one book on it. So I do not know, Steve, if you are interested in things like that. I just throw his name out there. SM: 1:02:29 Well, I am very interested in and of course, I knew Wallace Terry, who wrote Bloods. And he was with the African American soldiers by their side during the war. JS: 1:02:39 Yeah. SM: 1:02:39 -yeah. So that is something and of course, Joe Galloway. Oh, can say about Joe, my goodness, one of a kind. Could you give us- for people who are studying this down the road? Plei Me, you know, it had been there a while but as you start your book with that first group, and then you have got the back with group coming in and three reinforcements with Delta Force, and then the [inaudible] comes in, right to the very end of your book, you talk about the reason why Plei Me, the soldiers and Plei Me survive. Could you talk about the thanks that you gave to the groups that came in that dropped the food that dropped bombs around the sort of camp? Could you talk about those people who risked their lives to say these to save Plei Me. JS: 1:03:33 Yeah, I mean, I heard it described by many sources that it was just a wall of anti-aircraft fire every time you would approach that camp like you would like, like if you were out in the woods, and you have got a stick and you actually hit a hornet's nest and they will just come buzzing out I mean, every time that they would fly their helicopter or fixed wing aircraft near that camp, this round would just light up with an aircraft fire just trying to just shoot down as many aircraft as possible kill as many people as possible SM: 1:04:03 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:04:04 and of course you know all that ratchets up the pressure right on we got to get this relief force there and of course their ideas they want to ambush the release force too. Yeah, I mean, think about that for a second. I mean, all of those guys and those helicopters and in those-those a One Sky Raiders which was like a, an old-World War Two prop plane that they use for close air support and Vietnam. And you know, coming in and laying down Napalm and you know, cluster munitions and 20-millimeter cannon fire, all of this to constantly try to beat back the NBA assaults on the wire to try to, you know, to bomb them at least enough to keep them far enough away from the camp even so that they could not just constantly rain down fire SM: 1:04:56 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:04:57 benders and you know, and then you get the resupply, right, coming in, on-on-on-on these big transports for both the Air Force and the Army. And, you know, these are lumbering aircraft compared to, you know, a Canberra, you know fighter bomber or SM: 1:05:21 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:05:21 even a helicopter and maneuver around these things are pretty much flying in a straight line, and they would make up these pallets of supplies. So that they would, they would drop even faster because the area that they could drop the supplies in was very, very limited Plei Me was not that big to begin with. And then they had this sort of inactive defense that went far out away from the act of the active line of defense where there were man gun trenches and all that they had sort of like a no man's land that was outside of the camp with barbed wire and claymore mines and things like that. But if supplies landed in there you would be you take you take your life in your own hands trying to even get to it because it was constantly under fire, SM: 1:05:38 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:06:07 -And so the just the skill of the pilot, and the Air Force, or I am sorry, these special forces, riggers, right the ones who rigged the pallets up in the first place, specifically, so that they would drop quickly. And so the planes would come over, they only have a second or two to release the load. And they wanted it to drop right into the camp. So they not only the guys who get it, but so that the NBA could not get it SM: 1:06:07 Right. JS: 1:06:32 -It is the level of skill. And meanwhile, you have got the board air controller, sort of like I would like it him as like the conductor of an orchestra. And he was up there in a little O-1 bird dog observation plane. It is like a Cessna. And you know, he was marking things down with a grease pencil on his plexiglass of his of his of his of his plane, you know, all the different flights that he has got stacked up and he was in ease and again, he was orchestrating all of this and calling in okay, you know, flight 2 you can go now SM: 1:06:32 Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:07:06 -going to run, okay, we have got a supply run coming in, imagine the pressure, SM: 1:07:11 Yeah. JS: 1:07:11 -of that skill that is involved in that, all of that to keep these guys on the ground alive. SM: 1:07:18 Yep. JS: 1:07:19 -And, again, not knowing any of them. Really, I mean, you might, you might have met a guy here, there. But for the most part, there is guys on the ground that need help. And in to do all that and to bring in all of that heavy-duty ordinance so close to the base, but not kill anybody. was amazing. They wanted some, including the camp commander Harold Moore took some shrapnel from close air support, they came in too close. And a couple of Montagnards were crushed to death when a supply pallet came right down on top of their gun trench. SM: 1:07:54 Wow. JS: 1:07:54 So it was not it was not without hazard. SM: 1:07:57 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:07:57 But most part in a hot complex situation. These guys really, the skill and determination they exhibited over that week was just amazing. SM: 1:08:09 Could you give um if someone wants to know more about Plei Me, what would be the date, the date the month and the days in 65. JS: 1:08:20 Mm-Hmm. So that is going to be October 19th through October 25th is the official length of the siege 1965 There are things that happened before it there was leading up to it and there were some things that happen after it. SM: 1:08:37 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:08:38 Both are talked about in the book, but that siege itself ran from October 19 to which was a Tuesday I believe all the way through the 25th is when the seed was officially lifted when that South Vietnamese armored Task Force finally arrived. SM: 1:08:55 Yeah, and-and then the La Drang Valley was only about three days later. JS: 1:09:01 Well, well- SM: 1:09:02 -that means remember, like, JS: 1:09:05 The pursuit started almost immediately. But you are right. When you think about the, you know, Colonel Hal Moore -and most of the seventh and what we think of as the beginning of the La Drang on November 14. SM: 1:09:13 Yep. Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:09:19 That would be that was after a really frantic pursuit of the forces that had to besiege Plei [inaudible] and Plei Me that was always the big complaint from American commanders at that time. Was that the Viet Cong and again, they thought these were the Viet Cong up until maybe halfway through the siege and they started to realize oh, this is actually the PAVN right People's Army of Vietnam as the NBA. And so that one complaint they always made was that they were always allowed to attack and then just drift away and to pick and choose their time. They were going to attack and the first cab was like, we were not going to do that we were not going to allow them just to attack and run away and regroup, we were going to pursue that. We were going to we were going to kill them however we possibly can. And so it was a frenetic frantic pursuit over those weeks until how more landed has the first of his battalion in at the, at the base of the Tupac massive in on November 14. And it was marked by some success. But mainly, it was, it was, it was pretty frustrating for SM: 1:10:32 Right. JS: 1:10:32 first [inaudible]. SM: 1:10:33 Yep. JS: 1:10:34 You know, they-they could pin him down sometimes, but the you know, they-they burned a lot of fuel. And they had a lot of mechanical problems because they kept running the helicopters so hard. You know, they get an A for effort. They were trying to make it happen. But they got a quick introduction to how difficult it was to deal with that terrain and with an enemy that can, you know, can hide and disperse. And but they both sides finally got their battle on November 14th. And we know what happened after that. SM: 1:11:06 Yep. Joe Galloway was lucky to get that, or unlucky. But I think he would say lucky to get that helicopter ride into the area. 1:11:16 And he came into Plei Me to you know, he sort of BS his way on and had a buddy and all the rest of it. That got him into to Plei Me and he told me that story for the book. So he kind of got that first. You got his debit there and then left with the first [inaudible] and then ended up, you know, of course, going in a couple of weeks later. On that first. SM: 1:11:41 You-you talk about also toward the end of your book, The you break down the losses from Plei Me how many Americans died? And how many of the enemy you think died? Could you break that down a little bit more? 1:11:56 Yeah, well, we had seven Americans who were killed. 11 if you count the four guys that were on the recon, that really re-catch up, it was a gun, gunship escort for when Beckwith was looking for a proper LZ for his insertion. So those that have a mechanical player, but they still died and they died in service to their country. And when the rotor came away from their helicopter, technically, you could say that they also perished in the siege because they were directly participating. Then you had you know, scores of South Vietnamese and Montagnard were killed. And the NVA regiments that were there were they fared pretty poorly. The counts on the 33rd regiment, which was the one that actually laid siege to Plei Me are much more accurate. Whereas the 32nd, the one that was tasked with ambush in the relief column, they- body counts are not nearly as reliable. But the 33rd definitely took a horrific beating. And one of the reasons was and ironically, it may have been because their seeds went on so long, that they just were they were subjected to relentless and brutal air bombardment SM: 1:13:23 Yes Right. JS: 1:13:23 -and attacks from the camp itself for seven days, you know, nearly you know, and, and doing the-the South Vietnamese relief force was so slow in getting there, it just, it just drove the siege out day after day after day. And these guys just were pummeled. So I do not remember the exact figures off the top of my head, but I know that several, several, several companies pretty much cease to exist. In the 33rd I know that several battalions they lost all I think all of their battalion commanders was killed, or maybe two or three, they lost a lot of a lot of their equipment, which at that time was in really short supply for the North Vietnamese, you know, there was any aircraft guns and, and, and recoilless rifles and all that stuff was-was gold to them, especially in those early days and they lost a lot of that, but also lost a lot of manpower. -32nd even though it had taken a beating out there on Route five, again, body counts are not as reliable. Most sources seem to think conservatively they lost a couple of 100 guys, which is still a chunk, you know, that is a lot that is a that is a lot of people to lose, and but they were able to escape and make their way out and I do not think that they saw any more action for quite some time but the 33rd was harassed and chased the whole way from Plei Me by the first cab until they actually got to the base areas in the Ia Drang. And I think if memory serves now we are getting into Joe Galloway's territory here. But I think that the 33rd did participate somewhat in the Ia Drang battles, it was mainly the 66 NBA regiment, but I think the 33rd did in that course they lost more guys. SM: 1:15:18 Right. JS: 1:15:19 So, by the time it was all said and done, they and they abandoned South Vietnam and started across the border to Cambodia, SM: 1:15:28 Right. JS: 1:15:29 Both of those regiments, the 33rd. And the 32nd that besieged Plei Me were pretty badly mauled. But they could then take-take refuge in Cambodia, and get replacements and rest and recuperate and get more supplies. And then when they were ready, they could go back into the fight, which is what those sanctuaries allow them to do. SM: 1:15:54 I have a couple of questions now that are just general questions on Vietnam, and I just like your thoughts. A lot of the books and a lot of historians have stated that America was not prepared for this war. They did not understand the culture of Vietnam, they did not, they were not prepared for a guerrilla war. I think Special Forces though, were pretty good at countering them. But they did not understand the language. They should bet-bet-better understood the history. And when Robert McNamara wrote his book, In retrospect, several years ago, he admitted that he, he knew we were not going to win the war. But he still left in 1967. And the war was still going on. And I know Senator McCarthy never forgave him for that. Because I interviewed Senator McCarthy and said that, In retrospect, was a bunch of garbage in his view, because he should have done that way before 67. Your thought about America? What has America prepared for this war? JS: 1:16:54 Prepared? That is right. What are we talking about? Are we talking culturally, politically, militarily? All of the above- SM: 1:17:01 -all of the above? Because, you know, because did they understand guerrilla warfare? Do they understand the history of Vietnam? You know, all you had to do was listen to Ho Chi Minh, he could have told you everything. So just your thoughts? JS: 1:17:17 Yeah, I mean, I think right, culturally, I think that, that they did not, they did not even a lot of Americans did not even know where it was right. And they did not, they did not really see public fans are the nuances of, you know, Cold War geopolitics, it was pretty much like, where our president says, we need to be there. Those are the commies we need to do. And that is probably the deepest it was ever thought of by, you know, just on the average American, those who are even aware of it. Then you get the guys who are charged with prosecuting the war. You are right. I mean, ever since 1945, in the end of World War Two, America had been preparing for a large set piece, geopolitical struggle against the Soviet Union, and to a somewhat lesser degree, China, right. SM: 1:18:22 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:18:22 And so the emphasis was on, you know, big weapons, big units, air power, all the rest to defeat a foe that could pose an existential threat to your country. And-and, of course, you know, Vietnam was not that, you know, it was. So I agree, I think today, they were taking somewhat by surprise, I think that they thought that kind of like the incremental. The incremental approach gradiated pressure that McNamara approach with LBJ is at least acquiescence, right? SM: 1:19:01 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:19:03 To keep the pressure up, and, you know, keep trying to get concessions and keep trying to get them to come to the bargaining table. I mean, they did not I do not think they knew what they were dealing with. And you would think that you could look and just see from the-the perspective of the French. But again, I think that the Americans thought at the time, and they were justified in thinking that we had more capabilities than the French SM: 1:19:29 Right. JS: 1:19:29 -we had, we had better weapons, and we had better tactics. And we were- the French had just gotten beaten in World War Two and works for some of the reasons we supported them in Vietnam was to try to get them back on their feet because we saw it as a way to do as an anticommunist block to have a strong France again. Probably a lot of Americans leadership did not they did not want to see colonies anymore. They did not want to see they knew the third world was changing. You are right. I think a lot of these things it took them by surprise and-and just like inch by inch, step by step, they got deeper into something. And I think by the time they realized and adjusted strategy, and then we are talking getting into (19)72, which kind of comes to my, my second book that will be coming out here in a few months, is that, you know, by that time, all of the goodwill and all of the political capital, everything had been expended. SM: 1:19:47 Mm-Hmm. Mm.-Hmm. JS: 1:20:12 And that by that time, Congress wanted no more part of it, and neither did the American people. And so, you know, that is the Nixon felt, felt a heavy pressure, he had to get out, and he had to get out. And, you know, the election of 72 was-was the-the new Congress coming in the new was going to be sworn in, in early 73, 93rd Congress, and he knew it was going to be hostile to Vietnam, especially it had been growing more so. And so I think that by the time they figured it out, they figured out how to fight the war, what the priorities should be, and all the rest of it. That coupled with the defeat of the Viet Cong in 68 Tet all of those things came too late. And I think that by the time they figured out what they should do, and then Watergate happened in Nixon lost all of whatever little capital he had, and then finally resigned. And at that point, we just pretty much washed our hands of the whole thing and, and left South Vietnam on its own. In the process- SM: 1:21:44 Yep. Arthur Schlesinger, the historian who was a special assistant to President Kennedy, said, said that Kennedy picked the best and the brightest for his administration. And of course, administration stayed on with LBJ, a lot of them after Kennedy was assassinated, set for Bobby who took off within a year. Look at what they did under Kennedy and Johnson. And when we are talking best and brightest, he is referring, I think, and mostly to Robert McNamara, and McGeorge Bundy. JS: 1:22:23 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:22:23 And can you throw Dean Rusk in there as well? I get that. Yeah, they might. is bright, always smart. That is the question I want to ask. And, and I do not think they were very smart. If they could not see what was happening, and particularly and I have different views. I have interviewed Robert McNamara's son. He has got a new book out too, on his father. And I have a little more and even Bobby Mueller grew to like Robert McNamara in overtime because he debated him. However, what Eugene McCarthy told me after In Retrospect came out is that his book was a bunch of garbage is what a lot of people felt because it was a little too late. JS: 1:23:11 Mm-Hmm. SM: 1:23:12 If he knew this before, he should have been in the office with LBJ and said stop. I- you know, so, you know, just when you say you know, the best and the brightest, it always goes to Arthur Schlesinger because he was in that group from Harvard, but maybe they were not the best in the brightest, after all. Any thoughts on that? Oh Yeah- yeah, Halberstam wrote that. But you know, Fletcher's always saying it [inaudible] JS: 1:23:33 Yeah, I mean, that is the that is the book right? It is, we-we look at that and and-and we see it was Halberstam right? Who wrote the book- -Yeah, yeah. And it is true. I just I think that, you know, there is this adage that you fight, you are always trying to fight the last war. And I do not know, I think that they were trying to blame a-a-a-a- the American way of war. I think you are trying to bring it and make the war fit the way we wanted to fight it rather than the realities of what was going on. And again, slash injure or Eugene McCarthy's take on McNamara, you know, it was a little too late. And I would add to that, I would say that, you know, in a different sort of little too late, it was like, they finally figured it out. And we were having real success, but it was too late because they had already they had already burned all the bridges and SM: 1:23:50 Yep. JS: 1:23:53 bended all the little and no one believed him anymore and, and then, at that point, they just the people just wanted out in Congress, you know, was going to make that happen one way or another and I just I would look at it, Stephen, I just look at it. It is such a such a tragedy, right? SM: 1:25:04 I agree. Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:25:05 But if you get if you do it, right, if you do it, then the very least you can do is to is to be successful and to be and to win the thing. And this is what we come back to our beginning of our conversation, the thing that struck me as a young kid starting to watch this stuff starting to study, it is like, it just seems like such a waste. -and one of these guys lost, and then countless others who were named and, and who do you know, even though I said, I did not like the caricature of the Vietnam vets, it is in popular media, I mean, a lot of them did have a lot of problems. And a lot of them came overcame those problems, a lot of them went on to live a very happy and successful lives and still do. In fact, the great majority of them do. But the thing is, is you make that if you make that commitment, and you tell these young men to go do something, at least have the decency to be successful, and make their sacrifice worth something. And to me, that is, that is the tragedy too. And the tragedy is the is the millions of Vietnamese who were who lost their lives. And we were- SM: 1:26:15 Yes. JS: 1:26:16 -we were just split. And-and so, you know, what was all that for, you know, to-to, again, I hate this keep coming back when we spent 20 years in Afghanistan, and yet the scales of the enormity of what went on were not, were paled in comparison to-to Vietnam. Still, what was it all for? I mean, what was all those guys who were killed and lost legs? And what was it all for? If you are just going to wash your hands and-and bug out in an embarrassing display at the-the Kabul airport or in Saigon in 75? You know- SM: 1:26:29 Yes, It is like, it is like in your book use you talk about when all the bombardment is happening around the outskirts of pre-May in how parts of bodies around the wires? I mean, you know, after the all the bombing and taking place, these are these are human beings to from North Vietnam or the Viet Cong. I mean, they were they were babies, ones that have parents that love them and had families and they end up on body parts on a on a, you know, on a wire around a camp it is tragic. And I think the one thing you said at the very end of your book, because that person who saw that soldier, and it was actually thought that the soldier was just in the one I am talking about with a maggots. JS: 1:27:46 Yes, yeah. SM: 1:27:47 Could you talk about that, too? Because this is what the tra- this is what tragedy war is all about? JS: 1:27:53 Yeah. No, it was I think I called it one of wars, little atrocities. I mean, it was just, you know, somehow this, this North Vietnamese soldier had escaped the bulldozers that would have pushed all the bodies into the trenches that they dug themselves and then covered him over and he was propped up against them some foliage. And he would have he had died and compound fracture of his leg probably bled out at that moment, but he had the maggots had gone to work on his face instead of the leg wound. And, you know, the guy I told you about the helicopter pilot, who was walking around kind of looking to see, what he could see was just guessed. You know, he could not he could not believe his eyes. And it is you put it so well, I mean, he hears these guys, and they will they suffered, they suffered on their way down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, they starved and they were sick. And you know, these are things that, you know, we do not really think about, but just the hardship of just that, of just war itself, not even being shot or anything else, just the physical toil that it takes on your body, even as the young man and then at the end of that whole long, arduous, starving sick trip and they get to their their reward is to storm into this camp, and get bombarded by Napalm and become body parts in the wire. And a tragic thing that I found out in my research was is that the the NBA commanders knew that those that they were sending these guys into this mall have-have heard horrific fire. But they had no intention of taking the camp at that point. They just wanted to make the defenders think they were about to be overrun. SM: 1:29:40 Unbelievable. JS: 1:29:41 And in these guys against the wire and getting them slaughtered, knowing that really the whole point was is to first destroy that ambush or ambush that relief column and then overrun and destroy the camp. That was all part of the plan. And they knew it. I do not know if the I do not know if the company commanders knew it, but certainly the regimental commanders must have known it. That that was part of the plan. SM: 1:30:07 Yeah. -wars, not only hell, it is insanity. And then that you just proved it there. And Jan Scruggs wrote a book called Heal a Nation. I do not know if you saw that book. And it was about the importance of the wall and healing America, and certainly healing the families and the loved ones of the Vietnam soldiers who lost their lives in the war. Did that, as Jan said, heal a nation, does a wall heal the nation. JS: 1:30:07 So but- 1:30:39 I think that it certainly had a powerful effect. And I you know, I have been to it several times. And I have, I have, I seen the reverence with which the people approach it. And not all the guys are, you know, 70s, you know, in Vietnam age, you know, I mean, a lot of young people too, and, and people from different walks of life, and mean, something. And, you know, another thing I think, that helped heal the nation was-was Operation Homecoming, which was, as you know, once the Paris Peace Accords, were finally signed, there was the agreement to get the Viet W's out. And, and the reception that those guys got, everywhere they went, and the POW bracelets and the people the way they were treated, and the way that the-the citizens came up around the country to greet the planes and all of that. I mean, it was really inspiring. And that is what I asked again, that is, that is part of the second book that I am publishing this this winter, is I asked him, what was that? Was that a healing effect on the nation? And I really think that it was I think, law and things like that. helped me get a little better in the end. SM: 1:32:09 Did you talk to Jan Scruggs at all? If not, he is a good man to talk to. JS: 1:32:17 Steven I, I will, if I had the chance, I will reach out. But I do have to say this, but I have to go because I got to take my son to eye, to his eye appointment. SM: 1:32:28 Very good. JS: 1:32:29 So- is there any kind of last thing you wanted to ask me or? SM: 1:32:33 Yeah- I was going to say if there is one word that stands out in the 60s and 70s, what is that one word? JS: 1:32:44 60s and 70s. alike, all the way to the end of the 70s. SM: 1:32:47 What is there is one word that comes to mind when you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s? What is that word? JS: 1:32:56 Chaotic. SM: 1:32:58 Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, my mind was Vietnam. Yeah. And the last thing I want to ask is, and this is just-just your thoughts? Why did we lose the Vietnam War? And who was the most responsible for this loss? 1:33:14 Why we lost it, I think the strategy, my view was ultimately the strategy. I think that the American- whenever would have lost the American people if we were if we were actively winning, rather than just holding off rather than trying to hold territory or rather than just trying to accumulate body count. But then that opens up an entire other hand, does not it? What how would the Chinese have reacted? If we invaded Laos? I was a Chinese or how would the Soviets have acted if we invaded Cambodia, or at least, you know, create a buffer zones- SM: 1:33:58 Right. JS: 1:33:59 -that help prevent those supplies? And, you know, that is the that is the thing is that it is- we do not know. I mean, you got hindsight, we can both look back, and we see the mistakes now. And maybe we do not even see it, maybe we still do not see it. But it is just at the time, you know, Korea loom large and that experience and having all those Chinese forces come in. And I know that America's leadership did not want to do it. They also wanted to, in some ways for NSA, we were not even fighting a war. And if you are going to do it, you got to, you got to go to the American people and say, here is what we have got. SM: 1:34:43 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:34:44 What we need to do, can you support us and lay it on the line and say, this is what we really think is happening. ' SM: 1:34:53 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:34:53 This is what we need to do. And I do not think that the leadership did that. And I think that the Because of that, it constrain the strategy to one of attrition and holding, you know, trying to hold on to South Vietnam territory, and really fighting it sort of a defensive that. SM: 1:35:15 My last question is this real fascinating go. I have been asking the last 25 people I have interviewed, what word of advice would you give to the people who are listening to this interview? Who are not even born yet? These tapes are going to be at our center, and people that are born 50 years from now are going to be probably looking at your book listening to this tape. What words of advice would you give to them? JS: 1:35:46 I would say this, sometimes nation states have to go to war. Just make sure that you get your government to fully explain why you are going to war and-and why it is necessary and what they intend to do to win it. SM: 1:36:06 Mm-Hmm. JS: 1:36:09 If they cannot answer those questions satisfactorily, then you have got to not support what is going to happen. And, again, war are sometimes necessary for any sovereign nation, but you do not do it. You do not engage in it. Unless you fully believe and intend to win, and the secure objectives. And if you cannot do that, and your government cannot explain that to you, as a citizen, then you need to be mighty skeptical of it. SM: 1:36:41 Well, thank you very much, Dr. Saliba. I am going to turn this off now. And I just want to thank you for doing for doing the interview with me and I wish you the best on your new book. Are you still they still-still there? JS: 1:37:00 [inaudible]. When the book comes out [inaudible]- SM: 1:37:07 Oh, I would be looking forward to it- JS: 1:37:17 [inaudible] SM: 1:37:22 -well, all that-all the people in Binghamton they are-are going to know so that is all you know, we got Dr. Nieman Dr. Nieman in the History department. So you know, you are going to be known that this book, I just want to say that this book that you just written is so important. So important. And I learned an awful lot that I did not know. And I thank you for this and the people anybody connected with Plei Me. I mean, they are American heroes. They are American heroes. That is all I have to say. And what will happen is we will be sending you a copy of this tape digital copy to your email address from Binghamton and then you can listen to it and if you if everything's fine and Okay, so we can place an onsite loan with your picture and a brief biography. JS: 1:38:15 [inaudible] SM: 1:38:15 And I tell it to your university that you work at is very lucky to have you that is all I had to say. JS: 1:38:20 [inaudible] I like that- SM: 1:38:26 [chuckles] Yes, you are lucky you are You take care. You be safe now. Bye now. 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. J. Keith Saliba 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/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 4 audiotape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 47:48 25:01 45:54 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE85297">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE85297</a> 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>. 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 Amahl and the night visitors, December 15, 1973 December 15, 1973 Recital Tape 1973-12-15 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 1973-12-15 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound 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/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 audiotape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 45:15 46:51 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE85293">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE85293</a> 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>. 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 Paul Jordan, recital, December 12, 1973 December 12, 1973 Recital Tape 1973-12-12 Description An account of the resource Held at 8:15 pm, Dec. 12, 1973, Casadesus Recital Hall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jordan, Paul 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 1973-12-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound 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/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 audiotape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 50:32 39:35 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE85289">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE85289</a> 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>. 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 Harpur Symphony Orchestra, concert,December 6, 1973 December 6, 1973 Recital Tape 1973-12-6 Description An account of the resource Works of Bokser, Mozart, and Shostakovich. Held at 8:15 pm, Dec. 6, 1973, Johnson City High School. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Harpur Symphony Orchestra, Harpur College Orchestra 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 1973-12-6 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound 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/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 audiotape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 36:13 45:23 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE85285">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE85285</a> 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>. 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 Renaissance Consortium and Baroque Chamber Orchestra, concert, December 1, 1973 December 1, 1973 Recital Tape 1973-12-1 Description An account of the resource Works of Bach, Cooper, Peletier, Gallilei, and Hassler. Held at 8:15 pm, December 1, 1973, Casadesus Recital Hall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Renaissance Consortium and Baroque Chamber Orchestra.Renaissance Consortium 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 1973-12-1 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound 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/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 audiotape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 41:40 29:10 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE83891">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE83891</a> 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>. 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 Lenox String Quartet, Mozart festival, November 30, 1973 November 30, 1973 Recital Tape 1973-11-30 Description An account of the resource Held at 8:15 pm, November 30, 1973, Casadesus Recital Hall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lenox String Quartet 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 1973-11-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound 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/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 audiotape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 49:44 23:34 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE83895">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE83895</a> 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>. 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 Lenox String Quartet, Mozart festival, November 28, 1973 November 28, 1973 Recital Tape 1973-11-28 Description An account of the resource Held at 8:15 pm, November 28, 1973, Casadesus Recital Hall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lenox String Quartet 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 1973-11-28 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound 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/. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1960's - present Title A name given to the resource Binghamton University Music Department Tape Recordings Subject The topic of the resource Concerts ; Instrumental music ; Live sound recordings Description An account of the resource Binghamton University Music Department recordings is an audio collection of concerts and recitals given on campus by students, faculty, and outside musical groups. The physical collection consists of reel-to-reel tapes, cassette tapes, and compact discs. The recordings <a href="https://suny-bin.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Binghamton%20University%20Music%20Department%20tape%20recordings&amp;tab=LibraryCatalog&amp;search_scope=MyInstitution&amp;vid=01SUNY_BIN:01SUNY_BIN&amp;mode=basic&amp;offset=0&amp;conVoc=false">have been catalogued</a> and are located in <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/special-collections/">Special Collections</a>. In addition, the collection includes copies of programmes. <br /><br />The Libraries have begun making some of the collections available digitally on campus. These recordings are restricted to the Binghamton University Community. Please contact Special Collections for questions regarding access off campus.<br />Email:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:speccoll@binghamton.edu">speccoll@binghamton.edu</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Universal Viewer / Rosetta Rosetta audio media Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 3 audiotape reels Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 30:07 35:11 31:03 Streaming Audio Streaming URL <a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE83478">https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE83478</a> 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>. 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 Lenox String Quartet, Mozart fesitval, November 26, 1973 November 26, 1973 Recital Tape 1973-11-26 Description An account of the resource Held at 8:15 pm, November 26, 1973, Casadesus Recital Hall. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lenox String Quartet 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 1973-11-26 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Type The nature or genre of the resource sound