60
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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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
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Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2006-11-04
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Diane Carlson Evans
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Diane Carlson Evans served as a nurse during the Vietnam War in the United States Army. Before joining the Army as a nurse, Evans graduated from nursing school in Minnesota. She was the major contributor to the creation of the Vietnam Women's Memorial."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":4200835,"3":{"1":0},"4":[null,2,5099745],"10":2,"11":4,"14":[null,2,0],"15":"Arial","25":[null,0,0]}">Diane Carlson Evans served as a nurse during the Vietnam War in the United States Army. Before joining the Army as a nurse, Evans graduated from nursing school in Minnesota. She was the major contributor to the creation of the Vietnam Women's Memorial.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
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MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Peace Corps; Conscientious objector; Civil rights movement; Women's Rights Movement; War protest; Watergate; The Guardian; Suffragettes; Activism; Troops; Congress; Women in military service; American Memorial; Lewis Puller; Lyndon B. Johnson."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":3,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">Baby boom generation; Peace Corps; Conscientious objector; Civil rights movement; Women's Rights Movement; War protest; Watergate; The Guardian; Suffragettes; Activism; Troops; Congress; Women in military service; American Memorial; Lewis Puller; Lyndon B. Johnson.</span>
Duration
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242:51
Subject LCSH
United States—Armed Forces—Nurses; Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Evans, Diane Carlson--Interviews
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Diane Carlson Evans
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 11 April 2006
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:06):
Testing, one, two, three, testing. Okay, here we go. Okay, hold on a second. I cannot read this. Oh, you bastard. Diane? Hi, how you doing? I am pretty good. It is pretty early for you. All right, very good. Now let me put on the speakerphone here. Hold on one second. I got it.
DE (00:01:23):
This is my cell phone and I have just realized it is not fully charged, so at some point it will die. So let me give you another phone number you can call me on.
SM (00:01:38):
Okay.
DE (00:01:39):
That is 406-457.
SM (00:01:41):
457.
DE (00:01:41):
1977.
SM (00:01:42):
1977.
DE (00:01:45):
I will get beeping on my cell phone to warn me that it is going to die so I will let you know and I will hang up and you can call me back.
SM (00:01:49):
Okay, all right. Well, before we start, I want to say I will be down in Washington next week.
DE (00:01:57):
Oh, you are?
SM (00:01:58):
Yeah. I will be there again. I will be there now, I think, since 1994 I have been there every year for Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
DE (00:02:06):
I have missed you most of the time, I guess. And you know what, I am not going to be there this year for the second time in 25 years.
SM (00:02:13):
Oh really?
DE (00:02:14):
I have been out there for 24 years every Veteran's Day and then we always have a board meeting in conjunction with Veterans Day. So, I am going to miss both this year. But my family is kidnapping me. I am turning 60 years old on November 10th.
SM (00:02:32):
Oh, wow. Well, 60 years young.
DE (00:02:32):
60 years young and I have celebrated my birthday every year out there without my family.
SM (00:02:39):
Oh my gosh.
DE (00:02:40):
So, we all decided it was time for me to do something fun with the family on my birthday, so we are going up to northern Montana and we will all be together.
SM (00:02:49):
That is great.
DE (00:02:50):
Yeah, but I will be back there on the 14th because I am going to be on a panel that WE television, with Creative Streets Productions that did the Vietnam Nurses documentary, is going to have a screening and some of the women in radio and television and others are going to be there. And then following the screening I am going to be on a panel.
SM (00:03:12):
Excellent.
DE (00:03:13):
They are going to send the documentary off to film festivals. They are hoping to get some awards, which they just might. It was well done. Did you see it?
SM (00:03:25):
Actually, I got home that night and I could not find it on my TV set.
DE (00:03:29):
Yeah, it is on W-E TV. And I could not get it on my cable either. You have to have high end cable, I guess, to get it.
SM (00:03:43):
Well, will we be able to get that in...
DE (00:03:43):
Before we hang up, we are getting a shipment and it is supposed to come Monday or Tuesday to the foundation, and then we are selling them.
SM (00:03:52):
Okay.
DE (00:03:53):
And we have already had a lot of requests. They will be available next week, just go on online to vwmfcc@aol.com and just tell Cindy you want a copy. She will tell you how much money and all of that, where to send the check.
SM (00:04:12):
Super.
DE (00:04:13):
We still do not do Visa, we still do not do credit cards for our product. But anyway, yeah, you can get a copy next week.
SM (00:04:23):
Good, I will do it.
DE (00:04:24):
Yeah, it is very well done, Steve. I would highly recommend it. I was very pleasantly surprised. But finally somebody did a documentary that really got it.
SM (00:04:35):
Super. Well, I got a few questions here for you. Are you ready for your first one?
DE (00:04:43):
Sure, let us go.
SM (00:04:44):
Okay. When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
DE (00:04:53):
Oh, the first thing that comes to my mind is war.
SM (00:05:00):
Explain.
DE (00:05:03):
In the mid-(19)60s, my one brother got drafted. 1966 he was drafted. Before that, my older brother joined the military in early 60s. I was tuned in, connected to the military because of my brothers and because of my local neighbor boys who were getting drafted and going into the military. And then when my 4-H buddy and some other classmates of my brothers were killed in Vietnam and their caskets came home, and some of them were farm boys and my father was extremely upset. He hated the war. He did not like the war. And so there was a lot of war talk. Not a lot of war talk, but there was discussion about what was going on with our military. My dad was devastated because we were farmers and his two older brothers went off to war. Then when I started college in 1964, I do not know why really, but I was interested in what was happening overseas from a nursing standpoint. So, I guess that is the answer.
SM (00:06:21):
Is there one specific event during your youth that stands out above every other event that really had an impact on your life?
DE (00:06:33):
That is a good question, Steve. Man, you are narrowing in here, are not you?
SM (00:06:40):
Oh, I think we just lost you.
DE (00:06:45):
No, I am here.
SM (00:06:46):
Oh, okay.
DE (00:06:48):
I am thinking.
SM (00:06:51):
Okay.
DE (00:06:51):
I am thinking because that is a pretty direct question, more than anything that affected my life. And you are talking about an experience or an instance-
SM (00:07:03):
It could be something in your life. It could be something that happened in the world, in the United States, just something that really had an impact on you.
DE (00:07:22):
I think more than a direct experience or a direct impact, it was more of something seething inside of me to do something worthwhile since I saw the activism and my peers, all men, having to do something worthwhile, like join the military or do something above themselves rather than... how can I say this? Everything that was going on with the assassination of President Kennedy and the Civil Rights Movement. I felt like the little one room country school I was going to and my high school was not feeding me enough information. I was very curious about what was really happening in the country and around the world on a higher level than I seemed to be getting in high school. And so by the time I finished nurses training, by the time I finished college, I was really ready to move on into the world and discover what was really out there and be an active part of it rather than just someone watching it happen. I wanted to be part of what was happening and do something worthwhile with it. I do not know if that makes sense to you?
SM (00:08:46):
Yes it does. You are part of the boomer generation, in fact you are in the lead of the boomer generation, I think the Boomer generation are those people born between 1946 and 1964?
DE (00:08:59):
Yeah, I am one of the firsters.
SM (00:09:01):
Yep. Well, next year is when I hit it. But when you look at the boomer generation as a generation, what are some of the positive qualities this generation had and what are some of the negatives, just characteristics?
DE (00:09:18):
I would say that the positive things about my generation that I am proud of is that we did answer the call when it was given to us. Many of us volunteered, think about the baby boom generation among the women, 250,000 women joined the military during a very turbulent time in our country when it was very unpopular to go into the military, especially for women because there was still the stereotype of women in the military that they were something to be questioned, or why would a woman go into the military? But these were women who joined because they wanted to serve their country. So, I was very proud of these women, but I was also proud of my generation not only for wanting to do something and serve, and my friends who were going into the Peace Corps, and they were saying, "I do not believe in war. I am going to oppose this." And I thought that that took a lot of courage and they became conscientious objectors. So I was proud of my generation for serving, but I was also proud of my generation for speaking up and for using their voice to identify what it was they cared about and then moving forward with that rather than just sitting passively back in a classroom and watching the world go by and wondering what to do about it. They actually got out in the street. And the women's movement, the Civil Rights Movement, that was all part of the baby boom generation. And Steve, I will tell you, I really resent the use of the term that we are the me generation. And in fact, J. Carter Brown, and if this is identified I have the article, J. Carter Brown, as you know, was the chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts that rejected carte blanche the whole idea for placing a memorial in Washington DC to honor women. And that hearing, where the site and the design in our proposal to honor women was at Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and he absolutely rejected it. This was the first hearing. And then later when he was interviewed by a newspaper journalist, and I have the article so it is on record, I am not making this up. I can send it to you if you want the exact words. But he said that I was part of the me generation so he would just have to see where this goes. I was so angry about him calling me and my generation the me generation when it was my generation, because he was referring to me, I was a veteran, it was three million of us in the me generation that went to Vietnam and over 58,000 of that generation he was referring to whose names are on the wall. We were not the me generation. We were the generation that thought outside of ourselves and were willing to go to the streets to protest the war. I am one of the Vietnam veterans who... I do not hate the war protestors... I hate the results of what them did in that somehow the protesting of the war ended up on the soldiers. Now protesting the soldiers rather than protesting the war, it needed to be divided and protest the war but do not protest the soldiers. And somehow that got muddled. And when we look back on that, we wonder how that could happen but it did. I was proud of my generation for speaking out and doing something and going to the streets and being seen to protest something they did not believe was right. So I guess when I think, I had a knee-jerk reaction to Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation, and it is okay to name a book that, but now all of a sudden it is like the only generation that was great in the history of America, the greatest generation is World War II, which I find just another hurtful thing that was put on the greatest generation, if that is what we were going to call them. We are the children of the greatest generation, so if we were the children of the greatest generation how could we be so bad? I mean, they produced us.
SM (00:13:46):
Right.
DE (00:13:49):
They produced us and they raised us. And I am proud of our generation.
SM (00:13:55):
Well, so am I.
DE (00:13:57):
Yeah.
SM (00:13:59):
If you were to just list a couple characteristics, qualities that the boomers possessed, what would you say would be the positive ones and what would be maybe some negative ones?
DE (00:14:10):
Okay, well, I would say we were bold. I would say we honored our parents, the World War II generation, and we looked up to them for what they did. I mean, I was very much in awe of my aunt who served in World War II, and she was a role model for me. I was proud of my dad for what he did in World War II. He was a farmer and he also worked at an ammunition plant. He had kids so he did not get drafted, but he did his part and he rationed his tires and he rationed sugar and my mom talks about that. I am proud of them for what they did and how they sacrificed for the war. They sacrificed for the war effort, and I knew how they sacrificed because I grew up on the farm that did not have what we needed because of World War II. So I think my generation, we had some role modeling and we used that and we used it in positive ways, and that is we too wanted to serve so we did. We wanted to be our parents and serve our country. But what my generation did was we started asking questions, and we started asking lots of questions. So therefore, some members of my generation became what was coined anti-establishment. And maybe it was not so much anti-establishment but questioning that establishment and not obeying it, but rather maybe wanting to change some of the old laws like civil rights, like the laws for gender, women, that affected women in negative ways. So, it was my generation that not only looked kind of in awe at our parents’ generations, but we also said, "Hey, it is time for change." And so it was my generation that made extraordinary changes.
SM (00:16:14):
One of the things you often read in the history books, and you will remember this when you were young, is the generation gap, that there was a big separation between our parents and us because we were challenging the war or getting involved in other things. What are your thoughts on the generation gap? That was a term that is often defined as part of the (19)60s generation.
DE (00:16:43):
Yeah, we are coming up with all those phrases that were just... Well, the generation gap is I think what might define the why we did challenge the status quo. And while I did not feel the gap with my parents, because my parents were very anti-war, they did not believe that war Vietnam was right. They were questioning the administration as well. So, I did not feel a gap with my family, but I know so many young men and women did because their parents said, "You serve and you do not question." So, I know some of my peers could not talk to their family so they did not. They literally did not go home and they had big fights, and they fought so horribly that they just avoided each other completely. So there was definitely a gap between parents and their children during this time. And some of those sons went to Canada, as you know, some just disappeared and either became conscientious objectors and were working at hospitals in states and their parents... I mean, there is one couple I know they did not know where their son was for about four years. He had gone off to live in a commune with a distant relative. And the mother, every time I saw her, she could do nothing but cry because she did not know where her son was. But he had gone off to live in a commune. He was not going to live with the status quo. So yeah, the generation gap was a distancing between the World War II generation and the Vietnam generation, because so many young people just could not seem to come to terms with that generation in that we were scorned, some of us, for questioning the government because you do not question the government. The commander in chief makes the decisions and you salute and you move forward. But we asked questions of everything and we defied a lot of the rules. When I am saying that it is collectively, many defied the rules, broke the rules and wanted new rules. The negative part of that, you and I both know, Steve, lots of rules were broken that should not have been and there was violence. There was terrible violence on both parts. There were violent young people who used their philosophical disagreements with what was happening in America and they took to the streets in violent ways, and that is never an excuse and it is never a way to solve problems in my estimation. And the blowing up of buildings on campuses, the harassment of others, the burning of the flag, I do not believe we should burn the flag but I also believe that you should not go to prison for it because if people are burning the flag they are making some kind of a statement that they are allowed to make that. So I think it created a temperament in the country that it was okay to do anything to show your rebelliousness or your displeasure or your disagreement. What was the other phrase we used? Let it all hang out?
SM (00:20:23):
Yes, let it all hang out. In fact, that was a record, remember? That was a song.
DE (00:20:25):
Right, yep, and then it was like let it all hang out. So consequently, Stephen, the younger generation needed to do this in a visible way so they wore clothes that had never been worn before in that manner. They let their hair grow long and ratty, that maybe had not been done since, I do not know, the 1600s or something. But the defiance was not only with words and behavior, but it was also in the dress of my generation at that time. And that they visibly wanted to show the world that they were different. And now I am using the word [inaudible] because I guess I did not rebel in that way. We used the word hippie, but I always said, "Well, I never looked like a hippie." I was part of the hippie generation but I did not get into the... I guess I felt, Steve, that I did not need to rebel. My way to rebel, I think, was to... I did not take to the streets, but instead I joined the military because what I wanted to do was something valuable. And the only thing that I knew that I could do that was valuable, and remember, I was pretty darn young. I was only almost 21 when I got out of college and 21 when I was in Vietnam. So actually, I was 20 out of college, went to basic training, went to Fort Lee, and then had my 22nd birthday in Vietnam. I was a farm girl who was raised to be a hard worker and dutiful, and the only thing I knew was nursing. And so, I guess I can look back now and say I had the courage to go to Vietnam and be a nurse, but I would never have had the courage to march down a street and throw rocks at buildings or start a fire somewhere. I could not do it in a physically, what is the word, aggressive way. Whereas some of my peers, they were not nurses, they were struggling with how do I show the government, how do I show the country, how do I prove to my parents that I do not like what is going on and I want change and I want a difference? And of course, the negative, Steve, we both know, is sometimes certain individuals, certain human beings, all they need is an excuse to be violent. And some were. It was an excuse to be aggressive. And there is no excuse ever for trying to, I guess, expose your beliefs and show how you care about things, there is no reason really to do it violently. Of course, I am a more peaceful person. But I felt privileged that I was a nurse and that I could do something with that and so I joined the military because I thought about my brothers and I thought it was the right thing to do. And I only joined if they said I could go to Vietnam. And of course the military does make you promises and they break half of them, but they did follow through with their promise. They sent me to Vietnam.
SM (00:23:33):
When you look at the years when you were young in Vietnam, and now, have you changed your thoughts on the Boomer generation? Are your thoughts pretty consistent, the same as they were back say in 1975? Are they the same today in 2006?
DE (00:23:53):
About our generation?
SM (00:23:54):
Yes. Have you changed? Some people as they get older they change their thoughts because it is part of the aging process.
DE (00:24:08):
I gotcha. I am going to have you call me back because my cell phone is beeping.
SM (00:24:09):
Okay.
DE (00:24:09):
Okay, bye-bye.
SM (00:24:12):
Bye. Yeah, the question is have you changed at all your opinions on the Boomer generation from the time you were young to today? You are still young, but-
DE (00:24:23):
Yeah, right. Well, I do not know if I am going to answer this in a way in which you are looking for, but I will say this. Of course it changed after I graduated from college went into the military and served my year in Vietnam and I came home. And when I came home, I was very disillusioned with America and I was very angry at our government for-
SM (00:24:50):
Diane, could you speak up a little bit more? I cannot hear you.
DE (00:24:54):
Now it is the phone that I am on. Maybe I will get a different phone. Does this help at all?
SM (00:25:03):
Let us see. Yeah, that is a little better.
DE (00:25:06):
I am going to get a different phone.
SM (00:25:07):
Okay.
DE (00:25:08):
Sorry, I did not recharge my telephone-
SM (00:25:17):
That is all right.
DE (00:25:18):
... last night, because when I got up the morning, I thought, "Oh, shoot, my cell phone is going to run out too." Okay, I am going to try this phone now. Try this, is this better?
SM (00:25:30):
Oh, yeah, it is a lot better.
DE (00:25:31):
Okay, that is an old phone. So when I came home from Vietnam in 1969, it was a different country since I left. Of course, I was a different person too then when I left. But it did not take me long to see a 1969 the angry country that I lived in. I felt, on one hand, I was glad that my peers and so many people in America were opposing the war and had taken to the streets, but then I also began to feel, and things that I had heard about while I was in Vietnam, what was being taken out on the soldiers. And then I began the doubt and question, and how can people turn on us, on the soldiers? And I had just seen how these young men had suffered and died and I saw the courage that they had and what they had done for this country and then to be scorned when coming home. And being told literally, you have heard the stories, I was told to not wear my uniform home, and I did not have anything but my uniform to wear home. And of course, that caused some very unpleasant things that happened at the airport in Minneapolis. And I thought, "This is Minneapolis. This is Minnesota. Minnesota is nice." I could not believe the reception at the airport in Minneapolis. And so I began to have a lot of anger that the country could on one hand send us after to war like they sent the World War II generation, and were so proud of them and proud of them when they returned, and no one was proud of us. It was to the point where they were opposite of proud. They did not want to look at us, they did not want to deal with us. They turned on us. And when I say they, that is some, that is not the whole country, but many did. And so, I became very confused and frustrated and basically very angry, but I was internalizing it all. But at that time, Steve, I had not found my voice to be able to speak out, and I did not take to the streets in '69 like the veterans before. In fact, what I did was, because I was not dealing well as a nurse in a civilian world, I was out for less than a year and went back into the military and that is when I went to Fort Bend, Houston, and went back to taking care of wounded soldiers. They were coming right from Vietnam. I was in the intensive care unit. So, I went back to doing what I did well and that was nursing, and it probably saved my life because I did not fit in the civilian world and I was very unhappy and I was isolating myself. I just was not dealing well with anything except I could go to work in the military and do my job and take care of the soldiers. So, the rest is history. No, the rest is not history because then after that, I did not find my voice until the dedication in 1981. But getting back to the Boomers, so the way I looked at the Boomers then was that we were a generation that was trapped by a government that was trying to control us, and by some parents that were trying to, and old values that were trying to control us. And my generation was dying. I mean, I saw my generation dying one by one by one, because then after I came home my peers were committing suicide. And then I was learning that they had Agent Orange and they were dying of that. But my peers were dying after Vietnam. And of course I stayed in the military for several years still so I saw them dying in the hospital. But then when I got out of the military, I saw my peers dying. So, when anybody says to me that we were the me generation, which insinuates that we are selfish and self-absorbed and just think about ourselves, I disagree with that, and I find that is one more way to demean our generation. And this is what people in this country did, and the government did, was they denigrated us. They demeaned us. They named us drug-crazed, glassy-eyed baby killers. The movies came out and the Vietnam vets were portrayed as killers and baby killers. Well, what did the country spend them there for? They taught them in base camp, I mean, you go to war and that is what you do, you kill people. And these young boys did not want to do it. They were told they had to do it. The way I look at the Boomers today is that like the greatest generation, World War II generation, I have watched the Baby Boomers, my generation, really work hard to move up into the world and become good citizens despite the fact that they have had to internalize deep, deep pain and anguish over their service and overcome the enormous challenge to get on with life when we have been so slandered, which most people, plus the vets, even understand that. And that does not diminish World War II generation either. They came home with pain and anguish and drama from the war and wounds that never healed. And they had to overcome all of that too. But at least they could say to themselves, "I did something that I could feel proud of. We won the war. Look at what we did." And I do not think anybody's ever proud that they killed someone, so I am not saying that any soldier would say I am so proud I killed somebody. But they could feel proud that they made a difference for their country. Like World War II [inaudible] can say, well, this is what [inaudible] we were allowed to feel proud of-
SM (00:31:45):
Still there?
DE (00:31:46):
Yeah, I am here.
SM (00:31:46):
Okay. How important was the Boomer generation in ending the war? And I am speaking, one of the criticisms of the Boomer generation is often, well, there is 70 million people and only really 15 percent were involved in any sort of activist activity to end the war, be involved in the Civil Rights Movement. And oftentimes the media will portray the generation it was a small number of people that were involved in these kinds of movements. Your thoughts on number one, whether it is oftentimes how a media portrays the generation as smaller numbers of people being involved in these things, and number two, basically the overall impact that the young people had in ending the war in Vietnam.
DE (00:32:38):
First of all, Steve, the media is fickle. And now look at what the media does to Vietnam vets. Now, today, we are all heroes. We are all heroes. Anybody who wore the uniform is a hero. And in fact, now we have gotten a directive from the VA, maybe you know this, that the week of Veterans Day now we are all supposed to wear our medals to show that we served our country and our pride, and now we were all supposed to wear our medals. And of course, the media picked up on this, and now all the soldiers serving in Iraq are considered heroes. So, I am not quite sure what a hero is anymore, because when I was in Vietnam I knew who the heroes were and I never considered myself a hero. And most of the people I served with did not, we reserved that word for somebody who was really extraordinary. I mean, if somebody says to me, "Diane, you are my hero," I will say, "Well, I appreciate that. Thank you very much," and I will accept it. But I do not put that word on an entire generation or an entire group of people, because then who are the heroes? But anyway, now I lost my train of thought. Oh, well the media is fickle. And where was the media during Vietnam in that I was very proud of the media early on and during the years where they really tried to bring this home to America. That is another thing. The media during the Vietnam War brought the raw, horrible, heinous, tragic truth back to America on the six o'clock news. And at least the people were able to see on television how heinous war is and what it does to the human body and at what it does to civilians, children especially. And so, I am one of these people that actually believed, and still believes, that if we are going to have a war, let the American people, everybody, every single one of us, see what is happening. Let us see what it is doing to civilians. Let us see what it is doing to our soldiers, because then maybe we will have a gut reaction to it and maybe we will stop it... reaction to it and maybe we will stop it. So they brought the raw truth home. But when the soldiers came home, the media picked up on rag tag soldiers who somehow looked disheveled and the soldiers who became war protestors themselves. And somehow the media, to me, and it is not entirely true maybe, but on a very grand scale, I think the media was also to blame in how soldiers were treated when they came home from the war. Rather than keying in and picking up on the stories about what the soldier had done and how he had served his country, or she, and a report on that... And that happened. It did not happen until 1982, in my estimation. This is all my opinion. But in 1982 when the wall was dedicated, and I went out to the wall for that dedication and all of a sudden, I felt this sense of the country was turning to really look at who we were as soldiers and veterans. And I was followed around by this cameraman because I was wearing my booty camp from Vietnam. And he followed me around and finally I thought, "He is following me." And this has never happened to me before. And I looked at him and I said, "Why are you following me?" And he said, "Well, you were in Vietnam were not you?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "Well, what did you do in Vietnam?" And I said, "Well, I was a nurse." And he said, "Well, can I interview you?" And I had such a knee-jerk reaction and so much distress like, "What is he going to do with this interview?" And so I said, "No." I said, "Would you please go away? I just want to be alone. Just leave me alone." And it was like I felt like he wanted to exploit me like I had been exploited before. And so, I did not trust the media. But after the dedication of the wall, there were stories that were published in every major newspaper across the country about Vietnam vets, who they really were, where they came from, what they were doing today, how they were feeling. And so it took a long time for the press to come around and start putting us in a more accurate light. And of course, that is all we wanted was the accuracy and we just wanted the truth. We did not want to be turned into a bunch of heroes or turned into something we were not. We just wanted the truth. And of course, then that gets into the next phase of my life, Steve, which is there was something seething inside of me again that I just wanted to do whatever I could to help this truth be told. And the truth was that the women who served in Vietnam were completely invisible and then they were invisible again at the wall after the dedication of the statues of three men. And so, I just felt like, "I need to do something constructive with how I am feeling or it is going to kill me." In about five minutes, I have got to switch my tape here, but a very important question. And that is, when you look at the issue of trust, one of the questions I have been asking all of my interviewees is the question of this quality of trust and whether we have it within the Boomer generation because of all the experiences we had growing up as young people watching Lyndon Johnson say the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. And of course a lot has been written about that. That was a lie. We go back to President Kennedy and how we got in Vietnam and there was some questions there. We go back to Eisenhower and the U2 incident and how we lied in public. And then of course we all go back to Watergate, which was an unbelievable experience for young people. And many of the Boomers, if not most of the Boomers, just did not trust anybody in positions of power and responsibility. And my question is basically this, as Boomers have grown up and have gotten older and raising their families, are we a generation that just does not trust? And by not trusting people and not trusting leaders based on our experiences, what is this doing to the next generation? Well, I think, Steve, that it is only some members, and of course neither one of us know.
SM (00:39:56):
Diane, could you speak up just a little bit?
DE (00:39:58):
Yeah.
SM (00:39:58):
Okay.
DE (00:39:59):
Neither one of us know what the percentage is of our generation, but they are out there, who do trust. And that I am so surprised. And I am so disappointed in many, many members of our generation that would trust this president of the United States to go to Iraq, preemptive war, without the evidence that states that they had... And from the very, very beginning, I was absolutely against preemptive war. And I did not trust. And of course, one of the things that I came home with Vietnam was the sense that I could never become complacent. I was actually afraid of becoming complacent because I was a little afraid after I came back from Vietnam and I was so quiet that I had all this stuff going on inside me but I could not use my voice and I did not know how to be an activist and I did not know what to do with all these thoughts inside of me and all the feeling that our generation had been betrayed and lied to. And so, after the dedication of the wall when I was able then to take something tangible and move it forward, and it took 10 years, and maybe it needed to take 10 years for those years to have to raise the awareness and raise discussion and bring in the support that was necessary and help people become educated and change their minds and all of that. But where are the members in my generation who did not stand up to this government and say, "We learned lessons [inaudible] and are not going to [inaudible] and we have not been attacked by Iraq. We were attacked by Al-Qaeda. Let us put our energy there?" Where were the members of our generation in influential positions in government and Congress and as consultants that did not rise up against like we rose up in the (19)60s and said, "No, we will not support the president on this?" And I have had discussions with fellow Vietnam vets who have just saluted President Bush and said, "Well, I agree with what he is doing. I think we need to go over there." And so now look at the mess that we have. And I think that we could have risen up against the president. And as you know, Steve, I have been all over the country talking to university students and I talk to honors groups and I talk to political science classes and I talk to history classes and I talk to gender, women's studies classes. And when I am through talking, invariably one of the people in the room will say, "I do not know what is wrong with our generation. Your generation revolted to protest it. You went into the streets and you did all this stuff, but we were not doing that and we do not know why. How come we are not... Why are we still doing nothing?" And I just found that really interesting because now why are not they? And where were the [inaudible 00:43:19] country? There were some of us who were protesting in our own way by writing letters to our congressmen and disagreeing with the policies of this war in Iraq. But members of my generation who have been there and who could have made a difference, and some did, some did speak up against it, but it was not powerful enough. And we have lost our reputation around the world because of what this president has been allowed to [inaudible]
SM (00:43:56):
Good points. One of the things that we look at our generation when we were young, many of us said that we were the most unique generation in America history. We are going to be the change agents for the betterment of society. We thought we were going to be the panacea and the cure-all to ending war and on basically a lot of the bad things that were happening in the world at that time. When you look at the generation making those kind of comments when they were young, just your thoughts on is the Boomer generation the most unique generation in American history?
DE (00:44:38):
I do not think so, Steve. Because [inaudible] like saying that World War II was the greatest generation, what about [inaudible]. What about that-
SM (00:44:46):
Diane, I cannot hear you very good. Could you speak up just a little bit more?
DE (00:44:51):
Yeah, I will get a little closer into the phone.
SM (00:44:54):
Okay.
DE (00:44:59):
I personally do not like to categorize and put everything into a box because when we talk about the greatest generation, what about the Civil War generation? What about the Revolutionary War? What about the founding fathers and what about the generations of immigrants that came and leveled all those trees in the land and built log houses and battled every kind of hardship, every kind of horrible hardship possible that you and I cannot even imagine? They were a great generation and they were a unique generation too. So, no, I will not say any generation is the most unique or any generation is the greatest because I think that is unfair to all generations before us who have done enormous things to build this country into what it is. So, we could say we were a unique generation in that we stood up to establishment. And the outcome of that is women do have it better. Civil rights did make a difference. And we were not there yet. And women still are not there yet. We still have a long way to go, but that is the process and that is life. Keep fighting old battles over and over and over again because we are human beings, we fall into old traps. But I guess where I am disappointed in my generation is that we did not do more to prevent this president from entering into a preemptive war without solid factual information. And I am not a pacifist because I believe in defense and I believe our nation- ... that is going to happen because we are human beings. And human beings seem to love war and trample on other people's territory and [inaudible] other people's territory and want what others want. But where was my generation in defying the lies that were being said to us? And I blame the media for a lot of this because here, the fickle media again, some of our media sources which are headed by corporations who have agendas that slant the news to a point where the media is an arm piece for the politics of the administration rather than telling the truth. Where is the truth anymore? And the American people are hard pressed to know what the truth is unless they read The Guardian. And I read about 10 newspapers. Thankfully, I can go online now. But I am certainly not just going to read the Independent Record, which is my paper here in Helena. And I go online and I read papers from all over the world and I read all kinds of newspapers to try to get the news because I know I am not getting it on television. But that takes time and it takes interest. But if people just watch Fox News, very intelligent people when they say that they watch Fox News, they support everything the president does because they are watching Fox News. I just find that abhorrent. And I guess maybe that is because I am of my generation where you do not believe everything. You question, question, question, question. And for me to be... There is this blood thirsty, counterfeit patriotism in the country right now. And it is blood thirsty and it is counterfeit not through patriotism. And patriotism is not supporting the president. Patriotism is supporting the Constitution and believing enough in the Constitution to keep the Constitution intact. And it is believing in America. You were not in the military, Steve, but in the military, we were taught as officers that we are... We take an oath to uphold the Constitution. You do not take an oath to uphold the president of the United States. What if the president is wrong? And so, to me, there has been a lot of phony patriotism in this country with the flag waving. And if you think if you put a yellow bumper sticker on your car that says Support the Troops, that is all you have to do.... So, I have given a lot of talks here and all over about what it really means to support the troops. I said, "Bumper stickers and flying the flag are ceremonial. And it is good to fly the flag. It is our flag, it is America's flag. But if you fly it only because you think America is best in the world and we can do anything we want to protect ourselves to the point of imperialism and moving in on a country and just setting up bases and all under the guise of lies, I differ with that." And so, I have been called unpatriotic because I do not support Bush. But they do not hurt my feelings. I know who I am and I know what I have done. And I have dedicated my career... My entire life, my entire career, has been dedicated to advocating for veterans, for the soldiers. And talk is cheap, but it is what you do that is the truth.
SM (00:50:43):
That is beautiful, Diane. That is beautiful. A question here. What will be the lasting legacy of the Boomer generation? When the best history books are written, they are often 50 years after an event end. The Vietnam War ended in (19)75. So really if you look at that, the best history books are still to be written on this year are probably in the year 2025. Just your thoughts on the lasting legacy of the Boomers?
DE (00:51:13):
Yeah, well, the lasting... Let us hope, Steve, and I will make this very clear, let us hope that whatever the history books write that they try to write the truth. And that is always the problem. It is like history according to whom, Lee or Grant? But if they write the truth and they really look at our generation, they will see that our generation was exploited and used by a government on false premises, on lies. And look at the historical, the war itself, and what that did to my generation and what it did to the people back home and how it enriched a lot of people and corporations. And what those enriched corporations have been able to do with the money to abuse next generations, which is the corporate greed, the corporate... Halliburton and how corporations and newspaper corporations and how that evolved so that they could one day use their agenda to exploit the American people. But I think the legacy of my generation is also that we defied the system, that we asked questions and we made a difference. And that maybe in every revolution there has to be, not has to be, but it seems like in every revolution for people to be heard, they have to do radical things like women going braless. I never took off my bra [inaudible] to make my statement known, but some women felt they needed to do that. To be heard they felt they needed to be radical. And the suffragettes, they were radical. Think about the early 1900s and what the suffragettes had to do to get heard, they were radical. Of course, my radicalness was to join the military. But each person in my generation found a way to either use the system by defying it by... Because of the deferment, college students could stay in college and not go to Vietnam. And now we can criticize that, but that was the system. That was the way the government set it up. Now, I believe that there should be no deferment. And I believe in the draft. If we are going to have a war, draft every man and woman in America. And then because it is going to touch every man and woman in America, every son or daughter, then they will speak up and say, "Hey, this is not a war I think is worth fighting." And if they do believe it is worth fighting, they will put the uniform on. But a draft is a great equalizer. It makes people think. It is going to affect them. It is not somebody else's kids like the voluntary draft. But having said that, the legacy of my generation will also be that they went to Congress after the war and told Congress what their problems were and that they needed help. And they filed a class action lawsuit against Agent Orange because the VA would not help them. When they were dying from poisonous exposure to their war experience and the government was not there to take care of them, they filed a class action lawsuit. That is one example. They went to Congress and said, "We are committing suicide by the tens of thousands. We are depressed, we are having problems." And because of Vietnam Vets, we now have the Vet Center. The Vet Center, by legislation, was adopted in 1979 and it is now a place where Vietnam vets, World War II vets, any vet, is now able... It was set up for Vietnam vets, but now it is any vet. And veterans coming home from Iraq are already going to the Vet Center. And they are being identified more quickly with post-traumatic stress disorder and they are getting the help that they need soon rather than years and years and years after the war. So Vietnam veterans have made a difference in legislation and civil rights. And because of us, women today have more rights. That is part of our legacy. And I know I am forgetting a whole lot. And we also have a memorial on the Mall in Washington DC, something no other veterans had not done. And it was necessary for the education and for the healing and for helping to expose the truth. And following those memorials, there were all the others. And there is one more thing, and that is we forgot our prisoners of war. All other wars, we have left them behind and the case was closed and the issue was over. Vietnam vets today are still out there demanding that POWs return home. So my generation of Vietnam vets changed how America looks at how we treat our POWs and bringing them home. Of course, this administration under President Bush has gone back to the dark ages with the whole issue of torture and how we treat other prisoners of war. And that is a whole other topic.
SM (00:56:50):
Right. I want to ask a question about the term activism. Activism on college campuses today, at least at our university, they look upon the word as a negative term. They say, "This is a term that is from another era, another time, and it is not really defining today's college student so come up with another term." I just did an educational session at a conference on this with a couple students.
DE (00:57:19):
What is the term?
SM (00:57:21):
Activism.
DE (00:57:22):
Oh, okay.
SM (00:57:23):
There seems to be feelings that activism is a negative term for whatever reason. Your thoughts on just saying the word activism in today's society and just your thoughts on activism as not only as an action, but as a word?
DE (00:57:41):
Well, I think we need to listen to our younger generation and what they are trying to tell us. Because the word feminism is the same. They do not like the word feminism. They do not identify with it. They wonder why we use it. And my son, my oldest son, when he started college, because he grew up with me in a feminist household because my husband is definitely a feminist, and we had discussed it and he knew about it and he was very proud of it. And so he was in class and he was shocked because the teacher brought up a discussion of feminism. And the women in his class, literally, they did not consider themselves feminist. They did not care about the word, what does it mean to be a feminist? They were just oblivious. So, it is not our responsibility. It is up to the young people, the younger generations today, to come up with their own terms, to come up with their own beliefs and to come up with whatever works for them. And if activism and feminism conjure up some old fogy or, "That is in the dark ages," kind of reference like maybe we looked at references from my parents' past... And I hardly knew what the word... Honestly, Steve, I do not think I knew what the word suffragette meant or disenfranchised. Those were not words I was familiar with until I got into college and really started reading about it. So the younger generation today needs to come up with something they can believe in, something is their torch. What is their torch? What is their mantra? I do not really know. And I get the same thing when I talk to students all over the country. It is like they have not come up with some guiding principle or something they are willing to lay down and give up their time and their money for. They were very worried about, and as they should be, their jobs and how they were going to feed themselves and how they were going to pay the bills. But maybe that is the generation that is self-absorbed. And I am not going to call any generation the Me generation because I do not think it is fair. But the generation now, I think because they are seeing the disillusionment with the war in Iraq... But again, it is not touching a lot of them. Because unless they are in a family where they have a sibling serving in Iraq, it is still pretty remote. So, I do not know.
SM (01:00:13):
The question here about healing. I want to read something here and I would just like your comment, "Do you feel that the Boomers are a generation that is still having problems with healing? The Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Women's Memorial did a great job with veterans and in some respects the families of veterans. But do you feel that the healing has really taken place in large numbers beyond the community, and for that matter, within the community?" I am referring to, have these memorials really healed the nation from the Vietnam War? And there is two kind of questions here. Number one, what job has it really done for the veterans and their families? I see it every year when I go down there. I think there has been a lot of healing in the Vietnam veteran population, their families. But what has it done to the nation, to the Boomers, the 70 million who were alive during the Vietnam War and has it really healed the nation?
DE (01:01:14):
I am not sure it has, Steve. And I agree with you in that of course-
SM (01:01:19):
If you could speak a little louder. A little louder.
DE (01:01:21):
Yeah.
SM (01:01:21):
Okay.
DE (01:01:22):
For the better part of, well, all the part of that I have, like you, watched what has happened in this nation and early on how they treated the veterans. And then their own issues, their issues of guilt, their issues of anger, all of the issues that the whole generation had, not just the veterans. But when the nation saw us come together as veterans, they started to look at us differently and begin to feel that, "We should not have taken this out on the soldiers. We should have separated our views." And then there is the guilt about... And I have had many, many people, a lot of women, coming up to me and saying, "I was a war protestor and I am so sorry. I am not sorry I protested the war, but I am sorry that it hurt you, that it hurt the soldiers." And so that healing and being able to articulate your feelings about that I think is healing. And I think the veterans community, individual veterans who come together now, we are healing each other. We help to heal each other. But I do not think we have felt a lot of healing coming from our nation. It has come from each other. Veterans hug each other, they bond with one another. We understand each other. And we go to the memorials and there is a ton of healing that is done there. And hopefully these memorials and the fact that we have come together has prevented thousands of suicides from happening. Because there were thousands before those memorials were dedicated. And they are still happening. You and I both know that.
SM (01:03:08):
Yes, yes.
DE (01:03:10):
But when I am around the country and because of my activism here in Helena and... I helped to draft a resolution to present to the City Commission here. And the name of the resolution was Support the Troops and End the Military Occupation in Iraq. I cannot tell you how many people came out of the woodwork and how they lined up at the City Commission. And one woman told me I was sick. She told me I was sick for not supporting the war in Iraq. And yet I had just testified about we need to support our troops and I identified how you support veterans and legislation and mandatory funding and what the needs are for the soldiers and it takes letters to congressmen to provide the financial backing to help these soldiers. It is not just supporting the soldiers, it is going to take money, it takes effort. We have to help the VA here and we are not. Time after time Congress is voting against benefits for veterans. So, I went into all of that, but all she could see was that I wanted to end the war in Iraq. That is all she could see and she called me sick. And then all these men got up, mostly men, but this one woman, they got up and defied everything I said and said, "If we do not fight those terrorists over there, they are going to be here." And I took a lot of flak and I was accused of this, and I was accused of that. And some of these are members of the Baby Boom generation. So, there is still a lot of, I think, anger left over about Vietnam and people wanting to finish that war and not wanting to believe we lost that war so they cannot stand the fact that we might lose another one. And there is this pride thing, "We lost the war in Vietnam. We cannot lose this one." And so of course, I am miles apart in thinking with that. We are in Iraq now. We have to solve these problems, but let us have a plan. Let us have some leadership and let us have the truth.
SM (01:05:25):
Yeah. I remember when I interviewed Gaylord Nelson, the late senator from Wisconsin. It was several years back and I am sitting in his office and he had a tendency at times to go off into environmental issues because that was his number one issue in his life. But he said, "Steve, are you asking me if people go around Washington DC and they are showing that they are not healing on their sleeves?" He says, "It is not possible." But he did say that, "The body politic will never be the same." And he was referring to the Vietnam War and in response to the question of healing. And I think on the other person that had an influence on me was Lewis Puller before he killed himself. And if you recall, I took students down to the Vietnam Memorial two days before the Women's Memorial was dedicated and Lewis met seven of our students at one of the benches not far from where the Women's Memorial is. And when I take students to Washington now, I always make sure they sit at that bench. And when Jan Scruggs came over to the wall and they were sitting at that bench, we took some students down in the spring, Asian American students, and two people were visiting from Vietnam, from North Vietnam, who actually work with I think it is Bobby Mueller, I had them sitting at the same that bench. But what they are really getting at is the healing issue. When we sat with Lewis for two hours, Lewis talked about that and how he had healed. And then if you remember, Bill Clinton had come to the wall that one year.
DE (01:07:15):
Yes, I sat right behind him.
SM (01:07:17):
Yes. And I have this question here as well. This is what I asked from Senator Nelson, actually, Senator McCarthy and Senator McGovern, "Do you think it is possible to heal within a generation where differences and positions were so extreme? And then is it important to even try? Should we care? Is it feasible?" And for example, this was written a little while back, "During my many trips to the wall, I have been to several ceremonies with veterans in the audience. They hate or seem to openly hate Bill Clinton. They hate Jane Fonda. They hate all those individuals who protested against the war and never gave veterans a royal welcome home on the return to the mainland. The wall has helped in a significant way, but the hate remains for many. At least this seems apparent from my perspective." Then this is how Senator Nelson responded, he looked at me and he said, "Steve, you cannot heal 70 million people." Should an effort be made to assist in the healing beyond the wall? Your thoughts? And it is because I have been so impressed with the wall and what you have done by the memorials in Washington being non-political and just caring about the vets, I wish they could take these examples and take it into society as a whole. So just your thoughts on just the healing within a generation, is it even possible?
DE (01:08:43):
Well, I do not know. And I struggled with that during the building of the Vietnam Women's Memorial because I soon realized, oh my gosh, Steve, you know this, but after I started the effort, my God, I had no idea there was still so much anger and hatefulness and mean spiritedness. And I learned about what the word misogyny means, build a hatred towards women. And it was killing me, Steve. I was losing weight. I was grinding my teeth at night. I went to a physician and I was anemic. I was a mess because it was becoming toxic. I was taking in all this stuff. And I am a healer. I am a nurse, I am a mother, and my role in life through compassion and touch and wanting people to heal and this is what I wanted this memorial for. And then here I am, this person who is a nurse and just trying to help people heal, and all of a sudden, I am the bad person. A woman called me and told me that I was no better than whale shit. That is just one example. And finally, I had to overcome this and- I had to overcome and just... I had to overcome this and realize and turn my nursing skills around in saying, "There are people I cannot help. I am not God, I am not omnipotent. I cannot help these people. They have to help themselves. All I can do is get this memorial built and the memorial will be the healer." And then I just decided I am not the healer. I am not the healer. I am not God. I am not... The memorial will do the healing and the education will help with the healing and bringing the veterans together. And I totally had to have sort of like this epiphany that if I was going to survive this, I had to detach myself from all of this anger and realize some people will never be helped. I actually had to have some police surveillance around our homes because I had threats. We had threats; people called in the middle of the night.
SM (01:10:53):
Oh my, God.
DE (01:10:54):
And so my husband was worried about me. It was either going to kill me or I was going to rise above it and just say, "Hey, I cannot [inaudible] these are people I will never be able to help." But I want to talk about something, Steve; this is my view of what President Bush and this administration have done in exploiting Vietnam veterans. They have used us and I will tell you why. Because they know that during the Vietnam War and after, that when America did not support the war, they also did not support the veterans, or some did not and it hurt the veterans. So, this President has made it very clear, and so I argue with and debate with have made it clear that you cannot have it both ways. To support the troops, you have to support the war. So, it is all or nothing. You support the troops, you support the war. And that is where a lot of people in the nation are coming from. And that is because of Vietnam. They are afraid that if they do not support the war, it is going to hurt the troops. This country is so guilty for feeling what they did to Vietnam veterans because they took it out on the troops. So now this President is exploiting that and making us all heroes. All Vietnam vets are heroes. Everybody is a hero. And you cannot have it both ways. The former governor of the state Judy Martz... I disagreed with them, spoke up against what she said, and that was Governor Judy Martz said that you have to support this war because we are supporting this group and you cannot have it both ways. And I said, "You can have it both ways." We have a right and we have a duty, and we have a responsibility to oppose a war we believe is wrong. We have a right and a duty to support our... And by supporting... Those who think our troops would want to vote when they are overseas, we are not hurting their morale. That is my [inaudible]. Do not you say, "Is not it only fair to our troops, our soldiers who are serving overseas to think that the Americans back home are asking questions about the war they are serving in and are asking questions about its mission and its role and asking questions about when they get to come home and asking questions about being redeployed and redeployed and redeployed, and is that right for our soldiers to have to be redeployed three, four, five times? Should not other people in America be sharing this burden that maybe we need to grasp or maybe we need to stop going and find other solutions?" But this is not fair how we are treating our troops. The longer they are there, the more they are realizing this. And I think our soldiers have a right to know that Americans back home are asking questions and are really concerned about their needs and what they are doing and questioning the war as well. So yeah, I think this generation... I think the politics of America right now in this war in Iraq is a lot of the thinking is right out of... Because of what happened during Vietnam.
SM (01:14:03):
It is interesting because I work in a university environment and I have paid a heavy price for doing a lot of programs on Vietnam. By heavy price, I will not even go into detail here, but one of them is I just do not want to hear about Vietnam anymore.
DE (01:14:20):
Right.
SM (01:14:20):
On anything.
DE (01:14:21):
Right. It is denial. They want to put their heads in denial and live in a fantasy world. And it is coming out now in major newspapers and articles, and it was New York Times and CNN last night that President Bush is living in his little fantasy world. Well, when American people do not want to face the horrors and face the fruit, it is easier to live in your little world of denial. Let us not think about it. Let us not talk about it. But that, I think, is what is frightening in this country is that as a whole, America has been willing to follow this administration without asking the hard questions and believing what they see on the news because it is easier.
SM (01:15:10):
Well, the last part of my interview is just for you to... I am going to list some names of people from that era and just your gut-level reaction, your feelings on them. Just a comment here or there. Are you ready?
DE (01:15:25):
I am ready. Uh oh, I am in for it.
SM (01:15:28):
All right. Tom Hayden.
DE (01:15:30):
Pardon me?
SM (01:15:31):
Tom Hayden.
DE (01:15:34):
No comment.
SM (01:15:36):
Jane Fonda.
DE (01:15:37):
Okay. I knew that was coming. Okay. I have a visceral reaction to Jane Fonda for a very explicit reason. She was one of the few women that were heard during the Vietnam War and the press, the media, the country, and the world capitalized on Jane Fonda and what she did. So it was almost like Jane Fonda was the spokesperson, or she was what women were doing. She was like, "Be representative, be symbols of the Vietnam War." And I am angry and resentful about that because she is the woman that is being heard. And yet there were more than 10,000 women in Vietnam doing the hard work and the courageous work and the brave work. And they were in there getting their hands dirty, doing the work, and 250,000 women were serving around the world and supporting the armed forces and doing the hard work. And they were not heard from. The press did not interview them. The press did not photograph them. They were not in the newspapers. They were not in magazines. They were not on the six o'clock news. And so we were working behind the scenes and behind the cameras doing the hard work, but it took the Vietnam Women's Memorial in 1993 to show who the women really were in this country and all those women who were working for women's rights and the women who were working for civil rights and so on and so forth and then we have Jane Fonda. So I have no highest esteem for her because what she did was pitiful. And the way she protested; she could have protested in a different way.
SM (01:17:27):
Lyndon Johnson.
DE (01:17:29):
Well, I have a visceral reaction to Lyndon Johnson. Steve, I rarely use the word hate. I do not think it is healthy to hate anybody. It hurts the person more than... It is hurtful to you; it is to yourself when you hate. But I have to admit and be candid that I hated that man. I hated him so badly for what had happened under his watch and the thousands of soldiers that I had cared for because remember, I worked in military hospitals in the United States for several years besides Vietnam. I realized that for me, he was the epitome, he was the target, he was the symbol. And when I was at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and Program Medical Center, working as a nurse in the intensive care unit, the chief nurse came to me, Colonel Cleveland, while I was on duty, and I will share this with you. This will portray for you my distaste for Lyndon Bates Johnson. And the seventh floor of Brook Army Medical Hospital was reserved for LBJ. He had a lot of health problems, and they would bring him in by helicopter. The ward had to be opened; the whole seventh-floor suite. We could not go up there; it was locked. Nobody had ever seen it. We would only heard about the seventh floor; just for LBJ. Colonel Cleveland came to me while I was on duty and said to me, "Captain Carlson, here are the keys. I want you to take the elevator." The elevator was locked. You had to have a key to get in the elevator to go up there, "And open up the seventh floor and prepare it." And I knew what that meant. Before I could even think about any career in the military or disobeying an order or saluting and saying, "Yes, ma'am," I looked at her and said, "Colonel Cleveland, I refuse to take care of that man." She looked at me, and of course, if I ever thought I was going to have a career in the military, it went out the window. But at that point, I spoke my conviction and I said what I thought, and I was not going to care for him. She looked at me and said, "Captain, it is not Mr. Johnson coming in. It is Mamie Eisenhower. She is coming in by chopper. She is having some kind of an allergic reaction to something." And I said, "Yes, ma'am. I will go right up there." So I went up and opened up the seventh-floor suite and I got a chill because this was the room that LBJ had been in many, many times. You could see it was set up for a former president because it was all telephones everywhere and everything was nice and perfect and wonderful and huge. And I got a chill because when I was up there, this was where he had been, and I was extremely uncomfortable. But I went into my professional... I went into nurse mode, my professional mode, I got the respirator set up, and the breathing apparatus that I had used and everything was ready. So when Mamie Eisenhower came in, I was there to admit her. And then I was her private duty nurse for about three weeks. But I am just sharing this with you to let you know how strongly I felt about him, that I had so much disrespect, so much anger, and that I could look at the good things he did too. But for me, sometimes you wrap everything up in one person. For a lot of vets, it is Jane Fonda, they wrap it all up in her and that is where she is the lightning rod; same with LBJ.
SM (01:21:28):
Wow. How about John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy?
DE (01:21:32):
JFK? Are you talking about-
SM (01:21:35):
Yeah. JFK and Bobby Kennedy.
DE (01:21:39):
Oh, my distrust. I was feeling okay. With JFK, there was a lot of confusion because later I learned that he is the one that got us into Vietnam and he could have kept us out. And then also, I later learned about his escapades with him. I mean, he had hundreds of women coming and going. That is a fact. And then I felt the hypocrisy with Bill Clinton. We had JFK, and then the government does this to Bill Clinton. So, there is this hypocrisy that is just so blatant among Americans and politics that... Who cares [inaudible] Bill Clinton that I did not... But I guess when I was younger, it was ask not what you can do for you... I mean, he was inspirational. He had charisma. I looked up to him. I mean, I was in high school. I remember exact... As most of us do, I remember exactly where I was. I was in speech class and I was in the middle of giving a speech.
SM (01:22:41):
Oh, wow.
DE (01:22:41):
Came over the intercom and that JFK had been killed. And of course, the horror of that. I guess I was not a lot like... I guess I was kind of different. But the girls started crying and they got... But I was crying. I [inaudible 01:23:00] sobbing and I was just, "Oh my, God." But it was also... I do not know. I did not enough about history. I had not read enough about Joe Kennedy and that Kennedy, that Camelot family, was not what they were portrayed [inaudible]. So I was disillusioned. I was disillusioned by them.
SM (01:23:27):
How about Dr. Benjamin Spock?
DE (01:23:32):
I do not know. I was raised with five siblings and was taught... I do not know. Dr. Benjamin Spark influenced, yes, generations of babies and mothering and babies. But I did not read him. I was sort of out of text with that. I was interested in other things. I did not read Dr. Spock on how to raise my children.
SM (01:23:57):
He was involved in the anti-war movement too. He was a protestor. How about the Black Panthers? Huey Newton, H. Rap Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, that group.
DE (01:24:10):
Well, for somebody like me, they were pretty scary people. I am not giving you very... I do not know... In-depth answers here.
SM (01:24:24):
But still it is just-
DE (01:24:26):
What I am thinking about at the time, not now. Is that what you want? How I felt?
SM (01:24:30):
Yes.
DE (01:24:32):
It was just another one of those extraordinary, out-of-the-ordinary things that were happening at the time in my generation where... I mean, all of a sudden I went from this little girl wearing skirts and little corduroy dresses and tights to school and having to dress up. We were not allowed to wear pants in high school to all of a sudden graduating from high school and now girls are going without bras, and they are wearing miniskirts and white boots.
(01:25:04):
I mean, things are so bizarre. And the teenage [inaudible], the hairdos and makeup or no makeup. Everything was so out of whack and so weird and so strange. And so it was like, "Well, this is just normal for my generation to be abnormal." So then it was the Black Panthers. I would see them on television, and it was just very bizarre to me. But I think I just rolled with the punches.
SM (01:25:33):
How about... Well, I guess here is another. The Berrigan Brothers, Daniel and Philip Berrigan.
DE (01:25:40):
See, maybe I am out of touch. I do not even know who they are.
SM (01:25:40):
Okay, how about Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin?
DE (01:25:50):
Well, I do not know. I do not if I had any real thoughts about them. I cannot remember.
SM (01:25:55):
Timothy Leary?
DE (01:25:57):
Uh-uh. Who is he?
SM (01:25:58):
He was-
DE (01:25:59):
It is tough.
SM (01:26:00):
He is psychedelic. He was the man...
DE (01:26:00):
Yeah. I have to tell you, Steve, anything that was psychedelic or the crazy music, Black Panthers, all of that stuff, I could not relate to it, so I did not. I do not think I thought too much about it. I just kind of knew it was out there.
SM (01:26:20):
All right.
DE (01:26:21):
Remember, I was this curious [inaudible]. I mean, during this period of time, it is like my husband said, I did not go to movies. I was going to school full-time. I had two full-time... Not full-time. I had two part-time jobs. I was working at a nursing home and I was working at a hospital. When I was not studying or working at the hospital where I was training, I had jobs. And then I would go home to the farm and if the kids needed me and I would help with the farm. I would go home and help with farm work. I would go home and help with harvesting when I could. And so my life was very focused on jobs and college and the farm. I would go home and help my mother fill the freezer with meat and vegetables from the garden. I mean, these were the practical things that farm kids had to do. And it was like, could I be listening to music or going to movies or caring about the Black Panthers or psychedelic shit? I was so focused on the reality of life, my life at the time, just to get through college and to help my family on the farm. And then when I went into the military, I have to tell you, I was working so hard, the long shift, that I was not doing what you might say normal kids my age normally would do. Girls my age... I did not date believe it or not. I was not dating. And so, I think I was pretty isolated in my own little world of work and college and the necessities of life, the surviving life that I did not pay much attention to the music side or the Rolling Stone or a lot of that stuff that my husband, even though he was in medical school... I mean, he went to all these movies, and then later after we were married, he would talk about these movies, but I had never heard of these movies. Hey, you have never heard of that movie? [inaudible] music?
SM (01:28:26):
How about... Well, obviously you knew about Robert McNamara, your thoughts on him?
DE (01:28:28):
Oh, my thoughts on him are the same as LBJ. I disliked him. I did not trust him at all from the beginning. I did not like him. I did not trust him. I guess I was paying more attention to politics, Steve, [inaudible] to other stuff and the generational stuff. But McNamara was, for me, the epitome of sleazy. He reminds me a little bit of Rumsfeld. Now, the arrogance, the I am right, the... It is just the arrogance, the one-sidedness. And how I knew at the time, or I think I knew, but I knew later how there were... McNamara and LBJ had all kinds of bright people coming to them and telling them, consulting with them the truth about not getting involved in the war in Vietnam and what would happen if they did, and trying to enlighten them about history. But he was so self-righteous and arrogant and like Rumsfeld just self-righteous and arrogant. It is their way and no other way. So that is how I felt.
SM (01:29:50):
And two other people I know you really loved, and that is Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
DE (01:29:56):
Oh my God. They were, for me... I think that is when I really started to become internally depressed because I think I have... I know I have because it has helped me throughout my life. I seem to have... Maybe it is nursing skills and being able to observe personalities. I distrusted him from the beginning. And of course, Agnew and Nixon, for good reason, were non-trustworthy. But I think when Watergate happened, I really shut down. It was during that time that I quit watching television. When I got married, I told my husband that we would not have TV in our house. I could not bear anything on television. It just conjured up this extreme emotion in me to the point where it was frightening in that our country is... I was frightened for our country and what these men... I used to call them their wargasm. Men in their testosterone and men in their orgasm and the power that they had and what they could do to our nation. And I still have that feeling today. And I sensed it with Bush from the beginning after 9/11. I saw it in Bush in this warmongering, this wargastic kind of testosterone, this sense of power and control. And for some people, it absolutely goes to their head where they become so self-righteous and so arrogant that it is an aphrodisiac, Steve. It literally becomes an aphrodisiac for some men. I think that is what it was, certainly for Nixon and Bush, whereas at least LBJ, the one thing I can say about him is he did not run again. He did not run again. I think he did feel some honest sadness and some remorse, but I never felt that with McNamara. I never felt that he had authentic remorse. I felt it was disingenuous. Watching the fog of war made me sick. He still came off arrogant and disingenuous. These are the frightening men. These are the men that frightened... That have led countries into their downfalls.
SM (01:32:43):
Diane, I got only a couple more questions then we will be done. I am just going to switch my tape. All right. I am back. Just a few more names. Muhammad Ali?
DE (01:58:02):
I will pass on that one.
SM (01:58:04):
Martin Luther King, Jr.?
DE (01:58:06):
Oh, well. He is a hero. He is a true hero and an absolute hero. He made a difference in my life in that I actually had someone that I could look up to and believe in and was so proud of. I do have hope for America because there are so many good people in this country. I meet them all the time, like you do when you are out and about. It is just my concern is how come these wonderful, good people who have integrity, why do not they become president? Why do not they become Secretary of Defense? Why do the people who get into power are the ones who are not the leaders and have the vision to make our country what it is based on and its principles and its true values, not their personal values. I do not know what our values anymore are when President Bush talks about values. Yeah. Well, his values are not my values, so whose values, are they?
(01:59:22):
But Martin Luther King was brilliant and had those qualities where he could lead people together in song and in speech and with the kind of values and with the kind of leadership that gives people hope. It came from love rather than a need for control and power. They say... What is the saying when love overcomes the need for power... I forget exactly what it is, but he provided for this nation, I think, something that was so necessary and so powerful. And then, whew, he has gone. And then who replaces somebody like him? Who replaces Gandhi?
SM (02:00:23):
Right. The other power figure here is Malcolm X. Any thoughts on him or?
DE (02:00:31):
Oh, I will pass on that one.
SM (02:00:32):
Okay. Some of the other political figures from that era, President Ford. Gerald Ford.
DE (02:00:39):
Well, President Ford granted amnesty to those who went to Canada, right?
SM (02:00:49):
Yes.
DE (02:00:50):
Well, there were a lot of Vietnam veterans who were angry about that. I had mixed feelings, but yet I was not angry at him for doing that. I was glad those men were able to come back to the United States. Many of them did not. Again, I think it was my sense of compassion and forgiveness, and that these were young men who absolutely did not believe that they needed to go to Vietnam. To go to Canada and leave their families, bold acts of courage. Some could say it was cowardice. Maybe it was both. But I am not the judge. The war was wrong. We were lied to. We were sent for the wrong reasons. And I was okay with them being granted amnesty. I admit that. I do not apologize for that. We were a generation that was used and abused and exploited, and there were so many men... That is another thing. What about all the men of my generation who went to prison and the men who were in the, we called it the Long Binh Jail, it was LBJ Jail. You know about that?
SM (02:02:11):
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
DE (02:02:11):
[inaudible].
SM (02:02:13):
Yes.
DE (02:02:14):
While I was in Vietnam, I knew of a lot of men who were going to that jail. Again, I felt the unfairness, and the war is just so horrific in what it does to people. So I think coming from a nursing standpoint, coming from a compassionate, forgiving standpoint, I was sad. I have always had this overwhelming sadness for our generation, for those who went to jail, for those who went to Canada, for those who lost their innocence and lost their family ties where they could not speak to their fathers. Their fathers just literally disowned them. This is what our government did to us. And for what? For what reason? Outside of their aphrodisiac needs for war and power and control. The fact that they could have gotten us out of Vietnam, Steve, because remember, I was there in (19)68, and that is when, 'Oh, we are going to wind the war down. We are going to [inaudible] troops home." While I am there, I know more troops are coming, more are coming and more are dying. We lost more... The majority of names on the wall in Washington DC are from (19)68 and (19)69. So, you can see why I feel so strongly the way I do. I have to say one more thing because I know we want to end this, but it is one thing when your country lies to you. It is another thing when they want you to lie for them because when I was in Pleiku at the 71st Evacuation Hospital, we were just kilometers away from the Cambodian border. We were getting all these wounded from Cambodia. This was the time that the administration was telling America we were not in Cambodia, but we were in Cambodia. And I knew it. We were getting all these patients. I was told not to put anything in the records, that patient's records, that he was in Cambodia. I was to lie. I was supposed to lie for the government. I think that is when my political conscience was galvanized, at that.
SM (02:04:21):
Wow.
DE (02:04:21):
So if you talk about galvanizing moments, when I was told to lie on a patient's record that he was not wounded in Cambodia because the nation was saying we were not there, for me, that was the straw that broke... That did it. I think from that point on, it was like, "You can lie to me, but you cannot force me to lie back." I think that is what really propelled me to build the memorial and want to tell the truth and... Well, I know it is.
SM (02:04:54):
Wow. Actually, there is only four more questions here. Very brief. I just list all these politicians, put them in a nutshell: George McGovern, Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace, Barry Goldwater, and certainly Dwight Eisenhower. They were all politicians that were around when the boomers were there, when they were young.
DE (02:05:19):
Yeah. But how am I going to answer to all of them? They are also different. Dwight Eisenhower, my God, he is the one that warned us about the military industrial complex. It was prophetic. We are right now in the military industrial complex at its height in what he prophesied in that it would be a train going down a track so powerful, there would be no stopping it. And look what is happening. It is a corporation. So, how can we put them in the same... I cannot... like with George Wallace and George McGovern. McGovern is still out there speaking against the war. In fact, he was supposed to be a speaker here because his daughter lives in Montana, out there in Hamilton. I do not know how to... What would you say about putting them all [inaudible]?
SM (02:06:08):
Well, I would not put them all together. I would say just a few comments about each of them. Certainly, McGovern, last night I watched on television on what is going on with politics today and the elections coming up next week. They are still talking about the negative influence that George McGovern and that generation had on the political process. And then they interviewed him. It was just like his name keeps coming up over and over again in terms of the decline of the Democratic Party. We have had him on our campus, too. Certainly, you could have comments on each of them. And you have already done it on Eisenhower. What are your thoughts on George McGovern and the 1972 election?
DE (02:06:53):
Well, I feel that there is a faction in this country that is very good. They are experts at denigrating people who tell the truth and who have integrity and who defy them. Their way of denigrating them and diminishing them is to distort who they really are and what they really believe in. I think George McGovern is one of those.
SM (02:07:30):
Mm-hmm. Of course, Hubert Humphrey, we all know that he ran with Lyndon Johnson. If he had separated himself from Lyndon Johnson early on, he may have been president. There is a lot of thoughts...
DE (02:07:41):
Well, I come from Humphrey country. He was our neighbor. His daughter worked with my mother. I met Humphrey on many, many occasions, just lived across the marsh from our farm. He was in Waverly, Minnesota. I grew up on a farm south of Buffalo. You could look across the big marsh and see the Waverly Tower. That, of course, was where Humphrey had his lake home. But I grew up believing Humphrey was a great man and he was compassionate. The welfare system in Minnesota became what it was because of Humphrey. My parents definitely supported Humphrey. Yes, if he had separated himself... But back then, the vice president had no power. It is like they were just in the background, unlike Cheney today. But think of how the country might have been different if it had been Humphrey or McGovern. I wish that Humphrey could have made a difference, but I do not feel like he was in a position to make a difference with LBJ as the president. So, I feel there was some failed... Some things that would never come to fruition because he was in the shadow of LBJ. But in his own right, he still did some wonderful things.
SM (02:09:10):
Even with Barry Goldwater, so much has been written about him recently, that he was the man that really is the leader of the conservative movement. There is actually several books out right now on him. It was ironic that he and Hugh Scott were the two that walked into Nixon's office and told him he had to resign. So, there is pretty powerful... I am going to end with some terms from that era. You do not have to give long responses. It is just a gut-level reaction to them. Woodstock.
DE (02:09:42):
Okay. I wish I had been there. I missed out. I missed Woodstock. Because of my upbringing on this farm, I guess I felt too timid to think that I would want to be there at the time. But it was unique. It was extraordinary. I wish I had witnessed it myself, but I could not have gone naked or done any of those things. Politically, I am not conservative, but personally, I would have been a witness to it, watching it happen. Steve, I would have been on the sidelines. I would have been watching it happen.
SM (02:10:27):
Right. How about communes?
DE (02:10:28):
Communes?
SM (02:10:30):
The communal movement?
DE (02:10:32):
Yeah. Yeah. We had a distant relative who got involved. Again, I felt that my peers, the people of my generation, were moving outside the normal course of traditional life and leaving the security of their homes and wanted something different. Because I grew up on a farm and communed with the Earth every single day, I could not quite understand why they felt they needed to bring teepees out. My dad laughed about it because we had communes out around us where some kids brought teepees out and they just put their teepees up on private land, farmers' land, and then the farmers kicked them out. But they wanted to commune with the land. And of course, I grew up commuting with the land. But I guess, again, I think I was pretty non-judgmental of... I was very judgmental of the government. But I was pretty non-judgmental of my generation and my peers thinking that, hey, they have different ideas; they have different thoughts about things and they want to try something different. I guess I did not feel judgmental about that because for me personally, my way of breaking away was to go into the military and find out something about life in the military, I guess, and do something positive with it. So, I figured if they want to live off the land and get rid of all their materialism because my generation, really in the beginning, did not want the materialism that their parents accumulated. I mean, they sold their skis; they sold their car; they sold whatever they had. They did not want any materialistic objects. They just wanted to go out and have free love and live off the land and get away from it all, which was an escape. Of course, that was just their [inaudible].
SM (02:12:36):
How about the counterculture?
DE (02:12:36):
The counterculture I never quite understood because I never felt a part of it. I was not in the drug culture and I was extremely [inaudible 02:12:48] it. I had been invited to some drug parties, Steve, and I did not know because of my naivete, that I was being invited to a drug party. When I got there to this house, I was pretty shocked because I smelled the smells and the doors to the bedrooms were all closed. The person who invited me came out and said, "Hi, Diane." I looked at her and I said, "If you had told me this was a drug party, I would not have come." And I turned around and left. It pretty much scared me.
SM (02:13:27):
Right. How about Kent State and Jackson State.
DE (02:13:33):
Horrific, sad, tragic, awful that our own National Guard, our own government... That is another thing. Just briefly. I talked about how my generation spoke out, rioted, protested. Some did it violently, which was not as acceptable, really. But look what our police did and our National Guard did to two young people and their violence and the beatings and the sticks and whipping them with guns and then shooting. Again, I had a visceral gut reaction of this awful sadness that I could not... disbelief and horror, and again, anger that our college students could be unsafe and shot like that in really cold blood.
SM (02:14:32):
The Chicago Eight?
DE (02:14:34):
I will pass on that.
SM (02:14:36):
How about the Democratic Convention of (19)68?
DE (02:14:41):
I was in Vietnam, Steve. I was pretty busy focusing on saving patients. But I heard about it. Again, I was becoming used to the volatility, that this is normal. This volatility that is going on in the United States, for me, it was now almost the norm. So, what happened at the Democratic National Convention was just crazy. It was just crazy. I have often said that serving in Vietnam was like living in a hallucination. Some of what was going on in America at the time was also like the hallucination. Apocalypse Now is a movie I actually related to. When somebody asked me why, they said, "Well, that movie is so nuts; it is so crazy." And I said, "Yeah, but that is how I felt. That is what I was living at the time." I was living in an hallucination. Things were crazy. Things were out of control. You could not put piece things together because they were so out of control
SM (02:15:50):
And Watergate?
DE (02:15:54):
Watergate for me was like a watershed. It was like they got caught. They got caught. There is justice. There is justice! When he was impeached, or when the impeachment process took place, I had this sense of relief, almost. It was a sense of relief. They got caught. Thank goodness. There are people in the country that will work hard to expose the evil. I hate to use that word now because [inaudible].
SM (02:16:31):
Now, I have three more terms here and then we will end. Two of them are probably very important to you. Tet.
DE (02:16:44):
I arrived in Vietnam in late July, the first part of August. I knew about Tet because I was at Fort Lee, Virginia at the time, and I was getting patients in the orthopedic unit. We were filled. There were no extra beds. We were shipping patients and evacing back and forth to Walter Reed. I took care of patients at Fort Lee, Virginia that had been in Tet. That was my first real exposure to what happens to men who have been in war. They have gone through something horrific. I learned a lot on that unit. First time I dropped a bed pan in the middle of the night, it was really frightening for me because I had just dropped a bed pan. It was a little bit noisy, but every single patient was on the floor and some of them were in flashbacks. It was really eye-opening for me. One of the patients told me, "Do not ever do that again. You might find yourself dead," because they just were out of control and crawling around on the floor and looking for their weapons. So for me, Tet was the tragedy of the loss of so many human lives and so many wounded with horrific wounds. But it also showed the determination of the enemy. I do not think I really went to Vietnam wholly naive like so many of the women have said. I think I was really prepared. I prepared myself for the worst. I think Tet helped prepare that inside me because I knew it would come from anywhere and nowhere and at any time. This enemy was determined. These were not [inaudible] were intelligent warriors.
SM (02:19:01):
How about the Gulf of Tonkin?
DE (02:19:04):
Well, Steve, for me, the Gulf of Tonkin was one of the sick lies the government got by with. So, if they got by with that one, why would not they get by with the weapons of mass destruction? For me, it was so deja vu, that the level of my anger during Shock and Awe was so high that my daughter told me, "Mom, you have to do something about your anger. It is going to kill you. It is just way over the top." And my response was, I said, "What have we learned? The lies from Gulf of Tonkin..."
SM (02:19:41):
Go right ahead.
DE (02:19:53):
It was the ultimate betrayal. It was the ultimate betrayal, that we did not learn that lesson from Vietnam, that the American people could be duped with a lie to get us into... But the American people could be duped to the lie to get us into a war, and Bush got by with it. So, for me, again it was a visceral gut reaction. Another offset betrayal that the government can abuse, abuse of power and convince people of their lives. And of course, I cannot be convinced, so then I am at odds with a lot of people who are convinced. Then I begin to wonder how can people believe this stuff? Why are they so... I do not know. That is enough, Steve.
SM (02:20:43):
Okay. And then, when did the war end? Was there something that happened in the United States? Some people say that when the war came home to middle America, when bodies came home in caskets in Ohio and the Midwest, middle America finally said, "This war has to end." Others say, "Well, it was what happened to Kent State University. When they can shoot their own children on the homeland, that is the beginning of the end." In your opinion, what was the magic moment that ended this war?
DE (02:21:25):
Well, for me, because I was a nurse, it never ended. The war did not end until the helicopter landed on top of the embassy and... What did we call it? The Presidential Palace?
SM (02:21:42):
Mm-hmm.
DE (02:21:42):
Saigon?
SM (02:21:43):
Yes.
DE (02:21:43):
In 1975, right?
SM (02:21:46):
Yes.
DE (02:21:47):
And that picture where the people just hanging on to the rudder of the helicopter trying to escape with everybody else, and those last people dying. That was the kind of official moment. My god, we were out of there. That was the moment for me that the war officially ended, but the war never did end. The war has not ended for most Vietnam vets. We are still battling it, fighting it, dying in VA hospitals. But symbolically, I think you are looking for a symbolic ending. For me, there is no symbolic ending. None. Because for me, I watched the soldiers suffering for years following that war, and taking care of them in hospitals. So, there is some symbolic ending.
SM (02:22:42):
My very last question is, when did the sixties begin? Not necessarily for you personally, but when do you think was the beginning of the sixties?
DE (02:22:57):
I would say '64.
SM (02:23:05):
Is that after Kennedy passed away?
DE (02:23:09):
Well, Kennedy was killed, and then the Gulf of Tonkin was (19)64, was not it?
SM (02:23:14):
Yes, it was.
DE (02:23:14):
So, for me, that is when it began.
SM (02:23:21):
I guess the last, do you have anything else you would like to say or comment on?
DE (02:23:26):
Yes, one more thing, and that is I want to talk about what the sixties meant for me as far as women in the military opening doors for the next generation women.
SM (02:23:41):
Diane, could you speak up just a little bit more?
DE (02:23:43):
Okay. I do not think I have addressed enough about the military women in the sixties, who signed up during that unpopular war, and going to Vietnam and serving all over the world. And how my generation of military women opened the doors for the next generation of military women. And which prior to me, the military women opened doors for us. But we really threw that door open wide in proving that, in Vietnam, that we survived. And that we did have the courage to be in a war zone and work hard and get through it and rise to the highest level of ability and capability and service. Of course now, we have women in Iraq who are carrying weapons and are using them. Whereas in Vietnam, I say we were not issued weapons in Vietnam, but we should have been. And we should have been trained to use them. We were in a combat zone. The only difference was we could be shot at, which we were, but we could not shoot back. Today, women, without being clearly defined that they are in combat roles, they are certainly in combat. We have almost 80 or more of them who have been killed in Iraq. I do not know what kind of advancement we can say that is, that we have opened the doors so women can be killed in combat, but I think what it says is that men and women today are serving side by side pretty much in equal roles. For many of these women, it is their choice. If they have joined the guards, of course, it is all by choice because nobody is drafted. But women have proven themselves and prove themselves every day, but it is just... I have been asked, and I will say this, that I was asked several years ago when the war broke out in the first Desert Storm in the early nineties, how I would feel about daughters coming home in body bags. I said, " I have sons. What is the difference if my daughter or my son comes home in a body bag? I do not want either one of them to come home in a body bag." And certainly, there is really no difference. It is both horrific, it is both tragic, and it is both, it is unthinkable. But I am proud of women in the military today and what they have achieved and what they do. I am very proud of them, as I was proud of my generation. I am just so sad that we have to have a war at all and that they have to be participating in it. But I am very proud of the military women today.
SM (02:26:37):
When you sit there at the ceremony every year at the Vietnam Memorial, on Veterans Day or Memorial Day, and you are sitting on that stage before Jan goes up and starts the program itself, and you have a chance to look. You are looking over all those veterans and families of veterans and just friends of veterans and just interested observers. What are you thinking? I know you are thinking about the introduction of this person that is going to speak, but what is going through your mind when you sit up there and you are glancing over all these people every year?
DE (02:27:14):
Well, I often think, Steve, that we are unusual in that there is a sea of love out there, and we come together out of love. There is just this overpowering sense of understanding and love among us. We all have some needs that we come there every year. Some of us maybe like myself, I should be there because I am the chair. But I need both, too, for my own sense of being together with like-minded people whom I love, and I feel a sense of peace with these people. But I also feel this ordinary responsibility that it is so important that we continue to come there to show our honor and memory of those who died during Vietnam. And to show the country that these memories have to be kept alive. I feel a sense of responsibility to be there as a veteran's advocate, but on a personal deeper level, I just feel this sense of, like Jan Scruggs and myself and all those who work so hard with us, to make sure those memorials got there. We did not do it alone. It took thousands, thousands, and thousands of people and dollars and work. We were just the symbols because we were the leaders of the efforts, but we did not do it alone. I just feel this tremendous pride for the people who did make it happen, and relief that it is there because it is so important for a nation to remember those who-who have served and died. And so, I do not know. I never can put it into words, Steve, because it is pretty overwhelming for me.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Diane Carlson Evans
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Evans, Diane Carlson ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
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United States—Armed Forces—Nurses; Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Evans, Diane Carlson--Interviews
Description
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Diane Carlson Evans served as a nurse during the Vietnam War in the United States Army. Before joining the Army as a nurse, Evans graduated from nursing school in Minnesota. She was the major contributor to the creation of the Vietnam Women's Memorial.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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2006-11-04
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eng
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McKiernan-7B_01.wav ; McKiernan-7B_02.wav
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2017-03-01
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McKiernan Interviews
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242:51
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d94de9645816965072ce76d4ff40a0a7
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/b48e9839c6ee7f18e91be4ab97325ba1.mp3
9586fe3e50ac3b9987e6ccb27c791827
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Audio interviews
Title
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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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>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2010-11-14
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dirck Halstead, 1936-2022
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dirk Halstead is a photojournalist, editor, and publisher of The Digital Journalist. Halstead started photojournalism in high school and at the age of 17, he worked with Life Magazine to cover the Guatemalan Civil War. He worked at United Press International (UPI) for 15 years after attending Haverford College. He has dedicated his life to photography and has created some great pieces of work."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13057,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dirck Halstead (1936-2022) was a photojournalist, editor, and publisher of <em>The Digital Journalist</em>. Halstead started photojournalism in high school and at the age of 17, he worked with <em>Life</em> Magazine to cover the Guatemalan Civil War. He worked at United Press International (UPI) for 15 years after attending Haverford College. He has dedicated his life to photography and has created some great pieces of work.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Subject LCSH
Photojournalists; Editors; Publishers; Halstead, Dirck, 1936--Interviews
Duration
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118:45
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Photojournalism; Vietnam; United Press International (UPI); Military draft; Tet Offensive; End of the Vietnam War; Dangers of Photographing War; Racism; Sexism; Drug Culture; Beatles; Rolling Stones; Apocalypse Now (film); Platoon (film); Richard Nixon; China; United States Military; Draft; Harry Truman; Dwight D. Eisenhower."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Photojournalism; Vietnam; United Press International (UPI); Military draft; Tet Offensive; End of the Vietnam War; Dangers of Photographing War; Racism; Sexism; Drug Culture; Beatles; Rolling Stones; Apocalypse Now (film); Platoon (film); Richard Nixon; China; United States Military; Draft; Harry Truman; Dwight D. Eisenhower.</span>
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Dirck Halstead
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 14 November 2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:02):
Testing one, two, three. First off, first question I have been asking most of the second half of the people that I have interviewed is, how did you become who you are as a photo journalist? Really, how did you start so young at the age of 17, I believe?
DH (00:00:23):
Well, I was given a camera by my parents for Christmas when I guess I was 15. It was a Kodak [inaudible]. And the thing that made the difference was they gave me a little dark room outfit with it, which allowed you to make contact prints. That was the thing that got me hooked, the ability to make prints, back before digital, of course. So I started taking the camera to school and making pictures of the kids and bringing the prints back and they loved them. Within a year, I was the official photographer for the school. So at that time I had talked my parents into giving me a two-and-a-quarter by three-and-a-quarter speed graphic. By the time I was in my senior year in high school, I was working on a part-time basis for a local newspaper. The local newspaper was owned by a guy named Carl Tucker in Bedford Village, New York. It had been a weekly newspaper. So I volunteered to take pictures for him and set up a dark room in the newspaper office, and he gave me $5 a picture for every picture that was run. Well, over the course of sixth months, he bought six other newspapers.
SM (00:02:21):
Wow.
DH (00:02:24):
All of a sudden I was shooting for seven newspapers and I was the only photographer. So that $5 per picture started to multiply and I was making real money. I was 17 years old and I was pulling in a couple hundred dollars a week.
SM (00:02:53):
Wow.
DH (00:02:53):
Taking these pictures. During the course of that spring, I went down to Washington to photograph the Army McCarthy Hearings, and would stay there on the day that Joseph Welch said, "Finally, sir, have you, no sense of shame."
SM (00:03:19):
Remember that very well.
DH (00:03:21):
Photographed that. And I have been through a series of circumstances, I wound up several weeks later going to Guatemala as part of a student expedition to build some schools, which resulted in my being the first, the youngest war correspondent Life Magazine ever had.
SM (00:03:51):
Wow. Quite an experience. Can you describe your parents? Who were your parents and what were the role models you had as a young person? What was it like going to your high school and actually, what were your college days like in Haverford, because that is not far from where I live? I have known several graduates of Haverford.
DH (00:04:13):
Yeah. Is that feedback I am getting?
SM (00:04:18):
Oh, no, I am fine.
DH (00:04:20):
No, I seem to hear feedback coming on the line.
SM (00:04:22):
I do not know.
DH (00:04:22):
Okay. Anyway. My parents were probably the perfect hybrid for being my parents. My mother was an advertising agency executive, and my father was a telecommunications engineer. So that is the mix I came out of.
SM (00:04:54):
What was it like going to college there at Haverford? What was college like then?
DH (00:05:00):
Well, I will tell you quite honestly, I did not pay much attention to it because I had just got my first story in Life Magazine, and I really was not the slightest bit interested in Haverford. And so the main thing I did was I started a photo service at Haverford. I set up a dark room in the biology building and pretty much did my own thing for a year. I would say I was not really participating much in the Haverford lifestyle.
SM (00:05:52):
Now, did you graduate from Haverford?
DH (00:05:55):
I did not. I did not graduate.
SM (00:05:57):
Okay. When you-
DH (00:06:01):
No, [inaudible] at the end of the first year.
SM (00:06:02):
Oh, okay. One of the other things I was reading about your background, you were the UPI's Bureau Chief in Vietnam. Some of the questions I have about there from when to when, did you do that and how did you secure this position, and what did the job entail?
DH (00:06:21):
Well, I did Haverford for a year, and then I was offered a job by UPI in Dallas, Texas at the Dallas Times Herald. So I worked at the Dallas Times Herald for two years as a general assignment photographer. When I got to be, I guess, 19, I was drafted like everybody else being drafted in those days. That resulted in actually the best job I ever had. When I got my draft notice, I ran into another photographer named Don Uhrbrock, who was a Life photographer, who had just gotten out of the Army. We met at a Cotton Bowl game in Dallas. He said, "Well, listen, you ought to go see General Clifton." General Clifton at that time was the chief of information for Department of the Army. So I just called General Clifton's office and I made an appointment. On my way back to New York to go to Fort Dix for basic training, I just popped into the Pentagon with a portfolio, and I showed him my portfolio. Obviously, I have been recommended by Don Uhrbrock and he said, "Well, how did you like a job?" I said, "Well, great. What do I do?" He said, "All you do is when you get in basic training, you send me a postcard and you tell me what your serial number is and when you are expected out of basic, and I will take care of the rest."
SM (00:08:35):
Wow.
DH (00:08:35):
I will never forget, there was this major who was sitting outside the general's office, and he looked at me as I came out of the general's office and he said, "Kid, let me get this straight, you just got drafted and you just came in to show your portfolio?" I said, "Yeah, it seems to work." Sure enough, for the next two years, I had the best job ever. I was the chief photographer of the Department of the Army and wrote my own orders and traveled all over the world.
SM (00:09:15):
Wow.
DH (00:09:15):
Did all these different stories. Lived in a great apartment in Arlington. Never wore a uniform.
SM (00:09:25):
Oh my goodness.
DH (00:09:25):
So I had a great time in the Army.
SM (00:09:30):
Now you went to Vietnam as the UPI Bureau chief?
DH (00:09:35):
Yeah. There is some feedback I keep getting. After two years working for the Army, I went back to UPI, I first went back to UPI in Washington, and I was there for about six months, then I went to New York and I staffed UPI for New York for about six or eight months. And then I became a picture Bureau chief in Philadelphia. I was there for two years. Then in 1965, I got ready to send the Marine to Vietnam, and I was assigned as the Picture Bureau chief Saigon.
SM (00:10:37):
Wow.
DH (00:10:38):
[inaudible] Operation.
SM (00:10:39):
Wow.
DH (00:10:40):
I was there for two years.
SM (00:10:45):
Did you oversee many other photographers, or were you the photographer?
DH (00:10:49):
Yep, I was the Picture Bureau chief. I went out and I shot, but I also ran the bureau.
SM (00:10:58):
What were your personal feelings about that war when you went over there? Some people, when they first went, depending on whether you served in the military or were in other capacities, the early years, which you would say (19)64, (19)65 years were a lot different than the (19)67, (19)71 years, early on what were your thoughts about the war when you first arrived, and then what were your thoughts when you left?
DH (00:11:27):
Well, I photographed the first US Marines arriving on China Beach in March of (19)65. And I also photographed the last US Marines leaving in 1975.
SM (00:11:44):
Wow.
DH (00:11:45):
From the roof of the embassy.
SM (00:11:45):
Yes.
DH (00:11:48):
So I saw the whole hill. Actually, it was very exciting. We had a lot of mobility in those days, and you could go anywhere and do anything. Helicopters, boats, jeeps, everything was available to you. You could get on transport at the drop of the hat, go anywhere you wanted to go and get back to Saigon at the end of the day for a nice drink on the shelf of the Continental Palace. It was a great story. The US experience of the troops and Vietnam was a gradual learning curve for the first few months. This was a great, wonderful experiment in the use of the military. Everybody was having a great time. They were getting to test all the new weapons, and the leaders were gung ho. It was not for almost a year before US troops really began to be sucked into situations where they could no longer prevail. Then it became a very serious business. I think that the people who had been photographing or writing about Vietnam prior to March of 1965, had a much better perspective on how difficult this was going to be because they understood the tactics of Vietnam. They understood the corruption that existed within the South Vietnamese. Most of what we call the old hand, were very pessimistic right from the beginning. But for most of the new arrivals, people like me, we were just having a great time and we just were happy as it could be.
SM (00:14:48):
Would you say that this learning curve that the people you talked about, but even your learning curve as a professional photographer over there from early on, is when you look at (19)65, then you look at Tet in (19)68, and then you look at 1975, the helicopters going off the roof, those are three monumental happenings in this whole phase. Would you agree with that? Were you there with Tet?
DH (00:15:18):
I was not there at Tet. I was on home leave during Tet, but I was certainly there for the beginning and the end. Yeah. I mean, everything totally changed. But to this day, I do not believe that that war had to end the way it ended. The reason why I say that is because we walked away from Vietnam. The Congress stopped appropriating and by March of 1975, the North Vietnamese were pretty well shocked. The bombing offensives had been very effective, especially the Christmas bombing offensive. They had been cut off by China, they had been cut off by Russia. They were not getting their supplies anymore, and they were not in a good position. The way it all fell is that the North Vietnamese decided that they would launch an experimental offensive in the Highlands at a place called Ban Me Thuot. So they assembled an overwhelming force for this little place, and took Ban Me Thuot and started to march down the Highway 19 toward Saigon and the general who was in charge of what we called Free Corps, which is where [inaudible 00:17:36] was, he panicked because actually he had taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese during the French War, and he did not want to become a prisoner again so he got on a helicopter and he just left his headquarters and left it undefended and just told his troops to make their way to Saigon. At the same time, the president of Vietnam panicked, Nguyen Van Thieu, and he pulled the Marines out away and left the South Vietnamese marines trapped on the beach [inaudible] and totally cut off. From that point on, it was all that the North Vietnamese could do to keep up with the retreating troops. It was total complete panic. To this day, I believe that if that general had not bolted from Pleiku actually and if Thieu had not pulled the Marines out of Vietnam, probably it would have wound up with some sort of conciliation government. In fact, the day before Saigon fell, a conciliation government was formed by a guy named Big Ben, and they put up the new colors of this conciliation government. But by that time, it was academic because the tanks were already in Saigon. But no, I have always believed it was a very bad mistake all around from the beginning to end.
SM (00:19:53):
If you were to be asked, which I am asking now, the main reason why we lost that war, what would your response be? Still there?
DH (00:20:19):
Yeah. I am thinking. I think it is very easy to blame the media, but after Tet, and specifically after Walter Cronkite turned against Vietnam, that signaled the end of any US public support in the war. There was none. There was no support in Congress. The American people did not believe in it. The news media did not believe in it, and it was a hopeless case.
SM (00:21:14):
When you looked at McNamara's book, he just passed away this past year, but Robert McNamara's book, "In Retrospect," he had mention in that book that he made mistakes, and then of course, even in McGeorge Bundy's book that came out about six months before he passed away, he was against that war from the get-go, and actually told President Johnson that we should not be there, and it was a mistake. Yet they continued to stay in Vietnam regardless of these attitudes of some of our leaders. Do you put any blame at all on President Johnson, and particularly with the people, Robert McNamara, McGeorge Bundy-
DH (00:22:00):
Of course, yeah, it was a very bad idea.
SM (00:22:10):
But that scene where you are taking pictures of the helicopter, I believe it was April 30th, 1975, if I remember correctly, were you inside the facility? Did you get on a helicopter yourself?
DH (00:22:28):
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
SM (00:22:31):
There is all kinds of stories there that the Vietnamese people that were able to leave were friends of the Americans or linked to the Vietnamese military, that a lot of them were left. Of course, we know what happened in Vietnam after the helicopters left with the reeducation camps. There were stories of South Vietnamese troops throwing their uniforms away because they did not want to be identified as that whole thing. When you arrived at the aircraft carrier, what were the scenes like? What was going on there, just firsthand description?
DH (00:23:16):
Well, by the way, I have written at great length about that whole experience, and it is on the Digital Journalist, and it is called White Christmas. Just go onto Digital Journalist, and it is a very long piece, which goes into great detail.
SM (00:23:48):
All right. Any short little anecdote you want to say though for the interview?
DH (00:23:55):
Well, it was total chaos. The group that I left Saigon with came out of the defense attache's office, which was out at Tan Son Nhut. The Marines were busing Americans and Vietnamese from meeting points in downtown Saigon, and they were being bused out to Tan Son Nhut. When they got to Tan Son Nhut, they were taken inside the bowling alley, which was full of Vietnamese and Americans and civilians. Once the Marines established their landing zone, almost immediately these big Chinook helicopters started to come in and they would just hover. They were loading those helicopters as fast as they could. Then everybody was being flown out about 12 miles out to ships in the Gulf. I was landed on the Coral Sea, which was one of about a dozen carriers that were receiving people. What was interesting was that among the helicopters that were coming in were all these South Vietnamese helicopters. What they would do is they would touch down and the South Vietnamese would jump out, and then they would push those helicopters off the ship. In fact, in a couple of occasions, they did not even land. There was one pilot who just ditched his helicopter right next to the carrier, but there were a lot of helicopters thrown overboard that day.
SM (00:26:22):
Wow. Of course, that was the beginning of the Boat People that we all know what happened afterwards, trying to escape in the thousands and thousands who drowned at sea trying to escape Vietnam.
DH (00:26:36):
Right.
SM (00:26:38):
What pictures do you remember most from your time there in Vietnam? Were there any pictures that you took that stood out? Can you describe the exact environment when you took that picture or pictures?
DH (00:26:54):
You know what, I hate to tell you this, but I have to do it all the time, and every photographer who is interviewed says the same thing. We are very bad when it comes to saying, my favorite picture is... or, I like this picture. We cannot do that. It is something that we are just not wired to do. I cannot objectively discuss my pictures. The only picture I can objectively discuss is the Monica Lewinsky picture.
SM (00:27:32):
Oh, yes.
DH (00:27:32):
Other than that, I cannot.
SM (00:27:36):
But you would say though, you had full access in that war to take pictures, but obviously there was dangers too, that you could have lost your life. Did you know other photographers who lost their lives during the Vietnam War?
DH (00:27:52):
Yeah, many. Vietnam had the highest casualty rate among photographers of any war in history.
SM (00:28:03):
Did any of your UPI photographers die?
DH (00:28:03):
Oh, yeah. Well, in fact, are you by your email right now?
SM (00:28:07):
No, I am not.
DH (00:28:09):
Oh. Because I just answered a question to the John Winslow of News Photographer Magazine, who more or less asked me a similar question and I sent him a reply. I will read it to you. I am going to put you on speaker for a minute.
SM (00:29:59):
Okay. Were the troops well aware of what was going on in America at the time with respect to what many people call the war at home?
SM (00:30:03):
America at the time with respect to what many people call the war at home, the protests.
DH (00:30:04):
Oh, yeah-yeah.
SM (00:30:07):
I have read some novels, and I have also read some books depending on the year, obviously, the late (19)60s and early (19)70s were the greatest amount of protests in America, but what were the troops thinking when they... What part do you believe that played in the war itself? Not only in terms of the feelings that many of the troops had, but the enemy?
DH (00:30:33):
Well, I think it was encouraging for the enemy, and I think that it was very, very difficult on the troop. It was fighting in those jungles and the common instances of fragging where an enlisted man would throw grenade at an officer, and it was a very volatile situation. There were some units that were much higher performing units, like the Marines, for example, but army draftees. It was a very difficult war for them, and it is a war that they were not prepared to fight.
SM (00:31:49):
The troops came back to the United States, particularly in the early (19)70s and started the Vietnam veterans against the war, and there were a lot of veterans against the war, I guess, that were serving, especially in that 67 to 71 period when it seemed like chaos was not only in America, but also in Vietnam within the troops. Did you see that as well? Did you actually see troops who were against the war who were actually fighting it?
DH (00:32:17):
Yes, sure. Yeah, you run into that. As I say, episodes of bragging just were units just would not go out, right? I mean, there was a period during the Christmas bombing offensive over no, where all the B52s stopped flying. They just decided they were not going to get shot down anymore. The North Vietnamese had gotten that down to the science, and they could target those B52s as they would come over the mountains. They were taking them out left and right. At one point, all the B50s in Guam just had a stand down.
SM (00:33:15):
Did you see all... A lot of the things that were happening in America, not only the protests, but certainly the battles over racism and sexism and the drug culture, the rock music, the sense that government is lying, all these movements that came about in the early (19)70s, were a lot of these things happening within the troops too? The troops were a microcosm of what was going on in America.
DH (00:33:47):
Yeah, sure. Yeah, especially in 1968, yeah.
SM (00:33:52):
What was it about (19)68 that made a difference than any other year?
DH (00:33:55):
Yes, (19)68 was really the crucial year.
SM (00:34:01):
And could you explain a little further what made it a crucial year or-
DH (00:34:07):
Everything came together that year. So the war was heavy casualties. The lifestyles of the young people were changing. The Beatles were happening. The Rolling Stones were happening, long hair was happening, drugs were happening. It was the overthrow of what we would think was normal in the society and the general generational conflict.
SM (00:34:51):
Is there any movie that you feel portrays that era better than any other, because many Vietnam vets have been pretty critical of the movies that have been made on Vietnam.
DH (00:35:09):
Apocalypse.
SM (00:35:11):
Apocalypse Now?
DH (00:35:14):
But that I said, right. From the standpoint of... And if you get the idea, well, this was all just totally nuts.
SM (00:35:41):
Yeah, also the movie Platoon was one that most Vietnam vets did not like. Why do you think they did not like that film?
DH (00:35:51):
I think I cannot speak with Vietnam vets. I found Platoon really to be estrin. Platoon is really sort of what we call a TikTok. That is how it was, that is how it was. Emotionally, it has no heft. There are Apocalypse Now. Those crazy people were really there, when all those crazy things, and it was totally out of control.
SM (00:36:43):
How has the experience in Vietnam differed from any of the other photo experiences you had since that time? What made that unique in itself?
DH (00:36:56):
Well, first off, Vietnam was "my war". If you talk to most professional journalists who been around for a while, almost all of them have an event that they identify with, and that this was the core event of my life. And for me, Vietnam was that core event. It is what shaped me, it is what shaped all my colleagues. You have to remember, anybody who is anybody or has been anybody in journalism, went through that experience. And rather, Tom broke off. Peter Jennings, Tech Poppel, they all went through Vietnam. They all served their time there, but roughly the same time. And the thing that was unique about Vietnam was that you were very much in control of what you did. In previous wars as World War II, such as Korea, if you were a correspondent or a photographer, you really had no control over where you went. You joined up with some troops and wound up mowing with those troops wherever they went for as long as they were gone. And it was a shared experience with the troops. Vietnam was totally different, Vietnam was covering a fire. Every morning you would read the wires and find out what had happened overnight, and then you would take your car out to [inaudible] and hop on a helicopter and buy off a couple hundred miles and be set down in the middle of a raging battle And cover that battle, and then when you would have enough of that, you would get back on a helicopter and go back to Saigon and go have a beer. And so it was always a matter of personal choice that you did. And so that puts a whole different perspective on it because once you realize that you are making those choices, you are not being forced, you have a much different feeling about the whole process. And it becomes much more of a personal adventure. And I will tell you that I personally ever met a photographer who covered Vietnam, who did not love the experience. Love it, not like it, loved it, did not get enough of it, did not stay away. I was there for two years in (19)65 and (19)66, came back to New York for two years, and from the minute I was back in New York, I wait to get back to Saigon. And I was totally miserable in New York. There was nobody to talk to or everything seemed like total bullshit to me. I had no depth, they did not understand what was going on in the world. And after going back to Vietnam for Time Magazine in 1972, the first morning I woke up and was walking down Main Street in Saigon. It felt like I had gone to bed several years earlier and woke up that next morning in Saigon and nothing else had happened in those three years I was away. It was just a total complete, okay now I am back where I ought to be.
SM (00:42:00):
Okay.
DH (00:42:02):
And so very important that you understand, but point of view now, a lot of that point of view was because we were in strand of what we did. We were all accredited by Max V. So you have identification cards allow you to get on any helicopter or plane with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. And I actually could come home at the end of the night. And the press facilities, by the way, were very good. Even in places like Danang with bars and all that stuff. Word since then, have not been that much fun. Places like Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, there is no booze. Where is the fun. There is no fun. It is miserable places where people get dismembered by. IEEs. And there is not a lot of, after going on in those places. Vietnam, we laughed our asses off.
SM (00:43:43):
What is interesting when you talk about the freedoms that you had in Vietnam, it is almost like that is the culture of that (19)60s generation or that era, that one of the goals of the cultural revolution at that period was that people were in charge of their own lives. They did not have to worry about the corporate, having a corporate image that I am empowered to do, I am empowered to speak up. I am empowered to fight injustice. I am empowered to do these things. There was a feeling, a sense of my voice counts, and basically what you are saying is even in the world of porno journalism in Vietnam and your fellow photojournalist, there was that same cultural feeling of you are in charge.
DH (00:44:31):
Yeah, well-
SM (00:44:33):
That was the time.
DH (00:44:34):
Yeah and after I attribute a lot of this one man, and that is Barry Zorithian.
SM (00:44:45):
Who?
DH (00:44:46):
Barry Zorithian.
SM (00:44:47):
How do you spell that name?
DH (00:44:49):
Z-O-R-I-T H I A N. Barry Zorithian.
SM (00:44:54):
Okay.
DH (00:44:55):
Barry Zorthian was acting Spokeman. He was not a spokeman, he was head of Max V military assistance command Vietnam of the press operation. And he said all the policies, and he was a former time incorporated guy, and his heart was a journalist heart. But he had a very high rank within Max V. He was number two people of organization. And so he is the one who made these decision. Chris could do all that, one of the lessons because the Vietnam people who were in charge in Vietnam after the Vietnam War blamed Zorithian and blamed themselves were losing the war. And their theory was that they lost the war...
SM (00:46:22):
They lost the war at what? Still there?
DH (00:46:30):
Yeah, I am here.
SM (00:46:30):
Oh, okay.
SM (00:46:30):
Yeah.
SM (00:46:38):
Are you waiting for another question or... One of the questions that I wanted to ask is, I was looking at one of your videos on the computer and you were talking about when you take pictures, you feel that it' is an educational process and you have a very strong philosophy of responsibility. Could you go into detail on that with, you had mentioned that in the video?
DH (00:47:18):
Very strong sense of responsibility, people to do all of the things that I have done over my life. My job is to...
SM (00:47:51):
I think we are getting cut off here.
DH (00:47:54):
Oh, is really-
SM (00:47:56):
Want me to call you again? I am getting cut off now.
DH (00:47:59):
Oh, you better call me back.
SM (00:48:00):
Okay, thanks, bye. Oh, you teach me any courses or?
DH (00:48:12):
I do not teach courses currently.
SM (00:48:17):
So the next few questions are going to be based on a lot on the generation, the boomer generation, and of course Vietnam bets were part of that. When you hear people, especially in recent years, blame all of the problems we have on to have today in our society on the era known as the (19)60s and the (19)70s. And of course they are talking about the drug culture, the welfare state, the divorce rate, some people call it the beginning of the handout society, the lack of respect for authority, the divisive nature in our dealings with people with that we disagree with. In other words, placing the blame on the boomer generation really. What are your feelings when you hear that from politicians or pundits?
DH (00:49:05):
Well, I laugh because it seems to me that things have reversed itself. The liberals are now the professors and the conservatives of the students, and you see this all over. Right now, a lot of anxiety on a part of the current generation is they are not going to get what they are entitled to.
SM (00:49:50):
That is interesting because one of the most important things when you learn about what an activist is, an activist never says these words, 'what is in it for me?' It is 'what is in it for we' was the mentality of the many of the college students of the (19)60s and (19)70s. And if you hear the reverse, what is in it for me? They are not an activist.
DH (00:50:16):
No, they are not, no-no. And I will say one of the big problems I have with students and having taught photojournalism, I find a total lack of curiosity there. When I look into their eyes, there is nothing there. There is lifeless. I do not know if it is too much time spent in front of video games, whether it is not learning to read, but there is nothing there. I did an exercise the first two times I taught my photojournalism class. I would walk around-
SM (00:51:17):
What year was this?
DH (00:51:20):
And there would be a dozen kids at the table, and I would walk around and I would get up real close and I would look them in the eye. And about one in four, I would say, okay, you are crazy. And I meant that in a good way because what I was seeing is there was something going on in those eyes. There was life, there was some flickering there, there was some wildness in there. There was something, there was a pulse in that person. The rest of them, if I did not say that, I knew they might as well drop out of that class right then because they were not going to do anything. I find that the greatest problem in teaching journalism today is teaching what a story is. Students have no idea whatsoever of what a story is, what makes up a story. How do you do it? How do you find it? I used to be good at that stuff. I mean very fast, but they are not anymore.
SM (00:53:03):
Would you say that the students of the (19)60s and the (19)70s had that, whereas the students of the (19)80s, (19)90s, and what we call the 2010s, which is the next two generations, generation X and certainly the millennial students of the day, are they in the latter group?
DH (00:53:24):
Yeah, I mean, I think the students in the (19)60s and (19)70s were on fire that they could not consume enough experiences or ideas. They were ravish. They wanted to ingest anything and everything, all. They were hungry for experience. They were hungry for drugs, they were hungry for sex, they were hungry. They were raiding maniacs. Look around you today, you do not see it.
SM (00:54:11):
Back in the (19)90s. I like your thoughts with the generation Xer group that followed the boomer generation. We had a panel of boomers and generation Xers, and they were having some problems with each other. And I found in my programs that I did the university that Generation Xers, and they are people born from (19)65 till about 1982. They either looked at the (19)60s as their sick and tired of the nostalgia that this generation of boomers is always talking about or they regretted that they did not live during that time because there were causes and there was nothing in between either like you or they did not. Did you find that too?
DH (00:54:57):
Yeah.
SM (00:54:58):
When you look at the boomer generation, which is those born between (19)46 and (19)64, and I want to preface this statement by saying that I now know that people that were born between (19)35 and (19)45 are as much of boomer as those born in that period because of the sense of spirit and they were kind of the mentors and role models for many boomers. When you look at the boomer generation, are there any basic characteristics or strengths or flaw that you can apply to them as a group? And of course we know there is 74 million people in this generation, but just from the ones you knew.
DH (00:55:36):
Well, I think that my experience is that people of my generation was stewarded earlier. They were out doing things, talk about me working for my newspaper at the age of 17. I was not drifting around aimlessly. I knew things I wanted to do. And that same thing went for all my friends. I had class reunion that long ago. We were talking about this very thing. People became young adults at the age of 18 and some cases 17. Now, God help us, you are lucky if you find a young adult at 30.
SM (00:56:42):
So the criticism that some people have of boomers is that they were a generation that never grew up. Some people think, well, again, I am just putting the shoe on the other foot there. Some people just do not like boomers and that they never did grow up. So I do not know if you have any concepts on that.
DH (00:57:12):
Not really, no.
SM (00:57:14):
And also the many of the boomers thought they were the most unique generation in American history, particularly when they were young. And again, many felt they were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society by ending racism, sexism, homophobia, ending war, bringing peace and making the world a better place to live. Is the world we live in an indictment of the generation or are we a better nation overall because of their activism?
DH (00:57:43):
That is the meaning of life question. I do not know. I do not know.
SM (00:57:55):
Can you give any other strengths or weaknesses of that generation? If you have any other thoughts?
DH (00:58:04):
Well, everybody has got their idea of the greatest generation. We know We are Tom [inaudible] fan. And I think for me, the most interesting generation was the boomers. Were the greatest or not, I do not know, but [inaudible] info. Well, I think we are in a society today that is just sort of drifting.
SM (00:58:47):
And again, I am just trying to understand the boomer generation from many different angles. Do you put any blame on that on the parents of today's young people, generation Xers were the children of Boomers. And now if you look on college campuses, only 15 percent of the millennial students of today are the kids of boomers. Most of them are the kids of generation Xers. So do you think this is also a criticism of the parents who maybe did not pass on some of the feelings that they had when they were young.
DH (00:59:23):
Yeah, I think so. And I think that that is probably a fallout from the boomer generation as far as caring for your young. But I think that as we all know, the basic family structure as we knew it has disappeared. Dinner around the table, the participation of adults and kids' activities, and certainly among minorities, it is-
DH (01:00:02):
And certainly among minorities, it is a disaster. No place at the table.
SM (01:00:13):
In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin and when did it end?
DH (01:00:19):
(19)60s began with John Kennedy being inaugurated.
SM (01:00:27):
And when did it end?
DH (01:00:38):
When was that big concert, San Francisco? Was it the Rolling Stones?
SM (01:00:46):
Altamont?
DH (01:00:47):
Altamont, yeah.
SM (01:00:48):
That is when the violence, yes. Is there a watershed moment that you think that stands out for most boomers?
DH (01:01:03):
I do not know. I think that is an individual thing.
SM (01:01:04):
I think you were born in 1936, correct?
DH (01:01:05):
Correct.
SM (01:01:08):
Then you have lived through these periods. And just give a couple [inaudible], because these are the periods that boomers have lived. The oldest boomer is now 64, and the youngest is 49. So I think most boomers now realize that they are mortal, like every other group. In your own words, can you describe the America of the following periods as you remember? Just from your growing up, and just what these periods may symbolize to you, because these are all periods in boomers' lives. That period from the end of World War II, 1946, to the inauguration of President Kennedy.
DH (01:01:53):
I think that was a period of excitement and possibility. We were getting into the space race. And because the space race, there were so many technological changes. Just everything that you had in your house was changing, and becoming high-tech, we are on our way to that. And so I thought that the (19)50s, we still had the [inaudible], but I thought that the (19)50s was an optimistic and innovative time.
SM (01:02:53):
How about the period 1961 to 1970?
DH (01:02:57):
Sixty-one to (19)70, of course that is when everything exploded. And the Kennedy, and Kennedy's assassination, and Bobby Kennedy, and rock and roll, and drugs, and Andy Warhol. And total changes in dress, and the way people related to each other. Very casual sex, all those things.
SM (01:03:38):
How about 1971 to 1980?
DH (01:03:43):
(19)71to (19)80, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford. First off, you really have to understand that the first two years, we were totally bogged down in Watergate, where I think we were collectively losing our senses. And Nixon was totally out of control. The war went on in Vietnam. And then we had a breather with Gerry Ford, who was a very nice man. And then Jimmy Carter, who has since proven to be one of our better ex-presidents, but who was a total disaster when it came to the concept of protecting presidential authority of power. And the period of malaise. So I do not know if you remember the kind of clothes that Gerry Ford and Jimmy Carter wore, but these real weird plaids.
SM (01:05:15):
Yeah, and then Jerry Ford is not a very good golfer, and he hit a lot of people.
DH (01:05:24):
Yeah. But a very nice man. I liked Gerry Ford the whole time. But it was not much doing. And we were limping along with malaise, and everybody just generally not feeling very good. And then we got to (19)80s, and there was Ronnie.
SM (01:05:47):
Yeah, (19)81 to (19)90 was the next period.
DH (01:05:52):
Yeah. And as I was concerned, that was a wonderful time, because I got to spend all my time in Santa Barbara. But everybody seemed to feel really good. They liked Ronnie. Nobody took him too seriously, except when he said, "Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev." Promptly did exactly that. And so I think the (19)80s was a feel-good period.
SM (01:06:31):
Do you think it was a period where he was trying to bring back the (19)50s?
DH (01:06:32):
Not really, no.
SM (01:06:39):
And bring the military back to power, the way it should be, as opposed to the way it was in the (19)70s?
DH (01:06:45):
Well, see, I personally always looked at Reagan, I saw this happy-go-lucky warrior, who always seemed to have such a good time. And I personally prospered during the (19)80s. I thought I was just wonderful. And like I say, I spent, out of eight years, I spent a whole year in Santa Barbara. And so that was not hard to say.
SM (01:07:22):
How about the (19)90s? 1991 to 2000?
DH (01:07:29):
Now, I am beginning to run into short term memory loss. What happened in the (19)90s? I cannot remember.
SM (01:07:40):
Well, we had the president of Bush I and Bill Clinton.
DH (01:07:42):
Yeah. Well, that is the answer. Bill Clinton, I thought was a hoot. He seemed to have a wonderful sense of humor and good time. But I thought, personally, he was a total fraud. I kept watching, as a photographer, I am always watching the eyes of my subject. I am trying to read what is in there. And what I found out very early on in the Clinton administration was for the first front that I covered him, I thought I had never covered anybody as fascinating as Bill Clinton. He could get to the point he could make a smart, a steep statement, his eyes had empathy, sympathy. He knew how to reach out to just the right person. And then I realized, after lunch, I was watching an act.
SM (01:09:08):
Wow.
DH (01:09:14):
But he would do the same thing, every single time. And I could tell in advance that he was going to tear up. I could tell what he was going to do. And so, for eight years... Actually seven years. For seven years, I studied Bill Clinton's face from up close, waiting to get him. And I finally did. If you go on my webpage, on the digital journalist and go to the covers, you will see a picture of Bill Clinton. And it was during the middle of the Monica business, and he was at a rally with the First Lady, and she was having absolutely nothing to do with him. And he would sort of reach out, tentatively toward her, and she would bat his hand away. And I soon suddenly started to notice that his right jaw kept clenching. And it went on and on. And his jaw was just clenching. And I have a whole roll of that, the [inaudible] Magazine. And I said, "I got you. I finally got you." After seven years, I finally saw the real Bill Clinton.
SM (01:10:56):
I know there is a picture on there too of them with masks.
DH (01:11:02):
Yeah. Yeah. And I consider that a metaphor, because I think they are both the same. I think they are two sides at the same point, that they deserve each other. And I have always thought that.
SM (01:11:23):
You have covered presidents from Kennedy to Clinton, I think maybe even a little bit above Bush too, but you say you finally got Clinton. What do you have to say about these other presidents in terms of maybe the photographs, and what their personalities were? And maybe even, I have got a question here, which President had the greatest impact on the boomer generation, in your opinion? Because you covered the White House for 29 years, and that is basically the time when the boomers were young, and then going into middle age. So you are dealing with Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush I, and Clinton.
DH (01:12:05):
All right. Let me give you my quick rundown. Kennedy, I covered from his inaugural until he was killed. A totally fascinating character, and very, very similar to Bill Clinton. In fact, they are almost alter-egos. Bill Clinton, the same characteristics I mentioned of Bill Clinton, I talk about John Kennedy. The photographers used to call Kennedy 'Jack the Back'. And the reason for that is Kennedy was very camera conscious. And so whenever he would come into view of the camera, he would immediately turn his back to the lens until he had composed himself. Until he had his face where he wanted it to be, hair was where he wanted it to be, and then he would turn his face to camera. But the first thing was always the turning of the back.
SM (01:13:25):
Wow.
DH (01:13:26):
So he was 'Jack the back'. And a fantastic energy to cover, and just a total wild man. Everything you read about him is true, including the midnight trips to the swimming pool. One photographer I knew, he really sort of served as an on the road pimp for him. He would run alongside the car, and as they were going in these motorcades, and they were in the open car, we had all these teenage girls, and Kennedy used to call them leapers. And he would see one that would strike his eye, and he would just look at my friend, Stanley Tretick, who is a photographer, and just point to her. And it was Tretick's job to go over to her and say, "How would you like the come meet the Senator?"
SM (01:14:31):
Wow.
DH (01:14:34):
And so, that was bad boy.
SM (01:14:41):
Always think of him with the older women, not younger women.
DH (01:14:43):
Oh, no-no. He loved the leapers. And they were just like hors d'oeuvres. I mean, Marilyn Monroe was the main course.
SM (01:14:47):
Right.
DH (01:14:55):
And then Lyndon Johnson, totally fascinating. And far bigger than life. Just huge. And he would dominate the room. He would intimidate, physically, anybody he was with. One of the best stories that I have ever heard, and it is apocryphal, is that at Camp David, Johnson was having a meeting with the president of Canada, Lester Pearson. And Lester Pearson, they were talking heatedly about Vietnam, and photographers were able to watch as Kennedy reached forward, grabbed Lester Pearson's [inaudible], and raised him off his feet, and said, loud enough for us to hear, "Boy, you have been fishing on my front lawn."
SM (01:16:12):
Wow.
DH (01:16:15):
That was Lyndon Johnson.
SM (01:16:19):
Wow.
DH (01:16:29):
And he was obsessively narcissistic. He insisted, for example, that his photographer, Okamoto, photographed him sitting on the bathroom. He wanted every piece of shit recorded. And he was something else. I could tell you stories about Lyndon Johnson [inaudible] and all that. And so then, of course, after Lyndon Johnson, we got Nixon, right? And of course Nixon was my favorite because Nixon was the best subject a photographer to ever have. He was totally crazy. And you could see every emotion. The world's worst poker player. And his face was... Anytime he made an address, his face was like a living contradiction. His eyes would be delivering one message, and his mouth would be delivering another. And there would be this moisture above his mouth, and his little eyes would be darting around the room. And he was nuts, in a word. And in fact, he did a whole bunch of nutty things. For example, during Watergate, he could not stand it. And so, one night, he bolted from the White House, in the middle of the night, called a car, drove to Dulles Airport, and got on a PWA DC-10, fly out the Santa Barbara. All alone. There was one Secret Service agent who was on the plane. And then, of course, then they had the problem, how would they get him back from Santa Barbara? Because he had not officially left. And so he was stuck in Santa Barbara, it was terrible weather. It was raining, and he was stuck there for a week. And fortunately, Henry Kissinger had taken a Jetstar down to see one of his [inaudible] in Mexico. And that plane had come back up to 29 Palm to resurface. So that is how they got him back. They had to put him in the closet of the plane to get him back Washington. Another time, he bolted from the White House and he went to Lincoln Memorial, and stood in the rain in front of Lincoln Memorial, soaking wet, for an hour, just staring at Lincoln. And of course, the more intense that Watergate story got, the better it, got. I mean, I could not wait to get to the White House in the morning. I mean, I would have paid thousands of dollars just for the privilege of going to those briefings. Because with Ron Ziegler up here, and Jerry what was his name dismantling Nixon, and all the craziness that was going on. And of course, during that period, I had, I think 20 of my 50 covers just on Nixon. And my trick was... And the other guys never caught onto it. My trick, from day one, was to use the longest possible lens that I could find. And so where my colleagues were all using 80 to 200-millimeter lenses, from his speeches, I was using eight hundreds. And I was getting in so tight on his face because I wanted to see those eyes. And there is a very famous picture in my covers of, it was taken during the American Legion Convention in New Orleans, and it was toward the end of Watergate. And he was walking into the convention hall, and he was not sleeping at all. There was just this wildness in his face. And as he was going into the hall, a reporter said, " Mr. President, what about the missing eight and a half [inaudible]?" And Nixon turned around and grabbed Ron Ziegler, and just hurled him backwards, yelling, keep those bastards away from me. And then he went on stage and there is this haunted face of Richard Nixon, where it is all there. The whole thing. The whole crazy is all there. So I mean, he was a wonderful story, you could not ask for anything better than that.
SM (01:22:37):
Was Agnew an important part of that story too?
DH (01:22:40):
In retrospect, no. Early on, yes. And then, of course, Gerry Ford, who is probably the sweetest guy ever be president. Really very nice man. Never had any desire at all to be president. Perfectly happy up on the house. And loved photographers. He used to come over to the house for drinks. Almost fell off our balcony one night. But just a really nice man. And that gave way to Carter, who was just, as I say, just a mess. I will never forget one time he was at Normandy, visiting the graveside soldiers to [inaudible]. And it was a gorgeous spring day, and he was with Valérie Giscard d'Estaing. And Valérie Giscard d'Estaing was... Hang on a minute.
SM (01:24:23):
Yep.
DH (01:24:23):
Are you there?
SM (01:24:23):
Yep, I am here.
DH (01:24:23):
Good. I dropped my phone.
SM (01:24:23):
Okay.
DH (01:24:23):
Anyway, Valérie Giscard d'Estaing was this very handsome, tall, distinguished looking guy. And he was wearing this bespoke [inaudible] suit. And next to him is this guy, in this Colombo [inaudible], looked like a flasher. And that was Jimmy Carter. And so that is when we started calling him the [inaudible] Flasher.
SM (01:24:58):
Oh my God.
DH (01:25:05):
And then after Carter...
SM (01:25:07):
Reagan.
DH (01:25:09):
Reagan, and I have already talked about Reagan. And then I have Clinton, and I have talked to you about Clinton.
SM (01:25:19):
George Bush I.
DH (01:25:21):
Oh, yeah. George Bush I. How could I forget George Bush I? Again, a very good friend of mine. And a very loosey goosey guy, except when he was deciding to go to war. Basically, a very decent man. And I will never forget, when after Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, and Bush had been up at Kennebunkport, and he came back later that day. And he walked off of Air Force One, and I knew George Bush very well, the face that I saw, I had never seen before. It scared the living shit out of me. And somebody turned to him as he was going in the door of the White House and said, "So what are you going to do about Saddam Hussein?" And he pointed and said, "Wait. Just wait and watch." I said, "Whoa." And of course he did. Yeah. And wait [inaudible] war. But by and large, he was fun to be around. Hilarious. If you look at some of the pictures on my site, there are all these really funny pictures of him. He liked making fun of himself. He was deliberately goofy. And then there is George W. Bush, who I hate. Totally nasty man. Nasty in ways I cannot even calculate. But he is a bully. And he thinks he is too clever by half. And I have no regard for him whatsoever.
SM (01:28:05):
Yet he has got a really nice wife, Barbara.
DH (01:28:09):
No, that is George H.
SM (01:28:11):
Yeah, I mean Laura.
DH (01:28:12):
Laura. Yeah.
SM (01:28:15):
And then of course, you have got a really nice picture on your website of President Obama. He is only been in there two years, but I guess your thoughts on him so far.
DH (01:28:25):
Well, I think he is doing the best he can. I mean, God help you. I mean, who would want to be in that position? The mess he has inherited. And I do not think he has made any big mistakes. I think he has strapped himself with an overwhelming schedule. And I think doing as well as he can. Time will tell.
SM (01:29:04):
Yeah. It is amazing how people... He says that he tries to not be identified with a (19)60s generation, and he tries to disassociate, yet his critics say he is the epitome of it. That he is farther to the left than in any other president. Which, they may just be critics saying it, but he cannot seem to win no how, no matter what he does. What are your thoughts on the two pictures that were very big during the Vietnam War. And as an observer, as a photographer observing another person's photography, what did you think of the picture, the girl in the pitcher? With Kim Fuchs? And the second picture was the colonel killing the Viet Cong person in, I guess it was Saigon, or whatever it was.
DH (01:29:52):
Yeah, of course. Both of those were taken by very dear friends of mine. Colonel [inaudible] being killed, that was [inaudible] Eddie Adams.
SM (01:30:01):
Right.
DH (01:30:01):
And that-
DH (01:30:03):
... [inaudible] Eddie Adams.
SM (01:30:01):
Right.
DH (01:30:01):
And that is certainly one of the most influential pictures that is ever been taken. It definitely turned the direction against the war. There is no question about it. And it is a picture that haunted Eddie Adams until he died. He wished he had never taken it. And then the Kim Phúc picture, that is taken by another friend of mine. And I think that is a lesser picture than the Eddie Adams picture, which of course on a scale of one to 10 is 10. But again, that was an influential picture.
SM (01:31:03):
And of course the other pictures, the My Lai pictures, which seemed to say to Americans that our troops are committing atrocities. And what did you think of all the coverage of My Lai? Because it got a lot of press. It was on the front cover of magazines, and people refer to it all the time.
DH (01:31:25):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
SM (01:31:30):
Did you think that from... depending on who you talked to, this was happening all the time in Vietnam, or was this just one of those rare happenings?
DH (01:31:42):
Well, I think it happened a lot more, most people realize. In a war where there are no lines and you have these guys with guns walking through villages, and those guys had been shot at an hour before, that sort of stuff happened.
SM (01:32:12):
One of the questions that I have asked everybody from the time I started with Senator McCarthy back in (19)96 was the question of healing, this issue of healing. I took a group of students to Washington, D.C. in 1995 to meet former Senator Edmund Muskie, who was the vice presidential candidate in 1968 at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. And the students that went with me came up with this question. They were not born at the time, but they had seen all the videos of that year, 1968, and what happened in Chicago. And their question was this: "Due to all the divisions that were happening in America at the time, 1968, divisions between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who supported the war, those who did not, those who supported the troops and those who did not, do you think the (19)60s generation, the Vietnam generation, will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing, due to the tremendous divisive issues that tore us apart?" I will give you what Senator Muskie's response was after I hear yours.
DH (01:33:26):
You know what? I do not think so. I think time has passed. I mean, I certainly do not find myself dwelling on it.
SM (01:33:39):
Do you think we as a nation have a problem with healing? And what has the wall done in Washington, D.C. to help this process? Some people say it has really helped the vets and their families, but the question is, as Jan Scruggs, when he wrote in his book, To Heal a Nation, has it really gone beyond the vets?
DH (01:33:59):
Yeah. Well, no, I think for the vet, I mean, that is who it is for after all. And so, no, I love the wall. I think it is a beautiful tribute and I think that is great.
SM (01:34:15):
So you would not put the Vietnam generation in the same league with the divisions that took place during the Civil War? Because it is well documented they did not heal from that war.
DH (01:34:30):
Yeah. Well, except that was a big difference. It was fought here on our property, on our country. Everybody was involved.
SM (01:34:45):
Right. The other question is the issue of trust, obviously because of a lot of the leaders lied to members of the boomer generation throughout their youth. Obviously the biggest examples are Watergate with President Nixon, but we also know the Gulf of Tonkin with President Johnson. And more astute young students, and there were many of them, saw the lies that Eisenhower even gave in 1959 on the U-2 incident where he said it was not a spy plane. And then you had all the numbers that McNamara was giving on the troops, and we knew that those were not actual numbers. So there was a sense that no one trusted anybody in a sense of responsibility, whether it be a university president, a corporate leader, a congressman, a senator, a principal. No matter who they were, there was this lack of trust. Do you think that is been a negative quality within the generation? It has been characterized as part of them, or do you see anything positive in that?
DH (01:35:52):
What concerns me is the divisions that are deepening among citizens. It used to be you could go to a dinner party in Washington and the table would be full of Democrats and Republicans. That would not happen today; one or the other. You are either a Democrat or a Republican. And as somebody who has lived for a long time in Washington and taught people there every day, it is the thing that I think bothers everybody the most. Half of the population is not talking to the other half. And I cannot remember any time that that has happened. And I credit to a large extent the rise of cable pundits who are yelling at each other 24 hours a day, except on Saturdays. They take off on Saturday. But I think they are responsible to a large degree. I think that we are suffering from a breakdown in civility that I think is just going to get worse. And I only know, is now we have got these commissions at work. Everybody is [inaudible] is going to start getting [inaudible] simultaneously. That could be a lot of very pissed off people.
SM (01:37:53):
Do you see any links there between the divisiveness in the (19)60s? Because a lot of people were not talking to each other back then, they were shouting people down at times and were not listening to the other side. Do you see any kind of link between then and now?
DH (01:38:06):
Totally different. Totally different. I think that you had a lifestyle conflict which would manifest itself primarily in the long hairs versus the short hairs. And of course, you always had the police on the side of the short hairs. And so I think that that was a lifestyle division. This is a much more ... How do you explain this? This is a division over who gets what. And I think it is going to be very nasty.
SM (01:39:09):
I have only got three more questions and then I am... One of the things here, and I know you say this in your literature, and I know it was important, regardless of what we say about Richard Nixon, the pros and the cons, we got to give credit for him in terms of his trip to China, and you were-
DH (01:39:33):
Oh, absolutely.
SM (01:39:35):
Yeah. I would like to you to talk about in your own words, as a person who not only took pictures and have said that this is one of the most important experiences you have went through, how important that trip was to this country and to this world.
DH (01:39:50):
Well, as somebody who was chosen to photograph that trip to China, I have always regarded that at the high point of my life. And I certainly think it is at the pinnacle representing what a person of the United States is able to do. This was a... I guess you would call it a Hail Mary pass, that Kissinger and Nixon cooked up one summer. And we were in San Clemente, and Kissinger disappeared for a week and came back and we discovered he had been to China. And that was the beginning of the process of setting that trip up. But there has never been a more important presidential trip. And I do not see how there could ever be, unless maybe we are sitting on the confrontation of World War III. But it changed everything. Because of that trip, China and Russia stopped supporting North Vietnam. And so it was the precursor to ending the Vietnam War, really. Totally realigned world politics, shifted alliances. And it was responsible... Hello? Hello?
SM (01:41:54):
Yeah, I am here. Yeah.
DH (01:41:56):
Okay. It was responsible for liberating China from [inaudible] and start them on a path which God only knows how that is going to finally play out. But that one trip changed everything. And there is another trip I want to mention to you because it is along the same lines. And that was the trip to the Soviet Union for the SALT agreement. And I do not know if you remember when that happened, but that was two weeks before Nixon resigned. And he did two trips back-to-back in a 10-day period in that period immediately before he resigned. One was he went to India and Israel, and the other was he went to the Soviet Union. And Nixon and Kissinger were frantic to get the SALT treaty signed the, because they knew time was running out. And so Kissinger went to see... Was it Brezhnev then, I think? I think it was Brezhnev. But Kissinger went to see him and he said, "Listen, we need to have a talk. As you realize, the president is under extraordinary pressure in the United States." Can you hang on just a sec?
SM (01:43:59):
Yep-yep.
DH (01:43:59):
Okay. The president is under ordinary pressure in the United States. He has not been sleeping well. I personally am very worried about his mental health. So I would recommend that when you have your discussion, you treat him very carefully, very carefully. And that is how we got the SALT treaty passed.
SM (01:44:54):
Geez. He did an awful lot toward the end.
DH (01:44:57):
Yes, he did.
SM (01:45:00):
Were you in the room when he resigned?
DH (01:45:02):
Yes, I was.
SM (01:45:02):
Yeah. I remember watching that on television, and by golly, that was an emotional event with his family right there behind him and his thanking all of his staff. And yeah, I remember he talked about his mom. Would you say of all the presidents we have talked about that really were alive when the boomers in their lives, that he is the most Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? He can have the greatest moments and then he can have the worst moments, extremes, almost like psychosis or something psychologically.
DH (01:45:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
SM (01:45:41):
That seemed to be a another really... even though it was a sad moment, he said the right words.
DH (01:45:48):
Yeah. Well, he was a great president, except he was crazy.
SM (01:45:54):
Yeah-yeah. Well, Bobby Muller, when he came back from Vietnam, the person who founded Vietnam Veterans of America, this is a famous quote from him. He said, "I knew that when I came back from Vietnam, that America was not always the good guy," because he had been a Marine and he went in there, and of course he was injured. But he saw things that we have discussed in the late (19)60s over in Vietnam, and knew some things. Is that what a lot of veterans were saying around that time, that for the first time... I know in World War II, we did not say that. I do not think in Korea we said that. But a lot of Vietnam vets were saying, "America is not always the good guy."
DH (01:46:40):
Yeah-yeah. Mm-hmm.
SM (01:46:41):
Did you sense that from a lot of vets?
DH (01:46:42):
Not a lot, but some, yeah.
SM (01:46:52):
And then there was, in The Wounded Generation, which was a book written in 1980, there was a panel with Phil Caputo, James Fallows, Bobby Muller, Jim Webb, who is now Senator Webb. And they talked about the issue of the generation gap between parents and young people. But then Jim Webb said something that changed the discussion. He said the real generation gap, it was not really between father and son or mother and daughter, or whatever; it was between those who went to war and those who did not, those who fought the war and those who did not. And he was very critical in the discussion that this is what we call a service generation, i.e. Kennedy, the Peace Corps and serving your country when your nation calls... that in reality, the boomer generation is not a service-oriented generation. Your thoughts on the generation gap between those who served and those who did not, and the concept of service, which is often linked to the (19)60s generation.
DH (01:48:00):
Yeah-yeah.
SM (01:48:03):
Any thoughts?
DH (01:48:05):
Well, I personally, I told you I had a great job when I was in the Army. I personally benefited enormously from the draft. And I think that when the draft was discontinued, we lost something, lost something as a basis of shared service that we regret today. And the military's got broken. We cannot keep sending the same people back over and over and over again. You cannot keep on doing this. And I think you see the estimate of we are going to be in Afghanistan until 2014. Where are these people going to come from? So I personally am for the draft. It sure did not hurt me any, and I thought it was a very valuable experience.
SM (01:49:37):
I heard the other night on TV, Eliot Spitzer was talking, the former governor of New York, and he says he is for the draft. And quite a few of the Democrats now are starting to think, in fairness... because we all know about the fairness issue during the Vietnam War; in fairness, all people should be called. And that actually should be even service for everyone. And they went to the point of even people that may not be qualified for military service be required to do other kinds of service for two years. It is across the board, so you are not... just because you physically cannot do it, you still can do two years of service. I will end with this. Two other presidents we did not talk about, and they were the beginning when boomers were very young, and that is President Truman and President Eisenhower. Your thoughts on them? Because Eisenhower was the president that all the boomers saw in the (19)50s, this grandfather figure from (19)52 to (19)60. And of course the boomer generation was just going into 7th grade around the time President Kennedy was coming into office. Your thoughts on Eisenhower and Truman?
DH (01:50:45):
Yeah, I do not have any.
SM (01:50:45):
Do not have any?
DH (01:50:46):
No [inaudible]-
SM (01:50:49):
Pardon?
DH (01:50:50):
That is before my time.
SM (01:50:52):
All right. And the last thing, my very last question is this. I proposed that the (19)60s generation or the Vietnam generation that grew up in the (19)50s, before all these changes happened in the (19)60s, had three qualities. They were fairly naive, they were quiet, and there was a lot of fear within them. Fear, because of course the worry about nuclear annihilation, we all went through the tests at school. Some may have seen the McCarthy hearings, fearing about speaking up, being labeled a communist. Naive, just not really knowing what was going on in the world, certainly in the area of civil rights. You did not see a whole lot on TV in the (19)50s about some of these things. And then a fairly quiet generation. Those are qualities when boomers were very young, and then of course then John Kennedy in the (19)60s, and a lot of things changed. Do you think those qualities of fear, being naive and being quiet is pretty on-target for boomers when they were very young?
DH (01:52:08):
It is an interesting question. I think there is a pervasive fear right now that things are out of control. I think that fundamentals that we took for granted, that I would be able to always find a job, provide for my family, have a place to live and shelter and food, these fundamentals are now in grave question. And they have never been a question before, that I know, except for the homeless. But now everybody is potentially looking down the same barrel. And so I think people are... I am terrified. I think people are terrified.
SM (01:53:37):
Are there any questions that I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask?
DH (01:53:39):
No-no.
SM (01:53:43):
Do you have any final thoughts or comments on the boomer generation itself?
DH (01:53:51):
I think I pretty well talked it out.
SM (01:53:55):
When the best history books are written, it is often 50 years after an event. What do you think, let us say maybe 30, 40 years from now, historians and sociologists will be saying about the Vietnam generation once they have passed on?
DH (01:54:20):
I am not sure they are going to have much to say. It is already faded. I am glad we have that wall there. It is a reminder, but I do not think... You used to see, for example, lots of Vietnam vets. You do not see many anymore, because they are all dying away. And I think people are more preoccupied with the current crises that are coming down the road than they are thinking about Vietnam.
SM (01:55:06):
Or any of the stuff in the (19)60s-
DH (01:55:13):
Right, yeah.
SM (01:55:14):
...all the movements. Do you think that is why we do not hear as much about civil rights and women's rights? And we hear a little bit more about gay rights because of the marriage issue, and then in the environmental issues, and the Native American, all the ethnic groups... They were very prevalent in the (19)70s and the (19)80s, but they seem to have waned.
DH (01:55:41):
Yeah-yeah.
SM (01:55:41):
By the way, I want to say that Edmund Muskie's response to that question, I did not give you the answer, about the healing issue. He said we have not healed since the Civil War in the area of race. And that is what he went on to talk about, so anyway.
DH (01:55:57):
Anyway. Well, I think that is probably true. I think it is getting much worse. I think we are basically watching the devastation of Black families. Looking at all the figures, it is an unbelievable thing. I mean, the Black family structure has totally disappeared.
SM (01:56:30):
When you think about all the things that are happening to the unemployed today, it is up at close to 10 percent, but now they say different parts of the country, it is 18 percent. But we talk about people's pensions are being threatened; in Pennsylvania, they are being threatened right now. And so Social Security can be become... What are people going to live on? I am just amazed at where we are heading. It is really scary.
DH (01:56:58):
Well, I told you, I am terrified. And I will tell you, there was a statistic I heard just the other day, which shocked me, which was [inaudible] the town that if you were a young white man with a prison record, you stood a better chance of getting a job than being a young Black man with no prison record.
SM (01:57:34):
That is amazing. That does not shock me. Wow. Well, I thank you very much.
DH (01:57:44):
Okay. Let me know how it works out.
SM (01:57:46):
Yeah, you will see the transcript eventually. I am going to be hibernating six months doing my transcripts. I am going to need two pictures of you.
DH (01:57:55):
Okay. That we can do easy.
SM (01:57:57):
Yeah. And I love that picture of you with all those book covers in the background. That is a great shot.
DH (01:58:02):
Okay. I can get that to you.
SM (01:58:04):
Yeah. And keep doing what you are doing. You are one heck of a photographer. I kept a lot of magazines over the years. I think I have got about seven of your magazine covers, and the one of George Bush I have. I know I have a stack here. I do not ever take the covers off a magazine. I keep the magazine. So I got boxes of magazines that I have kept over the years from my archives. So I have got quite a few of your covers on the original magazine.
DH (01:58:31):
Well, that is good.
SM (01:58:35):
Yep. Well, you have a great day, and thank you very much. I really appreciate it. It has been an honor to talk to you.
DH (01:58:41):
Okay, take care.
SM (01:58:41):
Take care. Bye.
(End of Interview)
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Dirck Halstead
Contributor
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Halstead, Dirck, 1936-2022 ; McKiernan, Stephen
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audio/wav
Subject
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Photojournalists; Editors; Publishers; Halstead, Dirck, 1936--Interviews
Description
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<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dirk Halstead is a photojournalist, editor, and publisher of The Digital Journalist. Halstead started photojournalism in high school and at the age of 17, he worked with Life Magazine to cover the Guatemalan Civil War. He worked at United Press International (UPI) for 15 years after attending Haverford College. He has dedicated his life to photography and has created some great pieces of work."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":13057,"3":{"1":0},"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial","16":10}">Dirck Halstead (1936-2022) was a photojournalist, editor, and publisher of <em>The Digital Journalist</em>. Halstead started photojournalism in high school and at the age of 17, he worked with <em>Life</em> magazine to cover the Guatemalan Civil War. He worked at United Press International (UPI) for 15 years after attending Haverford College. He has dedicated his life to photography and has created some great pieces of work.</span>
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2010-11-14
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In copyright
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eng
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Sound
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.124a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.124b
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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118:45
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/149e899206e79b88aa7fa1dbebe29ab8.mp3
65b3116b0a161fff79633cb9b595666e
Dublin Core
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Armenian Oral History
Contributor
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<p>Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D.</p>
Description
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<span>This collection includes interviews in English with informants of all ages and a variety of backgrounds from various parts of Armenia. The interviews provide deeper insight into the history of the Armenian culture through personal accounts, narratives, testimonies, and memories of their early lives in their adoptive country and back in Armenia. </span>
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In copyright.
Relation
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<a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a>
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English
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Date of Interview
4/4/2016
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Gregory Smaldone
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dolores Rogers
Duration
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25:22
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
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This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as Armenian Oral History Project, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries for more information.
Biographical Text
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Keywords
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Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
Armenian Oral History Project
Interview with: Dolores Rogers
Interviewed by: Gregory Smaldone
Transcriber: Cordelia Jannetty
Date of interview: 4 April 2016
Interview Setting: Phone Interview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
0:01
GS: This is Gregory Smaldone with the Armenian Oral History Project being conducted at Binghamton University within the Special Collection’s Library. Would you please state your name and a little bit about yourself for the record?
0:14
DR: Sure. My name is Dolores Rogers formerly Vartabedian. And I am sorry?
0:22
GS: Please continue. Please continue.
0:25
DR: And I am what I believe to be one hundred percent Armenian. I was born and raised in New Jersey, now living in Bethesda, Maryland and I am sixty-seven years old.
0:43
GS: Okay, can you tell me a little bit about your parents please?
0:46
DR: My what, I am sorry you breaking up a little bit.
0:54
GS: Your parents please.
0:55
DR: My parents, my parents– well story goes, legend goes my mother was born and raised in East Orange, New Jersey. She is one of three girls that were born and raised in New Jersey. My grandparents, my mother’s parents were from Tokat, which is formally Armenian which I believe now is part of Turkey. And they were victims of the Armenian genocide. My mother was born in 1921. My father, we were told he was born in Brooklyn, New York but later after his death through other fables and conversations with family members we found out that my father was born in Turkey during the genocide and my grandmother, his mother, escaped Turkey with my father as an infant and came through Ellis Island to her brothers and friends who took her in in Brooklyn, New York. And then hence my father was raised.
2:14
GS: Okay, did your parents speak Armenian?
2:17
DR: My mother and father spoke fluent Armenian. Unfortunately, they did not let it trickle onto my sister and myself, my sister being Margaret. I think that they enjoyed having a second language in the house where they could speak another language my sister and I would not understand. My sister and I both spoke it quite well as very young children. We attended church and Armenian language classes but never carried it through the years hence we lost it.
2:55
GS: How frequently would you two attend Armenian language classes and for how long?
3:01
DR: Oh, my grandfather on my mother’s side was the head deacon at the church in Irvington, New Jersey. And every single Sunday from as early as I can remember, he was there dragging my sister and I, out of, out of bed and into his Nash rambler and off we went to church. So, my sister and I each were members of the church very early on. We went to Armenian school on Saturdays, we went to Sunday school on Sundays and we sang in the choir, we taught classes in the Sunday school classes and to this day even now I do not speak Armenian language, I can sing the two-and-a-half-hour Armenian what we call the Badarak. In language without a book so that I am proud of.
4:02
GS: It is wonderful. Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood first of all, what would you say was your main kinship group? Would you say you mainly hung out with Armenians or with non-Armenians or some combination thereof?
4:16
DR: It was a combination but I would say was strongly on the Armenian side because we attended church so religiously on Saturdays and Sundays and my parents were very close to their cousins, their siblings, of course and their, cousins. And our main form of entertainment often times was visiting the cousins and my mother’s– my parents’ cousins; hence my cousin’s and we visited one another’s homes quite often. And music was always part of the evening. My mother played the piano, another uncle played the violin, one played the accordion and my aunts would sing the Armenian songs in the– from the Armenian service at church songs, so that was Armenian form of entertainment. I think the family- no- I know that family was the number form of entertainment and the school friends would trickle beyond.
5:30
GS: Would you say that your Armenian and non-Armenian friends were overlapping groups or would you hang out with one then the other?
5:39
DR: They were very separate.
5:41
GS: Very separate? Why was that?
5:46
DR: Well, you know living now in the Washington D.C. area when someone asks me what my nationality is, my heritage, my culture; I can say Armenian and they immediately get it. But sixty years ago, in New Jersey when people asked me what I was and I would say– respond Armenian. The common and dominant response was what is that. So, very often because there– because I was fluent in our language and I would say our customs were unlike my school friends, the neighborhood friends. So, there was a divide.
6:36
GS: How did that make you feel growing up about your identity?
6:42
DR: I ̶ gosh, that is a good question, I have not thought about this for years, I felt the sense of discomfort and that was sort of passed on because I know distinctly that my mother was so adamant about telling my sister and I to get involved, to join the girls scout, to join the student council, to get involved to be a cheer leader or play in the band, anything, everything, because my grandfather would not commit my mother and her sisters to engage with other– the outsiders, the non-Armenians of the neighborhood. So, I was uncomfortable. I would say I felt distinctly different. I mean the name Vartabedian was changed for the sake of that. For some odd reason it was changed to Wartman by my grandfather on my father’s side. And you know going to church as a Wartman when it should have been Vartabedian this is a very clear sense of discomfort that it gave me for years.
8:09
GS: What would you say you identify as and would you say that identity is changed over the course of your life?
8:17
DR: Well, now I live in the heart of the D.C metro region and I am very active with the Armenian Church both as a volunteering as a part time, office administrator. I am quite thrilled to see how proud these young Armenians and young Armenian families are of their heritage, of their custom of their language and most of all of their names. I mean if you think about a very famous artist Arshile Gorky. He was an abstract expressionist who came– whose mother and his family suffered the consequences of the Armenian Genocide and when he came over the US and he joined in with others like Eastern, Western European artist. He immediately changed his name to something that had more of a Russian twist to it so that he could be accepted. That kind of stigma no longer prevails here. I am proud to say. But again, I live in a very multi-cultural area of the US. I do not know how it is in rural areas.
9:39
GS: So, what do you identify as?
9:42
DR: Oh, truly as an Armenian. Actually, my name now, although it is Dolores Rogers, whenever I can I put that name Vartabedian in between Dolores and Rogers. I am Armenian, and proud of it.
10:02
GS: What was the highest of education you achieved?
10:06
DR: My MBA at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
10:11
GS: And what has been your main occupation?
10:17
DR: Marketing leader in corporate environment.
10:22
GS: Okay, moving onto your adult life, did you marry or have children?
10:27
DR: Yes. I am married, married and divorced. I have twin sons.
10:34
GS: Is your husband Armenian?
10:36
DR: No, he is Irish.
10:38
GS: He is Irish. Was it important for you or for your parents that you marry an Armenian growing up?
10:45
DR: It was not as important to me because again I was in that mindset of not fully identifying then an Armenian. My parents were a little flexible. I think they would have preferred me to marry an Armenian then but it just did not really happen that way.
11:09
GS: Did your children grow up attending Armenian Church? Did they learn Armenian as children?
11:17
DR: No, we had– my ex-husband raising the boys in the church environment was as important to him as it was to me. But we flipped the coin because in Roman Catholic church, he was brought up as a Roman Catholic, we had a Roman Catholic Church in our neighborhood, walking distance two blocks from our home. The Armenian Church was thirty-two miles from our home. And we decided to raise the boys in the Roman Catholic Church and they went through CCP classes. They had their holy communion and their confirmation and they still follow, well one of the twins is raising his daughter, my granddaughter, in the Catholic Church with his wife. And I am working with my other twin here in the metro region to raise my two grandsons, have them baptized in the Armenian Church here in D.C.
12:27
GS: Okay, did you try and maintain a sense of Armenian traditional heritage in your household as your children were growing up in a way other than religious?
12:39
DR: Absolutely, absolutely yes. And that was still easy to do because I was very, my parents were very involved and active in helping me raising my boys because I divorced when they were ten years old. So, the cooking was always was there. The music was always there when there was the church function at the Armenian Church I would deliberately take the boys there so that they could appreciate the culture. The language we would use in my parents household as well but I would say that the food is probably, the Armenian food is top of their list.
13:21
GS: For you what is the most important part of your Armenian identity?
13:32
DR: I think our survival and our pride.
13:35
GS: So, for you it is a sense of being part of the community?
13:40
DR: Do I feel the sense of being part of the community?
13:43
GS: No, no I am saying, for you– is it that for your identity is tied to being part of the community?
13:52
DR: Well, that is in the smallest scale. The grander scale is you have ties that go back to the year of 1915. My grandparents– all three of them that I knew– were direct victims of and escapees from the genocide, which we just celebrated last year one hundred years, and so, that, that is a common bond that Armenians of all ages has. And more personally today in a closer circle is my identity and my connection, my direct link to the Armenian community. Because we have got almost the melting pot if you will as much as we are all Armenians and we just kind of had a discussion about this this in Church on Easter Sunday. I was sitting at a table with all Armenians. So, I am an Armenian from New Jersey. There was an Armenian who is from Georgia sitting next to me, another one from Egypt, another from Turkey, and another from Syria. So, as much as they are, we are all from different countries, our number one identity we all agreed is that we are Armenians.
15:21
GS: Can you tell me, are you involved within the Armenian-American organizations where you live now?
15:29
DR: Well with the Church I am. I am involved with the Parish Council, the Women’s Guild, there are other organizations that are larger than that and they are business networking events that we attend, Armenian Assemblies that we attend. It is a little of a common bond.
GS: Can you tell me about your work with the Women’s Guild?
DR: Well, the Women’s Guild is quite ambitious and kind of the pulse of the Armenian Church. These women are an army of volunteers to raise money for the church through their divine cooking and baking skills and acting as host to many luncheons and dinners, and so I help out in the kitchen when I can. And none of them have the recipes. It all comes from their heads, they are quite amazing. So, I help out there where I can. I think I have more of a common bond with the members of the Parish Council because they are the business minds, you know, the CEOs, the CFOs and treasures and so that is kind of my scale of skills set and we work on various projects for fundraisings for the church and an awareness of my duty and raise membership in the church.
17:09
GS: What are your views on the Armenian Diaspora? Do you see it as a singular entity? Do you see it as several isolated communities? Do you think it is something that is a temporary entity? Do you think that Armenians trying to go back to the homeland?
17:28
DR: That is such an interesting question Gregory because just this past week on Sunday, I was not in church on Sunday, but there was the Ambassador for eminent or for excellence, a woman who is in charge of the Armenian Diaspora from the Republic of Armenia. Now, I tried to pin down what her mission was exactly today. And it is something about connecting the Republic of Armenia; people, citizens with those who are coming here to the US, right, and are scattered around and about. I think what they are trying to do is kind of a unification, and create one board − I mean the quality of Armenia from what I understand although I am ashamed to say I have never been there, but it is number one in my bucket list. The Armenians from like 1988 and 1990 where they experienced the earthquake and then it no longer became Soviets Socialist of Republic, so the, you know, the Russians dumped Armenian and it was really, really hard for Armenians to turn their economy around. Many Armenians, many Russian Armenians will say today that they preferred Armenian when the Russians were in control because they had more opportunity or definition about their employment and their healthcare etc. So, Armenia was not really quiet in desperate of financial straits. Now it has gotten a little bit stronger but I will tell you many, many people are leaving the country, coming to the US for you know bigger opportunities. I mean this is not even part of the–you know the Syrian Armenian immigration issue that is a whole other effort. But I see many Armenians, many young Armenian women are looking for Armenian–many women Armenian in Armenia are looking for Armenian men here in the US who would bring them over, marry them and make them, you know, outright citizens of the US because they perceive it as a country the streets are paved with gold?
20:12
GS: Do you see a level of integration with new wave of Armenian immigrants or do you see a divide forming between those Armenians who have roots going back several generations in America and those who are more recent?
20:27
DR: Yeah, that is a good question Gregory because it is– I think it is an economic issue. Okay, not to say that there is stigma on those who cannot afford. There are many Armenian’s who have come immediately to the D.C metro region who are very skillful, very educated, almost over educated, they come to the US they get opportunities within the State Department. Lots of that is going on. Okay, so when you are at that level, you know that you are kind of I guess the onlookers are revered. You know, you kind of revered, you just like oh my, and it looking at him, he has got PhD, he got an MD, and he is working for the government et cetera, et cetera. then there are those who come to this country have got relative who are bringing them in and they are desperate for opportunities. They come in and offer themselves as nannies to help us you know cleaning service. You know I am coming from the vantage point of we are at church and we are here to help them. But is there a divide? Absolutely, absolutely a divide. These women and men, young couples are coming with their children deliberately getting their children injected into the school system here in hopes that their children will have a better opportunity to grow within our institutions and take advantage of a job opportunities going forward.
22:10
GS: What role do you see Armenian-American organizations playing in trying to bridge the divide between recently arrived immigrants and multi-generational Armenian-Americans?
22:31
DR: My point of view– many of the few Armenian organizations that I am aware of– not affiliated with the church but are independent Armenian organizations. They are very politically focused. It is about strategy. It is about– it is all that−massacres− that goes on, lobbying for this and for that, trying to get you know the current administration, the White House, to use genocide word to denounce any activity that is going on in Turkey. There is still a lot of this anger with the Turkish government in these politically and strategically minded Armenian organizations. Their focus on uniting, unification of the peoples. I do not sense that there is platform.
23:38
GS: Do you think that the American-Armenian Diaspora is going stronger or do you think it is at risk of losing its identity?
23:49
DR: Oh, I think it is growing stronger and again because I am so connected, you know I am woven into the fabric of the Church and my pastor who is a young man, of maybe forty-four, he is very sound, very great obviously compassionate but always interested in getting and he has many leaders visiting D.C. So, he gets lots of speaker in opportunities and engagers who want a platform, who want a podium time in front of the congregation to speak their thing so, I would say that within Armenian Community yes there is here in D.C. There is concerns and interest with that. And I think that is also dictated by the Eastern Diocese Church in Manhattan, the Archbishop Barsamian [Khajag Barsamian]. He is a very sharp, very kind but a brilliant lobbyist for that and he is the PR icon for that cause as well, who is dominant, it is definitely dominant in the minds.
25:18
GS: Okay, it looks like I’ve gone through all of our questions. Thank you very much.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Dolores Rogers
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/07c4c8a4b1609520e55c0cfb6abe7a74.mp3
53eb0d9ce9b50b064ba89b7340c5a939
Dublin Core
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Title
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Broome County Oral History Project
Subject
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Broome County -- History
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Description
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The Broome County Oral History Project was conceived and administered by the Senior Services Unit of the <a href="http://www.gobroomecounty.com/senior">Office for the Aging</a>. Funding for this project was provided by the Broome County Office of Employment and Training (C.E.T.A.), with additional funding from the Senior Service Unit of the National Council on Aging and Broome County government. The aim of this project was two-fold – to obtain historical information about life in Broome County, which would be useful for researchers and teachers, and to provide employment for older persons of a limited income. The oral history interviews were obtained between November 1977 and September 1978 and were conducted by five interviewers under the supervision of the Action for Older Persons Program. The collection contains 75 interviews and transcriptions, 77 cassette tapes, and a subject index containing names of individuals associated with specific subject terms. One transcribed interview does not have an accompanying audio recording. <br /><br />In 2005 Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections Department participated in the New York State Audiotape Project which undertook preservation reformatting of the audiotapes, and the creation of compact discs for patron use. Several interviews do not have release forms and cannot be reviewed.<br /><br />See the <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">finding aid </a>for additional information.<br /><br /><strong>Acknowledgment of sensitive content</strong><br />Binghamton University Libraries provide digital access to select materials held within the Special Collections department. <span>Oral histories provide a vibrant window into life in the community.</span> However, they also expose insensitive, and at times offensive, racial and gender terminology that, though once commonplace, are now acknowledged to cause harm. The Libraries have chosen to make these oral histories available as part of the historical record but the Libraries do not support or agree with the harmful narratives that can be found in these volumes. <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/digital/">Digital Collections</a> are created for educational and historical purposes only. It is our intention to present the content as it originally appeared.
Identifier
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2
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In copyright
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Ben Coury, Digital Web Designer
Yvonne Deligato, Former University Archivist
Shandi Ezraseneh, Student Employee
Laura Evans, Former Metadata Librarian
Caitlin Holton, Digital Initiatives Assistant
Jamey McDermott, Student Employee
Erin Rushton, Head of Digital Initiatives
David Schuster, Senior Director for Library Technology and Digital Strategies
Coverage
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1977-1978
Relation
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<a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections, Broome County Oral History project</a>
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Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Cinotti, Dominick
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Politylo, Nettie
Date of Interview
1978-06-08
Collection
Broome County Oral History Project
Date of Digitization
2016-03-27
Streaming Audio
Streaming URL
<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE55889">Interview with Dominick Cinotti</a>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
24:24 Minutes
Subject LCSH
Endicott Johnson Corporation Housing Program; Cinotti, Dominick -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Immigrants -- Interviews; Endicott (N.Y.); Endicott Johnson Corporation -- Employees -- Interviews; Endicott Johnson Workers Medical Service
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<p><b>Broome County Oral History Project</b></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview with: Dominick Cinotti</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interviewed by: Nettie Politylo</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Date of interview: 8 June 1978</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nettie: Dominick, will you give me some recollections of Endicott, please?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dominick: Well, I can start with my grandfather when he had first come here the first time—and ah—two of his older boys, my father and my Uncle Dan—ah—they usually came to pay some debt off—you know—in the old country or to make things better for 'em at the time, and ah—</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When they got here, my grandfather was always telling stories about how they had to, ah—get from one section to another and depend on the railroad, you know, to get them there, either by hand cars or hop rides. Most of the time—[chimes ring]—they’re these, they were what they call section hands—like, between Apalachin, Vestal and into Lestershire where it crossed the Susquehanna River—time, most of this was done, as I say, with a hand car. If they had to get up there, usually on Sundays for Mass, they would start either from Apalachin or Vestal all the way to Lestershire on Main Street, Johnson City, ah—St. James Church—is the one—was the only Catholic church around, I guess, at the time, outside of Binghamton, and ah—they would go back and forth and there was stories, like sometimes, if they happen to walk the rails there and there were two fast freights or whatever coming through—they would have to stand sideways and just about be blown off the track and miss. That's one of his favorite stories, and how he could’ve gotten killed—and ah—there was quite a few accidents that way there—you know—you never watch them because when the trains would pile down on you. I remember—well, something that just came to my mind now, like our Oak Hill Ave. crossing was very dangerous—with the same effect there—cars were becoming numerous, and there was—later on they had watchman going on there—and ah—then there was quite a few accidents—you know—just by these darn crossings at the time, which was another thing—at the, say—ah—like they had to get from different places, and they spent time on the Lehigh railroad, which was another one between Owego, Newark Valley and Ithaca, and this Ithaca, there was a small town they would call Caroline—I guess it's still there today, outside, it’s between Richford and Ithaca—I guess, when you get off that area—there's been stories of these railroads—this is long before Endicott even existed, I guess, you know, a few years.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It might’ve been a trip back to the old country that they would come back, because I guess they would try and the money ran out and they would try and get and make a life for themselves. So, with the two boys when they got interested in this and that. I remember my grandfather working on Washington Ave., and I mentioned the casino, I think, there they used to—call was put out by the, what they called “The Binghamton Railway Company” at one time, and they did this so they could get people to ride the trolley cars, which was another fascinating thing, you know, trolleys between Binghamton and all the way down to Ideal Park. Everything—you know at the time—there, before Endicott Johnson there, they had a pavilion that I could remember. The funny thing about these pavilion attractions, they had mirrors that would be squatty or elongated—I guess every kid in the Endicott area would remember this stuff. Well, going back to my grandfather, and my uncle and my father, when they first started to build Washington Avenue, it started from scratch—which was meadowland—and then they put that street in—originally Washington Avenue, the business section was supposed to be McKinley Ave.—this is why McKinley Ave. is wider than any other streets—coming through there, and this, the trolley tracks were supposed to come up to the North Side—believe or not—over that viaduct they had there—it was the only viaduct, I just remember that—so they did put the business district more to the west than it happened to be—ah—Washington Ave.—they ran that spur right down Washington Ave.—trolley spur would go all the way into McKinley Ave., and that was it. About that time is where, this was where IBM or the original Bundy was being built then—my uncle, I remember one of them, was running wheelbarrows up the second floor and up to the sections there, just loaded down—where they could just put that concrete up—it was all done by hand at the time—this is the way he always mentioned, you know, about working on these darn planks—a lot of people—just a lot of wheelbarrows would just hurl down—because they couldn't make it, and this is the original IBM—if you say, this is a little off the corner—wasn't really on North Street, just a little further in—then across, where the Laboratory is now, in the building there, there was a Peerless Dairy—I guess at the time—that, I guess most of the kids could remember that part of that burned down at one time, and then along North St., I remember, there was a old garage, they used to fix cars there in that section—but that is all changed now. In fact, I'd say—Endicott today, if it ever got any bigger there I'd wouldn't like it—I don't think, most of the natives don't. It's getting to be like a city—traffic—whole Triple Cities area. More people are finding it's a good way of life here, especially the New York City people. In fact, I think I'm responsible for a couple of doctors moving in this area. My brother gave me a call from Georgetown, once, right before graduation. There was a white doctor, so as to speak—reason I say “white,” because Wilson Memorial was getting all these foreign, Indians, and—not Koreans, but in that Filipino like the rest of these two—come up and intern so—ah—Ernie called me up one afternoon, he said, "Show them the Triple Cities," which I did, you know—and he liked it. He was from Staten Island—he had a child—and his wife was ready for another one, I guess, and he was graduating and he took one look at this area, from Staten Island, you know, he liked it very much. He's a prominent doctor—physician, in fact he went right into EJ—went into residence, he's a good internist now—his name is Dr. Ponterio, and he came up because through, my brother would tell him stories about the Triple Cities, and through him—there's been another doctor—another dentist, I guess, was Dr. Cargoza, that came right up from that Staten Island area, so you can see the influx of the Triple Cities—by these city physicians and professional men that are getting out of New York City—to come up in this area. That's very prominent—I noticed—oh—what else can I say?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Can I talk about, about EJ? Now I'll start right in. The way we started off with EJ—I know I spent 47 years with the company. I can say that we were treated fairly well—outside the knowledge—that people—you know that they might knock the company. I can say for their medical program, and if it wasn't for Endicott Johnson, I guess, I, because my father died young—I was left with two sisters, two brothers and a mother. During the Depression there—we had a hard time—through this EJ Medical program, you know, you couldn't really look for a job in any way—then most of the people in the area, you know, it was a program, free dental, free medicine. In fact, I know people who were flown down to St. John Hopkins—then they had something like, well, TB, was years ago very prominent, if you will recall. They even had a place outside of Saranac Lake, over there, where they used to send workers, which was quite prevalent—I'd say, where some of the workers were down there—it was nothing to spend thousands of dollars on them—whatever it was. I remember one case—I'd say, a girl on Murphy Ave—wasn't it? Or somewhere where a young girl was burned almost—I'd say about 60% of her body, and it was through plastic surgery—thousands, thousands of dollars—on these hospitals—it’s things like this that are unheard of—I know it will pass through records—you know, people will forget very easily.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Well, say, well, when my father first come—we'll get right back to, ah—the way they built their house—was on Endicott Johnson. Now this is before they gave EJ homes—I mean—before they got that started—they gave away land, and through Endicott Land Company. Outside corner lots—you had to pay $100 per corner lot—anything else was free—we lived at Odell Ave., behind the school near Witherill St. When I was born in Italy—I was about eight or nine months old, and my mother, when we came here—my father was already building the house on Odell Ave., which went down after a while, I guess, after many years my mother was very sorry about that—to see the house go down because they had to have a playground for the kids.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Well, the only thing we had to play on rocks really—on the side of the school—North Side School—before they built it. I know I was saying something about Marko's having a window there—it was a good target for baseball or football or anything, and this window, you know, being broken—say—times everything—that was my cousin, my brother and another boy—we had to split this charge about, I'd say about 13-something a piece to pay for the window—this Marko, he was a, he had a heart of gold but he could only do so much. He was very good about it—I remember him knocking on the door and he said, "Dom, I know it was your brother”—you know, everything like this and that—“You want to pay for the window? I just can't get any more insurance.” That was a week's pay as far as we were concerned—stuff like this. If you want to ask me anything else—possibly how we entertained ourselves?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nettie: I think that would be interesting—how you entertained yourself.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dominick: At the time, we used to play dankeeper [</span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">sic</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">]—and I wouldn't tell kids today, they had to open water tanks—that is something else I remember—follow the arrow—they used to have a ladder, and iron ladder, going up these things, and we'd start swinging around these darn ladders that go into the inside of these things they are 30-40 feet deep. We'd go down the ladder—we’d have to follow the arrow and cross it off and come up the ladder and swing around and follow the arrow down and see—and these are well protected. We just used to shimmy up old low wooden things that we used to hide—and they had a door, we never broke the lock on the door, but we used to go over it and get down and things like that—you often wonder today.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">For Halloween—we used to take rosin and a piece of string and, say, about 150 feet or so away from the house, and attach with a rubber washer and a screw—make a lot of noise, and that was the—oh—that was the—thank God—I didn't say about the entertainments and our curfew—which was another, and they took off the list. Maybe it is still a law as far as Endicott is concerned—it might be still on the record.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A nine o'clock curfew—going down to the movie, I'll never forget. There were six of us on our street and our parents wanted to impress us, I guess, about this </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dante's Inferno</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">. We all went down to Washington Ave., and we got into that movie—it was about 6 o'clock at night, and we never realized the movie was long, it can happen with—I can still remember the time because it was a little after we used to have the town clock there—it was about ten after nine—six of us were walking across the street, about where Burt's might be now, or they had the fire station right there and police station was there—and one of the policemen, he didn't have anything else to do, whatever, and he came right there and took us in. Our parents had to come down for us—there was no phones to call them up—they got word for them and they had to walk down as there was no transportation for us. And that was it, that was the event.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nettie: Then you got home and you got the devil.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dominick: No, no, we were sent by our parents to see the movie—there was nothing, you know, that they could do—as I said—kids today should appreciate what they have—as far as freedom—because that 9 o'clock curfew is, just wrought-iron. I wouldn't be surprised that that</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">wasn't still on the books.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nettie: Well, you had some really interesting recollections, Dom.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dominick: I could go through a lot of them, the tanneries. [Bells chime]. We used to run between the pits, mostly down at the tanneries—anyone that's familiar—they had vats that were about 6 feet or 8 feet deep with acid or with stuff, and we'd do down for wax or whatever it was you have, we’d start running it between the darn vats and just that first thing—probably ten inches wide—one of those with an acid bath—splinter there—this was our fun in the tanneries. Then they would have a stacks of bales upon the thing—we would play King of the Hill—right on these darn bales of leather they had outside on some of these, lower Oak Hill Ave. or in freight houses in that stuff there. We were used to that smell—it was just part of—right by the tanneries. I can always remember talk about putting people on the spot—you know, I might have been a young brat—your father might have been one of them who bought magazines or smelly like perfumes like that that we would turn in for prizes of a movie camera or projector that you'd never get what they would take, or sell them some bottles of some sort of cologne—some had enough of them, but they all chipped in. Oh, they were a great bunch of people—we would go there to have our lunch—they would have fun themselves, because they were Russians, Italians, Czechoslovakians, it was a great—they had fun there—made fun of each other in a kidding way—like on Christmas especially, because the Julian calendar—like the Italians or any of them who had Christmas would come around—then the Russian Orthodox would come with umbrellas—especially if it was raining and there was no snow—this was a great, great thing, and January 7—I can remember that on January 7, that they would have snow but we would always get even with them on Easter—because I can remember my parents, they used to go in their shirtsleeves even if it was bitter cold, just to show that Easter come late. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It's talk about exchanging recipes, the Italians were great on greens and fried peppers and all that stuff, and they would exchange on holubkys. I remember eating holubkys when I was growing up because of the Russians—whoever—exchanged sandwiches—when we would have lunches—coming back from Henry B. Endicott or high school.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And another thing I can remember, really, when IBM took advantage of the diner—if you can remember, for 15¢—sometimes EJ workers wouldn't get in because IBM was there—I can go a step further—where it got to a point where most of my friends were IBM-ers. I remember one asked me, "Dom, it's my turn to entertain—can you get me eight tickets for a banquet?" Well, that does the line—I finished them off, because for $1.00 you could wine, dine and have a great time with a band—got to a point where EJ workers, themselves, were not attending—a lot of IBM friends—but what the heck, I could not blame them for doing this—but this was where Charlie Johnson was trying to be a good Joe. He could never keep with George F. He wanted to be liked—he tried many ways—but he just couldn't.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Another thing, if they wanted to know something—I played golf for 25¢. You go around the country—I've been to quite a few places, you tell them this stuff about playing golf for 25¢, they wouldn't believe you—if you had a course on there—this is well known that were no hazards on it, he said, “I don't want my workers climbing hills and everything after a day's work,” which was true—not on a golf course—for 25¢—we used to play, that was another thing, they wanted to borrow our cards—people didn't work for Endicott Johnson just to go down there and play for a 25¢. Then if I remember there were quite a few stories, like lots of the time we wanted to go to the IBM’s neighboring golf course, you couldn't get on there—you had to almost sign your life away to get on there as a guest. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So, this is the part of the difference between EJ and IBM—which is true. IBM is a great company—there is no getting around it, but they were a lot stricter—’cause EJ, what happened to EJ was their own fault as far as management—as far as anything else, because the workers—in the first place they were too lenient and then they were too generous. But, IBM, as a company, you can see, they do a lot for their workers today and then a lot more than Endicott Johnson could ever manage. Well, there might be a few more stories—there might be a few stories to think about to my recollections. You came to interview my wife—and—I—</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Nettie: Dom, thank you very much. It has been interesting. [Pause]. Dominick Cinotti is the husband of Angelina Cinotti.</span></p>
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This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.
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Interview with Dominick Cinotti
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Endicott Johnson Corporation Housing Program; Cinotti, Dominick -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Immigrants -- Interviews; Endicott (N.Y.); Endicott Johnson Corporation -- Employees -- Interviews; Endicott Johnson Workers Medical Service
Description
An account of the resource
Dominick Cinotti of Endicott, NY talks about his grandfather, father, and uncle's emigration from Italy. He discusses the railroads and trolley cars as their means of transportation, the development of the downtown and business district of Endicott. He worked for the Endicott Johnson Corporation and mentions the medical and home ownership programs provided by the company. He also tells anecdotes from his childhood.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.
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Recording 14
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Cinotti, Dominick ; Politylo, Nettie
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1978-06-08
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2016-03-27
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Broome County Oral History Project
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24:24 Minutes
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Audio interviews
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McKiernan Interviews
Description
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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>
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Stephen McKiernan
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Binghamton University Libraries
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English
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In copyright.
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Date of Interview
2022-10-27
Interviewer
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Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
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Don Lattin
Biographical Text
Don Lattin is a journalist, educator, consultant, and award-winning author. Lattin published six books, including The Harvard Psychedelic Club and Changing Our Minds: Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy. His work has appeared in many magazines and newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle where he worked as a staff writer. Lattin has been a commentator for numerous television news shows, including Dateline NBC, PrimeTime Live, Good Morning America, Nightline, and Anderson Cooper 360. He specializes in religion, spirituality, and psychology. Lattin also taught as an adjunct faculty member at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Sociology.
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1:27:05
Language
English
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Binghamton University Libraries
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audio/mp4
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Digital file
Material Type
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Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
Psychedelic; Harvard; Book; Drugs; LSD; 60s; Psychedelic experience; Psilocybin; Berkeley University; Counterculture; Talk.
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McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Don Lattin
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: Lynn Bijou
Date of interview: 27 October 2022
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(Start of Interview)
DL: 00:00
Six books and they all have something to do with (19)60s, you know, I am kind of fascinated by that era, too.
SM: 00:07
Yeah, well, you just wrote one heck of a book. I-I just love it.
DL: 00:12
Thank you. That is the one, that is the one that did, did well in terms of sales and all that.
SM: 00:18
Well, what, I think I am going to start out the interview. I am interviewing Don Lattin who was the author of, "The Harvard Psychedelic Club." It is how Timothy Leary, Rahm Das, Houston Smith, and Andrew wild killed the (19)50s and ushered in a new age for America. And this is, I am really excited about doing this interview today. Don, I would like you to first start off with a ton about your background. Please describe your early years. Your growing up, where you grew up, your parents' background, your schooling, from high school and college before you became a writer.
DL: 00:51
Okay, well, I was born in Suffern, New York, a little town just across the New Jersey border, northern New Jersey border, in the fall of 1953. So, that actually demographically speaking, [chuckles] Steven puts me Smack dab in the middle of the baby boom generation. And, my father was a, kind of a frustrated actor who had to get a job as a salesman to support his family working for Lipton tea, at Thomas J. Lipton Incorporated, and another was your typical (19)60s, (19)50s-(19)60s housewife. My mother was Jewish, and my father was kind of a lukewarm Presbyterian. So, I was, I was raised in the Presbyterian and United Church of Christ, kind of very lukewarm, kind of Protestant upbringing. When I was 12, my father said, "Do you want to keep going to church?" I said, "No," and he said, "Good, and then we do not have to take you anymore." [laughter] So, that was my, that was my religious upbringing.
SM: 02:04
Oh wow.
DL: 02:05
It was not very serious, but yeah, it was the 1950s and the early (19)60s, when you know, if you did not go to church, you were suspected of being a communist or something. So, but that was my religious upbringing, such as it was. So, I kind of bounced across the country as a child. I lived only for my first three years in New Jersey. And then we moved to Ohio. And I was there for about three or four years. Then we moved to Colorado, outside of Denver, I was there for about four more years, and then we moved to Southern California. I was in junior high school, and spent the rest of my time at home living in Southern California. And, so I went to public school, and I mean, my parents, it was not a particularly happy marriage, I actually write about it quite a bit in one of my other books called, "Distilled Spirits," which is a group biography with three other guys and kind of a recovery memoir. And I write about, you know, my upbringing quite a bit in that book. But it was not a happy marriage for various reasons. I had a brother who died in a tragic accident before I was born, I was what they call a "bereavement baby," I was born 10 months later to replace him. And my, it was a default of the car, my mother was driving, my brother, whose name was Alan and died. And my father basically never forgave my mother for this accident. And, the marriage kind of did not survive that. They stayed together till I was 12, but then they got divorced. So that was, you know, major, major kind of trauma in my childhood, you know, a lot of arguing with my family, and then the divorce was very bitter and left me, you know, feeling kind of alienated and not too much of a believer in the traditional family values [laughs] of America, questioning a lot of that. So, that was that and you know, I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol at a fairly young age, you know, probably around 12. Kind of around the time of my parents’ divorce, I am not sure how much that had to do with it, you know, probably contributed to it a bit. I got in some trouble in high school, marijuana and other drugs. And, but I, you know, always did fairly well in school. I was pretty good student. And I got accepted to go to UC Berkeley, in the fall of 1972. So, I moved up from Southern California, to Berkeley, basically, technically, the day after high school graduation and kind of never looked back, you know, I kind of wanted to get away from what was left of my family. And, and spent four years at Berkeley except for one year I studied abroad in England. So, I went to school at the University of Birmingham, in England, for my junior year, and kind of bummed around Europe, went down to Morocco, you know, kind of, did not do, did not do a lot of studying that year, [laughter] mostly just bombing around Europe. But somehow, I managed to get an undergraduate degree in sociology at UC Berkeley in (19)76. I say my real education was really working at the "Daily Californian," the off-campus student newspaper, which actually had just gone off campus, because of the anniversary of the People's Park riots in Berkeley. The editors at the Daily Cal said, "Let usretake the park," and there was a riot and one guy was killed. And, the university tried to fire the editors of the newspaper. And, they did not, because of the year before I was there, but we, they, they did not agree. And they kind of marched off campus and kept publishing the paper. But, we were basically separate from the university and worked out an agreement with the University. So, it was a really interesting time to be a journalist, then, you know, and it was not your typical college newspaper, because we were, you know, had to survive, you know, financially on our own. And we were also sort of became the paper for the city of Berkeley covering, you know, Berkeley news, what was going on politically, in terms of local politics in Berkeley, then, that was really interesting. And so, I did a lot of writing about, you know, the new left, and politics, and, and drugs, and covered various things like rent control, you know, lobbying campaigns, Berkeley marijuana initiative. Berkeley was the first city to decriminalize marijuana, and I wrote a lot about that. And, and also do a lot of experimentation with psychedelic drugs, which I read about a bit at the end of Harvard Psychedelic Club. [crosstalk] Did you have any interaction with anybody from the free speech movement? That was, what, way before your time in (19)64-(19)65? But, they used to have a lot of remembrances going back to the. Yeah, well, that was, that was, that was in the air. But yeah, that was (19)64. So, you know, that was like, you know, eight years earlier, right. And it is almost like, seemed like another era in some, some ways, you know. I mean, by the time I got to the Bay Area in (19)72, you know, I sort of always wished that I could have been there about, you know, six or seven years earlier, right. [chuckles] In the, the mid (19)60s, and kind of a more hopeful, idealistic era of what we call the (19)60s, you know.
SM: 07:58
Did you ever-
DL: 07:59
(19)70, by (19)72, you know, there was a much harder edge to the whole scene, you were there, you remember.
SM: 08:04
Yep. Yep-yep.
DL: 08:04
The drugs were different and it was just a different feeling. I mean, I think a lot of the hope, and the idealism was already gone. You know, and I was always, I fell in with an older group of people, friends, like I was, you know, so I was what I was looking at, in early 20, early 20s. And I fell in with a group of people who were about 15 years older than me, became my best friends for life. You know, and they had, they were mostly people who had come to San Francisco, you know, when you, some, during the beatnik era, the end of the beatnik era and the beginning of the hippie era, like the early 1960s. And they became, became my kind of tribe and my friends, and I was kind of a kid, right. I was, like, 15 years younger. And, and I was, I was kind of trying to keep the party, you know, a lot. [laughter] And they were, they were starting to get older, you know, settle down and have kids and all that.
SM: 08:12
I think that (19)72 here was also the period, I think the Angela Davis trial was happening around that time.
DL: 09:06
Yeah, that was going on. [crosstalk] The Vietnam War was, was winding down, right. So, the anti, there was a little, it was the tail end of the anti-war movement. There was a lot of, the Angela Davis, the whole, you know, ethnic studies was a big issue, you know, the various liberation movements, you know, African American, we used to say Chicano, you know, though, and, of course, the sexual revolution, and, you know, the gay rights thing was just kind of getting going. So, there were a lot of, you know, liberation movements going on. I mean, on terms of that the campus like one of the big issues then, were there was this debate over the criminology school which had a, kind of, several Marxist professors and they were challenging the whole, some of the ideas. They were, they were not training, you know, law enforcement officers. They were critiquing, you know, law enforcement in America. So there-
SM: 10:03
Right.
DL: 10:03
-were a lot of big controversies around the criminology school and cracking down on some of the leftist teachers there. So that was, that was a big issue in ethnic studies, that sort of thing.
SM: 10:16
Chris Reagan was governor, I believe at that time.
DL: 10:18
Reagan was governor. Yeah, you know, there was still, you know, there was still some protests, I did get tear gassed once, you know, [laughs] demonstration. So, that was still going on. But it was nothing like earlier in the, in the late (19)60s, then it kind of, then it kind of died down a bit.
SM: 10:23
Did you ever, and we were going to get back into the Harvard Psychedelic Club, did you ever do articles on the Black Panthers? Because they were becoming very big at that time.
DL: 10:45
Yeah, they definitely were. That was all going on in Oakland, you know, right next to Berkeley. No, I did not really write too much about the, the Panthers. There are a lot of stories about, remember the Bakke decision?
SM: 11:01
Oh, yeah, that was big.
DL: 11:02
The controversies about affirmative action.
SM: 11:04
Oh, yes.
DL: 11:05
That was a, that was a big, that was a big issue. I was also the editorial page editor at, "The Daily Cowl." So, I was involved in editorials around a lot of those, those issues.
SM: 11:16
Wow. Okay. Before, I am going to talk about, before we talk about the actual book, was the afterword in the book. It, where you asked yourself, "Why am I writing a book about four people-
DL: 11:32
Right.
SM: 11:33
-who are involved in drugs? And you talk about on a few pages, your experience, when you were a freshman going to Big Sur? Could you talk about that?
DL: 11:43
Sure, sure. Yeah. So, you know, I think I first experimented with LSD in high school, I did it, I do not know, three or four times. I never had, you know, kind of a full-blown mystical experience. Maybe it was something to do with the dose, or the set, or the setting, you know, which is always important. So, I, but when I got to Berkeley, and I actually came in the summer of (19)72. And I had, it was really my first girlfriend in college, her name, Julia, and we had just met, and we both lived in this, the high-rise dorms on the south side of campus. And we ran this experimental program called Hearts Technology and Society, which was, it was kind of the height of that whole, like, a University Without Walls, you know, alternative education movement. Right.
SM: 12:41
Right.
DL: 12:42
And the idea was that, you, it was for freshmen, and you would live in a dorm with your instructors who were mostly, you know, graduate students and teaching assistants. And, basically, study arts and we had like, video cameras were a new thing. We had some video cameras, we were playing around with those, music and, you know, critiquing society, and it was a very open-ended program, where there were no grades, and there was no kind of, you hung out with your instructors. And in some ways that, also it was kind of a big party. There was a lot of drug taking going on. And then, we lasted one-year university kind of got what was going on and canceled the program. [laughter] Everybody got, everybody, it was like, everybody got A's, which made them suspicious.
SM: 13:36
Oh yeah. [laughter]
DL: 13:36
So, the university, they could not take the credit away, but they wound up making it so you could not apply the credit to hardly anything, right. So, it was like a whole, basically a whole year of college where it was great for my grade point average, but I could not really apply it much, much to a major. But, so that was, that was kind of environment. You know, it was alternative education. It was like questioning everything, you know, and, and so my girlfriend and I went down. So, this was sometime before Thanksgiving. So, it was fairly early in the school year, we had some blotter, acid, some LSD which we took down to Big Sir, drove down in my 1965 Mustang. And we, we were, you know, camped on a bluff overlooking the Big Sir coast. It is fantastic stretches of coastline, you know, south of Monterey. And anyway, we just had this amazing experience where we kind of melted together and became like one being, and kind of read each other's minds and started out you know, just feeling totally out of love with nature and the environment around us. And it was, you know, it was really turned into what I would call a, full blown mystical experience where, you know, just like white light and coming together as one thing, and it was just the most amazing experience I have ever had. I mean, I just, it just blew me away with this question. My whole idea of what, what, what is reality? What is consciousness? What is what is, what is, what is, what, where, where does my body stop and the rest of the world start? All those, all those boundaries are just kind of blown away. And it was just a beautiful, beautiful experience. And, you know, in my naive, you know, 18-19-year-old mind, I thought, "Well, that is it that this is true love, I found my soulmate, you know, we will be together for the rest of our lives. This is what it means to become in one with someone," and, and we had that experience and went back to school. And then for, for a week or two after that, or actually for about a month, month after that every time we touched. Yeah, we do, do the acid, we were not trippy anymore. But, every time we touched, we physically melt together. It is this amazing thing. It just continued. So, you know, I, I thought that was it. You know, this, she's my soulmate. And I do not know a month or two after that we had another, another trip. In the woods, kind of a dark woods up in northern California. Turned out it was a, with another couple, it turns out it was a hunting lodge, [laughs] where we were actually staying at. So, we were out in the woods, and there were gunshots going off.
SM: 16:40
[laughs]
DL: 16:40
And they were kind of a lot of rednecks around and they set the setting. It was very important for an LSD trip. But this was like the worst setting- -you can imagine. And so, there was a lot of paranoia and fear. And I basically had another, I had a bad trip from central casting, you know, where I got paranoid, I felt very Small, I felt very alienated. I felt very scared, terrified that I was sort of disappearing or dying. It was very, very difficult, trip. And really, we were at this lodge where the boys and the men and women had to sleep in separate areas. So, I was not sleeping, was not with my girlfriend, hearing voices all night. And just, then after that, the next day, we kind of got an argument, and we roundup splitting up. So, and in some ways, I never completely came down from that trip for a couple of weeks, I would have what we used to call flashbacks. Which I used to think we were just anti-drug propaganda because there was so much ridiculous, you know, anti-drug propaganda, you know, during that era. But this case, flashbacks, they, they can happen, and they do happen with people. So, for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two, I cannot remember exactly after that. I would have these flashbacks, which were very terrifying because I, did not really know what was real. I mean, I, I stopped driving because I was not sure if lights were red or green. And I had a very difficult period, I could not read, I could not concentrate at all.
SM: 16:48
[laughs] Wow.
DL: 18:19
You know, it was first year student at Cal, it was not, as I said, it was not a rigorous academic program that I was in [laughter]. But I still had to do some reading, right?
SM: 18:26
Right.
DL: 18:28
I mean, you know, one sentence, I just, I would hit a word and I would go off on a tangent, I had no-no ability to concentrate. And you know, and looking back on it, it was you know, I mean, you would probably call it a psychotic break, right. And if I would have, probably if I would have, and but I was very scared about telling anybody what was going on because I was afraid, I would be you know, locked up in a mental hospital or something and back then that is probably what would have happened. So, I kept it to myself for the most part and struggled with it. And it was a really difficult period, came out of it in a few months. And I think that came out in the long run kind of saner than I went in. I see the other side, right, of sanity, but it was a really difficult period. So, so I mentioned, and I write about it because those two experiences left, left me both, you know, fascinated and, very frightened about the power and the potential of psychedelics. And I, you know, and so for a long time I, not for a long time but for a few, for at least six months or so I did not do any drugs, no marijuana, no alcohol, nothing. Eventually got back into psychedelics, but so yeah, and I looking back on that I used to see it as kind of a good trip and a bad trip. But I actually kind of see it now is kind of one thing, kind of a, growth process, or a process of individuation. You know, I see the whole thing kind of as one event now rather than a good trip and a bad trip.
SM: 20:01
That is a, that is a good way, that is a good way to get into talking about the Harvard Psychedelic Club. Could you, what was the Harvard Psychedelic Club? And of course, it is, it is really about four people. And if you could-
DL: 20:16
Yeah, well, yeah.
SM: 20:18
-you go ahead and [crosstalk] say who those people were?
DL: 20:21
Yeah, okay. Well, the Harvard Psychedelic Club, was, there was, there was nothing actually called the Harvard Psychedelic Club. That is just a, a title for my book. And kind of my, my shorthand way of describing it. What I was writing about was something, it was called the Harvard Psilocybin Project. And later, the Harvard Psychedelic Project, which was a, some early research into looking for potential uses, and just understanding the psychedelic experience, with either psilocybin, which was synthesized psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, and then later LSD. And so, the Harvard Psychedelic Club, is a book about four individuals who crossed paths at Harvard in the fall of 1960, which was a really interesting and kind of pivotal time, both at Harvard and in the country. And the, John F. Kennedy, who had been a Harvard man who had just been elected President of the United States, and much, much, much of the hope and the optimism of the (19)60s was kind of personified in Kennedy, and [inaudible] running for president, and then winning over Richard Nixon, in 1960. So that was kind of a backdrop. Anyway, the four individuals in the book are Timothy Larry, who was a lecturer in clinical psychology at Berkeley, one of his colleagues, Richard Alpert, who was an assistant professor in social psychology, clinical psychology in Harvard. And the, the third person in the book is Houston Smith, who was already a renowned scholar of world religions. He already had a show on the early public television network, before PBS, but early public television network about the world's religions, Houston Smith, he was not actually at Harvard, he was teaching, nearby MIT, but it was very close to the Harvard Cooke group. And then the fourth character in that book is Andrew Weil, who was a bit younger, all four of these guys are kind of pre-baby boom themselves. But Weil, Weil was a, was a, was a bit younger, he was a freshman, brilliant, very ambitious freshman at Harvard. So, the book looks at, it is, the book is a group biography of these four guys, how they crossed paths at Harvard, and kind of, what happened with this grand experiment in psychedelic research at Harvard. And in 1960, which resulted in Larry and Alpert being kicked out of the university and going on to become kind of the pied pipers of the psychedelic counterculture in the mid-1960s. [crosstalk] Go ahead.
SM: 23:20
These four are so historic in so many ways, and it is almost like the perfect storm, you know, the, how they all ended up together in some way over that period between (19)60 and (19)63. And, and you do a really good job of giving us a little brief description of each of their backgrounds prior to Harvard. Could you talk a little bit about Leary and Alpert and Smith and while, it, before they get to Harvard, because I think it is important that you get a feel for who they are even before they get there.
DL: 23:55
Yeah-yeah. Well, I mean, Leary, you know, who became a very divisive figure, you know, Richard Nixon called the most, he would later call him, in the decade, would call him the most dangerous man in America and helped fuel a backlash against, certainly against psychedelics, or specifically against psychedelic research in university settings. But anyway, before. So, Leary was already, he was a rising star in clinical psychology. He had written a, in the 1950s, he had written a book about, he was an expert in personality assessment. And, he had written a very well received, kind of award-winning book, which stayed in print for many-many, many years longer than later books about psychedelics. So, he was, you know, he was kind of a rising star in psychology in the post war era. But even before he first experienced psychedelics, which was on a halt on a vacation in Mexico, in the summer of 1960, when he first took magic mushrooms. But even before that he was questioning, you know, the conventional wisdom in psychology and psychiatry, he did not think talk therapy was really effective. He was doing a fairly radical critique of the power dynamics between, you know, like patient and doctor, and researcher and research subject in like a, psychological testing. So, he was, he was kind of radical in some ways and kind of questioning authority even before he had his psychedelic trip, which totally transformed him and convinced him that psychedelics were going to not only change psychology, but change the world. So that was kind of his background. And Alpert, Richard Alpert grew up in a fairly wealthy Jewish family in Boston. [inaudible] was, helped found Brandeis University. And, so, kind of a railroad executive, lawyer, very pretty, rough, really successful guy. And so, Alpert grew up in this family, he was very bright, very charismatic, young, ambitious. Kind of on the fast track, kind of on tenure track at-at Harvard, much more, you know, identified with the Harvard CNN delivery ever was, where he was just actually on a three-year kind of temporary contract with Harvard. But Alpert was, was on tenure track. And very brilliant-brilliant authority. He was very charismatic, great lecturer, he is very popular with the students. And he was, he was also struggling with his sexuality. He was basically a gay man in the closet you know, and struggling with that, some of that would have something to do with how he got in trouble later on at Harvard. S, that was basically Alpert's background. Houston Smith, you know, was a child of Methodist missionaries, he was born and grew up in, in China. And, so was exposed, you know, grew up, you know, in a hoarder culture, and climate, and came to the States, thinking he would be in a training, become a minister, which he did, he was a, became ordained Methodist minister, but he was more interested in teaching than in preaching, and really became one of the early authority on world religions. And, he wrote a book called, "The Religions Of," was originally called, "The Religions of Man," and later called "The World's Religions," which for many years, maybe still is used as a textbook, you know, in comparative religion. And, but he has never really had a mystical experience himself. And he had been reading about psychedelics and he would read, you know, of course, Aldous Huxley wrote a book published in 1554, about the doors of perception. And so, Houston actually had sought out Aldous Huxley and became friends with Aldous Huxley, and had something to do with Huxley coming to MIT to deliver some guest lectures at this very same time, right-
SM: 23:58
Wow.
DL: 24:36
-in the fall of 1960. So, that was the other sort of piece of the puzzle. I mean, Aldous Huxley, who at the time, you know, was probably one of the best known, you know, writers in English language, right, and public intellectual and towards the end of his career. So, Huxley was kind of part of the mix. And this, this was at Harvard, and MIT too. And, and Andy Weil was, you know, he was just a very-very, very bright, ambitious freshman who was interested in, he grew up in. Well, you know, it has been like 12 or 13-14 years since I did, reporting on this book. I cannot remember anything, but I think he grew up in Philadelphia.
SM: 29:16
Yep, he did. Yep.
DL: 29:17
Yeah. Yeah. What is on the top of my head right now? [laughs] But yeah, he grew up in Philadelphia, I think his parents ran a millinery shop. He, just a really bright, young bright kid, and was interested in-in psychedelic research and tried to get involved with the, the Harvard Psilocybin Project and we can talk about that if you want but that is kind of, that story in the book. [crosstalk] And, and went on to go to medical school and become a real leader in the holistic health and integrative-
SM: 29:50
Right.
DL: 29:50
-medicine scene. But, but so yeah, he was, he was, I do not know like 10-15 years younger than these guys.
SM: 29:59
Can you discuss what happened in that period, (19)60s, (19)63? I know that, Alpert and Leary had a home off campus. And, that is where the, you know, they, they would have the experimentations with drugs, with the, I guess, the mushrooms and then eventually LSD, could, could you describe, like you do so well in the book itself, it, well who they were trying to reach, they were not trying to reach undergraduate students, which was not, they would never be allowed to do that. And according to Harvard, but graduate students-
DL: 30:39
Right.
SM: 30:39
-or people off, that are not students, or could you talk about the whole process where people came to their home? And they had to, you know, have, they would be there themselves and guide them through a trip and just, just that kind of information?
DL: 30:57
Okay, right. Well, there were, what was, what was called the Harbin Psilocybin Project, there are a couple of different aspects to it. I mean, there were really two kind of formal studies, research projects that came out of that. One was called the Concord Prison Project, which was giving psilocybin to prisoners, along with some kind of support and therapy, mostly with graduate students working with the, the prisoners to see if they could reduce recidivism rates. Psychedelic therapy, could reduce recidivism rates. But again, this what was very radical about that was not that they were using prisoners for drug tests, that was actually done quite a bit in some very unethical ways, with other drugs in that era, but what was interesting about that is, you know, something that the graduate students would trip with the prisoners, they would experience this, this psychedelic state together, or sometimes the prisoners would sit as guides and the graduate students would be taking the drugs, right. [chuckles] And so that, that was in line with Leary's kind of radical critique of power dynamics between research subjects and, and, and you know, and, and, and researchers or between patient and doctor, right, so, so that was an interest. So, that was one thing. And then there was another thing called the Good Friday experiment, which I can talk about if you want later. So that was, those were the two kind of formal sort of studies that came out of this, this project. But, but the other thing, and in some ways, the main thing that Leary was doing, and Alpert was doing, is they were just basically doing kind of basic research, I guess, you could say, in terms of psychedelics, and they would give, first it was psilocybin or the synthesized psilocybin, they were actually taking mushrooms, so it is like the active ingredient in magic mushrooms. So, they would give these to graduate students, but also to like, they are interested in giving it to artists, you know, painters, musicians, philosophers, other professors, you know, basically anybody who would agree to come over to, you know, Leary's house and have an experience, you know, four or five hour experience on, on psilocybin, and then write up, you know, reports about their experiences. So, it is kind of just raw research into, you know, people describing what happens in a psychedelic experience. And then, you know, and they were also interested in seeing if it could, you know, spawn that creativity among musicians or artists or, so all kinds of people, you know, famous jazz, semi famous jazz musician showed up and people like, you know, Allen Ginsberg, who was, you know, very well known, the beat poet. Folks like that kind of showed up. And, you know, in some ways, this, lot of times these research sessions kind of seemed more like parties [chuckles] than the research, you know. There was a lot of that going on. And, the, Leary and Alpert had agreed to not let undergraduates participate in this, because there are some dangerous psychological dangers as evidenced by the story I told, right. They are taking these substances. They had agreed to not let undergraduates participate. Andy Weil was an undergraduate and he had a friend and a dorm mate named Ron Winston who was the son of a famous jewelry, ran a jewelry business and, Alpert admitted that he also had kind of a romantic attraction to Ronnie Winston and well, they did not formally bring him in to the Harvard Psilocybin Project. Privately, you know, he would- gave, gave Ronnie Winston, psychedelics and kind of led him on some trips and got in trouble for that, right. [crosstalk]
SM: 34:20
Yep. Yeah, go ahead. Yep.
DL: 35:07
Yeah. And so, Andy Weil had also, Andrew Weil had also wanted to be part of this and was told that he could not. So, there was some jealousy I think involved with, you know, why did Ronnie Winston get to participate in this and not him. And so, Andy Weil was working as a reporter for the Harvard Crimson, the Harvard student newspaper and wound up doing an exposé about Leary. And Alpert had violated their agreement with the University by giving drugs to undergraduates and convinced, in a, fairly underhanded way to convince Ronnie Winston to kind of rat out Richard Alpert, and that-that was the-the incident that got them kicked out of Harvard. But there was a lot of wild stuff going on, you know, a lot of, you know, fairly, I do not know how to characterize it, just kind of fast and loose, was not, it was not a buttoned-down research project by any means.
SM: 36:13
I know during those three years that they had their critics on the faculty too, that, there were some well-known names. I think one of them was B.F. Skinner, I think, the well-known names of people that I can remember in the (19)60s and (19)70s, who wrote books, you know, on psychology.
DL: 36:31
Yeah, there was a lot of professional, you know, there was a lot of professional jealousy, I think in the, the departments, it was the psychology department. And there is this, their department was, I think called social relations, kind of a social psychology department. And yeah, there was a battle kind of between the behavioral, behaviorists who, Skinner was the leading behaviorists, and other in the Freudians. And then, there was also this whole kind of humanistic psychology was just kind of getting going, right. You there?
SM: 37:05
Yes, several-several of the editors over a period of time had been writing articles on this, the, on Leary and Alpert too, even before Weil got there, I believe. And then he, he got into that position and, and one of the things that needs to be known to and, and you bring it up throughout the book or toward the end as well, that, the Harvard administration used Weil as kind of a spy.
DL: 37:39
Yeah, well, what happened was, what happened was, they, none of the, there were several undergraduates, I think, who had been, had been given the drugs but, none of them wanted to really, you know, come out and sort of testify against Leary and Alpert because they, they were favor what they were doing. And, and Ronnie Winston, the way Andy Weil got Ronnie Winston to come forward is he, they went to Ronnie Winston's father, his name is Harry Winston who ran this, it was a benefit, I think a university benefactor and you know, fairly prominent businessman and [inaudible]. Anyway, he, they-they basically went-went to Ronnie Winston's father and said, "Your son is taking these, you know, dangerous drugs. And if he does not, if he does not, you know, admit this to the university administration, we are going to name him in the newspaper article," [laughs]. So, in order, and so Harry Winston, his father convinced him to, you know, basically tell the university administration what-what had gone on, he was given drugs by Professor Alpert. And that-that was, how they, you know, cut the goods on-on Alpert. And that was the one particular incident which where they can sort of pin down and use to expel them from the university. But, they were looking for a reason. I mean, and actually, you know, Leary and Alpert, were already ready to move on. I think they needed a bigger stage. And they certainly got, they certainly got one, you know, after they left Harvard, there was a lot of publicity about this, you know, the Harvard drug scandal that was page one of the New York Times, but it was really Andy Weil's story in the Harvard Crimson that started the whole thing, you know. Then, a day or two later, on-on the front page of The New York Times and anywhere with a big article, big exposé, or like magazine, even mentioning, you know, sort of rumors about heterosexual and homosexual affairs, you know, so there was some pretty vicious stuff [chuckles] put out there to get rid of them, to bring them down. Of course, they were not brought down they just moved on and, and became national figures and leaders in the, in the psychedelic counterculture of the (19)60s.
SM: 39:59
I know as years went on Weil kind of, felt kind of guilty for what he did, because [crosstalk]
DL: 40:08
I mean, he really, you know, the other thing is that through Andy Weil was also, doing, he, he started his own little drug, drug research project in the dorm with other people at this time, he was able to like use some, actually use some Harvard stationery and forged letters to send those labs and got some psilocybin sent to him. And, he's trying to sort of do his own version of, of psychedelic research with his friends in the dorm. So, none of which, of course, he mentions in the article that he wrote, [laughs] which brought down Leary and Alpert. So, yeah, later on in the (19)60s, Andy Weil became, you know, kind of the go to guy on, kind of understanding the psychedelic experience and wrote a book called, " The Natural Mind," about drugs, and human consciousness, and kind of, in some ways, replaced them for a while and kind of the go to guy for the straight story, you know, on what drugs really do and what the, benefits could be, and not exaggerating the dangers. And, you know, he was, he felt very bad about the way he handled the whole thing and sought forgiveness for many years from Leary and Albert. Leary forgave him, Alpert, it took a long time. But in the end, Alpert finally did forgive him for what he did. But, he was very bitter about it for many years.
SM: 41:34
This kind of crisis, between (19)60 and (19)63, with Leary and Alpert was not something that Harvard had not seen before. You talk also about the Brook Farm situation, 120 years earlier with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
DL: 41:55
Yeah-yeah.
SM: 41:58
And-and, and Emerson was kicked out of, kicked out as well. So, you, any, could you discuss that a little bit if you remember it?
DL: 42:06
You know, I do not remember the details to tell you the truth. I am sorry, on that. I have to go back and look at the, look at the book. But Emerson was, was kicked out of Harvard, and Leary often would cite that, you know, as he is in such good standing right, [laughs] in the tradition of Emerson. But, but you know, I am sorry, at the top of my head, I cannot remember the details of what happened.
SM: 42:30
What happened after they left? Where did Leary go? Where did Alpert go? And, and, of course, Weil, would continue his education at Harvard.
DL: 42:43
Yeah, well, right after they got kicked out of Harvard, they were already had been setting up a kind of a research center or, another party headquarters [chuckles] down in Mexico, in a place called, [inaudible], in the coast of Mexico. And so, they, they just basically continued doing their research and experimenting with psychedelics of various kinds. By this time, LSD was brought into the, had been brought into the mix. So, they were inviting people down to Mexico, and it was the same thing, you know, artists, philosophers, you know, students, academics, were coming down there, psychologists to participate in these sessions, psychedelic sessions and writing up reports and all that. They very quickly got kicked out of there. They bounced around, there were a couple of places in the Caribbean, they tried to set up and eventually a few years later wound up at a place called Millbrook in upstate New York, an old beautiful estate, a mansion where they set up shop and basically continued their psychedelic experimentation research there for, for a few years into the mid, mid (19)60s.
SM: 44:07
Yeah, and-
DL: 44:08
Leary and Albert were above them.
SM: 44:09
-I think they were getting funding from the Andrew Mellon Foundation, or I think one of the, some group was helping them pay for the-
DL: 44:20
I am not sure what that is. [crosstalk] Well, it was. Yeah. So, there was a woman named Peggy Hitchcock- You put, you put little character descriptions for each of the four throughout the book, which I really liked. You called Timothy Leary, the trickster, Ram Dass was the seeker, and Houston Smith, the teacher, and Andrew Weil, the healer. -who was a supporter, and she was, one of the, an heiress of the melon fortune. And, and she had a brother named Billy Hitchcock. There are a couple of Hitchcock brothers, any, the, the Hitchcocks had this estate, which they were not using, and they basically just kind of turned it over to Leary and Alpert for a few years, and let them use this, use this beautiful estate. And, you know, the government was still after them. One of the funny ones, J. Gordon Liddy, who would become famous later as one of the Watergate burglar masterminds was a local D.A. in this county in New York and, he was going after Leary and Alpert, they were still on surveillance, and police raids. And you know, Leary by this time, Leary was notorious, so everywhere he went, the government was after him. And, eventually he busted going across the border from Mexico with a tiny little bit of marijuana, which he claims was planted on him and wound up going to prison. That is another part of the story that we can get into if you want to, but, but, you know Leary, by this time had become just notorious. And, and also kind of reveling in his notoriety. You know, he was a real, was a real, I call him a trickster.
SM: 44:25
-right.
DL: 46:02
Yeah, kind of the archetypal kind of, you know, role that they, that they took on to kind of explain, but. I wondered as I called Alpert the seeker is, you know, he was always, he never really came off as like, you know, all knowing guru or something. You know, he was just another kind of, seeker like so many of us, you know, in that era, we had, of course, you know, gone to India after, well, I mean, so you asked me what happened with them after Harvard, I mean, and after Millbrook. You know, Leary, well they both sort of showed up in San Francisco, you know, for the whole. So, while, there was this whole other scene going out on San Francisco in the early to mid (19)60s, psychedelic revival, you know, with a Grateful Dead, [inaudible] and the Merry Pranksters, you know, Alan Watts, and other things going on out here. In some ways, the scene in San Francisco was much wilder than what was going on in, back in Boston at Harvard. And so, the, the real focus, you know, shifted in like, (19)65-(19)66, out to San Francisco, which was kind of Mecca, for the whole psychedelic counterculture, fueled by the Grateful Dead and that is the whole scene here, the Jefferson Airplane, psychedelic rock, coming of age and the concerts and so, Alpert was out here for a while. He was a big part of that scene. And then went off to India, famously, and became a devotee of a guru named Neem Karoli Baba and became a spiritual teacher, reincarnated themselves as Ram Dass, came back and was very influential in helping, I think people of my generation, you know, kind of make sense of the psychedelic experience, put it in another context, maybe finding you know, kinder, gentler ways to explore their consciousness through say meditation or other spiritual practices, not never, never really renouncing psychedelics or denouncing psychedelics, but maturing and the spiritual search around that. See, that this particular period, is also that period of that you call the tidal wave that was coming, all these people come from all over the country to San Francisco. And, "Are you going to San Francisco," was a very popular song at that time, all on the radio. [sings] And if you go to San Francisco, to be sure to wear flowers in your hair.
SM: 48:34
That tidal wave was, a lot of them from the East Coast.
DL: 48:37
It was from all over, yeah.
SM: 48:39
(19)65 and (19)68.
DL: 48:40
Yeah it was eventful.
SM: 48:40
What were some of the, I know there were a lot of big events that happened at that, during that, there was a bee-in, there was the trip festival, there was a love pageant rally, I am thinking and then many other things. I know that Alpert also went to work on the Oracle. And he was a writer or among the editors.
DL: 49:01
Yeah, he wrote some articles in the Oracle, which was really one of the first, you know, was, underground newspapers. Yeah, they were, I mean, it really began with Ken Kesey, you know, who, Ken Kesey was a, a very well known, young, successful novelist at the time. He wrote two books, "Sometimes a Great Notion," and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," And, so he's, really up and coming writer, and then he, he was exposed to LSD by volunteering in a research project. I think it was at a VA hospital, that Administration Hospital in Menlo Park, which was, turned out later was secretly funded by the CIA, which was doing their own research about psychedelics. [laughter] So, talk about blowback, right?
SM: 49:59
[laughs]
DL: 49:59
I mean, they did not know what they were getting into and they turned on Kevin Kesey, so, Ken Kesey. [laughs] So Kesey, started this group called, they started having these events called acid tests. And I think this began when was, like I said been awhile since I wrote this but, like (19)63-(19)64 when the first acid tests where they basically had, you know, kind of parties and they put the acid in the punch, and a lot of dancing, and kind of carrying on, and very revelatory, celebratory atmosphere. And so, there were series of these acid tests, which got, which moved up into San Francisco and got bigger and bigger. So, there was that and then there was something called the Trips Festival. There was the human being in Golden Gate Park, which was when Leary I think famously uttered his mantra "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
SM: 50:14
Yep.
DL: 50:14
So, you know, that was an event in Golden Gate Park with Allen Ginsberg, and Alpert, and Schneider a lot of the beat poets, and of course out of San Francisco bands, Aeroplan, Grateful Dead, they were all playing there. Yeah so that was, and that was (19)66-(19)67. A lot of people were already kind of saying, "Well, it is time to move on." There was something called the, "Death of the Hippie," they had a big, sort of, a march, {inaudible] are enough, because the hippie thing, and trying to become the media, and you know the media had discovered this, right.
SM: 50:14
Right.
DL: 50:17
But by the-the time that song came out, "If you Come to San Francisco," you know, I mean, a lot of people were already saying it is time to move on, you know, the scene was just getting too crazy and too crowded. And, and the drugs were changing. People were, you know, getting into speed, and heroin, and more harder, dangerous drugs and-
SM: 51:55
Yeah, the 19- the 1967, Summer of Love, the next year in (19)68 was a disaster.
DL: 52:01
Yeah-yeah.
SM: 52:03
And-
DL: 52:04
I mean, that was a bit before my time, but you know, yeah. And then, you know, of course, there was, but you know, it was. I do not know, it is hard to say exactly. It all depends on what particular scene you were in, right. I mean, where you were in all this. I mean, when I came in (19)72, it still seemed pretty, some of it still seemed pretty cool, and still pretty, you know, hopeful. But you are talking to old timers, and "No, you should have been here in (19)66 man," you know.
SM: 52:30
Well, you in, in the book, you talk about the interview that Leary had with Playboy Magazine. And there is two things that, I, that come out of that interview very clearly. They said, they asked him, "Who you are trying to make love with?" And he says "I am making, I want to make love with God, at the purpose of what I am doing. I want to make love with God, I want to make love with myself. And I want to make love with a woman." [laughs]
DL: 52:54
Yeah.
SM: 52:54
And then, and then he said, and then, I think Allen Ginsberg confronted him at a panel, and this, you described this, and because they, they were questioning some of the, one of the, some of the things he was saying whether everything was true or not.
DL: 53:14
Oh, right. [chuckles]
SM: 53:14
And Leary said, "One third of everything I say is bullshit. One third of everything I say is wrong. And the, and one third is, right. So that means it is like a baseball player. I am in the Hall of Fame," [laughs]
DL: 53:29
Right? One third of like, brilliant gems of wisdom. Right? Yeah. That was Leary, I mean, you know, that that Playboy interview was, you know, notorious. And he was a, he was a trickster, right. I mean, he would just make shit up, you know. [chuckles] And he was, you know, giving an interview to Playboy, so, of course, he was going to talk a lot about sex. Well, there was a lot of, there was a lot of sex, and a lot of acting out in that whole scene, you know. But, yeah no, I love that, quote, you just started, recited from Leary. That really says it all, you know, he had a real sense of humor, you know, I mean, it was like that, that is kind of one of the things that you kind of miss from the (19)60s there was a sense of irony, and no one was taking ourselves too seriously. And it was all kind of a cosmic joke in some way. You know, there was a lightness to it, that, we do not have any more, political discourse. [crosstalk] There was you know, there was division, there was, people forget that (19)60s were very divisive time too, you know, but it was sort of the whole so called, "generation gap," right and all that. But I mean the divisiveness, it pales in comparison to what we are experiencing now, you know.
SM: 53:33
Yes. [laughs] I know that, when Alpert became part of the, the Oracle, the, the-
DL: 54:43
He wrote for, the I mean, he, he wrote for the Oracle- he was not like one of the, he did not found it or anything but, it was a guy, Alan Colin who started it and there was a collective started it, but yeah, he did, write, he did write some pieces for it.
SM: 54:45
Right. You define the, the evolution of the Oracle it was, it was an idealistic exploration into the personal experience and social implication of mind-mind, I am, I cannot read my writing, mind expansion. And-
DL: 55:11
Also, it was just a beauty, just technically it was, it was the whole psychedelic art scene, right. You know, these famous posters from that era. And this is all done, you know, before computers, this is all done by hand, you know, and this is beautiful artwork, very trippy artwork in the Oracle. It was just, you know, it was there was nothing like it [chuckles], it was not just the content. I mean, it started out, it is kind of more, of a political kind of focus, kind of a new, less political focus, but it became more, kind of the journal. And this, was a blossoming psychedelic culture. And just, just you go back and look at some of, the old editions. I mean, there's a, at some point somebody came out with, I think, Alan Colin, the founder of it, came out with a hardcover, facsimile edition, you know, reprint of all those Oracle's, I actually have, this beautiful, beautiful artwork, and just so you know, reminiscent of the time.
SM: 56:07
This truly was, when you, when all these things you have been talking about was the Age of Aquarius, that were so, you know, we think of the fifth dimension singing that song and, and that really was the Age of Aquarius. And, you know, some of the things you know, were, eastern mystique, mysticism, utopian revolution, you bring up sexual liberation, the ecological awareness, even Native American spiritual.
DL: 56:36
Right, all the different liberation movement in America {crosstalk] women, gay people, young people, it was all, you know, all liberation. Yeah, it was a very, you know, and a lot of this was not all fueled by psychedelics, but a lot of it was, you know, because when you on the psychedelic experience, you tend to like, and appreciate, let us just take the environmental movement, you know, I mean, obviously, there is a lot of other reasons for the [inaudible]. But a lot of people had experiences on psychedelics, where they really felt at one with nature and had a whole new way of looking at sort of nature, and themselves in, in a holistic way, right. So that was, that was, I think, fueling a lot of the interest in environmentalism. Like people think of the (19)60s counterculture as being protesting, and sort of being against everything. But, they were not just against everything. I mean, they were for civil rights. They were for environmental protection. You know, they were for sexual liberation, you know. In a lot of ways, it was a very hopeful movement, there was a lot of divisiveness, of course, but it was basically a lot of hope.
SM: 57:46
Toward the latter part of the (19)60s, there was the, Time Magazine wrote an article on, the crisis in, with drugs in America and talking about the crisis of drugs in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. And but then, so there were there was also a crisis of drugs in the (19)50s and (19)80s. And you bring, bring it up in the, in the book. Alcoholism was a big crisis in the 1950s. And, and, and we have drugs today, so that, you know, but there was a lot of criticism of LSD. And what was happening at that time. You go into detail on it in, in your book. Could you talk a little bit about the press and half of the coverage of LSD in the late (19)60s?
DL: 58:36
Yeah, well, you know, there was a lot, what people sort of forget is, let us go back a little bit, you know, in the 19- So, LSD was synthesized. It was this, this psychedelic, powerful psychedelic properties of LSD was discovered by Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist in 1943-1944. So soon after the war, Sandoz started sending out LSD to psychologists, academics, researchers all over the world. I mean, it, the-the rules were much looser than about you know, how to experiment and deal with new emerging drugs right, than they are now. But, so Sandoz was a chemical company was sending out LSD that people, anybody who would ask for it, basically with any kind of a credential. And basically, trying to, what can we, what can we use this drug for? And so, there was all kinds of research going on. First, they thought it well, it would be the way to understand the psychotic state because in some way the psychedelic experience can sort of mimic psychosis in some ways. So, there was a lot of research into that going on everywhere and looking for beneficial uses of the psychedelics. And so, there was a lot of work around using psychedelics to help treat, for instance, alcoholism in the 1950s, there are studies going on all over the world. And there was a lot of promising results in terms of using it for, to treat depression, alcoholism, things like that, trauma, along with, with psychotherapy. So, there was a lot of positive coverage of psychedelics, including the potential for generating mystical experiences in the 1950s, and 1960s. And it really was not until the drug became associated with the counterculture, and the anti-war movement, and the hippies, and the new left, and all that, that the government really sort of started targeting it. And, you know, the thing about drug prohibition, it is usually, it is not normally not about one particular drug, whether it is alcohol, tobacco, LSD, heroin, whatever, it is more about who's taking it, right. [chuckles] It is an attack on, on, on who's using it as much as on what the drug actually is or how dangerous it is. So, the Nixon administration basically determined that or decided that, well, one way, one way we can go after both the civil rights movement, and the counterculture, hippie, new left movement is to increase penalties of their, you know, their common pleasures, which were marijuana and psychedelics, right, because marijuana was, you know, very big in the African American community and along with other communities. But so, a lot of the, I think the so called, "drug war" of the (19)60s and (19)70s, was really a political war against certain groups in this country. And that is pretty clear now. And even some people in Nixon's administration later kind of totally admitted this.
SM: 1:01:54
I think in 1966, it was still legal, LSD was still legal. And in the latter part, it was banned, I believe in California, and then in (19)68, was banned in the United States.
DL: 1:02:09
Yeah, it was, it was sort of, it was, kind of, it was getting banned sort of state by state. And then there was something called the, "Controlled Substances, U.S. Controlled Substances Act," which was passed in 1970, which really increased penalties for a lot of drugs. And then these are, and that is the, for the most part still the case. People forget that marijuana under federal law, is still illegal, right.
SM: 1:02:33
Right.
DL: 1:02:33
I mean, Biden just recently, you know, pardoned, you know, some, some a lot of people but, but the law says that under federal law, marijuana is still a felony, right? So, it is right up there with heroin, right? So, the, the drug laws are just insane, right? There is, there is no sense to them at all.
SM: 1:02:53
Some of the press was talking about the flashbacks, and people killing themselves, jumping off buildings, and I can remember back, I remember this because it was on black and white T.V., Art Link letter on one of his shows talking about his death of his daughter. I remember that.
DL: 1:03:08
Right.
SM: 1:03:08
I remember seeing it.
DL: 1:03:09
Yeah no, that got a lot of attention, that got a lot of attention. And, he really went after Leary and he blamed Leary, you know. Yeah, so that is what happened, like the one incident, you know, who knows? Who knows whether, you know, LSD really caused his daughter to commit suicide, or what else was going on there?
SM: 1:03:26
Right.
DL: 1:03:26
It is a very complicated thing. But, yeah, there were there will be, you know, the scare stories. And so, the media really turned on the whole psychedelic scene, I do not know, like, you know, late (19)60s and into the, into the (19)70s. And, and it was not, and then when the tragedy that it was not just, you know, increasing penalties for possession or sale, it was really caused universities to and medical centers to stop doing research about the potential beneficial, beneficial effects of psychedelics-
SM: 1:03:58
That is right.
DL: 1:03:58
-which has finally come back now in very big way. You know, it is getting a lot of attention right now. But that was all kind of shut down from basically (19)75 to like, 2005. So, like, you know, 30 years, research into, you know, exactly how these strokes can help us understand the brain and administer to the beneficial uses for alcoholism, depression, trauma, that is all coming back now, in a really big way. The government is even starting to fund it again, just recently, one or two years. But yeah, there was a real dark age of research into psychedelics. And it was not just Timothy Leary, that caused that, I mean he was a factor in it, but there were lots of reasons for that.
SM: 1:04:00
Yes, yes. What was called the psychedelic era was turning into the amphetamine era, and I know that, the term, “tune in, turnout, and drop out," that was certainly the code for Leary but it was not the code for the other three. And that is something and because they were in the turn, they could tune in, turn on, but they were not going to do drop out, and I am talking about Elbert Smith. And Weil, they went on to do unbelievable things, and, and just your thoughts on now, the downward fall of Leary toward the end of his life, Leary and Alpert going to India and coming back and being the change person because of the guru experience? And certainly, all the things that Weil has done in his life with his enterprises, his books, can you talk about, could you talk about those three? That, what, refused to drop out? That is why-
DL: 1:05:42
You know what, let me just stop you for a second. I think my, do you hear me?
SM: 1:05:46
Yes.
DL: 1:05:48
Okay. I think my-my earbuds are about to die. So, I am going to change my give me a second here, okay.
SM: 1:05:54
Yep.
DL: 1:05:54
Let us see. [inaudible] Okay, how is that?
SM: 1:06:06
Okay, okay.
DL: 1:06:08
Okay, man. I am sorry. So, well, yeah-
SM: 1:06:12
[crosstalk] If you could just talk about the, you know, after all this stuff with Leary, but certainly, what Ram Dass, Andrew Weil and Houston Smith, what they did with their lives, after all this?
DL: 1:06:30
Yeah, you know, yeah. Well, you know, I think Andy Weil, like I said, he went on to, really become a proponent of what was called integrative medicine and holistic healing. And, you know, basically looking at the connection between mind, body, and spirit in terms of health, and wellness. And, you know, that is, it was not just Andy Weil but he was a big part of that. And, you know, just like today, you know, it is pretty well accepted that you know, like, say meditation can be used for like stress reduction, and, you know, the health benefits of meditation and various, you know, mind, body, spirit disciplines. A lot of that came out of the (19)60s, and a lot of that came out of the psychedelic, ritually, people got first kind of, taste of that with the psychedelic experience, then they went on to, to find kinder, gentler ways of doing that with meditation and other spiritual practices. And so, just basically, you know, kind of revolutionizing the way we look at health and wellness, which you see now, like in a mainstream, like medical, like Kaiser Permanente, the big health care provider here with all kinds of focus on, you know, mindfulness, meditation, stress reduction, a lot of that, came, come, came out of the (19)60s in the psychedelic era, and Andy Weil, you know, it was a, it was a big part of that, and continues to have a big center in Arizona, and training doctors in bringing together both, you know, not throwing out traditional mainstream medicine, but combining it with other forms of, other ideas of ,what constitutes health and wellness. So, I think he was influential in that way. And Houston Smith, you know, I think really encouraged a lot of Americans to have a more open-minded attitude towards religion, and people be openness to the wisdom of other religious traditions. With tolerance and understanding in that way, I think Houston was very, very influential there. And, you know, people have psychedelic experiences, they often have deep, profound mystical experiences, which go beyond you know, doctrine, dogma, and denominationalism. We used to look at religion say back in the (19)50s, and (19)60s, and a lot of people of course, still do, but you know, I think that is one of the big shifts in the, the religious landscape is that you know, there's fastest growing religion now are, you know, people who call themselves spiritual, but not religious. They may not be affiliated with, you know, mainstream religion, but they still are interested in personal spiritual experience. And that is, that is what, I think that, that shift towards the experiential way of understanding religion was a lot of that was fueled by, by psychedelics and later by meditation, and other spiritual disciplines who are interested in Buddhism, and Hinduism, and all that even Native American spirituality here. A lot of people got interested in that through the, initially through psychedelics, and that is a huge shift. You know, it is some people even think it is like a new kind of great awakening, like kind of moving away from, word-based religions to experiential based religion, which was far beyond psychedelics, but something psychedelics fuel a lot of that. So, I think we can I think Houston has something to do with that along with long with Alpert.
SM: 1:06:32
Well, if I can read something from your book, is that okay?
DL: 1:07:04
Sure.
SM: 1:07:05
Yeah, this-
DL: 1:07:35
You will probably say it much better than I will say it. [laughs]
SM: 1:10:09
-this is on page 183. And I think it is really, you talk about how the counterculture became the culture. And it is, it is very well said, I will be really fast here. "Why did Weil's career suddenly take off? Weil had been saying the same thing since the (19)70s. Weil did not change, America changed. Sometime in the 1990s, American culture caught up with the (19)60s counterculture. The counterculture became the culture. Yoga became big business. Meditation is prescribed by the family doctor. Supermarkets stocked organic produce and home, homeopathic cures. The Rolling Stones provide the soundtrack for computer advertisements. Looking back at it all, Weil sees a direct connection between this experience on psychedelic drugs and his later career, in holistic health. Those experiences show me what is inside your head is connected to what is outside your head, and that you change, things, outside change by working on things inside, he said, and there is a clear application to help their state of mind, belief, and expectations absolutely influence health, and the course of illness. And those days, that kind of thinking was pretty much out of the mainstream. Now it has really changed." I think that is beautifully written.
DL: 1:11:31
Yeah, well thank you, yeah.
SM: 1:11:32
And it describes it perfectly about, you know, how, like, how the counterculture became the culture.
DL: 1:11:38
Yeah-yeah. Well, you know, so much of this, yes, Steven was fueled by demographics. You know, I mean, the, what happened, you know, the whole baby boom generation is this, huge group of people who kind of, you know, we have gone through, gone through life and influencing the culture, because there is so many of us, right. And, and so, you know, eventually, you know, people who were a part of the counterculture, were running, you know, were running companies, and were running, you know, becoming politicians. And, and were running corporations, you know, I mean, these people, you know, eventually, assumed kind of positions of power and influence, in the media and elsewhere. So that, I think that is, that is part of it. I think that what Americans do not remember, though, is that, you know, the counterculture was definitely a minority of people, baby boomers. Everyone has an interest, into all this, but it did sort of, the ideas kind of spread in, into mainstream culture over the next few decades for sure.
SM: 1:12:41
Yep. Yep.
DL: 1:12:44
Sure.
SM: 1:12:46
Now, you were talking about the latter parts of their lives for-
DL: 1:12:50
Yeah, you know, what I was, I just was looking at, can I read a few paragraphs from the book?
SM: 1:12:54
Oh, yes-yes.
DL: 1:12:55
Cause, I, I think so there's, this is a quote, this is about Leary. And I told you that Leary kind of, you know, seemed a little lost in some ways in the last few decades of his life. He died in the (19)90s. He was the first of the four in the book to die. There's a guy Robert Forte, who spent a lot of time with Leary towards the end of his life, younger, younger guy. Anyway, so this is, his, this is his take, you know, we asked him, this is Robert Fore, was Tim, is it a quote from Forte, "Was Tim a wise man or was he a psychopath? Psychopathic, egotistical maniac or both? I would hang out with him until three in the morning. Sometimes he would appear like a non-ordinary being. There was this, a tangible aura, he would glow. Sometimes he was just so clear and present and positive. But other times he would just morph into this twisted, angry, fucked up old man," end of the quote. Then I say, "Leary was different things to different people. He was reviled. He was revered. He was a prophet. He was a phony. He was a brilliant, innovative thinker. He was a fool. He captured the irreverent, rebellious spirit of the (19)60s. He was a fame seeking manipulative con artist. Who was he? Perhaps the Trickster said it best when he once quipped, quote, "you get the Timothy Leary you deserve." [laughs]
SM: 1:14:17
Wow. [laughs]
DL: 1:14:17
That is the end of the quote, so. That, that sort of sums up Leary especially towards the end of life, I think.
SM: 1:14:23
Right. [chuckles] And how about Alpert?
DL: 1:14:29
You know, how Alpert you know, he-he, he became, you know, he wrote a series of books and continued to lecture. And, you know, he became a devotee of, of an Indian guru Neem Karoli Baba. But, he never really became a guru himself, you know, and that is, I think, what made him relatable to people. He was just another, another seeker. And then you know, in the (19)80s, he got-got very involved with, he started helping to start something called the Seva Foundation, they did a lot of-
SM: 1:15:04
Very good, very great.
DL: 1:15:05
Charitable work with helping with blindness in Nepal. And then during, he got very interested in the whole, sort of the death and dying movement, you know, Elisabeth Kubler Ross, and the whole move towards re-examining how we deal with death. And the whole rise of the hospice movement, you know, which people forget is a relatively recent thing, you know, and did a lot of work with, during the AIDS crisis, you know, of helping gay people, and other people who are dying, make that transition, you know, writing about it, but also just personally, one on one dealing with a lot of people doing a lot of quiet, you know, work helping people. And then he had a big stroke, Ram Dass had a stroke in the (19)90s, which really inhibited his ability to speak, you know, at the time, he was going to start a kind of a radio show about consciousness. And of course, radio was off the table when you have to spend like 30 seconds between words to find the words, you know, and he struggled. So, he struggled with his speech, and it got a little better over the years. But, you know, he, that the stroke really slowed him down. He moved to Maui and lived the last parts, of part of his life on, on Maui, but continued to teach, and people would come see him and there is a whole online, there is a whole group of his, his kind of friends and followers started a website, which, you know he, he passed away a few years ago, but he's still out there on the internet, you know, there's so much material from his past that can be recycled and enjoyed by people. So, he continues to have an influence even posthumously. And I think, in a very positive, pretty positive way. And how about Smith? [inaudible] I mean, Houston, Houston, also just died a few years back, a few years before, Alpert. He continued to write, continued to teach well into his 90s. I actually did a little work, for a while I was helping on an autobiography that he was trying to put out, which eventually did. He got very involved with the Native American church, and helping them secure the religious freedom to use peyote and their, you know, religious rights. He, you know, he was, he was always kind of skeptical, but also supportive of the psychedelic movement. You know, he called it on its excesses. But was basically supportive. And I think, glad to see that there was a lot of new research and, you know, last decade or so into the beneficial uses of psychedelics and understanding the spiritual and mystical dimensions of it, so he, you know, he tried to stay as involved as he could later in life. You know, he almost made it to 100. You know he, had some, some cognitive problems and memory problems, you know, towards the end, but he continued to hang in there till the end.
SM: 1:18:15
Well, I wanted, you, in the conclusion, I have just got some, some things that you wrote, and then we will finish. I think this is very important. You say there's a Rosetta Stone that brings the Harvard psychedelic club together, Leary, Albert, Smith, and Weil did nothing less than inspire a generation of Americans to redefine the nature of reality. And another one here is that people who take LSD and those who do not, people understand, should understand that we should listen to both. Because reality is different things to different people. And so, reality under drugs, do not knock it until you have tried it, and that kind of thing. And that is something that I think, goes into the fact we ought to be listening to each other more, instead of judging each other more. And one very important-
DL: 1:19:09
There was, there was kind of a divisiveness in the (19)60s, if you turned on or not. Like are you, remember the Jimmy Hendrix, Are You Experienced?
SM: 1:19:17
Right.
DL: 1:19:18
They were talking about that, yeah.
SM: 1:19:19
Now, one very important part you talk about is the boomers were raised by Dr. Spock. And Dr. Spock's main message was that children need to think that anything is possible. Well that gets right into the counterculture too. Do you have any thoughts on that and Dr. Spock?
DL: 1:19:39
Yeah, well, that is, you know, that is part of the whole, the whole it is much bigger than psychedelics and much bigger than really the (19)60s, this is really the whole human potential movement. You know and, and like I said before, this shift towards people focusing on personal, spiritual, mystical experience and, and kind of finding their own way, in some ways, almost kind of growing their own religion. You see that in the whole, spiritual but not religious cohort, which is, which is the fastest growing religion in America right now by far. So yeah, that is all, that is all out there. And what is interesting right now, you know, in 2020, in the, you know, the fall of 2022. You know, there is so much, there has been a huge new wave of interest in psychedelics, both spiritually and therapeutically. Now, there's clinical trials going on, it has been a lot written about it. I mean, I wrote a book, my last, my last book was called, "Changing our Minds, Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy," which was about both the clinical trials that are going on now to, to, to use psilocybin and MDMA to help people with, with, with various mood disorders and behaviors. And, and also the whole spirit, our whole spiritual Renaissance. There's a lot of psychedelic churches forming, underground psychedelic churches are coming above ground now. It is a really interesting time. And about a year after, about a year and a half after my book came out, Michael Pollan, the noted, you know, food writer, came out with a book, very similar title, "How to Change your Mind." Kind of a similar focus to my book, but his was a runaway New York Times bestseller, he had a much bigger publisher. Anyway, his, that, his book was very influential. And then there is a whole Netflix series that came out a few months ago based on his book. Nova just last week did a, did a show on can psychedelic cure. I am writing a series of articles now on, kind of the, psychedelic churches that are coming above ground. So, so this is, there's a whole new wave of this just in the last few years. And more, and more people you know, who have never really thought about this or experienced this are starting to read about it, and want to experiment with it, and laws are changing. There i's probably 20-25 cities around the country have decriminalized psychedelics in various great extent, the entire state of Oregon has basically decriminalized all drugs and is setting up a regulated legal, psilocybin facilitated psilocybin services kind of system. Colorado is going to vote on the same thing next month. So, California was talking about it. There's a lot of changes going on. And this is all kind of, in some ways, an echo of the (19)60s.
SM: 1:22:30
Very good. This is the last thing I am going to read. And I am on the last question. This is so beautifully written by you on page 215. And it is this, "None of the men of the Harvard Psychedelic Club officially fall into the demographic, known as the baby boomers: the generation born in the aftermath of World War Two was their primary audience. Many of these kids were "Spock babies," so called because they were raised by parents taking the advice of Dr. Spock, the influential American pediatrician. His main message was that children need to sink that anything, that anything is possible. Those of us boomers who grew up into the countercultures, and are revolutionaries tried to live out that prescription, and many of us turn for a time to psychedelic drugs to broaden their vision of what was possible. We did not always live out our visions, but at least we sought them out. Perhaps the historical importance of Leary, Alpert, Weil, and Smith is not so much any particular vision. But the very process of envisioning for a moment in time we have the experience of expanding our minds. And one of the side effects of that condition is envisioning an alternative way to live." That is beautifully written.
DL: 1:23:50
Thank you. I mean that is a good note to end on. [laughs]
SM: 1:23:53
I think it is a great note to end and what, what I would like to thank you again, the question I want to ask that I have been asking everyone at the very end of my interviews is what, the people that are going to be listening to this are going to be, could be 15 years, 50 years from now. They could be students, faculty, national scholars listening to this tape, what is your word of advice for them? Any things you might want to say, a lasting message that you would like to deliver to them?
DL: 1:24:32
Big of a question for me. [laughs] Just take a deep breath relax and it will be okay.
SM: 1:24:41
[laughs] All right, well.
DL: 1:24:45
Do not take yourselves, do not take yourself too seriously.
SM: 1:24:49
Well, I tell you, I want to thank you for doing this and I had to cut, you know, there is two parts now because I had to turn this off because the battery was low. So, we have got the batteries. But, thank you very much. And-
DL: 1:25:03
Sure, happy, to happy to help. It was good talking to you, Steven.
SM: 1:25:06
You have a great day and I am going to turn this off and, okay, one last thing is you will get a copy of this that will be through the mail, on email sometime in the next two weeks. And, then you will you can listen to it and if it is okay, I hope they, you know, they have to put it together now because I had to take a break. And then, you will just let them know so that we can put it on site with your picture that you sent me, and a brief biography in the back would be expanded down the road. So, thank you very much.
DL: 1:25:42
[inaudible]
SM: 1:26:01
Well, it was beautifully-
DL: 1:26:02
[inaudible]
SM: 1:26:08
Well, you are one of my top 100. But I, you know, I am a bibliophile. I read a lot of books. Your book is one of my top 100, ever. So, I just learned so much from it. I never was a very big fan of Leary. But, I have become a big fan of Ram Dass and, and one of the things that he has done over the years, and I have always knew about Mr. Houston Smith. I knew about him already. And Andrew Weil, we already know a lot about him, so. I do not dislike any of them, but Leary's a different man that is for sure. [laughs] He was a rebel. All right.
DL: 1:26:46
[inaudible]
SM: 1:26:47
You take care and be safe. Bye. I am recording, still? I am.
(End of Interview)
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Interview with Don Lattin
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Broome County Oral History Project
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Broome County -- History
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Binghamton University Libraries
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The Broome County Oral History Project was conceived and administered by the Senior Services Unit of the <a href="http://www.gobroomecounty.com/senior">Office for the Aging</a>. Funding for this project was provided by the Broome County Office of Employment and Training (C.E.T.A.), with additional funding from the Senior Service Unit of the National Council on Aging and Broome County government. The aim of this project was two-fold – to obtain historical information about life in Broome County, which would be useful for researchers and teachers, and to provide employment for older persons of a limited income. The oral history interviews were obtained between November 1977 and September 1978 and were conducted by five interviewers under the supervision of the Action for Older Persons Program. The collection contains 75 interviews and transcriptions, 77 cassette tapes, and a subject index containing names of individuals associated with specific subject terms. One transcribed interview does not have an accompanying audio recording. <br /><br />In 2005 Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections Department participated in the New York State Audiotape Project which undertook preservation reformatting of the audiotapes, and the creation of compact discs for patron use. Several interviews do not have release forms and cannot be reviewed.<br /><br />See the <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">finding aid </a>for additional information.<br /><br /><strong>Acknowledgment of sensitive content</strong><br />Binghamton University Libraries provide digital access to select materials held within the Special Collections department. <span>Oral histories provide a vibrant window into life in the community.</span> However, they also expose insensitive, and at times offensive, racial and gender terminology that, though once commonplace, are now acknowledged to cause harm. The Libraries have chosen to make these oral histories available as part of the historical record but the Libraries do not support or agree with the harmful narratives that can be found in these volumes. <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/digital/">Digital Collections</a> are created for educational and historical purposes only. It is our intention to present the content as it originally appeared.
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1977-1978
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<a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections, Broome County Oral History project</a>
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Interviewee
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Chase, Doris
Interviewer
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Dobandi, Susan
Date of Interview
1978-05-08
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Broome County Oral History Project
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2016-03-27
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23:01 Minutes
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<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE55883">Interview with Doris Chase</a>
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Chase, Doris -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Broome County (N.Y.) -- Officials and employees -- Interviews; Librarians -- Interviews; Binghamton (N.Y.); Lowell School of Business; Broome County Courts
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<p><b>Broome County Oral History Project</b></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview with: Doris E. Chase</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interviewed by: Susan Dobandi</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Date of interview: 8 May 1978</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: Miss Chase, could you start by telling us where you were born, something about your parents, and any recollections you have of your early childhood and later on your work experiences in the community?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Doris: Yes, I was born in Windsor, NY, on February 11, 1914. I couldn't have had better parents. They were good Christian people and they welcomed me into the home. I had two brothers, eight and ten years older than I was, and they had been praying for me for eight years, and here the little girl comes to town. A little offset would be nice to tell you that when, ah, brother Ronald, when he knew that I had arrived at one o'clock in the afternoon, he went and rang every doorbell in Windsor to tell them he had a little baby girl Doris, and I can say he still loves me as much which is wonderful. Well I went to school in Windsor ’til I was in the, ah, sixth grade, and then I—we moved to California ’cause my father thought he wanted to get out of the undertaking business and work out there with my aunts and uncles, and I went to a school—first the Menlo Avenue School, which was very interesting. My people sort of put me on my own, at the time I thought I was desperate, because I thought to go in, I was a little girl from Windsor and I was scared to death, but they put me in what you call an “opportunity class” that find out what you can do. From Windsor to Los Angeles was quite a stride but every day I walked by the famous Coliseum and played around there, which I—now you have your big football games and your—but I was there a whole term and I worked myself so hard, I was so worried about not making good, that I skipped a whole grade.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Then I was over to Angeles Massus School where we bought a home there in Los Angeles. This was very interesting to me, too, because in those days I didn't know about Spanish homes and this was a Spanish type of school, and you played handball all winter long and you rollerskated to school in the middle of the blocks that's—was the way it was set up, so it was a great thrill and a great experience. Well, after a year my dad decided to return, and we came to Binghamton and he bought the funeral home on Exchange Street in 1924. Well I spent my days going into high school at the age of 12, which was an early age, and I graduated at 16 and I took college entrance, where it was of great value to me ‘cause I still reiterate that Latin and French are very good, especially Latin, for people today, and I stress it with my students in the library now. Then I was to go for Physical Ed and was accepted at Cortland State College, but I had an operation which changed my life around, which I think the Lord did do this because he had something else better for me, so I went to business school here in Binghamton at Lowell’s, and I graduated from there and the first job I had, they got for me down on Susquehanna Street in a plumbing company. Well I was only there two weeks, and for this reason—my mother played in a bridge club where Walker Sherwood, the County Treasurer, his daughter played in it, and she asked my mother if Doris had work. She said, “Well, yes, but she didn't want to stay there." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So she said that he wanted somebody to type the tax sale, and we'd be there a month. The job would be a month’s job, and I said to Mother, "I'm going to take it. I'm going to get my foot in the door on the Courthouse.” So on July 3rd in 1933 I entered the Courthouse, and I'm still with it now. This is in 1978 through many jobs, but Walker Sherwood was the president of the bank here in the city and he was appointed by Governor Charles Hughes to take over the County Treasurer, and he taught me everything I knew in banking. It was a delightful thing to start working with him, ’cause I remember the first day I was very scared and he said, “Just get on the job and make good, ‘cause I was told that when I became a runner in the bank and worked up to President.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We didn't start the tax sale that day. It wasn't quite ready, so he said, "I've got—I'm gonna have you sort checks." Again, I was so scared that I sorted all the checks in one day and it was quite a standing joke in the office. (Chuckle.) Well, I progressed, of course, and ah—ah, Walker Sherwood died, and then I was appointed Deputy County Treasurer by Ralph Page, the new Treasurer, and I had five girls under me. It was much fun and a lot of hard work. I got into court with trust funds, mortgage taxes, et cetera—made trips to Albany and had many friendships.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Well, my life went along, and then I did go to Houston, Texas, for a short time. I was married and I worked in an interesting place there. The man we bought our home from was the—the City Treasurer of Houston and also the Chief of the Civil Service, and the uncanny part of it, I, he said—he said, "Where are you from?" and I said, “Binghamton, you've never heard of it." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And he says, "Oh yes I have,” because the Chief of Police, Joe Sullivan at that time, he said, “I went to the FBI School with him,” and he said, "Well, why don't you come—come to work for me?" And I said, "Well, I wouldn't know the Texas laws." And he said, "Well, we need help,” and he says, "We're really in dire straits because we are just beginning to put the IBM payrolls on—on machines, and we don't just know how to do it.''</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Well, I began to laugh. He said, "What are you laughing at?” I said, “We were the guinea pig of the whole United States when the IBM started that." So he says, "Come to work Monday.” So that was an experience that I had working there. I worked there six months, and then my husband drove out the driveway and left me and I have never seen him since and that was twenty-six years ago now, but life was still open. God was seeing his way, opening—closing doors and then opening another for, and so when I came home in May, Judge Brink called me up. He says, "I hear you’re home, Doris," and I said, "Yes," and he said, "Well I have an opening the first of September. You are going to come and work for me as—in the county judge." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">And I said, "Well, I don't know that work." He says, "Well I will teach you." That was the most delightful ten years I have—he was a very honorable man, he taught me so many things. He taught me how to read briefs, how to take decisions. I had pistol permits, which, everything is divided now in different departments—called the Jury Commissioner, I did that where, and it was—it was really an experience and it was gearing me for my further life coming on.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">So the, the librarian died—Miss Lee, who had been there fifty years—and Judge McAvoy came to me and he said, "I would like to have you come and take over." Well, again I reiterate I didn't know the work. He said, "I don't know it either, but I know that you will get in there and work hard." So, it was quite a time to take over everything, because everything was behind and the Library was closed down for several days because just everything was—supplements were back and everything needed attention, so until we could get straightened around, why, it—it took quite a while, but I did go to visit—well, the first library I visited was the United States Supreme Court Library—a very interesting man, Dr. Hurdon was delighted when I told him my story. He said, "Anybody will do this." He said, "You sit right down and I will talk with you a whole afternoon, get you straight on your treatises and so forth." And he really gave me a great start to come back to set up the library and there were many other, ah, libraries that I did go to, and then I took the courses that were offered by another fine man who was the Appellate Division Librarian. He was also a teacher out of Chicago in his earlier days, and he taught us in New York how to do the Law Library—catalog work, and many, many things, so that, people have always been helpful in my life and I now I'm getting in the stage where I want to leave for posterity. I want to help the students I have, the SUNY students and I have the teachers from Cortland State Teachers College, you see I have volumes there that in this area the State provides, and they don't have it in other libraries, only in Cornell. Not everybody can go to Cornell University to look these up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">But, getting back to the men in my life, they have always influenced me, but the greatest influence was my father, for every morning we had prayers, even from a little girl I remember him down there reading his Bible, and he always had such wonderful thoughts to offer you and I know it—it's influenced my life greatly, and he said, "Doris, if you keep your faith He'll always stand by you." And it's so true, even in the library work I have my New Testament in my desk drawer, and if I lack wisdom I look up in the Book of James for help and God has never failed me. It might not be that moment, it might not be that hour, it might be next week, but He's always—always helped me, and I'm so grateful for that kind of background, that’s what everybody needs to get through this life, and I'm just so thankful that I have had these fine men and everybody, and I do love my lawyers. They know I'll do anything for them and people would be happy if they really gave her the life. Money isn't everything. It's—and another thing, ah, character is important, not that I'm so good, but I've tried to fill the principles that they taught me. So now, and I'm in my church work at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church and I enjoy the class, and we have an adult class, which is really—we enjoy, and we are helpful to many, many people that we reach out to them and if they need groceries or if they need help in many ways, we talk with them and it's a very satisfying life. I think, of course, the older you grow, the more you turn your thoughts to God, I guess, but in my own life I can't say that. I'm always—always going to church. I've tithed. I've done it from a little girl up and I have never lacked for anything—I might get down to my last penny, but I've always been supplied with everything in this life. It's hard to think of so many things that have happened, ah—</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Well, I've been honored, which is very nice. I—way back, I hadn't been in the Library too long. It was in October of 1969, and I got a letter from the Bar Association and they asked me to come to their dinner as their guest, and I really—I couldn't think why they'd want me there, but anyway I soon found out. They honored me with two beautiful corsages, and for bringing the Library back to life. It was—it was certainly a tribute—a standing tribute. It was almost too much for me, but then I stood on my feet and I thanked them for what they did, and then I said, "There are a few things that you’ve left out." And they of course looked surprised, and I said, "Well—I, there were things that I'm called upon to do by all of you when you go into court, and this is true, I've sewed on many buttons on coats and blue suits and have had to go there. I've had to call wives. I've had to read things back on the telephone when you were desperate. You have keys and you come to my house nights and Sundays and everything else, so I guess I sort of mother all of you." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Well, later on in life I had another honor, which I was very, very pleased. I went home one day and I had a letter from the Women of Status Council, and I—I didn't really know what it was. I started reading and they said they wanted me to come to a dinner again and that they wanted a brief biography of myself, and this was held in the Ramada Inn and my honor was for my work in the community in Law, not as a lawyer, but being helpful to the people and the students trying to—going way beyond my line of duty to—to give something, and as I say, if I know something I try to impart it. There's one other thing, too, when—well, judges, I have them and they come in and ask me and I say, “I don't know why you're asking me?” They said, "We came because we don't know and when we'll work." </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Well I said, "I know I don't know, that's one thing I've always said if I don't, but there's a great big but—but I will start looking. We'll keep searching ’til we find it." I can't think of any other honors that I've had, but I love life. I love people. It's very evident I love people, because so many people say, "Well, it's so much fun to come in there, ’cause we always, it's not just like work, it's play." Well, I've had students, too, that it's been a—ah, I'll never forget, I remember one boy that I worked with, very hard with, in—in federal taxes and things like that, and he went on to, ah, Hastings College in California, and it was several years later that I looked up, and here he was in my library, and he said, "I was near Binghamton and I just had to come back and tell you,” he said, “how much you did for me,” and he said, “You know you made my life very easy in Federal Taxes when I went to college, because,” he said, "you went into great depth to, ah, to teach me." And as I say, “When you didn't know, I used to call David Sterns, ’cause he's tops in that field. I never called him until we got to the, until when we—we just didn't know where we were going." And so I felt very pleased about that. There have been many rewarding things that have, and you—you can help students.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">I remember one boy, too—he came in, and a professor had brought his class up, and he was going to show him, and he was trying to save me and he was trying to show what the library—how to look for things. Well, he went so rapidly that this poor boy, he sat down and he says, "I will never be a lawyer, I—I just can't grasp it this fast." And I says, "Don't worry, I'll talk with you afterwards." So after it was over with, I said to him, "When you have time, you come up and make an appointment with me here in the Library,” and I said, "I will take time and I will show you what we have here and you can ask me any questions, and you take notes because I know that your father wants you to become a lawyer." And I said, "Don’t get discouraged by just this little." He never got over it and I didn't either, but it—these things in life that count that are worthwhile. It's just wonderful to be able to be—well, I think I'm privileged to be in this position of being with these men working under them and God. I can't say but what He really planned my life and it's opened up as I've gone along, and as I say I gave this speech, "The Men in My Life," to the Exchange Club, and as I—I prepared for it—it took me about two months because I wouldn't get up and speak in front of men if I didn't know what I was talking about, and I realized then for the first time that I never applied for a job. So I'm happy, and I'm just glad to do this for you for posterity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Susan: Well, thank you very much, Doris, for taking the time out to come up and talk with us. I knew that, ah—about your background, but it is a story that only you could tell us and I appreciate it very much. Thank you.</span></p>
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This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.
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Interview with Doris Chase
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Chase, Doris -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Broome County (N.Y.) -- Officials and employees -- Interviews; Librarians -- Interviews; Binghamton (N.Y.); Lowell School of Business; Broome County Courts
Description
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Doris Chase talks about her Christian upbringing in Binghamton, NY. She attended the Lowell School of Business and worked as the Deputy County Treasurer. She moved to Houston, TX for a short time. She returned to Binghamton and was employed with the Broome County Courts first under Judge McAvoy and later as the librarian. She discusses her revitalization of the library, service to the community and honors from the Bar Association.
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Binghamton University Libraries
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This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.
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English
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Recording 12
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Chase, Doris ; Dobandi, Susan
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1978-05-08
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2016-03-27
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Broome County Oral History Project
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23:01 Minutes
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/0679fd5183c56f0e3a93eaff7f9bf3e9.mp3
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Broome County Oral History Project
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Broome County -- History
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Binghamton University Libraries
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The Broome County Oral History Project was conceived and administered by the Senior Services Unit of the <a href="http://www.gobroomecounty.com/senior">Office for the Aging</a>. Funding for this project was provided by the Broome County Office of Employment and Training (C.E.T.A.), with additional funding from the Senior Service Unit of the National Council on Aging and Broome County government. The aim of this project was two-fold – to obtain historical information about life in Broome County, which would be useful for researchers and teachers, and to provide employment for older persons of a limited income. The oral history interviews were obtained between November 1977 and September 1978 and were conducted by five interviewers under the supervision of the Action for Older Persons Program. The collection contains 75 interviews and transcriptions, 77 cassette tapes, and a subject index containing names of individuals associated with specific subject terms. One transcribed interview does not have an accompanying audio recording. <br /><br />In 2005 Binghamton University Libraries’ Special Collections Department participated in the New York State Audiotape Project which undertook preservation reformatting of the audiotapes, and the creation of compact discs for patron use. Several interviews do not have release forms and cannot be reviewed.<br /><br />See the <a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">finding aid </a>for additional information.<br /><br /><strong>Acknowledgment of sensitive content</strong><br />Binghamton University Libraries provide digital access to select materials held within the Special Collections department. <span>Oral histories provide a vibrant window into life in the community.</span> However, they also expose insensitive, and at times offensive, racial and gender terminology that, though once commonplace, are now acknowledged to cause harm. The Libraries have chosen to make these oral histories available as part of the historical record but the Libraries do not support or agree with the harmful narratives that can be found in these volumes. <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/digital/">Digital Collections</a> are created for educational and historical purposes only. It is our intention to present the content as it originally appeared.
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2
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Ben Coury, Digital Web Designer
Yvonne Deligato, Former University Archivist
Shandi Ezraseneh, Student Employee
Laura Evans, Former Metadata Librarian
Caitlin Holton, Digital Initiatives Assistant
Jamey McDermott, Student Employee
Erin Rushton, Head of Digital Initiatives
David Schuster, Senior Director for Library Technology and Digital Strategies
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1977-1978
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<a href="https://archivesspace.binghamton.edu/public/repositories/2/resources/44">Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections, Broome County Oral History project</a>
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Interviewee
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Titchner, Dorothy
Interviewer
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O'Neil, Dan
Date of Interview
1978-03-15
Collection
Broome County Oral History Project
Date of Digitization
2016-03-27
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33:54 Minutes ; 11: 28 Minutes ; 30:07 Minutes
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<a href="https://eternity.binghamton.edu/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps_pid=IE56042">Interview with Dorothy Titchener</a>
Subject LCSH
Titchener, Dorothy -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Binghamton (N.Y.); Broome Community College; Titchener, Paul; Girl Scouts of the United States of America; Women -- Societies and clubs; Junior League of New York; Business and Professional Women/USA; Women -- Political activity
Amahami Girl Scout Camp; Girl Scout Council; Housing Authority; Politics
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Rights Statement
This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Broome County Oral History Project</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interview with: Dorothy Titchener</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Interviewed by: Dan O’Neil</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Date of interview: 15 March 1978</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[Tape #1]</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Mrs. Titchener, will you tell me about your life and working experiences in the community starting with your place of birth?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Well I was born, I do remember that and I had to look up ah I didn’t have to look up when because I’m 80 years old and that was a shock to me—I couldn’t believe it. I was born in Washington, D.C. in 1897, Washington, D.C., and ah my father was the 2nd cousin of ah Mark Twain—Samuel Clemens and so I presume I would be 3rd cousin because his mother, Mark Twain’s mother, was a Jane Lampton and that was my maiden name was Lampton. In England, they came from England, and it was spelled Lambton but with the nasal quality of the American voice why it was translated to Lampton. I went to school in Washington, D.C., a French school, and I majored in French and Dramatics and Writing. It had started in kindergarten—marched down and informed them that I was coming to school because it was on the street where I was born and the later went to ah Bennett Junior College for 2 years and graduated from there and I studied Drama under Charles M. Kennedy and ah Edith M. Mathewson. They were old time ah artists in that field and I was offered a part in </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Blue Bird</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> ah </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Betrothal</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> which was a sequel to </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Blue Bird </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">really really to offer, whereupon my mother snatched me back to Washington. I’m very glad she did because I never would have met my husband Paul, who was in the Army then and came to Washington and it was there I met him and I have 3 children—James, my son is a psychiatrist and he is attached to the University of Cincinnati and he is a research psychiatrist and also he is lately by the Government—he’s a Fellow which is supposed to be as high as he can go. I know he gets $1000.00 every time he opens his mouth and I get $1000.00 if I shut mine, I think—I guess the general feeling of my family but anyway he’s done very very well and he was a rather shy child and I’m sorry that Paul didn’t know how famous he has become. He’s traveled all over the world because he is the head member of the disaster group and what they do is to go around and try to improve people’s morale when these terrible disasters happen, such as mine disasters and this horrible fire in Kentucky nightclub and so forth, and I have a daughter, Ann, and she is head of one ah private school in Maryland and was one of the first integrated schools in Maryland—she’s just recently become—she worked there as a teacher and they have a great many, ah, both Black and white students and teachers. It’s completely integrated and they say that any child can take any kind of course. They will offer anything the child needs or wants and so she has many of the Congressional children in the school. They bus them in—it’s outside in near her home in Maryland, and then I have a second daughter, Jean, and she lives in Salt Lake City and she works considerably in civic affairs there in Salt Lake and also she teaches in a Presbyterian kindergarten school both morning and afternoon with children. She perhaps is more like me. Ann is like her father—Ann has a good business head and I should say after Jean, is more like me. Well that about wraps up my family—oh I have eleven grandchildren—mustn’t forget all those and they’re ah they’re all—I only have one married—one girl married and ah this is kind of interesting because she was ah a very independent person and I’m very fond of her and they’ve decided, she married a man in the forestry service and they are now living in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, in a summer cabin 5 miles from Bonners Ferry with no utilities whatsoever, not even water and they think it’s wonderful and they’re trying to buy 20 acres of land there and grow all their own food and then she’s going to be ah she’s studying her biology and she’s going to be a doctor and heal everybody with herbs and she grinds all her own food. Now she was a girl who was brought up on New York City—her family moved to Salt Lake and then I have another daughter in New York, granddaughter who’s trying to go on the stage and naturally that’s a very difficult field to enter. I’ve tried to persuade her to do radio or something else and creep in but No she’s decided that’s what she wanted to do so that’s about, that takes care of the family, I guess. Now ah you asked me about different clubs I belong to. I had to list them because I couldn’t remember what I did belong to—what I didn’t. Some I think I just went and some I belonged to—anyway I belong to Monday Afternoon Club, the Civic Club, Shakespeare Club—this is local, the League of Women Voters—now that I had trouble with because they study everything and I’m a person of action because if somebody tells me I can’t do it—that’s the one thing I do. In, in civic work, I can’t wait for them to mess around with the red tape and so on and so I had trouble with them because they sent me out to do some speaking for a certain proposition that they wished to have the people know about and I thought I was supposed to get them to ah pass it. So I came back jubilantly to tell them that these three places I’d been had all voted on it and agreed to do it, whereupon ah they almost invited me out of the organization, because they were supposed to study it two more years or something. I think they’re one of the best clubs in the city, I really do, and think they do a great deal of good. It simply was not my nature to go along that way—I’m not criticizing them in any way. I belong to the American Civic Association, I’m an Honorary member of Zonta, I belong to the Business and Professional Women’s Club, where I have been very active and the Junior League, the Girl’s Club, the YMCA—I was on the Board of that, then the Children’s Services Society and the Girl Scouts Council and the Housing Authority ah for 20 years and ah I’m going into detail but these are the main and I was the first, one of the first, for three years the first organizing group of Opportunities for Broome, when it was first organized, I was on that Board, so I think that takes care of that part. Well now I have something that I say, this was personal and I think I’ll take that for last because I would like to go into what I have done, special events that I have done and I have to start probably with the Junior League because that’s the first organization I joined when I came here and we were—I was never President of the Junior League but I was on the Board because I was always ah was theater chairman and I wrote ah children’s plays and acting in it and then I directed several children’s plays that we had and then I think one of the most exciting things we did was we wanted to raise some money, when we took over the ah day nursery as a project. As you know, the Junior League is an all volunteer work and we took this over as a project. We wanted to raise some money to do some good work there and really improve their facilities—so we ah I suggested we take the Binghamton Press for one evening and ah sell the papers and do all the advertising and get the money from the advertising and so forth and I was editor of it and then with other members of the League, we did and we sold the papers on the street and Jim Farley happened to be in town that day and I sold him one for $10.00 and I said, “You mean your boss isn’t worth more than that?” but anyway he gave us $10.00 and we raised about $1500.00 to $2000.00 and incidentally, we paid the newsboys their regular fee—we didn’t cut them out of the money they received that day—so we did that for two years and I went down to Washington where I—because I knew more people still in Washington—I know many of the older ones now—the new ones I don’t know very well, but I did know because my father was interested in politics and really enjoyed it—he never was a politician—he was a sort of a politician at home but he wasn’t in politics but he loved them. So I got in to see President Franklin Roosevelt and he gave me a perfectly beautiful letter congratulating the Junior League on doing this which of course made the front pages of the Binghamton Press and the second year we did it, we couldn’t go back to him again so we went to Governor Lehman, he was Governor of New York State and we had a letter similar to the one ah Franklin Roosevelt wrote and so that enhanced the sale of the papers of course. These two letters were very important and we did make around $2000.00-$2500.00 each time. $1500.00 first and then money kept coming in and we did as I said get all the money from the advertising we solicited—so that was quite successful. So that was one thing in Junior League that had not in—also I, I like to add that several plays and I went to many conferences with this Junior League and I enjoyed it thoroughly and I won the first ah Silver Cup that Esther Couper, Mrs. Edward Couper, was then President of the Club but her mother gave a Silver Bowl—not a cup, it was a bowl—and it was given to the person who had done the most for the League in that year. I think probably Esther should have had it but because it was her mother’s cup, I fortunately won it and it’s still in existence and people are still winning it year after year. I think that it has so many names on it I thought they ought to give me the old one because I was the first but they didn’t do that. They bought another bowl and they’re going on with it so that was that and then let’s see, I think the next thing that I did was Scouting—that was really coincidental with the ah Junior League because I hadn’t been in town more than a month when Paul and I were both put on the ah Council—the Girl Scout Council and ah it seems that they needed a Commissioner, they called the President a Commissioner and ah so they appointed me—elected me I guess it was, about the month after I went on the Board so that was fun because I had always—I love the out of doors. I’ve been to girl’s camp, I taught dancing and was always for the outdoor things—hiking, swimming, and I loved the out of doors, so I liked Girl Scouting and I forced my two girls to naturally to go in. But they were trying to find a camp and they had been trying for 10 years to find a site. So one Sunday, Paul and I said, “Let’s go out and buy a camp”—so without telling anyone, we went out, we took a flat iron—we heard there was a little lake off out of Deposit in the hills there and we trudged up there and ah sure enough there was a lake and so we had an old leaky rowboat sitting there by the dock—we got in it and rode out and dumped this iron in—it went down so we said, “This is a beautiful lake, just beautiful, we’ll buy it,” so we went down to Deposit, found out who owned it and put a deposit on it, personal, and then came back and told the Council that we had bought this lake and it was perfectly beautiful. We built it up to the point where they couldn’t say it wasn’t. It was a very nice camp and they since enlarged it and to name it we ah both first how, how to build the thing, we had a cocktail party and we had it 3 days before the big blowup in the ah stock market and so we told everyone if they would give us $500.00 for a cabin, their names would go on the cabin and we raised $29,000.00 at that cocktail party and it was 3 days after that, that we took all their checks to the bank and they were all broke—not really but I mean everybody lost money as you know—so that’s the way we built the camp and then later they had enlarged it and they’ve done wonders with it—it’s beautiful.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: What was the name of it?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: We named it Amahami and this was funny too. Ah, Charles Curtis was Vice President of the United States and he was part Indian, so I wrote him a letter and asked him to sent us some Indian names—he was to come up the night we actually named it but he couldn’t make it, however we selected Amahami—much to my sorrow—because they always called it “I’M a mommy” and blamed it on me but anyway that’s just one of—it isn’t very and I, this is ah sort of an offshoot—the other night I spoke at the Business and Professional Women’s Club about past things and this very young looking girl steps up to the rostrum and she’s making a plea for the Girl Scouts and she said, “I don’t suppose any of you know much about them,” and I’m sitting next to her and I poked her and said, “Well I was Commissioner for 7 years,” then later she goes on to say, “Well at Carlisle Housing Project, sometimes the girls can’t pay their registration,” and so again I, she said, “I know none of you here probably know much about what Carlisle is—it’s a Public Housing Project.” I said, “Well I only ran it for 20 years, but that’s all—here’s 2 bucks for a kid for Carlisle,” but that has nothing to do with the work but anyway it was funny after all these years—of course she’s very young—she never heard of me. Anyway I was commissioner for 7 years and then I retired from that. Well then I guess the next thing that I did was to get into ah I didn’t from housing to that did I, Yes I guess I did. I think I was—I didn’t know there was such a thing as public housing in Binghamton—had no idea there was but all of a sudden one day the telephone rang and it was ah Mayor Kramer and he said, “Would I come on the ah Housing Authority as a member?” and I said, “What is it?” He said, “Well we have these housing projects and I’ll take you around and show them to you,” and I said, “Well I’ll come on,” so I came on and ah soon as I, again I always seem to fall under these things without anybody’s knowledge or desire but anyway all of a sudden they had no head of the housing, no commissioner there for head of the housing, so all of a sudden they had this meeting and Paul was sitting there and he said, “I don’t want Dorothy to do this”—they had both men and women on the council then. All right, all of a sudden I’m elected and I’m chairman of the Housing Authority. Well I think that was probably the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me because I loved it, I just loved it and they had just the two then—they had Saratoga Terrace which is on the south side and they had Carlisle which was at the East end.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Moeller Street?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yeah, Moeller Street. Anyway, I went to a meeting at the—I was taken up there and looked at the place—it looks like a college campus because it’s quite pretty—it was and so I go. I come to this meeting and I had told everyone that I was to meet them all so please, if they could get off from work, I’d like to meet the men as well as the women, well come. Well the place was jammed. So I stand up there and I said, “I’ve come to give you some news,” and from the back of the room, rose this great burly guy and he said, “Who the blank do you think you are?” and I said, “Well that’s a good question and maybe I came here to find out.” Well that sort of settled them down. What I really came to tell them was, it seems that they had a painting cycle of the apartments every 3 years and they went down the north side in yellow and the south side in green—period. And I thought that was horrible because any woman who has a home, reacts to color and it isn’t theirs unless they can have what they want. So I had arranged with the State Division of Housing, that is the State operated ah housing—the Saratoga Terrace is and I had arranged with them early to try this—of picking out the number bedrooms and the number of colors they wanted from a chart that happened to be pastel colors and they said I was crazy but finally they agreed with me I could do it. So I told them I had come to really announce that—that they could but I had 3 weeks to get in all their colors—all of their choices and they couldn’t change them once they started because I would order X number of blue, be all of this stuff you see. So they came and in less than 4 days every member there—there were 254 apartments and everybody had come and picked out in 4 days the colors they wanted and the Division, New York State Division was just astounded and the painter said it was, it was the easiest job he ever had. Once in a while he got chicken and he did change some of the colors—well because he had some but that made a great difference. Well then I, well then I found myself an interior decorator because they all came and said, “Well look, ah, Mrs. Titchener, now we don’t know, we have this and that then we put this new color on, would you help us, we can get some.” So I went to the different stores and got bolts of material—I got somebody who knew how to sew, to come up and help them and we had meetings at night and they made new curtains and they made and they covered their furniture and they went at it in a big way and the material was all donated by various stores—bolts of material, not expensive but nice and clean. So the place really did look just beautiful and they were—well, from there on I had them, you know what I mean because I had been, I had done something unusual for them.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: You gained their confidence.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes and I gained their confidence, and so there I was right on top of the heap and I really loved it and it was funny because it was the first time in my life I had seen like 50 kids all the same age playing together. We did put a little fountain in the front yard in memory of one of the ah managers who had died and when we put that in—it ran water, you know—constantly over and over the same and little Catholic children all came out and blessed themselves with it. It was a real cute little fountain but they, they didn’t pull up—we planted ah flowers, we had flower boxes and they didn’t pull them up, they really didn’t and we had a baseball team and we had it in our front yard because it was the only place we had that was level enough to have a field and we couldn’t buy them uniforms or anything and, ah, it was ah, I think Rockefeller when he was Governor, Nelson Rockefeller came down and came to visit it and he played ball with them and so instead of asking for his autograph, we gave him an autographed baseball of our team, which was a switch and they were thrilled with that and they were very excited and a very nice thing happened then. He went for coffee at a house, one of the apartments, a very nice girl and she had a child who had a growth on his eye and ah Nelson Rockefeller looked at it and he said, “I think that should be attended to.” She said, “Well I don’t know who to go to,” and he said, “Well I do and I’ll arrange for you to come up to Albany and see this man.” Well the child had a malignant growth there and it was removed and he was fine. So I like to tell that because it was such a nice thing for him to do and ah he noticed things like that. Well then also ah I think that, that’s about the only time he ever visited but we did many many things for them. We had art classes, we had dances, we had teas and when Jim Gaynor was then head of New York State Housing and he came up—we had a tea—and everybody was very much dressed up and I asked them please to wear their best clothes to serve the tea in the afternoon and I took all my stuff over—I had silver and napkins and lace cloth and all of my stuff and I lugged it over there. We fixed the place all up and we have a nice recreation room there, very nice, large and really very nice, so he said to me afterwards he said, “Who are all these girls, are they Junior League girls?” so I thought that was a nice compliment. We also had people come—Tony’s Hair Parlor, they came once in a while to show them how to do their hair and improve their looks, how to wash it. We had people come it—one thing that was very difficult when they went over, became over income and had to move—they would go out and get some well I would say fly-by-night realtor, someone who wasn’t expensive and he would just take all their money and end up it wasn’t what they wanted and then they’d lose it and then by that time, the place was full and they couldn’t come back. So we did start this, ah, evening course and we asked the Real Estate Board to send different people—I couldn’t pick out one realtor but they would come and give them some advice and then where they could get someone who would not mishandle them and it would be satisfactory. We had a banker come to teach them how to ah take care of their money—in fact one ah little girl who was married very young and her mother came and she brought all her monthly money in little packages. This was for this and this was for that and I was to give them out to her. Incidentally, I want to make it crystal clear that in the 20 years that I worked for Housing, I never was paid one solitary cent except for traveling that I did at their bequest and no one would believe that because I took the role of the Executive Director at many times and most of the time and I had ah that gave me a wonderful weapon because I could go to both the State and Federal Divisions and march in and say, “Now you owe me about $15,000 now and I’d like to put storm windows on,” or I’d like to fix this up and then I really had Mr. Gaynor blow a show when ah I asked was going to put—oh we built the second edition but that was the first thing that I had anything to do with the building and that was Saratoga Heights and ah up there we have, that’s up built on a hillside and I had to first I went to all this elderly groups here in town to say whether they, that we had one small group for the elderly, whether they would like to look at the parking lot or the beautiful view down the valley of the River. Well they chose the parking lot to have their, the community. They wanted to see what’s going on so that’s the way we built it but we did put a little garden that was walled off, not walled but had a fence around it and we had a greenhouse and Jim Gaynor said to me, “Dorothy, that greenhouse will not have a window in it 3 days from the day you put it up.” Well for 6 years, it was filled with flowers—we had one broken window by the wind—and it seemed that all the tenants used it. They came down—the elderly ran it and they’d come down and bring their plants they got for Christmas and that would be nice and they would put them in there and we went to all the greenhouses around in town and they have us seeds and plants and things and they were smart enough to go to all the funeral homes, because most of them used geraniums all through the summer and they’d go and get them and cut them and have slips and they had enough geraniums to cover their place and all three places, Carlisle and Saratoga Terrace and Saratoga Heights—so that was very successful. I understand now that’s not in use but I don’t go there now. After I retired I just leave—I don’t want to talk about it at all. I mean I, I don’t feel I should say anything because people would simply comment that I was being bitter or something.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: What years were you—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Well I was there in 1939 and 20 years, what would that be 20?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: ‘59.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: 30.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: ‘39 to ‘59 would be 20 years.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: ‘39 to, oh no no, I didn’t go in ‘39, what’s the matter with me—that’s when I ah yes it was, that’s when I was on the radio, I’m sorry. No I’m sorry that’s a mistake—I don’t know when I did go.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: When did you retire? We’ll go back 20 years.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Well I went down, retired in ‘74.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: ‘74.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Ok, so that would be ‘54.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes, that’s better, that’s better, thank you. You can see I’m very good in arithmetic. No, 39, I, I had my profession with the very end what I did to make money—well that was really a great thing. Another thing they offered the Authority—we had 5 members—I had a marvelous Authority—there were 5 of us on it, including me and the State offered us ah, ah I think it was $1500 a year, if we wished, for traveling expenses and we turned it down every year because we felt that this was too good. People would want to come in to make that $1500. It would mean something to them and we refused it, although there were a couple of members on our authority who could well have used that money and I always felt they were so brave and fine not to take it because we felt it put us in a different category and this way we could say we are volunteering this—we were giving out time and energy. Another thing, it was a little difficult to run, in this respect, the people whom we hired could not make the going rate because we couldn’t afford to because our rentals were based on the person’s income and it wasn’t great I can tell you that, so we had to give them extra—I used to call them “bingebellet benefits” because we would let—we would close the office and all go to a party and go out for lunch and things like that and in some ways we were a very cohesive group and ah worked well together that way and it, a Bill Johnson, when he was the Master of Ceremonies when I retired and I always remember what he said—he said, “Dorothy would, her her opinion was—let’s do what we want to do, then tell them afterwards.” That’s about the way we did. We went on to, when we built the ah—the next thing we built after the Heights was the ah housing for the elderly on Exchange Street—the two high rise and I didn’t want them named because I though, I think that’s what some owner’s people know—Carlisle Hill you know instantly that’s public housing, I said, “Why shouldn’t they have an address just like I do?” Like Exchange Street and Isbell Street a number is the number of your apartment. So, after much consideration, I knew Ken McKenzie who has since died—he was on the authority and he said, “Well ah let’s call it the Senile Silo”—so we had a lot of bright ideas like that. Well we hired a man from New York because nobody had built high rise here—we had architects local for the other buildings but here no one had built high rises at that time. So ah a high rise built for ah one of the housing divisions was different from building it privately because you are, actually it is much better built than this building for instance because of the regulations and all the things that are there to help them—it’s very well built. Well anyway we had someone from and incidentally that was the day that we hired the contractor, the ah the ah architect I mean, for building of the high rise—it was a luncheon and ah that was the day my husband died that afternoon, very suddenly.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: What year was that Mrs. Titchener?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Well when did he—don’t ask me dates like that—he died—he’s been dead 14 years.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: 14 years.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: February, 14 years this February so you can subtract that again. I flunked arithmetic, maybe you guessed that already.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Well that’s all right—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: I’ll tell you 2 and 2 don’t make 4, especially if you have guinea pigs.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: For anyone who flunked arithmetic, you’ve certainly been successful.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Well I ran, I often say that ah people didn’t realize what they were getting into because I ran about a 4, 5 or 6 million business you know with the total. Now I have something here that I’m going to read from because it does give you a really meaning account of what, what the public housing is and what I said about it and if you don’t mind I’m going to read it because I could go off on a tangent but this is when I went in ah took over the ah money raising for PAL and I didn’t really like that. I like PAL but I had nothing to say in that—it was all Tony Ruffo—wouldn’t—he ran it really. They used my name is what they did and any ideas they had why and unless I can—I’m not an artist but I’ve created, I have ideas and I put them through and I won’t I don’t stop until I finish them and this he didn’t like I think and so I didn’t enjoy that because and another thing I didn’t enjoy was that he went to the newspaper and he got my Obit and printed it—had it printed. It didn’t say I was dead but it did leave that off but the rest of it was pretty and this is what was taken from that really but it’s ah—I had many experiences in housing that were very exciting and very different. Incidentally ah once I ah was sitting there and ah we had an Executive Director there at that time, a woman and she was very good and I was sitting there when ah this Black man came in and he said he’d seen in the paper a Black woman had died there and he wanted that apartment and ah she very kindly told him that we had a waiting list and you had to put your name down and the gentleman that he brought in was very very inebriated—he was holding him up—so he finally looked at me and he said, “Oh I know who you are,” and I had a Cadillac at that time and he said, “I’m going to burn your Cadillac if you don’t give this gentleman this apartment,” and I called him by name and I said, I’ll say Joe but it wasn’t, I said, “Joe, go ahead,” and I flipped him some matches I said, “It’s right outside the door here and here’s the matches.” He disappeared with the gentleman immediately. That was one thing that happened and another night we had a meeting at Saratoga and I had two men there and we had tenants meetings once a month to make it—tell all their grievances and we had the various ones try and answer them and help them out and so forth and we had ah, ah, I had a word from the Society, oh, what do you call it? Ah, dope. What do you call ‘em—have names, I can’t think anyway.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Narcotics.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Narcotics—that’s what I’m trying, that’s the word I’m trying to think of, anyway the head of the Narcotics Division here called me and said he understood there was an apartment there that they were dispensing it and they didn’t know exactly where it was and asked me to try and find out. Well I had a suspicion so I did find out and they later proclaimed that that was right and the sister of this woman who lived in this apartment knew that I had found out and she came blazing in and her eyes were very red. She pulled a switchblade on me but fortunately it was across a card table—it was like that (referring to table in apartment) and it just got within about 3 inches and everybody ran out, we had elderly there, they all moved out when I said, “Please leave, just leave and be quiet,” and I turned to this woman, whom I liked very much and still do—I like her very much but she was really high on something, what, I do not know—could have been alcohol, could have been drugs—I don’t know that but she was high anyway so I got out of that all right but when I walked out of that room, she was still behind me and I can tell you right now, I felt that blade between my shoulder blades all the way to the door but the men, they disappeared, everybody disappeared but I’ve seen her lately and she’s a very fine woman and she’s completely all right and I, she’s a very pretty—she’s a Black woman but very nice woman and has done a great deal for the community. So it was, those were some of the incidents. Oh and one other, back at Carlisle which is similar. Ah, I put a woman out who had lived there and they had been trying to get her out and nobody had the courage enough to do it and I did put her out. So she had some of her relatives and her friends call me and say that if I came to this meeting, she would shoot me—that she had a gun, so I said to my husband, “What will I do?” and he said, “Well you either go or give up your job, you can’t let them do that to you. You have to accept it—now you do one or the other, that’s all.” Well I was furious, because I thought well that’s a fine thing so I got in my car and all the way up, I tried to decide what how I’ll leave Paul, you know, because he’s so mean and I got up there and get in the meeting and everything and the rest of the tenants cheered because they had wanted her out for a long time and nothing happened, so when I came out, this gentleman, police car came up to me and said, “Mrs. Titchener, we have been here all along—your husband called me,” so you see that spared me getting a divorce. (laughter) It was really funny though because I thought, well, dear me, what, what is going on? Well now I better get down to this because this I think does say something about—it says, “Dorothy Titchener is color blind, sympathetic and empathetic to be administrator of 612 housing units for which the Housing Authority has responsibility. She dislikes the term ‘Housing Units’ as a merciless, bureaucratic phrase which does not reflect the essential human factors which exist in 612 families from lonely old oldsters to 14 member households. She has the reputation among most of her tenants of being warm hearted, hard headed, fair and tough. Her principal problem is—there is always some 300 families seeking apartments which are not available. Mrs. Titchener feels that she administers a society of microcosms, a society embracing any society’s proportion of success, failure, love, hate, happiness, despondent, culture, and delinquency. She considers law enforcement of prominent importance in any society. She feels that many otherwise astute citizens do not understand the so-called housing under the edicts under the Housing Authority. A highly paid executive with 12 children, she said, can readily be considered a poor man but richer or poorer than the Viet, the Vietnam veterans with no skills, a wife and child. The State sets the income limits which must be instituted by an applicant’s payroll deduction forms. The authority counts the dependents. Mrs. Titchener and her colleagues must then measure all other human factors relating to their interest.” So that gives you a rather hard line view of what it is and I do feel that people misunderstand it because they used to say and this is why we didn’t name the other place and another thing we did when they moved in, we gave them one sheet of paper with their address in an envelope—it was in their apartment when they moved in a we moved in all the families in 2 days, who were eligible.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: That is for Isbell and—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes, Isbell and Exchange Street.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: 45.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Well then we made our Central Office there—that’s what it became and in a sense that was in a way more difficult because I saw less of the other 2 places because my office was down there and that seemed to be much more and I knew them all and when I retired, they gave me in dimes, nickels and dollars and quarters $375.00 from the elderly tenants down there and I didn’t know what to do with it. I could think of nothing I could buy that would be meaningful so I asked if anyone else wished to contribute to it, though I didn’t do it myself, but Mr. Johnson said if anyone wanted to. I came up with almost $1000.00 of additional money that was given and I gave that to the Fairview Home for fun parties. They were not to buy equipment—they were to bring movies in that were real, have sherry parties, they were to entertain with it and have fun because my life has been one of great enjoyment and fun. I just really love it. Well now to get to ah to go back on some of the things that I didn’t leave you—different awards that I’ve had ah some are in this room. I’ve had 18 scrolls or plaques or something in my life which I consider quite something because I don’t deserve hardly any of them but anyway I, I thoroughly enjoy them. I had a War Certificate for raising, this was when I had—well my profession was radio and television, as I told you and I was on radio then and I sold War Bonds.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: This was for WWI?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes—no it must have been II, I think it was II—yes because I had moved. WWI I was still in school and I came here. This was in WWII. But we wanted to get—buy a bomber. They needed bombers and so ah we raised $310,000.00 in one night and ah Thomas Watson paid for a program for us so we didn’t have to pay for that and so and he gave me a check for $1000.00 because we had 20—this friend of mine, who was a public relations director later of Housing, but she helped ah she had 10 or 20 phones coming in with money coming in and she would bring out the money and Dottie Baker who was then, had been on WNBF as a commentator and she did the commentary for this program and then it was coming in so slowly that he had a fit because anything he was connected with, you know, must be successful, you know he had that feeling of success and that was it—so what was I doing and I kept sending back why, why get it—well the phones were clogged—it took us until the next day really so he gave me a check for $100,000.00—he had already purchased a $10,000 bond, so had Mrs. Watson and I took the check and tore it in pieces and dropped it in his hand, which was the biggest thrill of my life to do that and we did raise $310,000. We bought the bomber and we called it “Broome Sweeps the Air,” something like that. Well that was an award that I got from the Government, then I got the Girl Scout National Thanks Badge, which is a pin and I got a certificate for founding the Camp at a later date. Then the thing I liked the best is the American Legion Award, Post 80, because my husband got it just 10 years before I did and then after he was gone, why I received it and I and Dr. Mary Ross is the only other woman to ever receive this award and I’m the second women and of course she is not alive so I’m the only woman now who has received it and I—it was in 1967 that I got that and then I got a Senior Homes Plaque when we built the—from the Housing Authority—I got a plaque for that and then I got a certificate for that from the tenants themselves with giving them a home and so forth at Exchange Street and both of them I got in 1968, that was. Then Sertoma Club gave me an International Award for exceptional service to mankind—that sounds kind of big—I don’t know who mankind are but anyway this was in 1969 and then the Local Sertoma also gave me an award the same year and the Ladies of Charity for Exceptional Community Service in 1969, the New York State President of Housing and Urban Renewal in 1970. I got into that, I was State President of that and ah that was ah for outstanding work and then I got this one which pleases me greatly for outstanding management of Public Housing from the Management Association—I thought that was pretty good because I never considered myself a manager—I’ve managed but I always did it so, you know, iffy—I thought so, anyway that pleased me, that was in 1971 and a 20 year award for Housing and Renewal accomplishments in ‘72 and a New York State award of Good Management from the State Public Housing in New York in 1968 and then just recently in 1977 I was the Woman of Achievement award and that isn’t a plaque, that’s a I don’t know, it’s a scroll and then ah I told you about the newspaper and I got an award for that—doing the newspaper for the Junior League. Now in business and Professional Women, I have several offices. I was local Vice President—I never was President of my Club because they always said I didn’t fool around with little things so I went on—I was Regional Director and then I was State President, then I was National Radio Chairman and then I was International Radio and Television Chairman and as International Chairman of that, I broadcast from Canada on BBC to welcome a new club in England—welcome them into the Federation and incidentally along with that, the founder of the Business and Professional Women’s Club was a Lena Madison Phillips and she was going away and she asked me to take her place on the Security Council in ah United Nations Security Council in New York for one day so I had the thrill of doing that for her and she incidentally died on that trip so I never saw her again. She was a great friend of mine. Another great friend of mine among a woman who I admired greatly was Eleanor Roosevelt. I knew her very well and I, and she was very, very good to me and gave me a great deal of good advice—fine advice. I knew her in her late years after the President died. Then ah, I told you International—oh I opened, when I was State President of Business and Professional Women’s Club, I opened the first State Office here in Binghamton in my house of Riverside Drive and the first Secretary worked for me—we called her the Secretary of State, so we had a lot of fun with that. I was ah I told you TV and International Chairman, I opened office. I, also the first State magazine. I like to write and so ah a lot of my work has been done in writing—I’ve never done anything—I’ve never tried to publish anything because I don’t, I never wanted anyone to see it but I write a lot and I oh did write a pageant that we gave at the State Convention and that was I have that several other places too and ah then our big thing was when we put up Margaret Chase Smith as for Vice President and I didn’t know her then but I just called her and got her. Well, on the phone, I was astounded—it was like calling the White House, you know, sometimes you get ‘em, mostly don’t but I did get her and then Judge Hughes was, has been National President of BPW and she was in Texas and Margaret of course came from Maine. All right, we went to this Convention and it was a wow, because, I told you about taking the handkerchief back, there was just three of us, this is the Democratic Convention.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">[Tape #2]</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: …but on the floor there it had been tried. I had to bull my way on the Democratic (fly) so I had a very good one. She called me, I didn’t go to the Republican Convention and she called me at home and it was all on TV, I could look at it and she said, “I think we have a winner here,” and we had ah, Clare Booth Luce to nominate and Margaret Chase Smith. Senator Smith couldn’t come because her mother was dying in a Maine Hospital and at the last minute she had to decline coming. So it was all set though that Clare Booth Luce was to nominate and she got up and she stood there when someone came up and handed her a small piece of paper, whereupon, she read, “Oh this is a great surprise, Senator Smith has withdrawn her name.” Well we all could have flopped—well you can imagine what her real manager did to me—he called me up and said, “What are you doing, she did not withdraw her name.” Now they, they’ve made an investigation of it and they know the two people who did it—I won’t tell them it’s none of my business but he really gave me Goddy because what was I doing to take her name and smear it all over. We ran it—we sold bricks at the National Convention—we called them bricks—a buck for a brick and we raised $1010.00—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Wonderful.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: —for that, and ah we divided that equally between, ah, between Senator Smith and Judge Hughes and so we ran that whole campaign and we had about 4 million dollars worth of publicity because it was such a unique thing for women to do then, you see, you couldn’t do it that way not of course but we were very naive about it and I happened to know Drew Pearson through my work in radio—I was a member of the American Women in radio and TV, I forgot that—I used to go with them once in a while—the men would come to that and we’d go to theirs, their convention—the men—so I knew him and he was going to run, they had 8 people running for Vice President of the Democratic ticket, among them F.D.R. Jr. and a lot of people were running. So I went down to see him and he said he was going to run a contest Sunday night and ask people to phone in their choice because he, he thought that would be [an] interesting feature. So ah, Leona Wallace, this friend of mine, ran a, a small advertising agency and she was running the publicity for our group so I called her and I said, “Get every State President and send to them this notice,” and said that to for them to get every club in their State to send in votes for Judge Hughes. So the whole thing ended with Judge Hughes getting 390 votes and the rest of them got 10, 11 and 12 and 14, like that and I went down the next day and poor Drew Pearson was all slumped over and he says, “Hey Dot what’s going on?” and I said, he says, “Who in blank is Sarah Hughes?” So that was quite an event anyway and she was nominated and the two reporters from ah it was Woody Fischette and ah who later wrote a very fine column about me which was in the Congressional Record—I’ve been in that twice—through Senator Smith’s efforts and anyway he was one and ah McManus who later worked with Rockefeller was the other one and they were furious because they were required to stay over the next morning and see Judge Hughes nominated for Vice President and we only had—they kept asking me how many votes I had. I said, “Oh a block.” Well we called, we called 12 a block see—anyway we ah—she withdrew her name, she just wanted to be nominated.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: What Presidential election was this, Mrs. Titchener?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Ah when Eisenhower was running against Taft.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: All right.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: That was the reason we got all these things.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: I see.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: That’s the reason the Republican people worked to embarrass them—the Taft people wanted to embarrass ah Eisenhower—they wanted to get someone in there to embarrass him if Taft was not going to win so that’s why we had such success there and we really, really got in on that. We had one funny incident because ah the Democrats put up that woman who had been a party worker for many years—I can’t think of her name now, but it doesn’t matter, anyway she had a big dinner and she didn’t invited Sarah Hughes as a candidate, so I went to her and said, “What are you doing? She’s a candidate.” “Oh,” she said, “I don’t think she is going to get anywhere,” and I said, “Well whether she gets anywhere or not, you invite her.” So she went but she was seated way down nowhere near the, the head table. So we went to a cocktail party, a huge one the Pennsylvania group were giving and the reporters, some of them were in there and this reporter said, “I hear some dame’s running,” another dame besides this one who was really well known and I said, “Yes,” I said, “She’s going to win, I’M telling ya so you want to meet her?” So I, we march in and so there’s one seat left at the head table—at the end of the head table so we march in—this girl with me was a reporter and we see Sarah. “Come on, Sarah, you have been invited up to the head table.” So she gets up to the head table, so he’s taking pictures of her and this other woman is raging and Vickie Levene, incidentally, Victoria Levene, was running this other woman’s candidate, was helping with it. She was furious too of course, because here I was with, just sashaying up there with, with Sarah. Well it all ended all right because Sarah finally gave up and didn’t do anything about it. So I told you about selling the bricks and ah I told you about the different things that we did for the tenants and all the places we had dances and teas and then finally I retired from Housing in 1974 and I worked briefly at Roberson Memorial Christmas Shop for a while and then I was on the ah lay Board of the State Hospital and there they didn’t care much for volunteers because they were, they felt that ah volunteers didn’t know anything and so I, I, I stayed on about a year and then I retired from that and then I was on the lay board of the Board of Education—that was even worse (laughter). NO, no they wouldn’t they didn’t want us—all they wanted us to do was to—they made me publicity chairman and all they didn’t want me to do any publicity unless it was saying how great they were. When I told the truth of things that I saw, they blacked it out—so that was useless. So now I have retired in grace and am having a wonderful time and I love my life and I do what I please now for a change.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Wonderful.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: And I think I told you about my profession was, and oh I acted as a Persia Campbell—was head of the consumer’s department for New York State under Harriman and I worked as a consultant for her. Now these are things where I had made money and I got $25.00 a day to go around to ah clubs in this county—nearby clubs and consult with them about consumer problems, knowing nothing about them. I, I’ve never been very good at that but anyway I can, I can falsify.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Well most of your life has been volunteer work, Mrs. Titchener.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: It’s been entirely volunteer work except I did make money. I did teach dancing once—I did write a column for the Press once for which I received money and I got money for this and of course I had that radio program and I had very good money when i worked for—I worked for 8 years for McLean’s—I ran a contest there and I worked there 8 years and then I went to ah down to WENE and there I would not—I persuaded ah Tom Watson, Mr. Watson that he needed me very badly and that I didn’t want to go under the name of IBM because I would have to be so, you know, so strict about what I said so he just gave me a little note to Charlie Curtin and he says, “Give Dorothy what she wants for money,” and we put it under the Endicott Chamber of Commerce and I worked there almost 9 years and I made very good money there and I was sent all over doing things and ah then I told you about oh and I was also on this Empire State Housing and Renewal Board for 3 years that ah Rockefeller started and they built Ely Park, they were—I was on that Board for a while and I guess that’s all that I did and—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Now when you ah took over ah the ah—you were Chairman of the ah Housing Board, is that right?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Was that your title?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Chairman of Housing Authority.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Of Housing Authority. Now Carlisle and ah Saratoga Heights had already been built but you were instrumental in building 25 Exchange Street and Isbell?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes, yes it’s 45 Exchange.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: 45 Exchange, yes. Now the funding of the housing units, is that ah on a percentage basis—so much by City, so much by the State?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Well the State, the State furnishes ah moving for the State problems, the State division and the State ones are Saratoga Terrace and Saratoga Heights are both State—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Funded.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Funded, but the funding is in this matter—you are the first year because you hadn’t made anything yet and you’ve got very low income and you can’t possibly pay all your debts so you were given a subsidy but then you cut that down every year.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: I see.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: And finally at the end we weren’t getting any subsidy—we were self-sufficient and when I left the Housing Authority, we owed $13.00 and I understand now from the papers that they owe some 37 or 47 thousand.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: You better get back in it.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yeah, any day.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Now the same thing is applied with Isbell and Exchange Street.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: So that was subsidized—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: And we cut it down every year and we do pay taxes to the City of Binghamton.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: In other words diminished ah diminishing subsidization.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes, right and we do pay taxes but because we pay ah 10% of our rent with the utilities subtracted, because we give them utilities. We take the total cost of utilities at the end of the year, the telephone is not provided but their gas and their heat, electricity—that’s all provided. We take the cost of that and then what is left from that we take 10% of the balance and pay to the City in the form of a tax.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: I see.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: And I argued with ah always had my picture taken presenting them with a check for the newspapers because everyone said, “Oh we’re paying for all this.” Well now that is not necessary if you have good management.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Right.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: And I had such a marvelous board—it was not—I was the one who sparked them—who did things because I just can’t wait to unfurl about 20 yards of red tape—that annoys me so I just do it and tell them afterwards. That was really true, but the Board was so good.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Isbell Street and Exchange Streets went so smoothly.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yes.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Ah is so much so that in contrast with Woodburn Court—now everything has been torn down and—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Now Woodburn Court, I really was against doing that. What I wanted in Woodburn Court and tried very hard to get it—in fact I had a personal check from a large industry in this community of $100,000 as seed money and I tried very hard to get them to make it—if you say Halfway House, you think of something alcoholic—I wanted an intermediary place where some of the elderly people who live in Exchange, who can no longer care for their apartments, could move with some care ah have ah have their meals prepared and have a dining room and have their meals prepared and have it a transition from that to going into some home which they ultimately have to go to or else a hospital or something of that nature. So that’s what I tried very hard to have Woodburn Court and they turned me down and of course I had to fight with City Council for everything we got. We had to put on a floor show and just ram it down their throats.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Do you think the delay has been the lack of communication between the Mayor and City Council?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: I really don’t know that I have a—I did not fight for Woodburn Court because when I lost interest I had, I gave the check back to the organization because it was nearing the end of my time and I worked very hard and I’ve had fights and fights and fights with the City Council and I was expecting my paper, my picture in the paper upside down or something.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: There seems to be so much of wasted land there on Susquehanna Street with no provisions made for the future.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: I think that Woodburn Court probably will be successful but I think the Exchange Street is going to suffer by it because everybody from there who can go into Woodburn Court is going to move there.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Yeah, will the tenants of Woodburn Court, ah, have to meet the same qualifications?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: No they have—that’s on another Federal program—that’s a Federal project and that’s on another program—I can’t tell you the number ah they’re always talking numbers to me and then I would have to go to my little Bible and look it up because I was too old something you know but they are being subsidized partially—their rent is being subsidized by the Federal people and they are paid for the for the ah the person who is building it—the builder can’t afford of course—things have gone up so now.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Sure.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: If that had been built 7 years ago it would have been better but it wasn’t and I really don’t know why. I know there were all sorts of reasons probably but I never pushed it. I never, I had nothing to do with Woodburn Court, in fact I hoped it wouldn’t be built because i thought, I think that ah Exchange Street is having trouble enough now.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Yeah.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: They’re always advertising for apartments and we had a waiting list of 300 people and they were so jealous of that waiting list, they’d call, you know, ask where they were on it and we really, we really stuck to that but I don’t know I, I really don’t know as I say I don’t go down there. I thought that I would have a lot of fun because I had many friends there and I would visit them but I was told to stay out and I have stayed out and I don’t know I think there may have been some sort of personal jealousy, I don’t know, but I know everything with my name on it, even little things that said, “Please don’t put your garbage in the hall,” even little notices like that have been destroyed—anything that had my name attached to it. That, I don’t know why but I guess I’m that controversial type of person and they didn’t want any part of it—that’s it—but I did love it and it gave me the greatest satisfaction next to my own children and then the last thing I have done is my book. I have to get that in because I’ve had so many, so many honors and so one day my daughter called me up one night and she said, “You know, Mother, you’re gonna die.” I said, “Are you figuring on tonight or something like that?” She said, “No, I thought you’re always writing poetry and you stick it around and we’re going to drop it all down the incinerator,” so that made me mad so I decided to do this and I’ve been trying to think of some way to repay this community for the wonderful things they have done for me so I dedicated my book—I call it </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Seasoning</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and dedicated it to Jim, Ann and Jean and their families who have seasoned my life with joy and then I said Foreword: “This small book is a gift. It is my way to say Thank You to the many agencies for whom I have worked, who have so graciously honored me in the past and hopefully will bring some pleasure to my countless acquaintances and warm personal friends.” So I didn’t sell the book—I had it printed at my expense and then gave it to these organizations to sell for their own charities and Sertoma took some and BPW and Zonta and the church had some and various other organizations asked for them and I ordered a hundred and I thought I could never get rid of a hundred and the printer said to me, “I have to do the whole thing alone”—my children were going to help me and they all left and so I had to pick out the design and I had to do the printing and the paper and you know, pick the whole thing out and put it all in and I had my children all in here—they had all done something—they’re all here in the back. Anyway I had a lot of fun doing it and then I have it and they had made enough money, lots of them, to do really fine things because they were selling them for $5.00 and I was not, at my age, going to start out selling books. So anyway this is the way I did it and I feel in a way that I had paid back some of the wonderful things that really I, I just can’t say enough about how much has been done for me.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Well everything has been deserved, Mrs. Titchener.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: I don’t know, I don’t know.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: On one last note—the naming of Titchener Hall?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Oh yes.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: At Broome Community College.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: That was wonderful. Ah Paul, of course, was the organizer, he was the founder and went to ah Governor Dewey and persuaded him that this would be necessary and that was fine and then he was the first Chairman of the Board there and he was Chairman for many years. So when he retired ah he asked to be able to name a successor—to name a couple of people and that’s when Darwin Wales went on as Chairman because he was a great friend of Paul and is a great friend of mine. So they gave this dinner and in the meantime they had a painting painted of Paul by ah ah, next door—what’s his name ah you know the man next door—the artist—his wife Mae, he runs Roberson?</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Martin.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Martin, anyway he painted this portrait of Paul and he painted without Paul knowing it and they showed it at this dinner. Well it was very stern and ah Paul wasn’t too pleased with it nor I because—but he did allow us to make some changes and we did make changes and now it is very fine and so they named Titchener Hall for him and that was in January, that this party was in January. They had a big party and Paul was very happy but we were going around the world. We had our way paid all the way around and I like to tell this because of the kindness of people. We had reservations in almost every country we went to in several places because Paul liked very much—he was a very man who wanted everything right and he always had to just get it right.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Uh huh—very methodical.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Excuse me, the point was that ah I wrote to all of them when he died very suddenly, without any warning whatsoever on the Wednesday before we were to leave on Friday. So I wrote all these places and I received every cent of money back even from—the last ones to give it back were the fares from the who was here right in this country but Cooks was the last ones to pay back. They said, they called me said, “It’d have to be something final,” and I said, “Well if death isn’t final, would you kindly tell me what is?” and they sent the money and so I got—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Isn’t that a shame? 3 days before you were ready to leave.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Yeah, we were all packed and everything else all ready to go but in a way he would have been miserable because he was a very active man. He had a job—he was going to run Housing for the City and he had a job in City Hall and when he came back he was looking forward to doing this—that’s one reason I went into this so wholeheartedly after he died because I thought maybe I’m left to do the things that he never had the opportunity to do.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Right.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Because he really was, he was a very—some people were afraid of him because he had a rather severe, austere appearance but he had a great sense of humor and from, when I became President, nominated President of the State, I asked him if he wanted me to do it because it meant I would have to be away nights quite a lot to travel around to the various clubs for dinners and he said, “Well Dot, I’d rather have dust under my bed than dust in your head”—just was a cute remark.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: It ah it was a blessing in disguise that it didn’t happen while you were—</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Oh yes, not only that but he would have been, he had ah really a hemorrhage very similar to what ah Franklin Roosevelt had—it was completely devastating and he would have been a vegetable had he survived and that would have not been for such. Now this book is a very personal book—it’s simply about my family and about the things I love out of doors. It’s not anything that anyone although people have been very kind to say they like it but and I have ah something from Karen Schmitt—I have one from each family—something that they have written.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Uh huh.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: And ah that’s very nice. I have my own self portrait here and then I have something, mostly written to my family and ah things of that kind and that’s what I did with it and the BPW on my 80th birthday gave me a birthday party and they told me they had given all the money they have received from this book to the ah New York State Scholarship Fund which pleased me a great deal.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: From what was that?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Received from this book—the Business and Professional Women’s Club. So they sent that, sent the money that they received from selling their books. So I thought that I had accomplished something for both of us that I have the pleasure of having done it and this is purely personal—I have my children, none of them live here, none of them so I’m always alone holidays. So I decided on my 80th birthday, I’d have it at Thanksgiving, which would be better weather and I brought them all here and I brought them from 7 states and they were here 4 days and I had to put some up in motels because obviously haven’t room here and I had them for 4 days and we had breakfast and lunch here and then dinners we went out.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Uh huh.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: And it happened to be my youngest grandson’s birthday on Thanksgiving, so we had his birthday party and mine at the ah restaurant and had a marvelous time. I don’t think I went to bed for 4 nights because we stayed up and talked and laughed and I have, I have a controversial family I say they have inherited more of me than their more conservative father and we just ripped the roof off—completely (laughter). So will that simple note unless you have something more to ask me.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Well you’re a very remarkable woman Mrs. Titchener, I certainly appreciate your consenting to this interview.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: Well I’ve enjoyed it. I like to do things if it, it will be helpful.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: It certainly will be.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mrs. Titchener: And thanks loads. I’ve enjoyed, I’ve enjoyed doing it very much and I want to thank the Action for Elderly for thinking this up.</span></p>
<br />
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Dan: Thank you.</span></p>
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
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Interview with Dorothy Titchener
Subject
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Titchener, Dorothy -- Interviews; Broome County (N.Y.) -- History; Binghamton (N.Y.); Broome Community College; Titchener, Paul; Girl Scouts of the United States of America; Women -- Societies and clubs; Junior League of New York; Business and Professional Women/USA; Women -- Political activity; Amahami Girl Scout Camp; Girl Scout Council; Housing Authority; Politics
Description
An account of the resource
Dorothy Titchener speaks about her life including her marriage to Paul Titchener, the founder of <a href="http://www1.sunybroome.edu/">Broome Community College</a>, and working twenty years as chairman of the Housing Authority. She mentions her affiliation with the Business and Professional Women's Club and their efforts to nominate <a href="http://www.aauw.org/2013/11/21/judge-sarah-tilghman-hughes/">Judge Sarah Hughes</a> as Vice President during the Eisenhower-Taft election. She lists among her acquaintances individuals, such as, President and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt and <a href="http://www.hallofgovernors.ny.gov/NelsonRockefeller">Governor Rockefeller</a>. She also details her achievements with the Girl Scouts Council and purchasing a lake, named Amahami, as a camp for the Girl Scouts club. She mentions her affiliation with the Junior League and Business and Professional Women's Club, as well as other local organizations.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
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This audio file and digital image may only be used for educational purposes. Please cite as: Broome County Oral History Project, Special Collections, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton University, State University of New York. For usage beyond fair use please contact the Binghamton University Libraries Special Collections for more information.
Format
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audio/m4a
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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Recording 61A ; Recording 61B; Recording 61C
Contributor
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Titchener, Dorothy ; O'Neil, Dan
Date
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1978-03-15
Date Modified
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2016-03-27
Is Part Of
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Broome County Oral History Project
Extent
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33:54 Minutes ; 11:28 Minutes ; 30:07 Minutes
-
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c8e771633f6eb3269e83e023582fc7b8.jpg
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https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6af36a516868bec14de5602f1111fca2.mp3
fd4e61953ba9079b69b4a83fcff342f0
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
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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.
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Date of Interview
2010-01-03
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Adam Green, 1963-
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Digital Format
audio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
115:37
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Civil Rights Movement; Baby boom generation; African Americans; Nineteen sixties; Racial issues; Philadelphia; City government; Communities; Prisons; Women in prison; HIV/AIDS; John F. Kennedy."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":513,"3":{"1":0},"12":0}">Civil Rights Movement; Baby boom generation; African Americans; Nineteen sixties; Racial issues; Philadelphia; City government; Communities; Prisons; Women in prison; HIV/AIDS; John F. Kennedy.</span>
Subject LCSH
Historians; College teachers; Central High School (Little Rock, Ark.); Green, Adam, 1963--Interviews
Biographical Text
<span>Dr. Adam Green is a historian, professor, and son of Ernest Green, who was one of the Little Rock Nine. Dr. Adam Green received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Yale University. He does research and teaches in a variety of fields, including twentieth-century U.S. history, African American history, urban history, cultural studies, and social movements. He has written and co-written two books,</span> <em>Selling the Race: Culture and Community in Black Chicago 1940-1955</em> and <em>Time Longer than Rope: Studies of African-American Activists 1850-1950</em>.
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Dr. Adam Green
Contributor
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Green, Adam, 1963- ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Historians; College teachers; Central High School (Little Rock, Ark.); Green, Adam, 1963--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
<span>Dr. Adam Green is a historian, professor, and son of Ernest Green, who was one of the Little Rock Nine. Dr. Adam Green received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Yale University. He does research and teaches in a variety of fields, including twentieth-century U.S. history, African American history, urban history, cultural studies, and social movements. He has written and co-written two books,</span> <em>Selling the Race: Culture and Community in Black Chicago 1940-1955</em> and <em>Time Longer than Rope: Studies of African-American Activists 1850-1950</em>.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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2010-01-03
Rights
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In copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.125a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.125b
Date Modified
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2018-03-29
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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115:37
-
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3d908d792f9feff4fb690993858a8d3f
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/4b0a2778cfbab258100cd4318f8f5a68.mp3
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Audio interviews
Title
A name given to the resource
McKiernan Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br />
<h3>The McKiernan 22</h3>
<div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li>
<li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li>
</ul>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stephen McKiernan
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription
This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field.
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Date of Interview
1997-08-13
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Alan Brinkley
Language
English
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Alan Brinkley is an author, scholar and a professor of American History Columbia University. He specializes in the history of twentieth-century America. Dr. Brinkley has been part of the Columbia University faculty for 27 years where he also served as the University Provost and chair of the Department of History. He previously taught American History at the University of Cambridge and Oxford University. Dr. Brinkley received his Bachelor's degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from Harvard Univeristy."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":15107,"3":{"1":0},"4":{"1":2,"2":16777215},"11":4,"12":0,"14":[null,2,4995385],"15":"Arial","16":11}">Dr. Alan Brinkley (June 2, 1949 - June 17, 2019) was an author, scholar and professor of American History at Columbia University. He specialized in the history of twentieth-century America. Dr. Brinkley has been part of the Columbia University faculty for 27 years where he also served as the University Provost and chair of the Department of History. He previously taught American History at the University of Cambridge and Oxford University. Dr. Brinkley received his Bachelor's degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University.</span>
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University libraries
Digital Format
ausio/mp4
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
MicroCassette
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Youth Rebellion; Historian; abortion; Political Correctness; Tolerance; trust; empowerment; Berrigan Brothers; Benjamin Spock; Black Power Activist; Timothy Leary; Martin Luther King Jr.; John F. Kennedy; George McGovern"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":2,"4":{"1":2,"2":14281427}}">Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; Youth Rebellion; Historian; abortion; Political Correctness; Tolerance; trust; empowerment; Berrigan Brothers; Benjamin Spock; Black Power Activist; Timothy Leary; Martin Luther King Jr.; John F. Kennedy; George McGovern</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
68:21
Subject LCSH
Authors; Scholars; College Teachers; Columbia University; Brinkley, Alan--Interviews
Accessibility
Copy/Paste below:
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium
McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Alan Brinkley
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 13 August 1997
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Start of Interview)
SM (00:00:05):
... now to make sure it is coming out okay. The boomer generation is of course individuals who have been born between the years 1946 and 1964. That is the categorization. I would like your comments, Dr. Brinkley, on your thoughts on individuals who try to categorize an entire generation of 70 plus million people for a lot of the ills of American society today in 1997, 1998. I would like just your overall thoughts on what you think the impact of the boomer generation is on America than this year in 1997.
AB (00:00:47):
Well, I think the only way to answer that question is to try to think about what is distinctive about the boomer generation. And that is made more difficult of course, by this very expansive chronological definition, 1946 to 1964, that is almost 20 years. Which means in theory that two members of the same generation could be parent and child. So, I prefer to think of the boomer generation as the people who were born in the first 10 years or so after World War II. Even though the definition that you are using is a a longer one. I think there are two things that are distinctive about that generation. The first is its size, and that is an obvious distinction. This is the biggest generation in American history. And as it moves through the various stages of life, its experiences will almost inevitably be the dominant experiences in terms of the way the economy performs, and the way the culture behaves. When the boomer generation was young, youth culture was at the center of American culture. As the boomer generation got older, the culture began to focus on its experiences as it moved into later periods of life. So, it has an unusual position of cultural and economic power in our society, simply because of its size. And that makes it more influential, relatively more influential than other generations have been through most of our history. The second thing that I think makes the boomer generation distinctive, is the character of American society when its members, which include me and probably you, were growing up. I think this is a generation that grew up in a time of uniquely high expectations, both for America's future, and for the future of individuals in America. And this is actually true not just of the United States, it is true of most of the Western industrial world. People who grew up in the (19)50s and (19)60s during periods of very rapid economic growth and very high expectations, absorbed a set of expectations for themselves and for the world that in retrospect may seem unrealistic. They came to assume that society was moving in the direction of a much higher level of success of social justice than had been the case in the past. They came to assume that there would be much higher levels of personal freedom and opportunity than there had been in the past. They came to assume, we came to assume, that our lives were likely to be characterized by an unusual level of self-fulfillment and self-realization because the opportunities would be boundless. And of course, those expectations turned out not to be true, or could they ever have been true. And so, a generation of people came of age in the (19)60s with enormously high expectations, suddenly to confront the reality of a world that was not as malleable as they had thought. It was not as easy of changes they had thought. It was not as prosperous as they thought. It was not as just as they thought. And so, the disillusionment I think, of young people who had grown up with one set of expectations, encountering a set of experiences that in effect shattered those expectations, accounts for a great deal of what happened in the (19)60s I think, among young people. Obviously, there were particular events in the (19)60s that hastened this process of disillusion with the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement particularly powerful among them. But I think there is something about... I mean the fact that the youth rebellion of the (19)60s occurred all over the world more or less simultaneously, not just in the United States, suggests I think there is something larger than the particular events that were happening in America. That there is something characteristic of this generation of young people who in the industrialized world, that made for a particularly difficult experience of adjustment to the realities of adult life.
SM (00:05:14):
Excellent. I am going to follow up on that, but I want to make sure this is working properly. As a follow up to that question, when you look at today's generation, the young people that are in college today, and I guess you do not have to categorize them all as being college. But they are the sons and daughters of the boomers. We see that the children of boomers do not vote. We see that the children of boomers are not really politically... well, have an interest in politics or political matters. There is a tremendous interest in volunteerism. Studies in the chronical higher educational state that as many as 85 percent of the incoming freshmen over the past years in all colleges, have been involved in some sort of volunteerism before their college years. But that generation that you speak of, that 10 years from '46 to (19)56, they came into that era of desiring, of having interest in political issues, social issues, civil rights, ending the war in Vietnam. A lot of the movements developed at that time, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, even the Hispanic world, the Native American movement, they all kind of were around that timeframe. What happened? If you talk about those young people that were in that first wave of movers, having those kinds of attitudes, and you already reflected on some of it, that some the reality set in as they got older. But how could they... And they do not vote either. I am trying to get to the fact is, boomers do not vote, and their kids do not vote. And yet they were so involved in these things. Just your overall thoughts on what happened as this group is just reaching 50 now.
AB (00:06:58):
Well, first the question of why people do not vote. I mean, first of all, the decline in voting spans all generations. And young people have always voted in much smaller numbers than their elders. I would assume that at least some of the children of the boomers who are not voting today will vote when they are in their 30s or their 40s, when they are more settled and have families. But 18- to 25-year-olds have always been the lowest voting group in the population, 18- to 21-year-olds have of course have been voters only for a generation. So, I do not think the decline in voting is anything distinctive to the post baby boomer generation. I think that it is simply a broad disillusion of the politics that affects all of society and has reduced voting in all generations. But as for the absence in this generation of the kind of political activism that characterized the (19)60s, I think this generation had a very different experience in its youth. I mean, these are people who grew up in the (19)70s and the (19)80s, in the (19)90s, when political possibilities seemed very constricted. When a whole series of presidents either failed or had very ambiguous legacies, which there were no real political heroes for most people. And it is not surprising, I think, that this generation would not have the same faith in the ability of conventional politics to make a difference in their lives, or to make any major changes in the way we live as a society. That is very different, I think, from the generation that came of age in the (19)60s which saw endless possibilities in politics. And it is the efforts of the (19)60s to make the political system do a series of things that it failed to do well, that is in part responsible for the much lower expectations of the political system today.
SM (00:09:12):
Would you just list several adjectives to describe the boomers, positive adjectives, or negative adjectives, what would those adjectives be?
AB (00:09:24):
Well, I hate to generalize in this way about a generation which of course is proposed to people of enormously different experiences, and backgrounds and assumptions. But if there is anything distinctive generally about my generation as opposed to say my parents' generation, or my children's generation, I think it is probably the sense of... how to put it. I think the (19)60s for a lot of people in my generation was an extraordinarily disillusioning experience. Particularly disillusioning as I have said, because our generation grew up with such high expectations. And I think that the legacy of the (19)60s for this generation, for my generation, is a somewhat greater difficulty of feeling wholly a part of the institutions, and the values, and the cultural morays that characterize the traditions of mainstream American life. I think there is a slight sense of detachment, and of ironic detachment perhaps from these institutions. Even though we live within them and work within them and on the surface have more or less the same relationship to them that our parents did. I do not think there is the same passionate conviction that these institutions really work well that our parents had.
SM (00:11:17):
It is interesting you used that term, passionate. How about a book? When I was home from visiting my parents up in New York, Cornell University, a used bookstore about a couple miles from the camp, it is called the Phoenix. And they had a book called Ferment on Campus, and it was written in 1964. And it was analyzing the silent generation, and the people going into the early (19)60s, and this on rush of new young people with political idealism and activism. And they had a little section in there on passion, and actually a real big section on that. That was a quality that was really parcel of the boomers, but it is not so much... It is kind of looked upon sometimes negatively amongst Generation X and how they look at it, so with the comment. One of the things that I am trying to get at here is the impact that maybe that first wave of the boomers had on some of the major issues at the time. Certainly, the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. Just, you cannot define a whole generation again. But when you look at the Vietnam War, how important were the college students on the college campus at that time of ending that war, number one. And number two, how important were the boomers with respects to the civil rights movement? Because some people will basically analyze the movement and say by 1964 and Freedom Summer, many of the civil rights things, successes that had already happened as the boomers are just turning 18, and they got involved in freedom Summer down south some of them. What is your thoughts on those two areas?
AB (00:12:58):
Well, of course there was a Black baby boom generation too. And they are not quite the generation that was in the vanguard of the civil rights movement in the early (19)60s. People who were in college were born before or during the World War II. But certainly, by the mid and late (19)60s a lot of the African American activists in civil rights and other racial issues were baby boomers. And I think were responding to some of the same forces that white baby boomers we are responding to. As for Vietnam, there is a lot of controversy over the degree to which student demonstrations affected policy in Vietnam, and there is no very good empirical way of answering that question. I do think that the disruption of our culture and the life of our institutions, the attention that student demonstrations drew to the war, the anger, and the polarization that student demonstrations created, helped make the continuation of that war seem politically and socially intolerable to leaders who might otherwise have been inclined to keep it going longer. Now, there were many other things of course that made the continuation of the war seem intolerable too, including an enormous defection in support for the war among older people who were disillusioned with the war. Not because they thought it was immoral, but because they were frustrated that we were not winning it, and it was dragging along so long, and casualties were so high. So, it is very hard to separate the influence of different forces that all worked together to make the political cost of the war seem too high to justify continuing it. But I do think that the student generation, the student demonstrations, played a significant role. Maybe not a decisive role, but a significant role in that process. To get back to the civil rights movement, as far as white baby boomers and the civil rights movement go, I do not think white baby boomers played much of a role in the civil rights movement. People of my generation, by the time we were old enough to be involved in the civil rights movement, the movement was largely over with the form that it had taken in the early (19)60s. It was not any longer as much an interracial movement. There were not as many opportunities for white people to play a role in it. I think there was, for people of my generation, having grown up with the images of the early (19)60s in the civil rights demonstrations in the South, a higher level of awareness and sympathy for at least parts of the Civil Rights movement than earlier generations might have had at a similar age. But as far as actually affecting the movement in a direct way, I think not in an enormous way.
SM (00:16:13):
Have you changed your thoughts at all over the last 20 years when you were a young boomer in college, and then as you got into maybe five or six years out of college, started a family? And then 15 years, 20 years, 25, 30, you have been pretty consistent in your thoughts on boomers or have you changed your thoughts?
AB (00:16:34):
Well, I mean, I have an unusual relationship to this generation because I am an historian, and I teach about this period, and I will write to some degree about this period although it is not my principle field of interest. So, I have more reason than most people do to think about these issues on a regular basis. And yes, of course I have changed my views in ways that I cannot... I cannot even tell you what they are. I mean, I think I would hope that nobody goes through life with the entirely unchanging views that we did something wrong. If people did not reassess the past of their own, and their country's past periodically. I think if I had to characterize the changes in my own thinking, I think I am more aware than I was in the (19)60s of how difficult it is to achieve social change quickly and successful. I think I have somewhat more respect for institutions, and somewhat more of a belief in the value of institutional stability in society than I once did. I do not by any means repudiate the politics in the (19)60s, or the ideas that I embraced in the (19)60s. In a large sense there is still many things that I believe in the (19)60s that I still believe today is unfashionable as those things now are. But I think I have a somewhat more sober view of what is possible and what is likely. And I think I have a somewhat less iconoclastic view than I once did about institutions and traditions. And I do not believe now, I do not think I ever fully believed that all institutions and all traditions were obstacles to freedom. But I certainly do not believe that now to whatever degree I once did.
SM (00:18:51):
One of the terms that was often used when I was in college, I went this school, I am very proud of going there. A lot of who I am was because of my years there, and it was a hotbed of political activism. Those last years in fact, our president. Dr. Deering who resigned about a year and a half after I graduated, because he was physically destroyed but all the... He just could not handle any more. And he went off on a sabbatical and he came back and worked at Upstate Medical Center, and he retired there. Because he just could not... There were a lot of administrators that really almost did not survive that period. But one of the terms that I can always remember, and I have read it in history books and on it was an attitude. I do not know if it was an arrogance, but it was an attitude that we are the most unique generation in American history. We were the boomers of that period, knowing that activism was part and parcel of the people from the (19)30s too. There were students that were activists on campus in the (19)30s. But when you hear that statement, if you had heard that when you were a college student, one the most unique generations because of all the changes that happened, the issues that young people were involved in, just your overall thoughts on that terminology?
AB (00:20:07):
Well, I mean in some ways it is ridiculous, and in other ways it is a truism. Every generation is unique. No generation is like a previous generation.
SM (00:20:16):
Okay if I get a drink of water-
AB (00:20:19):
Of course. As I have said, I think the (19)60s generation was somewhat more distinctive than other generations have been. But to say that it is the most distinctive in American history is ridiculous. I mean, there is the civil war generation, the World War II generation is a very distinctive generation in a completely different way, the depression generation. Almost every period in American history has events that shape a generation's perspective on the world, and make each generation distinctive in a different way. What makes the boomer generation more distinctive than other generations I think, is primarily its size, that is truly unique. It is the biggest generation in American history, both in absolute numbers and in relation to the generations that proceeded and followed it. So that is the first thing. Whether its experiences are more distinctive than the experiences of other generations, I am not sure. They certainly are distinctive. But I do not know that they are any more distinctive or even as distinctive as the civil war generation or the World War I generation or any number of others.
SM (00:21:36):
I think when we talk about uniqueness, certainly each generation is unique. But there is still the feeling that the boomers are going to be the change agents, the betterment of society. Whether they accomplished that goal, I do not know, did it end the war, end the draft, to assist in the civil rights movement, and then all the other movements. And we are going to make America a more just society. People are treated equally. And I think that is what I am... And I do not know if any other generation, even though they were unique, felt that way.
AB (00:22:08):
Well, I think they did, certainly the World War II generation, the millions of GIs who came home from World War II, they talked in exactly the same terms. This war was not fought for nothing. We are going to make this world a better place, a different place. We are going to change our country and make it better. They had the same sense of being agents of change that our generation did. Their vision of change was not the same as ours, but they certainly had a passion about their role in history. And that generation has played an incredible role in history, and just as a symbol of it, the fact that every president from Kennedy through Bush was a member of the World War II generation. I mean, there is a whole generation that was basically skipped over as we kept electing these World War II veterans as president. We skipped 20 years or so down to Clinton in (19)92 when the Dole is the candidate again this year. I mean, this generation has had an extraordinary dominance of American life, which is now fading of course, because they are now at an age where they are passing between [inaudible]. I do not think you could say that the (19)60s generation was any more fired with a sense of its own importance than that generation was.
SM (00:23:40):
That is a real good observation. You are the 41st person I interviewed, and the first person who has really brought that up, and I think that is important. My dad challenged me in a home world because he fought four years in the war, and he is real proud of it. He used the GI Bill, he came back with the whole works. So that silent generation in between the World War II veterans, they never really did have a president. They probably do not regret it too. One of the things that I am trying to get at in this project, and I would like to your thoughts now on the whole issue of healing within America. In the (19)60s there was tremendous divisions, so I do not have to go into detail about them. But I have tried to go to the Vietnam Memorial the last six years, both on a Memorial Day and Veterans Day, to try to get a feel in the ambience. Whether the healing process has really taken place, not only amongst the Vietnam veterans and their families, but amongst those who were for and against the war, and just people who were maybe not the 15 percent who were actively involved in protest or activism of that period. I would like to know your thoughts. Because this is really geared to what Senator Muskie said in our meeting, when I asked him about the fact that we healed. And he had a kind of melodramatic pause, and he almost had tears in his eyes, and he had not been well. And he came back and said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." And he said, "Let us not talk about '68 in the convention, but let us talk about the civil war." Because he had just gotten out of the hospital and seen the Ken Burns series, and the generations of people who were probably killed in the civil war, and how it really affected America. So, your thoughts on, in 1987, as a historian who teaches young people and has taught young people who writes history books, where are we with respect to healing from the divisions of the (19)60s?
AB (00:25:40):
Well, it depends on what divisions you are talking about. I think the division over the war, which was so polarizing in the (19)60s, is no longer an important fact in American life. People still disagree about whether the Vietnam war was a just war or not. They still disagree about... Excuse me. Give me just a second to get some water.
SM (00:26:12):
Yeah.
AB (00:26:17):
As I was saying, I think the divisions over the war, although they have not disappeared, are no longer an active and divisive force in American life. I think as veterans get older and become absorbed into the life of being adults and family group members, their scars on the whole healed to a large degree, not entirely, not everyone certainly. But there are other divisions of the (19)60s that I think have not healed. And I think in a way Senator Muskie was right. Because there are divisions that preceded the (19)60s and long survived the (19)90s, the racial divisions that the (19)60s brought into a much harsher light than they had seen since the civil war. There have been great changes in the push between races in the United States. And I view great progress in some ways. But that problem is still at the center of our existence as a nation and it has been for 300 years. So, there has been no fundamental healing, I think, of the racial divisions of American life. I think that there are periods in which those divisions are particularly searing and difficult, and periods in which they are somewhat less corrosive. But I do not think there is very much variation. And so, I think that those divisions remain. And then there are divisions that the (19)60s did not create, but helped illuminate perhaps for the first time, that are also still very difficult for us to deal with. The division between men and women, between feminists and gay feminists, between supporters of abortion, the opponents of abortion, the divisions between gay men and lesbians and straight society. All of those are things that were not new to the (19)60s, but the (19)60s made an active part of our culture and our politics, and we were very far from having resolved any of those issues. Even though on all of them there has been significant change, and with time significant progress. I think the divisions in American life are more numerous today, and no less acute today than they were in the (19)60s. The way in which those divisions make themselves felt are not quite as destabilizing as they were in the (19)60s, but they are still here. I think there was a period before the (19)60s when these divisions were sort of artificially obscured by politics, and by popular culture, and by other things. The (19)60s brought them to light and they are still in the light.
SM (00:29:57):
[inaudible] already at... As a follow-up to that observation when you talk about the divisions, one of them is the dialogue that we had between each other. Again, it all depends on the metaphor of an individual's life. What Newt Gingrich's metaphor in life, how he was raised in Georgia may differ with how Bill Clinton was raised in Arkansas, and their perceptions. Some will say that, because the divisions were so strong, because protests were so obvious at that time in so many areas, and pointing of fingers, the reason why we have problems in society today is because of your group, or because of you, not me. And it is almost like the concept of dialogue. What has happened with the dialogue in America today. What I am getting at is this. Do you feel that in the dialogue, the discussions that we have within each other, whether it be between races, whether it be between different lifestyles, that we are living in uncivil times, the dialogue... And then some people will point right back to the (19)60s when for example, college students would go in and would not listen. I know this happened at my school, and I reflected on it all the time with my friends from SUNY Binghamton. When I was then older I would expect more. They would not listen to administration, but they would satisfy a demand but then always had a different demand. There was a really a hostility, an unsettled presence dialogue beyond just the concern of an issue and a cause. And I am wondering if you see any linkages between that time and today and the dialogue we have in each other?
AB (00:31:36):
Well, I think both the (19)60s and our own time are less civil in the sense that, I think you mean the word, than the (19)50s were, or the (19)40s. I civility is an overrated quality, and there is certainly a value disability, but there is also a value to challenging orthodoxy, and there is a value of conflict, when conflict is needed and civility has often been something that has been used to circumvent or short circuit challenges to authority and institutions. I think the kind of civility in the (19)60s, which you mentioned, was particularly dramatic. And not I think, one of the happy features of (19)60s. The intolerance that students and many others felt not only permitted but almost obliged to show those people that they-they disagreed, the contempt for authority. It is one thing to question authorities, another to reject the authority [inaudible]. I think the late (19)60s, at least in universities, was a particularly uncivil time in which there was a kind of driven orthodoxy among students that both intimidated students who disagreed with it from expressing their views, and encouraged students to try to intimidate faculty, administrators and others. That was a relatively brief period at the height of the passions over the war. But it was a period of quite substantial incivility and intellectual discourse, just as the early (19)50s in the era of McCarthy was a period of great chilling effect of discourse. I think in our time there is certainly a lot of heated language and sharp conflict in our culture and universities and elsewhere. But I do not think of this as an unusually uncivil time. First of all, there are lots of examples that are trotted out all the time of political correctness becoming the source of a really shocking intolerance. And some of those examples are quite right, and they have really not been shocking as an intolerance and discrimination in the name of political correctness. So, they were not nearly as many as there have been in the name of other forces, is what it seems to be. But I think on the whole, character of intellectual discourse today, the character of academic discourse today, and even to some degree the character of general public discourse today is more tolerant of more things than it has ever been before. And that makes for a lot of sort of chafing and a lot of uneasiness. It is not an easy popular culture to live in. It can be very jarring. But at least it is a culture that does more than our culture ever did before, to give voice to all the different cultures that make up the nation. So, I think whatever parts we paid in civility we have gained in democracy.
SM (00:35:34):
Interesting. Because in the best history books, you have probably heard this 100 times over the years. When the best history books are written, of course 25, 50 years after an incident happens, what will the historians be saying about the boomers. Now, you know, boomers are only 50 now, and so we are talking to still get 15 productive years at least, 15 to 20, and hopefully boomers are going to learn a lot longer and retire later, so they will be confirming the society for longer periods of time. But if you could put your history cap on now, and you could have tremendous revelations right now about your feelings, it might be...
AB (00:36:16):
I will [inaudible].
SM (00:36:16):
What will the history books say about this generation?
AB (00:36:17):
Well, I cannot predict what historians will say 20 years from now. All I can do is tell you what historians say now. History moves in unpredictable ways, and I do not know what the evaluation will be of the (19)60s from respect from 20 years, or what I will think 20 years from now about the (19)60s. I do not know what other younger historians will think 20 years from now. I think that if I had to predict, I would predict that the (19)60s will be remembered as they already are, as an unusually pivotal decade in the very life, the life of the 60s I mean, basically mid (19)60s to the early (19)70s. I think the (19)60s generation, if there is such a thing, will be remembered as I have already said to you, as a sort of distinctive generation that had a particular relationship to society. What historians will make of all this. Whether they will think the impact of the (19)60s was on the whole a good thing or a bad thing. Whether they will believe that really dramatic changes came on in the (19)60s or just modest changes, I cannot tell you. I tend to think that the (19)60s will be seen as a time that produced quite dramatic changes in the character of American life, whether it would be seen as a really important turning point in our history. But I cannot tell you how the balance sheet will read in terms of whether those changes are thought to be good things or bad things.
SM (00:38:08):
If there is one specific event that happened in your youth that had an influence on your life, what is that one?
AB (00:38:19):
Well, I suppose the event that I remember most vividly, the public event that I remember most vividly as opposed to personal events is as, for many other people, the assassination of John Kennedy. I am not sure I would say that that is an event that changed my view of the world in profound ways. But it is certainly an event that left an extraordinary imprint on my sense of the world. I think what had a bigger effect on me was not so much an event as a moment, and that was probably 1968 and the extraordinarily turbulent events in even more extraordinary concentration of jarring events that occurred within a relatively short period. The Tet offensive, the end of the Johnson presidency, the King assassination, the urban arrest, the Kennedy assassination, Chicago. I think 1968 was a year that made everyone who was old enough to be aware of it and young enough to be still unformed in his order of thinking. We consider a lot of assumptions about what we thought about our lives, our world, our country. I think that would be the event, a year could be an event, an event that I would point to as being most influential in my view.
SM (00:40:02):
There is a brand-new book out from 1968 in memory. I think it is Jules Lichtman.
AB (00:40:07):
Oh, well there is so many books on 1968 now-
SM (00:40:09):
Yeah, it is really good.
AB (00:40:10):
It is so good? Oh.
SM (00:40:13):
It is a good one too. There's one written, I think by [inaudible] Kaiser, what is it called? Kaiser, that came out a couple of years back. And it is my understanding that David Eisenhower and Julie Nixon Eisenhower are supposed to be working on a book from the Nixon presidency from '68 to the time he resigned. So, I am not sure when that is going to out. So, the issue of trust is an issue that faces many boomers today, and it is certainly a quality in America today that is lacking. And it is getting back to this trust in leaders, trust in other people. Psychologists just will say... Because I remember if a psychology course is when you think of it. Psychologists will say that if you cannot trust others, you have got to trust some people to be actually a success in life. Yet so many of the boomers did not trust the elected leaders of that period because of the things... We all know the story about Lyndon Johnson on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, where some people say it was just a way of getting into the war. It was not, I would say, an honest way of getting into the war. It certainly was not what Robert McNamara did as Secretary of Defense with President Nixon and Watergate, and a lot of those things of that era. But this period of trust is a quality that many boomers do not have. How prevalent do you feel this quality of lack of trust is within this generation that is now reaching 50, and it is passing onto its children, who I work with day in and day out in the university. And I have sense there is a lot of distrust amongst young people, authority people, and distrust of authority too today.
AB (00:41:54):
Well, I mean this is one of the most commented upon phenomena of our time. We decline in trust in almost every kind of institution in American life. Starting with government, but extending throughout the spectrum, including lawyers, doctors, clergy and academics, understanding group [inaudible]. What has caused it? I think in part it has been the failure of government and of many other institutions to deliver on the promises that they made in times. But I think it is also been more importantly, a displacement onto institutions of an anger and disillusionment that many people feel about what has happened to the economy. Obviously, the economy has been quite good for many people, but for most people, at least until quite recently and probably still, the economy has been something that has made their lives much more anxious, much less secure, and in some ways much less affluent than they had expected it to be. And I think there is a great sense of disappointment among many Americans about the way their lives have turned out, their economic lives have turned out. And I think a lot of the loyalty towards, and trust in institutions that was so characteristic of the (19)50s and (19)60s was a result of the extraordinary successes that so many Americans were enjoying as their lives got better and better and better. And in the 20 some years since the early (19)70s, that has not been experienced in those people. And so, the same institutions, the accumulated trust and loyalty on the basis of successes in the (19)50s and (19)60s have forfeited it, because of basic structural changes in our economy works that are not necessarily a fault of these institutions, but they are blamed for it any less.
SM (00:44:37):
Exacerbation, because when I interviewed Congressman Gunderson two weeks ago in Washington, former Congressman Gunderson, he said that he felt that when boomers age then reach the age of 65 and go into retirement, one third will be well off, one third will be in very bad dire straits financially and saved or whatever. And then one third will make it okay, but they are not going to be able to really enjoy themselves in a retirement, it will be just like a struggle day in and day out. And it is interesting, because we Congressman Ken [inaudible] on our campus, it was a year and a half ago talking about a book Common Sense. And in his lecture, he said one of the biggest negatives of the boomers is they have not saved, and they were going to pay a heavy price... I have two more questions for you. I will just ask you some names just to reflect upon. Then we will be done with the interview. These are names of the period. But, one of the concepts of the (19)60s, and again boomers had it in the first wave of boomers you were talking about, was this sense of empowerment. We teach students day in and day out when they come to school to feel empowered, idea of the students in leadership positions, but that their voice counts. And we are always dealing with issues of self-esteem. I hope a few people feel comfortable with who they are and what they are all about, and then they will speak their thoughts earlier. But I like your thoughts on the sense of empowerment amongst today's young people that you teach. Whether it be a peer [inaudible] or the history of reflection of young people today, whether they feel empowered because they are the sons and daughters of boomers. And whether you feel that boomers as they have gotten into adulthood and now hit rushing 50, feel a sense of empowerment that their voice counts. Maybe they do not vote, but where they work, involved in the local PTA, get involved in the local government or whatever. Just your overall thoughts on the concept of empowerment amongst boomers and their kids.
AB (00:46:40):
Well, my experience of the college generation of power era is skewed by the fact that I have never taught anything but elite Ivy League institutions. So, the young people that I encountered are on the whole quite privileged people. And I am not sure that any generalization I can think about them would be meaningful for the public as a whole. But I will say that comparing the students that I encountered today from my own generation, comparable students in the higher pool institutions, I think there is a much lower degree of engagement with politics, conventional mainstream politics. My generation had a higher degree of career and economic anxiety, and a much more pragmatic view of education than this case when I was in college. But I have to say also that I find among students today, a much larger level of commitment to, I guess what I would call, community-oriented activities that most people I knew in my generation ever had. You mentioned volunteerism, and there has been a tremendous increase in volunteerism. High schools all over the country have incorporated volunteerism now as opposed... They are part of the curriculum. It is becoming almost unusual for people in any reasonably good high school not to have some experience with volunteering activities. And I think that is a kind of social commitment that we undervalue when we talk about this generation. And in many ways, it puts our generation to shame. We may have been deeply involved in movements to end the war and demonstrations on behalf of this or that. But not many of us have worked in homeless shelters, or worked in AIDS clinics or different kinds of things that so many students today are doing without any recognition, without trumpeting it in any way. So, I do not consider this generation an uncommitted generation. I think their commitments are different from ours. They might take a different form from what once ours did. They are perhaps less hopeful than we were or where we were at.
SM (00:50:00):
I am going to list a couple of names here of individuals that anybody who they were alive in the (19)60s will remember these names. Maybe not to give a dissertation on each one, but just to simply give a few comments and your thoughts on their overall impact then, and their significance in the history of the times. First two would be Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden.
AB (00:50:26):
Well, I would have to talk about them separately, because I think their years together are less important in both their lives than the years before they were together. Tom Hayden was probably the most single, most influential person who has left a somewhat more pragmatic figure in the left than others, but was very committed to radical. And in the years since then, he is tried, and I am not sure how well has succeeded, to find a way to fuse his radical commitments to mainstream politics, which is what a lot of formalists have tried to do with varied degrees of success. Jane Fonda, I think was a young, fiery, famous privileged woman with a lot of unearned political power, who felt very strongly about the war and did not have very good judgment with how to express it, as in consequences with 30 years.
SM (00:51:37):
You still think part of the Vietnam veterans... See those badges, you are going to watch them. But then there is some with a wall [inaudible]. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman.
AB (00:51:52):
Well, in a way I find them hilarious figures. Because they both had very well developed yet somewhat bizarre sensitive humor. And also, because they were such, in a way, they were almost the clowns of the new left. And they made political farce a part of the political process in a way. I do not have great admiration for them, I think they were very intelligent. I do not think they had much political sense. But when I think of them, I think of them as dark figures from our past. I think of them as sort of Atlantis figures in both senses of the word.
SM (00:52:53):
Berrigan brothers, they just did a segment on Philip Berrigan on Sunday morning.
AB (00:52:56):
Well, I admired the Berrigans at the time. And I am somewhat uneasy with the kind of passionate extremism they ultimately embraced. But I think that they had commitments that were based on a real moral sense of what was right. And although I do not admire everything they did, I admire their commitment.
SM (00:53:40):
What about Benjamin Spock?
AB (00:53:41):
Well, I am not sure that I admire Benjamin Spock's ideas about child rearing.
SM (00:53:49):
He sees the challenges softly.
AB (00:53:49):
Nor does he still subscribe to the ones that he was famous for in the (19)50s, But, you know, I think he was a decent man. He tried to use the power and the wealth that he had gained to do some good. I am not sure that he had much impact, but I admired him for his efforts.
SM (00:54:14):
How about... There is so many people here. The black power advocates, the Bobby Seales, Huey Newtons, Eldridge Cleavers. They were kind of very impacting. Sophie Carmichael, Taggart.
AB (00:54:26):
Well, I am not a great sympathizer with the idea of racial separatism, and so I am not very sympathetic to the ideas that they espoused. But on the other hand, I certainly can understand how black people, male strip of the (19)60s, would come to those conclusions. I think they helped create an unhappy tradition of Black politics that I think has done African Americans more than good over time. But I do not think I would attribute it to them personally. I think they would prove it was inevitable that these ideas would start to emerge, parts of the African American world, several reflections if it had not been with somebody else.
SM (00:55:41):
What about Malcolm X?
AB (00:55:41):
Malcolm X is really an enormous figure I think in African American history, and American history. I do not subscribe to the idea that he started out as a man filled with hate, and then came to a greater understanding and became more moderate and benign as he grew older. I think from the time he became engaged in politics, he was a deeply committed radical, who over time redefined his radicalism to embrace class issues somewhat more than they had at first, and racial issues somewhat less than they had at first. But I do not think he became any less radical.
SM (00:56:24):
Timothy Leary.
AB (00:56:25):
You know, this issue I suppose I am somewhat in accord with the right, which is that, I think the romanticization of drug use in the (19)60s was one of the most damaging legacies that our generation left for our children. And I think the romanticization was probably ignorance to a large degree. I do not think most of us... I was never aptly crossing them. But most of our generation used and celebrated drugs, understood the damage that they would do, both to them and to the society, but they probably should have. And Leary, it seems to me as he became a celebrated figure, he was someone who just was [inaudible] of this issue.
SM (00:58:14):
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
AB (00:58:14):
It has been said a million times. I think I probably admire him more than any other figure of the (19)60s. You are all aware of set of limitations that critics have attributed to him. He was a truly great man.
SM (00:58:18):
Do you admire the fact of the stand that he took against the Vietnam War, and all the criticism he took at that time by even his fellow civil rights leaders.
AB (00:58:24):
Well, I think it was probably a tactical error. But I think it was a morally defensible position. So, I guess I do admire him.
SM (00:58:42):
Let me just change this. I have just got a couple more names. Some of the presence of this period, you have already made reference to John Kennedy, but just your thoughts on John Kennedy itself.
AB (00:58:50):
Well, I think Kennedy is in many ways more important in death than he was in life. And he was, as a president, an interesting president with some accomplishments, but not great accomplishments. He has not had many great accomplishments. He may have had more if he had lived. But I think he became, almost despite himself, a symbol of a kind of energy, and activism, and vigor, and idealism that has had and continues to have an enormous impact on American culture and on American aspirations for people in my generation, the next generation. He is an extraordinary phenomenon, and much more extraordinary a phenomenon in death than he ever was in life.
SM (00:59:41):
I shook his hand when I was a kid at Hyde Park, and I was there the day that Eleanor Roosevelt was trying to get the... It was a Sunday, and the parents were going back on a trip, and we just lucked out. We did not know what all commotion was. And he was there in the FDR Library talking to her about... I guess, at that time I did not know why he was there. I just know he was a candidate. And he came out and I shook his hand as he was getting into the car and left the library. He came out the back entrance. I was a young kid, so I will never forget that. The tan, the thin striped suit and the smile and everything. Robert Kennedy.
AB (01:00:18):
Robert Kennedy, I had a real passion and devotion to, which I also had to his brother. My admiration for his brother has faded in the 30 some years since. My admiration for Bobby has not faded as much. I think he, coming out of a family situation that in many ways was sort of traumatic and destabilizing for all of those kids, found a power in himself in his last year's that was just extraordinary.
SM (01:01:09):
George McGovern.
AB (01:01:10):
Well, George McGovern I think was a smart, interesting man. A lot of the stature of many of the other major political figures of that age. I think he did not... The political imagination of the more successful figures of his time had spread this time.
SM (01:01:44):
Eugene McCarthy.
AB (01:01:48):
Eugene McCarthy is someone who never quite fit in a political world, who could not quite fit in it at the level that he maintained as a presidential candidate. I think he was a decent senator, a little more cerebral than most. And I think he was an effective voice in 1968, legitimizing opposition of the war. After 1968 I think he became kind of an embittered man who spent the rest of his public life angry about what he thought had been done to him, that he had been cheated somehow.
SM (01:02:34):
Richard Nixon.
AB (01:02:37):
Oh.
SM (01:02:39):
You can write a book on that.
AB (01:02:49):
I can write hundreds of books as people have. He is a brilliant man, great politician, very important figure in our history, very important president. And I think his great flaw... The flaws were kind of resentment and bitterness towards the part of the world that he believed had rejected him, but never left him even that he is a pinnacle of success. And also, I think a basic... I do not think he had very many core convictions. I think there was a moral compass in his political view. And he was such a realist, such a devotee rail politic, that he lost sight of any role center that might have reigned again as he was busy doing or tolerating things that finally destroyed him.
SM (01:03:55):
Was not that one of the criticisms of John Kennedy, that he was more of a pragmatist, and if it was not for his brother who really had a conscience and developed a conscience?
AB (01:04:04):
No, I do not know. That is something that could be said about a lot of politicians. I do not think there is anything wrong with being a pragmatist. But I think there has to be something at the core of it. This is one of the [inaudible] of Clinton too, is that there is nothing at the core. I do not know that I believe that. But I do believe that in Nixon.
SM (01:04:26):
George Wallace. I am trying to get all these boomer names.
AB (01:04:33):
Well, I think Wallace helped launch a new kind of politics that eventually became, at least for a time, a dominant politics in this country. But Wallace was too crude and too racist and too reckless to profit from it at the end.
SM (01:04:53):
Spiro Agnew.
AB (01:04:55):
Oh, slippery crook.
SM (01:05:03):
[inaudible]. Muhammad Ali.
AB (01:05:05):
Oh, I am a great fan of Muhammad Ali. And I think he was treated very badly by his country, or at least by his government. But a man of great courage, great spirit.
SM (01:05:30):
Herbert McNamara.
AB (01:05:34):
I do not think he is a bad man. He is a very smart man. But his intelligence is a throwaway that made him inappropriate for the kind roles that he played in the public wise.
SM (01:05:49):
Barry Goldwater.
AB (01:05:52):
Well, Barry Goldwater is the last voice of a bolder conservatism unconnected to the cultural politics that was dominating. He was a conservative, sort of rock-hard convictions about communism, the cold war, government, individual freedom. And there was a kind of icy certainty about him that made him somewhat unpalatable to the electorate in a way that Reagan, who shared many of those beliefs, but also managed to identify himself with a lot of fuzzy cultural issues, was not.
SM (01:06:43):
Three more and we are done.
AB (01:06:45):
Okay. Actually, I think we have to be done with maybe one more, because is 3:00 now.
SM (01:06:49):
Okay. Just your overall impression of the musicians of the year and the impact that the music of that era had on boomers. It will be Bob Dylan, just a general analysis of all the music from that period.
AB (01:07:03):
I do not know that I can do that with the time that I have. Clearly both rock music and folk music were both the defining cultural products of those generations. I am sorry.
SM (01:07:17):
That is okay. I will like to just take three pictures of you.
AB (01:07:20):
Okay.
SM (01:07:22):
Thank you very much for taking this time.
AB (01:07:25):
Oh, it was my pleasure. Very interesting project.
SM (01:07:28):
Do you know Dr. [inaudible] at-
AB (01:07:30):
Yes, he is a good friend of mine. Have you talked to him? Or...
SM (01:07:33):
Yes. He came to our campus and spoke about his latest book.
AB (01:07:36):
About the Parchment book.
SM (01:07:38):
Yes.
AB (01:07:38):
Yeah.
SM (01:07:41):
Gave in to the development project too. Because he came to our campus last year in the middle of [inaudible] to begin, the conspiracy, so the mental degree, so that is [inaudible]. Just one more, just one more.
AB (01:07:55):
Make it quick.
SM (01:07:58):
Yeah. We have a light... Do you mind if I just put the wide angle on here?
AB (01:08:00):
I do not have time really. I am sorry.
SM (01:08:05):
Okay.
AB (01:08:06):
I am sorry to rush you out.
SM (01:08:07):
That is okay. Thank you for being able to have an hour with you, I really want to thank you. And...
(End of Interview)
Description
2 Microcassettes
Rights Statement
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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
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Interview with Dr. Alan Brinkley
Contributor
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Brinkley, Alan ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
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audio/mp4
Subject
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Authors; Scholars; College Teachers; Columbia University; Brinkley, Alan--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Alan Brinkley (June 2, 1949 - June 17, 2019) was an author, scholar and professor of American History at Columbia University. He specialized in the history of twentieth-century America. Dr. Brinkley has been part of the Columbia University faculty for 27 years where he also served as the University Provost and chair of the Department of History. He previously taught American History at the University of Cambridge and Oxford University. Dr. Brinkley received his Bachelor's degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Publisher
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Binghamton University Libraries
Date
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1997-08-13
Rights
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In Copyright
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Identifier
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McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.27a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.27b
Date Modified
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2017-03-14
Is Part Of
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McKiernan Interviews
Extent
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68:21
-
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347bc88afcf669ad5a2569f444b92663
https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/eecac2e5585aa4d596805f7306a9a000.mp3
998e3975f4849bd0f468415fbb940363
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
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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
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Binghamton University Libraries
Language
A language of the resource
English
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright.
Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js)
This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part.
Date of Interview
2010-07-30
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Stephen McKiernan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Alan Wolfe, 1942-
Biographical Text
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Dr. Alan Wolfe is a political scientist, scholar, and a sociologist. Dr. Wolfe is a professor of Political Science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Future of American Democracy Foundation. Wolfe received his Ph.D. from Temple University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He also has honorary degrees from Loyola College in Maryland and St. Joseph's University."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5039,"3":{"1":1},"4":[null,2,5099745],"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Dr. Alan Wolfe is a political scientist, scholar, and a sociologist. Dr. Wolfe is a professor of Political Science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Future of American Democracy Foundation. Wolfe received his Ph.D. from Temple University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He also has honorary degrees from Loyola College in Maryland and St. Joseph's University.</span>
Language
English
Digital Publisher
Binghamton University Libraries
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
2 Microcassettes
Material Type
Sound
Interview Format
Video or Audio
Audio
Keywords
<span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"Vietnam Veterans; Free speech movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Black Panthers; Young Lords; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Emmett Till; Vietnam War; Baby boom generation."}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":5045,"3":{"1":0},"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":[null,2,0]},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"10":2,"11":4,"12":0,"15":"Arial"}">Vietnam Veterans; Free speech movement; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Black Panthers; Young Lords; Native American/ American Indian Movement; Vietnam Memorial; Emmett Till; Vietnam War; Baby boom generation.</span>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
90:46
Subject LCSH
Political scientists; Sociologists; College teachers; Boston College; Wolfe, Alan, 1942--Interviews
Accessibility
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Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>.
Rights Statement
Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Dr. Alan Wolfe
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Wolfe, Alan, 1942- ; McKiernan, Stephen
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/wav
Subject
The topic of the resource
Political scientists; Sociologists; College teachers; Boston College; Wolfe, Alan, 1942--Interviews
Description
An account of the resource
Dr. Alan Wolfe is a political scientist, scholar, and a sociologist. Dr. Wolfe is a professor of Political Science and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Future of American Democracy Foundation. Wolfe received his Bachelor of Science from Temple University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He also has honorary degrees from Loyola College in Maryland and St. Joseph's University.ph's University.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Binghamton University Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2010-07-30
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
In copyright
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.174a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.174b
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2018-03-29
Is Part Of
A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included.
McKiernan Interviews
Extent
The size or duration of the resource.
90:46