63 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/e1e9fa97bb82414cf821f45ecd45a90e.jpg b2203853d4f1273016de18e4481858e9 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/16ef8e7ef88942ea5e459812e113703a.mp3 d4f0b3cc8a4a466ef950e7d8112d551e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2011-05-19 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Ellen Schrecker Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Ellen Schrecker is a scholar, professor emerita of American History at Yeshiva University and has received a fellowship at the Tamiment library in NYU. In addition, she is considered a leading expert on McCarthyism and has taught at various prestigious universities including Princeton, New York University, and Columbia.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:4483,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Dr. Ellen Schrecker is a scholar, professor emerita of American History at Yeshiva University and has received a fellowship at the Tamiment library in NYU. In addition, she is considered a leading expert on McCarthyism and has taught at various prestigious universities including Princeton, New York University, and Columbia.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 217:19 Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation, College in the 1960s; Vietnam War; Anti-war movement; Thomas Reeves; McCarthyism; Civil rights movement; Activism&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Baby boom generation, College in the 1960s; Vietnam War; Anti-war movement; Thomas Reeves; McCarthyism; Civil rights movement; Activism</span> Subject LCSH College teachers; United States—History—1945-1953; Tamiment Library; Yeshiva University; Schrecker, Ellen--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: Ellen Schrecker Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 19 May 2011 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Testing, one, two, test. All right. I will be checking it. All set? ES (00:00:10): Sure. SM (00:00:10): Okay. First off, thanks again for being a part of the project. I have been-been bound in this project now for a long time, starting part-time in (19)96, and kind of finishing up full-time now. And I left the university to work on this for the last two years. One of the first questions I would like to ask is... to each of my interviewees is, how did you become who you are? And now, you are a great historian. There are certain issues that you would like to write about, not only as a scholar, but as a teacher. And what was your growing up years like? How did you become who you are? Your parents? Your high school years, or... ES (00:00:51): Well, I grew up, actually, outside Philadelphia. My parents were during the 1950s, during the McCarthy period. My parents were liberal democrats. They were not left-wingers. They were not in the party or anything like that. I have often been accused of being a red diaper baby, but I am not. And as a teenager, I can recall watching Army- McCarthy hearings, all that kind of stuff, knowing that this was bad stuff, but not knowing very much about it at all. SM (00:01:39): Right. ES (00:01:39): In fact, you will probably be interested in this one. The guy who was on the board of trustees at Jefferson Medical School was my grandfather's law partner. SM (00:01:54): Oh, really? ES (00:01:55): Who... SM (00:01:55): Oh my God. ES (00:01:55): And he was the guy... He was the point guy for dismissing all of the three faculty members. SM (00:02:03): Oh my. What a small world. ES (00:02:04): Yes. It was a small world. And one of the things I knew as a young person was that my mother despised this man, but I never knew why, never had any idea. And then, many years later, when I started doing research [inaudible] academic community, I came across this guy and realized that... and understood why my mother was so upset. And it was very clear to me that the leadership at the administration and board trustees... that Jefferson had selected this man to handle all of this because he was Jewish. And the people that were being fired were also Jewish, very much like having Roy Cohen... SM (00:02:59): Oh, yes. ES (00:02:59): ... prosecute the Rosenbergs. Anyhow... So, I grew up not knowing very much. I mean, another... Can you excuse me? SM (00:03:11): Okay. ES (00:03:11): Yeah. The other thing that I learned when I was doing, actually, my other book on McCarthyism... I did not find this... SM (00:03:26): Yeah, I have that here too. ES (00:03:26): ... until somewhat later... SM (00:03:28): Yeah. ES (00:03:28): ... was that my sixth-grade teacher had been fired. SM (00:03:35): Oh, wow. ES (00:03:37): ... for having been in a congress. He had never come up before a committee, but the FBI had fingered him. And at that point, the school... It was not a public school. It was a private school that was being run by Temple University. And they just got rid of him. SM (00:03:59): As a young person though, you are just seeing these things for the first time. Your parents are one thing, but you were a young person, a child, or a teenager. ES (00:04:12): Yeah. SM (00:04:13): What were you thinking about America? And this is course post World War II America. ES (00:04:19): Yeah. Yeah. You know. I grew up in this sort of liberal ADA, Americans for Democratic Action, sort of... My family was in favor of Stevenson when I... My mother worked for the Democratic Party in what was a Republican suburb at that time. And the rumor was always that you had to vote Republican in order to get your garbage collected, which was not true. But anyhow... So, I grew up with a fairly, what would you say, liberal set of values, which I think I still retain. SM (00:05:12): Where did you go to high school? ES (00:05:15): I went to Chelnum High School SM (00:05:17): Outside Philly? ES (00:05:18): Outside Philadelphia. SM (00:05:19): Golly. I know... Colleen McHugh... It is a small world again. Colleen McHugh was the president of our Contemporary Issues Committee. She is a senior. She is in Scotland right now, is from that high school. ES (00:05:31): Good. SM (00:05:32): Colleen McHugh. ES (00:05:33): Sure. We had all kinds of people who went there. Benjamin Netanyahu went there after my time. Reggie Jackson went there. SM (00:05:44): Oh my gosh. Yeah. ES (00:05:48): And it was a big public high school with a wide variety of kids. It was fine. And then, I went to Radcliffe. That is where I got my undergraduate. And I stayed to get my PhD at Harvard. And I was in European diplomatic history. I got my PhD in European diplomatic history. I wrote my thesis on "The French debt to the United States after the First World War". It was really boring. I did not enjoy it. And I sort of did not want to go on in that field. And so, this is about the 19... early 1970s. I finished my degree. I really did not know what I wanted to do. I was married. I had two children. We were living in Cambridge at the time. My then husband was teaching Chinese history at Brandeis. And I got a job teaching freshman composition at Harvard. The way it worked was you did not have to be in English, but you had to be a good writer. And they assumed somehow it would rub off on the students. And you could teach your course as a kind of mini course, as almost a little seminar, as long as you assigned a lot of writing and worked on the writing. And so, I decided I would teach a course on the 1950s because I had grown up then and I was curious. So, I started teaching this course. This is the mid-(19)70s. And I discovered that there was no good book on McCarthyism that I could assign my students, nothing, sick, no scholarship, no nothing. And so, after about a year of this, I decided, well, I did not know what I wanted to do, but I was really interested in McCarthyism. And I would write a book about it. And I had already written a Chinese book, of all things... SM (00:08:31): Oh my God. ES (00:08:34): ... which is another piece of my life. And I had a literary agent. And I got a fellowship from the Radcliffe, what was then called the Funding Institute at Radcliffe, for a year, to work on this project on McCarthyism. And after a little while, it became very clear to me that this was a big project and that there was another person who was writing a general book on McCarthyism. And I was sort of advised by a whole bunch of people to narrow down my topic. So, I decided. I made a choice. I realized I could either look at McCarthyism in one city or I could take an occupational group. And I decided, since I was an academic, I might as well look at the academy. And so, that is how I got into writing my first book about McCarthyism. SM (00:09:45): I think, if I remember correctly, there is only two books that I can recall, because I have them, are the Buckley book that you wrote on McCarthyism that was out. And then, there was one on Richard Reeves or Richard... ES (00:10:02): Yeah, which was Joe McCarthy himself. SM (00:10:04): Yeah. Big, big book. Yeah. I think Richard Veer wrote a book of... ES (00:10:06): He wrote a book in about 1956. And Reeves wrote a biography, and... Thomas Reeves, I think it was. SM (00:10:15): Thomas Reeves. Yeah, because... Right. ES (00:10:19): But there was not a general study. The general study that was being written at the time was by a guy named David Caute, C A U T E, who was a brit... SM (00:10:29): Oh yeah. ES (00:10:30): ... who... Actually, I had been in a graduate seminar with him many years ago. And his book was... It is not bad, but it did not do what I did. And so, anyhow, I finished this book on McCarthyism and the university, mainly looking at dozens of archives of universities, interviewing a lot of people, and then decided that I would go back to my original project of looking at McCarthyism as a whole, because there still was not the kind of book that I thought should be written. And so... And by that time, I had moved to New York and had remarried, and was just... I had changed... I do not think you could do it these days. But in those days, I was able to switch from European history into American history. And at the time my McCarthy University's book came out, I was able to get a teaching job at Yeshiva in American history. And I began to work on the sort of general study of McCarthyism. I published. I do not know if you have seen this little book for classroom use. SM (00:12:09): No, I have not seen that. ES (00:12:10): Okay. Let me show you. SM (00:12:19): Do you feel that... What influence do you feel that McCarthyism period had on the boomer generation that was really in elementary school at the time, but subconsciously many kids were watching that on black and white TV? I know I was one of them. I did not quite understand it, but I saw that... Well, I think I have seen that, but I do not have it. Yeah. I have seen that. ES (00:12:45): Well, this is the one that... And in some ways, it is used. It is what people assign in their classes... SM (00:12:55): Oh, yes. ES (00:12:56): ... because it is much smaller than this book. SM (00:12:57): Yes. Wow. There is the gentleman to his right that... ES (00:13:04): Yeah. And that was a lot of fun. That is just a bunch of documents with a sort of hundred-page overview. SM (00:13:14): Do you think that the McCarthyism had any effect on young boomers? Some I have interviewed say that they were too young, but others subconsciously were seeing this fear that was happening in America at the same time, the fear of speaking up, the fear of... ES (00:13:34): Yeah. SM (00:13:35): And they were cognizant of what was going on in the South too, if you were watching the news, about the Civil Rights movement and the courage of the Dr. Kings and others to stand up and speak. ES (00:13:46): Right. I mean, I think what happened was, certainly when I was growing up there, the left was completely marginalized. I mean, I just plain did not even know it existed. When I was at Radcliffe, there apparently was a socials club, but it was made up of what were called Red Diaper babies, people whose parents had been pretty much in the Communist Party. And people who were outside of that very small left-wing world did not even know it existed. And... SM (00:14:33): Kind of like the young Americans for Freedom in the (19)60s and (19)70s. The young Americans for Freedom were a conservative group that was formed by Buckley. But a lot of people, when they talk about the actors in (19)60s, they totally omit them or say very little about that. ES (00:14:52): Right. But I think this civil rights movement really made a huge difference because it is the moment at which there is a mass movement for social reform. And that changed how people thought about political action. Before that, I do not think there was very much going on. SM (00:15:23): So, you deep down inside... If people were young enough, especially the early boomers born, say, in (19)46, that were maybe six and seven years old when McCarthyism was really rampant... And he was popular, I guess, through (19)54 or whatever. He was well known to the news... that that had any effect on these as they grew older and they wanted to speak up, like so many did on... with all the movements that took place in the late (19)60s. And we are not going to be held back. We are going to speak our minds. And... ES (00:16:00): Well, I think what it... The impact was not so much what happened, but what did not happen. There is a missing generation of activists. There is a missing institutional connection to some kind of ongoing left-wing tradition. That was shattered by McCarthyism. And so, what you have in the (19)60s with many members of the new left is the sense that they have to begin all over again. SM (00:16:42): You were at two places, obviously, where there was activism. Harvard had a lot of activisms. I have interviewed a couple professors at Harvard Square and... ES (00:16:50): I was not there then. What happened was, during the height of the "(19)60s", my then husband was teaching at Princeton, which was not a particularly active community. SM (00:17:03): Right. ES (00:17:05): And I can recall go... as a faculty wife of all things, going to the organizing meeting of the Princeton chapter of the Students for Democratic Society with my husband and I think one or two other faculty members at which these faculty members told the students, "This is a student run organization. The faculty cannot do it for you. You have to do it." So, Princeton was not particularly active in that period. SM (00:17:38): Yeah. Well, Harvard Square is one of those historic moments. And did being around students though... When you were around your peers, how would you define them at the colleges when you were there, when you were working on that doctorate, when you were working on that Master's in undergrad? ES (00:17:57): Yeah. Well, for some weird reason, I had a very interesting group of sorts of gang of friends. A number of them were red diaper babies, parents were communists, very close friends. And we were... Well actually, I was politically active in the early 1960s, like around (19)62, (19)63, (19)64. I was very active in the Northern Support group for the student non-violent coordinators. SM (00:18:46): Oh, SNCs. ES (00:18:48): We were SNCs. I was very active in helping, especially the Freedom summer stuff in 1964. I was involved, although then something else happened and I could not remain involved. But then, when we moved to Princeton, which we did in 1965, I was again active in SNC. And it became... For a very short time before it sort of all dissolved, I think I was head of the Princeton Friends of SNC or something like that. SM (00:19:19): Oh, okay. ES (00:19:21): So, I was politically active, not... I did not go south... SM (00:19:25): Okay. ES (00:19:27): ... mainly because I was married, and I thought wives should not go leave their husband. SM (00:19:37): And so many of the people that were in the Freedom Summer in (19)64... We all know about Berkeley and the free speech movement, and Mario Savio and people like that, Tom Hayden and so forth. I know this is a very broad question, but when you think of the boomer generation... Again, lot... I... Well, first off, I would like to know whether you like the term, number one, and whether your terms defining generations. Because I have had individuals like Todd Gitlin that said, if you mentioned the boomer generation one more time, this interview was over. Because he does not like these little compartmentalization’s of the greatest generation, the silent generation, the boomer generation, millennials, generation X, boomers. He does not like it. And I have had quite a few that do not like it. But then some say, "Well, we got to have something." ES (00:20:37): Yeah, it is convenient. I mean, I am a historian. It is convenient as long as you contextualize it and realize that you cannot put everybody in the slot. And you need to look at what was actually going on during that time and realize that there were always alternative voices. SM (00:20:57): Yeah, but when you... If someone... If... Say you were in high school and you were in a 11th grade class and somebody had the courage to ask a question, and that is "What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of the boomer generation?" Well, how would you respond? ES (00:21:19): These were people who came of age in the 1960s. They are a demographic bulge, which is why they cut so much attention because there were so many more of them proportionally within the population. And these were people who were on American campuses at the time of... I do a lot or higher education. So, this is a period when there is enormous expansion of American higher education, an enormous push actually to get people to go to graduate school. And this is something that I talk about in my book about the lost soul, of the role of graduate students in a lot of these student movements as a kind of in between group. The other thing, which I did not talk about, but I always talk about when I am describing the political activity and social movement of the 1960s, is... I illustrate it by describing my apartment that I got when I was a second-year graduate student at Harvard. I do not know if you know Cambridge at all. SM (00:22:53): Yeah. I have been up there. I have interviewed... I have interviewed 11 people at Harvard's. ES (00:22:58): Well, my apartment was on Bank Street, which was about maybe five blocks from Harvard Square, which is very centrally located. It was very cheap. It was $65 a month. Now admittedly, I did not have central heating, but I had a kerosene heater and my landlord put in a better heater because he thought I might burn down the house with [inaudible]. And the bathroom left something to be desired like a sink. I had to brush my teeth in the kitchen. But other than that, it was fine. It was three rooms, neighborhood was safe even though it was pretty inexpensive. It was a student neighborhood. And I had a roommate. And what this meant, if my rent costs me, what, under $40 a month, it meant that there was not on the people of my generation the kind of economic pressures that are on people today. SM (00:24:17): To work, yeah. ES (00:24:19): To work. You could live... I had a fellowship from... that paid for everything. I did not have to teach. And you could live very, very cheaply. And that allowed people not only the sort of freedom at that moment to become politically active, but also everybody knew they could get a job. You could get a job without having a PhD. My husband was hired at Princeton without having finished his PhD. That was common. And so, nobody worried about their economic situation. I mean, people probably did, but it was not the way it is today. People were not graduating with huge debts. And that economic security, I think, allowed for much more political expression than you have today. I mean, I think that is really key. And it is not something that people talk about. SM (00:25:34): Some people have even gone to the extreme... As a follow-up to what you just said is that people who really have been around a while, and were activists historically, and have experienced what you experienced, but now see that there are some really good students who care, but they do not have the time to do things like they did when they were young, they feel it is almost as if there is a conspiracy out there to keep young people busy so they cannot take the time to protest, to challenge, to be an activist like in the past because they have no time. And one interesting point, when you study the millennial generation, which I... because I am in higher ed too. The millennials... In the Irving Howe book, Holland Strauss states that they are like the boomer generation with respect that they want to leave a legacy, but they want to leave a legacy after they are (19)40, whereas boomers wanted to change the world immediately. And a lot of it has to do with getting the degree, working, and not having the time, raising a family and so forth. I am not sure if all that is true, but the thing is, they... Today's young people to me, deeply care. They just do not have the time to be involved in fighting for a lot of things they care about. You raised a real good point there. This is kind of a follow-up too. And are there any characteristics that you feel define the generation? Any strengths or weaknesses that, of the boomers that you knew and lived with or taught... ES (00:27:27): Yeah, they are all somewhat younger than I am. I do not think I could characterize, make that comment. SM (00:27:38): 70 million? ES (00:27:39): Yeah. SM (00:27:39): Yeah. ES (00:27:40): I do not think I could. SM (00:27:42): Because there are... One of the things here that... Is there... Today, the conservative... I will repeat that... I am going to read this part. How do you respond to the critics of the boomer generation who blame many of the problems today on what happened back in the (19)60s and early (19)70s; the attacks are around the sexual revolution, worries, the drug culture, inner spirituality as opposed to organized religion, the divorce rate, the beginning of the breakup of the American family, the divisiveness that was so strong back then, no respect for law and order, violence, no respect for authority, no lack... the lack of trust in leadership... Even some people have said the spending habits of the boomers, they were a materialistic generation. They spent, and that is one of the reasons why we are in the problems today. Individually, it is because the, I want it now and I am not going to wait for it. And then, of course, overall, the challenge to the status quo, the tax on corporate influence, and group think, and the concept of victimization, the welfare state mentality. These are all the things the conservatives attack the boomer generation... And it is particularly the counterculture from the (19)60s and (19)70s. ES (00:29:16): Well, a lot of this is not... I teach. This is the period I teach. And what you see, certainly with regard to say the sexual revolution, is it was not a revolution. It was an evolution, but it had been... Sexual morals were changing, had been changing since the early 20th century. You were not seeing a "revolution". What you were seeing was finally a sort of realization of what actually was happening. And I think the sort of cultural changes, again, were things that would have happened, whether there was some kind of "(19)60s" or not. These changes in how people related a sort of greater informality would have happened anyhow. And a lot of what conservatives’ attack, of course, is protest against things like the Vietnam War and white supremacy in the South, which were certainly not exactly the products of the boomer generation. SM (00:30:46): Oh yes, definitely. You already mentioned earlier that one of the great qualities or developments that happened during the time when boomers were young is the expansion of higher education and the increasing numbers of students who go to college as opposed to even in the (19)50s. There was something going on. We know about the GI Bill after World War II and many came back, but certainly with the influx of new young people coming in, certainly access. So, could you describe the state of higher education in America, just as a person who has studied it in the following periods? Because I am... We are looking at 65 years now. Boomers have been alive now 65 years, the oldest ones. And every single day, I hear that there are something like 13,500 people turning 65, or boomers, every day for the next God knows how many years. So, when you look at 1946 to 1960 in higher education, what comes to your mind? ES (00:31:56): Well, that is this period of really massive expansion and a democratization of higher ed... and a democratization of higher education. Really, before the Second World War, it was very much an elite phenomenon. After the Second World War, it becomes, essentially, the badge of middle-class status and you get an expansion, especially in the public sector, not just at flagship universities like the University of Michigan, but the creation of a much broader second tier of institutions. For example, I am looking at Pennsylvania, where I grew up, in the 1950s, there were all these state teachers’ colleges. SM (00:32:54): Oh, yes, Portland, that was the where I grew up, Portland State Teachers College. ES (00:32:58): Sure. They all begin to expand, they become part of bigger systems. So, you are getting more and more access to higher education from people who have very different backgrounds. It is no longer something that is, quote, unquote, "elite". Now, the higher education system is still very stratified and there are these elite institutions at the top, and it goes down to community colleges and stuff. But the access to some kind of higher education really just grew enormously. For people, like myself, who were in graduate school, and young faculty members, what they were experiencing was this incredible job market. I have been working, doing research, I did some for the most recent book and I am going to do more, on academic freedom in the 1960s faculty activism, not student activism. SM (00:34:11): Oh, wow. ES (00:34:13): I discovered a left-wing faculty group that saw itself as the faculty twin or the alumni movement of SDS, essentially. SM (00:34:29): You mentioned that briefly, that of the 25 at one school, 24 of them were let go. ES (00:34:35): Yeah-yeah. SM (00:34:37): I remember that. ES (00:34:42): Called the New University Conference. And they had this newsletter, and at one point, they were going to set up a job service, a job referral bank for their members. What they said was, "Come to us for the next job from which you would be fired." But the fact was, most of the people who did lose their jobs for political reasons during this period were able to find other academic jobs if they wanted them. Some people just dropped out. But it is because of this enormous expansion, again, the fact of much more economic security really enabled people to be more politically active. SM (00:35:31): When you look at that period than after Kennedy came into power 1961 to, say, 1980, when Ronald Reagan, how would you define that? There's so much... How would you define that higher education during that time? ES (00:35:45): Well, that is still the period of expansion. The moment at which the expansion stops, it is pretty clear. It is about (19)74, (19)75. The oil shock's the moment. It is a crisis in, I think we have to say, American world capitalism. That is the moment at which you begin to see cut backs in the amount of state funding of higher education, period. Where you begin to see a concerted attack on the quote, unquote, "liberal academy" from a bunch of conservatives who then begin to fund right wing foundations and writers and start what we see as, I think, a really major attack on what is considered the liberal academy. SM (00:36:52): That is really from late (19)70s through today, really? ES (00:36:56): Yes. Yeah. SM (00:36:57): Ronald Reagan played a key part in that because his attack- ES (00:37:03): He began it in California. He ran against Berkeley in 1966. SM (00:37:07): Yes. Yeah. That is unbelievable development and that he used the same package when he ran for President, too. Law and order, law and order and against the welfare state. Remember, those are the two things. You have written three books. Oh, you have written more than three books, but I am not making comment on this book because I did not know about this one. But the three books, the No Ivory Tower, the book on McCarthyism, and your most recent book on higher education the lost soul. In a few words, what was the basic premise of all three of those books? Secondly, when you look at the three major premises of these books, how did the main information that premise affect the Boomer generation? ES (00:38:06): Well, I guess the main thing I am concerned about is free speech, freedom of expression, intellectual freedom, the ability to express dissent about major political issues. I think that is what I have been looking at in one way or another in all of my work. At the moment, I am working on yet another book. It is a study of American political repression. Very general from, as we say, the Puritans to the Patriot Act. I am working with a political scientist who is a political theoretician. Because when I was working on all of these books, I had assumed that a political theorist had written something about political repression, seems to be a rather important subject. Yet it turns out there is very little, which was surprising. Anyhow, I have a colleague who is a political theorist at Brooklyn College, teaches CUNY, and he is interested in exactly the same things I am, so we are working on this together. But it is all about, essentially, the suppression of the dissent and looking at how it operates. Stuart, is there anything I can get you? Stuart (00:39:47): No, I am fine! ES (00:39:47): Okay. SM (00:40:01): Yeah. When we talk about freedom of speech, the first thing that always comes to my mind, and I do not think it is being taught very well in higher education today in graduate programs, is the influence that the Free Speech Movement had on the history of higher education, in my opinion. I went to Ohio State in the early (19)70s and we talked about it all the time. We even talk about legal aspects of when police can come on campus, when they cannot come on campus and everything. But what the one thing that always strikes me about the Free Speech Movement is people try to separate it, saying that it was the early to middle (19)60s as opposed to the other protests, when in reality, the precursor of what was to come. Secondly, Mario Savio, whether you like him or not, his words will forever... I have been on Berkeley many times. I took part-time courses there, too. The fact is that the thing that stands out in that whole movement was the fact that ideas, ideas is what the university is all about, not corporate control. So, a lot of the battles that took place during that (19)64, (19)65 period, and many of the battles in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s on even my campus at SUNY Binghamton, was that we wanted a campus of ideas and not departments and grants and fundraising and everything linked toward corporate control of what can happen on the university camps. What is upsetting to me today is it seems like we have forgotten everything about the Free Speech Movement. ES (00:41:46): Yeah. SM (00:41:48): We know its history but... I interviewed Arthur Chickering who wrote Education and Identity, and I also interviewed Alexander Astin, the great scholar in California. After each interview, I said, " What is your biggest disappointment as a person who have lived in higher education for your whole career?" They both said, "Corporate control of the university," and they are teaching PhD students in higher ed. Just your thoughts on the Free Speech Movement, how important it was? ES (00:42:17): Well, it, I think, emphasized the significance of higher education, institutions of higher education, as those places where people not only can debate ideas freely... But also, in the contemporary world, as you know, the media is increasingly shrinking and speaking more to niches than not to a general public. We do not have that general debate out there at any high level. It is all soundbites. So, the universities are really the last place where you can deal with complicated ideas, where you can deal with complexity, where things are not just black or white, but are much more nuanced. Of course, that is something that I think and do not want to talk about a corporate conspiracy, but clearly, we are seeing a dumbing down of public debate, public discourse. Universities are really the last place that is pushing back against that. But as they are being starved for funds, as there are all these pressures from the outside against tenured radicals, you know that whole business- SM (00:44:11): Oh, yeah. ES (00:44:11): ... then universities are increasingly on the defensive. Their administrations are scrambling for money. They are totally focused on the bottom line. What that means, of course, is that they have to go out and get students, their students. It creates a very competitive atmosphere on campuses. It is competitive for faculty. It is competitive for students. The values of a desire to learn, the desire to find things out, the desire to find things out for oneself, is a sideline in this need for getting ahead for what you see now is an increasing vocationalization of higher ed. SM (00:45:09): Yep. ES (00:45:12): Where people are essentially majoring in occupational therapy and not liberal arts, which, I think, are increasingly necessary for the creation of an informed citizenry. What we are losing is that informed citizenry that can think about reality rather than something that is been filtered through advertising and celebrities and this whole soundbite culture. SM (00:45:50): I have this theory, and I like your opinion on it, and that is based on my experiences of 30 years in higher ed at four different universities, Jefferson being one, Ohio University, Ohio State, and Westchester University. That is that it seems like the term activism is a term that universities are deathly afraid of. They like the term volunteerism. Everybody's volunteering. In my studies, I read that volunteerism is at its peak when it is usually a conservative era. But certainly, the Peace Corps was about volunteerism. Volunteers in Service to America was the same thing. If you go to any university campus now, just about 95 percent of students are involved in some sort of volunteer activity. Some required, and some do it on their own and join clubs and get involved. But when you talk about activism, I have always believed that activism is a step beyond volunteerism. Volunteerism might be twice a week or once a week. But 24/7 is what activism is. It is a state of mind. It is a state of being. It is about speaking up. It is about challenging. It is about seeing injustice and trying to write it. I can go on and on here. Do you believe that universities today, whether it be the university you teach at or Berkeley or SUNY Binghamton, my alma mater or Ohio State or other alma mater, are they afraid of the word activism? ES (00:47:32): Oh, sure. What we are seeing, of course, I mean, one way of looking at it is this kind of... What do they call it? Civic service or something that is being pushed on many campuses. It is very much about individualism. It is individual action. Whereas what you are talking about is really a collective action that is directed against systemic problems. In other words, it is not enough or individuals to work in soup kitchens or food banks. Maybe we should change the laws and create a different kind of welfare system. So, there is a big difference here between individual acts, charity and something that is really challenging the system at a much deeper level. SM (00:48:39): I agree. We had an activist series at Westchester. It was growing. We had Tom Hayden, we had Daniel Berrigan. I mean, he was really growing, and we read Howard Zinn's thin book, and we had faculty members coming in with students reading it together. We were asked to stop it because it was... I do not know why, but we were asked to stop it, even though it was becoming a success. So, something was happening beyond the areas that I know that were threatening someone. ES (00:49:14): Really? When was this? SM (00:49:17): Oh, this was recently at my university, within the last 10 years. ES (00:49:20): Yeah, interesting. SM (00:49:20): It may have been as much against me as it was against what we were doing. Because when we had a small group of students and they did not think it was enough people that were involved, and it was a long story. When I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly and I also interviewed David Horowitz, they had mentioned to me that they said that the radicals of the (19)60s are now controlling today's universities. But then I asked them, let us be more specific here, because I know a lot of conservatives who are running universities today. They said, "Well, what we are really saying is that they control the curriculum." Do you believe that? Phyllis Schlafly is very strong on this. She said, "The radicals of the (19)60s are now controlling the curriculum of the university." ES (00:50:12): No, no. What happened is that in the (19)60s, universities expanded, we have already talked about that, brought in whole new groups of people. Universities began to address issues that they had not addressed before because there was pressure from their own students. But it is not because the students were radical, it is because the students were African American or Hispanic and felt somewhat excluded. The administration, much more than the faculty themselves, are the ones who created some of these changes. One group I studied, I looked at for my book on the Lost Soul of Higher Education, were people who started women's studies programs. Well, these women may have been radicals, but the pressure to extend women's studies came from their students. The administrators were very-very happy to accommodate them, to create women studies programs. Why? Because students were taking them, they were popular. That feeds this bottom-line mentality. If you can attract a lot of students, your administration likes you. SM (00:51:49): Yes, definitely. That is one of the things. Would you say that when you look the era of the Boomer generation and the accomplishments that came out of the period, some people say they were negatives, like I mentioned earlier, their opinions, but that one of the greatest accomplishments that ever came out of this period was the fact of the women's studies, the Black studies, the Native American studies, Asian American studies, all the different studies programs that were all criticized in one way or another at the beginning, but have become very legitimate and important parts of the university of today? ES (00:52:27): Well, yeah, I think so. I mean, also, one of the big changes that we are seeing in curriculum in my school, which is a very conservative school, to put it mildly, has just implemented some curricular reforms, much of it having to do with the introduction of non-western studies, of looking at the rest of the world, which is absolutely crucial. That is not being propelled by (19)60s radicals. It is being compelled by the changes out there in society. SM (00:53:06): Yeah. I remember when Henry Cisneros spoke at the NASPA conference about maybe 12 years ago, former mayor of San Antonio. He said, "We have been preaching a long time in higher education about preparing our students for the global world." We are in the technology world here. So, it is a little different than even in the (19)60s, but even then, you can communicate faster than you could in the (19)50s. Basically, is not that what it is all about? We need to prepare students for the global world that we are facing. Thus, when we talk about Muslim studies and understanding Islam is preparing our students to understand the cultures of the world, the people they are going to live with, the people they are going to work with, and the people who are going to be their bosses. ES (00:53:54): Yeah. SM (00:53:56): That is what Henry Cisneros was talking, said, " You need to prepare for the future, not be afraid of the future," and that was his presentation. "Do not fear the future, prepare for the future." I get emotional on this. This is a very important topic. Well, when did the (19)60s begin in your eyes and when did it end? ES (00:54:21): Oh, boy. I teach a course on the (19)60s, so I devote at least one class to that. It really varies. I think you could always say, "Well, let us take the election of Kennedy." But a lot of stuff began earlier. Certainly, the Civil Rights Movement is building up from what civil rights historians called the Long Civil Rights Movement, from the Second World War on. On the other hand, you can say, well, the escalation of the Vietnam War in 1964, (19)65 may have created the more raucous part of the (19)60s. Certainly with regard to say women's issues, it is really not till again, the mid (19)60s that women become much more self-conscious. Betty Freidan's Feminine Mystique is published in 1963. When does it end? Again, I forget to look at the mid (19)70s, the oil shock, and the Vietnam War. SM (00:55:58): Was there a watershed moment that stands out above everything else? ES (00:56:05): Moments. No one, single one, I think- SM (00:56:11): Some people believe that we are still... Well, because of the culture wars, (19)60s never ended because of the battles that are ongoing and continue. If you go to the Vietnam memorials, you will see many of them have still got their problems with those who were in the anti-war movement, and that is just a small segment. But you see the battle within the university that you write so brilliantly about. The two words that stand out is the concept of truth, which was the Western civilization, the truth, and Aristotle and Plato and so forth. Then relevance, which, it has got to be relevant to me. Well, Western civilization is, "We have got to prepare you as a liberal person." So those are all part of the ongoing... I think we are doing okay time-wise. ES (00:57:08): Yeah. SM (00:57:10): Any other thoughts on... ES (00:57:14): Well, I think the country has turned so far to the right since the 1970s that to talk about being under the sway of the (19)60s is just fantasy. Well, we are living in a very conservative moment in which things that were taken for granted in the (19)60s are deemed totally unrealistic like the fact that the government might be able to do some good and create valuable social programs. SM (00:57:58): Yes. ES (00:57:59): Nope. That is just... SM (00:58:04): The one thing I wanted to ask you because you bring it up in the book is the fact that the university was... Again, Mario Savio said that the purpose of the university is about ideas. So, when the conservative right, whether it be not Mr. Pipes, who many people on our campus can out stand, they always bring him up, something about him rubs people the wrong way. Irving Kristol, that group of people... See, what am I trying to say here? ES (00:58:42): What, these cultural conservatives? SM (00:58:44): Yeah, the cultural conservatives. I was trying to get to a point here about... The thing that we talk about, if Savio says that it is about ideas and Dr. Pipes says it is something about truth, what is the difference? There are different truths. So, Pipes has a problem with different truths. You raised this in your book. ES (00:59:20): Okay. Well, what is weird is that to a certain extent, these people who are bemoaning, the loss of that sense of centeredness and a common culture, which is a quote, unquote, "elite culture"... Often, I have a big deal sympathy for them because one of the big fights that I see and that I think one of the big problems within universities is not so much the content of general education courses, but the fact that... What is it now? I think over 60 percent of all students are there not getting any exposure to it. They are taking occupational therapy; they are taking hotel management. They are not getting exposure to anything that is giving them an ability to think critically about their own lives and about their own culture and their own country. The people who are concerned about the denial of absolute truth and how humanists have become relativists and all that, are not dealing with the real problem. I think they probably do not really care that 70 percent of all college students are studying hotel management. Because they are elitist, they are only thinking about the top tier of upper class and upper middle-class students who are making it into these highly selective, elite schools. They are students who got to Williams, who are going to Stanford and Harvard and University of Michigan maybe. The ones who are going to Westchester University, they do not care about. So, I think it is very much a class issue. SM (01:01:42): See, access to higher education is one of the greatest accomplishments that I have seen in my lifetime and to see criticism of affirmative action or multiculturalism and diversity, and not only with African-Americans, but Latinos and women and gay and lesbian students, transgender, Asian students, and Native America, you name it. I cannot understand why people are critical of that like it. And to be openly blatant about the fact that wanting to go back to the way it was when white America, white middle class America, was basically the college students of the era, just bottles my mind. And that is kind of what... I have got a little more here. One of the things I wanted to mention, too, you probably talked about this in your class, is the generation gap. There was that historic, well, that historic... that Life Magazine cover, which I have framed, it was in my office for many years, of the young student that was in the blue with his father pointing fingers at him in one eye, and he is pointing finger back at his dad and in the other eye and it is basically talking about the generation gap between parents of the World War II generation and their kids over culture, over the war, a lot of other things. Did you experience that a lot in your own family, number one? ES (01:03:16): No. SM (01:03:17): And did you see it amongst your peers on college campuses when you were there? ES (01:03:21): No. SM (01:03:24): I bring the generation gap up because of the fact that in 1984, there was a book that came out called The Wounded Degeneration. There was a symposium made up of veterans like Phil Caputo, Jack Wheeler, Jim Webb, who is now a Senator, Bobby Muller and James Stahls. The purpose of the meeting was the fact that Webb brought up, he said that we all think of the Boomer generation as a service-oriented generation because the Kennedys asked not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country- These, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country, the Peace Corps and giving back. But Mr. Webb said, "It's anything but. The (19)60s generation was not about service because if it was about service, they would have gone and served their nation in the Vietnam War." And he said, "So it is as much about the generation gap between parents and their kids, but it is also between the generation itself, those who served, and those who did not." What are your thoughts on the generation gap and the intra-generation gap? ES (01:04:35): There is a wonderful book about the people who served in Vietnam called the Working-Class War. You know it? SM (01:04:41): I think I am- ES (01:04:41): Chris Appy. SM (01:04:41): Okay. ES (01:04:51): It is a wonderful book. And I teach Vietnam and I usually assign it. And basically, the military draft, because of the 2- S student deferment, meant that the people who were drafted were trying to escape the draft, came from a working-class background, mainly inner-city kids, rural kids. It is the same today disproportionately, and middle-class white kids did not serve. Very-very few. I mean, I knew some when I was a graduate student, but there were very few. And so, it's really a class issue here. That is what we are talking about. There were some upper-class kids, John Kerry, comes to mind. SM (01:06:00): Oh, yes. ES (01:06:01): He did. But that is the exception. SM (01:06:10): Jim Webb, I almost had an interview with him before he became senator and now it is impossible to even get through to him, but he is very vocal on a lot of subjects. He is responsible for the three men statue being there because a lot of people did not want it there. Not very big Vietnam vets. But is that very strong language that he is using saying that he condemns the entire generation if they are labeled as service-oriented generation because they did not serve in Vietnam? ES (01:06:40): No. It is those of us who opposed the war felt that by working in the anti-war movement, we were doing our service. SM (01:06:51): See that is an important point, too, that is come up that some anti-war people had believed that they were veterans, too, of the war, but in a different way. And when I mentioned that to Vietnam veterans, some of them laugh it off. They said, "They did not serve in Vietnam." ES (01:07:08): No, they did not. But I do not think it is the same thing. But what they were doing was what they felt was best for the country. And I feel very strongly. I mean, I think Vietnam was absolutely crucial for anybody who lived through the (19)60s and it was an immoral, terrible war. And whatever anybody could do to stop it, I think was justified. SM (01:07:43): What did the universities learn from the (19)60s and (19)70s that they have carried into today? I know that we had new leadership at the top of every university and that many of the presidents of that era have died off. But what did they learn from that period and what have they forgotten? ES (01:08:05): Well, I think actually what happened was that- SM (01:08:05): Let me turn this other one. This one is a little slower. ES (01:08:18): ... what happened was not so much that they learned today. I think that what happened was, by the end of the (19)60s, beginning of the (19)70s, all of a sudden, they were confronted with unprecedented financial issues, and they immediately switched to a different mode. When we talk about the corporatization of the American university, what we are really talking about is the fact that from the early (19)70s on, college and university administrations are essentially concerned with financial issues and that they are doing whatever they can to raise money, to have good relationships with state legislatures, to help their faculty get grants. You had, for example, in 1980, the passage of the Bayh-Dole Amendment which allows universities to actually profit from the research, the federally funded research that their faculty members have been carrying out. And you get more and more academic administrators behaving not as intellectual leaders or public intellectuals, but as fundraisers and- SM (01:09:58): That is one of the reasons why I left the university. I refused to be a fundraiser and link educational programs like the Islam America Conference to money. I refused. And I knew my time was up. So, you raise a very important point here. ES (01:10:22): ... So I think whatever concerns they may have had about student activism or anything, just that was of secondary importance, and they begin to identify with the institution as an institution rather than with the institution as some kind of educational entity or a place for intellectual discourse or for any kind of research other than research that can be measured either in money or in some sort of terms of prestige. The US News and World Report has absolutely undermined higher education in that respect. SM (01:11:14): It is interesting because the university has kind of been really doing this assessment thing. You got to prove that what you do has value to students. And I would say that we would get instant responses back from students who had been involved in the program, but you cannot assess the importance of a speaker, a forum, a conference, on a student immediately. It is something that could impact you years from now. They want instant satisfaction and instant assessment. And I say, you cannot do that in student life. You cannot. ES (01:11:49): Right. SM (01:11:51): You can get your data, but it is just not going to happen. And it is just like, it is amazing. An assessment is everything now, as you well know. Prove it has value and if you do not prove it immediately, then maybe we will cut it. Would you say that the university is really the main [inaudible] now in America over the respect of the cultural wars? ES (01:12:17): Yes. SM (01:12:17): And this is what frustrates the conservatives more than anything else is they have not been able to get control of it? ES (01:12:22): Yeah. I think, I mean, it is also happening, of course, in the schools as well. The No Child Left Behind Act has been actually disastrous with respect to, again, it is data driven. So, they measure what they can measure rather than what might have some intrinsic importance but cannot be quantified. And so, you have got schools all over the country teaching to the test rather than actually helping students learn. It is not very useful. It is certainly diverting attention, money, and sort of quality education is not occurring. SM (01:13:21): You bring up also that the think tanks that have really developed since the late (19)70s, early (19)80s, the Heritage Foundation, groups like that, are basically because I know I have interviewed quite a few of them and a couple of them are my friends. I have interviewed them, Michael Barone and people like that, Marvin Olasky. But the question I want to bring up here is many that went into these think tanks felt that they could not survive in a university, that the liberal university was ostracizing conservative faculty members. So, for them to truly get their voice, they had to leave the university and join... And of course, the Ola Foundation was the one you talked about that to fund them with lots of money to get their point of view out there. This is part of the culture wars. This is like... ES (01:14:19): Yes. If there were wrestling foundations out there, I might need two, but not because of staff, but because who does not want to be well paid to write books? But you cannot tell me right-wingers who are getting that kind of money. SM (01:14:39): And they are the main threat to the universities then today really. ES (01:14:42): The only person, I am sure there are others, but the only person I can think of who sort of a prolific writer on the left is who I guess left the university, because I know she has got a PhD, is Barbara Ehrenreich. SM (01:14:58): Oh, yeah. ES (01:15:00): She is obviously supporting herself by her writing, but she is not in the same [inaudible] department. SM (01:15:07): I interviewed Charles Murray, and we all know him, and Christina Hoff Summers, people like that, Ruth Seidel, [inaudible] to that group. Would you consider the Muslim students of today, the communist, the students who were labeled, or faculty members that were labeled, as communists in the (19)50s and African American students in the late (19)50s and early (19)60s, would you? I am saying we have a xenophobia in this country, which is a fear of people who are different, and we love the status quo. And whenever it is threatened by any group trying to get access to what other people have, there is resistance. Would you say Muslim students are that way today? ES (01:16:00): Yeah. I think there is a kind of demonization that, especially since 9/11 has targeted Muslims and people from the Middle East. No question about it. SM (01:16:14): When you see that link between the McCarthy period, too, and ostracizing those people who may have been labeled communist and then African American students? ES (01:16:25): Sure-sure. SM (01:16:25): Yeah? ES (01:16:37): You know, had a similar kind of scapegoating going on. SM (01:16:37): I only got about six more questions here. Could I use your restroom? Here we go. I have just a listing here, and I am not going to list all these things. I just wrote them out here. But what do you consider the major events in Boomer lives of... What do you believe, when you teach the (19)60s, some of the major events that really shaped their lives from that period? I have specific events. I do not know if you want me to read them here or list them. ES (01:17:14): Obviously, the civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. I mean, I think those are the two key ones. And everything else sort of comes out of that, including the Women's Movement. SM (01:17:42): Right. I will just read these real fast. It will take maybe about five, well, maybe a minute. But I would certainly list McCarthyism in the (19)50s because I am talking about the things that really were historic events in the period of their lives. The Montgomery Bus Boycott in (19)56, Sputnik in (19)57 which was the thrust for education. I think Elvis Presley played a key role because of rock and roll music. ES (01:18:07): [inaudible] SM (01:18:08): It was the late (19)50s and he was the precursor. And the Beatles, obviously, in (19)64. The election of John Kennedy, Eisenhower's famous statement about the military industrial complex, which there is a great movie out on it. Certainly, the Bay pf Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis where we could have ended the world. Certainly, the Kennedy assassination, the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson withdraws from the presidency. Everything in 1968. The assassinations and the convention and the trial. Barry Goldwater's rise which, at that time, did not seem very big as he was destroyed in the election, but was the beginning of the Reagan period really. My La, the bombing of Cambodia in 1970, and Kent State. And then I just had Woodstock in (19)69 and the Summer of 11, (19)67. The beatniks that I felt were important because of the fact they were antiestablishment, the communal movements, Watergate in (19)73, leaving Vietnam in (19)75. The Carter Presidency was important because it was during this time that the rise of the religious right was happening even though he was a Democrat. And the la- ES (01:19:25): Oh, also the oil shock. SM (01:19:27): Yes, the oil. I remember that. ES (01:19:29): That is a big thing. That is the moment at which this sort of belief in unlimited economic expansion comes to an end, you know? That you come up against limits, including environmental limits and economic limits. SM (01:19:47): Well, that My Lai speech that he gave, too, which- ES (01:19:49): [inaudible] SM (01:19:52): ... he has been definitely criticized for giving that, but it was really kind of truthful. ES (01:19:55): Mm-hmm. SM (01:19:56): And then certainly the Reagan election, perestroika, the fall of Communism, the Gulf War, Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, those kinds of things. And then I had on here historic events on the colleges, which what happened at Cornell that you so beautifully talk about in your book in (19)69, Jackson State in (19)70, Columbia in (19)69, Harvard Square, Wisconsin, a tragedy there. And then, of course, [inaudible] and San Francisco State. Those are all kind of things that stood out amongst the Boomers. That is for me. Is that a good representation? ES (01:20:34): I would say so. Do you have the Free Speech Movement? SM (01:20:36): Yes. I have that. I did not write it here, but it certainly is in there. And Freedom Summer, too. ES (01:20:43): Yeah. SM (01:20:43): Definitely. As a scholar, writer, professor, author, and you were the head of AAUP for- ES (01:20:51): No. I was the editor of the [inaudible] SM (01:20:55): Okay. What has been the relationship between faculty and students since (19)46? I bring this up because it is not talked about very much. I went into higher education because I saw the lack of communication that was happening between students and college administrators. They did not trust them. Not one iota. And I was at Binghamton at the time. We trusted faculty, but then faculty were really having some hard times at Binghamton because they wanted to be out of the protests, but they could not be. I remember Dr. Mahosky who had just come from Berkeley in our social department at Binghamton, he was challenged by the student leadership by saying, "You just graduated with a PhD in Berkeley. We want you over with us united against the recruiting on campus." And he said, "I am not going to do that. I have a job now. I have a little child to raise. I am not going to do what I did at Berkeley. I got a job." And then the student had debated him right on the spot and challenged him. And I actually kicked him out of class. And I will never forget that, but that was kind of what was happening. But we had faculty members in our residence halls that were always there for us, who would be willing to talk with us about the issues of the day. So as a person who has been a scholar herself, what has been the historic relationship, not between administration and students, but between faculty and students? And specifically, the Boomers when they were in college in the (19)60s and (19)70s. ES (01:22:35): You are dealing there.... Oh, that is my husband. Hang on a second. SM (01:22:38): Yup. Yeah, the relationship between students and faculty. ES (01:23:10): Oh, right. It varied on campuses. Younger faculty were often very close to students. And remember, in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, the faculty was very young, you know? It is my generation who was lured into, I mean they literally threw money at us. Anybody who was a good student, they threw money at. I did not even think of going to graduate school. I was going to become a high school teacher. And I was nominated for a fellowship, and I said to myself, if I get a fellowship, I will go to graduate school. But I got the fellowship. I had not even applied to graduate school. SM (01:23:44): Wow. ES (01:23:45): That would not happen today, to put it mildly. And so, there was just this sort of generation of very young faculty members who were involved in things like teaching. That was a big movement in the early days of the Vietnam War. My ex-husband was very much involved with ethnicities for Chinese history. And anybody who knew anything about Asia would get involved so that there were faculty activists. They were very split. And I talk about that in my book about whether they should express their activism the way the students did, you know? Participating in demonstrations and sit-ins or whether they should do it through their intellectual work, through exploring Black history or women's history. And I see myself as, and my work as, very much, my political work, doing through my scholarship, looking at questions of dissent and [inaudible], in particular. Just mainly because I think that is probably what I do better than anything else, so that, therefore, it is probably the most effective use of my time and energy. SM (01:25:23): My whole career has been about bringing students and the faculty together because that was my job as co-curricular program director, director of student programming. And I did at every university I worked at. I loved working with the faculty. In fact, the faculty never thought of me as an administrator and that was a positive. They said, "We feel that you are part of us." And that got me in a little trouble at times when I had to take stands that were either faculty stands or administrative stands, and I was really more with the faculty than I was with the administration. But one of the things, a lot of the young people of the late (19)60s and early (19)70s were involved in Encounter. Encounter was a very important part of one's graduate education. And you even bring up in your book how a lot of the classes in that period in the (19)70s where the students would sit in the round and they'd be able to express their feelings on things, that is what the graduate education was like at Ohio State University in the (19)70s, was Encounter. And that is been heavily criticized, too, because it was forcing you to speak your mind and you could be vulnerable and you needed support, and then sometimes you can be on your own. And so, it was a great lesson for me. But they do not do that today. It is not part of the training. And I think we were closer to faculty members back then than we are now. Would you agree on that? ES (01:26:55): Well, I think what happened was that, in the mid (19)70s, beginning a little earlier in some fields, they stopped hiring full-time faculty members. So that there is a lost cohort of academics of people, in their really from their (19)40s and (19)50s, early (19)60s, that my generation is about, many of them have retired, many of my friends have retired. SM (01:27:39): Right. ES (01:27:42): And so, the age difference because of this lost generation, I think is a problem. I mean, when I was, well, in graduate school, I would not say that, but some of the people who I was closest to, faculty members, were maybe 10 years older than me. That is not a huge difference. But when they are 30 years older, they are another generation. SM (01:28:10): And that was my challenge. But I have a little philosophy of, never lose the kid in you, from Roy Campanella, you know? ES (01:28:16): Yeah. SM (01:28:18): And my graduate advisor was a PhD at 29 at Ohio State, Dr. Johnson. He came from the University of Illinois. How important were the students at ending the Vietnam War, in your opinion? A lot of people believe they played an important role. Some say it was just a minor role. ES (01:28:40): They played a role. I mean, can we quantify how important it was? Certainly, they brought a lot of publicity and attention to the anti-war course. But there were a lot of other people. Basically, for a lot of that period, I was just a faculty wife. I was not really active as an academic. A lot of people like me, ordinary citizens. Plus, of course, you have to [inaudible], you know? SM (01:28:59): Yes. ES (01:28:59): They were crucial, I think. They- SM (01:29:14): When you- ES (01:29:14): ... they needed the Americans. SM (01:29:22): ... Yeah. When you teach your course on Vietnam, what is the reason why we lost the war? What is the reason why we lost that war? ES (01:29:32): Because we could not win it. The way that the American government defined victory was an independent non-communist South Vietnam. That did not exist. And so, the only way we could win the war was not to lose it. And the only way that we could not lose it was by maintaining a massive American military presence. And that turned out to be politically impossible. So that was that. SM (01:30:09): And that is where the Vietnam syndrome really comes in, too, because when George Bush says the Vietnam syndrome is over, I mean, really? And still influences foreign policy and certainly where we are in Afghanistan today. ES (01:30:23): Yeah. SM (01:30:24): Do faculty today overall support the university as a vehicle for uplifting all races? This was a quality that really came about during the (19)60s and (19)70s. And where are the faculty today, liberal and conservative, with respect to, what is the purpose of the university? ES (01:30:48): Oh man, that is a tough one. To begin with, 70 percent of the faculty are what we call contingent faculty members. They are- SM (01:31:06): Adjuncts. ES (01:31:06): ... adjuncts or people on short term contract who have no chance of tenure. There is only 30 percent and shrinking of tenured and tenure-track faculty members. So that, I mean, that is absolutely the most important fact to know about higher education today, which is that the, what we would call the casualization of the faculty. SM (01:31:19): Yeah. ES (01:31:26): And so, when you talk about faculty, you are talking about people who are living usually very desperate lives. Or else, a lot of faculty, especially who's more vocationally-oriented programs, are people whose primary identification is as a practitioner in some other field than higher education. In other words, they are teaching part-time, but they're basically accountants who teach one course in accounting at a community college. They are accounted as faculty, but they do not probably identify themselves as faculty. And that is very important. And so, when you are talking about core faculty members, that is not the main group now teaching in American university. So, for traditional faculty members, how do they view the mission of the university? They are under enormous pressure, especially if they do not have tenure yet to produce because it's such a competitive atmosphere. They have to, at most schools now, you have to have a book. It is crazy. SM (01:32:57): Before you are even hired? ES (01:33:00): In some cases, yeah. SM (01:33:06): Uh-huh. ES (01:33:06): But at least for tenure, you need a book. SM (01:33:07): Yeah. ES (01:33:08): And the pressure is for people now in literary studies, and Modern Language Association did a survey of tenure practices and claim that people needed not just a book, but sufficient progress for the second book to get tenure. So, the bar keeps rising. Same thing for scientists. They have to get grants and it is increasingly more difficult to get grants than it used to be. From the good old days in the (19)60s, they threw money at people. Now even very well-known scientists often cannot get their research funding. And so, the pressures are on people to get grants to work in areas that are going to be popular, that are for scientists and engineers. And often these are fields in which there is more corporate influence, you know? Biomedical stuff, electronics and things like that. SM (01:34:32): One of the questions I have asked everyone from day one when I interviewed Senator McCarthy, the late Senator McCarthy, and that is, do you feel that the Boomer generation has an issue with healing like the Civil War generation that went to his grave not truly healed? I bring this question up because in 1995, a group of 14 students in our Leadership On The Road Program did meet Senator Edwin Muskie. I knew Senator Nelson and so we met 14 former United States Senators. And we were very lucky because Senator Muskie had just gotten out of the hospital and actually died four months later. But he gave us two hours and one of the questions the students came up with is, they were not alive in 1968, but they had seen the video and they wanted to know, they saw the divisions, the terrible divisions in America, assassinations, police and young people fighting each other, riots in the streets, burnings and so forth. And they wanted to know if their parents' generation were going to go to their graves not truly healed because of the tremendous divisions of the time, and they asked him this question. And is healing an issue in this generation? Do you feel it is an important issue when you teach the (19)60s? Because the Vietnam Memorial was... Jan Scruggs wrote, To Heal a Nation, which was trying to heal the Vietnam veterans and their families. But I think he wanted to also- Trying to heal the Vietnam veterans and their families. But I think he wanted to also try to heal the nation in its own way through the wall that heals. ES (01:36:12): It is an interesting question. It is not one I look at mainly it is when I teach the (19)60s, by the end of the semester I am rushing through it. So, I never get to sort of any final summing up and looking at that kind of issue. So, I am not really sure. Sometimes, certainly it's in the rhetoric of some of these people who are still blaming these radicals for everything that went wrong in the country. But I do not know whether at a sort of grassroots level it was still a live issue or not. I have a feeling that the economic issues that began to surface after 74 and the sort of transformation of the economy and the squeeze on the middle class, people are not thinking in terms of the (19)60s anymore. But I could be wrong. SM (01:37:16): Musty answered in a way the students were not even expecting. He basically said that we have not healed since the Civil War over the issue of race. And he had just seen the Ken Burns series on TV. And he had come in the hospital, and he gave a lecture on all the 600,000 who had died in the Civil War, almost an entire generation. He did not even mention the (19)60s. And here is a man who was the vice-presidential candidate in Chicago. Students looked at each other and were shocked, but that is where he was coming from. The issue of race has not healed. And I think I raised the question because when you go to the Gettysburg Battlefield, you will see a statue there. The last person alive who served in the war, and he died in 1924, something like that. And then when you go to the Vietnam Memorial, I interview Jan Scruggs. He thinks there are many that anti-war that come to that wall with their kids and regret that they did not serve because it was the watershed event of the era. And those who may have been against the war would not change feelings. But many of the boomer generation had brought their families there and some of their kids that said, "Dad, what did you do in the war?" Would you say also the lack of trust is an important quality within the boomer generation? They just were not a trusting generation. They all saw all these leaders lie at them. ES (01:38:48): Yeah. Well, sure. There was an enormous amount of hypocrisy and I think they were always has been. Franklin Roosevelt lied. SM (01:39:00): Yeah, Eisenhower lied on you too. ES (01:39:02): Sure. I mean, Roosevelt essentially pushed the United States toward the Second World War. We supported that war. So, the fact that he was doing a lot of covert stuff, military stuff, we overlooked because it was the good war. But that is what politicians do. SM (01:39:28): Would you say this lack of trust though is a positive quality? Because in political science 101 class, you are always taught that you need to challenge your government and never take anything for granted. And so, it is actually a good quality, not a bad quality? ES (01:39:41): I think so. But the problem is that it is very hard for people to get information. What we are seeing is a lot of government secrecy, enormous amount of government secrecy. It's really increased exponentially. One of the things I am looking at in my current work. SM (01:40:05): I am down to my final, actually, three questions. ES (01:40:10): Okay. Because I am going to have to leave. SM (01:40:10): Could you define the term counterculture in your own words? ES (01:40:16): Well, it is a very specific moment in American life in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, mainly of young people who are sort of sloughing off a kind of easy, materialistic set of values that had been fairly prevalent in American society. And teaching through drugs, through music, through communal living, through political activism. A whole kind of new, I use the word lifestyle, but that is really what we are talking about. A new set of values. SM (01:40:58): Could you define culture wars? ES (01:41:06): Oh yeah. That is something that I ordinarily do not believe in conspiracy, but I have got this document from the early (19)70s that was written by the future Supreme Court, justice Lewis Powell, who was advised- SM (01:41:25): Oh yes, that was in the book. ES (01:41:29): Advising a friend in the Chamber of Commerce about how to deal with liberal academics who were supposedly poisoning their students against, I guess, the corporate sector. And what you see is a very well-funded attack on whatever social movements and ideas came out of the (19)60s. SM (01:42:00): What are your thoughts on these two books? Clark Kerr's, Uses of the University, was a classic book, and it was about in the free speech movement. And I think Ernie Boyers, the College of the Undergraduate Years, is just a treasure. He was in the SUNY system, and I had a chance to meet him and briefly know him. Your thoughts on those two scholars and the meanings of their work? ES (01:42:28): Poor Clark Kerr. Again, apparently during the free speech movement, I have read his memoirs, I have been on programs with him and stuff. He is very evasive. He is a labor negotiator. He believes you get everybody together in a room and things will work out. And I think he was completely blindsided by how rigid the sort of conservatives and the board among the regions were, and how ideological the students were. He really just could not deal with it. And he was an end of ideology person. SM (01:43:27): Oh, yeah. And Daniel Bell, I interviewed him last summer before he died. ES (01:43:31): Yeah. And Boyer's stuff, I do not know as well. I mean, I know his stuff he did on the quote unquote, scholarship of teaching. And clearly, he wanted to de-emphasize research at the undergraduate level, which is part of the competitive trust within the American Academy. SM (01:44:06): Would you say that the best books that were written for the boomers at the period in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s were books like actually, that Culture of Narcissism was the late (19)70s. The End of Ideology was Daniel Bell's book in the early '60s. And then you had Theodore Roszak’s book, the Making of a Counterculture. And then you had The Greeting of America by Charles Reich. Those are all major pieces to me, over a 20-year period of critique of the generation. And do you agree? Do you think they are all valid works? ES (01:44:52): I have never read most of them. Actually, what is interesting, only when I got into doing this most recent book, did I read Bloom. SM (01:44:59): Oh, yes. ES (01:45:01): Which was the book, it was the best teller. I owned it, but I had never read it. Well, I read it and discovered tons of things in there. But a lot of these iconic books, I have a feeling, do not get read. SM (01:45:18): When I interviewed Daniel Bell, who was not, well, of course he is passed away. And that was at Harvard. It was a thunderstorm. And then there is this old house right near the Theological Seminary up there. And I am in that area there, and his wife is upstairs on a machine keeping her alive, and he has got a maid working for him. And he is not well. But when I asked that question about about Roszak and Reich, "Garbage. Garbage, they were not intellects." And then I said, "What did you think of Kenneth Kenison's Youth and Descent?" "That was a good book." So, it was interesting in talking. Who were the most influential scholars present as teachers who shaped the university any time after World War II? ES (01:46:18): Markusa, obviously. And then I think, I am not sure I could even name them all. It is the people who began doing stuff when Vietnam, who began looking at American farm policy. SM (01:46:48): Chomsky? ES (01:46:48): Yeah. But I was doing history, so I am sort of thinking of the revisionist scholars. SM (01:46:50): Oh, yes. ES (01:46:54): I am thinking of Herb Guttman, and people who were doing social history, very important in my field. E.B. Thompson, the British starring was crucial. Looking at working class history. It may be different in different fields. I am thinking, not just in terms of the general culture, but in terms of the intellectual history of specific fields. SM (01:47:31): And this is kind of a two-part question. Who were the winners in the (19)60s and (19)70s in higher ed or even in society? And who were the losers? And secondly, who were the heroes of the boomers? Were there winners and losers in the (19)60s and (19)70s? ES (01:47:41): I was going to say that is not the kind of a question that I would have asked or that I think I could give an answer to. Who were the losers? Linden Johnson, Richard Nixon. But I do not know that anybody won. SM (01:47:41): And the heroes? ES (01:47:41): People like King, obviously, Bob Moses, Mario [inaudible]. I think to a certain extent Bobby Kennedy was a very charismatic figure. I mean, what always struck me about Bobby Kennedy was how much he was able to change. SM (01:47:41): Oh yeah. ES (01:47:41): From this sort of tough guy enforcer in his early career to somebody who really was reaching out. Fannie Lou Hamer. That same pantheon of figures mainly in the Civil Rights movement, which I think, at least for me, was really just so exemplary in so many ways. SM (01:49:23): I do have one more question. And that is, did the boomers become the most unique generation in history? Did they change the world for the better as they said they were going to do when they were young? And I know that I have actually met with some of my former peers at my undergraduate school, and they still feel the way they did back in the '60s, that they feel that the generation did a lot to make the world better, but look at the word we are living in. So just your thoughts. This boomer generation is still, they are 65 at the oldest now, and they are going into old senior citizen period. ES (01:50:04): They are still out there. SM (01:50:04): Yeah, they are still out there. But for the first 65 years, what can you say about them? Did they change the world for the better overall? ES (01:50:12): George W Bush did not. I think it is mixed, very mixed. SM (01:50:24): Yeah. I know the only two boomer presidents have been Clinton and Bush, but actually Obama is a boomer, but he was only two. Finally, the last thing. I am done, but I wanted to read this and if you had any comment, just comment on this. And finally, we know only about 5 percent of the 70 million became activists in the (19)60s and (19)70s. Some used the statistic that most young people were not active or linked to causes as a negative. However, this still adds up to many millions. And my question is this, for those who were active, whether it be conservatives or liberals, do you feel they were very different in a positive way with respect to caring about equality, justice, freedom of speech, respect for differences, wanting to make the world a better place to live? Or was it all about, as some of their critics say, a generation that was selfish, not selfless. They avoided the draft in any way possible. Plus wanted instant satisfaction via demands due to their being brought up in the (19)50s as spoiled kids who were given everything by their depression era parents. This applies to white middle class students, but also eventually to the African American students and students who lived in poverty. Because they were also making demands, but for different reasons. ES (01:52:07): Well, you know that my answer would be that clearly there were real social problems. The Vietnam world was a major problem. And people were motivated to take action for very idealistic reasons. It did not turn out well in every case, but I do not think these people are self-interested. It is a mixture of people. SM (01:52:25): Was there any question I did not ask you-you thought I was going to? ES (01:52:25): No, that was very good. SM (01:52:25): Great. Any final comments? ES (01:52:25): Nope. SM (01:52:25): Testing one, two. Testing. ES (01:55:51): The other thing that I learned when I was doing, actually, my other book on McCarthyism. I did not learn this until somewhat later, was that my sixth-grade teacher had been fired for having been at communist. He had never come up before a committee. But the FBI had fingered him. And at that point, the school, it was not a public school, a private school that was being run by Kaplan University. And they just got rid of him. SM (01:56:27): As a young person though, you are just seeing these things for the first time. Your parents are one thing. But you were a young person, a child, or a teenager. What were you thinking about America? And this is of course post World War II America. ES (01:56:45): Yeah. I grew up in this sort of liberal ADA, Americans for Democratic Action. My family worked in favor of Stevenson; my mother worked for the Democratic Party in what was the Republican suburb at that time. And the rumor was always that you had to vote Republican in order to get your garbage collected, which was not true. But anyhow, so I grew up with a fairly, what would you say, liberal set of values, which I think I still retain. SM (01:57:34): Where would you go to high school? ES (01:57:36): I went to Cheltenham High School. SM (01:57:38): Outside Philly? ES (01:57:39): Outside Philadelphia. SM (01:57:40): Colleen McCue, it is a small world again. Colleen McCue was the president of our contemporary issues committee as a senior. She is in Scotland right now, is from that high school. Colleen McCue. ES (01:57:51): Sure. We had all kinds of people who went there. Benjamin Netanyahu went there after my time. Reggie Jackson went there. SM (01:58:01): Oh my God. ES (01:58:03): And it was a big public high school with a wide variety of kids. It was fun. And then I went to Radcliffe. That is where I got my undergraduate. And I stayed to get my PhD at Harvard. And I was in European diplomatic history, I got my PhD in European diplomatic history. I wrote my thesis on the French debt to the United States after the First World War. It was really boring. I did not enjoy it. And I sort of did not want to go on in that field. And so, this is about the early 1970s. I finished my degree, I really did not know what I wanted to do. I was married. I had two children. We were living in Cambridge at the time. My then husband was teaching Chinese history at Brandeis. And I got a job teaching freshman composition at Harvard. The way it worked was, you did not have to be in English, but you had to be a good writer. And they assumed somehow it would rub off on the students. And you could teach your course as a mini course, almost a little seminar, as long as you assigned a lot of writing and worked on the writing. And so, I decided I would teach a course on the 1950s, because I had grown up then. And I was curious. So, I started teaching this course. This is the mid '70s. And I discovered that there was no good book on McCarthyism that I could assign my students. Nothing. No scholarship, no nothing. And so, after about a year of this, I decided, well, I did not know what I wanted to do, but I was really interested in McCarthyism. And I would write a book about it. And I had already written a Chinese cookbook of all things. SM (02:00:28): Oh my God. ES (02:00:32): Which is another piece of my life. And I had a literary agent, and I got a fellowship from the Radcliffe, what was then called the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe, for a year to work on this project on McCarthyism. And after a little while, it became very clear to me that this was a big project and that there was another person who was writing a general book of McCarthyism. And I was sort of advised by a whole bunch of people to narrow down my topic. So, I decided I made a choice. I realized I could either look at McCarthyism in one city or I could take an occupational group. And I decided since I was an academic, I might as well look at the academy. And so that is how I got into writing my first book about McCarthyism. SM (02:01:32): I think, if I can remember correctly, there is only two books that I can recall, because I have them, are the Buckley book he wrote on McCarthyism. That was out and then there was one Richard Reeves? ES (02:01:46): Yeah, which was the general of McCarthy himself. SM (02:01:49): I think Richard Rovere wrote a book. ES (02:01:56): Wrote a book in about 1956, and Reeves wrote a biography. And it is Thomas Reeves, I think. SM (02:02:01): Thomas Reeves. Yeah. ES (02:02:02): Right. But there was not a general study. The general study that was being written at the time is by a guy named David Caute, C-A-U-T-E, who was a Brit. Who actually, I had been in a graduate seminar with him many years ago. And his book was, it is not bad, but it did not do what I did. And so anyhow, I finished this book on McCarthyism and the university, mainly looking at dozens of archives of universities, interviewing a lot of people. And then decided that I would go back to my original project of looking at McCarthyism as a whole, because there still was not the kind of book that I thought should be written. And by that time, I had moved to New York and had remarried. And I had changed. I do not think you could do it these days. But in those days, I was able to switch from European history into American history. And at the time my McCarthy in the University book came out, I was able to get a teaching job at Yeshiva in American history. And I began to work on the sort of general study of McCarthyism. I published; I do not know if you have seen this little book for classroom use. SM (02:03:42): No, I have not seen that. ES (02:03:49): Let me show you. SM (02:03:52): What influence do you feel that McCarthyism period had on the boomer generation, that was really in elementary school at the time. But subconsciously many kids were watching that on black and white TV. I know I was one of them. I did not quite understand it. Oh, I think I have seen that, but I do not have it. Yeah, I have seen that. ES (02:04:12): Well, this is the one that it is used. It is what people assign in their classes. Because it is much smaller than the other book. SM (02:04:25): Wow. There is the gentleman to his right. ES (02:04:29): Yeah. And that was a lot of fun. That is just a bunch of documents with a sort of hundred-page overview. SM (02:04:37): Do you think that the McCarthyism had any effect on young boomers? Some of I have interviewed say that they were too young, but others subconsciously were seeing this fear that was happening in America at the same time. The fear of speaking up. And they were cognizant of what was going on in the South too. If you were watching the news about the Civil Rights movement and the courage of the Dr. King and others to stand up and speak. ES (02:05:08): Right. I mean, I think what happened was certainly when I was growing up, the left was completely marginalized. I mean, I just plain did not even know it existed. When I was at Radcliffe, there apparently was a socialist club, but it was made up of what were called Red Diaper babies. People whose parents had been pretty much in the Communist Party. And people who were outside of that very small left-wing world did not even know it existed. SM (02:05:48): Kind of like the young Americans for Freedom in the (19)60s and (19)70s. The young Americans for Freedom were a conservative group that was born by Buckley. But a lot of people, when they talk about the actors of (19)60s, they totally omit them or say very little about them. ES (02:06:07): But I think the civil rights movement really made a huge difference because it is the moment at which there is a massive movement for social reform. And that changed how people thought about political action. Before that, I do not think there was very much going on. SM (02:06:36): So deep down inside, if people were young enough, especially the early boomers born say in (19)46 that were maybe six and seven years old when McCarthyism was really rampant and he was popular, I guess, through (19)54 or whatever, he's well known in the news. That had any effect on these as they grew older and they wanted to speak up, like so many did on with all the movements that took place in the late (19)60s. And we are not going to be held back. We are going to speak our minds. ES (02:07:05): Well, I think the impact was not so much what happened, but what did not happen. There is a missing generation of activists. There is missing institutional connections to some kind of ongoing left-wing tradition, that was shattered by McCarthyism. And so, what you have in the '60s with many members of the new left is the sense that they have to begin all over again. SM (02:07:42): You were at two places, obviously, where there was activism. Harvard had a lot of activisms. I have interviewed a couple professors at Harvard Square. ES (02:07:49): I was not there then. What happened was during the height of the quote unquote, (19)60s, my then husband was teaching at Princeton, which was not a particularly active community. And I can recall go- SM (02:08:03): Right. ES (02:08:03): And I can recall, as a faculty wife of all things, going to the organizing meeting of the Princeton chapter of the Students for Democratic Society with my husband and I think one or two other faculty members, at which the faculty members told the students, "This is a student run organization. The faculty cannot do it for you. You have to do it." So, Princeton was not particularly active in that period. SM (02:08:31): Yeah. Well, Harvard Square is one of those historic moments. Did being around students though... when you were around your peers, how would you define them? At the colleges when you were there, when you were working on that doctorate, when you were working on that masters and undergrad? ES (02:08:48): Yeah. Well, for some weird reason, I had a very interesting group of gangs of friends. A number of them were Red Diaper Baby and were communist, very close friends, and we were... well actually, I was politically active in the early 1960, around (19)62, (19)63, (19)64. I was very active in the Northern Support group for the Student Non-violent Coordinator Committee. I was very active in helping, especially the Freedom Summer stuff in 1964. I was involved, although then something else happened and I could not remain involved. But then when we moved to Princeton, which we did in 1965, I was again active in Smith, and became for a very short time before it dissolved, I think I was head of the Princeton Francis Smith, or something like that. SM (02:09:59): Okay. ES (02:10:10): So, I was politically active, not... I did not go south, mainly because I was married, and I thought, "Wives should not go leave their husbands." SM (02:10:15): Yeah, and so many of the people that were in the Freedom Summer in (19)64, we all know about Berkeley and the free speech movement, Mario Savio, people like that, Tom Hayden and so forth. I know this is a very broad question, but when you think of the boomer generation, again... first off, I would like to know whether you like the term, number one, and whether you like terms defining generations? Because I have had individuals like Todd Gitlin that said, "If you mentioned the boomer generation one more time, this interview was over." Because he does not like these little compartmentalization’s of the greatest generation, the silent generation, the boomer generation, millennial, generation x, boomers. He does not like it. ES (02:11:02): Yeah. SM (02:11:03): And I have had quite a few that do not like it. But then some say, "Well, we got to have something." ES (02:11:07): Yeah, it is convenient. I am a historian. It's convenient. As long as you contextualize it and realize that you cannot put everybody in this slot, and you need to look at what was actually going on during that time and realize that there were always alternative voices. SM (02:11:27): Yeah, but if someone... say you were in a high school and you were in a 11th grade class, and somebody had the courage to ask a question. That is: what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of the boomer generation? How would you respond? ES (02:11:46): These were people who came of age in the 1960s, their demographic bulge, which is why they cut so much attention. Because there were so many more of them proportionally within the population, and these were people who were on American campuses at the time of the... I do a lot of higher education, so this is a period when there's enormous expansion of American higher education. An enormous push actually, to get people to go to graduate school. This is something that I talk about in my book about the lost soul, of the role of graduate students in a lot of the student movements as an in-between group. The other thing, which I did not talk about, but I always talk about when I am describing the political activities and social movements of the 1960s, is... I illustrated by describing my apartment that I got when I was a second-year graduate student at Harvard. I do not know if you know Cambridge at all. SM (02:13:10): Yeah, I have been up there. I have interviewed 11 people at Harvard. ES (02:13:15): Well, my apartment was on Bank Street, which was about maybe five blocks from Harvard Square, and it was very centrally located. It was very cheap. It was $65 a month. Now admittedly, I did not have central heating, but I had a kerosene heater, and my landlord put in a better heater because I might burn down the house if... I might have. The bathroom left nothing to be desired, like a sink. I had to brush my teeth in the kitchen. But other than that, it was fine. It was three rooms. Neighborhood was safe, even though it was pretty inexpensive as a student neighborhood, and I had a roommate. What this meant, if my rent cost me what under $40 a month, it meant that there was not on the people, my generation, the kind of economic pressure that are on people today. SM (02:14:26): To work. ES (02:14:27): To work. You could live, I had a fellowship from... that paid for everything. I did not have to teach, and you could live very, very truthfully. That allowed people not only the freedom at that moment to become politically active, but also everybody knew they could get a job. You could get a job without having a PhD. My husband was hired at Princeton without having finished his PhD. That was common. SM (02:15:07): Wow. ES (02:15:08): And so, nobody worried about their economic situation. People probably did, but it was not the way it is today. People were not graduating with huge debt, and that economic security, I think, allowed for much more political expression than you have today. I think that is really key, and it's not something that people talk about a lot. SM (02:15:35): Some people have even gone to the extreme, as a follow-up for what you just said. People who really have been around a while and are more activists historically and have experienced what you experienced, but now see that there are some really good students who care, but they do not have the time to do things like they did when they were young. They feel... it is almost as if there is a conspiracy out there to keep young people busy, so they cannot take the time to protest, to challenge, to be an activist like in the past because they have no time. One interesting point, when you study the millennial generation, which... because I am in higher ed too. ES (02:16:17): Yeah. SM (02:16:17): The millennials in the Irving Howe book, Howe-Strauss states that they are like the boomer generation with respect that they want to leave a legacy, but they want to leave a legacy after they are 40. Whereas boomers wanted to change the world immediately, and a lot of it has to do with getting the degree, working and not having the time, raising a family, and so forth. I am not sure if all that is true, but the thing is, today's young people to me deeply care. They just do not have the time to be involved in fighting for a lot of things they care about. You raised a real good point there. This is a follow-up too. Are there any characteristics that you feel define the generation? Any strengths or weaknesses of the boomers that you knew and lived with or talked? ES (02:17:14): Yeah, they are somewhat younger than I am. I do not think I could characterize like that... SM (02:17:24): 70 million? ES (02:17:25): Yeah. SM (02:17:26): Yeah. ES (02:17:26): I do not think I could. SM (02:17:29): One of the things here that... today, the conservative, I will repeat that. I am going to read this part. How do you respond to the critics of the boomer generation who blame many of the problems today on what happened back in the (19)60s and early (19)70s? The attacks around the sexual revolution, worry, the drug culture, inter-spirituality as opposed to organized religion. The divorce rate, the beginning of the breakup, the American family, the divisiveness that we... so strong back then. No respect for law and order, violence, no respect for authority, and... lack of trust in leadership. Even some people have said the spending habits of the boomers, they were a materialistic generation. They spent, and that is one of the reasons why we are having the problems today. Individually, it is because, "I want it now and I am not going to wait for it." And then of course, overall, the challenge, the status quo, the tax on corporate influence, and group think, the concept of victimization, the welfare state mentality. These are all the things that conservatives attack the boomer generation, and particularly, the counterculture from the (19)60s and (19)70s. ES (02:18:55): Well, a lot of this is not... this is the period I teach, and what you see is certainly with regards to say, the chronicled sexual revolution. It was not a revolution. It was an evolution. It had been... sexual worries were changing, had been changing since the early 20th century. You were not seeing a quote unquote "revolution." What you were seeing was finally a realization of what actually was happening. I think the cultural changes, again, were things that would have happened, whether there was some conduct, quote unquote "(19)60s" or not. These changes in how people related, a greater informality, would have happened anyhow, and a lot of what conservatives’ attack, of course, is protests against things like the Vietnam War and white supremacy in the South, which were certainly not exactly the products of the boomer generation. SM (02:20:12): Oh, yes, definitely. You already mentioned earlier that one of the great qualities or developments that happened during the time when boomers were young is the expansion of higher education, and the increasing numbers of students who go to college, as opposed to even in the (19)50s. There was something going on. We know about the GI Bill after World War II and many came back, but certainly with the influx of new young people coming in, certainly acts as... but could you describe the state of higher education in America, just as a person who has studied it in the following periods? We are looking at 65 years now. Boomers have been alive now 65 years, the oldest one, and every single day, I hear that there are something like 13,500 people turning 65 who are boomers. Every day for the next God knows how many years. So, when you look at 1946 to 1960 in higher education, what comes to your mind? ES (02:21:17): Well, there is this period of really massive expansion, and a democratization of higher education. It really... before the second World War, it was very much an elite phenomenon. After the Second World War, it becomes essentially the badge of middle-class status. You get an expansion, especially in the public sector, not just at flagship universities like University of Michigan, but the creation of a much broader second tier of institutions. So, for example, I am looking at Pennsylvania, where I grew up. In the 1950s, there were all these state teachers’ colleges. Westchester... SM (02:22:10): Cortland. That was where I grew up, Cortland State teacher's house. ES (02:22:11): Sure. SM (02:22:11): Yeah. ES (02:22:16): And they all begin to expand. They become part of bigger systems, and so you are getting more and more access to higher education from people who have very different backgrounds. It's no longer something that these quotes unquote "elites," now... the higher education system is still very stratified. There are these elite institutions that the top end go attend, to community colleges and stuff, but the access to some kind of higher education really just grew enormously. As for people like myself who were in graduate school and young faculty members, what they were experiencing was this incredible job market. I have been working, doing research. I did some for the most recent, but I am going to do more on academic freedom in the 1960s, and... faculty activism, not... SM (02:23:18): Oh wow. ES (02:23:20): ...student activism, and I discovered a left-wing faculty group that saw itself as the faculty twin... were the alumni movement of SPS, essentially. SM (02:23:34): You wrote... you mentioned that briefly, that... ES (02:23:36): Yes, yes. SM (02:23:36): ...of the 25 at one school, 24 of them were let go. ES (02:23:41): Yes. Yeah. SM (02:23:41): I remember that. ES (02:23:42): Called the new University Conflict, and they had this newsletter. At one point, they were going to set up a job service, job referral banks for their members. What they said was, "Come to us for the next job from which you would be fired." But the fact was, most of the people who did lose their jobs for political reasons during this period were able to find other academic jobs if they wanted them. Some people just dropped out, but because of this enormous expansion... again, it is the fact of much more economic security really enabled people to be more politically active. SM (02:24:31): When you look at that period then, after Kennedy came into power 1961 to say 1980, when Ronald Reagan... how would you define that? There is so much.... how would you define that higher education during that time? ES (02:24:44): Well, that is still the period of expansion. The moment at which the expansion stops, it is pretty clear. It is about (19)74, (19)75. SM (02:24:54): Right. ES (02:24:55): The oil shocks, the moment. It is a crisis in... I think we have to say American world capitalism, and that is the moment at which you begin to see cut back in the amount of state funding of higher education. It is this period where you begin to see a concerted attack on the quote unquote "liberal" academy from a bunch of conservative events, begin to fund right-wing foundations and writers, and start what we see as I think a really major attack on what is considered a liberal academy. SM (02:25:45): And that is really from late (19)70s through today, really. ES (02:25:48): Yes. Yes. SM (02:25:49): And Ronald Reagan played a key part in that because... but he had a passion... ES (02:25:55): He began it in California. He ran against Berkeley in 1966. SM (02:25:58): Yes. Yeah. That is an unbelievable development, and that he used the same package when he ran for President too, law and order. Law and order, and against the welfare state. ES (02:26:10): Yep. SM (02:26:11): Remember, those are the two things. You have written three books. Oh, you have written more than three books, but I am not making a comment on this book because I did not know about this one. But the three books, the one on... the No Ivory Tower, the book on McCarthyism, and your most recent one. ES (02:26:28): Yeah. SM (02:26:28): Higher Education, the Lost Soul. In a few words, what was the basic premise of all three of those books? And secondly, when you look at the three major premises of these books, how did the main information of that premise affect the boomer generation? ES (02:26:52): Well, the main thing I am concerned about is free speech. Freedom of expression, intellectual freedom, and ability to express dissent about major political issues. I think that is what I have been looking at in one way or another in all of my work. At the moment, I am working on yet another book on a study of American political repression. Very general from, as we say, the Puritans to the Patriot Act, and I am working with a political scientist who's a political theoretician, because when I was working on all of these books, I had assumed that political theorists had written something about political repression. Seems to be a rather important subject, and yet it turns out there is very little, which was surprising. Anyhow, I have a college who is a political theorist at Brooklyn College, teaches at CUNY, and he is interested in exactly the same things I am, so we're working on this together. But it is all about essentially the suppression of defense and looking at how it operates. Stuart, is there anything I can get you? Stuart (02:28:32): No, I am fine. ES (02:28:32): Okay. SM (02:28:37): Yeah. When we talk about freedom of speech, the first thing that always comes to my mind, and I do not think it is being taught very well in higher education today in graduate programs, is the influence that free speech movement had on the history of higher education, in my opinion. I went to Ohio State in the early (19)70s, and we talked about it all the time. We have talked about legal aspects when police can come on campus, when they cannot come on campus and everything. But the one thing that always strikes me about the free speech movement is people try to separate it, saying that it was the early... the middle (19)60s as opposed to the other protests... ES (02:29:14): Oh, right. SM (02:29:15): ...when it was, in reality, the precursor, what was to come. Secondly, Mario Savio, whether you like him or not, his words will forever... I had been on Berkeley many times. I took part-time courses there too. The fact is that the thing that stands out in that whole movement was the fact that ideas, ideas is what the university is all about, not corporate control. So a lot of the battles that took place during that (19)64, (19)65 period, and many of the battles in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s on even my campus at SUNY Binghamton, was that we wanted a campus of ideas and not departments, grants, fundraising, and everything linked toward corporate control of what can happen on university campus. What is upsetting to me today is it seems like we have forgotten everything about the free speech movement. ES (02:30:14): Yeah. SM (02:30:14): We know it is history. But I interviewed Arthur Chickering who wrote Education and Identity, and I also interviewed Alexander Astin, the great scholar in California. ES (02:30:24): Yeah. SM (02:30:24): After each interview, I said, "What is your biggest disappointment, as people who have lived in higher education, through your whole career?" And they both said corporate control of the university, and they are teaching PhD students in higher ed. ES (02:30:36): Yeah. SM (02:30:37): Just your thoughts on the free speech movement, how important it was, and... ES (02:30:42): Well, it is emphasized the significance of higher education institutions, of higher education, as those places where people not only can debate ideas freely, but also given, and in the contemporary world, as you know, the media is increasingly shrinking and becoming... speaking more to niches and not to a general public. We do not have that general debate out there at any high level. It is all sound bites, and so the universities are really the last place where you can deal with complicated ideas, where you can deal with complexity, where things are not just black or white, but are much more nuanced. And of course, that is something that I think we want to... talk about a corporate conspiracy, but clearly, we are seeing a dumbing down of public debate, public discourse. Universities are really the last place that is pushing back against that, but as they are being starved for funds, as there are all these pressures from the outside, against tenured radicals, you that... SM (02:32:22): Oh, yeah. ES (02:32:22): ...whole business, that universities are increasingly on the defensive. Their administrations are scrambling for money. They're totally focused on the bottom line, and what that means, of course, is that they have to go out and get students. It creates a very competitive atmosphere on campuses. It is competitive for faculty, competitive for students, and the value of a desire to learn, a desire to find things out, the desire to find things out for oneself is a sideline in this need for getting ahead. For what you see now is an increasing vocationalization of higher ed, where people are essentially majoring in occupational therapy and not liberal arts, which I think are increasingly necessary for the creation of an informed citizenry. What we are losing is that informed citizenry that can think about reality, rather than something that is been filtered through advertising and celebrities, and this whole sound bite culture. SM (02:33:55): I have this theory, and I like your opinion on that, and that is based on my experiences of 30 years in higher ed at four different universities, Jefferson being one, high University of Ohio State, and Westchester University. That is that it seems the term activism is a term that universities are deathly afraid of. They like the term volunteerism. Everybody is volunteering. In my studies, I read that volunteerism is at its peak when it's usually a conservative era, but certainly the Peace Corps was about volunteerism. Volunteers and service to America was the same thing, and if you go to any university campus, now just about 95 percent of students are found in some volunteer activity. Some required, and some do it on their own and join clubs. But when you talk about activism, I have always believed that activism is a step beyond volunteerism. Volunteerism is... might be twice a week or once a week, but 24/7 is what activism is. It is a state of mind, is a state of being, and it's about speaking up. It is about challenging. It is about seeing injustice and trying to right it. I can go on and on here. ES (02:35:14): Yeah. SM (02:35:14): Do you believe that universities today, whether it be the university you teach at, or Berkeley, or SUNY Binghamton in my alma mater, or Ohio State, my other alma maters... are they afraid of the word activism? ES (02:35:28): Oh, sure. What we are seeing, of course... one way of looking at it is this kind of, what do they call it? Civic service or something, that is being pushed... SM (02:35:41): Oh, yes. ES (02:35:41): ...on many campuses. It is very much about individualism. It is individual action. Whereas what you are talking about is really a collective action that is directed against systemic problems. In other words, it is not enough for individuals who work in food kitchen, or food banks. Maybe we should change the laws and create a different kind of welfare system, so that there is a big difference here between individual acts of charity and something that is really challenging the system at a much deeper level. SM (02:36:30): I agree. We had an activist series at Westchester who was growing. We had Tom Hayden, we had Daniel Berrigan. We had... it was really growing, and we read Howard Zinn's thin book, and we had faculty members coming in with students reading it together. We were asked to stop it because it was... I do not know why, but we were asked to stop it, and even though it was becoming a success, so something was happening beyond the areas that I know that were threatening someone. ES (02:37:00): Yeah. When was this? SM (02:37:03): This was recently at my university within the last 10 years. ES (02:37:08): Yeah. Oh, that is interesting. SM (02:37:08): And it might have been as much against me as it was against what we were doing, because we had a small group of students and they did not think it was enough people that were involved. It was a long story. But when I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, and I also interviewed David Horowitz, they had mentioned to me that... they said that the radicals of the (19)60s are now controlling today's universities. But then I asked them, "Let us be more specific here, because I know a lot of conservatives who are running universities today." They said, "Well, what we're really saying is that they are running. They control the curriculum." And do you believe that? Phyllis Schlafly is very strong on this. She said the radicals of the (19)60s are now controlling the curriculum of the university. ES (02:37:53): No, no. What happened is that in the (19)60s, universities expanded. We have already talked about that, grow up in whole new groups of people, and universities began to address issues that they had not addressed before because there was pressure from their own students. But it's not because the students were radical, it is because the students were African-American and Hispanic, and felt somewhat excluded. The administration, much more than the faculty themselves, are the ones who created some of these changes. One group I studied, I looked at for my book on the Lost Soul of Higher Education, were people who started women's studies programs. Well, these women may have been radical, but the pressure to expand women's studies came from their students, and the administrators were very, very happy to accommodate them to create women's studies programs. Why? Because students were taking them. They were popular, and that feeds this bottom line mentality. If you can attract a lot of students, your administration likes you. SM (02:39:30): Yes, definitely. That is one of the things. Would you say that when you look at the era of the boomer generation and the accomplishments that came out of the period, some people say they were negatives, like I mentioned earlier. Their opinions, but that one of the greatest accomplishments that ever came out of this period was the fact that the women's studies, the black studies, the Native American studies, Asian American studies, all the different studies programs that were all criticized in one way or another at the beginning, but have become very legitimate and important parts of the University of today, just... ES (02:40:01): Well, yeah, I think so. I mean... SM (02:40:02): Just ... ES (02:40:02): Well, yeah, I think so. I mean, also one of the big changes that we are seeing in curriculum, and my school, which is a very conservative school, to put it mildly, has just implemented some curricular reforms, much of it having to do with the introduction of non-Western studies, of looking at the rest of the world, which is absolutely crucial. That is not being propelled by (19)60s radicals, it is being propelled by the changes out there in [inaudible] society. SM (02:40:37): Yeah. I remember when Henry Cisneros spoke at the NAFA conference about maybe 12 years ago, former mayor of San Antonio. He said, "We have been preaching a long time in higher education about preparing our students for the global world." We are in the technology world here, so it is a little different, but even in the (19)60s, and even then, you can communicate faster than you could in the (19)50s. So basically, is not that what it is all about? We need to prepare students for the global world that we are facing. And that is when we talk about Muslim studies and understanding Islam, it is preparing our students to understand the cultures of the world, the people they are going to live with, the people they are going to be work with, and the people who are going to be their bosses. That is what Henry Cisneros was talking, said, "You need to prepare for the future, not be afraid of the future." And that was his presentation, do not fear the future. Prepare for the future. I get emotional on this. This is a very important topic. Well, when did the (19)60s begin in your eyes and when did it end? ES (02:41:47): Oh boy. I teach a course on the (19)60s, so I would devote at least one class to that. It really varies. I think, you can always say, "Well, let us take the election of Kennedy," but a lot of stuff began earlier, certainly the Civil rights movement is building up from what a civil rights historian called the long civil rights movement from the Second World War on. From the other hand, you can say, "Well, the escalation of the Vietnam War in 1964, (19)65 may have kind of created the more raucous part of the (19)60s." Certainly with regard to say women's issues, it is really not till the, again, sort of the mid-(19)60s that women become much more self-conscious. Betty Freidan, Feminist Mystique is published in 1963. When does it end? And again, I think you have to look at sort of the mid-(19)70s, the oil shock, end of the Vietnam War. SM (02:43:17): Was there a watershed moment that stands out above everything else? ES (02:43:23): Moments. No one single one I think SM (02:43:28): Some people will believe that we are still, well because of the culture wars, (19)60s never ended because of the battles that are ongoing and continue. If you go to the Vietnam Memorial, you see if any of them have still got their problems with those who are in the anti-war movement. And that is just a small segment. But you see the battle within the university that you write so brilliantly about to the two words that stand out is the concept of truth, which was the Western civilization, the truth of Aristotle and Plato and so forth. And then relevance. ES (02:44:07): Oh yes. SM (02:44:08): Which is, it has got to be relevant to me. Well, what about, we are Western civilization is we got to prepare you as a liberal person. So those are all part of the ongoings. I think we're doing okay timely. Any other thoughts on ... ES (02:44:27): Well, I think the country has turned so far to the right since the 1970s that his talk about being under [inaudible] of the (19)60s is just fantasy. But we are living in a very conservative moment in which things that were taken for granted in the (19)60s are deemed totally unrealistic like the fact that the government might be able to do some good and create valuable social programs. SM (02:45:13): Yes. ES (02:45:13): Nope. That is ... SM (02:45:14): The one thing I wanted to ask you because you bring it up in the book, is the fact that the university was, again, Mario Savio said that the purpose of the university is about ideas. So, when the conservative [inaudible], whether it be Mr. Pipes, who many people on our campus cannot stand, they always bring him up. Something about him rubs people the wrong way. Irving Crystal, that group of people. Okay, what am I trying to say here? ES (02:45:49): About these cultural conservatives? SM (02:45:51): Yeah, the cultural conservatives. I was trying to get to a point here about ... They talk about the thing that we talk about. If truth ... If Savio says that it is about ideas and Dr. Pipe says it is something about truth, what is the difference? Because there are different truths. So, Pipe has a problem with different truths. You raise this in your book. ES (02:46:22): Okay. Well, what is weird is that to a certain extent, these people who are bemoaning the loss of that kind of sense of a centeredness and a common culture, which is a common "elite" culture, I often have a particular sympathy for them. Because one of the big fights that I see, and that I think one of the big problems within universities is not so much the content of general education courses, but the fact that, what is it now, I think over 60 percent of all students are there not getting any exposure to it. They are taking occupational therapy, they are taking hotel management, that are not getting exposure to anything that is giving them an ability to think critically about their own lives and about their own culture and their own country. And so rather, the people who are concerned about the denial of absolute truth and how humanism becomes relativist and-and all that, are not dealing with the real problem. And I think they probably do not really care that 70 percent of all college students are studying hotel management because they are elitist. They are only thinking about the top tier of upper class and upper middle-class students who are making it into these highly selective elite schools. They are the students who are going to Williams who are going to Stanford and Harvard and University of Michigan maybe. And the ones who are going to Westchester University, they do not care about. So, I think it is very much a class issue, actually- SM (02:48:37): Yeah, access to higher education is one of the greatest accomplishments that I have seen in my lifetime. And to see criticism of affirmative action or multiculturalism and diversity, not only with African Americans, but Latinos and women and gay and lesbian students and transgender, Asian students and Native American, you name it, I cannot understand why people are critical of that. And to be openly blatant about the fact that wanting to go back to the way it was when white America, white middle class America, was basically was the college students of the era just boggles my mind. And that is kind of where we are today. ES (02:49:22): Yeah. Well, we are talking about class warfare. SM (02:49:27): Right, what Dr. King talked about. We got 30 more minutes. I got one more here. One of the things I wanted to mention too, you probably talk about this in your class, is the generation gap. There was that historic, oh, that is historic, that Life Magazine cover, which I have framed, it was in my office for many years, of the young student that was in blue with his father pointing fingers at him and one eye, and he is pointing fingers back at his dad in the other eye. And it is basically talking about the generation gap between parents of the World War II generation and their kids over culture, over war, a lot of other things. Did you experience that a lot in your own family, number one? And did you see it amongst your peers on college campuses when you were there? ES (02:50:16): No. SM (02:50:16): And I bring the generation gap up because of the fact that in 1984, there was a book that came out called The Wounded Generation, and there was a symposium made up of veterans like Phil Caputo, Jack Wheeler, Jim Webb, who is now a senator, Bobby Mueller, and James Stahls. And the purpose of the meeting was the fact that Webb brought up, he said that we all think of the boomer generation as a service-oriented generation because of Kennedy's ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. The Peace Corps and giving back. But Mr. Webb said it's anything but. The 60s generation was not about service because if it was about service, they would have gone and served their nation in the Vietnam War. And he said, "So it is as much about the generation gap between parents and their kids, but it is also between the generation itself, those who served and those who did not." What are your thoughts on the generation gap and the intrageneration gap? ES (02:51:25): [inaudible]. There is a wonderful book about the people who serve in Vietnam called the Working-Class War. Do you know it? SM (02:51:33): [inaudible] ES (02:51:35): Christian Appy, A-P-P-Y. SM (02:51:36): Okay. ES (02:51:37): Wonderful book. And I teach Vietnam and I usually assign it. And basically, the military draft, because of the [inaudible] students [inaudible], meant that the people who were drafted or who volunteered in order to escape the draft came from working class backgrounds, mainly inner-city kids, rural kids. It is the same today. Disproportionately. And middle-class white kids did not serve. Very, very few. I mean, I knew some when I was a graduate student, but there were very few. And so, it is really a class issue here. That is what we are talking about. There were some upper-class kids, John Kerry comes to mind. SM (02:52:43): Oh yes. ES (02:52:44): Who did, but that is the exception. SM (02:52:52): Jim Webb, I almost had an interview with him before he became senator and now it is impossible we can get through to him, but he is very vocal on a lot of subjects. He is responsible for the three-man statute being there because a lot of people did not want it there, including very big Vietnam vets. But is that very strong language that he is using, saying that he condemns the entire generation of, if they are labeled, that service-oriented generation because they did not serve in Vietnam? ES (02:53:20): No, it's those of us who opposed the war felt that by working in the anti-war movement, we were doing our service. SM (02:53:30): See that that is an important point too that is come up, that some anti-war people have believed that they were veterans too of the war, but in a different way. And when I mentioned that to Vietnam veterans, some of them laugh it off. They said they did not serve in Vietnam. ES (02:53:46): No, they did not. But I do not think it is the same thing, but that what they were doing was what they felt was best for the country. And I feel very strongly, I mean, I think Vietnam was absolutely crucial for anybody who lived through the (19)60s, and it was an immoral, terrible war. And whatever anybody could do to stop it, I think was justified. SM (02:54:19): What did the universities learn from the (19)60s and (19)70s that they have carried into today? I know that we had new leadership at the top of that university and that many of the presidents of that era have died off. But what did they learn from that period and what have they forgot? ES (02:54:41): Well, I think actually ... I think what happened was not so much as they learned things. I think that what happened was by the end of the (19)60s, beginning of the (19)70s, all of a sudden, they are confronted with unprecedented financial issues and they immediately switched to a different mode. When we talk about the corporatization of the American university, what we're really talking about is the fact that from the early (19)70s on, college and university administrations are essentially concerned with financial issues. And that they are doing whatever they can to raise money, to have good relationships with state legislatures, to help their faculty get grants. You have, for example, in 1980, the passage of the Bayh-Dole Amendment, which allows universities to actually profit from the research, the federally funded research that their faculty members have been carrying out. And you get more and more academic administrators behaving not as intellectual leaders or public intellectuals, but as fundraisers. SM (02:56:28): That is one of the reasons why I left the university. ES (02:56:28): Yeah. And that is- SM (02:56:28): Refused to be a fundraiser and link educational programs like the [inaudible] America Conference to Money. I mean, I refuse. ES (02:56:40): Yeah, well- SM (02:56:40): I knew my time was up. ES (02:56:41): Yeah. SM (02:56:43): So, you raise a very important point here. ES (02:56:47): So, I think whatever concerns they may have had student activism or anything, that was of secondary importance. And they begin to identify with the institution as an institution rather than with the institution as some kind of educational entity or a place for intellectual discourse or for any kind of research other than research that can be measured either in money or in some sort of terms of prestige. The US News and World Report absolutely undermined higher education in that respect. SM (02:57:30): It is interesting because the university has been really doing this assessment thing. You got to prove that what you do has value to students. And I would say that we would get instant responses back from students who had been involved in the program, but you cannot assess the importance of a speaker, a forum, a conference on a student immediately. It is something that could impact you years from now. They want instant satisfaction and instant assessment. And I say, you cannot do that in student life. You cannot. You can get your data, but it is just not going to happen. And it's just like, it is amazing. An assessment is everything now, as you well know. Prove it has value. And if you do not prove it immediately, then maybe we will cut it. Would you say that the university is really the main battleground now in America with the respect of the culture wars? ES (02:58:30): Yes. SM (02:58:30): And maybe this is what frustrates the conservatives more than anything else is they have not been able to get control of it. ES (02:58:39): Yes. I think that it is also happening of course, and in the schools as well, the No Child Left Behind Act has been absolutely disastrous with respect to force, again, it is data driven, so they measure what they can measure rather than what might have some intrinsic importance, but cannot be quantified. And so, you have got schools all over the country teaching to the test rather than actually helping students learn. It is not very useful. It is certainly diverting attention, money, and quality education is not occurring. SM (02:59:34): You bring up also that the think tanks that have really developed since the late (19)70s, early (19)80s, the Heritage Foundation, groups like that, are basically, because I know I have interviewed quite a few of them, and a couple of them are my friends. I have interviewed Michael Barone and people like that, Marvin Olasky. But the question I want to bring up here is many that went into these think tanks felt that they could not survive in a university, that the liberal university was ostracizing conservative faculty members so for them to truly get their voice, they had to leave the university and join. And of course, the Oland Foundation was the one you talk about to fund them with lots of money to get their point of view out there. This is part the culture wars, this is like- ES (03:00:28): Yes. If there were left wing foundations out there, I might leave too. But not because of that, but because who does not want to be well paid to write books? But it's only right wingers who are getting that kind of money. SM (03:00:47): And they are the main threat to the universities then today really. ES (03:00:50): The only person, I am sure there are others, but the only person I can think of who is sort of a prolific writer on the left who I guess left the university because I know she's got a [inaudible]. SM (03:01:05): Oh yeah. ES (03:01:06): She is obviously supporting herself by her writing, but she is not in a think tank. There are not any. SM (03:01:13): Yeah. I interviewed Charles Murray and we all know him, and Christina Hoff Summers, people like that, Bruce Sidell, who fall into that group. Would you consider the Muslim students of today the Communists, the students who were labeled, or faculty members that were labeled as communists in the (19)50s, and African American students in the early late (19)50s and early (19)60s? I am saying we have a xenophobia in this country with, which is a fear of people who are different. And we love the status quo. And whenever it is threatened by any group trying to get access to what other people have, there is resistance. Would you say Muslim students are that way today? ES (03:02:02): Yeah, I think there is a kind of demonization that, especially since 9/11, has targeted Muslims and people from the Middle East, no question about it. SM (03:02:15): And you see that link between the McCarthy period too and the ostracizing those people who may have been labeled communists and then an African-American student. ES (03:02:27): Sure. You have a similar kind of scapegoating going on. SM (03:02:34): Well, I only got about six more questions here. Could I use your restroom? ES (03:02:41): Sure, yeah. I will show you where it is. SM (03:02:50): I have just a listing here, and I am not going to list all these things. I just wrote them out here. But what do you consider the major events in Boomer lives of ... What do you believe, when you teach the (19)60s, some of the major events that really shaped their lives from that period? I have specific events, I do not know if you want me to read them here or list them. ES (03:03:16): Well obviously, the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. I mean, I think those are the two key ones. And everything else sort of comes out of that, including the women's movement. SM (03:03:35): Right. Things that really ... I will read these real fast. Take maybe about five, well, maybe a minute, but I would certainly list McCarthyism in the (19)50s because I am talking about the things that really were historic events in the period of their lives. The Montgomery Bus Boycott in (19)56, Sputnik in (19)57, which was the thrust for education. I think Elvis Presley played a key role because of rock and roll music was the late (19)50s, and he was the precursor of the Beatles, obviously in 64. The election of John Kennedy, Eisenhower's famous statement about the military industrial complex, which there is a great movie out on it. Certainly, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis, where we almost, boomers, we believed could have ended the world. Certainly, Kennedy assassination, the Gulf of Tonkin, Johnson withdraws from the presidency. Everything in 1968. ES (03:04:30): Yeah. SM (03:04:31): The assassinations, and the convention, and the trial. Barry Goldwater's rise, which at that time did not seem very big as he was destroyed in the election, but was the beginning of the Reagan period really. Emmy Lai, the bombing of Cambodia in 1970, and Kent State. And then I just had Woodstock in 69, and the Summer of Love in (19)67, the beatniks that I thought were important because of the fact they were anti-establishment, the communal movement, Watergate in (19)73, leaving Vietnam in (19)75. The Carter presidency was important because it was during this time that the rise of the religious right was happening even though he was a Democrat. And the- ES (03:05:15): Also, the oil shock. SM (03:05:16): Yes, the oil. I remember that. ES (03:05:18): I think that is a big thing. That is the moment at which this sort of belief in unlimited economic expansion comes to an end, that you come up against limits, including environmental limits and economic limits. SM (03:05:34): Well, that Mỹ Lai speech that he gave too, which he is definitely criticized for giving that, but it was really kind of truthful. And then certainly the Reagan election, Perestroika, the fall of communism, the Gulf War, Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, those kinds of things. And then I add on here, historic events on the colleges, which what happened at Cornell that you so beautifully talk about in your book in (19)69, Jackson State in (19)70, Columbia in (19)69, Harvard Square, Wisconsin, a tragedy there. And then of course [inaudible] college, and San Francisco State, those are all kind of things that stood out amongst the boomers. That is for me, is that a good representation? ES (03:06:19): I think so. You have the free speech movement. SM (03:06:20): Yes. Yeah, I have that. Did not write it here, but it certainly is in there. And Freedom Summer too, definitely. As a scholar, writer, professor, author, and you were the head of AAUP for- ES (03:06:34): No, I was the editor of its magazine. SM (03:06:37): Okay. What has been the relationship between faculty and students since (19)46? I bring this up because it is not talked about very much. I went into higher education because I saw the lack of communication that was happening between students and college administrators. They did not trust them. Not one iota. And I was at Binghamton at the time. We trusted faculty, but then faculty were really having some hard times at Binghamton because they wanted to be out of the protests, but they could not be. I remember Dr. Mahaski, who had just come from Berkeley in our social department of Binghamton, he was challenged by the student leadership by saying, "You just graduated with a PhD in Berkeley. We want you over with us united against the recruiting on campus." And he said, "I am not going to do that. I have a job now. I have a little child raise. I am not going to do what I did at Berkeley. I got a job." And then the student had debated him right on the spot and challenged him and actually kicked him out of class. And I will never forget that. That was kind of what was happening. But we had faculty members in our residence hall that were always there for us who would be willing to talk with us about the issues of the day. So as a person who's been a scholar herself, what has been the historic relationship, not between administration and students, but between faculty and students? And specifically, the boomers when they were in college in the (19)60s and (19)70s. (19) (03:08:14): You're dealing there ... Oh, that is my husband. Hang on a sec. SM (03:08:17): Yep. Yeah, the relationship between students and faculty. (19) (03:08:30): All right. It varied on campuses. Younger faculty were often very close to students. And remember in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, the faculty was very young. It's my generation who was lured into ... I mean, they literally threw money at us. Anybody who was a good student, they threw money at us. I did not even think about going to grad school. I was going to become a high school teacher. And I was nominated for a fellowship. And I said to myself, "If I get a fellowship, I will go to graduate school." But I got the fellowship, I had not even applied to graduate school. That would not happen today, to put it mildly. And so, there was just this sort of generation of very young faculty members who were involved in things like teach-ins, that was a big movement in the early days of the Vietnam War. My ex-husband was very much involved with that. He taught Chinese history and anybody who knew anything about Asia would get involved. So, there were faculty activists, they were very split, and I talk about that in my book, about whether they should express their activism the way the students did, participating in demonstrations and sit-ins, or whether they should do it through their intellectual work, through exploring black history or women's history. And I see myself and my work as very much my political work doing through my scholarship, looking at questions of dissent and regression in particular. Mainly because I think that is probably what I do better than anything else so that therefore, it's probably the most effective use of my time in energy. SM (03:10:48): My whole career has been about bringing students and faculty together. Because that was my job as [inaudible] program director, director of student programming. And I did it at every university I worked at. I loved to work with the faculty. In fact, faculty never thought of me as an administrator. And that was a positive. They said, "We feel that you are part of us." And that got me in a little trouble at times when I had to take stands that were either faculty stands or administrative stands. And I was really more with the faculty than I was with the administration. But one other thing, a lot of the young people of the late (19)60s, early (19)70s were involved in encounter. And encounter was a very important part of one's graduate education. And you even bring up in your book how a lot of the classes in that period in the (19)70s where the students would sit in the round and they would be able to express their feelings on things. That is what the graduate education was like at Ohio State University in the (19)70s, was encounter. And that is been heavily criticized too, because it was forcing you to speak your mind and you could be vulnerable and you needed support and then sometimes you could be on your own. And so, it was a great lesson for me. And so, it was a great lesson for me. But they do not do that today. ES (03:12:05): No. SM (03:12:05): It is not part of the training. And I think we were closer to faculty members back then than we are now. Would you agree on that? ES (03:12:14): Well, I think what happened was that beginning in the mid (19)70s, beginning a little earlier, in some fields, they stopped hiring full-time faculty members so that there's a lost cohort of academics, of people in their... Really, from their (19)40s and (19)50s, early (19)60s. My generation, many of them have retired, many of my friends have retired. And so, the age difference because of this lost generation, I think, is a problem. I mean, when I was in graduate school, I would not say that, but some of the people who I was closest to, faculty members, were maybe 10 years older than me. SM (03:13:19): Yeah. ES (03:13:19): That is not a huge difference. But when they are 30 years older, they are another generation. SM (03:13:24): And that was my challenge. But I had a little philosophy of never lose the kid in you from Roy Campanella. And my graduate advisor was a PhD at 29 at Ohio State. Dr. Johnson came from the University of Illinois. How important were the students in ending the Vietnam War, in your opinion? A lot of people believe they played an important role. Some say it was just a minor role. (19) (03:13:51): They played a role. I mean, can we quantify how important it was? Certainly, they brought a lot of publicity and attention to the anti-war cause, but there were a lot of other people. Basically, for a lot of that period, I was just a faculty wife. I was not really active as an academic. A lot of people like me, ordinary citizens, plus of course you have to count the Vietnamese they beat. They were crucial, I think. And needed the Americans. SM (03:14:31): Yeah. When you teach your course on Vietnam, and what is the reason why we lost the war, what is the reason we lost that war? ES (03:14:40): Because we could not win it. The way that the American government defined victory was an independent non-communist South Vietnam. That did not exist. And so, the only way we could win the war was not to lose it. And the only way that we could not lose it, was by maintaining a massive American military presence. And that turned out to be politically impossible. So that was that. SM (03:15:16): And that is what the Vietnam Syndrome really comes in too, because now when George Bush says the Vietnam Syndrome is over, I mean, really? And still influences foreign policy and certainly over where we are in Afghanistan today. Do faculty today overall support the university as a vehicle for uplifting all races? This was a quality that really came about during the '60s and '70s. Where are the faculty today, liberal and conservative, with respect to, what is the purpose of a university? ES (03:15:51): Oh man, that is a tough one. To begin with, 70 percent of the faculty are what we call contingent faculty members. SM (03:15:59): Adjuncts. ES (03:16:00): They are adjuncts or people on short term contracts who have no chance of tenure. There is only 30 percent and shrinking of tenured and tenured track faculty members. So, I mean, that is absolute most important fact to know about higher education today, which is that the, what we would call the casualization of the faculty. And so, when you talk about faculty, you are talking about people who are living usually very desperate lives. Or else a lot of faculty, especially in more vocationally oriented programs, are people whose primary identification is as a practitioner in some other field than higher education. In other words, they are teaching part-time, but they are basically accountants who teach one course in accounting at a community college. They are counted as faculty, but they do not probably identify themselves as faculty. And that is very important. And so, when you are talking about core faculty members, that is not the main group now teaching in American universities. So, for traditional faculty members, how do they view the mission of the university? They are under enormous pressure, especially if they do not have tenure yet to produce, because it is such a competitive atmosphere. In my field, you cannot... At most schools now, you have to have a book. It is crazy. SM (03:17:53): Before you are even hired. Yeah. ES (03:17:56): In some cases, yeah. But at least for tenure, you need a book. And the pressure is for people now in literary studies, and Modern Language Association did a survey of tenure practices and claimed that people needed not just a book, but sufficient progress on a second book to get tenure. And so, the bar keeps rising. Same thing for scientists. They have to get grants. And it is increasingly more difficult to get grants than it used to be. In the good old days in the (19)60s, they threw money at people. Now, even very well-known scientists often cannot get their research funded. And so, the pressures are on people to get grants to work in areas that are going to be popular, that are going to be... And for scientists and engineers, often, these are fields in which there is more corporate influence, biomedical stuff, electronic things like that. SM (03:19:21): One of the questions I have asked everyone from day one when I interviewed Senator McCarthy, the late Senator McCarthy, and that is, do you feel that the boomer generation has an issue with healing like the civil war generation that went to his grave, not truly healed? I bring this question up because in 1995, I took a group of 14 students in our leadership on the road program to meet Senator Edmund Muskie. I knew Senator Nelson. And so, we were able... We met 14 former United States senators. And we were very lucky because Senator Muskie just gotten out of the hospital, actually died four months later. But he gave us two hours. And one of the questions the students came up with is, they were not alive in 1968, but they had seen the video and they wanted to know... They saw the divisions, the terrible divisions of America, assassinations, police and young people fighting each other, riots in the street, burnings and so forth. And they wanted to know if the generation, their parents' generation were going to go to their graves, not truly healed because of the tremendous divisions of the time. And they asked him this question. And is healing an issue in this generation? Do you feel that is an important issue when you teach the (19)60s? Because the Vietnam memorial was... The inscriber wrote, "To heal a nation," which was trying to heal the Vietnam veterans and their families. But I think he wanted to also try to heal the nation in some way through the wall that heals. ES (03:20:55): Yeah. It is an interesting question. It is not one I have looked at, mainly because when I teach the (19)60s, by the end of the semester, I am rushing through it. So, I never get to any final summing up and looking at that kind of issue. So, I am not really sure. Sometimes, certainly it is in the rhetoric of some of these people who are still blaming (19)60s radicals for anything that went wrong in the country. But I do not know whether, at a sort of grassroots level, it is still a large issue or not. I have a feeling that the economic issues that began to surface after (19)74 and the sort of transformation of the economy and the squeeze on the middle class has really... People are not thinking in terms of the (19)60s anymore. But I could be wrong. I do not know. SM (03:21:55): Yeah. Muskie answered in a way the students were not even expecting. He basically said that we have not healed since the Civil War over the issue of race. And he had just seen the Ken Burns series on TV, and he had come on in the hospital and he gave a lecture on all the 600,000 who had died in the Civil War. And almost an entire generation. He did not even mention the '60s. And here's a man who was the vice-presidential candidate in Chicago. Students looked at each other and were shocked, but that is where he was coming from. The issue of race has not healed. ES (03:22:27): No, it has not. SM (03:22:30): And I think I raised the question because when you go to the Gettysburg Battlefield, you will see a statue there. The last person alive who served in the war. And he died in 1924, something like that. And then when you go to the Vietnam Memorial, I interviewed Jan Scruggs. He thinks there are many that were anti-war that come to that wall with their kids and regret that they did not serve because it was the watershed event of the era. And those who may have been against the war would not change feelings. But many of the boomer generation had brought their families there and some of their kids that said, "Dad, what did you do in the war?" So that kind of... Would you say also the lack of trust is in an important quality within the boomer generation? They just were not a trusting generation. They all saw all these leaders lie to them. ES (03:23:20): Yeah. Well, sure. There was an enormous amount of hypocrisy and deceit. I think there always has been. Franklin Roosevelt lied. SM (03:23:34): Yeah. Eisenhower lied on you too. Sure. ES (03:23:37): I mean, Roosevelt essentially pushed the United States towards the Second World War. We supported that war. So, the fact that he was doing a lot of covert stuff, military stuff, we overlooked because it was the good war. But that is what politicians do. SM (03:24:00): Would you say this lack of trust though, is a positive quality? Because in political science 101 class, you are always taught that you need to challenge your government, never take anything for granted. And so, it is actually a good quality, not a bad quality. ES (03:24:13): I think so. But the problem is that it is very hard for people to get information. What we are seeing is a lot of government secrecy, an enormous amount of government secrecy. It is really increased exponentially. One of the things I am looking at in my current work. SM (03:24:35): And down to my final, actually, three questions. ES (03:24:38): Okay, because I am going to have to leave you. SM (03:24:39): Could you define the term counter culture in your own words? ES (03:24:45): Well, it is a very specific moment in American life in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, mainly of young people who are sort of sloughing off a kind of easy, materialistic set of values that had been fairly prevalent in American society. And seeking, through drugs and music, through communal living, through political activism, a whole kind of new... the word lifestyle, but that is really what we are talking about, a new set of values. SM (03:25:28): Could you define culture wars? ES (03:25:31): Oh yeah. That is something that... I ordinarily do not believe in conspiracies, but I have got this document from the early (19)70s that was written by the future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, who was advising- SM (03:25:50): Oh yes. That was from the book. Yeah. ES (03:25:51): .... advising a friend in the Chamber of Commerce up there, how to deal with quote unquote " liberal academics" who were supposedly poisoning their students against the corporate sector. And what you see is a well-funded, very well-funded attack on whatever social movements and ideas came out of the (19)60s. SM (03:26:23): What are your thoughts on these two books? Because Clark Kerr's Uses of the University was a classic book, and he was about the free speech movement. And I think Ernie Boyers, The College and the Undergraduate Years is just a treasure. He was in the [inaudible], and I had a chance to meet him and briefly know him. Your thoughts on those two scholars and the meanings of their work? ES (03:26:49): Poor Clark Kerr, again, apparently during the free speech movement, and I have read his memoirs, I have been on programs with him and stuff. He is very evasive. He is a labor negotiator. He believes you get everybody together in a room and things will work out. And I think he was completely blindsided by how rigid the sort of conservative from the board, among the regents were, and how ideological the students were. Really just could not deal with it. He was an end of ideology person. SM (03:27:48): Oh, yeah. Daniel Bell, I interviewed him. I saw him before he died. ES (03:27:53): Yeah. And Boyer's stuff, I do not know as well. I mean, I know what stuff he did on the quote unquote "scholarship of teaching," and clearly, he wanted to emphasize research at the undergraduate level, which is part of this competitive trust within the American Academy. SM (03:28:21): Would you say that the best books that were written were the boomers at the period, late (19)60s, early (19)70s were books like The Culture of... Well, actually, Culture of Narcissism was the late (19)70s. The End of Ideology was Daniel Bell's book in the early (19)60s. And then you had Theodore Roszak’s book, the Making of a Counter Culture, and then you had The Greening of America by Charles Wright. Those are all major pieces to me in over a 20-year period of critique of the generation. And do you agree? Do you think they are all valid works? ES (03:29:05): I never read most of them. It only actually was interesting only when I got into doing this most recent book, did I read Bloom. SM (03:29:12): Oh, yes. ES (03:29:13): Which was the book. It was a bestseller. I owned it, but I have never read it. So, I read it and discovered all kinds of things in there. But a lot of these iconic books, I have a feeling, do not get read. SM (03:29:30): I interviewed Daniel Bell, who was not well, and of course he's passed away. And I was up at Harvard. It was a thunderstorm. And then there is this old house right near the Theological seminary up there. ES (03:29:42): Yeah, I know. SM (03:29:44): And I am in that area there. And his wife is upstairs, a machine keeping her alive, and he has got a maid working for him. And he is not well. But when I asked that question about Roszak and Wright. Garbage, garbage, they were not intellects. And then I said, "What did you think of Kenneth Keniston's Youth and Dissent?" That was a good book. So, it was interesting in talking... Who were the most influential scholars, presidents, teachers who shaped the university during the time that boomers were, or any time after World War II? ES (03:30:26): Yeah. Oh, Marcuse, obviously. And then I think, and I am not sure I could even name them all, it is the people who began doing stuff or in Vietnam who began looking at American foreign policy. SM (03:30:48): Chomsky? Yeah. ES (03:30:50): Yeah, but I was doing history, so I am sort of thinking of the revisionist scholars. SM (03:30:59): Oh yeah. ES (03:30:59): I am thinking of people, Herb Gutman, and people who were doing social history, very important in my field. EP Thompson, the British historian, was crucial. Looking at working class history. It may be different in different fields, I am thinking, not just in terms of the general culture, but in terms of the intellectual history of specific fields. SM (03:31:32): And this is kind of a two-part question. Who were the winners in the (19)60s and (19)70s in higher ed or even in society? And who were the losers? And secondly, who were the heroes of the boomers? Were there winners and losers in the (19)60s and (19)70s? ES (03:31:48): I was going to say that is not the kind of a question that I would have asked or that I think I can give an answer to. Who were the losers? Lyndon Johnson? Richard Nixon? But I do not know that anybody won. SM (03:32:10): And the heroes? ES (03:32:13): Oh, people like King, obviously. Bob Moses or Smith, Mario Savio. I think to a certain extent, Bobby Kennedy, who was a very charismatic figure. I mean, what always struck me about Bobby Kennedy was how much he was able to change. SM (03:32:43): Well, yeah, he was... ES (03:32:45): From this sort of tough guy enforcer in his early career to somebody who really was reaching out. Fannie Lou Hamer. It is sort of the same pantheon of figures, mainly in the civil rights movement, which I think, at least for me, was really just so exemplary in so many ways. SM (03:33:17): I do have one more question and that is, did the boomers become the most unique generation in history? Did they change the world for the better as they said they were going to do when they were young? And I know that I actually met with some of my former peers at my undergraduate school, and they still feel the way they did back in the (19)60s. They feel that the generation did a lot to make the world better. But look at the word we are living in. So, just your thoughts. And the boomer generation is still, they are 65 at the oldest now, and they're going into all senior citizens, period. So, they still got- ES (03:33:57): They are still out there. SM (03:33:58): Yeah, they are still out there. But for the first 65 years, what can you say about them? ES (03:34:03): Well... SM (03:34:05): Did they change the world for the better overall? ES (03:34:08): George W. Bush did not. I think it is mixed. Very mixed. SM (03:34:15): Yeah. I know that the only two boomer presidents have been Clinton and Bush, but actually Obama was a boomer, but he was only two. ES (03:34:25): Yeah. SM (03:34:25): Finally, the last thing, I am done, but I wanted to read this and if you had any comment, just comment. ES (03:34:31): Okay. SM (03:34:31): And finally, we know only about 5 percent of the 17 million became activists in the (19)60s and (19)70s. Some use the statistic that most young people were not active or linked to causes as a negative. However, this still adds up to many millions. And my question is this, for those who were active, whether be conservatives or liberals, do you feel they were very different in a positive way with respect to caring about equality, justice, freedom of speech, respect for differences, wanting to make the world a better place to live? Or was it all about, as some of their critics say, a generation that was selfish, not selfless. They avoided the draft in any way possible. Plus wanted instant satisfaction via demands due to their being brought up in the (19)50s as spoiled kids who were given everything by their depression era parents. This applies to white middle class students, but also eventually to the African American students and students who lived in poverty because they were also making demands, but for different reasons. ES (03:35:52): Well, you know what? My answer would be that clearly these people, there were real social problems. There were real... The Vietnam War was a major problem, and people were motivated to take action for very idealistic reasons. It did not turn out well in every case, but I do not think these people are self-interested. It is a mixture because people, they are human. SM (03:36:20): Was there any question I did not ask you, you thought I was going to? ES (03:36:22): No, that was very good. SM (03:36:23): Great. Any final comments? ES (03:36:23): Nope. Thank you very much. SM (03:36:23): We can [inaudible] more pictures. ES (03:36:23): Okay. SM (03:36:30): And then if you could sign three books too. ES (03:36:31): Okay. SM (03:36:31): This one's all marked up. ES (03:36:35): Okay. I will be right back. SM (03:36:37): Okay. ES (03:36:37): Okay. Tomorrow I will be... SM (03:36:37): Do you want me to go ahead? ES (03:36:37): Yeah [inaudible]. SM (03:36:44): [inaudible] Okay. I will do that. (End of Interview) Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Ellen Schrecker Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Ellen Schrecker is a scholar, professor emerita of American History at Yeshiva University and has received a fellowship at the Tamiment library in NYU. In addition, she is considered a leading expert on McCarthyism and has taught at various prestigious universities including Princeton, New York University, and Columbia.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:4483,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Dr. Ellen Schrecker is a scholar, professor emerita of American History at Yeshiva University and has received a fellowship at the Tamiment library in NYU. In addition, she is considered a leading expert on McCarthyism and has taught at various prestigious universities including Princeton, New York University, and Columbia.</span> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Schrecker, Ellen ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; United States—History—1945-1953; Tamiment Library; Yeshiva University; Schrecker, Ellen--Interviews Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2011-05-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.111a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.111b 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. 217:19 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/413da5af9b25718fd861534ef0c6d4d3.mp3 0cc55d6f024d072cc538ad92ee73a332 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/5129bc3b154a1b81fedada515387a027.jpg 33662591b079390becc63ebbb7aa414c 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 Oral Histories Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories from 1960s Binghamton Alumni Description An account of the resource In 2019, Binghamton University Libraries completed a mission to collect oral interviews from 1960s alumni as a means to preserve memories of campus life. The resulting 47 tales are a retrospective of social, professional and personal experiences with the commonality of Harpur College. Some stories tell of humble beginnings, others discuss the formation of friendships; each provides insight into a moment in our community's rich history. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Irene Gashurov 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 2017-2018 Relation A related resource <a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/browse?collection=18">McKiernan Interviews : 60's collection of Oral Histories</a> 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 2019-04-02 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Irene Gashurov Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Eric D. Weitz Year of Graduation 1974 Biographical Text Dr. Eric Weitz is Distinguished Professor of History and the former Dean of Humanities and Arts at The City College of New York (CCNY). Trained in modern German and European history, Weitz has also worked in international and global history. He is currently completing <em>A World Divided: A Global History of Nation-States and Human Rights since the Eighteenth Century</em>. Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Eric D. Weitz Subject The topic of the resource Nineteen sixties; Harpur College; Alumni and alumnae Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Weitz, Eric D. ; Gashurov, Irene Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 Description An account of the resource Dr. Eric Weitz is Distinguished Professor of History and the former Dean of Humanities and Arts at The City College of New York (CCNY). Trained in modern German and European history, Weitz has also worked in international and global history. He is currently completing <em>A World Divided: A Global History of Nation-States and Human Rights since the Eighteenth Century</em>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-04-02 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Eric Weitz.mp3 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2019-04-02 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. Oral Histories from 60's Binghamton Alumni Extent The size or duration of the resource. 53:49 minutes IIIF Item Metadata UUID d5a68c98-d53f-46ee-8a9f-bbe3723fad90 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7abb528c678f65a58bd003b43d4591e5.jpg 6d77606fb6e6cb32921e3be855686068 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7bc8d9c906aade1bdb46f862efbf7d46.mp3 4b96568b30755b012594537ef3fc9188 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. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Eugene Schoenfeld, 1935- Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld is a psychiatrist, author, lecturer and was a popular underground newspaper columnist. His column \&quot;Dr. Hip\&quot; was published in many newspapers including the Chicago Sun Times, Tampa Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Examiner. Schoenfeld's books include Dear Dr. HipPocrates, Natural Food and Unnatural Acts, Jealousy: Taming the Green-Eyed Monster, and Dr. Hip's Down-To-Earth Health Guide.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:5039,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld is a psychiatrist, author, lecturer and was a popular underground newspaper columnist. His column "Dr. Hip" was published in many newspapers including the <em>Chicago Sun-Times</em>, <em>Tampa Times</em>, <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em>, and the <em>San Francisco Examiner</em>. Schoenfeld's books include <em>Dear Dr. HipPocrates</em>, <em>Natural Food&nbsp;and Unnatural Acts</em>, <em>Jealousy: Taming the Green-Eyed Monster</em>, and <em>Dr. Hip's Down-To-Earth Health Guide</em>.</span> Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation; Activism; STD; Birth control; Drug culture; Women's right; Summer of love; Segregation; Watergate; Vietnam War&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Baby boom generation; Activism; STD; Birth control; Drug culture; Women's rights; Summer of love; Segregation; Watergate; Vietnam War</span> Date of Interview 2010-10-14 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 149:55 Subject LCSH Psychiatrists; Authors, American--20th century; Schoenfeld, Eugene, 1935--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Eugene Schoenfeld Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 14 October 2010 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): Good morning. Good evening. And, just the first question I want to ask is could you give me a little bit about your background, your early years. You are a doctor, a little bit about your parents, your growing-up years, and why did you want to become a doctor? ES (00:00:25): All right. My mother was an immigrant. She came from Russia when she was 12 years old. Her parents had been separated by the First World War, and then by the Russian Revolution between 1913 and 1922. So, my mother, her younger sister, and their mother, my grandmother, were separated for nine years from my grandfather, again, because of first the First World War and then the Russian Revolution. My father's family also came from Russia. Actually, he came from Lithuania, and my father's eldest brother was born there, and then the family came to the United States. My father was born here. My father had been a union organizer, at time I was born, for the Transport Workers' Union, New York City, and that was a leftist union. My father was involved in leftist politics. In fact, he was a member of the Communist Party, and gave me my middle name, which is Lenin, L-E-N-I-N. SM (00:02:02): Oh. ES (00:02:02): A name that I stopped using after the Rosenbergs were executed- SM (00:02:07): Yeah. ES (00:02:09): ...especially when applying to medical school, thinking- SM (00:02:14): Yeah. ES (00:02:16): …that would not have been good. SM (00:02:17): No. ES (00:02:18): I was delivered by my uncle, who married my mother's younger sister. I think that influenced me to be a doctor. It was curious, also, because he was related to the infamous Arnold Rothstein, who went to the 1919 World Series. SM (00:02:46): Oh. ES (00:02:49): When I first learned about that when I was a child, I asked my parents, they would not talk about it. It was a scandal. Especially at that time. SM (00:02:59): That was the Black Sox scandal? ES (00:03:01): Yes. SM (00:03:01): Yes. ES (00:03:03): Yeah, so he was a great uncle by marriage to me. SM (00:03:10): What was it like going to college or medical school in the (19)50s, particularly undergraduate school before you went on to med school? ES (00:03:20): I graduated college from the University of California at Berkeley. I went to high school in Miami Beach. My parents moved to Miami Beach when I was 12, and I went to high school there and then a year of college. Then, I transferred to Berkeley. I went back to Miami for medical school, beginning in 1957. Well, it was very different from Berkeley, at that time. Berkeley has always been a liberal area. It always has had at least some population of what was known then as Bohemians. Then, it was smaller. Now, of course, it was larger. It was quite a shock going back to school because medical school was much more regimented than- SM (00:04:18): Right. ES (00:04:19): ...the undergraduate years at Berkeley. Also, at the time I went to medical school, we still had segregation in the South. And in fact, at the hospital where my medical school was training students, Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, there were still segregated wards and segregated dining rooms for whites and blacks. I met a resident at the medical school, who had started eating his meals in the black cafeteria to integrate it, and I started doing the same with him. His name was Tom Brewer. It was very different. I was glad to leave Miami that time. I graduated medical school in 1961. I interned at Herrick Hospital in Berkeley, even though I was offered a prestigious internship in Miami, partly because, during medical school, I had met Ernest Hemingway's youngest son, Greg. And in the beginning of my second year of medical school, he invited me to go to a photographic safari to Angola the following summer with his roommate, Bob Kyle. And I told one of my professors I was going there. He said, "Well, as long as you are in Africa, in that part, why do not you see if you can visit the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Gabon?" Because, at that time, the chief medical doctor under Albert Schweitzer, Frank Catchpool, had done some studies at the University of Miami Medical School in parasitology. So, I had a note of introduction to Dr. Catchpool, and I was able to, after our photographic safari in Angola, this was now the summer of 1959, I went to Lambaréné, and I met Albert Schweitzer and his daughter. And I was there, then, for two weeks. And when I returned and told one of my professors my adventures that summer, he said, "Well, I have just been made head of a committee that is going to award fellowships to medical students to study in remote areas of the world." He says, "If you get a letter inviting you back to this Schweitzer Hospital-" SM (00:07:12): Wow, what an experience. ES (00:07:14): Yeah. He said, "You can have this fellowship." So, I did obtain a letter inviting me back by Albert Schweitzer, and I returned in (19)60, or I spent the summer there at the Albert Schweitzer Hospital. SM (00:07:34): I can remember back in the late (19)50s, Jack Parr used to have a fascination with Albert Schweitzer and would I actually go visit him. ES (00:07:42): Yes, there were many, many visitors there. SM (00:07:47): Yeah, that was- ES (00:07:48): Yeah. SM (00:07:49): That experience itself, even before we start talking about your time in the Bay Area as in the (19)60s and the (19)70s and beyond, that experience of working with him for a year or two, what were you able to transfer into your future positions from that experience? ES (00:08:10): Well, his major philosophy was reverence for life, for all life. And this was the first exposure I had to, what is now called, ecology. Nothing was killed there unnecessarily. If they were doing construction work, rolling a wheelbarrow, and they came across a line of ants, they would lift up the wheelbarrow in order not to crush the ants. They would build around trees rather than cut down the trees. They tried to keep the hospital there as much like a native village as possible so that the area would be comfortable there. I had another chance to return there in 1965. Actually, it was through Greg Hemingway again, he is now dead. He died a woman. But he was offered this fellowship, but he could not do it and he recommended me. So, I flew to Boston and met with the head of the foundation, the International Cardiology Foundation, who is Paul Dudley White. Dr. White was President Eisenhower's physician. SM (00:09:45): Oh, yes. ES (00:09:47): And Dr. White was the one who really popularized the idea of riding bicycles you see now. So, then, I returned to Gabon while I was training to go there to do this research. It was a research project involving hypertension in Gabon because there were indications that was prevalent there, and it turns out that it was. And it seems to be a genetic predisposition in black people, and we see this here. We used to think that it was due to stress or racial discrimination, but it turns out not to be the case. During a few weeks before I was set to go there, Albert Schweitzer died. Dr. White asked me to go there anyway to conduct the research, so I had a chance to see the hospital before and after his death. Just before I left, I had an opportunity to take LSD. It was legal at that time. And so, I was, of course, interested in the effects of psychedelics, drugs in general. When I returned to Gabon that third time, I learned that native doctors there used a drug called Ibogaine. Actually, they used the plant that it comes from, the Iboga plant, in their ceremonies and for healing patients. And so, I had a chance to observe and participate in Iboga ceremonies there in Africa. And when I returned, on the way back, I stopped in France and obtained a quantity of Ibogaine, which was being prepared by a French pharmaceutical company. At that time, they would use small amounts of Ibogaine combined with vitamins as a pick-up tonic because small amounts of psychedelic, including LSD, act as a stimulant before they have the psychedelic effect in larger dose. They were also using Ibogaine at that time experimentally in French mental hospitals. So, when I returned to the United States to the Bay Area, I had a chance to do some work with the Ibogaine, and I was introduced to a doctor who had later started the free clinic movement, David Smith. See, I skipped a part where from 1963 to (19)64, I was at Yale University. I obtained a master's of public health there, and then that summer I was a ships doctor. That is it. Depression here. So, while doing work at the University of California at San Francisco, we were doing experiments with amphetamines on laboratory animals and some experimentation with the Ibogaine on ourselves. Dr. Smith had the idea of organizing the little free clinics that had been started by the digger movement, and I had an idea about having a newspaper column dealing with questions and answers about drugs and other issues at the time. Around that time, the Berkeley Barb was started by a fellow named Max Scherr. Berkeley Barb was one of the first underground newspapers. I guess The Realist was probably the first Realist Underground magazine. SM (00:14:25): Right. ES (00:14:30): And so, I mentioned this to Mr. Scherr and he said, "Well, why do not you write a column?" I had always wanted to write in some fashion, but I had not thought about writing for newspapers or a medical column. But I started doing that. At first, I would use questions that people had asked me personally because it was a time when people were first starting to use drugs, such as marijuana and LSD, and people were eager to have questions answered about those drugs, and also about sexual activities. That time there were no easily available sources of information answering questions about sex and drugs, certainly not papers. SM (00:15:27): One of the things, right around that time, (19)65, (19)66, leading up to the Summer of Love in (19)67, how did the youth of the (19)60s differ from the youth of the (19)50s that you grew up with from your vantage point? And where did you see this change in the Bay Area? Obviously there was some Bohemian lifestyle over at Berkeley at all times, and of course the Beatniks were very popular in New York and Greenwich Village and in San Francisco, and- ES (00:16:02): Yes. SM (00:16:03): ...so forth. But when did you see this shift, from your personal perspective, this big change happening in the way people's attitudes were, how young people were changing? It was a counter-cultural movement, a change. ES (00:16:19): Yes. From my point of view, I mean, maybe it was because I was living, but it seemed that it had started in the San Francisco area. Yes, you mentioned the Beatniks, and it was because it was a shift from the Eisenhower era. There were little coffee shops in San Francisco and in Berkeley. There was one called The Coexistence Bagel Shop because it was a time when speaking about coexistence with Russia after the Great Scare, the Evil Empire. So, it was a parody of the political situation at the time. I think that is when the shift occurred because people started to look at Russia not as a great enemy, but as something that we could exist with. That is why they call it Coexistence Bagel Shop. They were Beatniks. Mostly, the Beatniks were smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap wine. But there were some who started using marijuana, and that is when I first started seeing fairly large-scale marijuana use. Though my first exposure to it, though I did not use marijuana then, was an uncle I had when I was 14. It was in 1949. I had an uncle who he was an actor, a dance instructor, and went to borrow a jacket of his. In the jacket, I found this little yellow cigarette. I asked him if it was marijuana, and he said, matter-of-factly, "Yes." I did not try it then. It was my first exposure. The first time I saw fair numbers of people smoking marijuana was the Beatniks, and this was in 1958 because that summer, it was after my first year of medical school, I spent the next summer in Berkeley. That is when I first saw it. I think the combination of the philosophy and the lifestyle of the Beatniks led to the hippies. SM (00:19:23): Yeah. Obviously, you are coming from, you are not that much older, but you are almost like the graduate student or the PhD candidate compared to the incoming students that would have been the young boomers. Do you have any thoughts on them as a generation? You have seen them not only as a doctor, they have been your patients. You have seen them not only when they were young in the Summer of Love, but you have been able to see them as they have grown up into now. 63 is the front-runners of the baby boomers, and the youngest baby boomers are 47. If you were to list some strengths and weaknesses within this generation, can you list some? ES (00:20:07): Well, I think they had some strengths because their parents, which were generally more prosperous because the Second World War produced prosperity. At least, everyone was working as compared with when I was born, which was during the depression. So, I think they had more of a sense of self-assurance in that way, and I think it was because of the fact that their parents generally were not poor. They were not on bread lines. I mean, have not thought about this before this, going through this in my mind. So, I think that because of generally maybe having more assurance, they would probably be more open, less fixed on things that would give them more dependability. I think that produce some greater openness to other ideas. And that is what happened, as you say, leading up to the Summer of Love. I think they were more open to a lot of things, including more open sexuality and perhaps exploring their minds through means, such as drugs. And paradoxically, the drug use led to people being more open to ideas, which did not have things directly to do with drugs, such as meditation and yoga, et cetera, other spiritual practices. Not that all of that was good because one thing that has happened from all that is a suspicion and disdain for science, a feeling that if one has a gut reaction to something, that must be more true than using the scientific method, and that came from the fact that they would use drugs. It happens now. For example, when people are using ecstasy, they generally have a feeling of great love and warmth for everyone around them at the time. I mean, that is why, when ecstasy was legal and used in therapy, the patients would be warned not to make any enduring alliances for a period of weeks after they last took it because those feelings would dissipate and were directly drug related. SM (00:23:51): One of the things that the generation, and we are talking 74 million boomers that were born between (19)46 and (19)64, and a lot of the ones that were at the Summer of Love, were the front running boomers, the boomers born in those first 10 years. I am finding that the difference between the boomers of the first 10 and the second 10 is major in terms of the way they lived. But your thoughts on this attitude that many of them felt they were the most unique generation in American history when they were young, and that the Summer of Love, like a lot of experiences of that period, were supposed to be symbolic of this, "We are going to change the world. We are going to bring peace, love, we are going to end homophobia, sexism, war. We are going to make the world a better place to live." And so, there is a feeling of uniqueness that they were better and different than the World War II generation or any of the generations that preceded them, and those that would follow. Your thoughts on that attitude that many of them had at that time. And even today, I know of several people that feel so very proud of being part of that generation that they still feel it. ES (00:25:19): Yeah. I mean, that is because the war, the war effort, the country was together then, I think, as never before or at any time since, and there was a feeling that we had been so powerful. We had conquered the axis powers, and there was, for a time, a feeling of hopefulness. The United Nations was going to be world peace. I think that certainly influenced that generation. SM (00:26:04): I have interviewed a lot of people. Some people thought that that showed a sense of arrogance within this generation. Do you feel that? ES (00:26:11): Well, I did not think of it that way, but I think of it as being over optimistic. SM (00:26:25): Okay. 1967, I got a whole mess of questions here and I got a lot of different areas to go, but I want to talk about (19)67 because it was a very historic event. What was it like being a doctor in San Francisco in (19)67, and what were the major issues that young people were facing at that time in the summer, whether it be drug issues, sexual freedom issues? I saw a great interview you did on YouTube with one of the commentators. He has a radio show. Hammond? ES (00:26:58): Oh, yeah. John Hammond. SM (00:26:59): That was an excellent interview. ES (00:27:00): Well, thank you. SM (00:27:03): And you had made a very important comment, and I wanted to bring this up. It was after the pill, and it was before AIDS. ES (00:27:11): That is right. SM (00:27:12): Could you talk about what you mean by that, especially in reference to the summer of (19)67? ES (00:27:18): All right. The true Summer of Love began in 1966, because that is when it was the beginning of large-scale LSD use, marijuana use, and associated openness to things, including sexuality. And so, because there was no longer the great fear of unwanted pregnancy due to the birth control pills and other effective contraceptive method, and whatever sexual infections might develop as a result could be treated then. And that is why it was before AIDS is, before, sexuality could be [inaudible]. So, as I say, the real Summer of Love began in 66, and that is what attracted people to San Francisco, where I was at the time, the following summer, in (19)67. I had started writing a newspaper column in March of 1967, and I invited people to send questions. And of course, then, questions were mostly about sexuality and drugs. People wanted to know what sexual diseases could occur, what the effects of various drugs were, and I had to do some research in these matters. But I was very interested in the fact that some columnists apparently make up letters. I never had to make up a letter. The letters were very-very interesting. And I started out writing the so-called underground press, so I would print the letters pretty much as they appeared in whatever language people used to describe or ask questions about sexual acts. When the newspaper column went to the San Francisco Chronicle, and then was syndicated nationally by the Universals Press syndicate, language was edited then. ES (00:30:03): Your language was edited then. Then it would appear general newspapers. But as I said, there was no easily accessible source of information that it was available in books. I would read books, around that time also, I saw her doing radio shows, and I am told I was the first person to answer medical questions live on the radio. SM (00:30:36): Is that in the entire country? ES (00:30:38): Yes. SM (00:30:38): Wow. That is quite a unique honor. ES (00:30:42): Yes. I was glad to do it. I knew it was important because I mentioned a little while ago that I had Master degree in public health from Yale, so I knew the importance of public health education. I saw this as a way of importing information that was important, and it was interesting. So a number of times I have had regular radio programs. I mean, this was before Dr. Dini Dell. Before [inaudible] or Dr. Ruth was publicly doing things. SM (00:31:24): Right. When the Summer of Love obviously is (19)67. And when we say Summer of Love, are we only talking about the summer? Are we talking only about a few months? Or are we talking about The entire 1967 year? One of the songs this was well known on the radio at the time was Scott McKenzie's song, if You are Going to San Francisco. ES (00:31:50): Yeah. SM (00:31:51): I cannot remember if that came out in (19)66 or (19)67, but I know that had a lot of influence on people. ES (00:31:57): Yes, it did. Yeah, I knew him. I met him a few times. Yeah, it did have an influence. Yes, it was not just the summer. As I said, it really began (19)66 and during the end of (19)66 and beginning of (19)67 people were starting to come to the Bay Area. Yes, influenced by songs like that, which I think some of the lyrics described how warm and bombing it was in San Francisco made all of us laugh your – SM (00:32:33): Well, I lived in Burlingame from (19)76 to (19)83, so I – ES (00:32:38): Yeah, so you know. SM (00:32:39): I love it out there though. It makes you feel good. Tweed Coats. I love my Tweed. I miss wearing my Tweed Coats. But yeah, it is really interesting. Another song that influenced was around (19)67 that got people to the West Coast, and I know it got me to the West Coast, was the Mamas and the Papas song, California Dreaming, which was another big hit that, especially if it went to college in the middle of the winter with a lot of snow on the ground. I had all these questions here in the Summer of Love. How did it start? You already talked about that. What was the draw? How did people know? Where did they come from? What was the average age? ES (00:33:27): They were? SM (00:33:28): Where did they stay when they came? And those kinds of things? ES (00:33:33): Well, there were young people generally who came, if they knew people here, they would stay with them, crash with them, share their apartments and homes. They were generally, at first, there were people who were interested in exploring, in exploring. Exploring themselves, exploring their minds, exploring things geographically. Later it became a [inaudible] so that people were coming because they knew that other people were coming. So it changed a lot. At first, you could tell things about someone by the way they dressed or the length of their hair, but that soon changed, so you could not tell anything about a person because the followers, those who just had heard about the Summer of Love and San Francisco come and there were a lot of disturbed people and a criminal element soon came in and started taking advantage of the – SM (00:35:20): Yes. ES (00:35:24): Open-minded young people who we came to know as hippies. SM (00:35:31): I think that is what Mr. Hammond said in his interview with you on YouTube is that (19)67 was the golden era, and then all hell broke loose at (19)68. ES (00:35:42): Yes. SM (00:35:43): And that is because the drug traffickers were coming in. People were dealing in drugs, and actually even a lot of the hippies and young people wanted to get the hell out of there because of things had changed. ES (00:35:56): Yes, and even the drugs changed because at first it was marijuana and LSD and other psychedelics. And then people came in, started selling heroin and amphetamines that changed a lot. So when people want to leave, then there was a feeling, well, we were going to get out of the city and go to the country. And that is how the Commune Right then started. People had the idea that they would try to be self-sufficient and grow their own food, raise their own animals back to the plan. SM (00:36:44): Yeah. Farm's a perfect example of that. ES (00:36:47): Yes, that is right. SM (00:36:49): Steven Gaskin and I interviewed Steven for my book, and that particular, he does not even like to use the term commune. Calls it the farm. They have been very successful and they were very proud of being hippies because it was more of an attitude. When I look at, there was a very popular book, you remember back in the early (19)70s, we had to read it in grad school called The Making of a Counterculture by Theodore Roszak. ES (00:37:18): Yes. SM (00:37:19): And that book – ES (00:37:19): I knew him. Yeah. SM (00:37:20): Yeah, well, I wanted to interview him, but I guess he is not well right now, and he has written another book as kind of a follow-up, but he really explained the counterculture, combining drugs, the sex, the dancing, the music, the dress, the attitude. It was all a combination of everything into different consciousness. Did you see that there? Was that a pretty good portrayal of what it was like in the Summer of Love? ES (00:37:46): Yes. As I say, you could tell which people were part of that movement often by their dress, because they were static dress, people would dress flamboyantly. I mean now I tell my wife in Halloween, which is as a big holiday out here. SM (00:38:13): Yeah, that is big. ES (00:38:14): So in the Summer of Love, everyone dressed like that every day. So... SM (00:38:24): You were in charge, correct if I am wrong, you were in charge of the health clinic? The Haight Ashbury Health Clinic? ES (00:38:36): I was not in charge. I was – SM (00:38:38): Associate Director or – ES (00:38:41): Yeah, I was Director of the Family Practice section of The Haight Ashbury Clinic whose directed by David Smith. He founded it, he directed it. I worked with them for a long time, and then later they have a rock medicine section, still exists. I worked at that also. It was long after the Summer of Love. But yes, I did. I helped through my newspaper columns. I helped publicize the Ashbury Clinic, let people know it was available and offered free services and the kinds of services that they provided. SM (00:39:28): On a typical day, let us say you were there, were you eight hours a day? Or you came in just on an assignment or what would it be A typical day in the Summer of Love with the young people coming in and out of there? What would be their issues? ES (00:39:45): Well, some people had unfortunate drug experiences. Sometimes there was, and they were concerned, have a bad trip, an LSD trip, and were upset by that. There were a lot of sexually transmitted diseases that were treated in Ashbury clinic, especially at that time because of the open sexuality. Naturally, the more exposure someone has, the more chance they have contracting a disease. So there is a lot of exposure and more disease, a lot of treatment of gonorrhea crabs at that time. Other sexually transmitted diseases. SM (00:40:50): Well, I know one of the bands that performed there in the summertime was the Grateful Dead, and I think they lived in Haight Ashbury. ES (00:40:57): Yes. SM (00:40:57): And lived. They had that same kind of an attitude, although they were much more successful cause they were a successful band. Can you talk about the combination of that experience again in the summer or were you combined not only the young people coming in, but, the music had to be a very important part of this. It was much more than the Grateful Dead. Who were the musicians and where were they coming from to be part of this? Were they all Bay Area musicians or were they coming from different parts of the country during different times of the summer? ES (00:41:38): Much of it was based here in the Bay Area. For example, the Jefferson Airplane, the local band Country Joe and the Fish and other bands. I think, Crosby Stills and Nash often was based here. Crosby lived in Mill Valley at that time, and they also operated a lot in Los Angeles. But the music at that time, I mean it was all intertwined with the drug use, the effects of the drugs, effects of the drugs on the music, and then the music affecting drug use. I thought that generally the overall effect was positive. Of course, we know there were disasters for some people, plus it was a lot of indiscriminate drug use during that time. Tim Leary – SM (00:42:58): Hold on one second, I am going to change my tape here. All righty. We are back. ES (00:43:08): During that time, I became acquainted and then friends with Tim Leary and his family, and I became a family doctor for the Leary family at that time. And Tim was very charismatic, very bright. He had a good sense of humor, but I always found objectionable is it was sorting people to take LSD all the time was not for everyone. Certainly not for unstable people, and not to be taken all the time as he had proposed, he was telling people to use LSD once a week, and I did not think that was a good idea at all. SM (00:44:03): What is your thought about that famous slogan of his tune on – ES (00:44:10): Yeah, turn on – SM (00:44:13): Turn-on dropout or whatever. ES (00:44:14): Yeah. SM (00:44:15): Tune in turn on dropout. What are your thoughts on that? Of course, he was also linked to the Ram Dass. ES (00:44:18): Yes. SM (00:44:22): And Ram Dass went on to be very successful as a writer. I guess he has had a stroke recently, but – ES (00:44:25): He had a stroke. SM (00:44:27): But they were kind of linked too. But just your thoughts on that whole kind of an attitude? ES (00:44:33): Well, Tim had a great way of, with phrases, and I was interesting phrase and turn on and drop out. I said to him at the time, I said, Tim, you have got a PhD. I have an MD. You are telling these kids to drop out of college. And a lot of them did because there are more followers and leaders, and a lot of lives were disrupted that way. I did not think that was a good idea at all. And it was because of the indiscriminate use and abuse of LSD and other psychedelics that the legitimate use was thwarted. Only now, only in the last year or so has the government begun to approve studies of LSD and psilocybin and MDMA or ecstasy, and we are back to where we were in 1966 when they were doing the same preliminary studies. Maybe now they will continue them and permit them, but as I said, it was because of [inaudible] K was largely cost of 10 at 10 TC that yes, that the government clamped down and stomped. I think it is a great shame. I think these drugs have a very good potential for use in therapy. And when there is no psychiatric illness for self-exploration. SM (00:46:29): How would you, for example, a critic of, I am just using, I am being the devil's advocate here, that a critic of the total drug culture, maybe not marijuana, but everything else, is that, what is wrong with reality itself? Why get away from reality and go into drugs and get another reality? And then secondly, what is the effect that drugs had on that generation? I do not know if anybody's ever even written a book on the number of young people who died from ODing on drugs. We know what happened to Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin and Jim Morrison and some of the well-known people who OD'ed on drugs. You would think that might have had a negative effect on the drug culture. ES (00:47:16): Yeah, I mean, they all OD'ed on opioids, which I cannot see if they expand consciousness at all. I feel like this has the beginning of that. SM (00:47:33): Yeah, the beginning was critics, so I am a person – ES (00:47:36): So what is wrong with reality? SM (00:47:40): Yeah you know, is life – ES (00:47:42): One thing that the psychedelics do is put people in touch with the unconscious, which is part of reality. It is just that normally we do not have access that way to our unconscious except in dreams in some form. So by giving us access to our unconscious, we have an expanded knowledge of reality because that is part of reality. SM (00:48:25): What – ES (00:48:27): Thought that these consciousness expanding drugs produce a better reality, this expands our knowledge of reality. SM (00:48:42): Well, the 40th anniversary that took place in 2007, I saw little segments of that on television and certainly on YouTube and other places. ES (00:48:53): Yeah. SM (00:48:53): Was it basically people that experienced it coming back there, or was it basically a combination of young people and older people? ES (00:49:06): It was a mix, but certainly it included a large number of people who had lived through the (19)60s, many of whom had been at Woodstock, many of whom had been in San Francisco at the Summer of Love those celebrations, but there were a number of younger people. SM (00:49:32): How did you get the name Dr. Hipp? Dr. Hippocrates. ES (00:49:38): Right. Started when I was asked to do the newspaper column, the publisher of the Berkeley Barb Max Scherr said, well, what should we call the column? I said, well, what do you mean? Just use my name? Says well know we have a hippies here? How about calling it Hippocrates? I said, okay. SM (00:50:03): Right. ES (00:50:03): So it was Hippocrates. And then some of the newspapers started calling the column Dr. Hippocrates, and then some of them shortened it to Dr. Hipp, and then they started calling me Dr. Hipp. So that is how I became Dr. Hipp. SM (00:50:22): Now, when you walk around the Bay Area, do they call you by your real name or do they call you Dr. Hipp? ES (00:50:26): Well, some of the older individuals still remember me as Dr. Hipp. SM (00:50:33): That that is a very good feeling though. That you had an influence on people's lives for the better. And one thing we always ask ourselves as human beings is we want to make a difference in this world. And obviously you have in the many things that you have done, particularly with all your work in medicine. ES (00:50:52): Yeah, I have tried. I always gave a lot of attention to my work, writing newspapers, writing the papers, writing articles, doing my radio shows, because I knew that if people listened, they were eager to receive information and would act on it. So I was always trying to be careful about the advice that I gave. SM (00:51:22): Did you see the Generation gap when you were there working with these young people? In other words, did you have, I am sure there were experiences where parents somehow got back into San Francisco and found their son or daughter and said, we were going to take you home. Did you have any of those experiences where the big generation gap was taking place? ES (00:51:41): Yes. I mean, I cannot think of any specifics right now, but yes, of course parents were concerned because sometimes their children would run away. And then when they found their kids, their kids were using drugs that the parents were unfamiliar with, concerned about, and often, rightly so. Yes. And that is how the Gap stores the clothing stores. They used to be called a Generation Gap, and then they became The Gap. SM (00:52:18): Oh, I did not know that. ES (00:52:19): Yes. SM (00:52:20): Wow. Was also the Summer of Love really all-inclusive in terms of ethnic background? Were there African Americans there in large numbers, Latinas, Asian Americans? Was it a combination? Was everybody involved? ES (00:52:35): Yeah. Yes, it was. And part of what was happening was that there was a greater acceptance of different ethnic groups and races and religious beliefs. And that was one of the benefits of that time. SM (00:52:57): Was the music the same way? In other words, you might have the Grateful Dead one day and the Staple Singers the next, was it a kind of a different, all kinds of music? ES (00:53:07): Yes. And it was also when people started becoming interested in reggae, of course, and – SM (00:53:12): Right. ES (00:53:12): Reggae associated with marijuana you know in Jamaica? SM (00:53:20): Yeah. I remember when I lived out there, I used to go to some of the blues concerts at the Shell at Golden Gate Park. ES (00:53:28): Yes. SM (00:53:29): And I remember seeing Red, not Simply Red, the Rock Singer, I remember Red was his name. He is passed away. But it was one of the best concerts I have ever been at all day on a Saturday, I believe, of all these great blues singers. One of the other thing too is how, let us see, who were some of your mentors and role models yourself? People that inspired you, not only, you have already mentioned some of your relatives and people that influenced you to become a doctor, but were there people in America at the time that you looked up to, whether it be politicians – ES (00:54:11): Less or a lot of skepticism regarding so-called gurus and groups? I think that skepticism came from growing up in a communist house. Hearing and seeing the slogans at that time. And then in the (19)60s, those slogans, it was to me, seemed empty. Slogans were repeated, and I thought, oh yeah, workers are going to overthrow the bosses, things like that. So I never actively pursued any spiritual group or person. It usually would happen accidentally. Like being exposed to and having experiences with Albert Schweitzer, that was very important to me. I was close to him and to his family. And his daughter died about a year and a half ago, and she was 90, remained close to her, to her death because she lived then in Los Angeles Pacific lsa- SM (00:55:40): Right. You had mentioned that on your YouTube interview. ES (00:55:42): Yeah. So that was very important. I think that for a long time I spent a lot of time with Tim Leary, and during that time, got to meet a lot of people. There was a lot of traffic through his house. That is when I met from Ram Dass then as Richard Alpert, Ralph Metzner. And it influenced me at the same time that I was, by that time, I knew that matter how famous a person was, no matter how well known or how revered the person, he or she had play feet, just like Albert Schweitzer. I would see failings in him -blow was his greatness. So... SM (00:56:44): I can remember there was a scene with Timothy Leary, along with John Lennon and Yoko Oho and Tommy Smothers. I remember when he was doing in the bed. ES (00:56:54): Yes, that is right. SM (00:56:55): And I remember Timothy Leary was there. I said, this guy was everywhere. How did the city of San Francisco deal with all these people coming in? Was there a good relationship between the young people of the Summer of Love and the police and the political leaders at that time? ES (00:57:16): Initially it was okay, but then as more and more young people came, there was more concern, especially from the police. It did not, that period of goodwill did not last very long. Because again, because of the great numbers of people came, especially in the Haight Ashbury section of San Francisco, and the resulting situations, including the rampant drug use, camping out, being out begging. SM (00:57:59): Remember Harry Reasoner, the ABC did a report once on TV and I still remember seeing it, and it was when they were doing tourists going through Haight Ashbury. ES (00:58:08): Yeah, the Gray Line Tourists, you – SM (00:58:13): Yeah. And he was there for a couple of days, I think, doing a report. And what is interesting after living out there to see how expensive those Victorian homes now are that were in Haight Ashbury. ES (00:58:22): Oh yeah. They are all million-dollar homes now. SM (00:58:25): Yeah. It is amazing. In those days, they were kind of falling apart, I think. ES (00:58:31): Yep. SM (00:58:32): What is your, just for you to define things, I asked Steve Gaskins this too. If you could define in your words what a hippie is, what a beatnik is, and your definition of a counterculture. So first off, in your definition of a hippie. ES (00:58:54): Well, these were people who were willing to depart from the usual career paths that people took. They had a more open attitude towards sexual freedom, toward the roles of men and women. A greater appreciation for nature. Know the benefits of unspoiled nature, and an openness toward exploring their minds, whether it be through spiritual practices or through the use of drugs, or both. SM (00:59:53): And a beatnik? ES (00:59:54): Part of it. That is why, oh, they start it longhaired hippies. Well, started thinking, well, why do we have to cut our hair in a certain way? ES (01:00:03): ...do we have to cut our hair in a certain way? Why are neckties a uniform that one must wear? When you think about really, even now, why do people wear neckties? And we have buttons now to close our shirts. Need a necktie to do. It was originally done. So there was a questioning. People were asking questions. Remember one of the slogans at the time, question authority? So it was the willingness to question all kinds of things. Some of that did not lead to good things because over generations and hundreds or thousands of years, humans have learned there are certain things, certain ways to behave socially. When people indiscriminately did not follow those customs or habits, there were bad results sometimes. SM (01:01:31): Mm-hmm. Hold. Okay. How would you define a beatnik? ES (01:01:37): Well, beatniks, I think that came from, if I am not mistaken, Herb Caen coined that term. Herb Caen, the late columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. First they were called the beats. I guess he felt beaten down by society. It was a style of drinking excessive amounts of cheap wine, smoking lots of tobacco. You are beat. You are trying to express the way that they felt at that time. SM (01:02:38): And lastly, how would you define the counterculture? Your definition of the counterculture? ES (01:02:46): Well, it was a reaction to the overall culture. So it was less conformity for the sake of conformity. And that led to differences in dress, the type of music that was composed and played. Art was just by definition counter mean quite the opposite of the general culture or against general culture. But when people found things in the culture that they found objectionable, they tried to act on it. SM (01:03:40): Vietnam veterans, obviously, I got some questions here on Vietnam in a minute, but there were Vietnam veterans even coming back, and I am sure there were some in the Summer of Love that had served already in Vietnam between (19)65 and (19)67. ES (01:03:56): Yes. SM (01:03:57): In looking at your biography, you worked I think in a veterans facility at one time. Did you see a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder of vets coming back? ES (01:04:10): You mean at that time? SM (01:04:11): Yes. ES (01:04:16): Yes, there were people who were traumatized. For example, I know Ron Kovic a little bit. Certainly he was traumatized physically as well as mentally. SM (01:04:34): Was it pretty common? Because I have been talking recently with some Iraq veterans who have come back from Iraq, and it was almost a hundred percent post-traumatic stress disorder within groups. ES (01:04:49): Well, it was not known then as post-traumatic stress disorder. You remember they call it shell shocked, battle fatigue, things of that kind. But as PTSD became better known, it was I think why there was more autism now. It was recognized more and reported more. I think that is why there is as much PTSD the Iraq War. In the Vietnam War, it was a great rejection of many of the veterans who came back, even though most of them were conscripts. The Iraq War were all volunteers. There is no draft now. But I think because of greater recognition and publicity about the fact that PTSD may occur. SM (01:06:06): When you were out there... Well, you have lived out there your whole life there. But there were some specific historic events at Berkeley. The Free Speech Movement in (19)64 and (19)65, Mario Savio and that group. And then People's Park in (19)69, of which one person was killed during that. ES (01:06:26): Yes. I was there during those demonstrations. I wrote about. I have published four books so far. The first two were based on newspaper columns, articles. I wrote about the People's Park in a book called Natural Food and Unnatural Acts. It was published by Delacorte. Yes, it was a tumultuous time. It was very disturbing and startling to be exposed to the National Guard so often, tear gas. I am very sensitive to tear gas. Tear gas is released near me, and I cannot stay around. So a number of times I was at the People's Park demonstration. SM (01:07:36): That was actually when Ronald Reagan was governor, I believe. When he came into power, he promised two things: that he was going to set the students straight, number one, and number two, that he was going to end welfare. And I know I have interviewed Ed Meese, who was the assistant district attorney of Alameda County, who was there at the Free Speech Movement. But he was not working for Reagan then; Reagan was People's Park. ES (01:08:06): Right. SM (01:08:08): And they had come really hard down on those people. That is part of the history of that period, but what effect do you think that had on the boomer generation as a whole? Because it was all over the news. ES (01:08:28): It was shocking. Well, first, there had not been large demonstrations by students, political demonstrations like that before, at least that I have been aware of. When I was a student in Berkeley, the only large demonstrations then were panty raid. I do not know if you remember the panty raids, but there were a couple of big panty raids at Berkeley where there were thousands of students gathered, and they would go into the sorority houses and rifle through the drawers and get panties. It was silly, but it was the first time that I saw thousands of people out in the street and then a police presence which followed. When it happened for political reasons it was dramatic, it was exciting, and it was disturbing. I had demonstrated against the Vietnam War, and I was at a protest at the Oakland Induction Center and this club there. But there I saw for the first time that these demonstrations might turn violent. I saw a police car overturned and burned, which I did not care for. I was then so recently coming from the experiences I had with Albert Schweitzer and Reverence for Life, that things should be hurt or killed unnecessarily. And I saw that turning very disturbing. SM (01:10:47): When did the (19)60s begin in your opinion, and when did it end? ES (01:10:51): Well, let us see. (19)60s, about 1963, I would say, (19)64. I know you are not talking about the literal terminology. About (19)63 I think it corresponded in a way with the assassination of JFK. I was a student at Yale at that time that it happened. SM (01:11:38): Do you remember where you were when you heard the news? ES (01:11:42): Yes. I was meeting with a faculty advisor, and his secretary came into the office and said, "The president has been shot and likely killed." This professor says to me calmly, "Well, these things happen." And he tried to go on with our meeting. I said, "Well, let us meet another time." So I remember exactly what happened. SM (01:12:09): And were you one of those individuals watching the TV all weekend? ES (01:12:13): Yes, to the TV then. I think that is when it really started. Maybe a little bit before with the Cuban Missile Crisis. SM (01:12:26): Right. (19)62. When did it end? ES (01:12:32): I think it ended with the Altamont concert. SM (01:12:38): You are not the only one that said that. Some people said they thought it ended with Kent State too, because that was a terrible tragedy. ES (01:12:45): Yeah, and that really dampened the student demonstrations. I know people I have talked to about that, some disagree, but I noticed that after the Kent State shootings, there were fewer demonstrations. Actually, people were afraid, rightly so. But I think it really ended at Altamont, because it was such a terrible scene. I was there. SM (01:13:14): Oh, you were there? ES (01:13:16): Yes. SM (01:13:17): Oh, wow. ES (01:13:18): I wrote about that too. That is also in the book, Natural Food and Unnatural Acts. SM (01:13:24): I got to get that book. Is that book still in print? ES (01:13:26): No. I think you can get it on Amazon or something. SM (01:13:28): Okay. I am going to order it then. ES (01:13:32): I always thought that book was a good history of the (19)60s. It was a terrible scene. It was so ugly. I did not go to a large concert seven years after. SM (01:13:49): I heard stories that the group responsible for getting the Hell's Angels there was Jerry Garcia. Is there truth to that? ES (01:13:57): Yes. SM (01:13:59): And he felt guilty the rest of his life? ES (01:14:03): Yeah, I think so. I knew him. They always had a relationship with the Hells Angels. Hells Angels were fans of the Grateful Dead. And they were asked to do security there in exchange for, I do not know, so many cases of beer. So it was a huge mistake. There was an interview later after that with Sonny Barger, who was then the head of Hells Angels. He said someone kicked their motorcycles, so they were in a rage about that. SM (01:14:52): They killed one person. Did they injure other people too? ES (01:14:55): Yes, there were other people injured. There were other people injured by Hells Angels, no one else killed by it. There was another death there. There was someone who was run over by a car accidentally. SM (01:15:10): Was not the Rolling Stones performing when that happened? ES (01:15:13): Yes. SM (01:15:15): Did the concert end? ES (01:15:17): No. SM (01:15:17): It kept going on? ES (01:15:18): It kept going on. Mick Jagger did ask people to calm down. The part of the problem was that, well, first it started off as a nice day, then it became overcast and gloomy, and everyone was waiting for the Rolling Stones to go on. They would not go on until dark fell. By that time, things were unruly. And the concert had been put together at the last minute. Anyway, that is the site, I think the last minute, it was a kind of frenzy that developed. And then the Rolling Stones would not go on until dark fell. And then Mick Jagger was singing Sympathy for the Devil and doing that. The Hells Angels, during that time, they were beating people with a pool cue. SM (01:16:20): And they were in the front of the stage and to the left and right of the stage, I guess. ES (01:16:23): Yes, and the stage was not high enough so that people could attempt to go on the stage, and they were pushed off and hit by the Hells Angels. SM (01:16:34): Were the Hells Angels drunk? ES (01:16:40): I do not know what they were using. I do not know. I have had various dealings with them over the years. I do not know if you know anything about my current work or not. SM (01:16:53): I do not. ES (01:16:56): I do a lot of consulting with lawyers in both civil and criminal cases, usually about the effects of psychoactive drugs, but sometimes other issues as well. So sometimes lawyers for the Hells Angels have asked me to help in their cases. And sometimes they have been referred to me or their wives for treatment, either for drug abuse or for their other issues. SM (01:17:36): Is there one specific event that you feel had the greatest impact on boomers, that is those born between (19)46 and (19)64? You may have already said it, but do you think there is one event that more than any other shaped this generation? ES (01:17:53): Well, it was not one event, but I think you know that Woodstock epitomized a lot of things that were happening. It involved music, drug use, large crowds at that time being able to get along without a lot of disruptions, a lot of fights. I think that and what it represented was probably. But it was not any one event like that. It was the Vietnam War. SM (01:18:48): Do you like the term the boomer generation? I say that because I have had a lot of different opinions from people. And if not the boomer generation, what would be a better term? Would it be the Vietnam generation, the counter-culture generation, the Woodstock generation? What do you think best applies to this group in terms of terminology? ES (01:19:15): I would say the Woodstock generation, the Summer of Love. Except the Summer of Love, just by definition, specifies one summer. Whereas even though Woodstock generation refers to one event, it really refers to more than one event. SM (01:19:41): You have obviously seen boomers from many different angles over the years. And I know you cannot talk about 74 million here, but do you think that boom generation has been good parents and now grandparents? In other words, have they sat down and shared their experiences with their sons and daughters over the years, what it was like then, get a better understanding of the times? I always get at the term activism, because some people say the generations have followed have not been as activist as their parents. Although only 15 percent probably were active to begin with in that generation. ES (01:20:23): That is right. SM (01:20:25): In your practice, have you had issues where a lot of the boomers feel they have either not been good parents or good parents or kids having issues with their parents? ES (01:20:42): Yes, but kids have always had issues with their parents. You see some things now. I have had several patients who were named Che after Che Guevara, just as during the (19)60s and (19)70s, would name their kids things like Krishna and Sunflower, Willow Wisp, names that they might not use later. But I think to myself, this is interesting. I know what it is like to be given the name that one might not have chosen for himself. I was given the name of Lenin. So when I see people now that are named Krishna or Che, it kind of amuses me in a way. I do not know if there are better or worse parents. I think that those who went through these years have had experiences and have had a different sense of reality and hopefully an expanded sense of realities. Maybe they could be better parents. SM (01:22:15): Let me change. Just changing my tape here. Very good. I am back. Where was I here? ES (01:22:23): You were asking where the boomers were [inaudible] SM (01:22:25): Yes. I want your thoughts. You have obviously lived in the Bay Area. You have seen the Summer of Love. You have seen the protests against the Vietnam War. You saw the Free Speech Movement, for which I think is one of the most historic events ever in higher ed, because that was my career. And when you talk about freedom of speech, you got to talk the Free Speech Movement. But of course, the protests against the Vietnam War and the Love. But I would like your thoughts on, there seemed to be at that time, in this late (19)60s and early (19)70s, a more camaraderie between the movements. The Civil Rights movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the Chicano movement, the Native American movement, and the women's movement, and of course the environmental movement and the anti-war. ES (01:23:17): Yes. SM (01:23:17): In fact, in 1970, before they even did Earth Day, Senator Nelson and Dennis Hayes met with the anti-war people to make sure that they were not stepping on their turf. And they worked together, and they supported it a hundred percent. And the rallies, you saw signs all over the place. I do not sense that today. I sense rallies now where it is single issue. It is the issue they are involved in. Do you sense that too? ES (01:23:46): Yeah. In fact, you mentioned the Free Speech Movement. I am distressed by the suppression of free speech now on college campuses. If there is someone who expresses views that some students do not like, they will Mao them. They will shut them down. They will not permit them to speak. It is distressing to me. Whether it is someone from the right or the left, I think freedom of speech and of the press are the most important freedoms that we have. SM (01:24:25): I agree. ES (01:24:25): There is nothing else. Without them all the other freedoms go away. SM (01:24:34): Yeah. I interviewed Dr. Arthur Chickering, I do not know if you know him. He was a great professor who wrote Education and Identity, which was a required text in grad programs in higher ed. We had to read it; it was required. It was the seven vectors of development in human beings. And when I interviewed him about three or four months ago, I just asked him his final thoughts on what was going on in higher ed today. And he said the universities are now controlled again by the corporations, and he was very upset about that. That was what students were fighting for in many respects in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, is that the corporate takeover of universities, and of course research institutions are part of it. And there is good positive things there, but it seems like everything is bottom line today. That anything that threatens the bottom line you cannot have, so that includes controversial speakers. They talk about free speech, but in reality they are fearful of it for fear it could affect the bottom line. Do you feel that is what is happening in universities? ES (01:25:45): No, I was referring to student groups that suppress free speech. SM (01:25:51): Right. Well, I see that too. But you do not see universities doing it too? ES (01:25:56): Yes, and it is disturbing. It is like creeping fascism. It is part of this marriage of business and government. That is how fascism originated. In fact, that is the definition of fascism, really, is corporate government. And the bad things of fascism develop from that. So that when you have corporations controlling government and governmental institutions, including colleges and universities, yes, it suppresses free thought. SM (01:26:50): It is interesting that today the people that run the universities are the boomers too, and Generation Xers, which is the generation that followed. ES (01:26:59): Yes. SM (01:26:59): And so they experienced everything from the (19)60s. And like your thoughts, I sense there is a fear of the term activism on university's campuses. Volunteerism is a safe term. Activism is a scary term, because it is almost 24/7, and it is much more challenging, and it brings back memories of the past. Do you feel that is present? ES (01:27:26): Yes. It is certainly a change, and it is not a good change. SM (01:27:38): There is two basic questions I have been asking every interviewee. One of them is a question that was organized and put together by a group of students I took to Washington DC in 1995 to meet former Senator Edmund Muskie. They were not born at the time in 1968, but they wanted to ask him a question as the vice-presidential candidate about everything that was happening in Chicago that year. This is the question they came up with. Do you feel, Senator Muskie, that we are still having problems with healing due to the extreme divisions that tore this nation apart in their youth? Divisions between black and white, male and female, straight and gay, divisions between those who support authority and those who criticize it, division between those who supported the troops and those who did not. What role has the Wall in Washington DC played in healing of divisions for veterans? But most importantly, do you feel the boomer generation will go to its grave, like the Civil War generation, not truly healing? Are we wrong in thinking this, or has 35 years made the following statement true: Time heals all wounds? I will let you know what Senator Muskie said after I get your response. ES (01:28:59): Well, it is true that time heals. The Vietnam Wall alone could not heal the divisions that arose over the war. One thing that I did notice is that whereas the veterans of the Vietnam War, even though most were conscripts, were reviled, you do not see that now with the veterans of the Iraq War. They are volunteers. So I think that is in a way an improvement. Whether those divisions have yet, yes, time heals. It is better now than it was. SM (01:29:51): I think that the students had saw the assassinations of that year, (19)60, and of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Certainly the city's going up in fire in the (19)60s. SM (01:30:03): The cities going up in fire in the (19)60s, the burnings in Watts, and of course the protest movement. They had also seen the Hard Hats in New York City going, wanting to clobber the anti-war people. They had seen all of this stuff when they came to this. The Senator Muskie responded this way. He did not even respond in 1968. He basically said, "We have not healed since the Civil War." I said, " We still have the issues of race like we did back then." The students sat there, and not shocked, but just listened to them because he gave a melodramatic pause for about a minute. It looked like he had tears in his eyes, that we saw when people said he was a weak candidate because people had attacked his wife when he was a candidate. Then he went into a description about 430,000 men being killed in the Civil War. He had just seen the Ken Burns series, almost an entire generation. That is when he went at talking about the lack of healing since the Civil War. I put two and two together, because if you go to Gettysburg, if you have been there, they have this statue of the last living person who was in the Civil War. He died in 1924. I took students there. So a combination of all these things came to that question. The healing is a big issue, because there were so many divisions. But you agree that you think time does heal? ES (01:31:48): I think so. I was thinking what you said about Muskie said, the division since the Civil War. There was a time when, during Summer of Love, during that time, it was right after and during the civil rights demonstrations. There was a time when there were much better relations between Black and white. Then that changed with the rise of the militant groups, such as Black Panthers, which, in an attempt to give Black people pride, turned against whites. But I thought that was not a good time, and I think that persists today, to a large extent. It seemed- SM (01:32:50): Yes. ES (01:32:51): ...there was more integration then, than now. Now you always read about, in colleges, Blacks always being separate from whites. SM (01:33:08): Right. ES (01:33:08): In the (19)60s, did not have that so much. There was a brief period where you did not have that. SM (01:33:17): In your opinion, why did the Vietnam War end? ES (01:33:22): Oh, I think a lot of it has to do with the student demonstrations, the general consensus that it was wrong that we were there. The numbers of people who were killed, well, Vietnamese and American. SM (01:33:47): How do you respond to the people, like the Newt Gingrich's of the world, or George Will, who oftentimes will write in his books, commentary on the (19)60s generation, or that period in American history, as placing the blame for the breakdown of American society based on that time. They are making reference to the drug culture, the freedom of sexuality, the lack of respect for authority, maybe even the beginning of the isms. Just the breakdown of the way it was maybe in the (19)50s. I do not know. But your thoughts? Because those critics are still out there, and they are still making comments. You can see it on the Huckabee's television show all the time. We are going to make a reference to the (19)60s generation, and a lot of the issues that we face in our society today. Problems go back at that time. The divorce rate is another one, the high divorce rate, not having a commitment to a relationship, all these things. Just your thoughts on the critics of that time and era. ES (01:35:05): Well, some of the criticisms are valid, but I think that, overall, good came out of that period of time. We see that in the interest in maintaining, preserving, and improving the environment, in openness to new ideas, and arts and music. Overall, I think was good. Bad things also occurred. The people who were harmed by drug abuse. The change in a reaction to marriage, where it used to be felt that one married, it was forever. My parents married for almost 60 years before my mother died. When I first came out to Berkeley, when I had some roommates and friends at a residence where I was, I surprised by the number of people who came from divorced families. Of course, that has changed more and more. Divorce, that is not a good thing. I still think that when married, you should go into it thinking you are always going to be married. Not with the idea that many people have that, "Oh, you could always get divorced if things do not work out," but that is not a good thing. I think, overall, a lot of good came out of it. And I think these critics are, yes, reactionary. They are looking backwards. They are thinking, perhaps, of a time that did not really exist except in their imagination. SM (01:37:17): One of the other qualities, the second question, besides healing, is the issue of trust. There were lots of reasons why boomers did not trust their leaders, because they saw President Johnson lie about the Gulf of Tonkin. We saw Richard Nixon in Watergate. There were even rumblings that President Kennedy was not above board, with respect to the overthrow of the Diem regime. ES (01:37:42): Right. SM (01:37:42): Vietnam. And certainly even if you really were up on things, Eisenhower had even lied to the American public about you too. McNamara, and all these numbers, where they were giving numbers of the dead, and it could have been a whole pasture cows, and they were including them as well. Trust, or lacking trust, is a quality that many people link to this generation. Your thoughts on how important trust is, and secondly, whether there is truth to that. Secondly, one of my professors once said to us in a Psych 101 class that people who cannot trust others will really not be a success in life, because you have got to be able to trust other people. Just your thoughts. ES (01:38:34): Yes. On the other hand, it is healthy, in a way, to know about these things, these incidents, in which our leaders have lied. Because I think it is good to have a healthy skepticism, especially about politicians. The old joke about how you know when a lawyer is lying, his lips are moving. Most politicians are lawyers, so you have got a double chance of lies. I see a lot of disappointment now, after Obama's election, because he ran on the slogan, Change You Can Believe In. A lot of people are bitterly disappointed to find out that he is, after all, a politician, Chicago politician, who has to act within the constraints of our system. As I said before, people have a need to follow, a need for religion, a need feel that they are following someone who can guide them. And of course, one of the popular songs, it was Beatles or John Lennon, I forget, Do not follow leaders. SM (01:40:27): Yeah. I was a political science major as an undergrad in history, political science. And one of the things they teach you in political science is, it is healthy for democracy to not trust. ES (01:40:43): Yep. SM (01:40:43): Because that is the sign that dissent is alive and well. And if you have dissent, that means you have free speech, you have protests, the right, all these things. That is a healthy thing, not a negative thing. ES (01:40:56): Yeah. That is why that slogan Question Authority was so powerful. SM (01:41:03): Right. When I have asked another question, too, to all the guests, and I have tried defining the boomer generation into words from slogans. There were three, and then there was four, and then there was five. But the three that I mentioned to each person, and then they respond with their own, is Malcolm X's term, By Any Means Necessary, symbolizing the more radical violent aspects of the (19)60s, and early (19)70s, when boomers were young. Then you had Bobby Kennedy's quote, which he took from a writer, which is, "Some men see things as they are, and ask, 'Why?' I see things that never were, and ask, 'Why not?'," which is an activist mentality, a questioning of authority, fight for justice when you see injustice, that kind of thing. Then the more hippie mentality, which was on many of the Peter Max posters of the era, particularly in the early (19)70s. And one of them said, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful," which was a hippie mentality. Then one other person mentioned, We Shall Overcome, which is symbolic of the Civil Rights movement. Others had mentioned Timothy Leary's Tune in, Turn on, Drop out. But are there some slogans that you feel, or do they cover the generation? ES (01:42:35): I think they cover it. I do not like Malcolm X's slogan, By Any Means Necessary, because it connotes violence when necessary, and I think violence should be avoided if possible. It is not always possible, but if possible, it should be avoided. I told you I did not care for... Well, I appreciated the power of Timothy Leary's. I did not appreciate the message, because if you are actually following it, dropping out of school, and just dropping out of society. SM (01:43:21): When you say that, when you look at the Summer of Love, that is really all about counterculture, that is really not about politics, correct? ES (01:43:29): I would say so, yes. SM (01:43:31): Yeah. ES (01:43:31): In fact, it was a big difference. There was some conflict between the political people and the Flower Power people. The difference even was seen in publications, such as the Berkeley Barb, where my newspaper columns first appeared. Very much interested in politics, whereas there was a publication called The Oracle, which had to do with psychedelic art and music. Yes, there was a difference there. SM (01:44:22): You are your books, which I have the list of your four books here, could you at least just, in a couple sentences, describe what each book is about? Dear Doctor Hippocrates, which was Grove Press in (19)69. ES (01:44:35): Yes. It was from newspaper columns, or questions and answers, almost all about drugs and sexuality. SM (01:44:46): Is that book still available, or you got a- ES (01:44:49): It is on online, again, through Amazon. SM (01:44:52): Yeah. ES (01:44:52): I thought they were being used company. SM (01:44:56): Natural Food and Unnatural Acts, Delacorte Press, 1974. ES (01:45:00): Yes. That was from newspaper columns and longer articles that I wrote. As I say, I always thought of that as a history of the (19)60s. SM (01:45:12): Yeah, that is what I need to get, for sure. The third one was, Jealousy, Taming the Green-Eyed Monster, 1980. ES (01:45:20): See, often people would write to me because they were exploring sexuality, freedom of sex, and they would say " I know I cannot own anyone, and I should not own anyone, but why is it that I feel jealous if I see my girlfriend or wife with someone else?" People would very frequently write to me about that, so I thought this be a good book to do, a book about jealousy. SM (01:45:48): Well, that is interesting. Mary Todd Lincoln should have read that book. She was suspicious of everybody that came anywhere near Abe. ES (01:45:58): Yeah. SM (01:45:58): The last one here, the Down to Earth Health Guide, in 1981. ES (01:46:02): Yes. I was asked by the publisher of Natural Food and Unnatural Acts to do a general health guide. At that time, there were not health guides for, actually, it started out for college students, and I expanded for others. It is a general health guide. There is a large section in there about drugs and sexuality, but it also includes other health conditions. SM (01:46:38): Now I am almost done here. The last part is just where I mentioned some names. So some people or terms, and you just give little brief comments. ES (01:46:46): All right. SM (01:46:47): If that is okay? ES (01:46:48): Sure. SM (01:46:48): Sometimes people decide they do not even want that, because the interview's gone a little over. It is a great interview. These are just names, terms, or personalities from the period. Just thoughts. Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. ES (01:47:03): Yeah, Tom Hayden. Tom Hayden, he lived in Berkeley for a time. There was a time when women's groups were coming together, and saying, "We do not need men." They published an anonymous article in the Berkeley Barb about if it had to do with dildos, something like that, and we do not need men. [inaudible] condemned the article. It was anti-women, anti-feminist. I thought he was a true believer, and it was a marriage made in heaven or hell when he married Jane Fonda. I think she is really a dimwit. SM (01:48:07): How about John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy? ES (01:48:13): Well, John Kennedy, of course, represented a new kind of president. He was young, he was vital. He projected optimism. Robert Kennedy, I had some doubts about, because of his early work with anti-communist activity. When he was killed, a lot of the aspirations of people active in politics died as well. SM (01:48:59): How about LBJ and Hubert Humphrey? ES (01:49:02): LBJ was an example of how things can get done, how things have to be done, because he was very important in regard to civil rights legislation. And yet, he was an old style politician. Even Humphrey was an example of how things are not done, cannot be done. He had promised a liberal politician, but he was not as effective as LBJ, interestingly enough. SM (01:49:53): How about Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern? ES (01:49:59): Well, I met Eugene McCarthy one time. Again, he was someone who was not, of course he was in Congress, but he was not as effective. But he did inspire people to be active in politics, the way they had not before. The same with McGovern. McGovern was interesting. I was at Hunter Thompson's second funeral in Colorado, and McGovern was one of the people who spoke there. SM (01:50:42): Wow. ES (01:50:43): Yeah. SM (01:50:47): How about Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford? ES (01:50:51): When I was a student at Berkeley in 1953, Ronald Reagan, I was in the Cal Glee Club. We were asked to sing at a Lions Club meeting in Berkeley, and the featured speaker there was Ronald Reagan. It was the first time that I was aware of his interest in politics, and was surprised to learn of his interest in very conservative politics. I never understood why, do not understand now, why he is so revered by some Republicans. He was the guy who said, "You have seen one redwood, you have seen them all." He also was not the first actor to become elected to national office politics. Was that George Murphy? SM (01:51:54): Yes. ES (01:51:55): And before him. He unfortunately inspired other actors, get involved in politics, like our present governor. SM (01:52:08): Right. ES (01:52:10): You asked? SM (01:52:11): Gerald Ford. ES (01:52:12): Oh, Ford. Ford. SM (01:52:18): Ultimate question with him. When he had pardoned Nixon, did he really heal the nation? He wrote a book on it. ES (01:52:24): I think that was the intent, as well as maybe paying off some political favors. But I do not think it healed the nation. I think it destroyed his reputation. SM (01:52:42): When he ran against Jimmy Carter, I was in San Francisco. They had a big amphitheater there, and they had the big screen with a debate. I will never forget when he said, "They are not communists." I could not believe it. In Eastern Europe. ES (01:52:56): Oh yeah-yeah. SM (01:52:57): That killed him, that did it. ES (01:53:01): He was not very smart, either. SM (01:53:04): Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. ES (01:53:09): Oh. Well, Chris, Eisenhower was elected because he was general in the Second World War. I think his greatest contribution was to point out of the military industrial complex. SM (01:53:25): Yes. ES (01:53:26): Sadly neglected. Every now and then someone will remember it. But very important that he mentioned that, and emphasized that, and that he recognized how important that was. I think that is his greatest contribution, and the importance of that has yet to be realized. Nixon, it was astonishing, to me, when he was elected president. We thought, "Oh, my God, that is the worst thing that could have happened." Some of the most pleasant hours I have ever spent were during the Watergate hearings, then having him resign. Found that very satisfying that finally justice was served, because as he started out as a witch hunter, communist, anti-communist, and built on that. SM (01:54:35): How about Spiro Agnew and Jimmy Carter? ES (01:54:41): Yeah-yeah. Spiro Agnew. Well, it was amusing, I forget the term that he used. He was talking about the journalist. SM (01:54:55): Yeah, hobnobs. ES (01:54:59): Finally, he got his due because of corruption. SM (01:55:03): Right. ES (01:55:04): Jimmy Carter was a weak president. There was some promise. He was interested in, for example, in decriminalizing marijuana, at least through his White House drug advisor. I had some hand in Jimmy Carter's [inaudible], in a roundabout way. I do not know if you remember the White House drug scandal, when his White House drug advisor, Peter Bourne, that is resigned in disgrace? SM (01:55:52): Do not remember that. ES (01:55:53): He had written a prescription for Quaaludes, under a false name for his secretary, or something. SM (01:56:03): Oh, wow. ES (01:56:07): When that was revealed, and Jack Anderson revealed a story that he had been pledged not to reveal unless something like this happened. What that was, was that Peter Bourne was at a conference in Washington, it was a normal conference, national organization. He could reform of marijuana law. Peter Bourne was seen by some reporters in a room there, speeding, snorting cocaine with Thompson and some other. SM (01:56:48): Oh. ES (01:56:50): These reporters, they promised not to reveal this. They told Anderson about it. They promised not to reveal it unless something else happened. Something else happened when Peter Bourne wrote this fake prescription, and that was revealed. Then Jack Anderson revealed the cocaine snorting incident, and that did not help Jimmy Carter. SM (01:57:28): How about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the Yippies? ES (01:57:32): Yeah. Well, I knew both Jerry and Abbie. Abbie, I thought, always had a great sense of humor. But I was there when they were planning the Chicago demonstration. I was at the meeting, and they asked me to provide medical assistance at the Chicago convention meeting. SM (01:57:58): Oh, wow. ES (01:58:01): When they told me what they planned, I said, "You know, people could get killed if you do that." And Abbie said, "Well, what is a few lives lost there, compared with thousands of lives in Vietnam?" Well, I did not think that one could predict things like that, and I thought it was wrong, and I withdrew from being involved in the Chicago demonstration. But overall, I thought, and there was some brilliance in the Yippie tactics, throwing the money, the dollar bills, and the stock exchange, and some of their other stunts. Jerry Rubin, less so. Especially later, became a stockbroker. SM (01:58:54): Right. ES (01:58:54): Interested in that. They were killed, hit by a car, and some of us made wry jokes about he was killed because he saw a reporter on the other side of Wilshire Boulevard, right across the street. SM (01:59:17): Yeah. Well, I have heard he was killed because he was jaywalking, and he was against the law all the time, so he got killed because he was doing something against the law. Chicago eight. The next one is Chicago eight, which is the trial, the eight people. That was a big thing, with Bobby Seale, and Tom Hayden, and certainly Rennie Davis, Rubin, Hoffman, Dave Dellinger, Lee Weiner, and I am missing one person, but just your thoughts on that? That was a... ES (01:59:53): Yeah, that was a travesty. But again, as I just mentioned, I was supposed to have been involved in providing medical- ES (02:00:03): ...supposed to have been involved in providing medical coverage for a Chicago demonstration. So, I did not have too much sympathy with those people because they were deliberately trying to start a riot. They did. There is no doubt in my mind. I know that that is what they intended to do because they told me. SM (02:00:24): How about the women leaders, the Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug the women's movement, because they were at the forefront? ES (02:00:32): Yeah. I am afraid that all set setback progress for a couple of generations. They misled women on their relationships with men. It led to a lot of saying, what was it, slogan, women need men like fish need bicycles. I think that still influences a lot of women. I mean, the good part, of course was in pointing out discrepancies in wages and political power. That part was good. It was good and bad. SM (02:01:23): How about the Black Panthers? There was seven of them because there is Stokely Carmichael, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Dave Hilliard and then the one that was killed in Chicago. I forget his name. Norman, I think, Fred Norman. ES (02:01:44): Well, not all of them were thugs and gangsters, but I think most of them were. SM (02:01:49): Yeah. That gets to this question about, Stokely challenged Martin Luther King in person, saying his time had passed. Malcolm X had actually debated Bayard Rustin, telling him that his time had passed, which was nonviolent protest. ES (02:02:06): Yeah. That set back relations between blacks and whites and that exists till today. SM (02:02:13): Yeah. Well, what are your thoughts on Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.? ES (02:02:22): Well, of course Martin Luther King Jr. was a great orator and peacemaker. Was of course, if not the greatest black leader, one of the greatest. I do not know as much. You asked about Stokely Carmichael? SM (02:02:45): Yeah. Stokely was the one challenged Dr. King. ES (02:02:51): Yeah. SM (02:02:52): He was down south in the early years, the Freedom Summer. So, he was doing good things. It is like what happens with the Weathermen and the SDS. I just saw Bobby Seale speak at the Kent State Conference. He kept saying, "We were never for violence." He kept saying that over and over and over again. Police just looked at the Black Panthers as a threat. They threatened him so much that they decided they had to get guns to protect themselves. ES (02:03:26): You know the Black Panthers, when they made a show of appearing at the state capitol in Sacramento, with rifles. SM (02:03:38): Right. ES (02:03:42): Yes, of course it was outrageous that there was discrimination against blacks, including blatant segregation, as I mentioned when I was younger. But the result of encouraging violence and hatred is what we have today. We do not have as much integration now as we did for a period of time during that Civil Rights era. SM (02:04:21): Couple other names here and then we are done, Dr. Benjamin Spock and the Berrigan Brothers. ES (02:04:31): Well, Dr. Spock influenced a whole generation. I was fortunate enough to meet him one time. I guess we were speakers on the same stage once in Berkeley. He was very warm, intelligent. He had a lot of good ideas. I think some of his child-raising ideas were misinterpreted, but I thought he was great influence on a whole generation of people and a good influence. Who is the other? SM (02:05:11): Phillip and Daniel Berrigan. They were part of the Catonsville 9 where they burned the draft records. ES (02:05:19): Yeah. Yeah. Well, they were very influential because they were church leaders who encouraged activism. To the extent that they influenced people of their own faith and other faiths, especially about the Vietnam War, they are very important. They show that it is worth sacrifice to do some things, the sacrifice of being liable to being arrested and jailed. They were not violent. SM (02:06:08): Yeah. The SDS, Students for Democratic Society and the Weathermen. ES (02:06:14): Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, there are people who are most influenced by big thing, explosion, boom-boom. The Weathermen, of course they blew themselves up sometimes, but I thought that that was wrong. Thought it was wrong to encourage violence at that time, at that time and for those reasons. I thought there were other means that were useful to ending the war. I mean, after all, that is why they started their group. Using violence to end violence, it's like using racism to end racism. SM (02:07:13): How about Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson, two of the predominant African American athletes who- ES (02:07:20): Well, Muhammad Ali was a very bright man. He was very funny. His decision not to be drafted I think was very important and influenced a lot of people. At the time he did that, he changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali, I mean that was important. I never can remember his though, advocating killing infidels or some of the things that you see now from Islamic extremists. I think he was very influential and a good role model at the time, I mean, even before he avoided the draft way he did because he was such a wonderful athlete. So, very smart, clever and funny. Who was the other? SM (02:08:38): The other was Jackie Robinson. ES (02:08:42): Yeah. Again, of course he was a pioneer in baseball. He always seemed to comport himself in an ethical manner. Was not like some of the athletes we see today, of all races, drugs and gangsters, acting badly. He always seemed to act in a good way. He was very important. Actually, I was interested in baseball because of the various baseball background in my own family. SM (02:09:23): I want to mention a book that I think you ought to go out and read. I am reading it right now. It is a brand-new book on Henry Aaron. ES (02:09:29): Yes. SM (02:09:30): It is called Henry Aaron. It is written by a person on ESPN. I have got several books. In the first 50 pages, the influence that Jackie Robinson had on Henry Aaron, the young guy from Mobile, Alabama is just unbelievable. Jackie talked about getting an education, not relying on your athletic ability. Raise as much as you, can be educated. Yet Hank was the extreme opposite in his attitudes. It is the best book I have ever written on Henry Aaron. I think as a person who is a psychologist or psychiatrist who works with people, I am learning a lot about human beings from this book. I am respecting Hank Aaron even more now that I am reading about his life. Because he has been kind of a recluse, even though he was high up in the Braves organization, but he was not out there making a name for himself. He did not believe in that. He liked being just, put the product out there. Just a couple more names and then we are done. The Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. ES (02:10:48): Well, I saw the Vietnam Veterans Against the War activists. It was in Miami Beach in 1972. They had the Republican Convention there at that time. As you know, I had grown up in Miami Beach. They were amongst the demonstrators there. I was astounded. I saw something I thought I would never, ever see in my life, tear gas, tear gas floating across the visage of a full moon in Miami Beach. I thought I would never see tear gas in Miami Beach. It was during that time. SM (02:11:34): Right. ES (02:11:35): I think Ron Kovic, that he was there. SM (02:11:41): So was Bobby Muller, I think. ES (02:11:43): Yeah. SM (02:11:44): Yep. ES (02:11:44): Yeah. They were very important also in helping to end the Vietnam War and publicizing the atrocities that occurred. SM (02:11:55): Mm-hmm. Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers? ES (02:12:02): That was also important. He demonstrated how a brave person could help to change things by exposing lies. I think he was important at that time. He surfaces every now and then, now, for other issues, but that was his greatest moment. The associate, what was his name? It started with an R, Russo, I think had some mental problems. SM (02:12:49): I cannot end this without at least having a couple conservatives here, Barry Goldwater and William Buckley. Your thoughts on those two? Because they are major figures in the lives of Boomers. ES (02:13:03): Yeah. It is funny that Goldberg used to be reviled as this terrible conservative. What did he say? That extremism, forget how he put it, in defense of liberty, is no vice, something like that. He is a very important figure. I think he is regarded in a better light now than he was then, even by liberals. SM (02:13:32): William Buckley? ES (02:13:34): Buckley, I met him one time. I was recording something in a studio in New York City, taking too much time. He was impatiently waiting. I did meet him then. He was a very interesting person. He was one of the first national figures, particularly conservatives who advocated the liberalization of laws regarding marijuana. That was very important for the people in the marijuana decriminalization movement. I thought he was a brilliant man. Even though often I would disagree with his political views, at least there were reasons and he was very articulate and clever. SM (02:14:38): How about My Lai and Tet, how important they were? ES (02:14:44): That was very important, very important in finally putting an end to the war. It did confirm the fact that there were atrocities going on. It is still significant today. I think it has certainly had an effect, even in the wars that are being conducted now, that there is more caution being used in the treatment of civilians. I know that there were incidents in Iraq involving civilians, but I am convinced that that more caution is being used now in Afghanistan and Iraq because of My Lai. SM (02:15:36): Mm-hmm. ES (02:15:37): Yeah. SM (02:15:43): Tet? ES (02:15:46): Again, it was something else that helped eventually put an end to the Vietnam War. It showed that we were not just up against a group of ill- equipped, low-trained savages. It was very important. SM (02:16:06): My last two names are Robert McNamara and John Dean. ES (02:16:14): Well, McNamara, finally he admitted he was wrong, I think, but many years too late, 30, 40. He was certainly an architect of that terrible experience in Vietnam. John Dean? Yeah. Well, I think he benefited from end of Nixon because he helped, contributed it to it. But he, I do not know, seemed bigger. SM (02:16:51): He lives out in your neck of the woods someplace. ES (02:17:03): I guess so. I have not heard his name recently. Every now and then he will turn up in the news. SM (02:17:09): The year 1968, what do you think that year meant to America? ES (02:17:17): 1968. Yeah. We were still in the Vietnam War, a lot of turmoil. SM (02:17:32): Two assassinations. ES (02:17:35): Pardon? SM (02:17:37): Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were killed. That was the year of Tet. That was the year Johnson withdrew to be president, the Chicago convention. Then of course, we had the astronauts going to the moon at the end of the year. That was a positive. ES (02:17:54): Mm-hmm. A lot of turmoil, a lot going on, a lot of talk about revolution, but I never believed that that was going to happen. SM (02:18:12): The last one here is the television of the (19)50s, the black and white TV. What's your thought of black and white television of the (19)50s? When I think of it, I think of Walt Disney and Howdy Doody and Hopalong Cassidy and all these westerns, where Indians are always the bad guy. Very few people of color, except for Nat King Cole in the mid-(19)50s and Amos 'n' Andy, which was slapstick in the early (19)50s. ES (02:18:42): Yep. Milton Berle. SM (02:18:43): Yeah. Well, (19)40s and (19)50s a television, how did they shape the Boomers? ES (02:18:55): Well, it did because it captures... even then, just black and white television captures one's attention. So, whatever was on was influencing those people, kids at the time. They were pre-conventional values. It was not a lot of innovation or questioning about values, moral or political or artistic or musical during that time. It was a time of convention. SM (02:19:43): Symbolize again, do you think the time of symbolic innocence, but at the same time, there was still racism in the south and Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Bus... There were things going on that a lot of white kids did not know about. ES (02:20:01): Yep, that is right. SM (02:20:03): I am not sure if their parents were doing much to tell them about it either. ES (02:20:07): No, it depends on who they were. I mean, of course my parents were different because they had a liberal point of view. So, I knew about all those things. SM (02:20:21): Yeah, I did too. Final question and that is, when the lasting legacy of the Boomer generation is written up in the history books after the last Boomer has passed away, ala the Civil War person, what do you think historians and sociologists and writers will be saying about the generation that grew up after World War II? Keeping in mind also that they are only 63 now, so they have still got another 20 years to still have an impact on society in different directions. But your thoughts on what they might be saying about that period, in particular the (19)50s, (19)60s and (19)70s? ES (02:21:07): It was a time of great change in the United States in many areas. Any area that you can think of, it was a time of turmoil and change, progress, some regression. SM (02:21:26): Is there any questions that... I have asked you a million questions, that I did not ask, that you thought I was going to ask you? ES (02:21:34): No, not that I can think of. You have asked a lot of questions. SM (02:21:37): Well, I guess that is it. I want to thank you for... My tally, you spent two hours and 20 minutes with me. I really appreciate it. I want to let you know that I am going to need a couple pictures of you. You can mail them to me or send it to me through the computer or whatever, sometime during the summer. I will mail you my mailing address. T. Here is a possibility that I am coming out to San Francisco to visit friends in late August, early September. I have interviewed probably 15 to 18 people from the Bay Area. They all are aware that if I do come out, I may look them up to take their picture too. ES (02:22:20): Sure. SM (02:22:22): I have Chrissy Keefer, David Lance Goines from the Free Speech Movement over in Berkeley. Well, there is several others. I got a whole list here of people. So again, thank you very much. ES (02:22:38): Oh, you are welcome. I had a question. What are your plans for this book? SM (02:22:44): I am doing all my interviews. My interviews were supposed to end at the end of May, but now I am extending it through Labor Day. After Labor Day weekend, I am then transcribing them all together over a two-month period, to transcribe them all. Then you will get a copy of your transcript, to peruse through it, edit it and so forth. Then, it will be printed hopefully next year. I got one university press very interested. University presses are interested. I have not done anything with respect to major presses, but I am meeting with two professors at my parents' former college, in actually the next couple weeks, to strategize on the best book company to get for this. ES (02:23:34): Okay. SM (02:23:34): You are the 156th interview. ES (02:23:39): Wow. SM (02:23:39): Each interview has gone in depth. The early interviews, with Senator McCarthy and Gaylord Nelson, they were like 90 minutes. Sometimes they were interrupted. They were mainly talking about Vietnam. Originally, the book was going to be about Vietnam Veterans, those activists who were against the war and historians who have written about this period. But now I have interviewed so many, and since I retired early to write the book, I am spending all my time now on this and it is expanded into seven different sections. The sections include a section on activists, a section for historians, a section for Vietnam Veterans, a section for authors. I got a lot of different categories here, a section for entertainers. I am going to interview Buffy St. Marie, but she has been having some deaths in the family and she goes on world tours. So, I have been almost waiting 10 months for that. Actually, tomorrow I am driving down to Virginia, Alexandria to interviewed State Senator Toddy Puller, who was the wife of Louis Puller Jr., who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Fortunate Son. He was the inspiration for the book because I took a group of students down to the Vietnam Memorial in 1993, in November, two days before the Women's Memorial was dedicated. He spent two and a half hours with six of our students at a bench in front of the Vietnam Memorial, talking about healing. Then, he committed suicide in May the following year. ES (02:25:27): Wow. SM (02:25:30): I had mentioned to Lewis that I wanted to write this book. I had thought about this. He wrote in a first edition copy of the book, "You must do what you are planning on doing to educate the public." See, what I want to do, Dr. Schoenfeld, more than any other process here, is I want this book to be used in high schools and colleges and plus be available for the general public. I am very saddened that so few of our students know our history. It really upsets me. I interviewed Mark Rudd from SDS. I saw him at Kent State last week. We talked in depth about it. I interviewed him. He has got a book out called Underground, which I think is great. He admits the violence was a big, big mistake. He admits it, but you notice that Bernadine Dohrn does not. ES (02:26:27): Nope. SM (02:26:29): I had issues with her. She was at the conference, so I just basically took a picture of her. But at least Mark has the guts to say that what he did was wrong and it ruined the entire SDS. ES (02:26:41): Yep. SM (02:26:43): I just want to do something that will educate people, from the people who experienced it, that have written about it. So, it is a work in progress, but I am devoting my life to it. ES (02:26:56): Yeah. Sounds like. SM (02:26:58): Because I care deeply about my generation and I care about the true stories of the people that I am interviewing. Certainly, Paul Krassner, what a great man he is. ES (02:27:08): Yep. Yep. SM (02:27:09): Rex Weiner, I do not know if you know Rex. ES (02:27:12): No. SM (02:27:13): Well, Rex Weiner was a writer. Rex said, "You got to get ahold of Paul Krassner." So through Rex, I got ahold of Paul Krassner. And then through Paul, Paul gave me a whole lot of names. I think only two people of all the names that he gave me have not responded. One of them is Carolyn, what is her... Oh, golly. ES (02:27:38): Garcia? SM (02:27:39): Yes, Carolyn Garcia. She has not responded. So obviously a couple of people said they are surprised by that, but maybe there is something to do with the fact that she was linked up with two people at one time. Maybe it is private. So, I did not pursue that any further. Then the other one was the Whole Earth Catalog person. ES (02:28:01): Yeah, Stewart Brand. SM (02:28:02): Yeah. He said he is going to pass at this time. He said, good project and everything, but he is going to pass. Everybody else, I have been interviewing. I have got many other interviews. I am going up to take care of my sister's house. I have three interviews, with really three great scholars coming up next week. Maurice Isserman, who wrote a book on the (19)60s, he is a distinguished professor at Hamilton College. I got another professor at Ithaca College and one at Syracuse. So, I am making a lot of different contacts. ES (02:28:41): Oh, good. There are some photos of me on my website. SM (02:28:46): Okay. What is your website? ES (02:28:52): EugeneSchoenfeld.com. SM (02:28:52): Okay. ES (02:28:52): Okay? There is a lot of biographical information there. SM (02:28:58): Great. ES (02:28:59): Information about what I am doing now. SM (02:29:02): Yeah. I think some of the people, when I did the interviews way back... I started this in (19)96, but I was a full-time employee at a university and I did not have any time to really work very hard on this. Then, I had parents who became ill. So, that kind of shot down two or three years. But now devoting full time to this, I am kind of a walking encyclopedia. I am learning. I have learned a lot from you today. I want to apologize for not getting the right number sent to you, so it is my fault. ES (02:29:41): It is all right. All right. Well, give me a call when you are out here, if you want to. SM (02:29:44): Oh, yeah, will do. You take care and you have a great day. ES (02:29:47): All right. All right. You too. Bye-bye. SM (02:29:48): Bye. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Schoenfeld, Eugene, 1935- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Psychiatrists; Authors, American--20th century; Schoenfeld, Eugene, 1935--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Eugene Schoenfeld is a psychiatrist, author, lecturer and was a popular underground newspaper columnist. His column "Dr. Hip" was published in many newspapers including the <em>Chicago Sun-Times</em>, <em>Tampa Times</em>, <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em>, and the <em>San Francisco Examiner</em>. Schoenfeld's books include <em>Dear Dr. HipPocrates</em>, <em>Natural Food&nbsp;and Unnatural Acts</em>, <em>Jealousy: Taming the Green-Eyed Monster</em>, and <em>Dr. Hip's Down-To-Earth Health Guide</em>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ND Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.154a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.154b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Has Part A related resource that is included either physically or logically in the described resource. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 149:55 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2346829a59430b280601739ac04ca54f.jpg a7de9fa6b396d16fc0908ed434bfd1dc https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/7f34de1b4e77bd47fe8729e357998745.mp3 be54ec1b9aa3acd930edad7338922dc3 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 2003-12-10 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sheldon Hackney Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Francis Sheldon Hackney (1933 - 2013) was a scholar, author and a professor of U.S. History at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his PhD. in American History at Yale University. After earning his Ph.D., Hackney served in the Navy for five years.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Francis Sheldon Hackney (1933 - 2013) was a scholar, author, and professor. He earned his PhD. in American History at Yale University. After earning his Ph.D., Hackney served in the Navy for five years. He was the former President of Tulane University and the University of Pennsylvania</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Civil Rights Movement; Montgomery Bus Boycott; University o Michigan; Anti-War Movement; Gay and Lesbian Rights Movement; Cambodian incursion; Kent State; Ronald Reagan; Women's Rights Movement; Conservatives&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:2,&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Civil Rights Movement; Montgomery Bus Boycott; University of Michigan; Anti-War Movement; Gay and Lesbian Rights Movement; Cambodian incursion; Kent State; Ronald Reagan; Women's Rights Movement; Conservatives</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 83:46 Subject LCSH Authors; College teachers; History--United States; University of Pennsylvania; Sailors; Hackney, Sheldon, 1933-2013--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Francis Sheldon Hackney Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 10 December 2003 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:05): Into my first question, and this is working, I know it is. When you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? SH (00:00:17): The civil rights movement actually, because that is where my primary interests lay at that time and now, but I lived through the period, so I have a very complicated idea about it. And I have been teaching a course on the 1960s for the last 25 years, so I know it both as a participant and as a professional observer. SM (00:00:45): What was that very first experience as a participant when you went from an observer to a participant in that movement? Do you remember the very first time? SH (00:00:55): Well, I was a participant first, I think, because I was born and grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. For reasons that I have never been able to figure out I emerged as a southern white liberal who thought that segregation was just wrong. And that happened to me when I was in the eighth grade, actually, when I suddenly began thinking about race prompted by nothing. I was a Methodist then, and I think my religious training had something to do with it, but I cannot be sure. So I was conscious of the racial situation in the south. All the way through college I was the liberal of my group in a way, all the way through college, and then married a woman who came from a family that was quite active in various ways. The Durrs from Montgomery, Virginia Foster Durr was- SM (00:02:15): Oh yeah, there is a brand-new book now, The Letters. I just bought that this weekend. SH (00:02:17): Oh, good for you, yes. SM (00:02:18): I did buy it, yes. SH (00:02:20): Oh, super. Well, she is my mother-in-law, actually. SM (00:02:24): Oh, wow. SH (00:02:24): Freedom Writer. SM (00:02:25): Oh yes. SH (00:02:26): I got married. I mean, I met my wife when I was still in college and before the Montgomery bus boycott started. So I was aware of the Montgomery bus boycott all the way through it, though I was also in the Navy then. She and I got married and I went through the Navy and came out of the Navy in 1961 and went to graduate school. The civil rights movement was already raging, and I was sympathetic to it, of course. Now, I went to Yale, the graduate school, so that did not set me apart from people at Yale where the standard opinion would have been sympathetic to the civil rights movement. But in that sense, I was already engaged in the (19)60s, not that I did anything terribly heroic, but I was a participant before anything else. I do remember the first anti-war meeting that I went to in the spring of 1965 when Johnson was escalating the war in Vietnam and the University of Michigan had a sit-in protest. And that caught on, the notion of a big sit-in to protest the war or to teach about the war actually it was. Well, there was one at Yale several weeks later, two or three weeks later, and I went to that. I remember there was even someone there from the University of Michigan to bring greetings from the academic community of the University of Michigan. And then it was along, it went all night at Yale and there were pro-war people there as well. And in fact, I did not become actively anti-war until good bit later actually. I was slow. SM (00:04:39): When you look at the movements, obviously the civil rights movement is the one that you were involved in, had the greatest impact on your life. What are your thoughts when historians or commentators talk about all the movements, that it was the civil rights movement, that was the model for the anti-war movement, the women's movement, your thoughts on those other movements and linkage with the civil rights movement? SH (00:05:02): Well, the civil rights movement did provide the paradigm for the others, both in the tactics that were used and also to an extent on the goals, if you will. I mean, the women's movement quite consciously copied some of the rhetoric and tactics of the civil rights movement, but as did the other social justice movements as well, [inaudible]. Not so much the Disabilities Movement, but others, the gay and lesbian rights movement, which really starts late in the (19)60s, but also comes in the wake of, into the atmosphere that had been prepared by the civil rights movement and the war movement as well. SM (00:05:56): When you look at, and I am looking at the boomer generation, and sometimes it is hard to define, a lot of people put parameters, they put anybody going between (19)46 and (19)64, and some say between (19)42 and (19)60. But when you look at the civil rights movement, how important were the boomers in that movement? Knowing that people like Dr. King, they were a little older and some of the civil rights leaders were a little older, but how important were they in civil rights itself, in the movement, whether it be college students, or? SH (00:06:29): It was, the civil rights movement changes several times. It began, if you think of it beginning as I do in the Montgomery bus boycott as a mass movement, the Brown decision was in (19)54. So December (19)55 Rosa Parks stands up for justice by sitting down, as they say. And the Montgomery bus boycott was basically a middle class movement. I mean, it was the whole black community of Montgomery that was mobilized for that. Same might be said for the Little Rock school integration crisis that came out of a lawsuit. It was a very orderly NAACP process that located the kids, sort of trained them about how to.... Brought the suit, got the federal court to order their admission into Central High and then followed those kids all the way through. Things changed then. That is as to say that the boomers did not have anything to do with this. The civil rights movement was coming anyway, right? But things changed with the sit-in movement in early 1960, because those young men and women at North Carolina A&T were from the boomer generation, and they had come along at a period when the black community was much more assertive about itself, where the experiences of World War II had had their effect. And African Americans in general were improving their position in American life, and as we know, improvement breeds ambition to improve. There is this escalating expectation, and I think the city movement begins that, and then when younger blacks and whites come to the fore and begin as the arrowhead of the movement, if you will, but they are out on the front lines. So the boomers take over in the (19)60s. SM (00:08:52): Leading into a question, in recent years, if you go back to even (19)94 when Newt Gingrich came to power, and of course he is out now, and also George Will always likes to do his digs whenever he gets a chance. Some of the commentators talk about the boomer generation and the reasons for the breakdown of American society, but some of the values that these young people had, their involvement with drugs, obviously the sexual revolution, the counter culture mentality, lack of respect for authority, your thoughts on the attacks on this generation? SH (00:09:29): Well, it is interesting, because we are still living in a politics that has been fashioned as a reaction to the 1960s basically. And if you look at those aspects of the (19)60s that were making for change in American life, the social justice movements, all of them, the counterculture in particular, those were profoundly upsetting to a lot of Americans. And it is easy to dismiss, especially the counterculture, but the young people in general was simply pursuing sex, drugs and rock and roll in the (19)60s. But I think that is simplistic and does not get at the essence. My own attitude toward the (19)60s is that it contained both a very hopeful, bright upper side, if you will. The social justice movements in particular, the bringing African Americans into the mainstream of American life, providing justice a bit for the disabled and for minority groups and protecting the rights of women as never before. All of that changed America fundamentally. And we will never revert to the way things were in the (19)60s when there was only one imagined America, and that was a white Anglo person. We were most much more pluralistic now in our thinking and in our actuality. The counterculture is somewhat different. I think it is more mixed. The counterculture has its roots in the 1950s in the Beat generation and the challenge to middle class American suburban values, if you will. Because those values were stultifying. Well, I think in a way they were. The counterculture is the first movement I know of that consciously identifies their enemy as not a class or a group, but as the values of society itself. The counterculture is saying, "These middle-class values are stultifying limiting, and we have got to, if we are going to be free, we need to overthrow and live by, overthrow those middle-class values and live by a different set of values." I mean, I am making it sound prettier than it was, but I think that is what they were saying. And they imagined liberty for them than being able to choose what values to live by, which is really quite radical. SM (00:12:30): During that timeframe, when you look at the boomer generation, if you had to look at those years, anywhere between 60 and 70 million people were born and can be categorized from the beginning of the boomers in (19)46 to (19)64. These same individuals that attacked that generation always to say that the only 15 percent really were really activist- SH (00:12:51): That is actually true. SM (00:12:52): ...involved in things. And by using that, even those numbers are pretty high. Only 15 percent was involved. Your thoughts when they used that? That only 15 percent of that group was ever involved or cared about anything. SH (00:13:06): That is true, absolutely true. There is this study of Harvard graduates in 1969 or (19)70 in which the pollster asked Harvard students to identify themselves along the political spectrum, 75 percent said that they were much more conservative than the typical Harvard student. Think about that a minute. Which means that the mood was set by the small minority that were active and that were out in front doing things that were different. They got the media coverage, they moved the culture, basically. Those 85 percent who did not demonstrate, did not even sign a petition, were still sympathetic to the 15 percent that were more active, but were more passive about their sympathy. At times of crisis, for instance, I am thinking here of the spring of 1970 when the Cambodian incursion occurred and campuses everywhere exploded. That gives you some notion of the campus mood. But even though very small percent of people had been active in the annual movement statistically on college campuses, when that happened and those small numbers organized a mass meeting, the whole campus showed up. It was not that the 15 percent was forcing the others, it was that it is just the passive and more aggressive. SM (00:14:51): When you look at, especially when you look at student development and how when you look at students, sometimes they develop at different stages. Their leadership may not come out when they are in college, but it may be in their late 20s. Has there anything ever really been done in that 85 percent with a respect to how that era affected their subconscious? SH (00:15:15): Good question. SM (00:15:15): So that they have gone on in their lives and they may not have been involved during that period, but certainly in their later lives those experiences played a part and they came forth? We always believe that students. SH (00:15:27): I were not aware of a study, but that is really a good question. My guess is I think, I can assume that the implication of your question, my guess is that the people who live through the (19)60s on a college campus probably were easily engaged by social issues later in their lives, or had their values set a little bit differently. SM (00:16:00): If you were to look at that generation again, and we are concentrating in on this boomer group, their greatest strengths, some of their greatest characteristics, and their weakest characteristics? SH (00:16:13): Well, the greatest characteristics is they had a social conscience if you take the generation as a whole. That whether this is not genetic certainly, but it is just that when that group happened to hit college age, it meant that universities were growing rapidly, very rapidly. It was a heady period on college campuses in general. And so they were there and more easily mobilized as college students always are. And they responded because the (19)50s, this was a reaction against the quintastic (19)50s, and the (19)50s of course were a reaction against World War II and the Depression. People wanted to live more subtle lives that had a bit more material wellbeing to them. And the (19)60s were a reaction against that in the direction of being more socially involved and creating a society in which everyone could lead a more fulfilling life. Social conscience, I would say, is the leading characteristic on the upside. More creativity. Start an accident, that music- SM (00:17:48): Oh yes. SH (00:17:49): I mean, of the (19)60s, it is quite remarkable that it is still played, and college students today is still familiar with that music. That is 40 years ago. SM (00:17:57): Simon and Garfunkel performed last night at the inspector, filling next door, and two of our administrators went and they said it was packed with boomers. They were all in their 40s. It was like, and then when they did that Bridge Over Troubled Water, Coming Home To America and Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio. In fact, Tom [inaudible], director [inaudible] said he almost had tears in his eyes. Because it was bringing back memories of a trip he took, Coming Back To America, that song there. And he was involved in a very serious issue with his family at that time, and he was at Alfred University, and I thought it was interesting. It all came back. That song brought everything back and tears came like it did 30 years ago. SH (00:18:48): Yeah. SM (00:18:49): Unbelievable. SH (00:18:51): Oh, it really is. Well, it is interesting that in my seminar I gets a good sense of how today's students think of the (19)60s and how they view it. And there was a time in the (19)80s when students were rather nostalgic for the (19)60s, because that was a time when it must have been great to be a college student. Things that is where the focus of the world was. Television were watching what was happening on college campuses. Also, it is a new experimentation going on, real sense of excitement. They thought, "Why could not things be like that now in the early (19)80s?" Well, today's students see the (19)60s as not very attractive, because sex, drugs and rock and roll get you into trouble. And if you are interested in a career, you can get off track awfully easily with all these distractions and with movements and marches. Those students of the (19)60s looked pretty bedraggled. They did not bathe all that much or did not cut their hair, so it is quite a reversal then. And it is not that they are unsympathetic, because the values, especially the women, it is interesting, women students now, if you ask whether they are feminists, they will say, "Absolutely not, I am not a feminist." Then you talk a bit more and you will find that they intend to have a career. They know about the women's movement of the (19)60s and (19)70s. They appreciate what that women's movement did for them, but they do not want to be known as feminist. They appreciate, they want the rights that were earned. They want equal pay for equal work. They want careers to be open to them, but they do not want to be identified as radicals. It is really quite remarkable. SM (00:21:00): Could you comment on the social consciousness was the main positive? What was, in your eyes, the main negative? SH (00:21:06): I think self-indulgence, without a doubt, just self-indulgence. In two senses. One, if you come to see middle class values as imprisoning and stultifying and you want to open up life to all of its possibilities, it is very easy to tell yourself that LSD is going to do it. And it is very easy to tell yourself, "If I lie around and take drugs and drink booze and do everything else that feels good, that I am really part of the revolutionary movement." When actually what you are doing is indulging yourself just and not doing anybody any good, much less yourself. The other self-indulgence that is there is really responsible for causing those social justice movements to fragment at the end of the (19)60s and disappear. And that is, the sense that this is a revolutionary moment and we are the revolutionary vanguard and we are going to bring off the revolution, and therefore violence is okay, and uncivil behavior is okay. Treating other people badly is okay because they are not likely to be in the revolutionary vanguard. That is kind of political self-indulgence, pseudo revolutionary self-deception. SM (00:22:40): One of the slogans from that period, I can remember the Peter Max poster that was very popular when I was a grad student in Ohio State, and I had it on my door and people always talked about it. We had even talks about it in my room, "You do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." SH (00:23:02): Right-right, yes. SM (00:23:06): And when I see Peter Max now with all the millions that he has made and all of his paintings, Peter Max has become quite of an entrepreneur off of this. But he would be interesting in terms of his comments. SH (00:23:20): Well, the other, sort of the irony, the same vein, the irony of the music of the (19)60s, which is closely identified with protest movements. There is Bob Dylan with consciously political lyrics to his songs, but the music in general is part of this (19)60s feeling of, do your own thing, live for the moment, spontaneity, do not recognize any constraints. Of course, the music groups that were making that music and identifying with the forces of change were practicing 18 hours a day, were rigorously disciplined, were engaged in a catalyst economic activity, and were making tons of money by all of their effort and work. So, I do not know whether that is [inaudible], but it is quite interesting. SM (00:24:21): And we will look at the Grateful Dead and the impact that they have had ongoing. In 1970, I get back because this is your interview, but I just want to make a comment. In 1970, I was a senior SUNY Binghamton, and the night of April 30th I broke my arm and almost had an amputated, that was in a serious accident, and I was graduating on May 17th. And so that was the night of the Cambodia speech that President Nixon gave at nine o'clock, and I was in the operating room for five hours. Then I was in the hospital for nine straight days and I made out fine and went to my graduation and everything. And Bruce Deering was our president and the great philosopher, but I missed a concert that was at SUNY Binghamton, which was the Grateful Dead in the brand-new gymnasium on May 2nd, 1970. SH (00:25:08): Right in the middle of all this? SM (00:25:11): Right in the middle. It was after the invasion, after the bombing of Cambodia. And it was two days before Kent State on May 4th, and I was not there. And you cannot buy that tape, except through the Grateful Dead website. And a student brought this to my attention and the Grateful Dead considered this one of their top five concerts of all time- SH (00:25:35): Wow. SM (00:25:35): ...because of the intensity of the audience in the new gym. And I graduated in that gym only 15 days later. Well, you bring up the invasion there and everything that happened and the violence, because that was happening in Binghamton too. Could you talk your thoughts on how important the anti-war movement, particularly the college students, the anti-war movement was not ending the war in Vietnam. SH (00:26:03): Controversy was subject. I have asked my students the same thing and I get various answers, each of which has good rationale behind it. I think that it did have an effect, especially after the Tet Offensive when the credibility gap was so evident and the mainstream public opinion began to turn against the war. It was another year before majority of Americans were telling posters that they were anti-war. But it was, the anti-war sentiment went up into the 40-percentile range right after Tet in the spring of (19)68, (19)68 was the turning point. The phenomenon that I find extremely interesting is that as the public was... And I do not think, it is not just Tet in the credibility yet, I do not think the public would have reacted that way if there had not been already a constant anti-war movement that was reminding people that the war might be a bad thing, might be wrong. It was not just that it was on television. It was that there was an opposition group there constantly saying, "We should not be there," for a range of reasons. When it then becomes clear that our leaders had been lying to us, then the public reacts very strongly. Now, the interesting thing is that as the public began to agree with the anti-war protestors, the antagonism toward those protestors also went up. That is the public did not tell themselves, "You are right. I am going to agree with you." They said, "I am anti-war and I do not like those anti-war protestors either." And that divides the country in a very interesting way. Seems true about the urban riots that were going on in that period as well. Urban riots, oddly enough made the public feel that something had to be done, that there were injustices in the urban centers of the country that could not be tolerated and that the population would not tolerate in that circumstance. And we could not go on having major riots in urban centers every summer. At the same time this is the origin of the law and order movement basically. I mean, one of Nixon's big campaign slogans in the 1968 is Law and Order. Because the public both was prepared for social policies, public policies that would address the complaints of the rioters. They were also wanting to repress the rioters at the same time. It was the same sort of dichotomous reaction, simultaneously dichotomous reaction. "I am going to do something to respond to your complaints, but I am going to put you in jail as well." SM (00:29:34): When the best history books, I got a lot of, I am going around here, but when the best history books are written on the boomer generation, and oftentimes the best history is you as a historian know that oftentimes the best history books are 50 years after an event. Some of the best books on World War II are coming out now. And so hence, 25 years from now when books are being written on the boomer generation in the (19)60s, what do you think they are going to say? How are the historians going to define the boomers and that generation in that period? SH (00:30:07): If you take the boomer generation to begin to make its effect in the (19)60s when they got to college, then I think there are two things that will be said. One is that in 1960s it was a watershed in American history. It really did change America fundamentally, shifted the values. The Immigration Act of 1965 was a response to the new consciousness of the 1960s. Immigration Act did away with the National Quota system and allowed a much more diverse immigration into the country. That is when Latin Americans and Asian Americans began to arrive in much greater numbers. Now, we are a much more diverse society than we were in the 1950s, and we are a society that has pluralism as one of our guiding tenets now, in a way that was not true in the (19)50s or before, fundamentally changed. The Civil rights movement fundamentally changed both the public policy and American attitudes towards discrimination. In all sorts of ways the (19)60s really do mark a new beginning. And since there was a conservative reaction against all those changes, we are still living with the politics that was created by the conservative reaction. I mean, the new conservative movement, both the neocons but also the religious right and the current conservative hegemony in the United States begins as a reaction against the (19)60s, so we are still living with the (19)60s in a way. Because the new conservatism has its agenda undoing the (19)60s, if that makes sense, so we are still living with it. SM (00:32:18): What are your thoughts as to why? Because the conservative or the people to the right know that if they really go toe to toe with liberals that they will lose? That they always have to go back to find the Achilles heel within the, and that is really a symptom of the whole body? So, they are going to try to destroy it in any way they can? SH (00:32:42): And they do it kind of surreptitiously in a way. Because if you simply look at, this is what give you a data, if you will. If you look at the policy positions of Ronald Reagan on social issues all the way through the (19)80s when he was president, there was a majority of Americans who was against all of them basically. Yet he prevailed basically. And the same thing is true now. I will make a partisan remark because it makes the point, and I am not sure I believe all this. But the Medicare Act that was just passed amid great fanfare yesterday probably is the first step in dismantling Medicare. But it is sold as a great step forward, makes it much more complicated, makes it somewhat privatized. But this is what the conservative movement has learned over the last 30 years is that if you go frontally against policy positions that are liberal, you lose, because most Americans agree with those liberal policy positions. So, you find ways to chip away that are not noticed basically, or can be camouflaged in some way. Now, that sounds partisan, but actually you find some conservatives who say that. David Brooks, for instance, a conservative I have a lot of respect for, says that the building up of these think tanks, conservative think tanks from the (19)70s, (19)80s and (19)90s has given the conservatives not only a lot of intellectual depth to what they are doing, but some very intelligent ways of dismantling or attacking the liberal positions. SM (00:34:58): I interviewed Dr. Lee Edwards down at the Heritage Foundation, and he teaches a course on the (19)60s as well, and at the Catholic University. And in there he wants to make sure that the conservative movement against the Vietnam War is also known. SH (00:35:13): It is interesting. SM (00:35:14): Because there has been a couple books, or at least one really top book, I think at Rutgers University Press that has really gone into detail about how the conservative students of the (19)60s were against the war, and they have been excluded a lot in a lot of the history books, so Pete brought that up and talked about it. And I do not know if there is any thoughts you have because of whether that group has been excluded? SH (00:35:39): Well, not really excluded, but his feeling that they had been excluded is an example of a conservative reaction. But it is interesting, this is a good example of how a position that claims support across the ideological spectrum and across the class spectrum is seen by conservatives who have the other position who are against it. Is illegitimate, I am not saying this well. But the anti-war movement, there was a very strong Catholic anti-war movement. The Berrigan brothers- SM (00:36:21): Oh yeah. SH (00:36:21): ...for goodness sake, were out there way out in front of everybody, just as the Catholic Worker Movement has been there. So, the anti-war movement was much more complex than the pro-Viet Cong stereotype that is pasted on it by the current day conservatives, if you will. There are other examples of the same sort of thing. The women's movement really irritates a lot of conservatives. But if you ask, I mean, you take a poll of American women and they support all of the fundamental elements of women's rights, even if they do not want to be identified as a feminist. SM (00:37:19): You were given the qualities, the strengths and weaknesses of the boomers, how would you feel about a generation of students? And I can remember being college campuses and my peers saying this, "That we are the most unique generation in American history. We are going to be the change agent for the betterment of society. We are going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, bring peace to the world. Money is going to be secondary to serving others." This was an attitude that a lot of the young people had at that time. Your thoughts on that kind of an attitude that they had then, and whether in their personal lives they really have fulfilled this as they have gotten older? Because in a Fortune 500 magazine article about in the last two years, again, it was a way of attacking the boomer generation is that some of the wealthiest people are boomers and it goes on and on. And in reality they fell in just like their parents, trying to make money and get ahead in the world and serving others became very secondary. Is that true? SH (00:38:30): Yes. SM (00:38:30): Okay. SH (00:38:33): In a word, all right? Hubris might be used. But I think this goes back to the 15 percent, 85 percent split. Those sympathetic 85 percent folks were always headed toward a normal life and a career. They just had these ideals that they also wanted to honor along the way. So, it is no surprise that they reverted to middle class ways and values. One thing that I wanted to say earlier was that the boomers are so powerful, not only by creating the (19)60s, but they are a huge market. So, you track them through their lifecycle, and you will find American tastes changing in response to the demand, if you will, of the boomers wherever they are in the lifecycle. It is such a huge market that manufacturers and advertisers focus on them. When they get to be middle-aged, in their 40s and 50s and luxury goods go up, they are selling these huge gas governed vehicles, because that is what the boomers want. They move to suburbia, so you have got all sorts of things catering to suburbanites. Everywhere now they are on the verge of retirement. And Medicare is going to be a huge fight, because the boomers are going to catch on and will insist on. SM (00:40:19): Do you feel that they will change old age- SH (00:40:21): Yes, they would. SM (00:40:24): That development? It is interesting whether the boomers are going to retire in a way that their parents may have retired. By the retirement meaning they are going off and taking trips and moving to Florida and that kind of stuff. Will they really never retire? They may retire from their job, but they will always be giving back to society in private. I am sure we do not know that, the answer to that yet, but- SH (00:40:48): We are taking from society. SM (00:40:48): We are taking from, I am kind of wondering. SH (00:40:53): Opportunity. Well, no, that is a really good question, because retirement may change. SM (00:41:00): One of the issues of this whole thing was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial has become a very important symbol for healing within the Vietnam veteran population and certainly within the families of Vietnam vets. And Jan Scruggs wrote the book To Heal a Nation, which is this entity being a non-political entity, just paying tribute to those who served and caring about those who served. Your thoughts on whether this nation has healed since the (19)60s? I know you have brought up the divisions between conservatives and liberals in the political arena, but the overall healing process from the tremendous divisions of that war did in this society. I preface this by saying that some of the people that I have interviewed thought that we were near a second civil war at certain times with the riots, especially in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, and then started to wane in -73. But just your thoughts on that? SH (00:41:57): Well, there is still wounds there that have not healed. If you think about, what did Newt Gingrich say about the Clintons in 1992 when they were running for office? He called them the counter cultural McGovernics, which is to say they are right out of, they are tainted with communism and right out of the (19)60s with no values at all. And they probably voted for McGovern, as indeed they did. So, if it was useful in (19)92 to invoke, to taint the Clintons with that aura of being countercultural- SM (00:42:42): Try this here. Okay, just called slow. SH (00:42:49): Then I think the (19)60s are still alive. The other place to look is in the lessons of the Vietnam War are still very much on our minds and in our military policy, so we worry about that all the time. But we just violated one of the biggest lessons of the Vietnam War is to have an exit strategy. SM (00:43:13): Healing, that wall was, I think in (19)82 when it was supposed to heal the generation. I do not know if you have ever thought about this, probably had, as a person who teaches the (19)60s, when people go down to that wall, especially those who are against the war, the feelings that must go through their mind. SH (00:43:32): Well, I give you my own experience. I was in Washington for a higher education meeting sometime in the three or four years after it was up. Had never seen it, had sort of seen pictures, but they do not give you a good notion of it. And I am a jogger, or was then, so I went out for my morning run and ran down, going to the mall, and actually stumbled across it. I did not know where it was, and just suddenly I was there in front of it. And I was moved to tears. I just thought it was so effective, and all those names of people who gave their lives. For the nation, actually, in my opinion that was the wrong war. We had no national interest in being there. There was no way to win it. We should not have been there. But those folks who went were doing their patriotic duty. And I think I would have done the same thing in that age. And for me, as an old sort of anti-war person, it was, I think, doubly effective, because I saw the tragedy and sadness of it all. And I respected all those names that were there. I also loved the way it is done. And the fact that the two arms of the wall point to the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument is as if to say, "This is the nation." The meaning of the nation is captured in the symbols that are involved in this association between the Vietnam Memorial Wall and the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. SM (00:45:34): Beautiful observation, because when you talk about your observation and how when you were running and you came to the wall, I interviewed Tom Hayden who was under campus a couple weeks back, and it was hard to get an interview with, he was on the way to the airport. But the most prophetic comment he made during that entire 35-minute interview was the fact that he looked at, it is the way he looked at the wall. He looked at on it as like that is the casket. That the wall coming together with the grass on top, the grass over the casket, and the wall comes together like this, and that is the body within the casket. And of course, all the people who served. So he looked upon it like a cemetery. SH (00:46:25): Yeah, I do not think that is right. SM (00:46:31): That is the way Tom looked at it. But I thought that was a prophetic statement from him, because he had been, and of course he did not regret anything he ever did- SH (00:46:39): Yeah, that is true. SM (00:46:40): ...in the anti-war movement. SH (00:46:42): Well, let me, one other observation about the wall. His reaction gets the juices going a bit, but if you walk along the wall, you are walking into it, but you also walk out of it, and both are correct. And the other thing is, if you stand in front of the wall, there are two ways to focus your eyes. You could look at the names which are etched in the wall, but then if you shift your focus a little bit to the wall, you are looking into the wall as a mirror. First you see the names, and then you realize that you are also looking at yourself, looking at the names which connects the individual onlooker to the names and what they mean. SM (00:47:36): Your thoughts on boomer generation or kids, and whether- SH (00:47:41): The children of the- SM (00:47:42): The children of boomers, which obviously is Generation X, and actually a few of the kids who had kids later in life with a current group. Just your thoughts on the concept of empowerment, because one of the concepts that I do not see, and I am just, this is my prejudice, it is just me, is I do not see a sense of empowerment among students. Not only it either desire to have power or even if they were able to have power, how to use it. And just the whole concept of whether parents have actually sat down with their kids and talked to them about this era and that your voice counts, that you are empowered. SH (00:48:23): I think you are right. The parents have not done that. It is interesting, and in my seminar, I hear so often from students who go back and talk to their parents. These are fairly recent students, because the parents of the students I have gotten now in for the last five years have lived through the (19)60s on a college campus generally. My students go back and talk to their parents and they come back and report that they, first, it was fulfilling. It was wonderful to talk to your parents about something that you can share and that the parents have the experience and the kids have, it is kind of the knowledge, the book knowledge, so it brings them together. But the students report that they learn things about their parents that they had never heard before, never knew before. I think the parents have not talked to their students very much about what they did and where were you during the war, dad, sort of thing. And I think that you are right, maybe they should have. And the other observation about current day students, I think you are right as well. Their goals seem to be much more private, personal. They do have a vague sense of wanting to be of service to society. That they do want to give, but it is generally, they do not want to change the world so much as to do a little good in it while they are pursuing their own careers. SM (00:50:25): The issue of trust is something that really did have an effect on students of the (19)60s, and even all young people in the (19)60s. As a college student and for other people I have talked to, look at what happened with Lyndon Johnson, the Gulf of Tonkin. I know what has been written about it. McNamara, the numbers game during the Vietnam War. You can even go back to Eisenhower and the U2 incident, and standing before the American public and lying. You can talk to how much was President Kennedy involved in the killing of Diem? And then of course, Richard Nixon, the Enemies List. SH (00:51:13): I am no crook. SM (00:51:16): I am no crook. The whole issue of trust in leaders that has been written about were, boomers did not trust any leader, whether they were in the White House or the head of a church. But how, did they pass this on to their kids, and do today's young people trust? Is this one of the weaknesses of our society, a lack of trust in anyone who is in a position of leader? And you would know more than anyone being a university president, not because you are a university president, but because you are a leader. Just a leader. SH (00:51:50): This is the point of attack for a lot of conservatives. Now, the worst thing about the (19)60s, the argument is that the (19)60s taught America to distrust authority. Not that authority is always right, but you do have orderly procedures in society for making decisions and you have to have leaders, people who have a bit more authority than others, who get things done for the community. That was certainly true. I mean, their analysis, the (19)60s is absolutely right, the (19)60s was anti-authority. It was the anti-leadership virus, as some have called it. That does not seem to have lasted. I think you are absolutely right in that you can see a kind of atomization of society since the (19)60s. It started in the (19)60s, and you could actually trace it in public opinion polls to today that people are less engaged in their communities in various ways. This is the Bowling Alone argument issue. SM (00:53:05): Oh, yeah, following- SH (00:53:07): Putnam's book and what has come out of it. And I think he had something right, whether he made the argument in the most convincing way, and I think he was on to something. There is this disaggregation of society, gated communities, suburbs. We are increasingly segregated by class, as well as by ethnicity and race. And there is less that brings us together as whole communities to solve problems. I think that is a problem for us. And it is in the wake of the (19)60s that that has developed. SM (00:53:53): You would not agree though with the conservatives that the boomers are responsible for this, and so they continue to use that. When in reality, some of the people today who are leadership roles, you cannot trust because of the things they do. SH (00:54:09): I wish, I mean, part of me says, "I wish the public was a bit more suspicious of the leaders." But there is no evidence that Clinton, they certainly distrusted. But there was a huge campaign to get the public to do that. Reagan did not suffer from it. The first President Bush did not suffer from it. Carter did not suffer from it. He made other- SM (00:54:33): How about President Bush? Students that you see every day here at Penn, do they trust this president? SH (00:54:42): I think it would be better to say they do not distrust him. They do not see any reason not to think what he is saying is, I mean, they are not outraged by him, which I think in the (19)60s, if President Bush, if the students in the (19)60s were on the campus today, they would be marching and ridiculing and pointing out the problems. SM (00:55:10): I think you mentioned this earlier in the interview, but if you could say it again, when did the (19)60s begin? What was the magic moment, very magic, you think the (19)60s began? SH (00:55:21): Well, I will have two answers. In general, they began for me with the Brown decision in 1954, because the civil rights movement set the paradigm for the whole (19)60s. And they end with Nixon's resignation, because even though we still were involved in Vietnam for another year, it was a minimum involvement and the fate was already filled, basically. So, it is Nixon's resignation that ends an era. And the (19)70s are spent trying to put the country back together, not only from the (19)60s, but from Watergate, which also destroyed trust in authority. That is one answer. I think that is the right answer. But the way people generally think about the (19)60s is the sex, drugs, and rock and roll and radicalism and unkempt students, I think begins with the sit-in movement in 1960. And because that is also the time when the Students for Democratic Society is being formed, 1961. Tom Hayden you mentioned was the leader of that, and they were aware of the sit-in movement and the civil rights movement in the south, so they are modeling themselves a bit after the civil rights movement. But that is the first sort of organized general attack on American society as a whole. SM (00:56:55): You had mentioned some of the simplistic approaches people use to describe things. One that comes on more and more is the fact that the (19)60s began with the assassination of John Kennedy. And 1963, because really the first three years were like the (19)50s when Kennedy was the first president. And I interviewed Marilyn Young down in New York City, and she said the (19)60s began with the Beat generation. SH (00:57:21): Well- SM (00:57:22): And she talked about that, because of they were different. SH (00:57:29): I think there is an argument. SM (00:57:29): And she said it is the (19)50s. It is those bad groups. SH (00:57:30): If you take that view that it starts with the Brown decision, you get the Beats because that is when they are getting going as well. In fact, that is the year, when was On the Road published? That is about then. (19)56. SM (00:57:45): (19)57, I think (19)56, (19)57. SH (00:57:47): Yeah, you are right. SM (00:57:49): I basically am going to the next part of my interview, which is basically just listing... How are we doing time wise? SH (00:57:55): [inaudible] now. SM (00:57:58): I am just going to list some names for, I am going to do the second slide here, because this is pretty well done. Thing that I did not ask you- SH (00:58:13): No, this has been a working conversation. SM (00:58:15): Yeah- SH (00:58:16): You are into this. SM (00:58:17): Well, I am really into it, but I want to give back to society and I want to do a really good book. And I am doing a 100 interviews. Someone said, "Why a 100?" I am doing a 100. SH (00:58:27): Yeah, thanks for [inaudible]. SM (00:58:30): If you could just respond to these names with a few comments, and I will start right with Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. SH (00:58:36): Oh, well, gee, I have some respect for, Tom Hayden is the founding member of the Students for Democratic Society, which had a democratic focus to it. The Port Huron Statement laid out a critique of America in the 1950s basically that needed to be made. They belonged to a wing of the 1960s that I did not belong to, the going to... I was against the war, but I was never pro-Viet Cong. And so I think pitching the anti-war rhetoric in terms of being pro-North Vietnam or pro-Viet Cong or pro-communist, I thought was wrong both technically and substantively. SM (00:59:42): When Lewis Fuller, before he passed away, he was one of the ones responsible for getting Bill Clinton to the wall, when we came, and I think James Crux for that too. Bringing some people, doing the best they could to heal. And he was pretty open to a lot of ideas. I did not know if it would have been interesting if he had stayed alive, if McNamara might have been invited, or even a Jane Fonda or a Tom Hayden would be. And I have gotten to know so many Vietnam vets now, and I have gotten to talk to them, that the two people that they would never want at the wall are McNamara and Fonda, it is just the hatred against them. In fact, I will get back to the interview, but I have been to the Vietnam Memorial for the last 10 years Memorial Day and Veterans Day. And three times, in retrospect the book has been placed at the wall with bullets through it. SH (01:00:39): You talk about which book? SM (01:00:41): In Retrospect, the McNamara. And I have pictures of it one year, it is three times over 10 years, but it is probably the same person doing it. But they take the book and they put bullets through it, and then they leave it at the wall, so it is pretty strong. SH (01:00:54): Yeah, I understand that. SM (01:00:56): The black power individuals, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, those [inaudible]- SH (01:01:02): Oh, the Black Panther people? SM (01:01:03): Yep. SH (01:01:05): I will answer about black power. I think black power destroyed the civil rights movement basically. And was, for America was the wrong answer at the wrong time. The Black Panthers, I would not go so far as to adopt the conservative critique, which is that the Panthers were hustled. But I guess they were accepted by the black community as their champions, some black communities as the champions of the black community. And they were doing some good things in the communities. I thought they developed into a revolutionary class-oriented movement, they did not include me. SM (01:01:57): How about the Yippies, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and the whole Yippie group? SH (01:02:01): Entertaining. And they were effective in making Americans think about the issues that were before the country at that time. SM (01:02:12): Any thoughts, when you talk about beyond the Yippies, when you look at Abbie Hoffman's life and when he died in Bucks County with a note, when he committed suicide, "No one is listening to me anymore." SH (01:02:24): Yeah, sad. SM (01:02:24): Is that- SH (01:02:26): Well, it indicates that he was hooked on celebrity, but that celebrity is a failing of American society. We are radically equalitarian, except we love celebrities. And if you get used to it, if you get hooked on celebrity, then you are like coming down, I guess. I have never been high. SM (01:02:50): How about Daniel and Philip Berger? I have interviewed Daniel for this project, Philip and Daniel Berger. SH (01:02:55): You just have to admire their devotion to their principles. And those are not my tactics, but those are men of conscience, and they live by their conscience. SM (01:03:10): How about Dr. Benjamin Spock? SH (01:03:12): Oh, the man who created the (19)60s? SM (01:03:16): With his baby book. SH (01:03:20): I guess that was raised out of stock, though. SM (01:03:23): I have his first edition of that book. I found it in a used bookstore and I could not believe it was first edition- SH (01:03:30): Oh, I have not really thought about him. I do not think that is fair to accuse him of raising the Boomers wrong. And I see him as a sympathetic figure. I mean, he joined the anti-war movement and used his celebrity for a good purpose. SM (01:03:48): How about Daniel Ellsberg? SH (01:03:51): Oh, I think Ellsberg did the country a huge service when he wrote the Pentagon Papers to light, so I have got respect for him as well. I think he is one of the good ones. SM (01:04:09): But the politicians of the year, I will start with certainly Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. SH (01:04:14): Well, it depends on which Malcolm X you are talking about. The later Malcolm X I admire, that is the Malcolm X who solve the problems of the world with human problems rather than racial problems. This is after he went to Mecca and became less of a race conscious critic of America and more of a human rights leader in a way. And his story is compelling, his life story. And indeed, the book, the autobiography of Malcolm X, is one of the great documents of American letters. Martin Luther King I have, even despite the personal flaws I have understanding admiration for the great man, one of the great figures of the 20th century. SM (01:05:10): What do you think of his stand on the Vietnam War? SH (01:05:12): Principled. That is people, especially people within the civil rights movement with the thought of King as being that bold enough and not radical to accommodating, because he was doing business with the White House, for goodness's sake, which was a no-no for real radicals. But his stance on the war, even Stokely Carmichael admired. And I thought it was, as everything he did in public was a principled stance and took a lot of guts because it caused him a lot of status, a lot of position in American life. SM (01:05:52): Your thoughts of that really? Of the blank leadership that included Dr. King, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and of course, John Lewis? SH (01:06:00): John Lewis statute, a special affection for, I think he is a man of just unyielding integrity, who is stuck by his principles all the way through, even though it got him tossed out of SNCC. And we will see, the metaphor here is that Stokely Carmichael ousted John Lewis in a coup, in 1966 it was. And Carmichael became the chairman of SNCC. Two years later, one year later Carmichael left. Two years later SNCC did not exist anymore. John Lewis is now a member of Congress. There you are. SM (01:06:45): Stokely went off to Africa, I think, died of cancer. SH (01:06:47): Exactly. SM (01:06:48): Changed his name and everything else. The politicians, Lyndon Johnson. SH (01:06:54): Tragic figure, both a great man on the upside and on the downside, man of gargantuan appetites. SM (01:07:02): Hubert Humphrey. SH (01:07:04): Sad figure, because he was the man of great principal. And as vice president he had to compromise that principle. And I think it crushed him. SM (01:07:16): Barry Goldwater. SH (01:07:18): I am not among those who think that he is a person of integrity and therefore one should have affection for him. I just think he was a retrovirus. SM (01:07:35): Richard Nixon. SH (01:07:36): An evil man. SM (01:07:37): [inaudible]. SH (01:07:43): A crook. SM (01:07:46): And Jerry Ford. SH (01:07:48): Oh, a decent man who tried to bring America together and did the right thing. I thought his partnering of Nixon was the right thing to do, and that probably caused him any chance of going further in public life. SM (01:08:01): And Ronald Reagan. SH (01:08:03): Oh, I have trouble with Ronald Reagan, because I recognized that he was a strong and effective president, yet I think his policies were bad for America. SM (01:08:15): How about his role as the governor of California? SH (01:08:18): I do not know enough about that. He fired Clark Kerr who just died. And I thought, I think Kerr is one of the great figures of higher education in America, so I know I have a bit of trouble. They said, I had two opinions about Reagan. SM (01:08:33): John F. Kennedy. SH (01:08:38): I am not captured by the Camelot myth entirely, though I think he came to be committed to civil rights. He was not originally, and it was not until 1963, probably that. But he became committed to doing something about the status of blacks, even though he had been saying the right thing all along. He was fundamentally interested in foreign policy. That is where he spent his time, and he did extremely well there. But if you test for leadership is recognizing the most pressing problems of your organization at your time, and then mobilizing support to identifying also a solution, something to be done about it, and then mobilizing support for that solution. He fails on the domestic side until quite late in a way that Lyndon Johnson, of course, succeeded on the domestic side and then was the masters on the international side. SM (01:09:34): Bobby Kennedy. SH (01:09:35): I was a Kennedy supporter in 1968, rather than a McCarthy supporter, because I thought Bobby Kennedy had grown, had become passionately committed to civil rights and social justice, and had the toughness to win the nomination and the election. SM (01:10:04): People from the, actually, I want to say Robert McNamara too, because you have got to mention that name in the (19)60s. SH (01:10:09): I see. McNamara, see is a tragic figure also, who was, and his tragic flaw was his commitment to rational analysis of policy. And it led him into thinking that the war could be fought by the numbers and that we were winning. I do not know what to think about the fact that he understood that we were losing and could not win, and resigned and said nothing about it until 30 years later. SM (01:10:41): Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem and some of the women leaders, the early- SH (01:10:45): Oh. SM (01:10:46): The women's movement. SH (01:10:48): Heroic or heriotic, or whatever the term is for their time. I think they mobilized and created a movement that made changes in American life that needed to be made. SM (01:11:01): Muhammad Ali. SH (01:11:08): Oh. Actually, you have got to admire Muhammad Ali. He had principles, and he became a Muslim and he lived by those principles that he adopted. It cost him dearly in money and in fame as well. And he was not only a great boxer, he was a great entertainer, but he was a great boxer. Just a great boxer. SM (01:11:33): Speaking, he was out for at least two years, not three. SH (01:11:40): At the peak of his career. And those careers are not very long anyway. SM (01:11:41): George McGovern. SH (01:11:44): Oh, I would like to think well of him. He was not a good candidate in (19)72, though I certainly voted for him. But gee, I think he was on the right side, but did not have the wherewithal to bring leadership to the Democratic Party. SM (01:12:10): Eugene McCarthy. SH (01:12:13): The opposite figure. But it is pretty much the same. I thought you have to admire him for stepping forward in this fall of 1967 and agreeing to challenge the sitting Democratic, the president of his own party. That took guts and commitment, but he was always a bit mystical and witty. It was not clear that he really wanted to be president. Even some of his close supporters, his campaign workers say that he kind of quit in the summer of (19)68 before the convention, quit running, because he wanted to bring a message to the people, which he did, but he did not really want to win presidency badly enough to do what needed to be done. SM (01:13:05): You did not mention the music of the (19)60s. When you think of Janice Chaplin, Jimmy Hendricks, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Simon and Garfunkel, Baez, The Folk Singers, Phil Ochs, goes on and on. Arlo Guthrie, what do you- SH (01:13:20): Amazing. SM (01:13:20): When you think of, I mean the list goes on and on and on and on and on. SH (01:13:25): Just so much talent. SM (01:13:26): How important was that to an era? We hear about the big band being the music of the World War II generation. SH (01:13:32): Yeah, I think it was huge. Even though a lot of the lyrics coming out of the folk music, the lyrics are not necessarily specifically political, but there is something community building and even subversive in all that music, even though the Beatles were rather consciously non-revolutionary. I mean, we do not want to make a revolution. So whereas the Stones of course were their opposite numbers. If you look at the lyrics that they were singing, they were going in different directions. But if you look at their music and its effect on the audience, they were both making for a generation that differentiated itself from those that went before, so it made your boomer generation that music. SM (01:14:32): I have to mention one of the Beatles, John Lennon, because he was killed in 1980 and he was like one of the tops on Richard Nixon's enemies list. Just your thoughts on John Lennon separate from all the other Beatles. Just him as a person? SH (01:14:47): He is interesting. And he grew more than the other Beatles, I think, during his fame, and that is very hard to do when you are caught up in ... Their career as a group was relatively short. But he was a first-rate musician with an inquiring mind that led him in quite different directions from the other Beatles. And you got to admire that. And maybe Nixon was right. He was the most dangerous one because he was thinking. SM (01:15:19): He wanted him out of the country so bad. SH (01:15:21): Yeah. SM (01:15:22): I remember the Dick Cavett show when he was on there with Yoko Ono, is just a classic hour interview. And that is what Nixon was trying to get rid of. I am going to end the interview with a couple just terms from that era, just your thoughts on them? SDS. SH (01:15:38): Students for a Democratic Society, the Radical Wing of the movement outside the civil rights movement. A very small cadre of activists who made more change than their numbers would have predicted so you have got to think that they were brave. I did not agree with everything they did. SM (01:16:03): How about the Weatherman? SH (01:16:06): I think they were terrible. They were a part of that self-deluding, pseudo revolutionary group that did the American left a huge disservice by thinking that violence could work in America. SM (01:16:24): The communes. SH (01:16:26): Some of those were brave experiments in an alternative way of living. America has been the host country for a huge number of utopias, utopian communities. Intentional communities they came to be called in the 19th century and in the 20th century. None of them lasted very long, but the [inaudible] being an example of one that lasted longer. If you think of the Mormons as one of those utopias, you could say they lasted longer. But those experimental intentional communities are quite useful for democracy, because they try out ideas. SM (01:17:07): Counterculture. SH (01:17:10): Upside and downside. It is a good thing to challenge accepted values and to try to stretch the limits of individual freedom, which they did. It is a bad thing to think you can do that by self-indulgence of all kinds. SM (01:17:35): Let me get down there, Chicago Eight. SH (01:17:38): Oh they were, I am glad they were. Well, that is a more complicated thing, because they did go to Chicago with the intention of creating a ruckus, though they became the victims of a police riot more than the other way around. So, I was, again, the history is correct to see them as more heroic than what would be the opposite turn, the villain of the peace. SM (01:18:18): Yeah, that 1968 year was quite a year with the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King and the Republican and the Democratic conventions. SH (01:18:29): Yeah. And the Tet Offensive. SM (01:18:29): Yes. SH (01:18:29): And all that. SM (01:18:30): If you were to pick a year that you think was the most, what was, I would not say most violent, but they had the greatest impact on America during the... Would (19)68 be that year? SH (01:18:39): (19)68 would be it beyond a question, yeah. SM (01:18:43): Kent State. SH (01:18:44): Tragedy that maybe caused America to stop and think a bit more carefully about what the war was doing to the society. So, those deaths may not have been in vain. SM (01:19:00): Chris Jackson State. You always have to include that in there too. SH (01:19:03): Same stuff. SM (01:19:04): Because they died a couple weeks later. And last but not least are just some of the figures that were linked to the war itself. The leaders of Vietnam, which was General Q and General Cao Kỳ. They are part of the (19)60s, the Vietnam leadership. Just your thoughts on them? SH (01:19:20): Oh. Well, they were corrupt and autocratic and that is why there was no way we could win the war, because we did not... The South Vietnamese society could not have been democratized in the same way. SM (01:19:40): And I cannot end the interview without talking about the space program. You talk about the (19)60s and- SH (01:19:44): The upside of- SM (01:19:45): The upside of the (19)60s. Could you talk about space program and a few more of the upsides? SH (01:19:53): Well, it is ironic. There is so many other things happening in the (19)60s that are unambiguously wonderful. I like the landing on the moon, the space program in general. Art was, the music we have already talked about. But classical music also was, contemporary music was terrific in the (19)60s. Art was also going through a revolution. Some great figures emerged in the (19)60s. The economy was doing extremely well. So, this was a time of huge prosperity. In fact, it is probably true that the (19)60s could not have happened, except in a period of great prosperity. Have always thought that the college students who did get involved in movements and protests of various kinds could do so because they assumed that their future was going to be secure. That America was great and the economy was going to grow and they were going to be educated and they could always do very well. So they could take time out. SM (01:21:10): And they will not read about it being put in jail, being on their record and affecting them getting a job, whereas today- SH (01:21:17): Yeah, that you- SM (01:21:18): No way am I going to do that. SH (01:21:20): Yeah, exactly right, wow. SM (01:21:23): I think that is about it. There was one other term here, I think. Yeah, I guess the other thing is Watergate. Yeah, just Watergate itself? SH (01:21:34): Watergate did not really surprise me because that was suspicious of Nixon all along. It depressed me though, because in one way it depressed me, because the thought that someone who was elected President of the United States and gathered people around him was capable of such subversion of basic values. On the other hand, the system worked, did not it? I mean, we found him out and Republicans and Democrats together drove him from office. That is pretty good. SM (01:22:14): In closing, is there anything that I did not mention or ask that you thought I was going to ask today before the interview started? SH (01:22:20): No, I think if you would send me a transcript of this, I will just give it to my (19)60 [inaudible]. SM (01:22:27): Great. This was very good. I guess- SH (01:22:31): I enjoyed it, I must say. SM (01:22:32): Yeah, thank you very much and if you could, as I could do with closing everything, you would just state your name, and the day, and your title, and- SH (01:22:42): Oh. SM (01:22:43): Because- SH (01:22:43): I am Sheldon Hackney, I am a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania. And this is December the 10th. SM (01:22:53): December 10th, 2003. And the interviewer has been Steve McKiernan. Thank you. Dr. Hackney, could you comment on Earth Day in 1970? SH (01:23:05): The first Earth Day is another one of those things that started in the (19)60s that is evidence of a new consciousness that is dawning there and a new emphasis on saving the world for future generations. I think it is totally admirable. SM (01:23:24): Do you think that that is still happening today, or is it falling on the back burner? SH (01:23:26): Environmental movement is still there, but it is much more sedate. And I am afraid it is not in the front of our consciousness. I mean, all of our environmental regulations are being stripped of their power at the moment and nobody is saying much. SM (01:23:41): Thank you. (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Francis Sheldon Hackney Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Hackney, Sheldon, 1933-2013 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; College teachers; History--United States; University of Pennsylvania; Sailors; Hackney, Sheldon, 1933-2013--Interviews Description An account of the resource Francis Sheldon Hackney (1933 - 2013) was a scholar, author and a professor of U.S. History at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned his PhD. in American History at Yale University. Hackney served in the Navy for five years, after earning his PhD. 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 2003-12-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.14 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 83:46 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/faa09d760504cca1d33619c92c0e52c6.jpg 4552d7a8c3c76d2c6751bd0ee359ebad https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/effdd043fd89ed3a18dffa1ca41bbf3d.mp3 ba537e2697879e01c151dd6f89c92a76 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-11 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Gary Y. Okihiro, 1945- Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Gary Okihiro is an Asian American scholar and an author of twelve books. Okihiro was a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and the founding director of Columbia's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. He is the originator of \&quot;social formation theory\&quot; and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Asian American Studies and the American Studies Association. Dr. Okihiro currently is a visiting professor of American studies at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California and an honorary doctorate degree from the University of the Ryukyus.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Dr. Gary Okihiro is an Asian American scholar and an author of twelve books. Okihiro was a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and the founding director of Columbia's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. He is the originator of "social formation theory" and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Asian American Studies and the American Studies Association. Dr. Okihiro currently is a visiting professor of American studies at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California and an honorary doctorate degree from the University of the Ryukyus.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Pearl Harbour; Japanese Prison Camps; Asian-Americans; Baby boom generation; War draft; Vietnam War; Lack of trust; Civil Rights Movement; Nineteen seventies.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:769,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0}">Pearl Harbor; Japanese Prison Camps; Asian-Americans; Baby boom generation; War draft; Vietnam War; Lack of trust; Civil Rights Movement; Nineteen seventies<br /></span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 92:11 Subject LCSH Asian American authors; Scholars--American; College teachers; Okihiro, Gary Y., 1945--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Gary Okihiro Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Jessica Obie Date of interview: November 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 00:12 SM: My first question is a question I am asking really everyone in that— how did you become who you are? I mean, in terms of your background, your growing up years. And when you discuss this, were there—who were your kind of early role models or events that really inspired you to go on your life's path? 00:35 GO: Right. So you are speaking about my life's work basically, right? The person, but my life's work. And on reflection, I think it must have been having grown up on a sugar plantation in Hawaii and the education provided by that context of growing up, you know, among working class people. I can, you know, expand more on that. The second would be, going to Africa and living there for three years and doing research work in Africa. [inaudible] I think both events have been pivotal in my education. So let me go back to the plantations in Hawaii. Hawaiian plantations are divided largely by race and ethnicity, in terms of the workforce. Up at the top were white people. In the middle were not quite white, but they were white, there were Portuguese. And then at the bottom were workers mainly beginning with Hawaiians and Chinese and Japanese and Filipinos and Puerto Ricans. And so those were the divisions within the hierarchy and then also they were kept separate. So we lived in separate camps. So we lived basically in the Japanese camp. So that kind of education along with the exemplar of my father and grandfather working as we will call "yard boys" for the various bosses on the plantation, again, sort of impressed on me the privileges of race. So, I think that's really a very important kind of education. The second, going to Africa to do research, and also serving in the Peace Corps for three years in Botswana affected me deeply in terms of the very different environmental studying. Not only is Botswana in the southern hemisphere, so it changes the orientation of the whole sky, but also the kinds of perceptions of time and space, which transformed my ideas about time and space. And then also the kind of learning that I undertook at the university. And the kind of unlearning I had to undertake while doing research among African people. 03:24 SM: When you got your PhD at UCLA, where did you do your undergraduate work? 03:28 GO: At a small college called Pacific Union College in Angwin, California, which is in northern California. 03:37 SM: Is this also when you talk about the concept of race and power, you learned that through that experience in Hawaii, too, race as a direct link to power. And when you joined the Peace Corps— which I did not know!— was John Kennedy's speech, was that influential on you in 1960, at the inaugural or you know— 03:58 GO: Of course, yeah, for most of us— come on. By the way, you know, I am born before your generation. 04:03 SM: Well, that is fine. 04:04 GO: In (19)46. 04:06 SM: Well, one third of the people I have interviewed, were born before (19)46. 04:10 GO: All right. Not far off 1945. But yeah, of course, that was inspirational. It inspired, you know, members of my generation to service but really, service in the Peace Corps was an alternative for me for military service in Vietnam. So I applied as a conscientious objector to my draft board, which was in Hawaii. And extraordinary for a Hawaii draft board, which is very pro-military, they allowed me to use the Peace Corps in lieu of military service. 04:50 SM: My second question here was, I think you have already answered most of it, but what was it like growing up in the late (19)40s and (19)50s? But I am actually really making a commentary, too, about: what was it really like in America to be an Asian American during that period right after World War II, until about the time President Kennedy came on board, and how were Asian immigrants treated during this period as well. And I preface this by— I have kind of broken it down. So the first group I would ask you to talk about are Japanese Americans that had to go through that terrible experience of the internment camps and just your thoughts on that. 05:33 GO: Well, yeah, I mean, the post-World War II experience varied by ethnic group among Asian Americans. So for example, during World War II, Chinese and Filipino Americans were allies, to the United States. And thus they benefited, however, despite the— during the war in terms of job opportunities, educational opportunities, and so forth. Whereas, as you know, Japanese Americans were not so treated. But I also represent Japanese Americans who were in Hawaii, which oftentimes is seen as exceptional to what happened on the West Coast to Japanese Americans. But I doubt that very much because I think what happened, as demonstrated in my book Cane Fires, is that the military saw the Japanese in Hawaii as a bigger threat than those on the West Coast, because they constituted over 40 percent of the population and because the Hawaiian economy was so dependent upon their labor. So they investigated Japanese Americans much more, well, earlier and more assiduously in Hawaii than along the West Coast. So I think Hawaii actually posed as the kind of exemplar leader in terms of the treatment of Japanese Americans once Pearl Harbor occurred. What happened in Hawaii briefly was that: the leaders of the community were quickly rounded up, while the smoke was still rising from the wreckage in Pearl Harbor, and put into prison camps. And the idea was that: devoid of leaders, Japanese Americans could not rise up in rebellion or in support of the enemy. I did not know but my father's brother, my uncle, was investigated by the Naval Intelligence and was recommended for internment among those groups because he was a "kibei" or educated in Japan, just like my father was educated in Japan. But my father's saving grace was that he was in the US military. He served in the segregated one hundredth infantry from Hawaii, and that saved his brother from internment. But anyway, the reason I am describing this is because Hawaii is not an exception to the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II. In the post-war experience, it was very similar. Even though my parents were not put into internment camps, they well knew that several thousand Japanese Americans in Hawaii were put into internment camps. And during the war, my grandparents and my parents burned and buried any trace of connections with Japan, like flags, letters, records, and so forth. So they were very concerned about being put away. And so the war— I mean, the years after the war, people like my parents tried to instill on my generation, the third generation, that Americanism was above all important to demonstrate one's loyalty. And that being quiet and so forth was the way by which to gain admittance into wider society, which is typical, also, of Japanese Americans on the continent. 09:20 SM: I remember, there is that historic picture of factory workers in the (19)50s on the West Coast that showed a picture of Chinese Americans saying, 'We're Chinese, not Japanese.' And actually there is three or four of them I saw. So Chinese Americans were treated a little better, were not they, in the (19)50s? 09:42 GO: Yeah. 09:43 SM: Even though they had not been treated that— as well in the (19)30s, or (19)40s, or whatever. 09:48 GO: Sure. Well, in (19)43, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed and Chinese could become naturalized citizens and Japanese could not until 1952. 10:00 SM: What did the— in terms of the Korean War, because here we are in a war against Germany and Japan and the war ends and then we— What happened to Korean Americans during this time frame, particularly in the early (19)50s? 10:17 GO: Actually, that is a really good question because most of the Korean Americans came from or have relatives in the north. But, you know, I know no study of Korean Americans during the 1950s. Which is really very [inaudible] camps. You know, there is stuff on Chinese Americans because of the cold war in China, but I do not know of any on Korean Americans. 10:47 SM: When we are talking about other Asian Americans, we are talking about Vietnamese, people from Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, and the Pacific Islanders— are not we really talking about— they become much more well known in the (19)60s and the (19)70s. But weren’t there people from those nations in America, even in the (19)50s, and (19)40s? 11:11 GO: Oh, even in the 1700s, we had South Asians, or Asian Indians, on the East Coast, and in US South, serving in slavery. You know, so we have that. And then Hawaiians were in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1800s, and we have several Hawaiians serving on US vessels in the War of 1812. 11:40 SM: The history of Chinese Americans, to go back to, you know, the building of the railroads and so forth. But in the American history books you do not hear— you hear about the Chinese Americans and maybe the Japanese Americans, but you do not hear about the other ethnic groups as much. 11:56 GO: Right, you know, we were in Louisiana in the 1760s, before the US revolution. [laughs] 12:06 SM: Yeah and a lot of people think that the Vietnamese came here when the boat people came. [laughs] 12:11 GO: Right. 12:11 SM: And the people that escaped, you know, Vietnam in 1975 when the war ended; the people that were lucky to escape and the boat people. 12:22 GO: Well, the first wave were intellectuals, Vietnamese intellectuals, who were brought to the United States to counteract any communism and so forth. That was during the (19)50s. 12:35 SM: Can you discuss again— because you have written a couple books. And I have my little notepad here that you wrote, Whispered Silences: Japanese Americans and World War II, and also the book on Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment. What were the— what was the main thesis of these books? And— basically, that is my question. 13:09 GO: Well, the main idea— well, okay, there is actually two different projects. The first one was a collaborative project with— project with a professional photographer who took pictures of the remains of the camp, not you know, during World War II. And so my comments that accompany the photographs were designed to just present the reader with a brief history of the events, largely through the voices of the internees themselves, Japanese Americans. The second, done with Linda Gordon, Linda was at the time and she already published a biography of Dorothea Lange and she was interested in Lange's photos of World War II's internment. And that is why the title is Impounded because Lange's photographs were impounded by the army and not [inaudible] down because they were considered to be possibly damaging to US interest during the war, unlike Ansel Adams whose photographs were distributed in the museums in New York here and also widely circulated. So that is what Impounded is about, about the contrast between Dorothea Lange's treatment and Ansel Adams and then the different depictions. 14:42 SM: Well, you think the— a lot of the images of Franklin Roosevelt were certainly destroyed when people read about the internment camps. Since this book will be read as oral history and many of them may not have read your book, or know very little about the internment camp experience, could you discuss the internment camp experience of the— I have got a few notes here. In terms of when the order was given by FDR [Franklin Delano Roosevelt]; the location of the camps; how many Americans were involved, that is Japanese Americans; where and when; and particularly about the job discrimination that probably took place not only during the war, but right through, you know, 1960; the effect it may have had on immigration of Japanese once the war ended; and the overall psyche, Americans of Japanese descent who were raised in a nation that had a constitution, and their rights were infringed upon. So it is a lot here but to me, my thoughts of FDR have never been the same since I read about this many, many years ago. 15:59 GO: [laughs] Well, ultimately the President was responsible for it but I do not think that he was the only one responsible. 16:11 SM: Right; I know there are many. 16:12 GO: There are a whole series of people that got involved. And my basic thesis is that it begins in Hawaii, with the military stirring over Japanese Americans in Hawaii and I briefly touched on that, because of the demography and their importance to the army. And that much of the planning on the West Coast was haphazard, by comparison. I mean, Hawaii was very well organized, in terms of what they were going to do once a war with Japan was happening. And the executive order that Roosevelt signed had to be implemented and that was stumbled along, in my opinion, and not really fully formulated until summer of 1942. So, by contrast, Hawaii was much more planned. But let me address a question about like the internment and its impact on Japanese Americans. And I think that oftentimes people miss the point about the internment and see the internment as a loss of land and the financial, you know, catastrophe that greeted them and so forth. But I see it more as sort of kind of extinguishing of the human spirit or the attempt to extinguish a people's will. And the reason I am saying that is that it seems to me that the— it was not so much the loss of property that bothered Japanese Americans. It was the loss of their humanity, their dignity as people. Because they were treated as subhuman, treated like cattle: rounded up, given tags with numbers instead of names, put into cattle trucks to be assembled in horse stalls, or race tracks and fairgrounds, then to be dumped in horse stalls that still reeked of manure. And then from there taken to these camps that were unfinished, with open sewers, and so forth, and these were photographs taken by Dorothea Lange. That sort of defeats the kind of treatment that the government had in mind for Japanese Americans and that is that they were the enemy and as the enemy they were subhuman. That sort of deprivation then— of one's past and also a sense of a future because most Japanese Americans did not even know how long they would be put there, in fact, many of them thought they were going to be executed— denies their sort of basic humanity. Now, I do not think that all Japanese Americans agreed to that. And they asserted their humanity in many ways. But it seems to me that that was the essence of the camp. So the lesson learned coming out of that was that we need to prove our loyalty to the government. And to do that, we need to just simply be quiet, not raise a ruckus and actually be "un-American" in that sense, not be you know, a democratic citizen, but just go with the flow, work hard, and eventually we would be accepted. 19:58 SM: You raise a point there that during the Vietnam War, well many of the Vietnamese were looked upon as subhuman too. 20:06 GO: Sure. 20:07 SM: And—not all. I think sometimes the warriors were taught that in training camp, but many of them, you know, just went with the flow; they did not really believe it. The overall description of Asian American Boomer experience during the following periods and I— a question that I bet— let me preface this again. I have asked this question to several people, as a person who grew up after the war myself, and growing up as an elementary school student in the 1950s. And I am always fascinated, no matter what ethnic background you were, including Asian American, in the 1950s is what that experience was like and I put three qualities and you—you have already raised one—three qualities that many Boomer children had— of all races!— during the 1950s, maybe even through 1963. And that is a sense of being very quiet, 21:10 GO: Mmhmm. 21:12 SM: A sense of fear, 21:14 GO: Mmhmm. 21:15 SM: And a sense of being naive. 21:18 GO: Naive? 21:19 SM: Naive. Someone told me, 'well, all young children are naive until they have life experiences' but when you watch television in the (19)50s, it is almost as if— there were some good documentaries of Mike Wallace and Edward R. Murrow and Dave Garroway; there were some good ones— but most kids were watching: Howdy Doody, the Mouseketeers, westerns were Indians were always bad. And you did not see very many people of color; you only saw Charlie Chan movies. You saw the slapstick of Amos and Andy in the early (19)50s. And so it was a very isolated— to me very naive, trying to protect kids from the reality of what life was about. Would you say those are three qualities that even the Asian American Boomer kids went through? 22:13 GO: I would think so. And it seems that, you know, the fear that you refer to— the fear had different aspects to it. Clearly, there was the fear of the Cold War and atomic warfare. You know, and the kind of drills that we had in school about hiding under your desk if there was an air raid, building bomb shelters in your backyard. So there was that kind of overall American fear. But there were also other fears specific to particular groups, I think. Like I said, the Japanese Americans had, I think, a particular fear because of the lessons learned during World War II, which, you know, other groups did not necessarily have. 22:59 SM: Yeah, of course, there is also the McCarthyism of the early (19)50s. And, where, you know, you speak up and—"have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?" So the fear of speaking up or any past affiliation, and— that is why Korean Americans fascinate me at times because— 23:16 GO: Right, and Chinese Americans. 23:18 SM: Yes. When you look at the— I look at the way the Boomer parents were— the overall description of maybe Asian American Boomer parents were like our parents— were like my parents, they were born between 1920 and 1945 most of them, and then the kids of course, were different ages during this timeframe— were Asian American Boomers' experience similar or different, than Boomers who were white, black, brown, and red? 23:50 GO: Well I think they had different kinds of families depending on which group, because they most—that is Asian migration was a male migration and women came later. And so like, the parents would be quite different in that way and generational. There could be a twenty year difference between the husband and the wife, purely for Chinese Americans. But in any case, you know, different kinds of families and like, women might have been more recent immigrants brought over by men. And then of course, you had a lot of "war brides"— so-called "war brides"— after World War II. 24:35 SM: One of the things that, I think, Boomer parents, you know, they instilled in a lot of their young kids, and particularly white kids, and maybe even African American kids, that people who served in World War II that had had to fight in the Pacific, they knew about the Bataan Death March and some of the really bad things and I can remember hearing— I do not, I never heard my dad say this, but I can remember hearing my mom say, you know, that they really did a number on the— on our boys. Our boys. But she forgave. She gave forgiveness. But I grew up in a community where there are a lot of World War II vets and they could never forget what the Japanese did to our American boys. And so they never changed their terminology they just kept calling them Japs. And to me that was— it is like using the ‘N’ word. 25:32 GO: Yeah. [laughs] 25:33 SM: But I can understand where the World War II— but I am wondering if you have done any studying of the effect that Boomer parents, that went through that war, had on other Americans in their attitudes toward Asian Americans. 25:52 GO: No, I have not done any study like that. Others have, but not me. 25:57 SM: A couple of things here, too. When you look at the Brown vs Board of Education decision in 1954, then you had the Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Acts of (19)64 and (19)65, and the Open Housing Act of (19)68— all were centered on equality. And, I know that it was— those poor people who have been denied. Many people see the civil rights leaders with LBJ [Lyndon Baines Johnson] in 1964 or (19)65. Or they see Thurgood Marshall in 1954, winning that major decision, and they think that these were all about black people. But they were important for Asian Americans and all people of color. Could you explain and give examples of how these major decisions really helped all people of color in the United States? 26:51 GO: Well, not just people of color, you know. I mean, white folk too. I mean, the Civil Rights Movement transformed the nation as a whole. And the transformation is a fundamental one. I mean, because the African American experience since 1619 was one largely of exclusion from membership within the community, whether pre-Revolutionary War or post-federal government. So, you know, their full inclusion as citizens was a major sort of transformation of the American government and people. And that affected all people. Because I am convinced that, you know, the Constitution is only a guarantee when all people are included within its guarantees. And any erosion of Constitutional guarantees of rights and privileges devolve to all Americans. So like, by victimizing or clipping the civil liberties, for example, of Muslim Americans affects the rights of all Americans. So anyway, I think that the civil rights movement was momentous for all those reasons, the full inclusion of African Americans, which meant a transformation of the American nation and people. 27:45 SM: Well, the media may be part of the problem here in terms of perceptions. Because when you look at all the major signings, except for Senator Inouye, who has been around for a long time, and I think, Patsy Mink too is another person of— 28:41 GO: Well, she is dead now. 28:42 SM: Yes, she has passed away, but she was a person of renown. And those are two Asian Americans that most people knew about. But, we do not see Asian Americans in any of the pictures of the civil rights marches. You know, Dr. King, you see Ralph Bunche, you see Catholic priests, you see Rabbi Heschel, you see, you know, but you do not see Asian Americans. Do you feel that part of this is they were there but they were— could not be there because of some of the things you have already said, that there was a fear of speaking up or being seen? GO: 29:15 I think people of my generation, I mean, were the only ones— meaning young Asian Americans— were involved in the civil rights movement, not the older ones, mainly. And the Asian Americans were largely in support backgrounds. I mean, they were never leaders. So you know, they were part of these struggles, but never really led them. In fact even when leading, for example, say the Chicano or Mexican American, you know, farm labor movement was begun by Asian Americans or Filipino Americans that Cesar Chavez joined on with his— and then they formed the United Farm Workers Union as the United Front. Cesar Chavez was the leader and people like its Manong, Larry Itliong who was the leader of the Filipino group. Never— they were vice presidents, they were supportive. So Asian Americans were in very few leadership positions, but they were you know, among those who supported those guys. 30:38 SM: Is not it true, if I remember— I do not have the case in front of me but— the Brown versus Board of Education, an Asian American was involved in this. 30:47 GO: Of course, the JACL: Japanese American Citizens League, joined in the suit, yeah. But earlier, you know, the NAACP and the JCL joined a suit against Mexican children in California, which is a kind of prelude to Brown v Board of Education, called the Lemon Grove, challenged segregation in schools. And of course, Brown fighted, as a kind of precedent, the US Supreme Court decision involving a Chinese American child who sued against segregation in Mississippi. So, yeah, Asian Americans were involved in Brown v. Board. 31:36 SM: See, this is where the history books need to be much clearer in terms of explaining this, because when you think about Thurgood Marshall— and I can remember Dr. King talking when asked about "what do you think of the Brown decision?" He commented that, 'well, I praise that decision, but it was a more of a gradualist approach,' and his approach of non-violent protest is: we want it now; we're not going to be a gradualist in our approach. So that was interesting. You may have already covered this, but explain how life was similar for Asian American youth in the (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s, and (19)80s. And I preface this by saying, explain how life may have been different for people whose heritages may have been different in the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, including Japanese Americans, Chinese, India, Pakistan, Vietnam— 32:29 GO: Well, I think I briefly brought up the Cold War, 1950s, and the kind of particular sort of sensitivities brought to, say Chinese Americans during that time and Korean Americans. Whereas Japanese Americans were model citizens during the (19)50s because of Japan, sort of, being tutored back into the nation of civilized groups by the US, under US occupation. But in any event, so like that is sort of a kind of similarity but a difference. I think the civil rights movement also was momentous, influential. But I think Asian Americans were more caught up in the anti-war movement, because of the particularities of another war in Asia. I know I was, you know, caught up in both the civil rights and the anti-war movement, but felt a greater kinship with the anti-war movement because of this, you know, making war in Asia again. 33:37 SM: You had mentioned earlier that many scholars came over in the 1950s from different countries. So some of them went back become the leaders of their countries and then of course they became our enemies. But I find that interesting that the education took place here. Many of them, went to Harvard and they went back and you know, became leaders and then became our enemy. 34:03 GO: Right even in Japan, before World War II, many of their governmental leaders were educated in the US. 34:12 SM: During World War II, Vietnam and Korea— do you know how many Asian Americans were— fought on our side? 34:20 GO: No, I do not. 34:22 SM: Because I know there were quite a few in Vietnam. And there's many of them— many on the wall. And of course, Senator Inouye was a World War II vet. 34:31 GO: Right. 34:32 SM: And— but I am just curious. That experience there is— 34:36 GO: Oh, you can get the numbers very easily. 34:39 SM: Mmhmm. 34:40 GO: Yeah. But again, you know, each of those wars and the service meant something different because of their "Asian-ness," because being Japanese. You know? In Vietnam I know many Asian American soldiers were afraid that they were going to be killed by friendly fire. You know? Because they look like the gooks. 35:05 SM: Securing a quality education and going to college seems to be a very important goal for all Asian American groups. When did large numbers begin to— let me get my thing here— begin on college campuses? And where did that— I, again, I add this because I know many— I think even when you visit our campus, the two words that our students hate the most are "model minority". They really do. And—do not bring that up; and I do not want to ever hear that, those two words. But where did the slogan model minority come from? And why in this— why is this a sensitive issue in the Asian American community, particularly in reference to one's educational background? 35:53 GO: Right. Well, I have forgotten the precise date. I thought it was 1961; a sociologist wrote a piece in The New York Times Magazine on Chinese and Japanese Americans. And he used the term model minority. It was Peterson, was his name. And at the time, also, you know, was black urban uprisings, riots, and so forth, just on the heels of Watts. And he— Peterson— used the Asian example to African Americans, how they needed to sort of get things right. You know, to go to school and so forth, before they can burn down things. But in any case, Asians then were used as an example to discipline unruly African Americans. And so that pits Asians against African Americans and of course— well, not of course— but that leads or could lead to conflict between those two groups. And that is really quite unpleasant, I think for Asian Americans and African Americans. But the model minority idea was a false one in that— you look at the various statistics to demonstrate Asian American superiority, specifically Chinese and Japanese at the time, in terms of overall income, educational attainment, and social mobility. And the statistics themselves are skewed. Because if you look at a family income at the time, Asian Americans or Chinese and Japanese Americans might have been about white. But if you took it per capita, Asian Americans fell far behind white. And so what that meant was per household, Asian Americans had more workers than white households. The other thing is that, that sort of achievement does not fully measure acceptance or assimilation within US society. Anyway, there are a whole number of arguments against the model minority stereotype. And thus, there is a great deal of objection to it. 38:26 SM: I think part of that model minority also came from the fact that is: the (19)60s evolved particularly after John Kennedy's assassination. And as the Vietnam War was becoming a part of everybody's everyday experience on TV, that those who were protesting the war or irritating a lot of people in America early on who supported the war, and they did not see Asian Americans there so maybe they call them model minority. And the perception that many people have of Asian youth in (19)46, in America, is that they are a model minority that never speaks up and supportive of the status quo, they work very hard and secure quality education that leads to a good job, they are quiet, they never rock the boat, they are major— they major in business, math science, they become doctors, MBAs. Is this stereotyping to the max? 39:22 GO: And a recent phenomenon, also, a recent stereotype. Because previous Asian American stereotypes were hugely negative. If you can think of this as positive. Right? 39:40 SM: Yes. 39:40 GO: Japanese Americans during World War II, for example. Chinese and Koreans during the Korean War, Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, and so forth. So these images are quite recent. 39:54 SM: Part of this too is, and again it may be the media and the perceptions of picture taking units. I do not know why they picked certain pictures for every single protest, but whether it be at Berkeley or Columbia or Harvard or whatever. But the question that you have to ask is if you're really into pictures, and were Asian American protesting, the students— were they protesting with other students on college campuses in the (19)60s, were Asian Americans protesting the draft, were they linked to the anti-war, civil rights and women's, gay and lesbian, environmental movements. 40:34 GO: They were. They might not have been included within the pictures. 40:38 SM: Right. 40:39 GO: I mean, you— well, appreciate that American society is largely a binary— racial binary of black and white, and thus the features would be black and white. Thinking for example of the LA Riots— in 1993 was it? I have forgotten the date. 41:00 SM: With Rodney King? 41:02 GO: Yeah. 41:02 SM: Yeah, that was (19)93. 41:04 GO: And, you know, one would think that's an African American riot. But there are more Latinos involved in it than African Americans. 41:15 SM: Why cannot we all get along? Rodney King, and then I think he got in trouble after that too for something. 41:22 GO: Yeah, I have forgotten what. He was arrested. 41:26 SM: I think he was abusive to his girlfriend— wife or— I do not know what the story was. 41:29 GO: Well I think so yeah. 41:33 SM: One of the— this is a very sensitive one for someone who cares about Vietnam and, the Warrens as a whole in— it is the boat people in 19'—in the early (19)70s, and particularly in 1975 when the helicopter went off the top of the embassy and many escaped, and got on the boats and came back to the United States or different parts of Europe. But thousands upon thousands did not have that luxury and got in those boats and many drowned at sea and many went to camps. And a lot of the students that I know or knew at West Chester University, their parents met at these camps. It's a very sensitive issue. And they asked— they asked this question, "Where was the United States when the war ended and they knew that all these people were going out on boats? Why were not they there to help us because we did not want to live in that government under a communist rule." And so I do not know if anybody's written or you have thought about this at all, but where was the United States when the boat people issue became such a major news item and so many died at sea? 42:53 GO: Yeah. Well, the United States was nowhere to be seen, that is for sure. And I do not— in fact, we know the reason for that. But there are several books about this. 43:09 SM: I know that one of the criticisms and it is actually— a lot of people admire the boat people that came to United States because they became very successful in a very short period of time, many of them even in Philadelphia. They started on the streets of Philly selling sunglasses or small businesses, and they ended up sending their kids off to Harvard and Yale. And so the conservative community in the United States, you have heard this, is very critical of the African American community for— if boat people can become a success story since 1975, why cannot you? 43:54 GO: Right. 43:54 SM: Have you heard that too? 43:56 GO: Of course, yeah. 44:00 SM: You have mentioned here that— can you give some specific examples of Asian Americans who may be in— may have been involved in these anti-war and women's movements? Civil rights movements? 44:14 GO: Oh, there are many of them, but the most visible or prominent one who has a couple of biographies written about, her name is Yuri Kochiyama. 44:25 SM: How do you spell that? 44:28 GO: K-O-C-H-I-Y-A-M-A, Kochiyama, and Yuri is her first name Y-U-R-I. And the reason is because well, she is not only a huge activist— she was— but she also was the one who cradled Malcolm X's head as he laid dying in the ballroom here in New York. She is still alive. And she's involved in a lot of, sort of, anti-war, peace, the women's, and third world movements, campaigns. 45:09 SM: She may be a good one to try to contact. If she is still— 45:13 GO: If you can get her, yeah. She has a biography written by Diane Regino. 45:20 SM: Did that biography come out recently? 45:23 GO: Maybe about three-four years ago. 45:28 SM: Vietnam was obviously a watershed event for just about everybody in the Boomer generation, as two veterans told me they went off to war only because they wanted to be involved in the watershed event of their lives. And I, you know, other people obviously thought differently on that. But within—within your family, when you became a conscientious objector, did you have generation gap issues with your parents over the war or any other issues? Because the generation gap seemed to be across the board regardless of ethnic background between generations. 46:11 GO: Yeah, you know, that is a very interesting question because my father was a World War II vet, but I think like most Japanese Americans who fought during World War II, they were not fighting for American freedom. They were fighting for themselves, their families, and their people, as it were. But my father never expressed to me his— not that I recall, yeah, no— he is never expressed to me disagreement with my stand on the war. Meaning, Vietnam. 46:50 SM: Did, did any of your friends have that issue with their parents? 46:57 GO: Not that I know; I had high school peers who went to Vietnam. And— but I do not know of people who were like me, meaning, you know, claiming deal. 47:14 SM: Jim Webb—the current senator, but back in 1980, in a book that— he was in a symposium with five other Vietnam vets basically said that he, when they were talking about the generation gap, he said: the real generation gap in the boomer generation is not between parents. Well, he said it is between parents and their kids, but it's also between those who went to war and those who did not, within the generation. 47:44 GO: I think that is really true. 47:48 SM: And— he went so far as to say that I know that the, the boomer generation is called the service generation because many went in the Peace Corps, many went to VISTA, and many did not meet the call to action and go to war and took John Kennedy's slogan to heart. But when you were called to war, he said, you go. And so he said the real generation gap is between those who served in Vietnam and those who did not. 48:21 GO: Well, you know, and then even among those who served and did not there were generational differences, before, for example, the draft. You know, people who were privileged could escape the war. I mean, I used, for example, graduate study as an escape from the war until that expired. 48:42 SM: I think that was in the early (19)70s— 48:49 GO: But some had privileges to escape the war. And then those were eroded, and then one could not after all. 48:59 SM: When you look at the figures of three million who died in Vietnam, three million Vietnamese died. And of course, 58,200 plus Americans and God knows how many were wounded and lives destroyed and the land was destroyed and all kinds of things. Where do the Asian Americans— where does the Asian American community overall stand on this war? And where do they stand both then and now? 49:26 GO: Well, again, hugely it depends on which group you're talking about. Let us see now, because you know, there was— there were those who fought against communism; that resonated with them. So there might have been Chinese Americans in that, you know, boat. And of course Vietnamese. But then, I think by and large— I am not sure though—because I do not know of any study, actually, of like all Asian groups during Vietnam, but I think most were supportive in terms of it be some demonstrating their loyalty to the US government. That way is service. 50:17 SM: You see much—this big, powerful nation trying to take on a small rural nation and did not have any sensitivity in that particular area? 50:27 GO: Well, there were among my generation, I certainly felt that. 50:32 SM: When we talk about the (19)60s and (19)70s, we talk about the countercultural hippies, communes, drugs, rock and roll, long hair, colorful clothes, sexual freedoms, challenging authority and the status quo fighting to overcome injustice at home and abroad. And I know I am trying to— here I am trying to— I am just trying to get an Asian perspective— Asian American perspective here: how many Asian Americans were in the US in 1946? 51:06 GO: I do not know. I am not into numbers. You can find out so easily. 51:12 SM: Yep. All right. And I was wondering what the difference was in 1980. So— and following this up is was there a generation gap in the Asian American families in the (19)60s and (19)70s? Overall? 51:32 GO: Again, you know, like I said, you know, like, Asian American families are not, sort of, like the usual, you know, white American family, in terms of the ages of people: parents and children. So it is a little skewed or messed up in that way, or more complicated. But I think many in my generation were involved in all those things that you mentioned in terms of drugs, rock and roll, you know acid and so forth, peace movement, free speech movement, the war and so forth. That was very typical of my generation. Some who studied it, saw these as spoiled children, you know, people who had privileges and who were just sort of what they might call "mau-mauing." They— but in any case, yeah— but that was not always the case. I mean, people like me came from working-class backgrounds, we had no privileges— or we had not the privileges that middle class kids had. 52:43 SM: Do you, do you remember the very first time that you went to a protest? The first time that you had the courage to go to one? 52:52 GO: It was around ethnic studies at UCLA [The University of California, Los Angeles]. 52:56 SM: Wow. Did, did you fear doing that when you went there for the first time? GO: 53:02 Well of course there was that kind of fear of being, you know, arrested. But one has to do what one has to do. Let me— you know, something very interesting happened to me personally about Vietnam that I did not serve in the war. But, you know, the imprint of the war was such that when I went to Vietnam, ten-fifteen years ago, for the first time, upon landing, just the air, the feel, the sights, and the sounds were really familiar to me like I—I had been there before. And the reason was because it was so seared in my consciousness, these newsreels and so forth of Vietnam that, you know, it seemed all very familiar to me. Especially driving from the airport, seeing peasants in the rice paddies, were all very familiar. But then, for me, also there was an added thing in which my colleagues in Vietnam were really kind to me, not only as an American— which was startling to me—but also as a Japanese. Because of course, Japan wrecked a lot of havoc and misery on Vietnam during the war. They were so generous and kind to me, those colleagues. But also this familiarity, which again, to me speaks the kind of influence that the war had on people of my generation. 54:35 SM: Wow. Like, when I talk to a Vietnam vet— when they get off the plane, after they've been in air conditioning all the way over the ocean, and the doors open and they walk out into the unbelievable humidity and heat. And they said, 'I got to deal with this for the next year and two months? Oh, my goodness.' As, as a teacher, can you see some major differences between the students in the (19)60s and early (19)70s that—that you taught as a graduate student or as a professor, and the students after 1975 and beyond? If so, how were they different in the following areas? And I just throw these out and you can just comment with how are they different in respect to: their intellectual curiosity, their knowledge of history, their willingness to interact and challenge the professor, their writing skills, and in whether grades were the primary reward from learning or ideas were the primary reward for learning and, and then activism outside of the classroom. So those kind of— if you have seen those qualities. 55:51 GO: Well, I think this is a kind of caricature, but I think most people would testify to this. That I think that— the students before Reagan, were much more interested in ideas and also thinking against the grain, unafraid to speak up, and to mention, you know, disagree. The world of ideas, it seemed to me, mattered more than getting a job and getting this degree which I think was the kind of post-Reagan period. And then I think more recently, there is this return to ideas and service and so forth. Ironically, amidst the job shortage and so forth, these students today, I think, are far more interested in all kinds of ideas and also thinking of different kinds of possibilities for service for the narrow employment [inaudible] ̶ 57:01 SM: Do you think— one particular area is— do you find that students really want to know history? They care about history? 57:10 GO: Oh, I think Americans probably do not care about history much. [laughs] No they do; they know. But I think yeah, I think the students are very present-oriented still. Could be a kind of age, you know, I mean, like, in your late teens and early (19)20s, I think the immediacy is much more real than the past. 57:40 SM: Just from your— I am going to change my side of the tape here, because we are two thirds of the way through here. Hold on a second, let me change my tape. How are your students this year? [tape cuts off] 57:51 GO: [tape fades in] I am excited by that. They also are thinking of, you know, international travel and living abroad and service. Which an earlier generation would not have thought of. 58:11 SM: Your college experience itself by you got— your PhD at UCLA. 58:18 GO: Yeah. 58:19 SM: And just your thoughts on— not even breaking it down into the Asian American community, just your thoughts on the generation itself that is often defined by the word anti-establishment but also known for its size, which was seventy-four million. And by the way, the students of today's college now have passed the boomer generation in numbers. The millennials are now the largest generation in American history. So boomers can no longer say that they were the largest generation. 58:53 GO: [laughs] Good. 58:53 SM: [laughs] Just your overall thought on the generations. 59:00 GO: Of my generation? 59:00 SM: Yes. 59:02 GO: Well, I think that the— it was both that my generation could be characterized by both the activities that we undertook, but also in terms of what happened all around us in terms of the world around us. And I think both of those influence, fundamentally, our lives. 59:25 SM: When did the (19)60s begin and end in your opinion? 59:29 GO: When did the (19)60s begin and end? [laughs] 59:31 SM: And end. 59:34 GO: Actually, I have not really thought about that. I do not know what it would be. 59:42 SM: Is there a watershed moment or a moment you think had the greatest impact on the generation whether a good moment or a bad moment? 59:51 GO: Well, I think clearly the war in Southeast Asia was the largest sort of thing. But you will see also regional differences. I am sure. 1:00:04 SM: Where were you when John Kennedy was assassinated? Do you remember the exact moment where you were? 1:00:11 GO: Yeah, I was a first year student at Pacific Union College. 1:00:16 SM: How'd you find out about it? 1:00:18 GO: TV. Mmhmm. People were riveted. 1:00:22 SM: Were you like a lot of the people that kind of watched TV the entire four days? 1:00:27 GO: Yeah. Mmhmm. Of course. It was a spectacle. 1:00:32 SM: What was your overall first thought when you saw that? That this has actually happened in the United States. 1:00:37 GO: Shocking, shocking to see a president assassinated. I was shocked. 1:00:44 SM: Did you witness Lee Harvey Oswald killed live on TV too? 1:00:48 GO: No, not live, but after. 1:00:52 SM: I know it is very hard. You, you have linked up with many and you have known many people in the boomer generation. Are there any overall characteristics, just— good or bad, that you put on the generation as a whole? What their strengths or weaknesses may have been? 1:01:09 GO: Well, I think an optimism, which might have been characterized as naive. But an optimism also born out of youth, I think, that is the optimism of not dying. And that also translates into doing everything that one can do. So I think that kind of optimism was good, but it was also oftentimes misdirected. Naive. Their greatest weakness probably is the kind of trendiness of following what was happening all around us. It was easy to become a hippie for example. 1:01:58 SM: When you heard terms or quotes, like—three things kind of stand out in my mind, signifying different groups of people. You had Malcolm X's "by any means necessary" which was comparable to possibly using guns or violence, if other ways could not be met, including nonviolent protest. You had Bobby Kennedy's famous words that he copied from an author from the 1900s, "Some men see things as they are and ask why; I see things that never were and ask why not," which symbolizes a more activist mentality, fighting for getting rid of all the injustices. And kind of a hippie mentality, which is—was on a lot of the Peter Max posters of the era in the early (19)70s, "So you do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful." Kind of a—hippie mentality. And there are other things like "We Shall Overcome" and "Tune In, Turn On, Dropout" with Timothy Leary and "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." And Kennedy also saying that we will fight any war to protect liberty and that kind of thing. Were there any sayings that really turned you on? That really—I mentioned some that I thought were important. That really defined a lot of different segments of the boomer generation, but there— are there others? 1:03:31 GO: Well, I do not know if you mentioned "We Shall Overcome." 1:03:33 SM: Yeah, I had mentioned that. 1:03:34 GO: Yeah, well, for me that— for me, anyway, "We Shall Overcome." 1:03:39 SM: That is the— I agree. That was Dr. King, the civil rights. In 1989 Tiananmen Square happened, and it happened in the summertime. And I was shocked when I came back to school in the fall and nobody was heard talking about it. And it was this— and certainly Asian American students were not talking about it. And if you brought it up, I thought, we ended up doing a program on it. And we had to go to Temple University to find graduate students and then Asian American students did not want to be seen even around them. What did— what was that experience like? What were your thoughts about Tiananmen Square in (19)89? And why were American universities so indifferent about that particular issue? 1:04:28 GO: Well, I do not really know. But I can hazard a guess. I was at Cornell actually, and there were a lot of Chinese students who organized teach-ins and rallies, and so forth at Cornell. I think there is a kind of mixed emotion here because of not wanting or wanting to be associated with Communist China and then also wanting or not wanting the kind of pro-democracy movement within Communist China, depending on one's political orientation; that is the kind of jacked relationship I think. 1:05:14 SM: Well I know a lot of the students were afraid if they were over here on a visa that they would be sit— would be denied. And they did not— they felt that they could not even be seen in an event, let alone speak up. And I thought it was interesting that American students overall knew nothing about Kent State and things like that had happened here. And that is the whole concept of history. No now is a past history at all. And— but Tiananmen Square to me is, is a monumental historic event that should have gotten more play, more discussion, and its meaning to me still has a lot of meaning to me because it is about university students standing up and speaking up for rights and issues. It is freedom. 1:06:00 GO: Right. 1:06:01 SM: And we had a lot of the speakers on our campus. So we— we thought that the goal was that they eventually would come back to China and be the leaders in China. I am not sure if that is going to happen. So, what were the most important books that influenced you in your life as you were in college or high school, college or even since— books that you think are important for young people to read, not only about the Asian American experience, but about the American experience, or— 1:06:36 GO: Well, you see, let us see, books that I read in Hawaii, believe it or not, were from New England, and many of those I identified with about the leaders of America. Betsy Ross, George Washington, and so forth. I read huge amounts of biographies of American leaders while growing up in Hawaii, but I think that was also a kind of disidentification with Asian Americans or Asians, thinking that my ancestors were pilgrims growing up. But in any case, during my college years, and at that point I'd say the anti-war movement was more important for me, a book by Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, was like, my— our Bible. And as a kind of third world liberation orientation, which we could identify with Vietnamese people and I am not sure. So, you know, and then also the liberation movement so-called in Latin America with Che and his notoriety, but in any case, Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth was I would say the most important. 1:07:56 SM: Did you find it interesting that so many people were carrying Mao's Red Book? 1:08:02 GO: Me too, you know, but I was again quite. [laughter]. It is a stupid book really. [laughs] 1:08:10 SM: Yeah, yeah Mao's Red Book. And then of course Che Guevara was the revolutionary and then Daniel Bell wrote the book The End of Ideology. Remember that book? 1:08:19 GO: Yes, yes, yes. 1:08:20 SM: Basically he said, Marxism is dead, and that was the whole and you will not be seeing too many more protests or talk about Marxism anymore ̶ But one of the— one of the issues that is the issue of trust. I can remember being a first year psychology student at Binghamton University, my undergraduate school. Professor talking about trust and kind of how important it was because if you do not have this quality, you may not be a success in life, because you have to trust somebody and some other people. But it seemed like the boomer generation was— has a quality that they do not trust leaders and they did not trust leaders no matter who they were or university president, senator—anybody in positions of responsibility. Is that good or bad? 1:09:08 GO: [laughs] I mean, well, wait a minute on trust, being it depends how you define that. I think one has to be skeptical or keep a critical mindset, and that is absolutely important for any democracy to function. I mean, one has to be of independent thinking, and also scrutinize dogma, or theory. So I think that is important, that kind of skepticism. But if your professor was talking about trust, insofar as people had to maintain their integrity, and that one has to trust in people— I mean, I have that. And I think that that is the kind of thing my parents— and I think that is important in Japanese and East Asian culture especially, that one has to maintain one's name, as it were, without sort of bringing any kind of shame or disgrace, oneself and one's family or one's group. So I instill that on my children also, I mean that, if I cannot trust you, you know, that's the end of our relationship. 1:10:29 SM: Certainly, the other area here is the issue of healing. The person I grew to know and like is Kim Phúc, the girl in the picture from the Vietnam War. 1:10:39 GO: Oh yeah. 1:10:39 SM: He brought her to our campus and she's all about forgiveness. That is what she talks about and she has got a smile that if you put her on every poster in the world, I think we would have peace everywhere. But the question I want to ask is: I took a group of students to Washington in 1995 to meet Senator Muskie. And the students that went with me had only seen videotapes of the 1968 convention where America was torn apart: the police beating up students, and of course, they knew about the whole year with Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy being killed, and all the other burnings of these cities and so forth. And the possibilities even were heard that someone said, oh, we're going to go into another civil war, the nation was so torn apart. But they wanted to find out what his thoughts were to this question, and that is: Due to the divisions that were so intense in the 1960s and (19)70s, between blacks and whites, and certainly, obviously for people of other colors and whites, between males and females, between gays and straights, between those who supported the war or against the war or those who supported the troops or against the troops— Do you feel that the boomer generation, this generation that grew up after World War II, is going to go to their graves like the Civil War generation: not truly healing; that they will carry a lot of the baggage with them, and that has psychologically affected them. Just your thoughts whether healing is an issue in this nation. 1:12:15 GO: Well, it is certainly an issue in the nation; I think that it also depends a great deal on the individual. I think also it is a matter of age, you know; as I grow older, I feel much more tolerant of things. Not certainly of injustices, but I guess, ideological tolerance, you know, for ideological differences and so forth. But in any case, yeah, healing is absolutely a necessary thing. 1:12:52 SM: Do you think you— Have you been to the Vietnam Memorial? 1:12:56 GO: Yeah. Several times. 1:12:59 SM: What— that first time you went there, what impact did that have on you? 1:13:04 GO: Well, it is moving, of course. I am into names because I think it is important to have names to remember people as individuals rather than number. So that affected me a lot. But I also felt a little uneasy, I think around the kind of patriotism that might easily misjudge me as the enemy. So, mixed feelings. 1:13:34 SM: Because when you go to that wall for the first time, that reflection sometimes brings back memories of everything— 1:13:39 GO: That is true. 1:13:40 SM:—you were involved with during the time the war was on. 1:13:44 GO: Yeah, and also the consciousness of the designer of the wall being an Asian American. 1:13:50 SM: That is right. Yep. And actually two of the three major pieces there are done by women. 1:13:58 GO: Yeah, which is remarkable. 1:14:00 SM: Well, yeah Glenna Goodacre and Maya Lin. Of course Maya Lin's gone on— does so many other things, unbelievable, from Yale University. Well, Senator Muskie's response was, he did not even respond to 1968. And they were kind of disappointed, I think, because they wanted him to go into, you know, all the stuff. Because these are students that were not alive then. And basically what he said is we have not healed since the Civil War over the issue of race. And he went on to talk about it. And then he said— just think about the fact that in the Civil War, we fought against each other. And 430,000 men died in that war, and almost an entire generation in the South was lost. And these were brothers killing brothers. 1:14:47 GO: Right. 1:14:48 SM: So, that is what he was talking about. And I think what I was getting at also is whether the— and you brought it up— the healing between those who served and those who did not, and those are the ones that have maybe in the sense of sensitive feelings, particularly if they take their families to the wall, and their kids or grandkids say to you, dad or grandpa, what did you do in the war? 1:15:14 GO: Right. 1:15:15 SM: And so, anyway, healing is certainly critical. What do you think the lasting legacy will be of the—You are a great writer; you have written ten books, and you are a great writer. And I love your Columbia Guide to Asian American Studies. I have that book; I wish I'd had it signed when you were here, but what— when the— fifty years from now, or actually when the last boomer has passed on, how do you think historians and sociologists and writers will— what will they say about this generation that grew up after World War II that went through the (19)60s and the (19)70s— what do you think they will say? 1:16:03 GO: Well, it is hard to say, by the way, because I think historians write largely from the present and so whatever is pressing or the ideas that the president will influence their perception of— so whatever they say about our generation is going to be tempered by whatever contemporary situation they were involved in. I know that's a kind of cop out I suppose, but I firmly believe that. What I would like them to say is that— not that this was the greatest generation; I think that's a really bad way to put the World War II generation. But that I think this generation was the one that tried, and tried different means, oftentimes dead ends and errors and so forth. But nonetheless, they tried, they were doers. 1:17:00 SM: Yes, I can remember and you probably remember this too, when you were young in college as an undergrad, that we are the most unique generation in American history. Because the reason is that we are going to make the world different. We are going to end the war, bring peace, end racism, sexism, homophobia; we have the environment, we are going to do it all. And then people look at America today and they say, boy, you guys have failed. But really, there's been a lot of accomplishment. But do you think this generation failed? 1:17:38 GO: No! No. Trying is not failure. Trying is doing, and doing has effect. So, yeah, the effects are with us, and they will continue. Every generation has done that. 1:17:57 SM: I think also, if you have ever been to the Gettysburg battlefield they have the statue there— this man who was the last living person who actually fought in the Civil War. He died in 1924 and they have a statue for him right there. 1:18:12 GO: I do not remember that. 1:18:13 SM: Yeah, it is as you are driving around right past Pickett's Charge. 1:18:18 GO: Yeah. 1:18:19 SM: Okay keep driving down where the old building used to be, where they had the— we went inside and saw the Civil War in the round. Which, the building is closed— well, it is right there— he was— and it got me thinking when I put this question together, because I go to give this report times a year and I was just there last weekend and it's the fact is that they used to meet there every year between North and South and they talked about all their divisions, but they never came to any true healing and then they all finally passed on. So it is a— 1:18:55 GO: Wow. 1:18:56 SM: I have finished my questions, I have this thing where I get into personalities and I ask your responses to them, but it is a little long, so maybe, I do not know if you, I will just mention a few of them because I— 1:19:09 GO: I do not trust those personality scales do not give it to me. [laughs] 1:19:13 SM: I just want to know, some of the events. What did you think of Kent State and Jackson State? 1:19:21 GO: Actually, I— it was like news items for me, but also a kind of identification with students. And a kind of "hora" at the kind of repression of, you know, protest. I am sure that our protests oftentimes went too far and really tested the wills of the older people, but then, you know, to kill people is something else again. 1:19:50 SM: And then Watergate. 1:19:54 GO: Well, now you see this suspicion of leaders and so forth. One is hardly surprised, then, from that point of view. I was not surprised. 1:20:04 SM: Same thing with U-2 when President Eisenhower lied to us. And that is the first— that is the first lie that I ever remember as a child, was one— I remember him being on TV and I always liked him; he looked like a grandfather to me— but he, you know. Well, he was— he was a decent man— I am not saying he was not, but you know, he did lie to the American public. And, and I guess the other one would be the pentagon papers, what you thought of the pentagon papers and Daniel Ellsberg? 1:20:35 GO: Wonderful. [laughs] Yeah. 1:20:40 SM: And then Woodward and Bernstein was— your thoughts? That was investigative journalism that was really beginning to take its hold at that time. And, I do not— I think we're going backwards, are not we? 1:20:53 GO: Oh, absolutely. Oh, both 9-1-1, oh, freedom of the press. None, none. And then with the takeover of the press by this foreigner from Australia, on Fox News, so called, the kind of parody is, is actually disgusting because it works against democracy to have propaganda. 1:21:20 SM: Who took over Fox? 1:21:22 GO: That guy from Australia. What is his name? 1:21:27 SM: I do not know. 1:21:28 GO: He took over, he took over the Wall Street Journal. 1:21:32 SM: My gosh, I do not know. I know that uh— 1:21:34 GO: My god, I do not remember names. That is why I am so old. 1:21:37 SM: I know that the Washington Times is Sun Myung Moon; is he— 1:21:43 GO: I do not know. No. And yeah, that is the Washington Post. 1:21:46 SM: Yeah, that is the Washington Times. Yeah. 1:21:48 GO: Yeah, Times. Yeah. Washington Times. [laughs] 1:21:52 SM: Yeah, then I will just mention a few here because we have got seven minutes left. The Woodstock and Summer of Love; just your thoughts on those. 1:22:04 GO: I love them. I could identify. 1:22:09 SM: All right; how about the hippies and the yippies? 1:22:13 GO: Hippies, yes. Yippies, enh... 1:22:17 SM: They were more political. 1:22:19 GO: Yeah. 1:22:21 SM: How about the Columbia protests of (19)69. 1:22:23 GO: Well actually I did not even know anything about it. The Columbia protests. 1:22:29 SM: Free speech— 1:22:30 GO: Kind of weird. 1:22:31 SM: Free Speech Movement— 1:22:32 GO: —And I was not even in the country. That's why. 1:22:35 SM: No; you were in Peace Corps then. What did you learn from the Peace Corps? Again, you mentioned right there. 1:22:42 GO: What did I learn? I tried to stay away from the Peace Corps as much as possible. It was another government bureaucracy that stood in the way of real people. You see that's my generational take. [laughs] It had become a bureaucracy by 1968, when I joined. And that— I tried to stay away as much as possible. But the Peace Corps enabled me to remain in Africa, and to have this deeply moving sort of transformation of my life, through the Temple teachings of African people. It was a remarkable, life changing experience. I can tell you some— I mean, I was decent out— say about sixty miles outside of the nation's capital, and into southern Africa, flew Senator Hiram Fong from Hawaii, a Republican senator from Hawaii, and he, upon hearing that I was in the Peace Corps, another Hawaii person, made the trip all the way out to the desert and it is this dusty road and so forth, to see me and I was not about to see him. So I went off into the desert and did not see him and the Peace Corps director was so pissed off with me. Activist. [laughs] Insubordination. But again, that was very typical of my generation. 1:24:06 SM: Oh yeah! You do your thing. I will do mine, if there's a chance we should come together [laughs] it will be beautiful. 1:24:14 GO: You know, as opposed to Senator Hiram Fong. He was using me as a PR. 1:24:19 SM: Yeah, that is exactly what he was doing. 1:24:21 GO: I was not about to. 1:24:23 SM: What did you think of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden? 1:24:27 GO: [laughs] Well, I admired, Jane Fonda for her stand on Vietnam. But look what happened to her subsequently—also Tom Hayden for Chicago and so forth. And actually he's still very principled I think to today. But Jane Fonda has lost her way. 1:24:50 SM: And, of course, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. They were the yippies. 1:24:55 GO: Yeah. 1:24:56 SM: Any thoughts on them? Or— 1:24:58 GO: No. 1:24:59 SM: How about the Black Panthers that, Bobby Seale, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Cleaver, Elaine Brown? 1:25:09 GO: The— a Japanese American was a member of the Black Panthers in Oakland, and he just died this past year. And people do not know that Asians were part of Black Panthers. They frightened me. But I thought that their revolutionary span was really courageous and influential, moving politics. 1:25:32 SM: Black power— did you, what did you think when Black Power came in? 1:25:36 GO: Yeah, again, at first, it was frightening. Mainly, I guess, because my information came from the crowd. But quickly, I thought Black Power is really important. So Asian Americans mimicked them and yellow power and brown power and red power and so forth. But it was not to the degree of like, if you were interpreting "by any means necessary" to mean armed rebellion or insurrection. 1:26:03 SM: All right. Yeah. Stokely Carmichael challenged Dr. King as Malcolm X challenged Bayard Rustin. Basically telling them 'your time has passed. It is a new way now.' You know, nonviolent protest is not working. 1:26:03 GO: Right. 1:26:05 SM: And then, of course, the 1968 Olympics, you had Tommy Smith. And, and we had Tommy on our campus and he says, I am not a Black Panther. He never was. 1:26:33 GO: Right, right. 1:26:34 SM: It was about rights and injustice. I guess the other— last couple things is just your thoughts on people like Benjamin Spock and Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern? 1:26:48 GO: Well, oddly, you know, I was really not like Clean Gene or a fan at the beginning. I think in retrospect, I was wrong. I just thought it was a kind of bandwagon that he was trying to capitalize on. But I respect the man immensely now, but at the time I was very skeptical. Spock of course was really important, I think, in terms of human liberation. I do not know about his child psychology, but in any case, his advocacy of progressive causes and so forth were really important. And who was the other one? 1:27:30 SM: McGovern. 1:27:31 GO: Oh wait, did not I— oh, McGovern, of course was also important in terms of like, sort of like, McCarthy for many of— well, for me. 1:27:46 SM: Of course Robbie Kennedy is another one in that period that— 1:27:49 GO: Yeah, you know that he actually hit me more because, you know, I was right there. Actually, I was not in the ballroom, but just a block away. 1:27:57 SM: Oh, wow, when that happened. 1:27:59 GO: And also his identification with the migrant farmworkers, which was really important for me and so well, seeing him lying on the floor there dying was really traumatic. Worse than Kennedy— JFK. 1:28:12 SM: When you look at the presidents during that whole time frame from World War II— the end of World War II until today, you are dealing with Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush the first. And then you have got Bill Clinton, George Bush the second, Obama. Now, two of them were boomers— actually, the third one— there is a third one was only two when the boomers— but of those presidents, which ones do you— did you like and ones did you not like that may have had the greatest influence on this generation. 1:28:55 GO: Well, I think LBJ, both in terms of hating him and also liking him and admiring what he did. 1:29:04 SM: Even though he was the guy responsible for the Vietnam War? 1:29:07 GO: Of course! Yes, yes. But think about his social idioms and transformation of the nation, domestically. 1:29:15 SM: Did you have issues with McNamara or with Kissinger? 1:29:20 GO: Of course! Yeah. But LBJ is, you know, was really important for civil rights. 1:29:31 SM: And of course, I know your best— your favorite person was Spiro, right? [laughs] 1:29:36 GO: Agnew. 1:29:37 SM: Spiro Agnew boy he loved to attack the,— boy he loved to attack the universities, did not he? 1:29:42 GO: Really? 1:29:43 SM:' Hobnobs and' he was— 1:29:47 GO: He was a really stupid man, really. 1:29:49 SM: Yeah, he was as crooked as crooked can be. And I guess the last—the last one is just the, the women leaders: the Betty Friedans, the Gloria Steinems, the Bella Abzugs. How important were they at that particular time? 1:30:05 GO: Well, I loved them all. And I thought it was— it is I mean, they were exceedingly important. I do not think that feminism is unnecessary today. I think it is so important for these leaders of this new wave of feminism were really important. I think many of their things were wrong, but still, you know, it was important at the time. 1:30:34 SM: But when we talk about the American Indian Movement, which was basically (19)67 to (19)71—or (19)73 excuse me, and then you had the Stonewall which was the gay and lesbian in (19)69. And then you had Earth Day in (19)70. Those are three other areas that are directly linked to a lot of the events of the (19)60s and (19)70s and in Americans— 1:30:58 GO: Hugely influential. 1:31:00 SM: Yep. Are there any final thoughts on—anything I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask? 1:31:07 GO: Not really. What was remarkable was 1968, which you did not— 1:31:14 SM: Well, yeah, that was one of the things that I— 1:31:17 GO: Colombia and so forth. American Indian Movement was formed in 1968. There was the protest against the America— you know, Miss America Pageant in 1968, Richard Nixon in 1968. And—Anyway, there is a lot of things in 1968, which was a pivotal year. 1:31:38 SM: Did you ever think as a young person or actually as a heading-toward-a-PhD that we were close to another civil war? 1:31:47 GO: Not at all. No. 1:31:50 SM: Because that was out there. 1:31:52 GO: Yeah. But no, I never. 1:31:54 SM: People were burning cities down and a lot of things. All right, well, I— if you do not have anything else, I guess that is it. 1:32:04 GO: Okay, and so you are going to email me about you coming by for pictures? 1:32:07 SM: Yep, yes ̶ (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Gary Okihiro Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Okihiro, Gary Y., 1945- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Asian American authors; Scholars--American; College teachers; Okihiro, Gary Y., 1945--Interviews Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Gary Okihiro is an Asian American scholar and an author of twelve books. Okihiro was a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and the founding director of Columbia's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. He is the originator of \&quot;social formation theory\&quot; and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Asian American Studies and the American Studies Association. Dr. Okihiro currently is a visiting professor of American studies at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California and an honorary doctorate degree from the University of the Ryukyus.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Dr. Gary Okihiro is an Asian American scholar and an author of twelve books. Okihiro was a professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and the founding director of Columbia's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. He is the originator of "social formation theory" and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Asian American Studies and the American Studies Association. Dr. Okihiro currently is a visiting professor of American studies at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California and an honorary doctorate degree from the University of the Ryukyus.</span> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-11 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.10.2016.203a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.203b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 92:11 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/6db30f7b0eebebd5666c4cc4edd96e31.jpg 0ca449ba5a3f787ba95ebe278fedeeeb https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c63f658341d98781e2861cd788225c39.mp3 909babadca86acac1b241e454bd3cef1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-08-13 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed George S. (George Stanley) McGovern, 1922-2012 Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;George McGovern (1922 - 2012) was a professor, author, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election. McGovern earned a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University and taught at Dakota Wesleyan University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:7051,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,5099745],&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">George McGovern (1922 - 2012) was a professor, author, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election. McGovern earned a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University and taught at Dakota Wesleyan University.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassettte Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 55:06 Keywords <span>Baby Boomer;&nbsp;Gary Hart;&nbsp;Bill Clinton;&nbsp;Richard Nixon;&nbsp;Dwight Eisenhower;&nbsp;Robert Kennedy; Henry Ford;&nbsp;Henry Kissinger;&nbsp;Robert McNamara;&nbsp;Depression Era;&nbsp;New Deal;&nbsp;Vietnam;&nbsp;Viet Cong;&nbsp;J. William Fulbright;&nbsp;Mike Mansfield;&nbsp;Frank Church;&nbsp;John Sherman Cooper;&nbsp;Dissolution ;&nbsp;Mistrust;&nbsp;Paul Zhan; Jerry Rubin;&nbsp;Benjamin Spock;&nbsp;Tom Hayden; Ralph Nader;&nbsp;Martin Luther King Jr.;&nbsp;Eugene McCarthy;&nbsp;Lyndon Johnson; Spiro Agnew;&nbsp;George Wallace;&nbsp;Bobby Seale;&nbsp;Eldridge Cleaver;&nbsp;Huey Newton;&nbsp;Betty Friedan;&nbsp;Bella Abzug;&nbsp;Gloria Steinem;&nbsp;Shirley Chisholm;&nbsp;Shirley MacLaine;&nbsp;Bob Dylan;&nbsp;Joan Baez;&nbsp;Jimi Hendrix.</span> Civil Rights Movement; Great Depression; WWII; Women's movement; Vietnam War; Abbie Hoffman; Jane Fonda; Malcolm X; John F. Kennedy; Berrigan Brother; Black Power Movement; Hubert Humphrey; Muhammad Ali. Subject LCSH College teachers; Authors; Legislators—United States; Presidential candidates—United States; McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922-2012--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Senator George McGovern Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Carrie Blabac-Myers Date of interview: 13 August 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 0:04 SM: The first question I wanted to ask you is, one of the concerns that I see as a person who is a boomer is a lot of the criticisms that are being directed toward boomers today, whether it be politicians or media critics, basically claiming that a lot of the reasons why we have problems in America today is because of the boomers: break up the family, increase in drugs, lack of respect for authority, and a tremendous amount of lack of trust in all leaders in America. Could you comment on whether you consider that criticism really fair for this generation, which is basically individuals born between 1946 and 1964, sixty million strong? 0:47 GM: Well, all five of my children are baby boomers. They came in at that period in the ten years, that marks the last year of the war and the next ten years afterwards, and I would not accept that criticism about any of my youngsters or most of their peers. I think it is overdone. To me the greatest difference between the baby boom generation and my generation is an economic difference, and that they did not experience the Depression. They did not experience World War II, money came easier to them. They did not develop the sense of sacrifice and struggle, it was characteristic of my generation. And that obviously, may have produced a somewhat softer generation I use that term soft not in a derogatory sense but to indicate they have not been hardened by the fires and the discipline and the struggle of the Depression the years of scarce income in the home and money available for other things. This is a generation that has grown up expecting to get what they want. If they want $120 pair of shoes, they expect it. If they want a hi-fi set and CDs and Cokes and Big Macs and movies, things that I could only dream about as a child my children have always taken for granted. And I think that in that sense the economic circumstances may have produced a softer generation and one may be less appreciative of struggle and discipline and effort. I noticed in politics, I am kind of racing ahead of your questions here but, I just had said some things I wanted to say about this generation. I notice in politics that they do not bring the degree of passion and deep personal conviction to public issues that I think characterized an earlier generation, they had that kind of reaction to the Vietnam War. But I became somewhat disappointed to discover that a lot of it had to do with the immediate impact of that war on their own convenience and their own lives and plans. And I do not see other issues that they have seized on with the same passion that they brought to their opposition to the war. Even a person like Bill Clinton, it seems to me does not bring the degree of personal conviction to politics that I would like to see it is more management of politics, use of communications, a skillful employment of techniques and pull with consultants. And I saw some of that same thing with some of the other political figures produced by this generation, not in my opinion, the degree of conviction and, personal passion about issues that I have always thought were important aspects of public commitment. 5:09 SM: To follow up on that question. As a boomer, I have always felt in comparing today's college students and young people today who were the sons and daughters of boomers and comparing them to their parents of another, that the people of the (19)60s and early (19)70s had more passion than the young people of today. Could you comment on the impact or lack thereof of what the boomers have done with their kids, today's young people? 5:38 GM: Well, there was somehow we have inculcated this current crop of young people with much more skepticism about politics, much less faith in the capacity to use political effort to achieve worthwhile goals. Much less confidence in the leadership of the country. And I think there is some explanations for that. The whole series of shattering events that has taken place beginning with the assassination of the two Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King, my overwhelming defeat in 1972. And then the accompanying dissolution over Watergate, Vietnam, Irangate, the [inaudible] scandals and subsequent events I really think has had a shattering impact on both the boomers and their children and undercutting a lot of the enthusiasm and passion that we had in the 1960s and at least the early part of the (19)70s. My experience on college campuses over the last ten years, which is very extensive, I have been on over one thousand campuses since I left the senate some fifteen years ago, has led me to believe there is a lot of decency and a lot of admirable qualities in these youngsters today. But there is also a kind of a clear disillusionment and turning away from what was very important in my life, which was active participation in public issues and Public Affairs. 7:38 SM: Getting back to the boomers again, that sixty plus million born between (19)46 and (19)64. And obviously, even within the boomer generation, there is a lot of differences between the older ones, some Bill Clinton's age, and the younger ones who are like thirty four - thirty five years old right now. Could you in a few just give a few brief story perceptions of the positive qualities that you saw in the boomers and then some of the some of the negatives? 8:07 GM: Gary Hart generation yes. 8:08 SM: And Bill Clinton and the positives and their negatives. 8:12 GM: Yeah. Well, one, they have a more cosmopolitan exposure to the world through the communications, advances through television, through proliferation of information of all kinds, and I am very much impressed by the wide information and knowledge that these young people have about the whole culture as a scene I do not mean by that they are better educated than we were fifty years ago, but I do think that they have a broader range of information, I am struck with my own grandchildren on what they know about the arts and that whole scene, the world around they know an awful lot that went beyond my horizons with the time I was that age. [Hello!] I also think that I have to say this carefully that the measure of skepticism that they bring towards public figures and towards our political process is not entirely bad. Perhaps there was too much naiveté in my time about public leadership and what the governments were doing and so on a certain measure of skepticism probably is, to be admired rather than scorned. You can carry that too far as you know, to the point where it becomes inaction and non-involvement but a certain healthy skepticism is a good thing. And I think in the long run these young people may be able to balance out their skepticism with their need to do something about things that they are skeptical about. 10:21 SM: Those are positives and negatives. If you were to, again, another term to look at the boomers because boomers are now just reaching fifty. 10:28 GM: Yes. 10:28 SM: And so they got a lot of life is still ahead of them. 10:30 GM: Clinton just turned fifty this year. 10:31 SM: Right. And Al Gore, I think, turns fifty next year, and Mrs. Clinton turned fitty this year, too. As you see the boomers today in 1997, what has been the greatest impact they have had on America to this point? 10:50 GM: I suppose it is on our lifestyle. The values and practices that they brought to relations between the sexes. The kind of entertainment that is popular, the kind of television and radio and press stories and features that we get. I think this generation does have a unique lifestyle. It is more relaxed compared toward the old guidelines on marriage and sex relations and, the races and [inaudible] even clothing styles. I think our culture to a great extent today is shaped by these boomers and by their children. I noticed one of the ads on the Super Bowl yesterday run by Holiday Inn which you think is one of those establishment places with a transvestite, trans, uh. You can get away with that on television ten years later, with this gorgeous looking woman ̶ 12:14 SM: Bob? Or something like that! 12:16 GM: That kind of thing bring a laugh now to everybody but it would have brought a gasp of horror when I was the age of most of the people that are watching that game yesterday. That is an impact. That is a contribution to the youth culture and a dramatic change in the role of women in our society that is a real revolution. It is a bigger revolution than the racial changes that have occurred. The fact that women are now filling up the rosters of basketball teams, races, stock market, driving their own cars and managing their own portfolios. I think that the boomers and their children did that. They brought they brought about the change in the role of women in our society. 13:25 SM: How do you respond that the Christian Coalition says that is a negative? 13:28 GM: Well I disagree with the Christian Coalition on that part. I think it has been altogether good. It is brought about strains on the family we have not learned how to deal with yet. There is no doubt in my mind that the divorce rate increase is associated with the emancipation of women in the workforce and their greater sexual freedom, all of these things it has had an impact on the family that at least is transitionally difficult. I think we will sort that out in due course. Learn how to share the raising of children between the sexes and sharing the work and sharing career opportunities. These things are difficult, but I think they will come with time. 14:16 SM: Looking, talking about the women's movement but when you look at the issues that are identified with boomers, certainly the ending of the Vietnam War, protests against the war and certainly the civil rights movement. Could you comment on your thoughts in terms of why did the war end? Were the college students on college campus ̶ The main reason for the war ending or why did the war end? Okay. 14:42 GM: I think the young people probably did force an end to the war in Vietnam, it was not only those who were protesting on this side but the morale collapsed in the forces that were fighting in Vietnam. General Abrams told me his biggest problems are not the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese but morale problems and venereal disease and drug addiction and desertion. So I think the morale was collapsing over there. At the same time that it was quite clear, young people were resisting the whole war ever here and I think they were the decisive factor in forcing an end to it. I probably couldn't have won the nomination in (19)72 on a straight out antiwar platform had it not been for that. Not that there weren't a lot of older people with us too but they provided the shock troops and the volunteers and a lot of the emotion that carried me to the nomination. I do not think I could have won without the young people, the boomers in other words ̶ 16:00 SM: Looking at that time again, knowing how you just stated that there were a main reason why we left Vietnam. Looking at the divisions that were in America at that time, tremendous divisions. 16:14 GM: Yes. 16:15 SM: And certainly in 1982, the Vietnam Memorial was built, hopefully to heal the veterans and to heal the nation as Jan Scruggs said in his book. 16:23 GM: Yes. 16:24 SM: Have we really healed since the Vietnam War, in terms of the divisions for those who were for and against? What are your thoughts on the whole concept of healing? Have we healed or do we have a long way to go? 16:39 GM: We have made progress on it in considerable part because so many people who then supported the war now say that it was wrong. I think that it comes as close as you can get to a confession and redemption for the people who supported the war and McNamara's book is he most celebrated example of that. But I think now most Americans who lived through that recognize the war was a mistake. And that general acceptance has been a big healing factor. The fact that we are opening up relations now in Vietnam has been another factor. But I would say there are still continuing scars in those divisions. I do not entirely trust people who were so gung ho for the Vietnam War, and I do not think that some of them fully trust me, just to put it in personal terms. The divisions were so deep that I was totally convinced the people that supported that war effort were out of their minds and I think they thought those of us who were opposing it had lost our balance so they ran very deep, as you know, and it takes a long time for that to heal. We have not gotten over the scars yet of the Civil War entirely. 18:00 SM: Yeah, I want to thanks for bringing that up because when I took students to meet Senator Muskie, a couple years before he died at his office. It was arranged just like we did and Gaylord Nelson arranged it for us. We asked a question about the 1968 convention and the lack of trust in America at the time, and it was a pinpoint question. And I as a boomer wanted to reiterate to him that I still have a problem with trusting people in positions of power and authority based on that timeframe. And some of the students remember looking at me saying, what are you saying, Steve? But then Senator Muskie In response, was almost like a one minute silence. And then he had tears in his eyes. And then he said, he talked about Ken Burns' series about the Civil War and he said, we have not healed as a nation since the Civil War. Do not just do not talk about Vietnam. 18:52 GM: I think that is so. 18:53 SM: And the question I am asking, if so many people in that generation went to their graves still having bitterness toward their opponent, the north and the south, despite all the Civil War reunions that took place. Are the boomers going to be in the same trap of, you know, many people say what really does not affect my life but does consciously and subconsciously affect most people? That the divisions were never truly healed and they are all going to go to their graves, with a lack of healing? 19:19 GM: There will be some of that. I think that I guess what I am saying I do not think the healings complete. I think we have made a lot of movement in that direction. And you can now talk about this issue with less heat and passion and [inaudible] But no, I quite agree that people probably will go to their graves with some measure of hurt and injury from the Vietnam, especially the veterans. I do not think that a lot of them have healed at all. And I think that a lot of the verbal participants in the war, those of us that were out of the combat zone that were waging the arguments verbally here at home. I think those arguments left wounds too. I am sure they did. I am sure that Dean Rusk you know, went to his grave, with deep scars and Rich Bundy who died recently. 20:20 SM: Oh, he did? I did not know that. 20:22 GM: I think that people were scarred as committed hawks on the war. But I also think that the critics of the war still have problems dealing with that war situation. 20:40 SM: How do you feel about Robert McNamara who wrote the book In Retrospect that seemed as draw the ire are so many Vietnam veterans and it is like too late is one of the ones we always hear. What were your thoughts on McNamara then and that effort through that book was actually about healing, really. 20:57 GM: I thought at the time that he was one of the most [inaudible] wretched and wrongheaded people on the national scene. All during the war, I couldn't see any indication of doubt or openness on our policy there. It seemed to me that he was a total apologist for what we were doing there and had a kind of a gung ho, straight ahead, attitude about it. I am glad he wrote that book, and confessed, however late in the day that he was wrong during all of that period. We have not had books like that from some of the people who were just as wrong as he was including Henry Kissinger, others who will probably never concede that they were wrong. But I think that it was just woefully late in the day. It is better than he did it too late and not at all. It is terrible that it took so long and baffling to me how anyone, supposedly intelligent person could have been that blind to the historical forces that are opposing it. He says in that book, he did not know until I think he said 1988 and Ho Chi Min was more of a nationalist than a communist and that was brought out in the most elementary teach-ins way back in the early (19)60s and mid (19)60s. Day after day it was reiterated and reiterated unendingly on the Senate floor by Fulbright and Mansfield and Church, Cooper and McGovern and God knows how many other senators that were painstakingly spelling out all these things in the mid (19)60s. Then McNamara said he did not learn until the late 1980s. He said it was because the Joe McCarthy drove the Asia experts out of the State Department. Well what about the experts in the Congress and in the universities, and about Walter Lippmann and the other respected journalists who are spelling all these things out day after day, you do not have to depend on the experts in the State Department for common sense. 23:14 SM: I want to get back at that issue of trust, because it seems to be a problem. I have a problem with it still. And I am, as I approach my late forties and so forth, and I think a lot of boomers still have that problem of trust. And getting back to the ̶ we were the TV generation, the first generation really grew up in the (19)50s and (19)60s, looking at television, seeing the body counts and everything they were coming back. Could you comment on not only the way Lyndon Johnson dealt with the Tonkin Gulf resolution, which lots of people do not trust him on that particular issue because we have and then I am going to go right into the Americanization of the war with Richard Nixon? So we had two presidents back to back then we also had presidents who preceded them with John Kennedy, who we find out later may have been involved with the killing of Diem and so forth and given the okay, so, and then we actually really got involved even when Eisenhower was there. So we were seeing a succession of presidents from Eisenhower to Kennedy to Johnson, Nixon and then Ford getting us out of there. But your thoughts on the national leadership in the president's office during those five presidencies? 24:25 GM: Well, I think they all failed as beginning with Eisenhower on Vietnam, there was an awful lot of clandestine movement, beginning with the Eisenhower administration going through Kennedy on to Johnson and Nixon. All four of those presidents were mistaken on Vietnam, Johnson and Nixon more than the others and practically all the killing took place during the Johnson and Nixon years, but the seeds for our involvement there were sown in the Eisenhower and Kennedy period. I thought that the Gulf of Tonkin was just a flagrant piece of deception, in which the Congress of the United States was deceived, the American people, the press; everybody was deceived by this phony contention that our ships had been attacked in an unprovoked way on the high seas. It turned out later those ships for on missions themselves that are not entirely [inaudible] there is a grave doubt and lack of any kind of proof they ̶ where ever attacked. So that was a major deception in the war, but so was this whole Nixon policy for four years he kept talking about peace with honor while we were just obliterating Southeast Asia with the heaviest bombardment of the war. So that the whole Nixon policy on Vietnam is a deception. It is true that he disengaged most of the American forces during that period, but all the while accelerating the war in the air and from the sea and the artillery attacks and napalm to defoliate. And people knew about that eventually. So that produced enormous disillusionment, I think on the part of well-informed people. 26:29 SM: When you look at, you know, it is tough to define sixty million young people, but the boomers were between 60 and 65 million at that time. Maybe I am wrong in this, but I personally feel that the subconsciousness of all boomers, not just a 15 percent of people say we were involved in some sort of activism during that timeframe. But even the eighty-five who just went about with their daily activities in their lives, is somehow in some way, they were all affected by what happened when they were young. 27:02 GM: No, no doubt. 27:03 SM: Many may deny it. But I sense it. 27:06 GM: I agree with that. It is very hard to prove, because of the absence of active political participation. But I think that continues to this day. An awful lot of that 50 percent of the people who do not even bother to vote, are disillusioned with the political process, even though they have no investment in it. They have not bothered to register and go to the polls. But I talked to those people just as I talk to people who were not actively engaged in the (19)60s and (19)70s. And there is no question but they are influenced by the prevailing political culture the time in my opinion, I think it infects the whole society. You know if I can personalize this a little bit, I got I got a little less than 30 million votes in 1972, I would dare say that most of those people thought that I was an absolutely honest, straightforward, sincere person, which I think I was. They also, they also came to feel that Nixon was a crook. And really a disgrace to the presidency of the United States. So when they saw him win in of the biggest landslides in history, that was a massively disillusioning experience for the thirty million Americans that voted in worked and sweated the other way. I have had people tell me that we had a choice between good and evil in 1972, and it makes me feel a little self-conscious even to use that phrase again, because it sounds so self-righteous, but I think basically, that is true that you had a candidate who leveled with the public and who said what he thought and he was honest about public questions, defeated by one of the most deceptive and clever and unethical men ever occupy the White House. He not only won, he won overwhelmingly, and I believe that left a tremendous, malaise in the country on the part of the nearly 40 percent of the public or for me, and then those who were for Nixon, they shared the disillusionment after the Watergate thing began to unfold, they felt like fools, I assume they did, they should have if they did not. And so that; nobody's ever really measured the impact of that (19)72 experience. We know about the impact of the assassination of John Kennedy. We do not know about the trauma (19)72 and what that did to recovery. 29:55 SM: I am not aware of any studies being done by any scholars at the present time. I want to get into the area of civil rights too, because we talked about the Vietnam War and civil rights was another issue that were on the minds of a lot of the boomers. Freedom Summer in 1964. People remember that. But basically boomers were about sixteen at that time. They were just coming to the fruition but they saw these things. The Free Speech Movement at the Berkeley campus started in (19)63. Boomers are really coming to themselves in the late (19)60s. But in 1970, there was a split between those who were against the war in Vietnam and those who were involved in the civil rights movement and I noticed on college campuses, black students would no longer be seen Vietnam War protests. And the white students. There is a big split there. And of course, 30:45 GM: That was in the (19)70s, the mid (19)70s. 30:47 SM: Right. Well, I know in 1970 at Kent State, when the protests happened, African Americans were not to be seen anywhere. There was a direction on the campus I was at SUNY Binghamton at the time, but I went to Ohio State [inaudible] and I remember we were reading about it. 31:01 GM: Even Martin Luther King was grappling with that question. 31:04 SM: Right. Can you comment on the civil rights movement and the civil rights movement in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, with the rise of black power, certainly Doctor King dying in (19)68, there was a big struggle going on at that time. But still, there was a hope that we were working together to solve the problems of the nation, to solve the problems of the poor seemed like we all cared. What has happened between again another issue of those times in terms of division of America. Is it still the most important an important item on the part of many Americans and where the boomers? 31:07 GM: The civil rights issue? 31:12 SM: You had a civil rights issue that was on the minds of many boomers. How important is that and Boomer lives now? 31:52 GM: Yeah, I do not think it is all that important in boomer lives. I think that is one of the disappointments about the contemporary scene and American politics is that we still have not really seized the high ground of the civil rights movement to finish that effort. There does seem to me to be a kind of an indifference towards it on the part of whites, young and old across the country. It is lost some of its passion and enthusiasm. I suspect that part of that is a reaction to the fact that a great many whites, especially white males, are fearful that the civil rights emancipation has brought into the workforce a lot of people who have been shown favoritism, the affirmative action programs and they have seen a lot of the top jobs go to blacks, Spanish Americans, to women and others who have been assisted by affirmative action, and they were not always comfortable with that. They have also seen, you know, related thing, Michael Jordan, earning twenty-five million a year in the top slots in professional sports and television anchors and other high paying jobs go to blacks and so on. And I think that has created a kind of an unease in the country that maybe we have gone too far. And trying to deal with the concerns and the aspirations of blacks and a lot of other people are having some difficulty with recognition and advancement are cooling off somewhat in their passion for the civil rights movement. I do not know whether that is a major part of the explanation, but I think it is one part of it. 34:05 SM: Of course, the statistics will show that really there aren't that many positions being taken by African Americans. Carl Rowan writes in his latest book, The Coming Race War: A Wake Up Call. It is one of those misperceptions. It is a myth. 34:18 GM: I think is a misconception but it is a reality that perceptions do influence public attitudes. I hear these concerns expressed all the time. That is why I am bringing it up. 34:35 SM: Do you consider? Would you? One of the slogans of boomers used all the time was the ̶ we are the most unique generation in American history. We are different than any other generation that came before, or probably will come after. We are. We are the change agents of society. We are going to change the world for the better. Could you comment on that kind of mentality? Because I know I heard it when I was in college. We are very proud in many respects of the things we were involved in. We felt empowered. There was a concept of feeling that we could do things. A status quo was no longer something that we accepted. That IBM mentality of the same of everybody coming out of the house, kissing his wife wearing a hand getting into the same car. Not us. 35:21 GM: And four kids. 35:21 SM: Right? Not us. But then we were going to save me the changes for the world. And now here we are, in 1997. Boomers are most of them are in middle age. Your thoughts on that kind of mentality and were they the most unique generation our history? 35:39 GM: I am not sure that they were and I am not sure that the changes they were talking about were always that fundamental. When you consider the change that took place in American society, Depression, the New Deal and World War II. And I am speaking now about my generation. I think those changes were more fundamental and terms of American society than the changes the boomers had in mind after World War II. There was ̶ were more changes in lifestyle, ours were changes in the possibilities for justice, for opportunity, for equality, for collective action and dealing with international problems. I do not know that we have had anything from the boomers yet on the scale of the New Deal in terms of the impact it has had on American society. I used to listen to Gary Hart talk about change and I have listened to Bill Clinton talk about change and listened to Paul Zhan let us talk about change. These are all boomers who were very much into the rhetoric of change. But when you look at the changes, they were advocating, in most cases, they weren't that fundamental, they tended to be style changes in procedural changes. Watch Bill Clinton today, the changes he is proposing are really quite minor. And some of them are more symbolic more than substantive. So I think somehow that boomers may have exaggerated the extent of their commitment to genuine change. They were throwing off some of the restrictions and some of the inhibitions and some of the traditional ways of doing things but I am not sure to what extent they were really fundamentally altering American society with the exception of the women's movement, which I did not want to minimize that was very important. And I give a lot of credit to young people for bringing about that change. 38:19 SM: When the best history books are written about this era. What do you think the history books are going to say about the boomers? 38:26 GM: Well, they'll give them high marks for rejecting the Vietnam War. We will give them high marks for the women's movement to whatever extent they enlisted in the civil rights movement, they will get high marks. Beyond that, I do not think history will single them out for a really unique and powerful instrument for constructive reform and change. They may not come off as much as my generation did. To think the New Deal, Depression, World War II generation it was remarkable truly. Shaped by history. It was the said somewhere just recently that it takes great events to produce great people and we certainly had the challenges. The Depression and war and the leadership of Roosevelt in the New Deal was really great events with great leaders. 39:45 SM: Things I have been trying to do with most of these interviews is to list some of the names of the individuals who were from the era. And just give a couple quick words in terms of how you feel about these individuals. Because these individuals are identified with the boomer generation; the (19)60s many some of them have passed on, and others are still alive today. The first two would be Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. 40:10 GM: I do not think they were major figures. I always thought they were somewhat frivolous in their impact on American politics. They played absolutely no role at all in my campaign which was one of the more serious efforts in that period. I never took them very seriously and I still do not. 40:33 SM: How about Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden? 40:36 GM: More serious, more perceptive more important. More correct in terms of identifying with the real problems of the time. Both serious people. 40:51 SM: How about Benjamin Spock? 40:55 SM: Another thoughtful, perceptive emancipated man who did a lot to improve our understanding of children. That was his major contribution in terms of his contributions on the international scene, and American policy. I thought he was a serious, thoughtful man, but probably not very effective as a political spokesman. 41:26 SM: Ralph Nader, 41:27 GM: Very serious, constructive reformer, genuinely committed to improving the conditions of life for Americans. I always had a high regard for him, I think history will treat him very kindly. 41:45 SM: Two African American leaders of the time, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. 41:51 GM: Well, Malcolm X was an important figure he spoke to the angrier, more disillusioned, more troubled the members of the black community. I think he tended to frighten whites. I think that the ̶ did not from that standpoint, broaden the civil rights movement, he may have narrowed it and focused a bit more on the understandable anger of blacks. Dr. Martin Luther King was a leader who spoke not only for blacks, but he spoke to the whole conscience of the nation. He probably had a bigger impact on whites than we realized at the time. I think he was the central inspiration for the civil rights of the civil rights movement for both blacks and whites. 42:49 SM: John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. 42:53 GM: John Kennedy was a cool calculating politician who is not marked by personal passion for public issues as much by a desire to lead and to achieve power. And who had a sense of history, a knowledge of history. A more cautious, less passionate figure than Robert Kennedy. Perhaps the time that something to do with it. Robert Kennedy was more of a product of the late (19)60s and early (19)70s. John Kennedy really came out of the (19)50s and emerged in the (19)60s when he was elected that that year but he there was even there was a rather marked difference in the personal passion and commitment that they brought to public issues. I think the civil rights movement and the war on poverty and Vietnam, those three things all engage Robert Kennedy in a way that John Kennedy never experienced. 44:21 SM: Eugene McCarthy. 44:23 GM: McCarthy was an important figure in that he had the wit and imagination to seize on the antiwar leadership by coming up to the presidency in 1968. I thought that was his central contribution and that he was willing to challenge a sitting president in his own party in the primaries, and was willing to do that before anybody else. 44:52 SM: Lyndon Johnson 44:55 GM: Probably one of the most talented and able domestic political leaders we ever had. I think he was on the level with Franklin Roosevelt and others in terms of domestic politics. I think he was remarkably effective, and strong senate majority leader and he knew how to marshal political support for domestic political objectives. I thought he was lost in international affairs. I think Vietnam, almost destroyed the Johnson presidency. 45:36 SM: Get into Richard Nixon and his vice president Spiro Agnew. 45:41 GM: Well, Nixon was, was a tragedy. He was a pretty good president in terms of domestic issues. He had a pretty good knowledge of Foreign Affairs, but he demagogue’d the Cold War and its domestic side fights from the very beginning. He just simply showed no standard for decency and fair play, in the way he handled the anti-communist mood of the country and the way he exploited that for his own political ends. Which explains his whole difficulty later on his willingness to use politics without any ethical underpinning at all. Agnew is cut from pretty much the same cloth, not as clever as Nixon but equally lacking and moral guidance. 46:45 SM: Well, he certainly created a lot of enemies within the boomer generation. They are going on the college campuses. 46:52 GM: Agnew you mean. 46:52 SM: Yes, Agnew. 46:54 GM: Effective in the role he played. 46:57 SM: I hear Pat Buchanan wrote a lot of his speeches too I heard. 47:00 GM: Yes, I heard. 47:01 SM: George Wallace. 47:03 GM: Wallace got better with the passage of time he got religion on race relations and he really did have a concern about the poor the disadvantaged. He was a demagogue on race issues and the first years of his career, he was terrible on the Vietnam issue. But I will say for Wallace that he had a genuine popular streak, which some other races in the south had, that he used to advance the well-being of poor people, whites and blacks. And in the last years of his political career, he was pretty good even on race relations, 47:43 SM: How about the Berrigan brothers, the Catholic priests, 47:46 GM: They were two interesting and dynamic figures. I think they brought clean hands to everything they did. I rather admired them. 47:59 SM: The Black Power Advocates Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, that group. 48:05 GM: Well, I put them sort of in the Malcolm X category, they really angry young man of the black movement and I think they played a certain role in advancing civil rights and that they send a signal to the United States and to the American people of what was in store if they rejected the more moderate appeals of a person like Martin Luther King. 48:34 SM: Guess we get into also some of the women of the time, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug. Gloria Steinem, Shirley Chisholm. 48:43 GM: Betty Freidan was very important. She was a pioneer in the women's movement and very intelligent and a somewhat pragmatic one. Bella was more the political activist. More of a front for women's activities. Gloria Steinem is a unique figure I always admired Gloria in that she obviously brought high intelligence to everything she did. And I think she thoroughly understood the women's movement. I think she also understood some of the hazards of the movement, in terms of the political fallout. I found her quite pragmatic as I did Shirley MacLaine during the (19)72 campaign, in understanding that you had to move on women's issues with some measure of respect to the difficulties that we had to overcome that you couldn't accomplish everything in one sweep. If I had any criticism of Gloria, it would be that I think she did not always fully understand as well as one would have hoped the somewhat differing perspectives that housewives and young mothers had about women's issues. Gloria have seemed to speak more to the emancipated career woman 50:15 SM: How about Gerald Ford. 50:16 GM: I always thought Ford a congenial, decent, somewhat nonpartisan man who played a useful role in helping the country heal its wounds. An unfortunate person to have to come in at that time. I had rather pleasant feelings towards Ford then, as I do now. 50:47 SM: How about out Hubert Humphrey? 50:49 GM: Well, Hubert was a great enthusiast of liberalism. I greatly admired his total commitment on civil rights and the welfare of working people and farmers and small business, he understood those issues as well as anyone in American politics. Really a great champion of the American worker, the American farmer, as he was for minorities all over the country. He was in 1948. He was the bugle calls in the Democratic Party on civil rights. And I think he deserves very high marks. He was very good on international affairs with the exception of Vietnam. He overdid the Cold War. That came to unfortunate fruition in his support for Vietnam that was a great blemish on his career. 51:45 SM: You know, some people say that if he had gone against Johnson, he may have been he may have been elected. 51:52 GM: I think he might have even if he'd spent a little more. I think he might have made it. 51:58 SM: Okay. Okay, two more and that is Muhammad Ali. 52:02 GM: Well, Muhammad Ali was a very talented, brilliant, man. I am sorry, I am getting carried away in my mind is jumping back to Malcolm X. Muhammad Ali was not a political figure, in my judgment. I think he had no impact on American politics. But personally I found him one of the most lovable and endearing athletes that we have produced in this country. I think it is a tragedy what has happened to him physically. 52:34 SM: I guess the last one then would be how you look at the musicians of the year of and how the impact that they have had on boomers, the musicians like Bob Dylan, and then Joan Baez and Jimi Hendrix and music of that era seem to have a tremendous impact on Boomer lives because there was clear cut messages in the music. 52:53 GM: Yeah, I think on balance that was very positive. A guy like Bob Dylan and it says great songs. He wrote to were sung by Peter, Paul and Mary, I loved it. And I think Joan Baez, I love her music and the messages that she brought. They definitely had an impact on the anti-war movement and civil rights. 53:16 SM: Okay, are there any other comments you would like to say about the boomers themselves? How you have looked at them over the last twenty-five years when you were running for president, obviously, many of them, millions of them supported you. But you are just last question your overall analysis of the boomers over the past twenty-five years. The ones that work for your campaign and where they are today. 53:39 GM: The one things that pleases me is that most of the ones who were involved in my campaign stayed involved. I mean, it is not an accident that that effort produced two presidential contenders Gary Hart and Bill Clinton. It is not an accident that over 100 of them went to the congress. And that as many as twenty to twenty-five went to the United States Senate, dozens of governors and state legislators, city councilmen and all across this country. To me the most personally gratifying thing is that the McGovern boomers stayed involved in politics. Lot of them became disillusioned with the process but a lot of them stayed. 54:27 SM: When you look at the lasting legacy of boomers was still has to be written. It is ̶ we look at the voting. Boomers do not vote. Their kids do not vote. And that amazes me, especially when there was so much passion at that time. And of course, certainly boomers wanted to vote, they fought for the right to vote. 54:43 GM: I think. I think there is still a pretty good turnout among the boomers, I am more concerned about their children and the lethargy, they seem to break to voting. 54:55 SM: Senator McGovern, thank you very much. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 1 Microcassette Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. George McGovern Description An account of the resource <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;George McGovern (1922 - 2012) was a professor, author, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election. McGovern earned a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University and taught at Dakota Wesleyan University.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14275305}}">George McGovern (1922 - 2012) was a professor, author, U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 presidential election. McGovern earned a Ph.D. in History from Northwestern University and taught at Dakota Wesleyan University.</span> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922-2012 ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; Authors; Legislators—United States; Presidential candidates—United States; McGovern, George S. (George Stanley), 1922-2012--Interviews Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-08-13 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.86 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 55:06 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/1c6b0c177b1c96c5017350573c098e29.mp3 a623369613c0eeff11595cf1670dfb98 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. 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Title A name given to the resource Armenian Oral History Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <p>Aynur de Rouen, Ph.D.</p> Description An account of the resource <span>This collection includes interviews in English with informants of all ages and a variety of backgrounds from various parts of Armenia.&nbsp; 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. &nbsp;</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright.&nbsp; Relation A related resource <a href="https://www.binghamton.edu/libraries/about/collections/oral-histories/index.html#sustainablecommunities">Sustainable Communities Oral History Collection</a> Language A language of the resource English 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. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. George Rejebian Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 32:19 Date of Interview 5/2/2016 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Gregory Smaldone Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Rights Statement 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 <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;George first attended Triple City's College of Syracuse University (now Binghamton University) majoring in Biology. He then graduated from dental school at Georgetown University. After graduation, he served for six years as a dental officer in the Navy. George currently resides in Binghamton with his wife, Mary. Together, they have two children, Gary and Vivian.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}">Dr. Rejebian was born in Binghamton to Armenian parents. He first attended Triple City's College of Syracuse University (now Binghamton University) majoring in Biology. He then graduated from dental school at Georgetown University. After graduation, he served for six years as a dental officer in the Navy. George currently resides in Binghamton with his wife, Marion. Together, they have two children, Gary and Vivian.</span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Turkey; Endicott Johnson Shoe Factory; Ellis Island; gender roles; Armenian language school; church; genocide; Navy; identity; diaspora; assimilation&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15105,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Calibri&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:11}">Turkey; Endicott Johnson Shoe Factory; Ellis Island; gender roles; Armenian language school; church; genocide; Navy; identity; diaspora; assimilation</span> Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium <strong>Armenian Oral History Project</strong><br /><strong>Interview with:</strong> Dr. George Rejebian<br /><strong>Interviewed by:</strong> Gregory Smaldone<br /><strong>Transcriber:</strong> Cordelia Jannetty<br /><strong>Date of interview:</strong> 2 May 2016<br /><strong>Interview Setting:</strong> Binghamton, NY<br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />&nbsp;<br />(Start of Interview)<br />&nbsp;<br /><strong>0:01</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> This is Gregory Smaldone with the Binghamton University Special Collection’s Library on the Armenian Oral History Project. Can you please state your name for the record?<br />&nbsp;<br /><strong>0:10</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah, I am Dr. George Rejebian.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:13</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Where were you born sir?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:15</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Binghamton, New York.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:16</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> In what year?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:17</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> 1929.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:19</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> 1929. Okay, can you tell me the names of your parents?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:23</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah, my mother’s name was– you want the maiden name?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:27</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Please.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:28</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah, Dikranouhi Zapabourian. Maybe I better spell that–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:34</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Please.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:35</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Z-a-p-a-b-o-u-r-i-a-n.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:39</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Perfect.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:40</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> My father was Peter Arakil Rejebian.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:43</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, and were they born in America?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:46</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> No, my mother is from Sivas, Turkey, and my father is from Hadjin, Turkey.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:52</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, and when did they emigrate to America?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>0:55</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> My father emigrated here in 19 ̶, actually during the massacre time. It is 1916–1917–1918 during that period. He went to Cuba to marry my mother who was one of the orphans of the genocide that went from Sivas through Deir ez Zor and ended up in an orphanage in Beirut and then from there they went to–eventually went to Marcy and then to Cuba. And my father went to Cuba and married her, and brought her back and that was in 1927.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>1:43</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Now, was that an arranged marriage or did they know each other?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>1:45</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Arranged. I think 90 percent of them were at that time.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>1:48</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> That is what I am starting to realize the more I look into it. Okay, and I am assuming your parents both spoke Armenian?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>1:55</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yes, in fact I spoke Armenian, only Armenian until I went to kindergarten, until I was five.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:03</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, do you have any siblings?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:06</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> One sister.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:08</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Older or younger?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:09</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Younger.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:10</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> And was it the same for her she spoke Armenian growing up?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:12</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> No, no she was sort of mixed; Armenian-English but I was the oldest in the family and they spoke Armenian only in the household, you know.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:24</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Did your– either of your parents attend high school or college?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:29</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> You know, again not in this country certainly. But in Turkey, I do not know there is no record. I would say my father probably went as far as high school. My mother probably graduated high school but that was in Turkey.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:48</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, what was your father’s profession?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:52</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> My father was a shoemaker.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>2:58</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> At the Johnson City Factory?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>3:01</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> That is the reason many of the Armenians came here to this area because the EJ, you know Endicott Johnson Shoe Factory and actually he would go to– He would actually go to the docks, as the immigrants came in and the slogan was you know, “Come to the triple cities and I will give you a fair deal.” And many of the immigrants, not only the Armenian immigrants but many of the, this was a very ethnic community way back and many of the– so there was a large Polish population, Russian, Slovak, you know all of these people that came to during that part that was how they were attracted to this area by the ̶<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>3:49</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Tell me more about that. Was your father sent by the Endicott Johnson Company to attract new immigrants?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>3:57</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> No, no he came, he actually came through Ellis Island and actually his name is on, there is a wall of the immigrants and he actually came through Ellis Island and I do not think that he came primarily here for Endicott Johnson because there were people from his home town, from Hajin, who he knew where in Binghamton and of course they normally when were they know people.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>4:28</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> But you said that your father would tell immigrants coming in–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>4:30</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> No, not my father.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>4:32</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Not your father– the company<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>4:34</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> This was George F Johnson, the founder, he would go to the– to where the immigrants, to Ellis Island when they came in from Ellis Island and to get them to come to this area, he would say come to the triple cities you know I will give you a fair deal. And if you go, if you have been through like Johnson City, there is a big Arch there. And it says home of the square deal. That was where it came from.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:04</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Huh, so it is not FDR square deal it is George Johnson square deal–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:09</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah, yeah, that is right.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:10</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> That is interesting.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:11</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> That was where that originated.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:12</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay. Thank you. So, your father worked at the shoe factory. Did your mother work?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:20</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> No, my mother did not work. It was very rare for the women to work. They normally–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:26</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> It was expected that they would stay at home?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:27</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> They stayed at home. They cooked very extensively. You know, they spent a lot of time in the kitchen and laundry. Of course in those days, you know, there was not washing machines and so everything was labor-intense.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:44</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> It took a lot more time.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:45</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:46</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So, did you attend the public elementary school or–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:51</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> I attended the public elementary school, yeah.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:54</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Did you attend an Armenian language school, perhaps on the weekend?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>5:59</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Armenian language school was provided by the church, but you know in this area was not that extensive.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>6:10</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Would you say you got more of your education just from speaking Armenian at home?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>6:14</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Well, that was the only language that we spoke until we were, you know, five or six.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>6:20</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Growing up, would you say that there was a fairly large Armenian community that you were part of?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>6:26</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> There was actually in the– you will see that when you read that talk that I gave you. The area where the church is was so called the Armenian ghetto. It was 90 percent Armenians in that area. And that is why they wanted the church in that area. And so, yes, that area and then the first word which is you know Binghamton at all, Clinton Street, you know that area, that whole area was very heavily Armenian populated.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>7:03</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So, you grew up in an area that was concentrated with Armenians?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>7:07</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yes.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>7:08</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So would you say–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>7:10</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> They resembled, Thai neighbors, you know–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>7:14</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Did you have– how frequently did you attend the church? How frequently were there church services?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>7:18</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Well, when I was a young, originally they only could get a priest every three months. So, of course, whenever there was church we were, you know, our parents took us. I actually got my, a lot of my religious education in a Baptist Church because there was one close by and you know because we &nbsp;did not have regular services, it was not like now where they have two <em>Badaraks</em> a month, you know. And they have the priest’s wife as teaches Armenian and all that but we did not have those benefits. So, you know we attended church whenever there was church and eventually they got a priest every month and then they get you know.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>8:11</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> When did you– how old where you know when the church services started getting more regular?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>8:17</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Oh, I was probably a teenager.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>8:20</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So, it was fairly quickly into your childhood that the community started establishing the church?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>8:25</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Oh yeah. Well, the church was very active. It was still active even without a clergy man. I mean they had a Parish Council. That was sort of the glue that kept the Armenian community together, you know.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>8:39</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> What kinds of functions would the church community perform outside the church services?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>8:44</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Well, they had dinners, they had you <em>Hantes</em>, where they–the kids would dance and sing and so forth and so on, you know.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>8:58</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, did you–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>8:59</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Picnics.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>9:00</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Picnics, did you socialize heavily with non-Armenian children that you went to school with? Or would you say–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>9:09</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Not very much, I think my pretty much was concentrated with the Armenians in fact, I belonged to–the boy’s scout troop which I belonged to was 100 percent Armenian.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>9:20</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Wow!<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>9:20</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> [laughs].<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>9:21</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>9:22</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Our scout leader was not, but–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>9:26</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Other than speaking Armenian and of course, attending the church, what were some ways in which your parents tried to make your household an Armenian household?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>9:37</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Well, of course, they always talked about the– you know, you heard a lot about stories about the old country, the way they lived. They did not talk about the genocide that much but at times they would, I think later on, my mother spoke pretty extensively of the genocide you know, how her father was, actually was a teacher and he was one of the, you know they killed the intelligentsia first and so he was killed in front of her eyes, and they took her mother away and then her sisters and brother and her went on the death march, you know. And you heard these stories, so there was the culture of, there was no television but there was a weekly storytelling. You know, the family would all get together, we always ate dinner together at the table and of course there was a lot of discourse there but at least once a week the family would get together and you would hear stories, all the stories of– that your parents would tell about their parents and the relatives and so forth. And so ̶<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>11:05</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Did any of those stories stick with you?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>11:08</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Pardon?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>11:08</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Have any of those stories stuck with you?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>11:10</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Well, you know my father’s parents were in the horse– they used to raise horses and so they had to be multi-lingual in many languages because they sold to Arabs, to Turks and so forth and so on, and then my uncle, my father’s, my father had eight brothers and one sister, and only three of them made it to this country. The rest were killed but the oldest brother was actually sentenced to hang and the reason for that was Hajin was one of the small towns in the mountains, Hajin; Zeytun those towns actually gave a lot of resistance to the Turks. They gave them a pretty hard time. And when the Turks actually invaded the city, there were a lot of Turks living in the city. You know, that worked for the Armenians and they did not know if those Turks were going to turn against them or not, so they drew lots and they decided who was going to kill those Turks, before the Turks from the outside came in. Apparently my uncle was one of those that drew the lot and, of course, because of that he was sentenced to hang. And the night before he was sentenced to hang he was rescued by his friends and taken to Adana which is a port city and put on a ship and then you know got to the United States that way. So this kind of story you know, very interesting stories [laughs].<br />&nbsp;<br /><strong>13:16</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, so you grew up in the community, you watched–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>13:23</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> But the childhood was very Arminian-motivated although I had you know as I went through school, I had many non-Armenian friends.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>13:35</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So did you attend college after high school?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>13:37</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yes.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>13:38</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Where did you go?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>13:40</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Well this originally where you were here, well not in this location but it was originally Triple City’s College. They started a Triple City’s College and it was mainly to serve the residents of this area. They did not take too many from out of the area. And then it had some financial difficulties and Syracuse University took it over and became Triple City’s College of Syracuse University. And so you could attend here or you could take courses at, go up to Syracuse and take courses which some of us did you know like in the summers a biochemistry course or something you would take it to be a little bit a head next year.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>14:27</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> And you started Biology I am assuming?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>14:28</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> I was Biology major and Chemistry minor yeah. Okay, so then in– I am trying to think the year, in 1950, either (19)49 or (19)50 the state took it over. It became the state, part of the state university of New York system and so when we graduated, (19)51, that was the first BU [Binghamton University] degree that they gave. So we had the, they gave us the option they said that you could– senior year you could– in 1950 they said in senior year you could either go to Syracuse and do your senior year there and get a Syracuse degree which would mean of course a lot higher tuition, because the tuition here I think in those days and that money was like two hundred dollars a year ̶<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>15:23</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Oh my ̶<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>15:24</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Syracuse was maybe six hundred. So, most of us, you know, we did not have the money to go to Syracuse so we took our chances we stayed here in we got the BU degree.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>15:36</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>15:38</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> And from there, of course, I went to a dental school at Georgetown and again all of us who went to medical or dental school were accepted on probation if we could keep a B+ average our freshman year we could stay.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>15:57</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Why are you accepted on probation?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>16:00</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Because they– State University of New York, Binghamton University degree was an unknown. The admissions committee said look they have no track record, we do not know anything about you accept what the school is telling us, so we do not know if you going to stack up to the kids that are coming from Colgate, Harvard or wherever, you know. So, they took us on probation and I would say that, I would say 100 percent of us stayed. I mean, I do not think that any of us had difficulty because in those days the classes here were like eight or ten students. It was more of a seminar than a classroom. You got to know the professor, it was one on one, you were tutored, you know, you were helped and so that was why I went to Georgetown and then after Georgetown I went on to the Navy I served five, six years as a dental officer three of those aboard ship in the Mediterranean and then my wife and I were married in 1957.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>17:16</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Now tell me about your wife. Did she grow up in Binghamton as well?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>17:19</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> No, no my wife grew up in the Bronx.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>17:21</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, for the record your wife is Mary Rejebian, correct?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>17:25</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>17:26</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> What was her maiden name?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>17:29</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Ekizian–E-K-I-Z-I-A-N– she grew up in the Bronx, graduate, went to Hunter College.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>17:35</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> How did you meet her?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>17:37</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Well that is a very involved story. I was in Washington, my junior, my junior, and senior year at Georgetown. Our dean was a retired admiral in the navy. And we had a navy program that you could, it was a little more than a reserve program, you know, and the idea was if you were in this program the summers you usually worked it but that is in Quantico or one of those places you know because then you went on active duty those three months but ̶ &nbsp;so my wife’s brother was also stationed in Washington in the navy but it did not have anything to do with dental school but I met him at the church and so, we got to know each other very well and the church organist had a Christmas party and that was actually where I met him in the Christmas party. We got to be friends so he said one weekend he said let us go up and I will show you New York, you know, and so we went to New York and he wanted to go home and wash up and clean up and that was when I met her and met the little sister and so that was how I met her, it was a very roundabout way ̶<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>19:18</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Yeah, it is interesting story thank you for sharing. Now, Mary is Armenian correct?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>19:24</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Marianne is Armenian, yeah, both sides.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>19:28</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Was there pressure from your parents for you to marry an Armenian?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>19:31</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Never.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>19:32</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Never?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>19:33</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> In fact Marianne was probably the second Armenian girl that I ever dated. All through high– I mean in high school– and all through college, you have to understand that in the community like this the Armenian girls were more your sister. I mean you did not look at them in any other way. So, it was kind of hard to date an Armenian girl you know–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>20:02</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Because all the Armenian girls you knew–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>20:04</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah the Armenian girls were, you kind of you knew them through the church, you saw them every week at the picnics and so forth and so on, so there really was not any, any romantic attraction at all. It was strictly you know–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>20:18</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Would you say that was just the way you felt or was that typical?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>20:24</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> I do not think my, well, it was not my father, my mother, because her parents where pretty highly educated was more liberal than my father. My father I would say was more conservative, you know strict Armenian. He would tell me, you know, not only marry an Armenian but marry an Armenian whose parents came from his home town from Hajin, [laughs] I mean really–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>20:54</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So for him it was not even just about keeping the Armenian community stable it was about keeping–transplanting his own community back?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>21:02</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah, but there was never like an edict that said you have to marry an Armenian or–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>21:11</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Or else.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>21:12</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah. There was nothing like that. It just worked, it worked out that way. But you knew that if you did, that they would be happier. It would please them.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>21:22</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Yeah. Okay, so– when– after college and after serving in the Navy, you came back to Binghamton ̶<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>21:27</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> No, no. Yes. After–while I was in the navy, actually I was with the sixth fleet for the two years aboard ship and then went to, well actually, when I went into the Navy we were not married. I went in 1955. When I graduated from Georgetown and then we went to the Mediterranean, and we came back and on that trip is when we were married. I knew–I had met her when I was only a junior in dental school so we knew each other for three or four years. But we got married then in 1957 and then she followed the ship when we went over there and met me in all the ports. So we really the navy gave us like a six month honeymoon you know, but then we went to New London to the submarine base. And I was attached to the USS Gate which was a second atomic sub, and we had our– at that time– that was when I decided I wanted to get– to take a residency in orthodontics where ended up so, so while we were there, I applied to Columbia and was fortunate in getting accepted so that was when we left the Navy after we left the submarine base and then we went back the Bronx. [laughs]<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>23:02</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, so that you can attend Columbia–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>23:05</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> We lived around the corner from her mother and I attended Columbia it was a two-year program–two-year residency.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>23:09</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, after that, you moved back to Binghamton?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>23:13</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yeah, we, we looked at Connecticut and all kinds of places and eventually we moved back to Binghamton, yes.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>23:20</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>23:21</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> And we moved back in Binghamton in 1961.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>23:24</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So, 1961 you were back. How had the Armenian community changed since when you left for dental school?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>23:31</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Well, in 1961, I do not think it had changed that much. I think that it was still very coherent; the church was certainly more active. We had full-time priest for many many years. You know regular clergy and so forth. So I think it was probably as cohesive as when I was a kid, you know.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>23:58</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> But the church had become stronger as an institution?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:02</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:03</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So, did you and your wife have children?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:07</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yes, we have two children; a boy, Gary and Vivian the daughter.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:15</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay and how old–what years were they born?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:18</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Gary was born in 1959, and then Vivian was born in 1961.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:28</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, did you speak Armenian to them when they were growing up?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:33</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Well, sort a half and half [laughs]. They– now Gary learned Armenian because he spoke to my father a lot and to Marianne’s mother.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:45</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> What about Vivian?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:47</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Vivian understands Armenian but you know ̶<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:51</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Does not speak it ̶<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:52</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> I would not say that she is fluent in it.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:54</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Did you have them attend Armenian language school?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>24:57</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> No, no. We did not have it in this community. We really did not have and Armenian language school. Now, Gary when he went to Hamilton had a professor at Hamilton who– an Armenian professor–who gave him I think gave him at that time, there were not DVDs but there were tapes or whatever, but any way Gary learned a lot of Armenian while he was at Hamilton. This professor sort of tutored him. So, Gary is– can read and write Armenian and he is very– I mean and his children are very prolific, speak Armenian beautifully, they are both–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>25:43</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> He told me that they went– they attended the Armenian language school.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>25:45</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> They are both acolytes in the church and so forth.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>25:47</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Now, was it important to you when you first you had your children that they grow up speaking Armenian or that they learn to speak Armenian?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>25:58</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> No, I do not think so because we did not speak Armenian all the time at that point, you know?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:04</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> But you definitely wanted them to have an Armenian identity?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:07</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> I wanted to have an identity and to have an appreciation for their culture and their heritage.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:16</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So, obviously they attended the church services weekly.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:20</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> The church and both of them incidentally married Armenians, Gary and Vivian, but not through any–<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:29</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> –Pressure from you.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:30</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Pressure– Oh, no, not from us certainly. Because we were born in this country and we were very much American.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:37</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Did they attend Sunday school?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:40</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yes, oh, yes, in fact my wife was the youth group director of the church for like twenty years and do you know father Daniel Findikyan?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:54</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> I do not.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>26:56</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> He is a high surb you know and he is at the– he is at the– not at the Diocese but at the other, they have a center there. Well any way. He was one of the students. He was in my wife’s youth group. So he came from this Parish and I was Parish Council Chairman I think for ten years. You know very in– we were both very involved in the church we still are– my wife and I you know.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>27:31</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, so I guess we can move on a little bit too some more conceptual questions. First of all how would you identify yourself?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>27:43</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> As an American-Armenian, an American of Armenian heritage.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>27:48</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, what are your views on the Armenian diaspora both, firstly in the historical sense? Do you think is solely a product of the Armenian genocide and do you think that was supposed to be temporary state or do you think that emigration was part of the Armenian experience and that ̶<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>28:05</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Oh, no I think the genocide was very, very– I mean they had to leave, they had to go somewhere. And you know the Armenians have– there has been– there was immigration to China, to the orient– all over the world. It was not just the United States.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>28:32</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Do you think that there is a single Armenian diaspora of all Armenians living outside of main land Armenian?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>28:38</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Oh, no, very diversified. And only because I travelled a lot, I always made it a point to go to seek out the Armenian Church in the community in all the countries that I went to. And we went to all the countries in the Mediterranean from North Africa to Italy to Spain to France, in every one of them even in Italy and Milan there is an Armenian church there. And so–but they are very different, and then my mother had relatives in Cuba that we visited and they were very much into that, not in– yeah, and they were– I am sorry– she had relatives in Mexico, actually we honeymooned in Cuba, but they were very much into the Mexican culture you know.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>29:37</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So, assimilation was part of the experience?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>29:40</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Oh, yes.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>29:41</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> What– were there any consistencies, though, in the different communities?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>29:45</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Yes, there was always a love for the church, the food, the culture. You could always rely on that, I mean no matter where you met Armenians and because I spoke Armenian I had a big edge, you know I went to the Armenian Church in Marcy and in Paris in London, all the different churches and as soon as you spoke Armenian, you had a common bond. And although they were each– they were loyal to the country they were living in–there was a very, very strong bond to the church and the culture, I mean you did not feel like you were another country, yes.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>30:33</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Going back to the Binghamton-Armenian community, where do you see it going? Do you think it is stronger than it was when you were growing up?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>30:43</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Oh, definitely not, definitely not. It has become diluted you know; the grandchildren certainly do not have any of the– I mean I feel my grandchildren probably are very Armenian for their generation but not anywhere near what we were. You know? And of course the other thing is the mix-marriages.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>31:12</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> So, even though you did not want to put any pressure on your children to marry Armenians, the fact that people marrying non-Armenians tends to dilute the community?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>31:22</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Oh, sure, sure I mean it is the assimilation process.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>31:27</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> What do you think is the most important thing the community needs to do to maintain its Armenian identity?<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>31:33</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> I think the church is really the–the glue, really. In any community you always see, all the cities even in the United States like Baton Rouge has, you know, all cities like that you would never expect have very strong Armenian Churches. You know and where there is a church the people who have stayed to the church–close to the church have kept their identity. But the ones who haven’t have pretty much drifted off.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>32:14</strong><br /><strong>GS:</strong> Okay, well that is about all the questions I had, George thank you very much for your time.<br /><strong>&nbsp;</strong><br /><strong>32:17</strong><br /><strong>GR:</strong> Sure. I hope, I think you are–<br />&nbsp;<br />(End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. George Rejebian https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/34f6ab261be8488d88178b87440e9971.jpeg d5363dcaae99ebd65bedba6e84c102e1 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3ac3a5b073ede5e18dc8a2ca03556e33.MP3 9b30cb2067565be013039b5d01a5188a 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 2021-08-05 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Harriet Hyman Alonso Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:32:36 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Biographical Text Dr. Harriet Hyman Alonso has been Professor Emerita of History at the City College of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center since 2015. She has written extensively about peace history. Her books include the now-classic Peace as a Women’s Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World Peace and Women’s Rights and the award-winning, Growing Up Abolitionist: The Story of the Garrison Children. In the fall of 2012, Wesleyan University Press will publish her newest work, Something Sort of Grandish: Yip Harburg on Lyrics, Laughter, and Human Rights. She earned an M.A. in Women’s History from Sarah Lawrence College and a Ph.D. in History from Stony Brook University. Keywords Baby boom generation; 1960s; 1970s; Women's history; Women's Rights Movement; Abolition; Peace movement; Suffragettes; Peace Movement. Digital Format audio/mp4 Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Harriet Hyman Alonso Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Eden Lowinger Date of interview: 5 November 2021 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:05 All right. Can you hear me okay? HHA: 00:07 Yep. Can hear you fine. SM: 00:09 Yeah. Okay, the first question I just want to ask you is if you could tell us a little bit about yourself, through your growing up years, your high school and your college experiences before you became a professor and very gifted writer. HHA: 00:21 Okay, well, I was born on July 31 (19)45. And in a family that was, how can I put it, that they were kind of conservative, but not vocal, a very quiet Jewish family. Very working class, my father was and was very poor as a child, and my mother, a little less poor. They lived in Brooklyn. And they, my father was in the army for a very brief period at the end of World War Two, which made him eligible for the GI Bill. So, they purchased a home in Paramus, New Jersey when I was in the fourth grade, and at the time they had together $125 to their name when they moved in. So, I went to school largely in Paramus, which I never liked [laughs] to this day. And never quite fit in, and so I was eager to leave. But the one thing about that growing up period, I will say, is that I became really interested in the theater. And that is because my parents always were and my father, as a child had, well, I guess a teenager and young man had built himself, you know, one of those scooters with the wooden platform. And he would push himself from Brooklyn into Manhattan, and go to any show he could afford. So, I was, and he had this incredible memory of theater information, and movie information. His friends used to like to come by and ask him all these obscure questions that he could always answer. So, I was raised with this love of theater, and of musical theater in particular. And when I was in high school, Robert Ludlum, you might know his name from spy novels. SM: 02:31 Yes. HHA: 02:32 Yeah. But he was the producer of an Actors Equity Theatre in New Jersey, that was originally called the North Jersey Playhouse and then became the Playhouse on the Mall in Paramus. And he had a program for apprentices of kids from local high schools, and I applied and I was accepted. And for three summers, I worked in that theater. And during the year, I ushered in that theater, and became like, really connected in an, especially in an emotional way, as well as learning so much. And so, I originally thought I would go, I would study theater somewhere. My parents, and I have two older sisters, nobody ever went to college. And so, when I said I wanted to go to college, my parents immediately thought I would go to a state college and become a teacher. And I said, I would never ever in my life, become a teacher. It is kind of ironic when you think about it, and [crosstalk] SM: 03:46 Now you are a great teacher. [laughter] HHA: 03:50 I want to study the theater. And so, I actually, my high school had not designated me as somebody who would follow the college path. And I applied, they did not really like counsel me in it. So, I applied to one school. I applied to NYU. At that time, the theater program was in the School of Education. Am I telling you too much? SM: 04:20 Oh-no, no, this is fine. Because, you know, the books that you have written, people want to know who you are, where you came from. HHA: 04:29 [laughs] Okay, so I-I applied to NYU and my-my mother said, "If you receive" and she gave me a dollar amount, I forget what it was like about $500. "If you receive that in financial aid, somehow I will figure out how you should go to college" and I got exactly that amount. And so, I went to NYU to where the theater program was in the School of Education. This was before the School of the Arts was even created. And I went there. I soon discovered I did not have the backbone to be in the theater. So, I switched to an English major. And I graduated from NYU in (19)67 with a Bachelor's in English and Dramatic Arts in the School of Education. And from there I actually, I had been very interested in the Peace Corps. And I had applied and been accepted and been trained to teach ESL. And, but I never did go to the Peace Corps. Because I met the man I married, and that I am still married to [laughs] and ended up teaching ESL for about 15 years. And during those years, because this was (19)67 on into about (19)80, let us say, or, let us say, six- I taught ESL from (19)67 to (19)82, but I started to make a transition before that. I would say that the-the changes that happened in the late (19)60s for me, were the political changes. SM: 06:21 Right. HHA: 06:22 And some of that had to do with being in Greenwich Village. And living in a dorm there and being exposed. Some of it was meeting my husband, who was kind of a beatnik hippie at the time, [laughs] and just learning stuff. And I ended up after I graduated, getting a job teaching ESL at a, it was one of the first community-controlled schools in New York City, up in Harlem, on 121st Street, IS 201. And I taught ESL there for a year when I was, was kind of lost, and appealed to a professor at NYU who taught ESL, and then he actually came to the school and advised me on what I was doing, and then recruited me into a special program at NYU, where I trained at the American Language Institute and taught ESL. So anyway, I taught ESL for 15 years, but that really- oh, that is English as a Second Language for [inaudible]. SM: 07:40 Right-right. HHA: 07:43 Door during those years, I became very involved in the-the early women's movement, second wave women's movement, I became involved in the antiwar movement too, mostly about the draft issue, the anti-draft movement, because I had a son in (19)71. And, you know, became very aware of that. So, I went to a lot of marches against the Vietnam War, became involved in the Cuba movement, and worked with a magazine called Cuba Times Magazine and made some journalistic trips to Cuba. SM: 08:29 Wow. HHA: 08:30 And so, I became politicized at that time, which was very opposite of what I was raised, or how I was raised to be. Like I said, my parents were not active in any way. They were [inaudible] kind of more timid people. I do not I do not know if that was an effect of World War Two, of what they knew about the Holocaust or whatever, like, I know now, I did not learn till I was 18 that almost my entire family was wiped out in the Holocaust. They never mentioned that [laughs] which and so they it was so they were, I became the black sheep of the family in effect. And but I journeyed on my way, and kind of one thing led to another and in around (19)79, I guess, or (19)80, I-I was not happy teaching ESL. I really loved the students, I learned a lot. But something, it was kind of was not meshing and I needed to make a change. And also, one part I forgot is I got, I got very involved in doing embroidery, especially needlepoint. And I started creating my own political, what I call political posters, because I love that art form. And those pieces, which are still with me, have now been acquired by the New York State Museum up in Albany. And some of them have gone there, and some will go there eventually, but are with me, and I still do those. But that, doing that art form led me to women's history. And I somehow wanted to pull together the political stuff, and the professional stuff in some way. And one day I was looking, you know, how the New York Times used to have ads in it- SM: 11:01 Yes. HHA: 11:01 -or educational ads, I was just looking through the paper, and I saw this ad for an open house at Sarah Lawrence College for the MA in women's history. And I said, "Oh, that sounds really interesting." And I went up to the school, and had what I would call a conversion experience. It was like, a bolt of lightning hit me, I attended classes taught by Gerda Lerner, and a couple of other professors there. And I just, I do not know what I could say, I just knew that I wanted to do that, and borrowed all kinds of money [laughs] to do that. And in fact, when I applied, you know, and Gerda Lerner interviewed me, and she said, "I do not know why you want to start this, you already have a profession." And why do you want to come back to school and learn this. And, you know, I told her how I felt and she-she was just leaving Sarah Lawrence for Wisconsin. And she said, to the, to her cohorts there, be sure to admit this woman into this program. So, I never got the chance to study with her. But she always considered me one of her students. And so, I-I did that. I had, when I first started, I had great trepidation about it because it was involving a lot of money, it was involving a lot of time. I was also teaching part time, adjuncting in many-many schools at that time. And but I went into that program. And when I went in, I thought I was going to do embroidery history, until my advisor there said, you will never get a job in the future if you do the history of embroidery. Says it is just not going to happen. And I said, "Well, how about the peace movement? Because I am interested in that, too." And she said she because she had written something about it. said, "Yeah, I think you should go in that direction." And little did she know, actually, it would have probably been easier for me to get a job teaching, you know, cultural stuff– SM: 11:39 Right. HHA: 11:48 -than it ended up being a peace historian. [laughs] SM: 13:49 Well, I would say everything seems to fall in place here. You know, you answered my first three questions I was going to ask was, I was going to find out how the (19)60s and early (19)70s influenced you and helped shape you, especially being around your peers. So, around the same age, and when you look at the youth of the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Do you see any differences in the youth during that period? We are, we are trying at Binghamton here to concentrate on that era, (19)60 to (19)75. And, of course, the women's movement is crucial here. But do you see that any difference of the students of the early (19)60s to those of the later (19)60s? HHA: 14:36 Well, in terms of the early (19)60s, I mean, the students that I knew, you know, in high school and in, at NYU at first were not- I mean, I did not hang out with the kids who identified say with the culture of Greenwich Village, who you know, the early hippies or the beatniks I was not in that crowd, was not in any crowd. So, the folks I knew, like, in the dorms or first in the drama department were just students. You know, I mean, I had to work a lot while I was in college, to, to [inaudible] would hold, you know, two jobs, part time jobs at one time. And some of them were in the university. But I just met general students, and I had at that time in the School of Education, every course was two credits. So, if you wanted to carry the say, even 16 credits, you were taking 8 courses. And if I had three or four literature courses let us say one semester, I had to read a book in each of them. So, I was not hanging out with anybody. But I was experiencing the village culture, you know, in kind of a distant way up until probably my last year. So, I cannot, I mean, I did not, the students I knew in both high school and college, were not political people. And they did not have a lot of interest in it. When I was in high school so let us say around six, the year (19)62 and (19)63 maybe, I became really interested in like foreign exchange students, and in the Peace Corps and things like that. But most-most of the people that I knew, were interested in, well, I am going to, you know, graduate from high school, and then I am going to go to college, you know, and the whole thing about, you know, the reason a woman would go to college would be to get her Mrs. SM: 16:57 Yes. [laughter] HHA: 16:57 So, there was a lot of that, and, and I did not actually, you know, I just thought I would find my way into the theater so I was going to college. But and the same thing when I was in college, because I was in the dorms at NYU, very, when I, when I started at NYU, I was living with my parents' friends, way, way out in Brooklyn. And it was very scary traveling at night. Being a theater student, I often traveled at night, and I went to ask a dean, what was there some way they could help me, and she put me in the dorms at no cost. And in fact, by the time I finished, at NYU, I was actually getting $50 A month cash as spending money plus my room and board and my tuition. And all I had to do was at that time, was to have a C average. I had a higher average than that. But that was the requirement because they were at that point trying to pull in more working-class students. So that was their thing in the school of Ed, I guess. So, I was living in the dorms, but I could say that, and that would be from like (19)64 to (19)67, I met many young women and men. They were they I-I did not see any of them being political. And that was not where I got the influence from. SM: 18:53 Well, it is interesting that the Greenwich the influence in Greenwich Village has on people. I am actually reading a book, right, finishing a book right now on Eleanor Roosevelt. It talked about her going there in (19)20 and how it just changed her life. HHA: 19:09 Yeah. SM: 19:10 It was the people, the-the activists that she met there that were kind of ahead of their time. And when I interviewed Richie Havens in this project, he talked about how he would always go into Greenwich Village and sit in in the clubs and listen to mu- other musicians, and then he would play there as well. So, it is like it is, it is a- it is an area where a lot of activism comes from, because of I guess the influence. The one question here, this is important one I think you have you have talked a little bit about it. When did when did you first know as an individual that your voice mattered for the first time? Did you feel that you had real power, did you feel empowered? The one of the things about the (19)60s and the (19)70s for the women's movement and other movements, is that people felt it is not about gaining power. It is about being empowered. HHA: 20:06 Yeah. SM: 20:06 Tom Hayden was used to always when he would come to college campuses. I know Tom, Tom would talk about to students. "Do you have, do you, are you empowered?" And they say, "Oh, we have power, we have." "No, I said, do you have empowerment?" And they did not quite understand it. When did you feel like your voice mattered? HHA: 20:26 Well, it was not when I was an undergraduate. I never felt that as an undergraduate at NYU. Let us see. After that, this is a good question. Probably more into the early- this is really a good question. I am trying to think back on that. I started, when I started teaching ESL through the American Language Institute, and then at IS 201. So that would have been in (19)68. I started to feel like I could do something, maybe to help, you know, people in a way. But I would not say I felt great, great empowerment, but I think it might have started to develop then. And for example, I still have a letter that I got. When I was teaching ESL, I had small classes and I still remember this one student whose name was Carmen, who was, who was sent up to East Harlem to live with relatives. She was from Puerto Rico, and her English was very, very poor. And she was very miserable. And she was bullied. I mean, in today's terms, we would say, you know, she was bullied. Back then, we would just say she was having a hard time or something, you know, kids did not seem to like her. And I wrote her parents a letter, and told them that she was very unhappy, and that she really should go home. And they wrote me a letter back. And that is the letter I still have where they thanked me for that. And they brought her back home where she went to school, and she was, she was much happier. So maybe that was the first time ever. I felt like I had done something that had an impact or working with that small group of students at IS 201 Because I was hired by a committee of, I guess, the schools, administrators and parents from the community. That was the experimental, there were three schools: one in Harlem, one in Ocean Hill, Brownsville, and one in Chinatown. That were the community, they call them the community control schools. SM: 23:13 Right. HHA: 23:14 And that may have been, that experience may have been the first time I ever felt like, oh, you know, I can, I can do something. Because remember, I was not particularly encouraged to do that. I mean, my parents were very encouraging and supportive the years I worked at the Playhouse, you know, but I was an apprentice, so I was not an oh, I also became prop manager for a year, a 16-year-old prop manager who had to, you know, furnish the stage and everything. So that may have been a time when I felt some empowerment. SM: 23:53 Well, I one of the things, I sense empowerment all throughout your books. I think you are a very good writer and you are able to express especially in the Yip Harburg book, I am this is kind of a follow up to the-the other question. Your writing centers on people and groups that challenge things as they are, not what they challenge things as they are not what they really should be in a democracy. Could you explain this? Because when you look at your books, and then not just Harburg Yip book but your book on the abolitionists, the one I am reading right now, women for peace, some of the other books, personalities during war and peace. Why is war and peace so important in your life, peace and justice is so important in your life as it was in Yip's? And, and then explain this other thing, you know, how your writings center on these issues? To me that is empowerment. HHA: 24:56 Okay, [laughs] that is good to know. So then when I, when I was working on Cuba Times magazine that must have started to develop, because that was a, you know, a nonprofit enterprise, very nonprofit. And that, and it included writing these articles, you know, which was really great. There was a collective, we had about eight people of us putting out this magazine. And so, there might have been some there, but it was, you know, it was during that period, like from I guess (19)67 on where, where I started to become very aware of the politics, and started to go to demonstrations. And in (19)71, well, in (19)70, (19)69, (19)70, I spent the year in San Francisco, where my husband was doing a Master's degree. And, and I was teaching in, for in for a while in an at what they called an adult high school in San Francisco. And when I was there, there was a particular bookstore in Berkeley, that we used to go to that had half a shelf of books on the, quote, Women's Liberation Movement. And I started to read those books. I mean, really, there were so few of them. And I-I think that, you know, I had already been a little aware of the women's movement, but not part of it. And I became more aware from reading these books. Then, after the year was up, we moved back to New York, to Brooklyn, and I became involved in a local group in what is now the Park Slope neighborhood, which is a very prosperous neighborhood now- I could not live there now [laughs]. But I became involved in a group that was called Half of Brooklyn. And it was a women's, a local women's liberation group, a grassroots group that had consciousness raising group- smaller groups, and then also did community activism. For example, having it was not quite a demonstration, but standing outside Methodist hospital, and giving out leaflets in various languages to women who go into the clinic, informing them that they had a-a right to choose a doctor. If they did not like a doctor, if a doctor did not speak their language, and there was no translator available to them, they could request somebody else. So that that was the kind of political action we did, having, you know, not quite bake sales, but a place where there was used clothing and things that people could pick up. And so, I was I was involved with that group for-for some time. And then I, there was a family daycare center right there, across the street. And I convinced the so talking about empowerment, I convinced the director of that program, to institute classes in ESL and high school equivalency for the women who were taking care of the children. There were there was a there was a family daycare center where women were [inaudible], were paid to do daycare in their homes. But then, through my program, we arranged for them to come to the center. We had a professional taking care of the children for, you know, an hour or two, while the mothers were in the classroom, and we did ESL and GED classes there. So, I think I forgot your question. SM: 29:39 No, you-you pretty much answered it, because you are evolving as not only a person but an activist. HHA: 29:48 Yeah. SM: 29:49 You are evolving just like Yip. Yip was an activist in the theater. HHA: 29:53 Yeah. SM: 29:54 And it is, it is how people evolve and you evolved during this timeframe. Step by step by step and empowerment. Tom, I just want to let you know that when Tom came to a former university I worked at, he met with the leaders of the student government and, and he basically said, "Do you get do students feel like you have power?" And he says, "Yeah, we control the budgets, we make decisions on who gets money and who does not." And Tom– HHA: 30:20 Yeah. SM: 30:20 -Tom was shaking his head. "That is not power." HHA: 3 0:23 Yeah. SM: 30:25 And then he asked him, "Have you ever heard of the term empower?" And they said, "No." And then, and then he kind of gave examples, and they were like, they had never heard of such a thing. It is like it was out in space. So, it is, uh, you know, and then it is a long story here, but-but it is the whole concept of feeling empowered, which is what students of the (19)60s or activists that were trying to do something to change things for the better felt, they felt empowered. HHA: 30:55 Yeah, and I think the whole thing, like in Half of Brooklyn, and the thing that I liked about it, is that it was not just that I was feeling like I was doing something, but that we were also helping other women feel that. If a woman then walked into the clinic at Methodist Hospital, and-and expressed that she was not happy with the doctor, she had the way he treated- and what was mostly "he" at the time- treated her, or could not communicate with her, then we had empowered her to also change something that would help her. So, I think that was part of the appeal to me. And it was the same thing with the Cuba Times Magazine, is that, you know, we wrote a lot of articles, it was generally what we were doing was putting out the magazine, we were not really out there, you know, talking to anybody, but the articles could inform people, and maybe change them. So, the writing became, you know, part of that. SM: 32:00 And the youth and activists of the (19)60s and early (19)70s were vocal about their desire to change the world for the better. There are a lot that, we are going to create a utopia almost in some sense. Did they did they, did they really become the, do those things? This is something I am always, you know, there are only 7 percent of the boomer generation, or the activists of the (19)60s and (19)70s, that really were involved in any sort of activism. So, it was not a large number, but the large, this group of people did have a tremendous influence on what was happening. I feel they played a very important role in ending the Vietnam War, for sure. HHA: 32:43 Yeah. SM: 32:44 And– HHA: 32:44 But I think, but I think the movement that had the most, has had the most change, has been the women's movement. SM: 32:52 Could you explain it in detail? In your own words. HHA: 32:56 Well, you know, it is it. First of all, like it, it crosses everybody. I mean, if we are 51 percent of the population, I am not sure what percentage we are now, as women, it is, it is crossing all lines: class, race, ethnicity, all sorts of lines are being crossed. So, I will give you the basic example I always give when I say this, this movement has had the most profound effect. In (19)71, when I became a mother, if you walked your child, let us say on the weekend, in your, in the stroller in Prospect Park, and you saw a man with a child by himself, you would know almost 100 percent that that guy was separated or divorced. Now, okay, that was not always true, because my husband would take our kid out. But it was very much true. If you did that same thing today, you would see loads of men with kids. And you see single men with kids and gay couples with kids. And I think, you know, that is just the simplest, most basic change. Who, who is washing the dishes, who is cooking the dinner, who is taking care of the home, who has jobs, and is supporting families? On that very, very basic level, across almost all of our lives, things have changed. So, you could take the like, you could take a racist, hateful family, let us say somewhere in this country. And I bet in some ways you would have found the balance and the gender balance has shifted from the (19)70s to now in some way. So, I think that that is why I say that, that-that movement has had the most profound changes. I mean, we can talk about Roe v. Wade, or, you know how many women are working or voting or wages and all those battles that are still being fought, you know, but that there are so many more people involved in fighting them. But-but so, you know, the civil rights movement, you know, or even, I mean, the one that seems to have the least success is the antiwar movement. SM: 35:35 You raise a good point here, because in a lot of the literature on the (19)60s, in the (19)70s, it talks about the fact that men were basically in the antiwar movement, it was run by men. Now, there were there were women who handed out leaflets, but they were not in positions of power and responsibility, like the men, however, and within the, that is one of the reasons why the woman's movement or the second wave may have gotten more powerful and successful because of that, moving into another area where women were in charge. And it you know, if you really study the civil rights movement, you know, how women were very important in that movement, both– HHA: 36:17 Right. SM: 36:17 -African American women and white women. HHA: 36:20 Right. SM: 36:22 So, it is when you when you look at the women for peace in the (19)60s and (19)70s. And of course, you are talking about in the book, the History of Women for Peace, what were the goals and the strategies, accomplishments or failures of, of that movement? HHA: 36:44 I think, you know, when I look at the, the peace movement, like the whole picture of it, and I look, mostly, I looked at this country, pretty exclusively, and that had to do with the fact that I could not travel to archives in other countries, and I could not, and I do not, you know, I have some language ability, and I could have developed more. But, you know, those things were hindrances to me. I mean, when I was doing this research from the very beginning, I had full time jobs. I had family, had, you know, children, I mean, I know that many women handled all of that. But in my particular circumstances, I could not handle all of that. So, my research was, basically, of the US movement. So that is, that is what I talk about. And when I looked at that movement, and I talked about this in Peace as a Women's Issue in particular, that there were specific issues that were addressed. And they did not just, they were not all diplomatic history, like, it is almost like diplomatic history, and physical wars. I mean, they were priorities, but there was an underlying priorities that were very, very important. And the first one was the issue of violence against women. And I looked at that a lot, that it seemed that almost every group I looked at, and the one group that existed for the whole period, and still exists, is the Women's International League for peace and freedom of wills. They were always concerned about and always talked about that wherever there was the presence of a military, did not even have to be in war, that was bad news for women. There was always violence against women, whether it was physical, whether it was emotional, psychological, economic, whatever it was, where there is a military presence, and or a war, there this will affect the female population dramatically. And in the early years, they would not use the word rape, you know, or talk about that, but they were very, very specific about it. Then they there was the issue of women's equality and the right to vote, or the right to have equality in a government. Equal say, equal representation, that is also like a running theme through throughout the years of, of these organizations. So, the-the women's peace organizations have a specifically feminist agenda. As you know, opposed to the general peace movement, you know, or a very specific peace movement like, you know the difference between a, an antiwar organization and say, a peace or a pacifist organization. And there was even a difference there. But that an antiwar organization like during the Vietnam War is specifically to end that war, and the issues of that war, and then you see at, towards the end of it, or even before the end of it, the movement kind of dissolves. Right, and, you hear- yeah, and you hear stories of the leaders who just, you know, just go live their lives. And that is the end of it. Whereas a peace organization is involved in a more universal effort to try to have people live together, resolve issues without killing each other, and to improve human rights and the human condition. So, when I first started writing about the women's peace movement, I talked about in terms of women's rights, you know, the, the issues of anti-war and peace and women's rights. But by the time I got to the book on Yip, I had recognized I am not, they are not just talking about women's rights, they are talking about human rights. SM: 40:30 Yes. Yeah. HHA: 41:25 And so, in a way while I was writing these books, I will, I was educating myself. And I think the term came probably with the third one, which was the Garrison book "Growing Up Abolitionist," because at first, I mean, when I wrote the first book on the women's peace union, that was one organization. It was so fascinating. I mean, this was the first thing I ever wrote about history. You know, and remember I am coming from an English and theatre background. And even before I could even start studying the women's history, Gerda Lerner has said she used to come into the program, but she has got to take, I think it was 10 credits of history. And I did it at Brooklyn College. And she actually approved the instructors. I had to send to her what the courses where I wanted to take, and who was teaching them. And she said, "Yes, I will accept those people." And so, I did those 10 credits, and I went into the women's history program and that program, I just have to tell you, because at that time, it was the only one that existed in MA and women's history. And then they started to blossom during that time, the early (19)80s around. I mean, that just so changed the way I saw everything and, and I mean, I had hated studying history in high school and as an undergraduate, I hated every history course. So, like, when people who know me then found out I became a historian, they thought that was just like, the wildest thing they had ever heard. How did that happen? And because it because, you know, if you went to high school, when, you know, in the early (19)60s When I did, the history teachers all talked about men and war. They did not talk about anything else. And I and that is what when I first went to Sarah Lawrence and heard Gerda Lerner tuck in her class, it was like, Oh, my God, this is amazing. And I had been reading some stuff beforehand, and I had done my embroideries, which were very political. But I had never heard like, I had never sat in a class where this information was-was coming to me and I, the other person was Judy [Judith] Papachristou, who was teaching a wom- a US Women's History course. And I just said, I mean, my mouth must have fell open. SM: 44:18 You talk, theater. It comes up in the book on Yip-Yip Harburg and, and some of the things I have read about you as well, and that is that it was the theater that would address issues like human rights and peace. Yip, I am going to ask questions about Yip so people who are listening to this will know who he is. But Yip would talk about when he has had those issues in Hollywood, that he can always go back to the theater in New York, and in his own subtle ways, be able to get messages into his lyrics and in the plays he was involved in, because he cared about human rights. HHA: 45:01 But when I, and I used to go to theater a lot in high school. I used to take my bus from Paramus, New Jersey and you know, and my parents were very liberal in that sense, you know, I would stand at the stage door and get autographs and do all that stuff. Always matinees, by the way, because I was only a teenager and working in the theater, but I was not, I was not aware of the politics at that time. So, I could be singing lots Yip songs in my head. But I did not know what the message was. I mean, maybe it was subliminal, maybe I was getting the messages. But most of the stuff on Broadway was not that way, you know, not the musicals, and that was where I was heading. And but when I was working, when I was writing this book, you can see like each, each bookstore, it goes in a different direction. Like I start with the women's peace movement and the organizations. When I get to the Garrison's I am looking at a family and the individuals and how they grew up, and how did you make your child into a radical, how would you do that. And then I moved to it back to the theater, it is like, like, all these different parts of my life have in some way kept evolving around, like, they keep coming around. And like even now, like when I retired, which was in (20)15, that is when I went back to doing embroidery. And the political, it took me a while to get back into the political statements in the embroidery. But then I realized, oh, my God, I am coming around again. Like back to the starting point. So-so, when I went to Sarah Lawrence, I mean, it was a very, was a very demanding and very, in a way, structured and unstructured program. But the writing and the historical research, were very centered on how organizations worked. And I started to talk about, you know, issues like burnout or other things for the women involved. But it-it that did not, that turn did not happen till I got to the Garrisons because I was curious. I mean, every time I was writing about a peace organization, I was finding a Garrison. And I said, "Wait a minute, who are these people?" And I did not know hardly anything about William Lloyd Garrison, you know, and I knew mostly about Fannie Garrison Villard, his daughter. So that is what-what took me to the second stage of okay, away from organizations, I was getting tired of petitions, and writing about how many how do you lobby Congress, and how do you get people to sign petitions, and how do you organize in a group. So, I was kind of, like, I am a restless person, I guess. So, I was kind of tired of them. And I said, but I want to know what makes these people tick. And, and that is when I got into the Garrisons. At first, I thought, okay, I am going to just look into William Lloyd Garrison. And I found myself in the archives constantly looking at the personal papers of the communication between the parents and the children and the children and the children and their spouses. And I thought, Oh, this is, this is just fascinating. And, you know, I mean, my husband and I had raised, I have a son and a stepson, and we had raised them in a political environment. And I said, I wonder how those people did that, and did it work? And that is what you were referring to when you said about looking at the personal. SM: 49:26 Yes. HHA: 49:27 You know, and not only how did it connect with, you know, their religious beliefs or their political beliefs or whatever, but how did the family dynamics work? How-how do you make a child or create a child or influence a child to adopt your beliefs because apparently, I had, my parents had not been so successful [laughs] with me. But they had, in some ways they had, but in general they had not. So how did that work? And then I really got fascinated with people. And the Robert Sherwood project came up and that was because of the theater, you know, and I said, "oh, I just love the theater." And I was looking through, like a listing of NEH summer seminars. I said "Would not it be nice if-if I could go to a seminar, I would be earning some money in the summer, and I would learn something new." And so, I applied to one, and that was given at Columbia University in American playwrights from what year did he start it like, (19)20 up or some, somewhere around there. And the professor who headed it, Howard Stein was-was very, very famous in the theater world as, as a professor, I did not know that. But he was also an old lefty. And when I went in, and we had to have a project, he said to me, I think you should look at Robert Sherwood. I think you would like him. And that is, that is how I got into it. And I was interested again, how did this man become? who he was, you know, working in the theater, writing plays, writing films, he was also around the same- he and Yip were born within a few days apart from each other. You know, how did they develop into who they were. And Yip, I had, I had always liked him. I had earlier thought about writing about him. But I could not get permission from his son, who gave me a blanket "no." And then, when Wesleyan University Press asked me to do this book, I told them, it would depend, depend on if I could win over Ernie Harburg and I, I had lunch with him one day, and, and was successful with certain provisions like he had to read everything as I was writing it. Though he did not, really, he made very few comments about it. But he, you know, was like something I had to agree to-to, to do it. SM: 52:36 Before we get into talking about Yip in more detail here, I would like just your thoughts on briefly the women that you were thought were the major figures of the (19)60s and the (19)70s. I just I just out of curiosity, I wrote down 10 names and they do not have to be your 10 names. But these are the, Betty Friedan, Pat Schroeder, Susan Brownmiller, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Hanisch, Phyllis Schlafly, Angela Davis, Kathleen Cleaver, Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda. I just, these are names that just come up. These are like (19)60s, people (19)60s, early (19)70s. They do not have to be your names. But who do you feel were the most important women leaders, feminists of the period, (19)60 to (19)75? HHA: 53:34 Well, I was sure I agree with Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis, I thought she was really fantastic. And I still remember when she was arrested at the Women's House, she was in the Women's House of Detention in Greenwich Village for when it was standing there for a little bit. And I remember going down there and we would all wave to her, you know, from the sidewalk or wave to somebody we thought was her. Definitely her. Friedan was important. I definitely, you know, not my cup of tea, but she-she was important. Shirley Chisholm was, you know, being a New Yorker. Well, I would have would have included some more of the civil rights women. You know Fannie Lou Hamer's name was always presented, you know, like somebody that we could really admire. Since I was interested in what was happening between the US and Cuba, there were some Cuban women whose names would come up or this is where, you know, I told you that in my email to you, I tell you, I had a stroke about two years ago, well it is exactly two years ago. And the one thing that it affected mostly is parts of my memory. And so sometimes I have trouble bringing up names, SM: 55:19 Bella [crosstalk] Another one was Bella Abzug was on that list too. So. HHA: 55:25 Yeah, and these are, you know, very local, like, for me, there was a local thing about some of the women. But your list is, you know, I mean, Phyllis Schlafly, I would not want to see her on that list [laughs]. SM: 55:45 Yeah, well she was- HHA: 55:45 And I know what you are saying. Because but it was such a negative influence. SM: 55:50 Right. HHA: 55:51 You know, like, who wants to remember her or give her any sort of accolades? SM: 55:58 Before-before we talk about Yip. See here. I have lost my train of thought here. My golly, I did. I actually I really want to get into Yip. Because I just think this book that you have written is-is should be read by everybody. Anybody that cares about the (19)60s in the (19)70s, the boomer generation, may probably have not heard about Yip. And Yip, Yip to me, it really is a figure, especially when, when he was being interviewed, or young TV shows in the (19)70s. I mean, he is really a (19)60s guy even though he was in his (19)80s I, and I just, I am amazed at it. And I just like if you could say in your own words, who is Yip Harburg? HHA: 56:51 Okay, so first, what I just want to explain to you is that when I was asked to do the book, they explained to me that this was for a series on music and interviews. And they had some people who are just printing out interviews of people. And I said, "Well, how would you feel about if I try, if I use the interviews to have Yip tell his own story in a way, it is like, an autobiographical biography, you know, kind of a mix of that." And they said that was okay. So, you know, Yip well, almost everybody knows either "Brother, Can you Spare a Dime," but certainly "Over the Rainbow." Like, they are, I do not think there is a person, maybe in this world, but definitely not in this country who does not know the Wizard of Oz, the movie version, the musical movie version. And so there, there, he is a presence, who, like you say, is not a presence. Like people do know who he is. But they do not recognize his name. He does not have name recognition. And even sometimes, if I am listening to a radio program or something that is playing music, and they will play something and they will say, Okay, this was written by Harold Arlen, and I say, wait a minute, wait a minute. You are forgetting Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics. You know, and, and they will just, I do not know why, but kind of slide over him. To me, he-he was this extremely human, courageous writer. He had this tremendous joy in life, even though he came from a very poor background, who believed in social justice, in peace and human rights and somehow figured out how to get these messages across to people in an extremely entertaining way. You know, I mean, people hear his songs and sing his songs over and over and over again. But do not connect necessarily the songs with the man. Did that answer the question? Yeah. SM: 59:34 Yep, yes, it did. I, there is two quotes that I want to put in this interview that you wrote in your book and these are Yip, Harburg quotes. Let me get my glasses here. And I just want people, and you can comment on him as well: "I feel there is no such thing as right or left. There is forward and backward. Now in the evolution of man, he has to go forward, which means he has to make change, or else he would stay where he was when he was a Neanderthal. But every change involves a trauma. And we all take [inaudible] change, and we are all afraid to follow who wants a little more change." And then another little quote on him is, "The activist always wants to change, he feels there is something better, but you have got to do it politically too. If the system does not work and if there is bigotry, if there is racism, if there is injustice, if there is one guy with all the wealth in the world, and another guy, starving, and nobody does anything for this guy, you got to want to say, I want change. That is why I want to take care of the Lyric, get something better." I mean, those are, I mean, that is, that is a mentality of and when you think of the (19)60s and (19)70s, about doing changing the world for the better. And of course, this is wave of you know, he was thinking these thoughts many, many years earlier. It is just like, human rights. This is about human rights, justice, equality. And this, this is a man who really is for all time, not just, you know, the (19)60s. Right. Yeah. And with and, and definitely, I mean, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" was iconic at its time in it is time. So, it was not like he wrote this song, and then nobody listened to it. And then, you know, 30 years later, they discovered it. This was a song that people identified with at the time that he wrote it. And, and he just kept going. [buzzing] Yeah, but one of the things here, I brought up earlier about the theater. Yip always believed that the theater was the place where people had guts to speak up and say things. And, and you see it throughout, you know, and he did things in subtle ways. So that he, you know, he was such a gifted lyricist, that they would still hire him even though, you know, during the McCarthy era. And another time, people were always looking when he was having to say, because it corrects me if I am wrong, you know, the theater is about entertainment, but was with Yip, theater is about entertainment, plus, there is got to be a message. HHA: 1:02:23 Yeah. And when and when Hollywood turned his back on him, that was where he could go, he could go back to the theater, you know, and, and use and be productive there generally. I mean, I, it is interesting, because, you know, Finian's Rainbow is in some ways a problematic show to be done today. And because, you know, you, you, have you seen Finian's Rainbow? SM: 1:02:56 Yes, I have. HHA: 1:02:57 Okay, so you know the part where the racist white Senator, is changed through from by a wish into a Black person to so that he can, and then he can experience racism. But the question became, how do you do that then, on the stage now. Like, I saw a production at the Irish Rep in New York, that used like a paper mask. So-so when the character was when the senator was, his race was changed, the actor, held up like a paper mask. I saw it done on Broadway, where they changed the actor. A white actor played the white senator, a Black actor played the Black senator. But it presents a lot of problems for the show. I do not know if it, I do not know if it could be done today. You know, if we will ever see it done again. Though, I thought that that the last way that it was done was the most effective and most honest way. SM: 1:04:16 I would like your thoughts. Obviously, you are a lover of theater and when you went to the theater in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, and there were certain plays that were really apropos to that particular time, obviously Hair. Hair and then we had Jesus Christ Superstar. These were monumental plays that were on Broadway and all over the country. What, how would Yip, how would Yip respond to the play Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, which are two of the big ones from that period, would they meet his criteria of the way plays should be and what are your thoughts? Were there, were there a lot more plays than I am even listing here that were involved with having a (19)60s mentality, but also with messages? HHA: 1:05:10 Well, there is all there is always some and I was just, there is a new magazine out. I do not know if you have seen it-it is called Encore. SM: 1:05:17 Yes, I have. HHA: 1:05:19 Yeah. And this new issue that came out has an article about the, from the Asian American community. And they mentioned a musical called Allegiance. Have you have a, do you know what, that musical? SM: 1:05:35 No, I do not. HHA: 1:05:36 Well, George Takei who was the actor who was in Star Trek. SM: 1:05:43 Yep. HHA: 1:05:44 Okay, so he this, this musical, which he was involved with, and-and was in was based on some of his experience as a child in a Japanese internment camp in the West, and a very effective musical, was really quite good. And it opened on Broadway, it did not have a long run. And the day that I went did not have a full house. You know, so they are still I mean, now everybody is wondering how the pandemic and the politics of the Black Lives Matter movement is going to change the way theater is. Now that it is coming back. From the list of shows that are reopening on Broadway, they are all almost all the shows that were there before. And I do not know if there have been casting changes or how you know, what is happening. But that does not reflect a huge change. However, I did read about a musical that had opened in California, that is supposed to come to Broadway, though I did not see it on the list anymore called, I think it is called Paradise Square, which is about the Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan during the draft riots of the Civil War. And the, it looks to be a very interracial cast. And the message would be very up to date, you could say. So, there is always that strain going through the theater. But those shows do not always last long. Because and some of that has to do, if we are only talking about Broadway, that has to do with the whole tourist, the use of Broadway as a tourist attraction, rather than as a theater hub, so to speak, you know, which does not stop me from going by the way. [crosstalk] But, you know, I find myself being more selective. But-but with Hair what-what Yep said, and I have some quotes from him in the book is that he could not tolerate the-the use of rock music and musical. SM: 1:08:02 Okay. HHA: 1:08:03 To him, almost like it hurt his ears. You know, that it was too loud that it will you could not understand the lyrics. And I find that sometimes, too, you know, so he likes [inaudible], he likes Fiddler on the Roof, but he was having trouble with the rock musical. So, I think with some of the musicals that have been done that are very loud and very modern, he would have trouble with, but it is more like a stylistic trouble problem than a message problem. But he would have preferred a different type of music for the message. So, we could say he was getting old. [laughs] You know, and that, you know, I have that same problem. SM: 1:08:57 Right. HHA: 1:08:57 Sometimes, if I go to the theater, and I used to love rock musicals, but now-now when I go, I find it hard on my ears or I cannot catch the lyrics. And that is, you know, it becomes entwined with the message. SM: 1:09:15 Well, I know that, that Yip liked musicals and he not-not always just straight acting with, but did he ever link up with Arthur Miller? Because as-as a whole concept of Willy Loman, I mean that, was there ever any collaboration between him are just talking? Did he like Miller's plays? HHA: 1:09:38 I do not remember that. And I am I cannot answer that. SM: 1:09:44 Yeah because Miller had a lot of messages in his plays as well. HHA: 1:09:48 Yeah. I mean, I am sure that he went to a lot of play- I should not say I am sure, how do I know. But I would assume he went to a lot of plays and that he would have enjoyed those, you know, appreciated those. The person that I knew, you know, better in terms of research, Robert Sherwood in terms of regular plays, he who also wrote political plays, did go to everything musical and dramatic plays and did have an appreciation and want to foster those. So, there were people out there, you know, who did. SM: 1:10:34 It, the thing is, with Yip, and I want to include this because this kind of links up to the-the (19)60s and the (19)70s, that in the (19)60s and (19)70s. In the latter part of your book, you talk about his involvement with things like the 10th annual recognition of Brown versus Board of Education. He was involved in a tribute to Benjamin Spock, linked to saying, he was involved in the anti-war movement. He loved going on college campuses and talking about a lot of these things. And, and then there is another quote here that you have in your book, "You, younger people, I hope, will have learned from the struggles, that if the goal was good, nothing will divide you." HHA: 1:11:20 Yeah. SM: 1:11:20 And he would, and so he was, so he was he was linking up with the generation in his commentaries. I-I, he was a man before his time. I mean, I, you again, I cannot just say it, I think you have done a tremendous job with this book. HHA: 1:11:37 [laughter] Thank you. I mean, I would, I would think that he would definitely be supportive of the Black Lives Matter movement, you know, or any of the movements right now to try to bring diversity to the theater. I mean, he was one of the first, who, who brought diversity to the theater, I mean, in the casting of Finian's Rainbow, and other thing of wanting to have the chorus be interracial. And the message is to embrace civil rights and human rights. So, you know, I, I would think that he would have always been that way. SM: 1:12:11 One of the questions that I have never asked, just this is the first time of asking this particular question, because I want to see a comparison here, when you compare what happened on the streets of America in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, particularly in (19)68, and compare it to what is happening in the streets of America in these last few years, (20)20, (20)20, (2021, even earlier? How do they compare, and how do they differ? And let me let me preface this by saying, I personally, and this is not about me, it is about you and your thoughts. But I feel they are not the same like many people do. They say it is a revival of the (19)60s. And I think [inaudible] to me, there is just, I am not sure if people feel empowered, and they do not ever use the term encounter, which was so important in the (19)60s. HHA: 1:13:03 Well, I think that now, first of all, they are much more diverse. I mean, the demonstrations have all sorts of people, all sorts of ages and races. So, in that way, I think there-there is a difference. In the in the (19)60s, many of the demonstrations in terms of the Vietnam War were white. And there were pock- you know, like, everybody kind of moved in a pocket of you know, you had a banner that said what your organization was. And the people marched, you usually marched with an organization and the same thing with the women's marches. So that if there was a Black presence or say, a Puerto Rican presence, it would be with that flag or that sign. I think with the demonstrations now, it is more of a mixture of people together. I mean, they may be holding banners, but they are not necessarily for specific organizations, and you march with that group. So, I think that there is a big difference there in that I think there were still in the, and in the, in the demonstrations let us see, in the (19)70s and the late (19)60s, I went to anti-war demonstrations, women's demonstrations, and there were a few Cuba demonstrations. They, in the women's demonstrations you would see like children, you know, in strollers or with their parents and you see children in these demonstrations today, though, I think at night if there is a threat of violence there is always fewer. You know, parents do not want to bring their kids to that. But I think that, I mean, I have been really like heartened by the demonstrations now, because they have been large. And they have had a lot of different kinds of people. And they have had human rights. Even though even if it is Black Lives Matter, it has got a broader perspective than that, as did the ones in the (19)60s as well, there would, but it was usually through organizations. So, say WILF had a contingent in an anti-war demonstration, they might be carrying banners about women's rights in there, but it would be in, in that group, you know, what I am saying? SM: 1:16:00 [agreement] HHA: 1:16:02 So, I think there is no difference what is, what is, all may be. I do not know, like, um, you know, the demonstrations I went to were in New York City, I should say that, so that I cannot talk about demonstrations all over the world. But the people on the sidelines, I mean, the people who have been violent, today are more violent than the people who were violent against the demonstrators in the (19)60s and (19)70s. I mean, I remember being in demonstrations, where, you know, people would yell things at you from the sidelines. But in most of those demonstrations, they did not cross the barriers. SM: 1:16:57 Right. HHA: 1:16:58 To attack you. However, I remember, there were demonstrations, particularly if they had to do with the blockade against Cuba, where the police would be there with the horses in that case, to protect the demonstrators, there was a little difference, because there were the anti-Castro Cubans on the sidelines- SM: 1:17:24 Right. HHA: 1:17:25 -threatening violence. In the women's demonstrations, and the anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, there were a lot of people shouting and yelling, and there were horses, but in that case, in those cases, I remember the demonstrators being more nervous about the horses. SM: 1:17:45 Right. HHA: 1:17:47 You know, and whenever you went to a demonstration, and the NYPD had the horses out, there was always like, just a little sense of, "be careful." SM: 1:17:58 I would like your thought, you know, kind of a push for a Yip again. Why do you, why do you think it would be important for people to understand the importance of Yip Harburg with respect to what took place in the (19)60s in the (19)70s? When you look at this, you study the history of that period, how can you place Yip, in there as well, even though he might have been an 80-year-old at the at the time, but just about his life's work, just for future generations, to show that, you know, he is linked to this era? HHA: 1:18:37 Well, I think, you know, that is exactly what you are saying is like he, I always I like to look at things as a continuum, that these movements and these people, it travels through time, you know, in the best sense of it. Like we were saying, you know, an anti-war movement can stop, but a peace movement keeps going. A women's movement keeps going, a human rights movement keeps going. And with that, it is nice if people understood that they did not create this, I mean it always, it really bothers me when people say, "Well, we created this movement, and we create, we are the first to demonstrate about this and we are the first to speak out for human rights." I say, "You know, come on, you know, put your ego aside- -and look a little bit in the past and you will see there is a continuum in the in this country even before the anti-slavery movement." But for me, it was that that mixed race, Civil Rights movement called the abolitionist movement or the Underground Railroad activity, that showed that people work together for these common goals. And they kept going, whether it was through generations of families which I tried to do in the Garrisons whether it was through creative work like Robert Sherwood and Yip Harburg, whether it was through organizations like WILF or that they, you have a history do you have people who shared your ideas before you were even born. And these people's ideas you can use, and their experiences you can use to move forward. SM: 1:19:26 Right. It is like- HHA: 1:20:32 You can build on them and grow on them. And you can sing, you know, you can look back at popular culture, you can cry with Robert Sherwood and you can sing with Yip Harburg and laugh with him and, and bring the-the movements forward. SM: 1:20:51 It, that was beautifully said. The first time I went to Seneca Falls, I went with my dad, and we visited Elizabeth Cady Stanton's home. And, and when you go in there-there is not a lot of furniture, but there is a sofa. And I can remember the person showing us the house said, "On that sofa at one time, this is the original sofa. Elizabeth Cady Stanton was on the left, Susan B. Anthony, was on the right and Frederick Douglass was in the middle," the connection between civil rights and women's rights, I mean, all the way back to eight- now that-that was she started in (18)48. But this is later on when Frederick Douglass was older. This is history. It is a continuum, just like you just check you mentioned. I am going to conclude here with just a couple thoughts, your just your thoughts on these things. How did the JFK assassination affect you personally, and how did you think affected the nation? And the second one is how did the killings at Kent State do the same? HHA: 1:21:56 I was in my first year of college when JFK was assassinated. And you know, it was, it was devastating. You know, I mean, it was, for me at that time he was like, you know, a young hero and the creator of the Peace Corps. Later, I kind of became, you know, questions more about his legacy, his politics and everything else. But it was, it was frightening at that period. Now I was only like 18 years old or something, so it was very personal, in a way. And my, one of my sisters was getting married the next day. And I remember thinking, Oh, this is really terrible, she should not, you know, why should she get married? JFK was just assassinated. You know, because it was that personal. And I was very young. I might see that differently, you know, today. And in terms of Kent State, it was, it shook, you know, it was like a, it shook me. What is going on in this country? Why are innocent people being killed? You know, and those questions still bother me. You know, what is going on in this country? I mean, ugly, hateful things are going on here. And, you know, what sometimes gets you down. You know, as you try to cope with it, SM: 1:23:43 You know, that whole year (19)68 was a downer. HHA: 1:23:47 Oh yeah. SM: 1:23:47 Because, you know, we lost Dr. King– HHA: 1:23:49 Yeah. SM: 1:23:49 -We lost a Bobby Kennedy. We lost– HHA: 1:23:53 Yep. SM: 1:23:53 -A few other people as well. And then of course, what happened in Chicago, we will never forget. HHA: 1:23:59 Yeah, I mean, my husband and I met on April 4 (19)67. And we were celebrating the first year of knowing each other on April 4, (19)68. And we had gone to a little club in the village where we heard BB King and Janis Joplin. SM: 1:24:20 Oh, wow. HHA: 1:24:21 And we came out and heard, you know, about Martin Luther King. SM: 1:24:29 Yeah that was– HHA: 1:24:31 So, it was like, you know, and then it just it was like, boom, boom, boom, one after another. You know, it is very, yeah, it was, [crosstalk] I do not know, a scary time to yet when you look back at all of these things, and then you look at today, you say, those were scary times. What about today? SM: 1:24:52 Oh, yeah, I, it is pretty scary today. HHA: 1:24:55 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. SM: 1:24:57 When you when-when you, when did the (19)60s begin in your point of view, and when did it end? HHA: 1:25:06 For-for me personally, it probably started around (19)67. Though, as a historian, of course, I know it started way before that. Well, I do not know. For me, it may actually have started before that. When I was in high school, I first became aware of Vietnam through a foreign exchange student. So, I was hearing the other side of the story, so to speak. Would have been around (19)62. So, maybe my first encounter with it might have been around (19)62. But then, you know, I lived in this New Jersey not knowing anything bubble. So, it would have been more like (19)67 For me, and you are saying, when did it end? SM: 1:25:54 Yes. HHA: 1:25:55 Oh, they have never ended. [laughter] SM: 1:25:58 Yeah, I remember, George saying, "It is over," and I do not think so. He called [crosstalk] he called he called the Vietnam War Syndrome is over. So. HHA: 1:26:09 Well you know, the spirit and the awarenesses, you know, that came from, you know, was not just the second wave of-of a women's movement. But, I mean, the Civil Rights Movement had been continuous. But you know of a wave that, you know, from the (19)50s or late (19)40s, that grows. So, between the Civil Rights wave and the women's movement wave, and probably, you know, the emergence of this specific antiwar movement, but maybe a peace movement wave, you know, those are still going. SM: 1:26:51 Well, what, to you, what is the watershed moment of your life? HHA: 1:26:57 I hope I have not reached it yet. No, I do not know [laughs]. Watershed moment, it was probably. Gosh, it was probably the spring of (19)67. Probably. SM: 1:27:18 And what was that? HHA: 1:27:19 Because that was the first time I ever went to a demonstration, and became really aware of Vietnam. And, you know, and yes, being in the village, and at that time, I had also moved to the East Village. So being aware of the, of hippies, and, you know, Flower Power. Yeah. So. SM: 1:27:46 My, my very last question has to deal with the issue of healing. You know, we talked today that the divide that took place, a lot of people, commentators who say that we are still divided as a nation, because we are dealing with the culture wars that began in the (19)60s, and they have never ended. So, and, and the question I have always asked a lot of the people if you have heard any of the interviews, is that how important to you know, we have not healed as a nation. And the Vietnam Wall was built by Jan Scruggs and others to try to heal the veterans themselves and their families in the war. But how, he wrote a book, "To Heal a Nation" And the question is, is this nation does, it has not healed at all, from the Vietnam War. And, and look at all the other issues, and a lot of people believe that the movements that were so crucial that defined the (19)60s and (19)70s are part of that culture wars, and that we are still fighting them today, you know, where you hear people saying we are taking two- one step forward and two steps backward when some people want us to go back rather than forward and some people do not want us to continue to go forward and forget the you know, what was happening back in the (19)60s and (19)70s. Just your final thoughts on, have we healed as a nation in your thoughts in any way? Or and we are, where are we heading? HHA: 1:29:17 Well, we were broken before the Vietnam War, certainly. And, I mean, it just seems to me at this at this moment, it has just gotten worse. It is- healing? I do not think so. I mean, I have part of my family lives in Missouri. I have always had a very hard time visiting them. My sister married somebody from Missouri. Very, very nice people, but they I cannot talk to them. And it is even worse you know, because at least they got vaccinated but people around them you know, in terms of the pandemic, and in terms of Black Lives Matter. I mean, I cannot. I cannot talk about politics with my family, and I am sure you have heard that, SM: 1:30:18 Well it is the same way, in some respects was mine as well. And you raise a very good point, because when I first started asking this question, in my very first interviews for this project, it was, it was concentrating on the Vietnam Memorial and the healing of the nation from the Vietnam War. And not and it has gotten to the point now that we, we cannot heal- we have, we have healing issues, in just about every movement we are talking about, and-and everything. HHA: 1:30:44 Yeah, I mean, we have not healed from the Civil War. So, you know [laughs]. SM: 1:30:49 Yeah, and in fact Edmund-Edmund, we asked Edmund Muskie that question on a leadership on the road trip, and, and when we asked that question to him, you know, healed since the Vietnam War, he all of a sudden, had a melodramatic pause. And he had tears coming down his eyes. And he had just gotten out of the hospital when we met him to meet with a group of students. And he said, we have not healed since the Civil War. HHA: 1:31:16 See? I am glad that I, that I have echoed him. SM: 1:31:22 Yep. Well, you-you hit you hit a very important point. Are there any other things you would like to say? Anything you thought I might ask you that I did not? HHA: 1:31:33 No, you have been very thorough. [laughs] Thank you. SM: 1:31:37 Well, thank you very much. Now, what I will do is when we are done here, we will get a copy and we will mail it to you. And then you will listen to it. And then if it is okay, then we will put it on site. HHA: 1:31:52 Okay, thank you. SM: 1:31:53 Yeah. And I just, if you could mail to my email address, your mailing address, and then we will, we will have it sent. HHA: 1:32:02 Okay, I will do that. SM: 1:32:03 And all I have to say is- it is an honor to talk to you. I just hope you keep writing more and more books. This is that I am a bibliophile, and I have read hundreds and hundreds of books. This is in my top 50 books of all time. HHA: 1:32:21 Oh, thank you. SM: 1:32:21 And-and, and I love it, just keep doing it. HHA: 1:32:26 Thank you. SM: 1:32:27 You have a great day. HHA: 1:32:28 You too. SM: 1:32:29 Take care. Bye now. HHA: 1:32:30 Bye. SM: 1:32:30 Bye. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. 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Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 1996-07-29 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Henry Franklin Graff Language english Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;War protesters; Robert F. Kennedy; Veterans; War injuries; Vietnam War; Media; Civil rights legislation; Empowerment; Healing; Vietnam Memorial; Baby boom generation; McCarthyism; Alcoholism; Generational gap; Lyndon B. Johnson; Trust.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:4865,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;}">War protesters; Robert F. Kennedy; Veterans; War injuries; Vietnam War; Media; Civil rights legislation; Empowerment; Healing; Vietnam Memorial; Baby boom generation; McCarthyism; Alcoholism; Generational gap; Lyndon B. Johnson; Trust.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 02:04:59 Subject LCSH Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans Biographical Text Dr. Henry Franklin Graff is Professor Emeritus of History, specializes in the social and political history of the United States. He is the author of The Glorious Republic, and the editor of The Presidents: A Reference History, as well as several books and articles. Dr. Graff received his B.A. from the City College of New York, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Columbia University. Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Henry Franklin Graff Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 29 July 1996 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: All right. Well thank you for participating in this project. The first question I would like to ask is, the boomer generation and the (19)60s and early (19)70s is being attacked as one of the reasons for the breakdown of American society. Could you respond to this criticism and comment on the period and its impact on present day America? Is the criticism fair? And when this criticism is often directed to the youth of the era, what can you say about the boomers of the (19)60s and early (19)70s? HG: Well, I think there is a change. I guess some people would label a that a breakdown. I see our generation as, it is not the cause of that, as much as we were in the wrong place at the wrong time here. We were the vehicle for much of that change. And when I think about the change today, one of the things I think about first is that the last time I read something, it was-was over 70 percent of women now work outside the home. That was not true of my parents' generation. When I think about the street I grew up on, most of the mothers were home all day with the families. The fathers went to work. And I think about how traditional and conservative my upbringing was, and actually I think about the year I went to Vietnam and when I came. HG: Think about the year I went to Vietnam and when I came home, it seemed like everything had changed in my absence, everything. And then I remember the late (19)60s and the (19)70s, and I do not know that I see our generation as having any responsibility for causing that. We certainly had responsibility for trying to cope with economic forces, and I think some shifting of values. Certainly our generation for whatever their purposes began to question basic values such as when your government asks for your help, you provide it without question. SM: You made an important point there that when you went to Vietnam and then when you came back. Now, were you there one year, two years? HG: I was in country 222 days, and then it was a month and a half in hospital in Vietnam and Japan before I could come home. So it was almost a year. SM: What were your feelings at that time toward the protestors before you went to Vietnam and then when you came back from Vietnam, those who were opposed to the war? Did you have any thoughts toward them at that juncture? HG: Not really. I mean, I enlisted in the Marine Corps and then I volunteered to go to Vietnam. I did not originally get orders for that. I was waiting to go to Officers Candidate School and then the Tet Offensive of (19)68 took place and I was sitting at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. And at that point I was told that it might be another six months before everything was done and I could start Officer Candidate School. That would be six months. And then I would start a whole new enlistment as an officer for three years. And I just decided that, well, maybe I will go to Vietnam and see what that is like. And if I want to be an officer, I can always do that. So I resigned from the commissioning program and went over as an enlisted man. I thought it was a personal decision. I did not understand people who said no or even challenged the right of the government to ask for these sacrifices. I always felt that my father's generation and previous generations had sacrificed. That is why we had America. It required sacrifice and I did not question it, and my choice was to go and do what needed to be done without any questioning of that. I thought other people could make their choices. I did not feel they had to make same choices I did, and I never regretted my choice, and even as things have turned out. SM: Now, one of the two interesting politicians in that era are Senator Fulbright in his book Arrogance of Power, and I know that Dr. Benjamin Spock wrote a small book on Vietnam in 1968, basically talking about the Diem regime and basically condemning the government, not anybody who went over there, but the government and the leaders of America. And in both, not only in Arrogance of Power, but also in the commentary of Dr. Spock, it was the fact that those individuals who decided that they did not want to go to war and protested against the war were American patriots. That they were true patriots. Now they were not on the one hand condemning the Vietnam veterans who went over there, but they were saying that they looked upon those individuals as true American patriots even though they were being condemned on this side, especially in fighting Johnson and all the other eventually Nixon and so forth. What are your thoughts on Fulbright and Dr. Spock and those types of leaders who were making those kinds of commentaries? Was there some validity to that? Do you think that not only from your own perspective, but from the perspective of other Vietnam veterans, how did they look upon those leaders saying those types of things? And then of course, how did they look upon those people who protested, decided not to go when you said it was your duty to go just like your dad in World War II? HG: Well, many Vietnam veterans feel that anyone that did not take their place in the ranks would be anything but a patriot. As I said, I thought it was a personal decision, and I do believe there is times, I do not believe that you always accept the government version and that you do what the government asks. I think there is lots of opportunities for challenging and that sometimes to challenge the government does make one a patriot. It is a patriotic thing to do. I think about Desert Storm, certainly I was against the idea of sending a half million American troops over there when I believe that in the end it would turn into a ground war. I mean, the conventional wisdom was you could not win a campaign like that with an Air War, no matter how smart your bombs are, and that eventually American troops are going to have to close with the Iraqi troops and fight it out, and that is going to determine the outcome. And I was very upset at the idea, and I thought when that happened, there would be tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of casualties, and I did not feel that the stakes were worth it. And so I was against the idea of involvement in the Persian Gulf. So I guess I could be called a patriot of that era because I took a position that we should not be there. We certainly should not send our young men there. It is one thing to provide monetary support and arms to the other combatants. But why are we taking the lead? Why are we the first one there and why are we sending Americans? For cheap gas? I will pay $4 a gallon if it takes that. SM: If you knew then now about what was going on in Vietnam and how the leaders were, well, really not telling the whole truth about what was going on in Vietnam, how do you feel most of the Vietnam veterans would have felt? Of course, a lot of Vietnam veterans, Senator Kerry being one of them from Massachusetts, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, when they came back, Bobby Mueller was involved in that group. He had another group he was involved in, but- HG: Jack Smith was one of the founders of that. SM: ...He was, yeah. Well, do you think that you might have had a different point of view? HG: Well, when I came back, I had lots of opportunity. I spent years in and out of the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia, had lots of opportunities to think about the war per se. I mean, when you get there and I do not know how to say this, but when you get there it does not take long to realize it is a bad war. I mean, we are dying for what seems like nothing at that level, and you do not have the big picture. And in a real sense, it did not make any difference anyway. What mattered was surviving and making sure that your buddy survived. It did not matter what the war was all about. It did not matter if I was on the beaches of Normandy or Pusan perimeter or Vietnam or getting ready to go into Iraq. At that level it is really irrelevant. SM: Do you think the majority of the veterans, obviously you are saying now that at that juncture most want to survive, the bottom line is to survive, get through their year and get out of there. HG: Mortal combat. SM: But then when you come back, then that is when the thinking really starts in terms of what it was all about? HG: Well then you try to make sense of what has happened to you. You try to find some meaning in it. I was proud of what I did. I was proud of the men that I served with. Was I proud of what we were doing? Not particularly. I did not think it was a very good strategy. I certainly felt that the biggest losers of all were the Vietnamese people. I mean, they feared us and they feared the NVA and the VC. And all they wanted to do, and you could see it in their faces every day, all they wanted to do was scratch out a living, find something to eat that day to feed their family and try and avoid being killed by anybody, either by design or by accident. They were the biggest losers of all. SM: Getting back to that question regarding how Vietnam veterans felt when they came back and there was a division. Going to the wall, nowadays, I just tried to see the ambience of feelings of the people, and there is still tremendous dislike for those who oppose the war, at least this is my perception, and this is why I am trying to get some clarity on this from the people I am talking to, the 300 people, Vietnam veterans, people who protest the war, leaders, younger people today. Do you still feel, I know there is some that will never heal, but do you still feel that the majority of the Vietnam veterans are still against the people who oppose the war? Do you think there is still, because after all, when you look at the wall and the formation of the wall, this is getting to a question later on here, but that Jan Scruggs did such a tremendous job putting the wall together because it was supposed to be a non-political statement, it was supposed to state that we were going to pay tribute to those who gave their lives and also those who served, and also try to heal the veterans and give them recognition that they deserve and also try to heal the families. But when Jan wrote the book To Heal a Nation, it was my perception that it has helped the Vietnam veterans along, but I do not know what it is done totally, really for the nation. In terms of the boomer generation, which the Vietnam veterans are part of, and those who protested the war are, is there any healing there happening between those diverse groups? HG: Well, in my experiences I have seen what during the war was a division and I have seen those same people now 20, 30 years later and there is not a division. We have all moved on my mind now. I forgot what it was. There are some people who in trying to find meaning in what they have gone through, they have to use other people to create their own meaning. So on the one hand, there was the people who did not go, the people that went to Canada or Sweden or the people that marched against the war, even Vietnam veterans who came home and then protested against the war like Vietnam Veterans Against the War. And they need to use people like that in order to define themselves. I am not one of them. And I have always felt that, as I said, everyone had to make their own decision. I could not make any other decision than the one I made having been brought up the way I was brought up and having had the feelings I had about being an American and being able to grow up in this country and feeling from the start that I owed a responsibility to the country. And when it came time for that responsibility to be called upon, I was there. It was not dependent on whether or not I believed in the war, or whether or not I thought we had a good chance of winning or anything like that. And the nature of the war is what the resistance to it was all about, rather than the fact that our country has the right to become involved in war. I mean, it was the same thing with Desert Storm. For the first time, I was questioning whether or not the country had the right to get involved in that. Not that we should not have helped out Kuwait, but the degree of our involvement was simply due to the oil that was there. That was it. If it was some poor country somewhere that had nothing that we felt was important strategically, we would not have done that. I mean, little countries get overrun or annexed or cut off or whatever for a long time. SM: Question here, what has been the impact of the boomers on America? This is a general question beyond just the Vietnam veterans, but you are a boomer, and what do you feel has been the impact of boomers on America? Positive or negative? And I want to preface this question by saying, and I think I mentioned over the phone that we see today from the Christian coalition, an attack on the boomer generation constantly it is all the ills of society seem to stem back to that period. Breakup of the family, the divorce rate is on the rise, the drug culture, the counterculture, and of course we have a lot of drugs in generation X, lack of trust in leaders, lack of trust in politics, lack of trust in any kind of leaders, people not really voting. Boomers do not vote, and their kids do not vote. And it gets into a lot of different areas here. It is not just the Christian coalition. You hear it amongst a lot of the politicians today. There is the Republicans and even some Democrats who are trying to go middle of the road. And I know in all generations there are mistakes made, but is that a fair analysis? And what is your thought as a person who was a Vietnam veteran who was young at that time? You have gone on to become a professional psychologist. What are your perceptions? What are your perceptions of your generation, not only when you were young, but how has that evolved over the last 25 years? And how do you feel today about that generation, your generation? HG: Well, in the (19)60s and (19)70s, I felt a part of a generation that was defining itself. Again, it was talking about individuals who defined themselves as the opposite of other people that they can pick out. That is not a rebellion or a revolution. I mean, in the (19)60s and (19)70s, we were talking about revolution and we were going to change things. But if your revolution is that you are going to be the exact opposite of someone else, well, that is no revolution at all because your identity or what you are going to do or what you are going to believe in or what you are going to act on is really defined by the individual or the group that you have decided to be in opposition to. And I thought a lot of our early revolution was simply challenging the status quo and the morals and the values even around basic things like sexuality and the use of drugs for recreational purposes. Most of these people I know from my generation have mellowed out some more into the mainstream once they became people with careers and homes and mortgages and families and they paid taxes. And that our generation went through that shift, and then has become I think more alike. Now we are the middle-aged generation for the country and we have some responsibility. We have responsibility for the younger generation. And as time goes on, we take more and more responsibility for the older generation. We are now the power brokers. We are now the people that decide what happens. Clinton is president. I think the choice this fall between the class of (19)46 and Senator Doll and President Clinton who is a baby boomer, I mean, that is the choice that country's facing. I might happen to think that our generation has done right by the country, and I think we can lead the country and make the choices that we need to make to keep it true to its ideal. SM: So you are not one of those boomers who are advising this attack that all the ills of today's society are directly related to the boomers? And their counterculture and the way their rebellious dialogue, which do you see any linkage at all between the divisiveness of that era and what we see in the divisive today in terms of how we talk to each other, how we communicate with each other? In other words, a lot of times we do not talk. We shout at each other. We do not listen to each other. Do you think it is fair or is it depending on who you are, some will say it is ridiculous and some will say there is validity, but that all began back in the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Do you feel that way or could that be a part of- HG: I feel like when I was growing up, we did not talk to adults. As children the idea was you were there to be seen and not heard, and you did not sit at dinner table and talk to adults, even in school with your teachers. And I think there is one example of how there is more interaction. One of the things that I think our generation brought was more dialogue between different generations. I think you can look around and find examples of everything from McCarthyism and the Red Scare. I mean, was a better than in the 1950s? The use of recreational drugs was very uncommon, but the rate of alcoholism was much higher than it is today. And the per capita consumption of hard liquor in this country was probably eight times what it is today. Today, hardly anybody except the older generations drink hard liquor and even the distillers are having to branch out and get into other businesses because that is not the culture. But there was certainly alcoholism around and it destroyed families. I mean, we did not invent it. There was divorce around too. What was more common I think, in my parents' generation was to stay together no matter what, no matter how horrible it was, whether you said it was for the kids or just because I am not the kind of person that divorces. I deal with all kinds of pain and suffering in members of my generation who grew up in those kinds of toxic families where no one was going to leave. And these kids who are now adults do not know how to be in a relationship. They do not know how to relate. They do not even know who they are. And I see that as a consequence of growing up in the family where there was not any acknowledgement what was really going on there. Women did not have the ability to leave and be independent and take care of themselves. They were too dependent on their husbands, so they stayed no matter what. You can take any issue like that, and if you really look at it, see that in fact there was something just as awful or just as upsetting going on, but it only looks different on the surface. SM: One of the old slogans when I was in college was the IBM mentality. You ever see that old advertising where five people come out the front door with their hat on and their suit on, and they all drove the same car, had the same suit, and the wife kissed as they went away and everything, almost the house was identical. And there was a feeling of in the university, because it was called the multiversity in the late (19)60s, that we did not want to be carbon copies of what preceded us. And so there was kind of rebelliousness, and you raised some very good points about the fact that at the table rarely the parents talked to their kids. Certainly they stayed in marriages and they were not honest with their kids about the things that the kids saw them, but they just stayed on board. Linking back to the boomers, they probably wanted to be more honest and meet more open and to be critical at times, whereas their parents may not have been critical. And the question I want to get into this next question here is can today's generation of youth learn from the boomers? What can the boomers teach today's college students? This question is based on the fact that many of today's students often look at the (19)60s and early (19)70s as a period of activism, drugs, and single-minded issues. Dave Bolt mentioned that he thought they were simple-minded issues. Though many of the same issues remain there are new ones, and the lessons of the past are either not taught in schools today or never discussed between parent, the boomer parent, I mean the boomer itself, and today's kids, which is Generation X or slackers, another term that is used. Please give your thoughts on the issues in boomers lives and how they can have impact on students’ eyes today. This question came forth based on a couple conversations I had with a couple faculty members at West Chester University, one African American who is a dynamic professor and another is a majority professor. And both of them felt that they did not want to relate to their kids about what it was like when they were young because they have too many problems today. So why burden them with their parents' problems and what it was like? And I asked myself, wow, is this an example of how boomers are raising their kids? Are boomers talking about what it was like to be young, what it was like to be a Vietnam veteran, to share the experience with their sons or daughters? I have three students at West Chester. Two of them went to see Lewis Puller. Neither dad had ever talked to their son about Vietnam, and they learned about Vietnam through Lewis Puller. Now that is amazing. Neither parent would talk about it. They loved their dad, but they just would not open up. And then the other person was an African American who was about the civil rights movement, but she did not want to burden her kids with talking about that era when there are other problems today. The question is, can boomers share this experiences and are Generation X and slackers, do they want to learn? Do they want to listen to this? That is what I am trying to get at. HG: Well, I actually have not that much experience with today's generation. I mean, that says something. I mean, I will just stay with the example of the students that you had who had never talked to their fathers about being in Vietnam. That is not unusual at all, whether it is Vietnam or World War II or Korea. If you read Lewis Puller's book that his father did not talk to him about being in war. My father did not talk to me. I did not find out until after my father died and I was responsible for all the records. I did not really find out what exactly he did until I found his records and I was able to read those and then piece them together. And then I had some idea. He never talked to me about war before I went to war or after I went to war. And even at the end, I met a professor of mine, he was not a professor of mine but he was teaching and at my school, and he wrote his memoirs of being a fighter pilot in the South Pacific in World War II. And I bought it and read it and wondered, because my father was in the South Pacific in the Army Air Force, and I wondered if this was his experience. And I gave him the book to read and he read it. And the only comment he ever made was that the author had made a mistake with the model type of plane he was talking about, it was not a T-9, it was a T... And that was it. That was his whole reaction. And the reason I gave him the book was to see if maybe it would not spark some conversation about, well, gee Dad, what did you do in the war? And I never told him what I did in the war. So it is not unusual at all in my experience that- SM: Hey. HG: ...That sons do not talk to their fathers, the warriors, whatever their wars. I think we could learn. I think today I would like to think that today's generation can learn from us and that they do not make the same mistakes. My goal has always been to make different mistakes than the ones that my father's generation or the other members of my generation made. SM: If you were to describe the youth of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, please describe the qualities you most admire and then describe the qualities you least admire. You can use adjectives or what were the things about the boomer generation, that is people who were born, sometimes I hate using these parameters. People born between (19)46 and (19)64 are boomers when we all know that those born between (19)46 and say (19)58 are so different than those in the... HG: I was born in (19)47, and I do not have a lot that I would identify with someone who was born, well, actually, my wife was born in (19)60. She is 13 years younger than I am. And when we hear a music, I mean, I play oldies in the car on the radio, and I will say, "Did you ever hear that song? Do you remember that song?" A lot of times she will say, "No, I do not remember that song," or, "I do not remember that." Or we will watch something on TV and it is about something that happened in the (19)60s... SM: Okay. HG: Just say, "I do not remember that." And that was an important part of my life. I mean, when I was in Vietnam, she was eight years old. So not all boomers are the same. She does not even think of herself as a boomer. SM: She is post boomer probably. Post boomer, pre slacker. Tell her that. Well, if you were to give some adjectives to describe the boomers, the positive things, what would be the positives of the boomers? HG: I think our generation was committed to various visions of what America should be, and we took the initiative to try and bring about change. And I think we can take responsibility for a lot of things that have changed. And again, I think of getting women out of the house where their sole role in life is to have children and raise them. A friend of mine called women like that breeders. If you have the kids and you stay at home and you take care of them, and that is your whole life. Boy, I would not want to just have the family as my whole life. I would want to have the opportunity to be fulfilled in other ways. And I think women today, by and large, have opportunities and have options that they did not have in my mother's generation. SM: How about any negative qualities about the boomers? HG: I am not really used to thinking about us as separate and apart and different than the rest of the population. So I cannot think of any specific negative about us. SM: One of the comments, so again, I have not interviewed many people, but a few comments have come forth that the boomers are a very irresponsible group. Do you find that as a negative or- SM: Do you find that as a negative, or... HG: Well, it would be a negative, I would not say that, and I would not agree with it, but I do not know why someone else would say that. SM: I think they were prefacing it with the statement when they were out there protesting and/or some of those Boomers are the so-called elites. That is what they call 15 percent who are protesting the war, and found some sort of activism. They would just- HG: Every generation has its elites. America is more elitist than ever. The distribution of wealth is more disparate than ever. Now we are moving into a really very difficult time, when there really is a separation between important parts of the group. I know people who thought John Kerry was very elite because he had money, came from a money family, and he would go to rallies, but he would fly to them. SM: Oh, geez. HG: It is all on your perspective. The other guys in the Vietnam Veterans Against the War- SM: Hitchhike. HG: ...who did not have money looked at him, or some of the big names now who were officers. It all depends on your perspective. I certainly would not think of our generation of irresponsible. If we are, then the country's in big trouble because right now we are carrying the economy and everything on our shoulders. Our parents' generation, we are going to be responsible for taking care of them, probably at our own expense, and to also take care of our children's generation, and our grandchildren's gen... Well, selling them down the pike like they have been sold down the pike already. I do not believe that that was our generation that is done that. Why you got a friend? SM: Hey, how are you? HG: That is Shadow. SM: You are going to be interview... Shadow, you will be interviewed next. You got to wait your turn, so be prepared. Okay, Shadow? Could you comment on the importance of the Boomers with respect to the Vietnam War itself? HG: We fought it. SM: You fought it. HG: Could not have had it without it. SM: There is a lot of historians and sociologists have stated that if it was not for the protestors, the war would never have ended. Do you find that there is validity in that statement? HG: Well, in the things that I have read, it was clear that it might have ended sooner without them because toward the end, there was a lot of concern about doing this in a way that politically did not look like they cannot win. I mean, I read that someone said to Johnson, and I think it was his Secretary of Defense, "Look, why do not we just bring all the troops home and say we won?" He was concerned how that would look, and certainly what I read suggested that Nixon was concerned about appearing to give in to these kids that were causing problems, and we cannot appear to let them run things. I think without them it might have been easier to fold our tents, and come home and call it a day. Certainly the war would have been, I mean it was going nowhere, and we did not really pursue, I mean we were not really fighting a war after (19)72. We had very few troops there, and they were advisors, and serving behind the scenes. They were no longer taking the Fed to the enemy. We did get out, is that what we do? And it was too expensive, and there was all kinds of reasons it would have ended. SM: Back in (19)64 Dr. Spark's book, and of course a lot of people know about this, that he made a commentary that we will never send during the (19)64 campaign, we will never send our boys to into China because that that is... the Asian boys will fight that war. Our boys will not fight it. Of course, that was a criticism of Goldwater too. They felt he was going to take our troops right over there. And then from 15,000 advisors when Kennedy was there, to the beginning of troops going over after Johnson went into the presidency. I guess, what I give back is a lot of Boomers at that period, from seeing what happened, and of course they feel that they are one of the main reasons for Lyndon Johnson leaving the- ... Not deciding to run in (19)68, because the people that were going to support McCarthy, and then Bobby Kennedy, and the protests, and he did ... Really would not have a shot at winning. It was tearing the nation apart, decided not to move on. During that era, from seeing the Robert McNamara's and Lyndon Johnson, and then Richard Nixon and then leading up to Watergate, there was this whole lack of trust on the part of many Boomers, certainly the 15 percent who were protesting. That is a term that a lot of people use. 85 percent were not involved in any kind of an activity but my thought has always been that maybe affecting the subconscious of the whole generation, so that there was no trust happening. No faith in leadership as Mayor Burns up in Binghamton, a close friend of Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy was our last hope. Even then, since that time there has really been no one that the nation could get behind in terms of trust and support, as an entire nation. What are your thoughts on this business regarding the concept of trust, and the lack of faith in our institutions? Because, if indeed there is a lack of trust, psychologist was saying, and you are one, I can remember reading in my psychology 101 book. Something about the fact that if you cannot trust then you may not succeed in life. There is a concept before you have got to trust someone, whether it be your parent, or somebody. You have got to have a concept of trust. And yet, if young people are being raised by not having faith in their leadership of the country, and they were not telling the truth about the war, the body counts, all these types of things that were coming back, and we saw it on television, because another person said we are like the TV generation, not the Boomer generation, the TV generation. That there is something within the Boomers about not trusting people. Do you think as a psychologist, not only as a person who works with Boomers as patients, but as a boomer yourself, that there is some validity to the fact that this generation more than any other in history, is a generation that does not trust, and thus, they are passing that on to their kids who are today's young people in college, and they themselves may not be able to trust? Is there some validity to that thought? HG: Well, I think part of maturing is moving from naive trust to informed trust, kind of learning to do your homework before you trust someone, whether it is an individual, or whether it is an institution. Part of maturing is learning the rules, and I say moving away from civics 101 to the way the world really works, that I can think about Desert Storm again, that we did not go in there because we were guests. That this big militaristic country had overrun this poor small democracy, and we wanted to go in there, and protect democracy from the tyranny of a dictator. Again, we went in there because it was in our best interest, if we are going to have oil that is easily available and cheap to run our economy. As you grow up, you learn who to trust. Sometimes, you learn it the easy way, and sometimes you learn it the hard way. I do not know that our generation has any more difficulty with trust. There was a concept when I was an undergraduate that came out of Neil Durkheim, who was a sociologist in the 1800s, and he wrote a book on suicide. He talked about a state of enemy when in culture there did not seem to be enough structure, things seemed to be in chaos. I can remember when I was younger reading that, and identifying with that. I bet today's generation is doing the same thing. They are reading about Durkheim's concept of enemy, and saying, "Yeah, that is us," but it cannot be that every generation feels, and some of the things I have read about my parents' generation coming out of the Depression, and you know, read The Grapes of Wrath, or you watch the movie, the messages that society is that society is not working right, there is no structure, it is every man for himself, blah-blah-blah. And then, World War II, the same major shift that an impact that had on the culture, and then the recovery, and then the Cold War. I think again, we are talking about if you look hard enough, none of these things originated with our generation, and I do not think our generation is overly influenced, or practicing them. These are other generations. I think the issues can be different. I think it is sure hard to be a kid today. It is dangerous out there, and I think the rise of violence, the easy availability of guns, the saturation of drugs to the corner level in your little town, wherever it is. When I was growing up, drug abuse was so unusual and so foreign. I can remember a couple of movies, the Man with a Golden Arm, and if you ended up having a drug problem, they sent you to I think it was Louisville or Lexington, Kentucky, or there was a special federal prison for drug addicts from all over the country. Now, you go to any jail, and it is full of drug addicts, or people that have a problem with drugs. It was there, but the magnitude has shifted somewhat, although there are not as many alcoholics as there were. SM: But you see that, I do not want to make this in a political interview, but then you have those who comment that well the welfare state, and the policies begun under the Johnson administration began a trend. Special interest groups, we care more about special interest groups than we care about the general public. That is conservative, that is a conservative attack on democratic policy. Well the thing is, and then now that Boomers are in or going into, because they are 50 now beginning of the Boomers, so they are really just have not been in positions of power and authority for very long, and they have still got many years ahead. HG: We have all the problems with the previous generation and depositing on our doorsteps. I was talking to somebody about healthcare, and I am old enough to remember that when I got sick, we called up with Dr. Loftus, and we went over there, and whatever I needed then my father paid him for it. There was not any health insurance back then, if there was, we did not have it. A lot of times we were sick, we did not go anywhere, because we did not have the money. I remember in 1965, that was the I graduated from high school when Johnson brought Medicare in, and there were actually quite a few old people who had very little, very little during their working life, and then had very little to retire on. Nowadays, the rate of elderly who are destitute is very small, at least from the statistics I have read, so a remedy was developed to take care of those in need. That is where I remember the great society, and I thought all of that was well-intentioned, and a good idea, and did not have a problem with it then. I think there is some things we can do to... Actually, I think the difference, what I am remembering now is I did not have a lot of good to say about Reagan, the president, but one of the things that I was very pleased with was when he passed, and signed off on a catastrophic healthcare bill for Medicare beneficiaries, I think it was (19)83 or (19)84, so that everyone would have guaranteed catastrophic healthcare, that no one would lose everything as a result of getting sick, and it was to be paid for by the Medicare beneficiaries themselves. They would pay the premium. Well, the AARP people and the well-to-do elderly got so upset, and caused such a ruckus that two years later it was done away with. They did not want to pay the premiums for their poor fellow generation, World War II generation class of (19)46. I thought that is really ludicrous. I think of us, to go back to the other question, I think our generation has grown up with the idea that we are responsible for the rest of society, and I personally do not have a problem with having programs. Can programs get out of hand? Can they take on a life of their own? Can people become too dependent? In politics, it is clear that once you have given somebody something, it is much harder to take it back than if you never gave it to them in the first place, because people come to feel entitled to it. Depending on where you are at, where you are at in the food chain because I do not expect to get anything out of social security, or very little. As I work on my investments, and things like that. I feel that I have to be able to take care of myself because I do not think there is going to be anything there. But my mother's generation, my mother's getting social superior now, and I am real happy for her and her generation, and they are getting much more than they ever put into it. That turns out to be the fatal flaw, and this kind of approach and it remains seen what they are going to do about it. SM: You bring up that, it is just an example, I will look at the (19)60s and the Boomer generation as a group that cared about other people, who cared about what was happening in the south. Young people went down to Freedom Summer, even though the (19)64, they were not the Boomers, but the Boomers were coming on, and seeing these experiences because in (19)64, most Boomers old enough to go down south, but that was that group that just preceded the Boomers. You got the issue of civil rights caring about African Americans, you got the issue of certainly poverty in the inner cities. You have got the issue of the environmental movement, which came to fruition with that 1970 Earth Day ceremony in Washington. You have got the women's movement, who ... Even the Native American movement. That happened in Elk- The were a Hispanic movement. The Latino movement started around that time, gay and lesbian movement. It was like a caring about some of the disenfranchise in our society, and I look upon that as a very positive quality within the Boomer generation. But then, there are the naysayers out there who say that in reality we were our very selfish generation, only caring about ourselves, and our own special interests. Then they see what is happening today that African Americans care about only their issues. Gays and lesbians care about their issues, and women care about their issues, and break all the breakdowns. What are your thoughts on that? Would you categorize this generation as a very caring generation, different than any previous generation, or they cared more? Is that a quality that is positive in this? HG: I think my parents' generation, and their parents' generation, that it was rugged individualism all the way. My parents did not feel any particular responsibility for other people. They felt that it is what you do for yourself. You got to get up and go to work, and you do not expect nothing from anyone else, and you do not... You are not responsible for anyone else. As opposed to my generation where, as I was growing up, I saw the government turn into turn again... I mean you can just look at the New Deal, and everything that was done to overcome the Depression, and see that in fact the government has created programs, some of which are still around now, and do not need to be that. In fact, I think of the government, if the government is not there to attempt to remedy problems in the society, and problems that only affect special groups or interests, then what is the government there for? Versus the government that is there to keep the status quo, which means some people who are doing swell are going to continue to do swell, and then other people who are not, just too bad for them. SM: The haves will continue to be the haves, and the have nots- HG: Right. I think of the kind of government that I believe in is a proactive, and a reactive government that does things, and tries new approaches, and does not close its eyes to problems, and it does not have to be a problem that affects everyone in the country in order for the government to be reactive to it. SM: When you talk about that, that is directly linked to when these Boomers were growing up. Because they saw the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson, and they saw these things, and it was really affected them, and those that have gone into public service, and want to be involved in working for others beyond themselves. I got a question here. Have you changed your opinion on the youth of the (19)60s over the last 25 years? HG: Just on the youth of the (19)60s? SM: Yes, the youth. Have you changed at all? HG: No, not really. SM: Do you feel you are consistent in your thoughts? HG: Yeah, I did not look down on us. I thought I served with a lot of guys that felt that they were doing the right thing, just like I thought I was. I could also understand people that did not want to die, and did not want to get hurt, and did not want to be exposed to horrible things. Much of my generation, 90 percent of my generation was not in uniform in the whole Vietnam War. What is that make them? I did not have a problem with Bill Clinton. I do not have a problem with the letter he wrote from Oxford. I do not have a problem with him wanting to get out of serving the Vietnam War. I did not have a problem with Dan Quail, who managed to wangle a National Guard position so he did not have to go. In any war, the majority of the citizenry do not serve, and in anywhere. What is that make them? SM: If you recall Don Bailey, when he spoke on our, at that program in (19)75, I mean (19)75, (19)85, he refused to even acknowledge the Vietnam veterans over at that program. Remember we had the reception upstairs, and he said, "No, I will sit downstairs with a program start." So he was very bitter, and I think he had a couple purple hearts, or was right front lines and- HG: Personality disorder too. Being a surgeon in Vietnam does not make you a wonderful person. SM: That is true. They are always going to be those people of the extreme who are not going to ever change, and are still going to have the bitterness probably to the time they go to their grave, but it is my hope that the majority will want to create a dialogue between, as they get older, and not have this bitterness, when they go to their graves about that era. It is a feeling that hopefully this whole project will get involved with. This is a comment, the Boomers always used to say they were the most unique generation in American history. I can remember in the early (19)70s when I was in Ohio State University, we go to rallies, and they say we are going to show the world that we are the most unique generation in American history. Not only were they fighting the war, but all the other issues that were involved, and to this day, as a Boomer, now in my late 40s still, I feel that we are something unique. That is just me. Certainly different than my dad's generation, and I work with student’s day in and day out, and they are totally different than what we were, but they are not activists. I have perception, do you think that for that we are the most unique generation in American history, or in this century? HG: No, I do not think we are the most unique. Again, I can think about the first generation who came over as English subjects, and what it took them to decide that they wanted to set to get freedom from England, and pursue a war that there was no consensus at the time that we could even pursue successfully, and everything went on. I look at the generation that fought to keep the Union together. I look at the generation that came out of a Depression and joined a World War, and wanted... I do not think that we are any more unique. I think we have had some challenges that other generations might not have had, but they have had their challenges. I think we have met our challenges by and large, well. I think of this as unique. SM: If you are described a good quality or an adjective that would describe this generations' activist, they may have been more activist than any other generation, irrespective of the American Revolutionary period, which they were obviously activists risking their lives, but they were in the minority too, at that time because I think one third, only one third were against Britain. One third supported Britain, and one third care less. HG: Well, I also think that one of my pet peeves is the media. I also think that our generation saw the sentencing of the media, as not only people who reported the news, but people who make the news. You can look around for many examples today, that young girl that made her walk on the women's gymnastics team pretty strong. When in reality, we had already won. She did not know that. She was... The next day I heard on TV that she was being told that she could probably make four or five million dollars now if she wanted to put her efforts into marketing herself, and whatever. My major problem with the news today is that I think they spend too much time making the news from the start. They have been committed to the idea that the TWA flight 800 blew up with a bomb, regardless of evidence, or lack of evidence. These stories take on a life of their own, and I think that began with our generation. The electronic media was really coming into its own. I mean, I remember growing up watching the news of Walter Cronkite, and he just, he was just a talking head there most of the time, and would have a couple of clips. He reported it in his monotone, and then he would end up with, "and that is the way it is." The news is presented differently. It has spin on it, just like, I mean, everything anybody is feeding the media has spin on it, and then they put their own spin on it. I think that we came of age during the electronic media era, when the electronic media was coming of age is starting to realize it is potential. SM: I think a lot of the perceptions of Vietnam came from those reports too, especially morally safer. In that one report that everybody remembers, and I remember it was because I was there seeing the news that night of burning down that village, setting in a fire. That might have been 60 minutes. I am not even sure what it was, but I just know... I think it was Morley Safer. HG: 60 minutes. SM: Yeah. HG: -went over. SM: Yeah, I think it was Marley Safer. Yeah, he was there, and so was Mike Wallace. HG: I can remember every night hearing the casualty count, and how many people, how killed in action there were that week. SM: From now we know that the true numbers that were coming in. This might be repetitive here, but Boomers used to say they were going to change the world. They were offering quotas being the youth that would change the world in a positive way. Was this true? Were they different? And in what way? I think you have already kind of made a comment in there. It has often been quoted that only 15 percent of the Boomers were truly activists, were involved in some sort of activity linked civil rights, Vietnam War protest, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the environmental movement, or any kind of activism overall in politics. Any issues today? Is this true, or is this another way to lessen the impact this group has had on America since the (19)60s? In other words on, there has been reports on the television, public broadcasting, documentaries on the Vietnam War, and they will always say that actually there were not that many people really involved in that. They lessened the impact these people had on what was happening in America based on the numbers. Since this is a generation of 60 million, 65 million, only 15 percent on were involved, so thus it was not that great a movement. But, that is the media again. HG: Well, I think- HG: I called Tom Williams up and I said, "Where did you get this statistic?" And he mumbled around and I spent years trying to track it down. It supposedly, and you can ask Jack Smith about this if you talk to him, because it apparently came out of some church study that he had some involvement in. A church group had given him some money, and some people he was involved with, but it was patently untrue. And Tom Williams, we finally identified that he heard it from Jim Webb, who wrote Fields of Fire and was Assistant Secretary of the Navy or something like that. Well, he was an Annapolis classmate of Tom's, and Jim was going around the country doing the radio shows, pushing his book, and that is where he was throwing this out. But it is patently untrue. The VA, who has the best data... Suicide data, for one, is difficult data to work with. There was lots of problems with it, but they have done the best study to date, and there is nowhere near that. And other states have done their own studies of this. I mean, it is such a statistic that really gets a reaction out of people. So a lot of people have looked at it, but it is not true. It is not even close to being true. And I am really disturbed to hear that they are still pushing it down there. SM: They did not do it this year, it was last year. There is the guys at the wall, the guy that go around showing they have a... HG: Right. I have little patience with veterans who are professional victims at this point. As we all approach 50, it is like time you get on with it, although there are many veterans who just will not ever get on with it. And so they identify themselves with the fact that they have been victimized, and they have never moved on to a survivor identity. So they are stuck in Vietnam and they will never make it home. SM: Are many of those peoples not diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, they just do not move on? HG: They just do not move on. And that is true of any war. Not everybody gets over it. And so we owe them. Lincoln said, when the VA was created, care for the, what is it? "Care for the Warrior and for his wife and for his orphan, for his widow, and for his orphan." But that does not make it sell to Vietnam veterans as a group and not come home and off themselves as a way of dealing with what they found when they came home. That is not true at all. SM: Remember when we did the program back in (19)85? That was a big issue even back then, because we had the Harry Gaffney, who would always dress in a suit, and Dan Fraley would dress in a suit, remember? And then you would go down to the Vietnam Memorial in Philadelphia, you would see those that are still wearing their army fatigues, but that it was okay for that opening ceremony. But I remember Harry saying that there is just some people, they ought to learn to dress now. I mean, they have got to move on from it. So what are your thoughts on the former left leaders who state that their past activities and those of their peers had more negative impact on society than good? Many of the... We are talking about the David Horwitz, the Collier who wrote that book on the Destructive Generation, basically condemning the entire generation as real negative, especially those people who were on the left. That is, the war protestors. Those people took over the Democratic Party in 1968. Those people that were affiliated with Eugene McCarthy, and possibly Bobby Kennedy and certainly, oh, during that timeframe. And of course they disrupted the Democratic Convention in Chicago in (19)68, some of the Republican convention too, in a smaller way. So what are your thoughts of those people who look back on when they were younger and did things, and from a psychological perspective, what does that entail? HG: Well, I think we all look back at our coming of age, and we all have things to regret, and we all have things to be proud of. We can all say, "Boy, if I knew then what I know now," and I think no matter where you stand on the issue, that is a common experience. Whatever your positions are on different issues, that maturity and wisdom and the things that we pick up as we grow, we might be in a different place. SM: When you look at people that, either the boomers or whether... You said you have been consistent on your thoughts from then and now toward your perception of people in your age group. But what about those individuals that have kept their ideals? Another word term that has been used from our generation is that they were idealistic somewhat. Dr. King coined the phrase Dreamers, hoping for a better future for all of us, but certainly idealistic. And you almost also made a comment earlier on that many have moved on, and mellowed out, and raised families, and the idealism was just something in their youth. And that is even psychologists and psychology will say that most young people are idealistic when they are young. And as they get older, they have to raise families and get into the reality of what life is. But there are many that still live those ideas. HG: Mellowing out or becoming responsible to a family and all that does not mean you have to give up your ideals or change who you are, what you believe in or what you feel a lot about. SM: Do you feel that the people that you have worked with, the boomers, what was the percentage that they have given up their ideals and just live day to day or they still fight for things? HG: Fight for issues? Well, certainly the populace is less, if you take the voting rate, is less involved. And I could not wait to vote. I came home from Vietnam and I was not old enough to vote, or old enough to have a drink in the state of Pennsylvania as I was laying in the Naval Hospital in South Philadelphia. But once I became old enough to vote, I vote, I vote regularly, and I stay aware of what the issues are and I try to understand the world that is going on around me. The people I spend a lot of time with and who are in my generation seem to do the same thing. We can talk about it. In my experience, we have not lost our passion. We are not 19 with a lot of free time on our hands, but we can write letters, we can make donations to political organizations, we can join political organizations. We can do things like that to try and continue to support our vision of what we think America ought to be. SM: I have a list of names here that I would just like you just comment your thoughts on them. If you were to try to place the following names in the minds of boomers, what overall reaction we do for the following names? I would like your thoughts, just a couple sentences on each of these individuals personally, and maybe if you can speak for the boomers, try to think what they think of them today now that they are almost 50. First name is Tom Hayden. HG: Well, from what I understand, he was an effective legislator in California, and that is really all I know about him. Besides the fact that he was married to Jane Fonda. SM: How about the fact that he protested, went to Hanoi and all the other things? HG: So did Jane. SM: Now as a Vietnam veteran, have you forgiven them for that? HG: I never had a problem with him doing it. I personally felt, again, to confuse the warrior with the war was the big mistake. What I had hard feelings about with the American society was they confused the warrior with the war. I did not have any problem at all with what people felt about the war, but I really felt that they should not be hostile or against the warriors, meaning the Americans who went over and pursued what the government policy was. SM: So again, getting back, and I am going to put Jane Fonda in here too, because she is down further. One of the things when I go to the wall is that is the name that is up on all the details. Jane Fonda bitch, upside down. I have a picture of a Vietnam veteran, I think I told you on the phone, with an artificial arm and an artificial leg, and he has got these big badges and I think they even sell them down there. It is like that is the name. Jane Fonda seems to be the name that you see on the badges. HG: I never heard Jane Fonda say anything against Vietnam veterans except we were being abused or used by the government. She even tried to... She made a movie, Coming Home, which was one of the better movies about Vietnam veterans' adjustments and issues, and that was 1980. SM: Okay, then what draws the ire of people? She was in Hanoi, that picture that that was taken, of course the North Vietnamese should win. Of course, they are fighting. That is the enemy of the American Soldier. HG: And again, that that is speaking to the nature of the war. And I do not begrudge anybody their feelings about the war and the validity of the war. But if you are going to say something about the warriors that carried out that war, then I have a problem with it. SM: Lyndon Johnson? HG: I feel that he was a good president, that the Great Society and many other programs that he created were important programs that were... I believe the government should have been getting involved in these issues. SM: In terms of him bringing the troops to Vietnam, he was the guy that brought the first large numbers of troops. You do not begrudge him or have a negativity toward him? HG: Yeah, we had a mindset that we had won the Second World War. It was the same mindset that got a lot of guys killed in Korea, and it was felt that it was just like in Desert Storm. And Desert Storm worked out really nice. Vietnam did not, but basically, they were very similar actions. We felt that if Vietnam fell, the domino theory, all the Southeast Asian countries were going to become communist strongholds, and this was against our strategic interest. So we got involved to try and prevent this. I mean, that is what it was all about. SM: How about Bobby Kennedy? HG: It is funny. I was in Vietnam most of 1968, so I did not even know when people were getting killed. They did not tell us. SM: Really? How long was it before you knew that Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy were killed within a two month- HG: I found out when I came back home. SM: Really? HG: Yeah. Anything that happened in 1968, I went over in early March, and I got back on December 5th, and they were not... For example, when Martin Luther King got killed, they were not playing us up as big news. We only had one radio station, Armed Forces Radio, and they were not playing that up, and I can imagine why they were not. And same thing with Bobby Kennedy. SM: What are your thoughts on him though, as you think back on the boomers? HG: I thought that had he not been assassinated, he might have made a good president. SM: How about Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin? HG: I think of them in the same terms. Actually, the thing that we were watching a week ago was a special on the serial murders, and Charles Manson was in there, and my wife was saying, "I seem to remember something about him." But she was only seven or eight at the time, and this guy was nuts, and did crazy things. And I think of these people as individuals who were in the right moment at the right time, and they got their 15 minutes of fame. And I do not have any enduring feelings about them one way or another. I think Abbie Hoffman died in New Hope of an overdose. That is what I think about him. It does not sound, from what I read at the time, it did not sound like he ever got over the (19)60s. SM: Right. What is interesting, Jerry Rubin was criticized often as selling out because he went on to become a successful businessman. He got killed in a crime. I thought it was interesting. He was doing something illegal when he got killed. He was crossing the highway in LA, jaywalking, and he got run over, but he was a successful businessman. Whereas Abbie Hoffman, the Yippies, that period, that was just a bunch of, you satisfy this one issue and we will find another issue, that kind of mentality. Yet he did live his entire life as an activist, because he tried to fight to save the Hudson River. HG: He was here to fight the pumping station on the Delaware. SM: And I guess what struck me, not so much the eccentricity of the man, but the fact that the way he died, and the fact that as he was older, because he was about 54 or 53 when he killed himself, he only had $2,000 in the bank, and he had given all his money away. And that suicide note or something like that is they said he had nothing more to live for because no one was listening to him anymore. And I thought, "Ooh, is there something to be said there? Is this the fate of the boomers?" Even though he is only one person, is this the fate of the boomers and all the issues that they cared about when they talk about today's young people who have their own issues. When you talk about the issue of civil rights, that we have still got racism there. "I do not want to hear about it. I do not have other problems. I want to get a good job. And we got our own problems here, and you are just living in the past." So that is what struck me about Abbie Hoffman more than... He was a legitimate activist, but his earlier years hurt him because he played all these games as a Yippie. As he matured, he was a mature activist. So I am wondering what that says about our generation, in terms of... HG: He is clearly in a minority and most of us are not, do not spend our lifetime being activists, at least in that sense. SM: How about Timothy Leary? HG: He just died of cancer. For someone who had made it into academia, Harvard, and he developed some psychological constructs that are still useful today, that people still talk about them. And I learned them, and was surprised to know that that was him. I originally at the time thought he was just wispy professor that was on the fringe, but he was very much a part of the establishment. You cannot get much more than faculty at Harvard. And he gave all that up. SM: To get into the drug scene. HG: Yeah. I could not imagine why he would, why he revoke all of that. SM: Name a couple more here. Huey Newton? HG: I think the Black Panthers, was not he? SM: Mm-hmm. HG: All right. My experience with the Black Panthers was kind of a fascination with them. That felt like, well, if everyone is talking about revolution, this is as close as you can get to revolution, armed revolution, and that is my association to him. SM: It is sad, too, that I think he was gunned down in Oakland when he eventually died in later years, in the late (19)80s. Ralph Nader? HG: A fellow alum, who is still fighting for the consumer. I think world is a safer place for Ralph, and it is good that we have him. SM: He is an example of a guy who has been an actor his whole life. He goes from one cause to another. HG: Most of them have to do with protecting the citizens from big business. SM: George McGovern? HG: He seem like a nice man. SM: Boomers latched on to him in 1972 in large numbers, even though he got clobbered in the election. Many people blame him for the demise of the Democratic Party, or part of the demise. It is basically a lot of the Democrats, McCarthy, and Mondale, and Jimmy Carter, and Dukakis, they bunch all these people in together, and other Democrats of that era, Hubert Humphrey. He is a liberal. A lot of boomers still, when I think of the names of that era, (19)72, it is McGovern, McGovern, McGovern, McGovern. Do you still think that strikes a chord with a lot of veterans? They still think of him in positive terms? HG: Yeah, I guess as they think of him. Most of these people I do not think about. SM): They have moved on, huh? HG: I cannot remember the last time I thought about any of them. Yeah, certainly he was identified with getting out of war. SM: How about Gene McCarthy? HG: Do not really have any association with him. More association to Joseph. SM: Because of the Red scare. Of course, Eugene McCarthy was the guy that the young people started latching onto to fight against the war. HG: Nixon was one of them. SM: Yep. In fact, he is next. Richard Nixon? HG: My association to him is that he managed in 20-some years to come back from what I thought was probably the biggest disgrace you could possibly have. And, at least in some quarters, he kind of rehabilitated, politically rehabilitated. And I still hear people say that he was the greatest political mind around, and whatever. And I remember when Watergate was going on, I just could not believe that these people were that stupid, and that this was all going to... This stupid little project was going to bring down the presidency. And it was scary at the time. SM: His impact with Watergate had last lasting imprints on boomers, how they lead their lives? HG: It has not on me. Everybody does dirty tricks. And everybody... Maybe not everybody, and maybe this is my own lack of trust in politicians, but I assume that everybody is going to try to get away with what they can get away with in the political game. SM: How about George Wallace? HG: A racist. Did not deserve a bullet in the back. SM: Daniel Ellsberg? HG: The first word that popped into my mind was a patriot. We were talking about that earlier. He did what he felt he had to do. He took on the federal government, which is no small thing. SM: Hubert Humphrey? HG: The memory I have of him is that he supported programs that took care of people. SM: And Robert McNamara? HG: Well, I did not buy his book, I am sorry to hear he is distressed with his performance in the war. Then again, Secretary of Defense, all you do is provide your opinion. You do not make the decision. SM: But he is criticized for holding his opinion back. HG: I do not believe that. I believe that that opinion was represented at the highest levels of government. And if he did not share it, someone else would. Certainly from what I have read, is there was a group that always felt that it was a losing proposition from the start. And there was always someone around who would take that position. It was not like everyone was telling the president, "Oh, yes, we are going to win this one." And it became in (19)67, (19)68, not the question of would we leave, but how are we going to leave, and how do we do it and look good, and how do we manage it politically? SM: Do you think inviting him to the wall would be, and having him come to the wall would be positive or negative, if he would come? HG: I think it could be positive. SM: I do not know what [inaudible] would think, but I have a sense, knowing he is very open-minded that he would like him to come, and just like Lewis Puller believes we need to heal. Bill Clinton, all of need to come at some juncture. And it is not an interesting too, that the only president who has visited the wall is President Clinton. Ronald Reagan did not come. Neither did George Bush. And it is amazing. I do not know if they have invited Jimmy Carter ever, but I know that Al Gore was there once to speak before he was a candidate, John Kennedy? HG: Well, I was not old enough to really know what was going on. My enduring memory of John Kennedy was I was in ninth grade when he and Nixon were running against each other, and the class was arbitrarily split in half, and I was made a Nixon devotee, and had to argue that Nixon should be elected. SM: You look at the assassinations of Johnson, not Johnson, assassinations of both Kennedys and Martin Luther King, and then in a smaller way, of Malcolm X and Medgar Evers, and the bombing of kids down in that church in the south. And then, of course, the attempted assassination of George Wallace. They were all over a period of time. How does that affect the boomers in terms of their psyche? HG: Well, I think it was a traumatic time, to have the president assassinated. Makes you feel pretty helpless. SM: As a professional psychologist, you cannot have 60 million people in front of you. But if you were to analyze the effect that this man had on, remembering that that boomers would only be, what, 14 when John Kennedy was killed? The earliest boomers. The oldest boomers. I met him, by the way, when I was a kid at Hyde Park, just by accident, and had a chance to shake his hand. But just for a brief moment, he had an impact on me back in 1960. That was when he was at Hyde Park. But the sense that things would have been different, but you cannot always project what may have been. You got to deal with what is. Do you think boomers, I know they do not think about it, but in the subconscious they may be thinking, "What if John Kennedy had lived? What if Martin Luther King had lived? What if Bobby Kennedy had lived?" All these what ifs. Because some of the what ifs, if John Kennedy had lived there may not have been a Vietnam War. We may have not sent the troops over, but there is no proof that there would have for that. HG: Well, he sent the first ones there. SM: Right. HG: What I remember about John Kennedy is the Cuban missile prices. And I was convinced we were all going to get nuked. And that is from going through it, and then watching things on TV or reading about it, you realize how extraordinary that was, to take that position. What would have happened if he would not have, and they would put more and more missiles on Cuba. That really was a time, in everything I have read and watched, that that really was a time when we could have had a nuclear war. That was the one time that it could have went either way. SM: Getting back to the question on the psychology, has this... What effect has that had on the generation in terms of- HG: Well, I do not know if it has had any effect on our generation as opposed to the rest of the populace. None of us voted to put him in office. None of us probably paid much attention to his campaigning. And I remember the big point in the election was, well, he was a Catholic. We have never had a Catholic elected president. So I would guess that it probably would have had more of an impact on the adults who were involved in the election and had voted for him. And I did not really know what he stood for when he was elected. And no, I do not know that it had big an impact at all on our generation. SM: A couple of more people here, Spiro Agnew? HG: Another crook. And the only person I ever knew that used the word effete. SM: Muhammad Ali? HG: As I have gotten older, I have come to admire him for his position. He took on military service. Because I remember when Elvis went in the service. And he went in, he put his time in. That was the expectation. And Muhammad Ali said, "No." I had always admired him as a fighter and as a boxer. SM: How about Barry Goldwater? HG: I did not really know much about Barry Goldwater. I did not have much of a reaction to him. All I remember is the bumper stickers, AUH2O. He was not a major player as I knew. SM: How about Dr. Benjamin Spock? HG: Well, I did not read his book. I knew that he was against the war and was an activist. And all I remember thinking is he could have stuck to being a doctor. Being a doctor does not necessarily make you knowledgeable about the bigger world, and the issues of war and peace. SM: And Gerald Ford? HG: He was the first president I voted for. Maybe the second. That is right, I voted for Nixon in (19)72. It was only recently that I finally voted for somebody who got elected. Yeah, Clinton from the first. Now I voted for Nixon, and he got elected. But that was my first vote, and... HG: Yeah, that was my first vote and I felt he had experience and the alternative... At that time, I thought we needed people with experience, but since then until Bill Clinton, everybody I voted for lost. SM: I have not voted for too many winners either. How about Sam Ervin, the person who headed the Watergate Committee? HG: I just remember watching him on TV and he seemed fair and impartial and I mean, I thought that was great drama. SM: And John Dean. HG: Well, I bought his book, Blind Ambition and read it, and then I watched a movie where Martin, what has he called, played him. SM: Martin Sheen? HG: Yeah. SM: Okay. HG: Played him. Yeah, he seemed like he was in over his head. SM: He spilled the beans though. He just... HG: Well, yeah, when he started to see that he was going to go for a ride. SM: And John Mitchell. HG: John Mitchell, he was a crook too when it came down to it. Our highest judicial officer. And he was a crook too. SM: How about the musicians of the era? I will just put like Bob Dylan and Jimmy Hendricks and Janis Joplin, those are the types. HG: Actually, my taste in music was like early to mid (19)60s and that kind of real hard stuff. I have gotten an appreciation for it as I have gotten older. I did not at the time. Yeah. SM: Because at that time, a lot of the era, the society of young people listen to that music and they think about the war and the big issues in society, and there was a lot of social commentary in the music and it kind of excited me. You wanted to get out there. HG: I was listening to Motown all the time and they did not sing about any of that. They were not commenting about anything except men and women and falling in love stuff. SM: And the last name here I have is Gloria Steinem. A lot of the women's movement people you know. HG: Right. I have come to appreciate the women's movement, although to the degree they want to become men. I think they were nuts because they had a better deal as a woman whether they realize it or not, in many ways. Much of what men are about in this culture and have been is very unhealthy. SM: Do you think the movement has changed from the early (19)70s to what it is today? HG: Well, yeah, I think everyone agrees there has been gains and they were fighting very basic issues. Well, first of all, they were fighting to be taken seriously, and I think they are taken seriously today. SM: What do you think of the Berrigan brothers? They burned the documents there and they went to jail for it. HG: Again, they were priests or brothers or something like that. SM: Yes, Philip and Daniel Berrigan. HG: I am just thinking that they must have been acting out of their conscience. SM: And the last one is Martin Luther King Jr. HG: I felt that he did have a dream and that he pursued that, that in his death he became more important than he may have become, had he not been assassinated. He became the symbol, and I think he helped polarize people around the issues and not just black against white. I think a lot of whites moved to support racial equality as a result of what happened to him. SM: In all these names that I have given, whether they be positive or negatives, do you still feel tremendous bitterness toward any of them at all in your thoughts? Say your thoughts 10 years ago, 15 years ago, back in, when you came back from the service, from early (19)70s to now, was there a period when you may have felt that negative toward them, but now it since time has passed- HG: No, I did not feel bitter towards any of them. I mean, I can certainly disagree with people. SM: How do you explain then a lot of the, again, I will not say a lot, but some of the commentary that is out there that as soon as they start talking in political terms, the politics of the day, they will refer back to those times. And you just mentioned the name, whether it be a, I do not want to say the Berrigans, I do not want to talk about them anymore, but any of the activists of that era, the Tom Hayden, I can imagine what they are going to say about him when he goes to the convention in Chicago because he was out protesting in (19)68. Now he is going to be inside the convention as a delegate from California. And the commentary that will be out there is, "Well, look, this party has not come anywhere. Look at that. The guy who protests is now inside. So the liberals are still in charge." And I am not saying I am a liberal or conservative, I am trying to be fair here, but there are many people that just cannot forget and cannot forgive. Congressman Dornan, for example. HG: He is not a good example of anything. SM: But he goes ballistic. HG: Nuts. SM: And Don Bailey, which we all witnessed in (19)85. And then I have a few people that I have witnessed down at The Wall who just talk amongst themselves and I just listen. It is just amazing, some of the things they say. Do you feel these are in the minority, that these people are in the minority now as opposed to- HG: Sure. SM: Okay. HG: Yeah, extremists are a minority by definition. Thank God there are not that many Bob Dornan around. SM: Yeah. What is amazing about him is he served this country well and he fought in the Korean War there is a lot of good things about him, but boy, when he starts talking about his opponents, it is really below the belt. HG: Well, I think personally, having been through it all myself, having served in combat or been wounded or this or that, that does not necessarily prepare you for anything. You can still be nuts. You can still be out on a limb. You can still have just really weird ideas. SM: Could you comment on the generation gap in the (19)60s and early (19)70s and the generation gap, if you sense one today between boomers and Generation X? HG: Well, my sense of it is that today's young people did not get the same kind of introduction to certain values and beliefs and practices that our generation did. At least my experience was, my parents passed on their values and beliefs and practices, and there was a lot of should, should, should, should. And so your choice was to accept that or reject it or negotiate what you are going to accept and what you are going to reject. And my sense today is that there is a lot less of that. I guess the boomers have tried to encourage younger people to make more decisions for themselves and to be more of their own person. But that I think can make the process harder as far as finding out who you are and what you do believe in and what is important to you and how important it is to you. SM: That generation gap, there is a couple of books written on the (19)60s about the generation gap between the World War II generation and boomers and trying to understand that, a lot of it was what you talked about earlier, the status quo and being different, wanting to be different. HG: There was books on the me decade or the me generation and the ones I read just took it to an extreme and maybe a Leary or someone, but the idea of gaining self-knowledge and understanding yourself I think is important. And sure anything, can be taken to an extreme. I believe that in the end, we do not have the answer for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for all of us. We are all in this together. And anything that diminishes others in the end will diminish us. And so we are either all going to make it or we are not. But the strides the human race has made, we have made not through competition and aggression, but we have made through working together. That is how the human race has come as far as it has. And 10,000 years working together for the common good is where it is at- SM: See, that is interesting because that is another commentary. And when they talk about boomers is they were very impatient. It was on the category, they were an impatient group because they saw things as they were the status quo, and they had seen the roadblocks all these years for the status quo remaining. So they said, the heck with this, we want it now. That is where that revolutionary rhetoric came. And so they were not going to wait, even when you look at Dr. King at his non-violent protest, it was actually not a condemnation of Thurgood Marshall and the gradualist approach through the courts. But it was saying well, there was another way, and certainly we admired, but we want it now. We were not going to put up with the road blocks anymore. We were going to end segregation. We were not going to wait for the courts to do it for us. So there was kind of a symbolic thing that passed off into the boomers, that they were an impatient group at times, wanting it now. And that many of these boomers are now in positions of authority and responsibility, and what characteristics, are they still using that quality in their own everyday lives of wanting it now, not going through the process? HG: I think being young and all young people are impatient. I think Martin Luther King used a non-violent approach because it was very powerful. He learned that from Gandhi and you do not have to the amount of power and with a lot less of a downside than if you try to have a revolution and overtake something. SM: What has been the lasting legacy of the boomer generation? HG: Well, I feel that we were a hopeful generation. SM: The legacy of the boomer generation. HG: Well, as I said, I think we were a hopeful generation. The motivations of the generation were to make American culture and society, I will say more user-friendly, and to take care of those who needed help. SM: And as a follow-up, you feel that is one of the real good things about the boomers. HG: [inaudible] SM: What role, if any, does activism in the boomer generation penetrate into the lives of their children, Generation X? HG: I do not know if I can answer that. I do not have children. SM: I put that question in there because it is a biased question on my part, even though it is supposed to be fair here. I do not see a whole lot of activism amongst today's college students, except I see a tremendous amount of volunteerism. 85 percent of our students today and nation are involved and volunteer, which means they care about others. But in some sense, they feel somewhat lack of empowerment, because they do not vote. All the time, low numbers in terms of college students and young people. I think 18 to 24-year-old who vote, it just like amazes me. And of course we know from the data how they feel about elected leaders and their distaste for politics and wanting to become involved in politics. It is like what, between 15 percent and 17 percent in some of the entering classes, last two years amongst entering freshmen in higher education. Their interest in politics is way-way down, yet their interest in volunteerism is way-way up. So I am just trying to see what the perceptions are of those individuals who may work with them or have kids and so forth. Just again, let me repeat this, even though it may seem repetitive, do you think it is possible to heal within a generation where differences and positions taken were so extreme? Is it important to try to assist in this healing process? Should we care? And is it feasible? And the premise of this question goes back again to the many trips that I have taken to The Wall in Washington over the last five years basically. And I have been to several ceremonies with veterans in the audience and commentary like, they hate Bill Clinton. They hate Jane Fonda. They hate those who protested the war and never gave veterans a royal welcome on the return of the mainland. The Wall has helped in a magnificent way, but the hate seems to remain for those on the other side, should have never be made to assist in this healing beyond The Wall. Your thoughts? Are you optimistic or pessimistic? And again, maybe I am just seeing a very small group of people that always come to The Wall every year during those ceremonies. HG: Well, I mean, I have been to The Wall, I have been to the ceremonies down in the Philadelphia Memorial and I have talked to 1000s of veterans. I would say at this point in time, there was a clear minority who have not been able to come home from Vietnam and continue to identify with some kind of Vietnam dynamic as opposed to, I am a Vietnam veteran, I was there, but it was not something I tell people about myself. It is not something I think about or remember. I got too many other things that are more here and now and I have a whole other identity. And this is one part. And I think that is where the majority of Vietnam veterans are today. I think we can heal a lot of veterans and a lot of people that did not go ahead and hard feelings 20, 25, 30 years ago. SM: Do you have any [inaudible] people you have gotten to know who regret that they did not go? There is a guilt complex? [inaudible] HG: Well, there was a couple of people that wrote famous articles in the early (19)80s. It was almost getting to the point where it was in to be a Vietnam veteran, but it did not, and it has not, I do not think it ever will be. I felt the same way for them that I felt for McNamara, you have got your burdens to bear from the Vietnam era and I have got mine. I feel like everybody's a Vietnam veteran who lived through that period in America. SM: Even those who did not go? HG: Yeah, Women, mothers that sent their sons off. We all went through that period. We all suffered through that and watched it unfold and were upset by it. SM: Historian sociologists will say there has been two real traumatic experiences in American history that have come close to tearing the nation apart. Of course, most people will agree that you cannot really put the Civil War on the same scale as the Vietnam War, but it is close. Because when you look at what was happening here at home and the breakdown of the college campuses, the shutting down of college campuses in the cities and the protests in Washington and all over the country, and the divisions were there. I mean, it was just like, you cut it with a cake, when you are in the room with someone who was against you or for you. And there was not a whole lot of listening either between those who were for or against. Not just that issue, but there were a lot of other issues too. So those were tough times. Bear with me, I have just got a few more questions and we are done. Again, this is getting back, it sounds like a little repetitive here. Do you think we will ever have the trust for elect leaders again after the debacle of Vietnam and Watergate? If boomers’ distrust, what effect is this having on the current generation of youth? I think we have covered that in an earlier question. How did the youth of the (19)60s and early (19)70s change your life and attitudes toward that and future generations? HG: My experiences in the (19)60s, (19)70s? SM: Just overall, how did the young people of that era, of the (19)60s and early (19)70s, because when you think of the (19)60s, people will really say that the (19)60s is really (19)65 to (19)73, (19)72, (19)73 ish, that juncture. Then it goes into the (19)70s, which is the me decade and all this other stuff. So how did that change your life, the attitudes and all those things you were witnessing and seeing? Certainly the young man who went, before you went over, was different than the young man that came back. HG: I do not know how much of an impact on me because at that point I was trying to physically and mentally and emotionally find out who I was, now that I was different, I was very different. And I was in and out of the hospital most of that period. Well, from the end of (19)68 through (19)73 or (19)74, at a military hospital, [inaudible], I was very protected and insulated against a lot of this. SM: Were you were injured on the front lines during the war? Were you in the Army or the Marine Team Corps? Did you step in a booby trap or you were- HG: The guy in front of me did. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was no longer in the service. I was retired, but I was in the hospital having reconstructive surgery done for most of that time, and everybody around me was in uniforms. And so it did not have as much reality for me as, I guess if I would have been home living there seven days a week, 24 hours a day. SM: There is a brand-new book out right now called Quarantine Diary. Have you heard of it? There was a documentary on it. It was written by Jack Reid who was a Vietnam veteran from Texas. And it is a story about, well, there was an encampment that was overrun by the American soldiers and North Vietnamese army. And he took one of these little diaries and he thought it was from a dead Vietnam veteran. And he kept that in his backpack at his home for over 20 years after he came back from Vietnam. He served there, I think (19)68, (19)69, thought the guy was dead. And finally he had a hard time healing and was having a hard time, and so he decided, somebody encouraged him to try to find the family in Vietnam of this dead soldier. HG: Actually, the Vietnam Veterans of America has a whole program now to try and return kind of personal memorabilia like this, to get it back to survivors of these soldiers in Vietnam. It might have been in that program that he got some encouragement. SM: Well, actually the guy was still alive. It was a mistake. But the thing what came out in this book was that there was a concern that he brought forth, and that is that many of the Vietnam veterans went over there and saw their buddies get killed and they just wanted to kill Charlie, and they would go into a village and sometimes kill others. And so there was a sense of, it was not premeditated, but it was like a vengeance, I want to get back at the person who killed my friend. And thus he tried to bring over the fact that when he came back to America, he did not know what kind of an impact this had on him in terms of when he saw violence happen or someone was killed. He had no sensitivity. There was no sensitivity toward it because he had seen it all in Vietnam and seen people killed, kids killed, older people killed and so forth. And what he was before he went over there and what he was when he came back again, was a totally different person. And he was very concerned that when he saw tragedies on television and death and murder in America, that did not ring, it did not really strike him as anything out of the ordinary because he had witnessed it all in Vietnam as a different person. In fact, he would kill himself and things he never told his parents about. And I guess the question I am getting at here is, this is not a condemnation of Vietnam veterans. It is basically looking at the warrior and all warriors in all wars, that when they come back and they see violence, and of course the media portrays it on television all the time too, the violence, we were no longer sensitive toward it anymore. It is just an everyday happening. And I guess a question I want to ask also to you, as a result of the boomer generation in World War II, we did not see these things. There were not films taken of dead people, but during this era there was. And then of course it is documented much more in the stories too, of Vietnam veterans. That is this another quality of the boomer generations that is different than others, is this accepting violence as an everyday happening? Even not only those who went but those who saw it on television. "Oh, that is just part of being a part of a living human being." And so then this had transferred on to young people. HG: Well, I see much more of that today, where you turn on the local news and somebody has probably been murdered or run over and that is what they put on. And they show the body or the blood trail or the pool of blood or the spent casings in the drive-by shooting. That is happening today. I still remember things were not that gory on evening news and during the Vietnam era, at least they were not on CBS. SM: It did show that one scene where the South Vietnam soldiers shot that one, that was [inaudible] and you saw the young girl running down the road burned. HG: Yeah, those were the exceptions. That is why they became timeless. SM: One of the best history books ever written on the growing up years for the boomers, say in 25 to 50 years from now, and I was a history major, political science, and they say the best books of any period are 50 years afterwards. The best books in the World War II are now, really good books. Stephen Ambrose, really good books. What will be the overall evaluation of boomers? I talked to you about the lot of Left leaders are condemning their whole backgrounds, like Horowitz and the destructive generation. There is a lot of good books, like Lewis Puller talking about one of the best books ever written. He deserved the Pulitzer. What a writer. He should not have killed himself. He had such a skill in writing, that is why he was hired at George Mason University to teach writing to young people, because he knew how to write. What do you think historians, how will they write about this period, the (19)60s and early (19)70s in 25 years when it is that 50-year period? How would you project they will look at this whole era and the young people that came out of this era? HG: Well, I think they will identify it as a period of questioning the status quo, large numbers of the generation. SM: And that they say that it is an identity of a group that questioned the status quo. What was the impact? The concept that the boomers feel empowered and why do not Generation X, the children feel that way of boomers? That is amazing. When you had these people who felt empowered and yet their kids do not, not all, there is some that probably do, but not as empowered as their parents. HG: I do not know. SM: It is something you cannot quite answer, huh? HG: NO, it is too bad, if our legacy is that our children become passive and introverted and are focused on only themselves and their own needs. SM: Final question here, is the youth of that era believed they could have an impact on society, government policy. The (19)60s and early (19)70s is the Vietnam War policy, the draft, civil rights legislation, non-violent protests via Dr. King and the multiple movements that I have already described. In other words, that concept of empowerment, which is a term we use in higher education today. We want young people to know that they are at this university, they are empowered. They say, "What? I am only a young person of 18. What do you mean I am empowered?" Well, we are here at your leisure. And so you get involved in things and you give them a sense of empower. Why is society today resisting this today? And why, in your own words, do the sons and daughters of boomers feel less confident about their ability to have an impact on society and oftentimes less desire and seemingly less opportunity? This is just a concept that I have and I am trying to find out here. Am I wrong in assuming this in the question? HG: No, I do not think you are wrong in assuming it. SM: Do you have any answers, any more commentary on that or- HG: No, I think my brain is fried. I mean, we use empowerment in the healing professions. The idea is to empower. I mean, I believe it is much better to teach somebody to fish than to give them a fish if they are hungry. To not do for them as much as to teach them to do for themselves. That is where the real payoff is for them and society. SM: I think we are almost done here and we are down to the last thing here, but I want to follow up. Since you are a person who is a professional psychologist, what are the most important qualities for healing? When you talk about just a general concept of healing, especially if you were around a group of Vietnam veterans who was at The Wall and you kept overhearing this commentary, of course you would not butt in, but if you were in a room with them and had an opportunity to talk to them, what would you tell them in terms of- HG: Well, I would say that healing is a process, not an event. It requires a willingness to be aware of yourself and your surroundings. It is an active process, not a passive process. And you need to find- (End of Interview) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Henry Franklin Graff https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ab52f3d3537f62afbc56dd07e85d4279.jpg b6b9a04e9ede7b5b9f66bc6e11a78efc https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/fa3f8e9cce21515954c8ba249d4ac772.mp3 ccd05cd64cb90bcf4c65173fa74c9781 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player (Amplitude.js) This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-06-11 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Hue-Tam Ho Tai, 1948- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Hue-Tam Ho Tai is a professor of Sino-Vietnamese History at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of modern Vietnam. Dr. Tai is the author of Passion, Betrayal, and Revolution in Colonial Saigon: The Memoirs of Bao Luong, Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution, and Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:6915,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,16777215],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,3355443],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;\&quot;Arial\&quot;,sans-serif&quot;}">Dr. Hue Tam Ho Tai is a professor of Sino-Vietnamese History at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of modern Vietnam. Dr. Tai is the author of <em>Passion, Betrayal, and Revolution in Colonial Saigon: The Memoirs of Bao Luong</em>, <em>Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution</em>, and <em>Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam</em>.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 1 Microcassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;College campuses; Brandeis University; 1968 Olympics; Vietnam War; Harvard University;Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; Social Revolution; North Vietnamese;&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">College campuses; Brandeis University; 1968 Olympics; Vietnam War; Harvard University; Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Civil Rights Movement; Social Revolution; North Vietnamese.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 92:07 Subject LCSH Vietnam—History—20th century; College teachers; Harvard University; Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, 1948--Interviews Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Hue Tam Ho Tai Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, 1948- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam—History—20th century; College teachers; Harvard University; Tai, Hue-Tam Ho, 1948--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Hue-Tam Ho Tai is a professor of Sino-Vietnamese History at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of modern Vietnam. Dr. Tai is the author of <em>Passion, Betrayal, and Revolution in Colonial Saigon: The Memoirs of Bao Luong</em>, <em>Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution</em>, and <em>Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam</em>. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource ND Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.116 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2018-03-29 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 92:07