65 10 1775 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ebddffac9afb99461896b96783ff2866.jpg 8388161e4a4458220fbfee637ec4926f https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/3505ce9c5a42177700bc76507d96a1d3.mp3 079234b4b2891bcbdd2315b31b7b2b56 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 2010-04-13 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Judith Clavir Albert, 1943- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert is a Canadian-born activist who was associated with many organizations such as the Yippies, Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, and The Women's Liberation Movement. She married Stew Albert, a political activist, who was a founder of the Yippies. Dr. Gumbo Albert has a Ph.D. in Sociology. &quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:15107,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,11791078],&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;14&quot;:[null,2,0],&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert is a Canadian-born activist who was associated with many organizations such as the Yippies, Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, and The Women's Liberation Movement. She married Stew Albert, a political activist, who was a founder of the Yippies. Dr. Gumbo Albert has a Ph.D. in Sociology. </span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Yippies; Women's Rights Movement; Vietnam War; Protests; Social activism; Black Panthers; Children; Environmentalism; Counterculture; SDS; Weathermen; Baby boom generation; Surveillance.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13689059}}">Yippies; Women's Rights Movement; Vietnam War; Protests; Social activism; Black Panthers; Children; Environmentalism; Counterculture; SDS; Weathermen; Baby boom generation; Surveillance.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 125:57 Subject LCSH Political activists--United States; Albert, Judith Clavir, 1943--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Kimberly F Mourao Date of interview: 13 April 2010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 00:04 SM: Okay. Again, this is going to be a combination of general questions. And I started out basically with some of the direct questions that were not in the general question. Your parents were communists living in Canada, a life with serious thoughts that you became a yippie. Years later, where serious, serious thinking theater and fun were united. How does your upbringing shape your future social networks? And i.e., the yippies, the women's movement? Things like that? 00:37 JA: How does my upbringing shape my social network? 00:41 SM: Yeah, how did it? How did? How did you go from being, living in Canada and being very serious to moving to the United States and being linked up with a group like the yippies? 00:53 JA: Well, it was called rebellion. I had, when I was living in Canada, I was leading the leading a very traditional life, I had an early marriage. And one day, I came home to find my husband in bed with another woman. And basically, that was, it was a fight or flight response. So, I left Canada, I was, I have a, I was working on my PhD in Sociology. I left Canada to come down to the United States to a sociology convention, and you know, I walked outside, and the sun was shining, and it was warm, and it was cold and windy in Canada, because I guess it was the fall. And there were people, professors and students demonstrating against the war. And it was just a completely opposite experience to that sort of the pain of this early first marriage breakup. And so, I left. I would say that, in terms of social networks, when I first arrived, the people that I gravitated to were people who were familiar to me, which meant some of the more sectarian group on the University of California campus, but for various reasons that lasted maybe about fifteen minutes. And I was lucky enough at a, or the stars were aligned in the right way. That at a meeting, a Stop the Draft week meeting for the Oakland Seven who are a group of young men who had been indicted for trying to stop trip trains, that I happen to meet Stew, and that, that story is very simple. I was living in Berkeley by then I was by myself, and I was interested in meeting other people. So, I went to this stuff, the draft week meeting, and I walked in and it was like I was in, it was like a match.com in the 1968 because the room at Macau's campus was just filled with very interesting looking people, the men were wearing the army jackets, and they had long hair and the women were wearing, you know, long flowy robes. And there were these tall California girls, I am short, I am from Toronto, and I am Jewish and have these tall, beautiful, blonde California girls. And so, it was like a completely different environment for me. I went and I saw across the room two blonde men, I have always been attracted to blonde. So, I saw I saw across the room to blonde men, I went up and I introduced myself and of course, I have been prepared for this event by wearing, putting on my best, you know, miniskirt and black fishnet stockings, and I went up to these two guys. And I said, “Hi, I want to introduce myself. My name is Judy. And I just arrived from Canada.” And they both said hello. But then one of them was Stew put out his hand and touch me on the nose with this little finger. And that was sort of, that was how we met. 04:18 SM: That is like you will not be back up in Canada. Just before we get back to the United States again: What does it mean to be a red diaper baby because you are the third person, I have interviewed that said they were red diaper babies. 04:31 JA: Well, there is your social network. See what it meant, it meant that a lot of things, it meant that one of my earliest memories is the getting up on a chair in my parent’s kitchen. And I am sure at their urging or directions, calling the White House to ask them not to kill the Rosenberg’s. What is meant was growing up with a set of extraordinarily progressive values that the, that understanding the phrase “from each according to their ability to each according to their need,” was the way you look at the world that each person puts in what the society what they can and takes out what they need. There was an extraordinary emphasis on equality, there was this extraordinary identification with the oppressed of the world, whether it was the dustbowl refugees, or black people in the south, it did not matter, you, you, you had instilled in you from the earliest possible age, a progressive activist set of values, which then really, sort of defined your entire life. 05:43 SM: You mentioned that one of the things that if remember right, when I was reading some background information on you is that in your early years, when you were talking about those qualities of being a red diaper baby, also the comic books were banned. And that was, that was kind of a part of it as well, because everything was serious that but, that you became a yippie and that comedy was very important with along with the serious. 06:14 JA: Well, the yippies were not really that serious, what, you know, we let us get that up front. That was one of the reasons that I was attracted to them was, was that they, they were not that serious. And it allowed me to both be political, but not have to always look at things with the serious points of view. No, it is absolutely true that that in, in, in my household, comic books were banned. And everything sort of, there was a lot of, for the revolution you did things out of moral values, you did things in your home moral universe, was, is not good for the revolution? Are you doing things that will help other people? And for that, you have to be serious. Yes. But I think also comic books were banned, because they were strange, they were different. And in my household, it did not last that for a while, you know, they were they were ways to subvert the dominant paradigm. And that is when, you know, if you could not have comic book in your house, your friends had him, and it was not a big deal. 07:18 SM: And I asked Paul, this very same question that I am going to ask you, and that is what was in your own words, define what it means to be a yippy. 07:27 What it means to be a yippy, is to create a myth, an ironic myth about society about activity, and to act on that myth. For example, when we went to Chicago in (19)68, you know, we said we were going to do all kinds of things with none of which were even possible. And yet, we were able to, we were able to, I am not, I am not doing this very well. You know, I wrote something recently, about what it means to be a yippy. And actually, maybe what I should do is read it if I can find it. 08:06 SM: Oh, that is fine. Yep. 08:08 JA: Just go on pause for a minute, because- 08:12 SM: That is all right. Who were, the people at your wedding? Was, were those, was that your son and your family there holding the cover? 08:27 JA: No, that was, it was, it was, the answer to that is partly. Hold on for just a second. 08:34 SM: Yep. Was Paul at your wedding? 08:59 JA: No, he was not they could not come. 09:00 SM: Okay. 09:03 JA: But Bobby Steele, I will tell you who was at the wedding. Bobby Steele was at the wedding; Steve Bingham was at the wedding. 09:16 SM: Bobby was in Philadelphia, was not he? I thought- 09:19 JA: Oh no, no, he was here. 09:20 SM: Oh, he must have, all right. He did live in Philly. Okay. All right. 09:35 JA: I think I will not be able to define exactly I mean, I am sure Paul did a much better, within sort of quarter round on it. But when I prided myself as a yippy, I like to think of myself as Alice Waters, okay. And if I said if I was going to get a recipe for yippie, this is what it would be. All right. Ready? Mix together equal parts of hippie counterculture, with new left anti-war politics. Anything that smacks of seriousness and a large portion of ironic theatrical Jewish humor, together with a dash of anarchism and a dollop of Eros, sprinkled liberally with high grade marijuana both in LastPass and real estate and the pure audacity of weatherman, manipulate the media to expose the steps with hypocrisy. Garnish with my generation’s fervent, all-consuming fitments to end this disastrous illegal war in Vietnam. Serve hot. 10:42 SM: That is beautiful. Yeah, I think even Poland loves that. 10:51 JM: It is, you know, it is hard. It was hard to figure it out. But it is kind of easier, to it is easy at this moment anyway for me to read it rather than to say it, but that that is what yippy is. 11:02 SM: Yeah, I, again, I asked this, another question to Paul. And it is a regarding the yippies. And that is, how did how did you meet Abby, Jerry, Anita, Phil Oaks, Paul and Jonah Raskin, because I know Jonah too. I interviewed Fiona, very early on. And those you know, your name and your husband's name. And these names that I just mentioned are the ones that people know about. But how did you meet them? How did you become a group? 11:33 JA: Well, I had as I told you, I met him to in Berkeley, and when I have moved, in around May of 1968, I went up to Canada to get divorced from the, the husband who you know, the first husband. In the meantime, Sue, who had been living on a couch in Jerry's apartment, realized that he needed to do something. Find a place for the, for two of us. So, what he managed to do was, I guess, probably talk to Abby. But he ended up converting the cellar of Liberty house into a rent free, cold water flat. And if you had been in the cellar, it was there was no toilet, for example, there was just this sort of pipe that water drips down into a barrel and we would pee in the barrel. And every morning Sue would go up the metal stairs that lead up Bleecker Street and dump the barrel of piss water into the gutter. The cellar was, I, he had a bed, he managed to get a bed. He got a hot plate, an electric frying pan. And that was where we lived and because the cellar, because it was the cellar, and the summer was hot. All these people Jerry, Abby, Nancy, Anita, Krasner everybody, they would come down to our cellar to visit. And so that was what I would say I probably first met them in our cellar. I may have met Abby for the first, and Paul and Anita for the first time at Abby's place on St. Mark's. But um, no, I have met Jerry and Nancy for the first time in the cellar. But we would also spend time up in their apartments. You know, they live right down the street, right down the street and across the street from at the end. And these are all on St. Mark's place. And Liberty house, which was by the way, a co-op that sold goods made by poor black women in Mississippi to benefit the Civil Rights Movement. Abby has been a, actually a manager of Liberty house and had done the publicity for them and had also organized a program called Food for Newark during the Newark disturbances out of Liberty house. And so, and Liberty house was on Bleecker Street, which is not that far from where Abby and Anita and Jerry and Nancy were living. So that was where I first met them. 14:00 SM: Yeah, I have a question too, is at its core, at it was height, how many yippies were there? I mean, corps yippies that were, I know there were chapters all over the country at a certain point, not only the New York chapter, but there were other chapters. But did, did the main leaders keep track of the corps? 14:20 JA: No. 14:21 SM: Okay. So, there is no way of knowing how many. 14:24 JA: We were, there were work groups, there were, they were, they were, they were more expensive circles and groups with a car. Right? So, you know, you could, people came people went, but the people who were close friends and stuck together or were in conflict with each other, as Abby and Sherry were off and on during the summer of (19)68. That, that was the, the corps group was not that much bureaucratic, we talk about the yippies as organizations and chapters and that, that was not our, our way of thinking. 14:58 SM: Yeah, because I was often wondering, you know, because they were involved in so many different protests and so many different events is how did they survive financially? How do they support themselves? So that was, how did like, before Jerry and Abby went off and did lectures, lecture survey, they, how are they surviving? 15:18 JA: Well, you know, the FBI would ask the same question, and nobody ever really knew the answer. 15:25 SM: Well, I am not the FBI. 15:26 JA: Oh, no, I am not saying that you are. But it is, it is one of the questions. I, you know, I do not know, there was there was no, liberals would give people money. Abby had the free stuff and everything that generated any money. I do not know, you know, I know, I had money from my father, my father, when I left Canada after that, he gave me $500 for the revolution, he said, so that was cool. You know, people, parents gave him money. I do not know, I you know, I literally, how did the rent get paid. Who knows? Who knows? 16:02 SM: Essentially, Mark wrote in his book “Underground,” if you make reference to which I have read, which I think is a fantastic book and should be required reading in any course, in the (19)60s, I interviewed Mark. He talks about, you know, that very same thing about where the money came from, he said he never had a problem with it. And he said it was because people were always there to donate when there was a need, and, and no name need to be mentioned, there was money. And that was- 16:29 JA: That is my recollection, too. It is not, I mean, people were not, we were, we were not at that point, selling marijuana or anything like that. It was, there was, the money was there. Remember also, it was the (19)60s and there was a lot of money around? Like, for example, Sue, and I would both write for the Berkeley Barb. And Max Scherr paid twenty-five cents a column inch. Now you cannot live on that. But there was money around it. I do not know. I do not know. 16:59 SM: Yeah, one of the things your, your husband's do is, I have got, by the way, I want since I have you on the phone today is, I want to buy one of those books from you. If you have any left. 17:10 JA: I do, I have a few. I sell them for $45 because they are signed. And now the only signed one, you know, there is not going to be any more signed ones. 17:17 SM: Well, I will mail a check to you for $45 but we will figure that out at the end of the interview. But I, because the people who are going to be reading this may not have, will ever read the book. Uh, who is Stew Albert, and I know he was a young ̶ came from Brooklyn. He was a kid whose father was a salesclerk. And I know he was one of the people that you, you talk about reinventing yourself. So, I would like to talk who is Stew. And number one this quote that you have, which I think is a beautiful, I can explain this. When you were talking about the people in the (19)60s, it must have been the (19)60s, that brief period of time when everything seemed possible, and the future was up for grabs. Just who was Stew? 18:02 JA: Okay. Well, first of all, his father actually works in the city record. He was not a salesclerk. But he came from a lower middle-class background in Brooklyn. And at a certain point, he worked for the, he always had for some reason very contrary to parent’s progressive politics, his first demonstration was demonstrated, was against capital punishment against the execution of Caryl Chessman. He went to Cuba, to visit Cuba with a friend at an early age and always had an attraction to radical politics. At a certain point, he came out to Berkeley and fell in just by happenstance with Allen Ginsberg and then went to, came over to Berkeley, crashed for one evening on the floor of the, what was called at that time the Vietnam big committee office, the VBC office where Jerry Rubin, unceremoniously tried to kick him out because he was like, almost like a homeless person, he was a homeless person sleeping on the floor. But instead, they became the best of friends and Jerry and Stew were really best friends all the way through the 1960 series versus being a one with Abby, the leader of the yippies, leader in quotation marks, and then Stew's other best friend in Berkeley was the Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver. So that is, you know, that was ̶ what was the summary of who Stew was. He was a journalist, he was an extremely good writer, he wrote as I said, for the perfect barb, the perfect bribe and an organizer for Chicago. And then, you know, within that, which is when we got together then we had various adventures together and Stew was, he was, it was, he was someone who people like to confide in. So, for example, if Jerry and Abby were having one of their many, you know, the older brother younger brother type ego conflict, who would always mediate. And he and people listened to him he was very smart. He had the kind of memory where he could call up a factoid about anything from anywhere at any time. And so, after the (19)60s, we, he essentially, we worked on, he worked on a few books, and he continued to, his career in writing. And he also sorts of when we moved to Portland, became an organizer for progressive Jewish causes. 20:37 SM: What is interesting, I can see how Abby and Jerry may have not hit it off at times, because I do not know if you ever saw the YouTube when Jerry was on the Phil Donahue show. 20:48 JA: I asked if somebody just emailed me about that. 20:51 SM: Oh, my God, he put Phil Donahue in his place. It was just unbelievable it is like and of course, people were calling in upset that Donahue who had allowed him on the show, but he was calling Phil everything in the book. And, but it is amazing because Phil's the most liberal guy you could ever see on television. But he, in a way, if he was talking that way to Abby, I do not know that Abby could ever get a word in edgewise. 21:16 JA: Believe me, Abby, Abby, could. That was one of the things about observing, they are really, really interesting. During Chicago, there was a lot of Jerry/Abby conflict that was echoed by and it would, Stew would mediate on a case and, but we the women would kind of echo the, you know, we would take sides. And one, one example would be, there was a huge conflict over the type of pig, pig assist that we would run for president. Abby wanted a tiny pig. And I think that the Hog Farm was supposed to show up with one and did not, Jerry, in the meantime, wanted one of the big fat ugly pig, so Jerry, and I, and Stew and Phil Ochs and Wolfie Lowenthal and we all went out to a farm. And we got you know, we picked up, we picked up this big giant pig and then Jerry's took it to the civic center. The Chicago Civic Center in front of the Picasso statue and got arrested with the pig. And then they were in jail. The, all of them. And one of the cops came up to them and said, “I hate to tell you this boys but the pig squeals.” Even arrested Stew. And then, then we heard the rumors that they had barbecued, the cops had barbecued the pig. And oh well you know it is expected, right? But, but what was, so Jerry and Abbie in that time period, were having, were really having all kinds of pretty unpleasant disagreements with each other. But a year later, as the conspiracy trial, they actually made a point of making up, forgiving each other and presenting a united front to both the other defendants and certainly Judge Hoffman and show, I believe they even had a, may, may have been the first ungay-gay marriage where they exchanged rings. But, but so there was a qualitative difference between the way they treated each other in Chicago during the during the riot, riots, the police riots and a year later with the conspiracy trial. And then afterwards, they, they sort of, after well, it is evolved back into the old competition where it was, they did the “yippy-yappy” debate, and Jerry would argue one thing and happy with it another Sunday. So, it was a love hate, you know, competitive brother relationship with the way I was looked at it. 23:52 SM: You are very strong woman and I know that some of your peers were as well. I would like for you to describe your thoughts on the roles that women played in the yippies. I know if Dr. King were alive today and on the Civil Rights Movement, sexism was a major issue and, and I know it was in the anti-war movement. And I have had people that have talked to me, a couple females, professors who said they left the movement because it was so sexist that they went into the Women's Movement and the rest is history. Describe again, describe your thoughts on the roles that women played in the yippies and whether you felt you were equal within the organization to the men and in the anti-war movement overall. And then I also see that you were very involved in the growth of the Women's Movement back in (19)69. Over there in the, at the People's Park, and that was very important for you. So, in respect, with respect to your husband, Abbie, Jerry, Paul, Phil, Jonah, were, you know, how do they treat women? 25:01 JA: Well, I did not meet Jonah until the mid (19)70s. Jonah was actually in what I always called “Stew’s large men’s group,” which formed with Jonah and a number of other people on the East Coast after we broke up. And the reason we broke up at my initiation was because of sexism in the movement. And in the yippies. So, we were, been, was, was Nancy equal to Jerry? No, with Anita equal to Abbie? No, was I equal to Stew? No, but it depends how you, how do you define equal? Right? Were we the ones who held the press conferences? No. Did the media come to us and look us up? No. We are we serving coffee? No. Were we organizing? Were we doing what women traditionally do, which is keeping this thing going, organizing, making sure that things are where they need to be making sure these things happen? That was our job. That was our role. So, but remember, the, the women's movement came around for a reason, they were in (19)68, (19)69, (19)70. So, and most of the couples that I knew, broke up in that period that included me and Stew, we were one of the few however, who got back together, the only other couple in that, from that group who were together before the women's movement, who got back together, were Dave Dellinger and his wife, Betty. But, but Nancy broke up with Jerry, in that, in the early (19)70s. Abbie, of course, went underground. And Anita did not go with them for various reasons. And they never did manage to get back together. So, the answer is yes, there was sexism, yes, there was unequal distribution of power. Yes, the men got way of more the goodies than the women. But I will tell you something. I know this for a fact for Anita, for me, and for Nancy, it was in a period of enormous growth, you could not be, personal growth, you could not be in that environment, you could not be around these guys, without learning from them, without observing them without trying to do the things that they also want, that they have seemed able to do very, very easily. And, and we also had adventures on our own at a certain point, like, for example, Nancy and I and this woman Jeannie Plamondon, who was the White, one of the members of the White Panthers in Detroit, we went to Vietnam together. So, it was not “Oh, yeah, everything were oppressed. It is all bad. Let us leave.” Not at all. It was, it was, “yes, we are not treated equally. But we also, if this is also an opportunity, and we did, we absorb to our core, what it meant to be a yippie to act on your own and to be courageous and to act without fear and to run from the pigs and all that stuff?” 28:07 SM: You said you went to Vietnam; you went as part of a group? 28:09 JA: Yeah. A yippie group 28:11 SM: Oh, I did not know that. Could you tell us about that? 28:14 JA: Well, alright, now Nancy, and I, and Jeannie, were invited by a man in the group, the Vietnamese had a group called the Committee for Solidarity with the American People. And at the time, many people were going to visit Vietnam and coming back essentially, to talk about the devastation of the war. And we, the three of us were invited to, to do that. And so we went, we went, we traveled around the country. We saw the, I remember, there was this one mountain that has been half blown away by bombs. And yet still inside, the Vietnamese people were making the shells and armaments to defend themselves. We, it, it was one of those experiences, that you meet people who are so totally different from you, but yet are able to convey to you their love of their country, and also their ̶ they did not hate us, you know, you would think we would go out in the streets and we would be surrounded by children. And you would think that “oh my god, here is America, raining bombs down on these people, you know, killing them with napalm shooting them in the streets.” You would think that there would be a lot of hatred. We never found that. They said we all, we understand that there is a distinction between the American people and the American government. And so, we you know, I do not remember specifics now, but we, I know that we learned an awful lot about the war about the causes of the war. I remember, for example, that we went to a museum in Hanoi, which is a museum of the war. They, and they gave us, because they had so many, they gave us as a souvenir, a half exploded, anti-personnel bomb, it was like about four inches round, it was metal, no, no, no explosives left, but and you could see all these little ball bearings that were dead. And there is all these little ball bearings that were still embedded in the middle. And so, they would drop these by the hundreds of thousands on people, they would compete anti-personnel weapons against a peasant country, who was basically fighting to resist foreign invasion as this country Vietnam had for thousands of years. And so, these people, Nancy and I, and Jeannie and you know, Jane Fonda and many, many people who went, came back, and were able to talk about our experiences to audiences here in the United States. 31:12 SM: Yeah, I know that Daniel Barragan went because I interviewed him and, and I know of another female, and her name is Charlotte Bunch. 31:19 JA: I know, Charlotte. 31:20 SM: Yep, she went. And- 31:23 JA: There were lots, I think the thing that was really unique about our group was that it was the yippie group. And I guess, that possibly one of the unique experiences that we had, when we were all sitting around one evening out in the country, you know, there are seven or eight of Vietnamese, who would come with us from the committee and, and whoever the local peasants were there, and we smoked this stuff called Tokelau, which was how, you would you smoked in a long pipe with a little bowl on the end of it. And, you know, we would tease them about whether, you know, what was stronger marijuana or Tokelau, and they would say Tokelau, we would say, would say marijuana. And so that was sort of the yippie, that was the yippie aspect of it. 32:11 SM: That I want to make sure you get the other two women's names their full names again? 32:16 JA: Nancy Kurshan, and she see, it was very, Ruben’s girlfriend, we called girlfriend for a number of years, certainly during this period that we are talking about. And the, the other person was Jeannie Plamondon, if you google Pun Plamondon, I know that he wrote a book A while back. So, there is information about- 32:42 SM: This is ̶ this leads me right into my next question, in your own words, who are the key yippy personalities? And I know we have already mentioned them, but the ones I am asking here is: describe in your own words maybe some of the people that are not known? Some of- 32:58 JA: Tall cocky and Super Joel. 33:02 SM: No. 33:03 Well alright, here is, here is a, Super Joel was well known at the time his he was known because if you have ever seen a picture of a hippie putting a flower in the gun of the National Guard, that was Super Joel. Okay, so Super Joel claimed that he was the scion of a mafia, Chicago mafia family. And he said that, that when he decided to join the movement, his grandmother kicked him out, said “do not darken my door again.” After the, you know, the (19)60s were over Super Joel, became a heroin dealer. And grandma says, “oh, welcome back.” Wonderful. I just, this, this story this super Joel tells, he gets very wealthy, or, you know, at least when we visited him at one point, he certainly had all the trappings of wealth, including a motorcycle, a full, full Harley Davidson is in the middle of his living room. And, and, and it turns out, he is gay and he gets AIDS and he dies. Well, a while ago, a few years ago, someone was investigating Super Joel just to find out who he was and found out that Super Joel was not the scion of a mafia family at all, but rather just an ordinary alienates middle class kids from a Chicago suburb. So, he created this entire alternate identity for himself. And everybody believed it. And he was the one, Super Joel was the one who drove the truck into Lincoln Park that the bands were supposed to play on except of course, none of the bands showed up so that, that would be an example of someone who is not known but was certainly an interesting character. And just everybody knew at the time. 34:53 SM: What was his full name? 34:55 JA: Super Joel Tornabene, who knows if that is his real last name? 35:04 SM: You talk about reinventing? Well, he obviously reinvented himself. 35:09 JA: Exactly. Yeah. And you know, there were no boundaries about that in those days. So, it was pretty easy to do. 35:15 SM: Now, were they, were the yippies close to any of these groups. I know there was tension between the Students for Democratic Society, because then pure pow, pow political and my most, I have interviewed quite a few different people. And when I, at the very end when I am giving terms of the period and I say yippies or hippies, or especially the yippies: “no comment,” or “they were frivolous,” or whatever. And this is even some people on the left. So how do you how close were the yippies to, and I will just read these, and you can just comment on it, the Black Panthers, Students for Democratic Society the then the quarter when ̶ 35:55 JA: You do want to do it one at a time? 35:57 SM: Yeah, maybe. So how close were you to the Black Panthers? 36:00 JA: Because of Stew's relationship with Eldridge, we were very close to the Panthers. And in fact, after Chicago, Eldridge, Stew and Jerry and I put out something called the Yippie Panther Pack. So I was, and you know, I am still friends with Bobby today. And, and so I, and actually the reason that Bobby got indicted in Chicago as a conspiracy Brown was because Stew and I had gone and called Eldridge because we thought it was important for them to be a Panther present in Chicago. So, Stew and I, during the summer of (19)68, had called Eldridge, told us because he was on parole could not come out. So, Bobby came instead. And as a result, you know, Bobby was one of the conspiracy aids and then you know, that story. So, the Panthers, yes. Students for a Democratic Society. Not really, although there were, the boundaries were fluid so people could consider themselves to be yippies, but also members of SDS. I know that, I know for a fact there, there were a number of members of SDS, SDS and subsequently the Weather Underground, who consider themselves yippies, very close to the yippies. And maybe they did not say that in, you know, whether I am in town meetings or SDS meetings, but I know for a fact that they did. 37:27 SM: Yeah, I am just going to go into the Weathermen. And you mentioned that of course Mark never, I heard Mark never considered himself a yippy. I do not think. 37:35 JA: Mark is not one of the Weathermen who consider himself to be a yippy. 37:38 SM: How about the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which basically took over the anti-war movement in, after the Weathermen took over SDS? 37:48 JA: Well, I would not say VVAW, who took over the anti-war movement, but I do have someone who has been interviewed who knows a lot about the GI movement. [inadible] but no, I do not think that I think there were many, many aspects to the, it was very diverse the anti-war movement. And I remember in 1972, in Miami at the Democratic and Republican convention demonstrations, that VVAW had a campment at Flamingo Park. But then there were a whole bunch of yippies who were there. Abbie was there. I was there. Who was there? There were a whole bunch of the ̶ I do not remember whether Jerry was or not. There were a whole bunch of people who were organizing that demonstration. I know for a fact some of the vets also considered themselves yippies. The people who, who, you know, here is the thing. They may, people may say that the yippies were frivolous, but ask yourself whose name has come down in history? Right? Whose name do people remember from that time. They remember the Black Panthers. And they remember the Weathermen and they remember the yippies, that are, whose remember though, you know, I say we have the historic staying power. 39:06 SM: Yeah, actually, Ron Kovac, I think was there at (19)72, the guy wrote “Born on the Fourth of July.” 39:14 JA: I know I ̶ Ron is a sweetheart, I love him. 39:17 SM: Yeah. And then Bobby Moeller too, I think, was there. 39:19 JA: Bobby I do not know, do you by any chance have contact information for Ron? 39:23 SM: No, I do not. See I know he is in LA. But yeah, and I thought Bobby Moeller would, but Bobby says he has lost touch with him. So, I do not know. The other group, groups would be the Mobe group. 39:37 JA: But the moment you know, the both of them and Dave and the Mobe works very closely together. I mean, they also just had disagreements in that summer, but, but, you know, Dave was organizing marches that we would go on the Grant Park one, we all got beat up during the day by, by the Chicago cops. That was a Mobe organized event that Rennie was, Ren-, that for, Rennie was hit over the head Stew had been hit over the head three days earlier before everything started or four days early before everything started. So put it this way we both knew of each other's presence. I am wondering, I tended to use the word respect, but there was also a fair bit of dissonance. 40:27 SM: The, the other movements, again, are just the movements, the American Indian Movement, the Women's Movement, the Environmental Movement. And- 40:36 JA: You take AIM right? Now, Bill Kunstler spent an awful lot, after you know, the Chicago Trial. The AIM people were some of his main clients. Bill always considered himself a yippie, always. Well not always, but ever since, ever since he met Abbie and Jerry. That is what he identified with. So, you know, so it really is, I do not think it is appropriate to talk about it as sort of this group and this group it is much more personalities, it is much more people, and people there was much more interpenetration. And both the dissent and support between these different, all these different groups. 41:23 SM: Yeah, I have, just to ̶ do the hippies want to be taken seriously? I had just had that as a question did the- 41:32 JA: Seriously? What does that mean? 41:35 SM: Yeah, that is what I am asking. Did the hippies want to be taken seriously? Because I know from talking to Paul, I asked him that same question. And it, because he, because his whole spiel is about linking serious issues with humor. 41:53 JA: Right. And he is right. 41:54 SM: And that is almost like the yippies is not it? It is almost kind of the same. They were dead serious about being involved. I am I cannot speak for you. But from perception that I see. The yippies were dead serious about being anti-war, but they want to be able to reach people through theatrics. And sometimes it was, may seem frivolous, but there was a message. 42:19 Exactly. No, that is exactly right. That is exactly right. The causes in which we believe that would end, was overwhelmingly ending the war. With a little bit of, you know, marijuana legalization coming along later. The causes in which we believed were deadly serious causes, but we felt that the best way to affect people through those was through dramatic theatrical fun. 42:45 SM: Let me turn my tape. 42:51 SM: Alright, here we go. This is something [inaudible] was when Abbie died. Just as a person who has always studied and read and cared about the people involved in the (19)60s, because I am part of it, too, in my own small way. Abbie's death touched me in some way. Because when I happened on the news, I heard about it that he, he lived over in Bucks County not far from where I live, and that he was alone in an apartment. And he committed suicide or OD-ed on drugs. And then there was a report that he had a note. Now Paul says he does not know of any note ever, he says that that is not true, that no one was listening to me anymore. But that that was in the news, and I am trying to find the article where it was written. But what, this is, my serious part of my interview is because there is some key people here that passed on way before their time. Abbie, Phil Ochs, and then Jerry got hit by a car in Los Angeles and your husband. He luckily Stew was able to live longer. But could, do you know any more of the circumstances surrounding Abbie? Were you at his funeral? 44:06 JA: Yeah, at least the West Coast was. My understanding of Abbie's death is that there may be some questions surrounding it. But that he did not leave a note. That I know for a fact he did not leave a note. He is, I noticed his eldest son, Andrew, and Andrew was, came out and his sister came down. As soon as they heard about the death and was not an apartment by the way. It was more like a there was a bunch of little houses on some land that this person owns. And they came down and the coroner, there was some issue with the coroner, back and forth; was it heart failure, was it this, was it, was it barbiturates, was it that? And so, there was a little bit of question as to exactly what the cause of death was. But there is no question he committed suicide. And there is no question that he did not leave a note. 45:13 SM: Were people shocked? Or would people say he was down? 45:18 JA: Well, you know, everyone, by then everyone knew about his manic depression. And certainly, everyone knew that the period underground had exacerbated the manic depressiveness. So, Stew, and I had left, saw him alive at this event to cover (19)68 plus twenty. He has been, Abbie had been in a car accident, so he was in pain in his foot. And he had essentially gone off lithium, because of, which was the drugs that were controlling this manic depression, because he hated being on lithium, and had been given Prozac by his doctor and his doctor, you know, everyone knows now the Prozac can cause or has a causal relationship with suicidal tendencies. So, you know, no one was there with him in those last days. But the, what was the actual progression of events was ̶ is not clear. But like I say, so there was some fuzziness about the cause of death. But there is no fuzziness about the fact that he actually did commit suicide and it was undoubtedly a result of manic-depressive disease. 46:30 SM: Now Phil died very young. And I remember there was a book that came out on him and I have it, a biography, but I did not know if his close links with the, I read a long time ago, I did not know his close links with the, the yippies, now the- 46:46 JA: Yeah, I remember in Chicago and in that, in (19)68, we were going, Phil and I would walk up and down the lines of National Guard. And I remember one National Guardsmen saying, I once paid like $10 or some, you know, some huge sum in those days to go to one of your concerts, I will never do that again. And Phil actually stops and talks with the guy and the guy, relax and changed his face from acid. And just in that conversation. 47:16 SM: I heard he committed suicide too. Is that true? 47:19 JA: That is true. Phil had actually come and visit Stew and I at that time, were living in the Catskills. Phil comes to visit us and stay for a few days, for a few days, he was not even able to go out of the cabin. And then he basically spent most of his time in a bar, but he had been in South Africa, and had been in some kind of, before that has been some kind of accident that had damaged his voice and his vocal cords, and he did not think he could ever sing again. Very depressed about that. And then also he put up this album of Elvis Presley songs that did not do very well. And he has gotten a lot of criticism. And so he was, you know, there were a lot of things going on in his life that made him unhappy in those days, you know, we did not know about counseling, know about pharmaceutical assistance, aid in manic depressive disease or depression. And so, you know, Phil, when he went to his sister’s house and hung himself in the bathroom with the shower curtains. 48:23 SM: Were you at his funeral too? 48:26 JA: I was certainly at a concert. I was, there was a memorial concert for him in New York that I went to. And I do not know if there was another funeral. He, I think, I do know he was still with us at Chile, you know, he and Stew and Jerry went to Chile together during the Allende period. And then they came back. And then they met up with Mr. Jara, the folk singer there who was later shot by the Pinochet regime. And then when they came back, they did a benefit concert for Chile. And I was at that and I, and I was also at another benefit concert around his death. I do not know if that was, you know? 49:07 SM: Where is Abbie buried? Is he buried? 49:12 Where is Abbie, I do not know if he has buried that is a good question. I do not know the answer. 49:15 SM: How about Phil? 49:17 JA: Now that I know. 49:18 SM: Now Jerry, I remember when he was killed while he was jaywalking. 49:23 JA: Well, he, he was, I would say he was for some reasons that I prefer not to disclose the practice. He walked across the street. And then someone apparently called out, Jerry walked back. So, he turned and at that point, was, was hit by the car. 49:46 SM: And, of course, I remember the newspapers saying, “the guy that broke the law was killed breaking the law.” 49:55 JA: Yeah, well, you know yippies always pretty myths even in death, sometimes they are bad, sometimes they are not. 50:04 SM: Well, and I guess Paul was the moderator of some of those debates if I am not correct. Corrected here, Jerry, and- 50:11 JA: The Yippie Yuppie. That could easily be, you know, I never saw one, I just heard about them. But- 50:17 SM: Now when Stew passed away, did you have a funeral there in Berkeley for him and did a lot of people come to it? 50:28 And that is where he is buried, if you go on his website www.stewalbert.com there is a photo of his funeral and we had a, we actually had a what we called Stew, what did we call it? Stew (20)06 tour, because we had a funeral for him in Portland, a memorial service in Berkeley, a memorial service in New York and the memorial service and in Boston. 51:04 SM: He had a lot of friends, 51:05 JA: He had a lot of friends. A lot of friends. 51:08 SM: Yeah, I have seen that website. That is a nice website. 51:14 JA: If you want to read what people said about him, not, it is all there on the website. 51:17 SM: Right. People's Park in (19)69. We all know that anybody who knows their history about the (19)60s and certainly what was happening in Berkeley, in your opinion, just a few words, what was it all about? And you are right on here, when you say that it gave Ronald Reagan, you know, something to build his career on? Because I had a chance to interview Ed Meese at his office. Yeah, I interviewed him. And you know, he was the man in charge of following, well he was in charge of the battle against the students on the Berkeley campus even back in (19)64. Yeah, because he was the, he was the district attorney, or the assistant district attorney for Alameda County back in (19)64, before Reagan ever knew him. And then when he heard that, about this young lawyer, then that is why he kind of linked them up with his administration later on in (19)69. What was that all about? 52:14 JA: Which People’s Park? 52:16 SM: Yeah, People’s Park, how important is it? 52:18 JA: Well, in some ways, it is very important. And that is because it shows that you can stand up, in this case, to the power of the university to create something beautiful for the people and what it, was it was a big community event, where people just decided, alright, this land that is essentially lying fallow should be turned into a park. I mean, what, what more benign thing can you then you think of that? But it was essentially a battle over private property. Because at that point, then the university said: No, you cannot do that. Whatever happens to this piece of land is something that we want to do, rather than what you want. And but the community would not let that happen until, of course, the University fenced it in, sent troops, gas, the gas, the entire city of Berkeley, and we fought that, but ultimately, the University took the land back. 53:18 SM: Yeah. But it is interesting, because when you study, the Ronald Reagan, who was governor of California, and I asked this to Ed Meese, that the two main issues that he built his career on in California was his battle against the students, which he said he was going to take on if he became governor, he was going to bring peace back to the universities, and then a battle against the welfare state. Those were the two issues that he wanted to, you know, to work on as governor. And- 53:50 JA: If you think about it, it is ultimately a battle over capitalism and private property. Both the welfare state and the People's Park battle. 54:01 SM: What were the feelings of the boomers, the students that you saw at Berkeley? Of course, a lot of the yippies were boomers. What were their thoughts on governor, Governor Reagan? 54:14 JA: Well, we hated him. He was the epitome of everything that we despise. I would have to, you know I have not thought about Reagan for years, you know, because mostly what happened when he became president and the terrible things that he did as president kind of eclipsed the terrible things that he did when he was governor. But Stew, I remember saying, Stew said that Reagan knew him by name. And so, it is a very specific anti-people, anti-student strategy that he was doing. I mean, it was right. That is exactly what they were trying to do. Talk about people with control issues, huh. 54:55 SM: Yeah. One of the, something that I did not know and reading on your website too. And we are going to get into some of the general questions here in a minute. But I found that Bernadine Dohrn’s son, Zayd Dohrn’s, play “Magic,” I guess, “Magic Form Farm” or something like that, “Form Farm?” I just want to read these quotes and then you respond to them. You say this in, this is what he was trying to do with this play: “How do kids raised in the shadow of the (19)60s keep the parts of the experiment that were healthy, which is idealism, the hope, the courage, while getting rid of the narcissism and the silliness that had the potential to undermine it.” And then the other quote here is some of the qualities that he talked about, that is Zayd Dohrn: “Counter-cultural values, do your own thing, dope, nudity, sexual experimentation had negative dysfunctional consequences for some, not all the kids that live there.” And then you had mentioned, what an inconvenient truth, this play was all about. Reaction? What is your overall reaction to the play? And did he get it right? 56:18 JA: Oh, he got his experience right. You know, here is the thing. This is what Stew and I both used to say often is that everyone has their own (19)60s. So, for a kid growing up and having a lot of experiences with the nudity, and drugs and so forth, that he, I gathered, he must have had or heard about from his friends, I cannot help but think that the way he portrayed it in the play, it was not a pleasant thing for him. And both, you know, that was his experiences does not mean that everything that every new experience that everyone ever had in the (19)60s was wrong. But but you know, kids have their boundaries. And I guess we did not, in those days, we did not recognize that because we were a little bit more than kids ourselves. So, we did not recognize that, I think that when you are bringing people, when you are bringing up young children, at least for some, it may not be the best thing to expose them to the overt sexuality that some people in the (19)60s were into, it is not a universal experience, it was Zayd’s experience. 57:25 SM: You know, one of the general questions I had for everyone has been the question of the boomer generation now, which is 74 to 78 million people of which 15 percent, or 5 to 15 percent, depending on who you are reading, were activists, and the activist part of the movement. So, most people of the group have responded based on the friends, of the boomer friends that they knew whether they were activists or non-activists, and that is, you know, how, have they been good parents? Have they been good grandparents now, in terms of raising their kids, number one, by sharing what it was like to be young then and trying to let them understand, try to understand what we were doing and why we were doing it? And, and, you know, just basically, the values that they, whether a lot of people criticize the following two generation as not being very activist oriented. And they did not follow in their parents’ footsteps in that area. Just your thoughts on, based on the people you have known who are boomers, and as they have gotten older now they are up to sixty-three years of age, the frontline boomers, and the frontline boomers are sixty-three, and the youngest ones are now forty-six. 58:46 JA: Let me answer in a couple of ways. First, in terms of childbearing, this is what I can tell you. Jessica, my daughter, my daughter, one of them wants to have kids. One of the reasons that she wants to have kids is because she considers her upbringing so idyllic and so supportive and so loving that she wants to recreate it for her own family. Now, we could not hide from her who we were, and we did not. We talked to her. You are, how do you talk to your kids about drugs. Well, excuse me, we had to talk to her specifically, because it is very clear that Stew and I had both smoked marijuana a lot and had advocated for it at certain point in our lives. You cannot be yippy and not. And we had a conversation with her, and we basically said to Jessica, we do not want you to smoke marijuana until you graduate from high school and guess what she did not do that. She now is a, an attorney, she is, in some ways. pretty mainstream. She has worked within the Democratic Party. She has worked in New York City and politics, but she also now works as an attorney, an employment discrimination attorney helping women basketball coaches and firefighters win multi-million-dollar verdicts against being wrongfully terminated by sexist institutions. So that, you know, it is, and all the kids, the (19)60s kids that I know, and there is a whole bunch of them, you can tell if they are (19)60s kids if they are born in the, in between the 1970s to the 1980s. These are a lot of children of (19)60s activists, they turned out really, really well. And I think that the reason for that is that all of us put our values into child rearing, the naked nude stuff aside, we all believe very much in you know, this is an old SDS club, and that people should not be involved in the decisions that affect their life. Not all of us felt that way about our children. And when we were in, as part of our child rearing, we would treat them with appropriate boundaries, not letting them do something that they would that would hurt themselves but letting them be a decision maker in what they wanted to do. Not, not controlling and not being neglectful. We let them, but we let them be decision makers in their lives as a specifically is a result of our (19)60s values. And I think we have produced a generation of absolutely fabulous and wonderful kids. 1:01:25 SM: Yeah, very good point. You know, it is interesting that we have a president now, President Obama's in the second year. And he is often criticized both ways. One, he shies away from the links to the (19)60s, he makes an effort to make sure he is not part of it. And yet his critics will say he is the reincarnation of it. Because he is as left as you can get. 1:01:51 JA: They do not know anything if you think Obama's a leftist. 1:01:55 SM: Yeah. Well, your thoughts on that? It is, this is a two part question your thoughts on Obama and then the criticism of him and then he shies away from it? And secondly, the criticism that is often leveled by the Newt Gingrich’s, the George Wills’, the John McCain’s, the Governor Huckabee’s of the world, that that period, the boomer generation, the (19)60s and (19)70s, I think they are referring to, is the reason why we have so many problems in this nation, with divorce, with the lack of respect for authority, with the rise of the what they call the -isms, the welfare state, which they put blame directly on the LBJ in many respects. And- 1:02:44 JA: Let me start with that one. But what, how could all the McCains, Gingriches, Glenn Becks, and all the right-wing attack dogs fail to remember, are the gains that were made from the (19)60s, it is, you know, they can ̶ they could not come up with their list of terrible things. But what about the things that we can take credit for, for example, the fact that there is a black middle class now comes directly out of the (19)60s, the fact that there is an environmental movement, and that pollution is being lowered. And those issues are really central around the world is a result of the (19)60s, the fact that corporations are being pressured to divest practices that are not socially responsible, is a result of the (19)60s. The fact that women have access, and are equally, an, are in law school in more numbers than men are in business, although not as much, are doctors. That is all the results of the (19)60s, the fact that people are thinking about eating local food and eating responsibly, it is a result of the 60s there. The other aspects of the environmental movement that are all a result of the (19)60s. It is amazing how the right wing tends to forget the advances that came out of my generation while focusing on the, what they consider to be the negative. 1:04:07 SM: Well, it is interesting in this is kind of sad, when they start talking about the environmental movement, they say well, that they use that as a negative, because the environmental movement is all negative because it takes jobs away from people. As someone said to me, “you are more interested in saving an owl than you are saving jobs.” I mean, those kinds of things. And then they will say that, that Al Gore Look at him. He writes his book and now they are all being questioned whether, there has been some questioning whether they are, they have their facts straight, and he is making all these millions flying in an airplane and he is ̶ so there is they find ways to still be critical, even of the environmental movement ̶ 1:04:48 JA: Right. Well, if it is not in the service of the naked pursuit of greed, they do not like it. Reason and individualism. Individualism, that is, is only for fun not for myself. It is only for oneself. It is selfishness and greed. If it is not selfish, if it is not greedy then they do not like it. 1:05:10 SM: In your view, when did the (19)60s begin? And when did it end? 1:05:14 JA: I think it began with the civil rights movement, the early days of the civil rights movement, although you could even get earlier than that was a nuclear disarmament movement. So, I would say the late (19)50s and early (19)60s were we when, when the (19)60s began, and they ended? I do not know maybe the end of the (19)70s. Middle, mid to end of the (19)70s. 1:05:38 SM: Was there a watershed moment, in your view? 1:05:41 JA: In the (19)60s? 1:05:42 SM: Yes. 1:05:44 JA: Well, there were a number, it was like a, like a cascade. You know, starting with the gulf. I mean, to me, the, the watershed of the (19)60s was the Vietnam War. And so, whether you can point to what particular moment in the Vietnam War, the escalation to Gulf, the Gulf of Tonkin, the escalations, the, the switch, the switch from ground troops to bombings, all the various phases of that war. Those were all in some ways, watersheds and they built on each other, in my opinion. 1:06:18 SM: I have a question on healing, one of the two questions that they are going to be healing and trust. The first one is on healing. I took a group of students in the mid (19)90s, to Washington to meet Senator Muskie. Students, none of them were born in the 60s and this was all new to them. They were studying this period. They feared that we were close to a second American Revolution or a second Civil War with all the divisions that they had been seeing it was epitomized, but what they saw in Chicago in (19)68, the question they want to ask Senator Muskie, because he was there as the vice presidential Democratic candidate, is: due to the divisions that were tearing the nation apart, at that time, the divisions between, between black and white, male and female, gay and straight, those who are for the war, those who are against the war, those who supported the troops, those who did not. Do you feel that, that this generation, the boomer generation born between 1946 and 1964, as they age and start passing away, will go to their graves, not feeling like they have healed from all the divisions from that era, comparable to what happened in the Civil War when they went to their grave, mostly with a lack of healing. I will tell you what he said, what Senator Muskie said, but how would you respond to that? 1:07:43 JA: Well, see, for me, the concept of healing, personally, does not apply. I never, it was never a wound, the (19)60s were never, oh, the late (19)60s were never a wound, but they were the best time of my life. I do not want to heal from the best time of my life, I do not feel that there is a need. Now, you heal from a wound, you heal from death, I have not yet fully healed from Stew's death, and certainly any people who lost their lives and their families, the lives of the people whose families, the families whose children lost their lives in the war. They, that, that is a feeling that may have been helped by the wall or may not. But remember, you have a situation there were the people who got, the young men and women who went to Vietnam were drafted. It was not voluntary. It was not choice. And, you know, and, and the things that caused the war, the fact that, you know, government is, imperial governments going in invading other countries, that still goes on, say, obviously, in Iraq and Afghanistan, so I do not I do not accept that paradigm that this country was broken in needed healing. What, what I, what I do feel is that there were terrible, terrible things going on in the country, which the only way to have them stop was to take action, which is what we did, which is what soldiers in Vietnam did. And the healing that needs to happen is the healing from those who died. beyond that. I do not see the need. And you know, I look at the Tea Party today. They are certainly not promoting anything like healing they are still, you know, fighting back culture war. 1:09:42 SM: Yeah. When Senator Muskie when he, we waited for his response. He waited about a minute and he finally said, he did not even respond to 1968. He said, we have not healed since the Civil War. We were fighting for the issue of race and, and he said, talking about the 430,000 men who had died in that war, almost the entire South lost all their men. And so, he, that is what he said was the issue was, we have not healed since then he did not even refer to (19)68. 1:10:13 JA: Well, you know, this is a country that goes to war. And in some way slides on what, what you may recall, does an Eisenhower warning us about the military industrial complex. That is what, if anything needs to be healed, it is the contradictions of capitalism, and that have produced this kind of society. So healing, like I said, the healing metaphor does not work for me in terms of the whole country, I think people need to be healed from their ̶ from the individual traumas that what they went through, caused by, you know, being forced to fight in a war that they did not support, or did not believe in, the deaths that happened, that is where healing needs to- 1:11:03 SM: Yeah in fact one person said to me: Steve, if you, you specified and this question better by saying that, why do not you just simply say those who were for the war and those who went to war, then you get into what Jan Scruggs did in his book “To Heal a Nation” that the wall was built to not only heal the families and of those who died in the war, but then to heal the nation from those who were against the war and for the war. So, the people said they might be able to answer that question better if it was just those two groups. And I think what I was really getting at was, I wonder how many, it could be yippies, it could be SDS-ers, or it can be Mobe people, it could be anybody who was against the war. I wonder how many of them have gone to that wall, as they have gotten older with their kids. And they look at that wall, and they reflect what they did. And whether any of them are saying, maybe I should have served or, you know, I just do not know how they are feeling. That is what I think I was really getting at. 1:12:05 JA: Well, I, you know, Stew and I went to the wall, and he actually helped Sandy, whatever her last name was, Boreal, I think in her, I think she was a fundraiser for it or something like that. I do not think that, that was not our experience, was not my sort of service. If anything, the experience was, we served well, we serve too. We served in opposing the war. My recollection is that we, we, we often identified very much with the vets, because we both felt that we served our country. We served our country in the way we best knew how, by trying to bring in and to an immoral, illegal war that was killing, that killed 54,000 young Americans. 1:13:02 SM: The, the other issue is trust. A quality that I perceive is a very well, it is a quality within the boomer generation. And of course, how can you say, Steve that 70 million people know of trust? Well, I am not saying that everybody does not trust but the question is, the young people of that era saw so many leaders lie to them, throughout their lifetime. Whether it be President Johnson and the Gulf of Tonkin, McNamara and those figures that he used to use of people killed in Vietnam, you have the Watergate with Richard Nixon. There is there is some questions with everyone from Eisenhower all the way up to even President Reagan, there was, whether you could trust any of them. And correct me if I am wrong, and I have lived in this era too, most people at that time, did not trust anybody in positions of leaders or responsibility, whether they be a university president, a Congressman, a senator, a President of United States, a rabbi, a minister, a corporate leader, they do not trust any of them because they were leaders. Am I correct in that? 1:14:10 JA: Well, you know, Free Speech has a slogan, “do not trust anyone over thirty.” 1:14:15 SM: Right. That was Jeff Weinberg. 1:14:20 Ja: I do not think they did not trust because they were leaders. They did not, people did not trust because people lied. Like that, like, like that guy yelled out, Obama, “You lie.” Well, that is what we were yelling. We were yelling, “you lied.” “You lied.” And I think that the trust still does not exist today. Because guess what, people continue to lie. But at same time, we have a right-wing attack machine that creates its own level of lies. And for some reason, they are considered, those, the right-wing lies are considered truth and believable, whereas someone like Obama, who in fact is going pretty much the way it is, is not lying. So, I think that trust, yeah, sure, trust is a huge issue. But I do not think it is simply not trusting leaders. I think it is, it is, goes in some ways deeper than that. 1:15:15 SM: Yeah, because it was Jack Weinberg who's, if I am not mistaken, said, ”do not trust anyone over 30.” 1:15:22 JA: Exactly. As we got older we kept changing it to “do not trust anyone over-“ 1:15:26 SM: Yeah, I hear you. Ruben changed it to forty I think, something like that. 1:15:30 JA: That is the one problem with that slogan. 1:15:32 SM: Yeah. And then he said, kill your parents too. And, and this is something you mentioned this, which I think is great. And I think I want to make sure I got this correct, too. And I will, Jack and Jerry, were right, in your opinion, to change the system is, is completely reinvent, was a goal to completely reinvent ourselves. We had to break from the repressive warmongering, right-wing dysfunctional values of our parent’s generation, which was the group that came back from forty-six to sixty. So, is that basically say it all there? 1:16:07 JA: Yeah. Yeah, we did. We had to break, we had to break with that. And create something that was, we believe was new and alternative. And we did. 1:16:17 SM: In your view, you lived in Canada, but what was it about the 1950’s, or the post war era that (19)46 when President Kennedy came in, what was it about that era then made the (19)60s? 1:16:31 JA: Well, remember every ̶ the dominant American culture in the (19)60s was sort of like the TV show Mad Men, was very repressive in almost every way, and anything that was, that was in any way dissonant, whether it was being gay, or being, wanting to do something, a woman wanted to do something with their life, anything that did not fit into the dominant mold of a father goes to work, you know, Father Knows Best, mother does this. Anything that did not fit has to be, had to be hidden. And so, then people, when, that was really, there was the breaking out of that. Those strictures, the breaking out from those repressive molds that actually really started the (19)60s, whether it was the beats, or jazz music, or whatever, all the various ways of creating an alternate counter-culture that were there in the society in the (19)50s, but were hidden, gradually, for whatever reasons, and I am not a historian broke out, broke their way through and then and then people once empowered, made an entire alternate environment. That is the second model. And growing up in Canada, it was like, that is exactly what it was, in Toronto in those days was repressive, 1950s model. 1:17:55 SM: Do you feel the 1980s was a, an effort to return to the 1950’s? Yeah, when Reagan came in, do you think that eight-year period and then George Bush that followed that twelve-year period was an effort to bring, to say goodbye to that the (19)60s and the (19)70s? And go back to the (19)50s? 1:18:15 SM: Well, you know, it interests me enormously, that in that period that the right-wing Think Tanks got themselves together and decided that they had to have, I am not saying conspiratorially, but culturally decided that they had to have a strategy to combat what they call the excesses of the (19)60s. One of the reasons I think that we are in such doo doo today and the right is able to exert the power that it is, that it has, is because well, we were sort of figuring out: Well, what do we do next? The right path strategy, raised money, always was backed by money, had think tanks, recruited people and was able to develop itself into a dominant cultural force, with a, you know, national broadcast network, that is very hard for the more diverse Democrats to counter. 1:19:13 SM: Do you feel that is what is happening now with respect to when George Bush the second came in, and then of course, this first year and a half of President Obama, he is having a very hard time. Is this again, like the 1980s again? I mean, with these groups, kind of attacking that whole era, and the progress made and trying to bring that back to a conservative America? 1:19:38 JA: Well, I think they are, but I do not necessarily think that they are going to succeed. I mean, remember, Obama was, was elected on a gigantic majority vote. The vision that he put forward for America was a pretty progressive, liberal vision. Now for whatever reasons, he has not been able to implement that a lot of that has to do I think with the, with the power that the right-wing has amassed over these last thirty years. So, I do not look at this the (19)80s as a defining decade, I look at what happened in that, in the period after the (19)60s of the social forces that really helps define where we are at the present more than just the simple, simple decades. I mean, what do I remember the (19)80s? Disco? I mean ̶ 1:20:25 SM: Well actually disco started in (19)76. So, some people think it might have just been going downhill ever since. 1:20:30 JA: Oh, yeah. Well, I was not impressed by the (19)80s at all. 1:20:36 SM: Couple, a quote here, “despite all the,” this is from you, “despite all the humane positive progressive values we passed on to our children. Our 1960s activism also gave them difficult stuff to work through and resent, rebel against.” And then you say this maybe, this is maybe the moment when our (19)60s gen. or generation chickens are coming home to roost in their own right. explain that a little further. 1:21:08 JA: You know I, is that in the Zayd Dohrn piece? 1:21:12 SM: I think so. 1:21:13 JA: Yeah, I, I guess this was just what I was doing there. I am in it, because I do not remember it very well, as you know, because I wrote it a while a while ago. But I think what I was what Zayd was reacting to were some of the excesses that he either witnessed or heard about. And it is certainly true, that Weatherman was one of the more extreme, if not the most extreme organization in my generation. And so that is probably what I meant about coming home, coming home to roost is the ultra-extremists, who raised children, then the children really in their own right to have to look at their parents and their parent’s activities with their own critical eye. And I think that ̶ that is what Zayd was reacting to, but you have got to understand, overall, someone like Zayd is very supportive of, and the play that I was writing about, is very supportive of things, things that happened in the (19)60s and the reasons the (19)60s people, like, his parents did what they did. It is just also that that, you know, people can go before, and I think that that is one of the one of the issues with Zayd. You know, if you, there is a book that was written by Thai Jones, and it is called a “Radical Line,” and his parents also were in the Weather Underground and it is interesting the way he approaches it. But the, how do you, how do children of the extreme (19)60s parents make, come to terms with what their parents did. And, again, it is one of those things where, overall, the reasons that people were fighting the experiments, fighting against the war, the experimentalism of LSD, and the counterculture, that was something that made it really the best time of our lives. And, and our children, I think they may be critical of us for, you know, going as far as we did, but they also appreciate and honor the reasons that we did it. 1:23:32 SM: Let me change my tape. Philadelphia, just outside about 35 miles from downtown Philly. When you look at the, do you like the term, the boomer generation? I have had different responses to that. And ̶ 1:23:51 JA: No, I do not like it. I never actually identified ̶ 1:23:54 SM: Would you call the generation born between (19)46, there might be a better term, whether we call the Vietnam generation, the Woodstock generation, the protest generation, how would you? What would be the perfect term for it? If it is not the boomers? 1:24:09 JA: I like, I like to protest generation. That is cool. 1:24:13 SM: So that is good, because that is, that is one of the one I was mentioning. Could you give me I do not expect you to tell me everything about Chicago, but just in your own words, what it was like as a person to be there. 1:24:27 JA: It was empowering. 1:24:28 SM: Yeah, just for me. Yes. Tell me for just a couple minutes here, what it was like to be in Chicago in 1968. 1:24:37 JA: It was an enormously empowering experience. And it is what I remember running and I am talking now, but in the, being in the middle of the riots, because there was a lot of other things going on as well. But I remember being in the park after permits had been denied and we have we had come up with a strategy. If we are going to leave, we will leave the mark. But we will leave slowly turning around. And looking behind me and seeing giant light. In front of which were, you can see swirls of tear gas and a line of cops marching toward us with, it looks like bayonets or guns. And it turned out and just looking at that and saying to myself, wow, what are they doing to us, and just, you know, running through the park running through the tear gas. Yet, I do not remember feeling afraid I as I say, I remember feeling enormous power that somehow, we had just to exercise our, you know, we wanted to sleep in the park and protests just to do that the, that the powers that be and the daily machine felt it necessary to call out these enormous forces. And I remember running by seeing Alan Ginsberg. In the park he was sitting in, in the circle with his acolytes and his friends and they were coming. And I could start to smell the tear gas coming behind me. And I said to myself, he is not going to stay there very long. And lo and behold, very soon, Allen also was running through the park, so the police totally, and Mayor Daley, totally, absolutely overreacted to us. And really a cause the police riot that interfered that did not allow us to simply peacefully protest our opposition to the war and to the conventions. I think in some ways that sets the standard for police brutalizing protesters from then on. And so, so and then you know, what, what would happen is we would run through the park we get, we inhaled the tear gas, and then Stew and I would go home and watch yourself on TV and make love. It was a wonderful time. 1:27:01 SM: He, one of the, one of the things that I think people do not realize that it was the Festival of Light, which was the term that was used by the yippies. That really, the, the hippies were more responsible for getting the people there than SDS because was not ̶ there was something about SDS did not want to be there in the beginning or so- 1:27:20 JA: Oh yeah, a lot of the major organizations did not want to be there. SDS was one, the Motherfuckers, who were the street fighting group from New York City was another because they, they felt you know, and perhaps rightly, that, there would be a bloodbath. But we felt that it was important enough to demonstrate to the delegates, that the war has to stop, and that they should not elect a pro-war, a pro-war candidate that we would go no matter what. And also, you know, there was, I always felt, and I guess, what Stew would call a naive optimist, but I always felt that they would give in that they would see the rightness of our way, of our ways. So- 1:28:07 SM: How many people were there? Were students ̶ 1:28:10 JA: Between five and 15,000 at the most ̶ 1:28:13 SM: Because I have read reports there were like 50,000 people there. 1:28:18 JA: No, fifteen, we were predicting, you know, 500 to half a million. 1:28:28 SM: And then once you, once everybody was there, that is where the organization leaders met for planning like Tom Hayden and Randy Davis and Dave Dellinger and that group ̶ 1:28:39 JA: In the park? Well, there were all kinds of places people met in the park, they met in church basements, they met in the, the yippies would meet in the offices of the BB the underground newspaper, but most of the most of our time was actually spent in the park. 1:28:53 SM: And how did Stew get not, he was the unindicted What do you call it? 1:28:59 JA: Herder? Yeah. 1:28:59 SM: How come? How did he luck out? 1:29:03 JA: He was a journalist. They did not want to indict him because he always would say he was there reporting for the Barb which indeed he was. He always said by the way that I should have been indicted. 1:29:18 SM: Oh, really? Yeah. Actually, that might have been a sexist indictment because there were no females. 1:29:24 JA: If you look and see the other side, there are some women among the unindicted co-conspirators, but there is no women as either. 1:29:31 SM: Wow. Can you talk about your feelings when certain movement groups went violent? I know you have made some reference already to the SDS and the Weathermen and so forth. And you know, Gary Rubin in his book, “Do It,” which I read in during my graduate school summer. I always, I always liked that term, “do it,” because in my graduate test, we were always taught that people who stand up for their beliefs they have integrity because they know who they are. And they can take criticism. I remember I put Jerry Rubin in my master's thesis, because actually, you know, he could take it. He could stand up and he did it he could take it too. But how do you go from “do it,” which is basically making it happen to Malcolm's “by any means necessary,” which imply guns and violence. And I use these examples. We already talked about SDS to the weathermen. But the American Indian Movement was started out at Alcatraz ended up at Wounded Knee with violence, you get the Black Panthers with their guns. You have got some protesters on university campuses at Cornell with guns at (19)69, you had the Young Lords looked up to the Black Panthers in the Chicano movement, and they did the very same thing. And even in years later, and this has been critical within the gay and lesbian movement, the violence that took place in San Francisco in the 1970s after, or when, when Dan White got out of jail, I mean, there was massive violence. And some people are still paying the price from that. Just your thoughts on movements, and violence. 1:31:12 JA: You know, you have lumped together a lot of things that I do not need, think to be lumped together. For example, the case of the Panthers, the Panthers have been brutalized, folks in communities, other black communities have been brutalized by police for years, and years and years. And so, after a while, and I think Malcolm X, says this, and Frantz Fanon certainly is that they began to see themselves as a colonized people within the United States, and the only way to respond to being colonized is to adopt the violence of the oppressor. But you cannot take it out of the context of being oppressed. In the case of a Weatherman, you know, there have been marches and marches and demonstrations and marches and marches and demonstrations. And the war, the Vietnam War still went on there, let us be absolutely clear Weatherman, in its so-called violence, or what today might be called domestic terrorism never killed or targeted individual. Right, they blew up bathrooms, they blew up police stations, but they did not kill or target individuals. So, you have to when you talk about violence, you really ̶ I think have to define your terms and what you mean. And you also have to look at the context in which the reactive violence in terms of self-defense, which is the way it came, which is the way people were thinking, you have to look at the context and violence and, and, and resisting through self-defense as being very different than violence as a general overall category. I mean, here is an example. Right? The, the Tea Partiers are saying, Well, you know, we are going to resist, we are going to violently resist if we have to, the healthcare. Well excuse me, any violence that say Weathermen property damage, let us be clear, that Weathermen did was in response to children being napalmed and burned alive in Vietnam, the Tea Parties, the Tea Partiers are, are worried about children's getting with pre-existing conditions getting access to health care. I mean, you know, that is bizarre, that kind of violence is bizarre, I can understand people being driven to defend themselves in response to violence perpetrated against them. 1:33:50 SM: And so, this connection that we have been seeing, since President Obama ran for president, his friend, Bill Ayers, you know that he is a friend of a terrorist, that kind of, yeah. And I want, we all know, he is a great educator, anybody who is, who is aware of higher education, which I am and the ̶ Bill Ayer, I know how good he is and what he has written and, and how he was changed and a whole lot of other things. But, but still the, you see those generalizations out there? 1:34:21 JA: Right, well that is what I am talking about what I was talking about earlier about the power of the right to define the message, that is thirty years defining and refining their message and broadcasting it through talk radio and Fox News. So, they have an advantage and that is why people believe it. And even you know you, even if you read it filters, it filters into the mainstream, it filters into the New York Times. It filters into liberals and it sort of defines and rules the entire discourse for the right. 1:34:53 SM: When you look at the boomer generation as a whole and of course, 85 percent were probably not involved in any kind of activism, but I have always been on the belief that they were subconsciously affected by everything that happened. You could not be if you were alive and could not you have to be living in a cave someplace if you were not affected by someone, but it, could you give them strengths and weaknesses of the personalities that you knew of the people that were the boomer generation. Even if it means just those that were involved because someone was that told me I cannot define 78 million people. But ̶ 1:35:31 JA: Well exactly, you know, I absolutely agree with that comment. I think I noticed that one of your questions was “please with the quality admire least in boomers.” And I go back to something I said earlier was that the naked pursuit of greed, the ultra-individualism? I think that those that is the qualities that I think are part of the boomer generation, I do not however, attribute that to the (19)60s. Yeah, you know, I am just wondering, it is almost quarter to five and much longer we are going to be. 1:36:10 SM: Oh, that is right, I did not even look at the clock. fifteen more minutes. Is that okay? 1:36:14 JA: All right. You are wearing me out here. But okay. 1:36:17 SM: I am almost, I am not going to ask you those names of all those personalities. I am not going to ask that. So, I have been cutting that off quite a bit lately, because I like the other answers. What were you responding to, again? 1:36:33 JA: The negative qualities of ̶ 1:36:34 SM: Oh, yeah, there any ̶ 1:36:38 JA: And also, in the (19)70s, you know, you had a bunch of these self-help movements and the extremes there, there was an enormous amount of self-involvement. movements like EST and things like, Well, I think it is very good for people to discover things about themselves, and what motivates them, if you can get to be extraordinarily self-involved and lose a sense of altruism that I think is an important part of life and being a good person. 1:37:06 SM: You co-wrote the Sixties Papers, which I think it is a great book. And I had, I have had this for a long time I got a really, I have had it for over twenty years. But what was your goal with this book project? And what were the final conclusions? 1:37:25 JA: Yeah, I as I told you, I have a PhD in sociology. And at the time, I was in school, I was teaching I think it was at Mills College, I was taking courses on the (19)60s, there was no textbook, I wanted people to be able to read the original sources to, so they could get a sense of what things were like, were over. And that book did not exist. And so, we, Stew and I, we filled a niche by writing it. 1:37:53 SM: The other thing you wrote a book on the conspiracy trial, which I do not have was that about the Chicago Eight? 1:37:59 JA: what it was, what it was, I was, for a while the office manager at the conspiracy trial. And what it was is an edited version of the trial transcripts. So, it was actually almost it is almost the entire file transcript, probably is the entire trial transcript. And that is what it is. I mean, there were a number of books that came out that portions of it later, but this was this was this one was the entire trial transcript. 1:38:23 SM: What year did that come out? 1:38:26 JA: Okay, hold on. I will go take a look. I am sure it is out of print now. 1:38:32 SM: Right. Was this a big book that had a black cover on it with? Well then, I do have it. 1:38:50 JA: Well, there you go it was 1970. 1:38:52 SM: Yeah, I do have it then. Because I have so many books. Oh, what was the Open Seven? 1:38:58 JA: The Open Seven were, seven young men here in the Bay Area who were involved. I believe in this in this demonstration stuff, the draft week. And I you know; I have written about it. And I do not have it at the top of my brain at the moment. But I think that General Hershey was, they were sort of facing off against General Hershey. And they were trying to get they were trying to organize the national demonstration, national stuff, the draft week, but then it there was this more, it was just a very big demonstration here in Berkeley. And I believe that they were trying to stop group training from the demonstration was attacked by the Hells Angels. And there is a lot of fighting ̶ 1:39:44 SM: Yeah, because you have a view of a page on Steve Hamilton. 1:39:48 JA: Right. And so that and that would be where the Open Seven stuff would because he was one of them. 1:39:52 SM: Right. And he just recently passed away. What, I have three slogans here and I have asked this question to everybody. slogans that I think really symbolize the (19)60s and (19)70s, or the ̶ when boomers were young. Some people have mentioned one or two other ones and I mentioned those as well. The first one is, obviously Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary,” symbolizing a more radical approach may be a more violent approach depending on who you are talking to. The second one is the quote that from Bobby Kennedy, that was the Henry David Thoreau quote, “some men see things as they are an ask why I see things that never were and ask, why not,” which is really symbolizing the activist believing in justice, the against the war in Vietnam, that kind of an attitude. And the third one was more of a hippie kind of a mentality, which was the mentality of the Peter Max posters that came out in the early (19)70s. The slogan, “you do your thing, I will do mine. If by chance we should come together, it will be beautiful,” which was kind of a hippie mentality. And the fourth one that people have mentioned to me was the civil rights one, “we shall overcome.” Are there any quotes that you feel really are symbolic of the (19)60s and (19)70s that really are symbolic of the boomers when they were young? 1:41:17 JA: According to Eldridge, “you were either part of the solution or part of the problem.” There was, “hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” “Peace Now” was a very big deal. I think the famous hippie slogan was “rise up and abandon the creeping meatball.” Never really caught on. You know, the women's movement. I think “freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose” was very key, you know, from that from the Janis Joplin song was very key to our mentality. 1:41:59 SM: Yeah, and of course, the those are all great, though. None of those have come up before it all my interviews. And the other one was John Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” which was another important one, and then the “tune in, turn on, drop out” by Leary? When you think of ̶ 1:42:18 JA: Turn on, it is actually “turn on tune in, drop out.” 1:42:21 SM: Right. When you look, when you think of the pictures of that era, because pictures are supposed to say 1000, more than 1000 words. What are the pictures that come to your mind? If someone had not read any textbooks, and they are looking at books, if you were looking at, I would say the (19)50s, (19)60s, (19)70s, and (19)80s, the pictures that may have been on front covers of magazines or in books, newspapers. 1:42:46 JA: Well, I think you know, the one that is the most is the guy pointing a gun at the head of the Vietnamese and shooting him. And then, and the napalm young naked Vietnamese. Girl running? Those are two that really stick in my mind. Certainly, the pictures of Chicago, or you know, the, the police beating people in the dark. 1:43:21 SM: There is the picture of the three athletes to the (19)68 Olympics too which was a big one. 1:43:27 JA: Now that yeah, that exact, that was certainly the whole bunch of the panda ̶ the picture of the Huey Newton poster with the bullet hole in the wall and the glass. 1:43:41 SM: There was the poster of him that said, “Free Huey,” I remember that one. 1:43:45 JA: He was sitting in the, actually Huey was suppose sitting in a chair. One of those wicker chairs. 1:43:55 SM: The other one was ̶ 1:43:56 JA: There is a great picture of Stew and Jerry with the pig in front of the Chicago statue in in Chicago that you know, I do not it is probably not that well known but pretty iconic to me ̶ 1:44:07 SM: Is that on a magazine? 1:44:10 JA: It is an Avedon. It is a Richard Avedon picture. 1:44:12 SM: Oh, wow. I did not see the ̶ 1:44:14 JA: There is a Richard Avedon book, there is book called The Sixties, a big art book and you should look at that. And also, there is all the Emory, Emory Douglass’ cartoon from the Panther paper and Emory has a book out of cartoons or you know, another art book size books and there is a ton in there, you know, his cartoons of pigs with flies flying around them. 1:44:42 SM: Yeah, the other the other picture was the girl over the body at Kent State which is Mary Becky over Jeff Miller. Real quick question on the music. You know, Phil Ochs was very important. Paul mentioned something to me when I asked him what happened to Phil, he said he was in some sort of pain. He did not go in any detail. But he did say that Phil was a little sensitive that he did not become as big as Bob Dylan or, he did not become, you know, Was there some sort of sensitivity there? 1:45:15 JA: Yeah, Phil always felt that, you know if Dylan had not been around, Phil would have been at the top of the top. 1:45:22 SM: Of all the musicians that the yippies really, I am talking about the yippies now, you and Stew and and your peers, what were the musicians that you most admired. Music that you like the best that especially the ones that had the greatest words to their music. 1:45:39 JA: I would say Dylan, Dylan and Phil were definitely there. There, Cohen was there. Joan Baez was there. Carole King was there, Janis of course. The Stones, The Beatles, Creedence Clearwater, 1:45:58 SM: Right. When you think when the, the best books are written on the boomer generation, (19)60s, they got to talk about the (19)60s and (19)70s. What do you think historians and sociologists will say? Well, what are they going to write about this period when the last Boomer has passed away? 1:46:21 JA: Well, you know, you have that question on, you know, the big questions that you sent me and I looked at and I thought about it, and I said, you know, I am not a prophet. I cannot predict the future. I do not really know. I know what I would like them to say, but I, who knows what they actually will say so I think I am going to decline to answer that question. 1:46:42 SM: Alright. Can you in your own words, because you have to see, have had met a lot of people in your life, a lot of major people, first impressions are usually lasting. Now I think when you first met Stew that was lasting was not it? I am just, you do not have to go into any length here. But what was your first feeling when you met these people for the first time? Allen Ginsburg? 1:47:13 JA: He ignored me because I was a woman. He was not interested. You cannot blame them. 1:47:20 SM: Yeah, Tom Hayden. 1:47:26 JA: Tom was a very warm, warm hearted Irishman who just did not get the yippies. 1:47:34 SM: Timothy Leary. 1:47:38 JA: He stank. 1:47:42 SM: How about Jack Weinberg and Mario Savio? 1:47:46 JA: Mario I did not meet until later he always seemed like a very sweet guy. And Jack is the same, both of them, you know, Mario is gone. But Jack is here. So, I you know, my first impression is they are sweet guys. But I did not meet them till the (19)80s or so. 1:47:59 SM: How about Jerry Rubin? 1:48:02 JA: Interesting, exciting. Terrible dresser. 1:48:06 SM: Abbie Hoffman. 1:48:07 JA: [inaudible] clothes. Performance, intense performance. Handsome, attractive, charismatic, Jerry was charismatic too. But Abbie had a certain kind of charisma about him. 1:48:22 SM: How about Paul Krasner? 1:48:29 JA: Sweet baby face. Smart ̶ 1:48:31 SM: Phil Ochs ̶ 1:48:33 JA: Kind of sad. Kind of sad. 1:48:37 SM: William Kunstler. 1:48:40 JA: Bill was, Bill was terrific. Very flamboyant, very smart. The first time I met him he came down to the cellar at Liberty house and tried to evict us but then he changed his mind and we all smoked dope together. I got to know Bill really well. Also, handsome. Very handsome, man. 1:48:57 SM: Rennie Davis? 1:49:00 JA: Intense and intense, dedicated. And having that kind of old American, what is the word? I am, very old American. I will leave it as that. 1:49:23 SM: How about Bobby Seale? 1:49:25 JA: Funny. Charismatic, warm and with the ability to talk. I mean, if he is, if it been today, he would be a rapper. 1:49:39 SM: Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver. 1:49:41 JA: Eldridge was smart. Very intense. I am writing stuff about Eldridge and it will be on my website in a while. But he was smart, very intense, very persuasive. And with a very kooky kind of sense of humor. Kathleen was absolutely gorgeous like, looked like a model also extremely smart. And very also with a really kooky sense of humor and a nice belly laugh. 1:50:15 SM: I am actually interviewing her in the summer. She is finished. She is writing her book. She said the end of, mid-summer, she has done with her book. But so did you meet John Lennon because I know Stew did. 1:50:26 JA: No, I never did. I was doing something else at the time. 1:50:29 SM: Benjamin Spock. 1:50:32 JA: Never met him. 1:50:33 SM: Bergen brothers. 1:50:34 JA: Never met them. 1:50:35 SM: Howard Zinn. 1:50:36 JA: Never met him. 1:50:37 SM: Dave Dowager. 1:50:39 JA: Dave was a much beloved, kindly person who was very committed to his passive nonviolent civil disobedience. 1:50:50 SM: How about Malcolm Boyd? 1:50:52 JA: Never met him. 1:50:53 SM: Harvey Milk. 1:50:55 JA: Never met him. 1:50:56 SM: Jane Fonda. 1:50:57 JA: I like Jane, Jane was, you know, she was not your usual Hollywood type of person. She really was committed to the things that she believed in was willing to move ahead on them. 1:51:11 SM: I think it is Peter Coyote. 1:51:14 JA: Ah, I do not know. I mean, he was more, by the time I met him, he was more into the Hollywood superstar thing. 1:51:26 SM: Angela Davis. 1:51:30 JA: I do not know that I ever met her. She at one point. Kathleen was visiting my house in Toronto, Canada and FBI being racist, confused Angela with Kathleen. Kathleen with Angela. But I do not think I actually ever met her. 1:51:52 SM: And I only got two more questions, and I am done here. What does the Vietnam Memorial mean to you? And what kind of impact did Kent State and Jackson State have on you? 1:52:05 JA: Well, the Vietnam Memorial, I think was, I believe now I did not at the time when I visited. But now that Stew’s dead I have a much better and more heartfelt understanding of why it is important to have a living memorial that we can go and actually commune with the dead person. I did not understand that, you know, I had not had experience with death. I did not understand that at the time it was still, and at the time that I visited, but I certainly do now. So, what it means to me is that it is a place where you can go and visit your ghost, you know, and the ghosts are always with you. And you need to have a place to be able to go and, and visit with them. And what was the second? 1:52:52 SM: Kent State, what did the Kent State and Jackson State killings in 1970. What ̶ 1:53:00 JA: I remember being on television, being interviewed on TV show shortly after Kent State. And it was that was occurred shortly after I had come back from Vietnam. And I remember saying to the audience, something to the effect of the Vietnamese people are very sorry for your loss and extend their sympathies to you. And that was kind of a shock. I say to everyone, but it is true. The Vietnamese people, the people that I met anyway, were very sad. When anyone got killed as a result of the war 1:53:45 SM: Where were you when John Kennedy was killed? You remember? 1:53:49 JA: I was married to my first husband living on the top floor of a house in Toronto. 1:53:57 SM: Were you watching TV or ̶ 1:53:59 JA: We did not have a TV. I heard it on the radio. 1:54:02 SM: And how about where were you when you heard Martin Luther King was killed. 1:54:07 JA: Well, I do not know. I do not remember where I was when I heard he was killed. But I do remember that that evening Eldridge and Stew and I spent that evening together. 1:54:20 SM: Oh, you were with Eldridge. Oh, wow. 1:54:23 JA: I think Eldridge needed to hide out because there were all kinds of everything was going up in flames. And he did not know he was on parole, and he did not want to be in a position where he was caught, of course like six days later, or he was caught with Bobby so it was irrelevant but- 1:54:39 SM: Yeah, Bobby Kennedy gave that unbelievable speech in Indianapolis that night. Of course, then he died two months later. So, I am going to end like, I, I was talking to you about the people when you met them for the first-time people that you liked, I just like your thoughts on the personalities that I think you dislike. This is just my feeling. Just your thoughts on these few people here. Ronald does not have to be any length at all here, just real gut level reaction. Ronald Reagan 1:55:11 JA: Hated him. 1:55:12 SM: Ed Meese. 1:55:14 JA: Was not really, you know, until, until Watergate, until Nixon. He was not really a figure but it I hated him too. When it became obvious as to who he was, I am sure, by the way, they both hated us. Us being the movement. 1:55:34 JA: Richard Nixon. 1:55:36 JA: Please. 1:55:37 SM: That is all I have to ̶ okay. And Spiro Agnew. 1:55:40 JA: Please. 1:55:41 SM: LBJ. 1:55:43 JA: “Hey, how many kids that you kill LBJ,” although, I have to say that LBJ, I am now as a recipient of Medicare, I have to admit to conflicted feelings about LBJ. He did some good stuff. 1:55:57 SM: Hubert Humphrey. 1:56:00 JA: You know, the slogan there was “dump the hump.” I mean he ̶ we knew that he was going to continue the war and so therefore I did not, I dislike him immensely. 1:56:11 SM: George Bush is the first and George Bush the second. 1:56:14 JA: These people are, continue in the tradition of sending Americans to die in unjust and unnecessary wars and for that I believe they are despicable, as a matter of fact all these people go on my despicable list. 1:56:31 SM: Yeah, Dwight Eisenhower, is he on it? 1:56:35 JA: Well, you know, it is funny, I once was visiting somewhere in Denmark and he was there and or maybe he was there and he was sort of visiting the same castle together so I always have had had a slight bit of more of a positive feeling and also for really, for his identification of the military industrial complex as something to be concerned about. 1:56:58 SM: John Mitchell. 1:57:00 JA: Oh, terrible man. terrible man. 1:57:03 SM: J. Edgar Hoover. 1:57:08 JA: J. Edgar Hoover was personally responsible for harassing and surveilling me and Stew, and all of our contemporaries, for setting up potential concentration camps to put us in. And for you know, killing the Rosenberg, for setting up Mayor Daley to believe the yippie exaggerations. So, the man was evil. I would say J. Edgar Hoover was evil. 1:57:39 SM: Did you feel there was a, because I know COINTELPRO was really big back then, of course, they were really going through the American Indian Movement. And certainly, the Black Panthers and SDS and Mobe. And they were, what is it about? Is, do you fear that that is ongoing today? 1:58:00 JA: Well, you know, the FBI, under COINTELPRO put a homing device on my car, burglarized our house and the cabin eight times and then installed a listening device for seventeen days. These were all illegal, the fiscal responsible, the one on the top being L. Patrick Gray, where I would say removed from office and disciplined although they were never jailed or anything like that, everything that the FBI did to us, and I have piles of surveillance files on everything that the FBI did to us. The homing device, the burglaries, the listening device, are now entirely legal under FISA and the Patriot Act. 1:58:44 SM: Well and you can go down and get your files anytime you want to cannot you in Washington or? 1:58:47 JA: We did that actually, when we, when I found the homing device. We sued the FBI and we got tons of files there now on repository at the lab data collection at the University of Michigan. 1:59:01 SM: Wow. Someone said I ought to get my file. I never even looked. Mayor John Daley 1:59:08 JA: You mean Richard Daley? 1:59:09 SM: I mean, Richard Daley, excuse me. 1:59:10 JA: The argument he gave me in the sun. I mean, well, Richard Daley was a racist, an anti-Semite. And he allowed himself to be essentially wired by Hoover, so that he would overreact to us. Daley, I do believe if Daley had granted us permit a lot of violence to sleep in the park. A lot of the violence in Chicago would have been avoided. Instead, he adopted the most aggressive stance that he could and just gave his police force free reign to beat demonstrators. 1:59:51 SM: I will never forget the senator that was calling him a Gestapo head. Well ̶ 1:59:55 JA: And then you know what Daley, you know, and you know what Daley said back? 1:59:59 SM: No, I do not know what he said. 2:00:01 JA: Something like you Jew bastard son of a bitch. 2:00:04 SM: Yeah, I forget the senators name from Connecticut, I think. Robert McNamara. 2:00:10 JA: You know where you can find it in my book the Conspiracy Trial because it was brought out in the trial. 2:00:13 SM: Robert McNamara. 2:00:17 JA: Hated him because of the war. 2:00:19 SM: Henry Kissinger. 2:00:20 JA: That is the same. 2:00:21 SM: Haldeman and Ehrlichman. 2:00:24 JA: They got what they deserved. 2:00:26 SM: Governor Nelson Rockefeller because he oversaw Attica. 2:00:30 JA: Yeah, well, he was the murder of murderer as well. 2:00:33 SM: Barry Goldwater. 2:00:36 JA: Well, you know, Barry Goldwater’s a little interesting because he was pro-choice. And he actually hosted events for Planned Parenthood at his home. So, there is a little ambivalence. 2:00:50 SM: And William Buckley. 2:00:53 JA: William Buckley, you know, was an articulate right wing, son of a bitch. 2:00:59 SM: And I did not ask you your thoughts on the women's movement, which was certainly Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Betty Friedan, your thoughts on those leaders in the early years? 2:01:11 JA: Well, some of that, you know, if you look in the Sixties Papers, we wrote about that in the introduction, the women's movement, segments of the Sixties Papers, but, you know, they came along, they were more the mainstream women's movements. And what I grew up in and my contemporaries was women's liberation, which is more radical. And our view essentially was, if black people can have a liberation movement, and the Vietnamese can have a liberation movement, and Chicanos can have a liberation movement, then we too, as women, we are oppressed, and we also can be liberated. I was glad that the Steinem’s and the Friedan’s of the world, were able to take these concepts and make them more mainstream, so more and more women benefited. At the time, we were critical because we felt that they were the middle of the road. 2:02:02 SM: I just realized that Betty Friedan brings, the people in the gay and lesbian movement just cannot stand her because she was homophobic. So, and that is a real sensitive issue when you bring up her name. I am going to end right now, except I want, I had, I did not ask the final question here, which is what have you been doing all these past years? I know you are involved in Planned Parenthood, what causes have you have been involved in since the yippies. 2:02:29 JA: I would say the Planned Parenthood, I worked for Planned Parenthood for over twenty years as a fundraiser. And so, the causes that I have been primarily involved in has been choice and reproductive rights. And I actually raised have raised millions of dollars for those causes, and I am very proud of that. I consider that a very important life achievement. I also for a number of years, was involved in two states solution in Israel and ending the Israeli occupation, and I am currently living in the cohousing community and I am very much involved in cohousing and people living in community with the intention of building community. It is a very different kind of lifestyles than I have lived before but certainly is way, way better than the way most people live in isolated nuclear families. We do have a community, we support each other, we care for each other. And it is very, cohousing is a very wonderful institution that I have only just in the last few years become aware of. 2:03:39 SM: Is your new husband as active as your former husband? 2:03:44 JA: Well, he was involved in founding this cohousing community. And what he does as a living, he is a financial planner for socially responsible investing. So, what that means is essentially he is part of the movement to look at corporations and make them more responsible to environmental concerns, to women's concern, to the consumer, to, to the concerns that any progressive person would support. 2:04:14 SM: Where did you get your PhD? 2:04:16 JA: University of Toronto. 2:04:20 SM: I am done. Are there any questions? I did not ask that you thought I was going to ask. 2:04:24 JA: No. But you wiped me out. 2:04:29 SM: I tell you, what an honor to, to interview you. And I will keep you abreast of all the, the transcripts when they become available. You will see it. 2:04:38 JA: Well please do. I would appreciate transcripts. I would also actually appreciate a copy of the tape of the interview. 2:04:44 SM: Oh, you want a copy of that too? Very good. Well, okay, well, we will be in touch and as far as getting some pictures of you. I do not need them right now but sometime during the summer I would like a couple pictures. 2:04:59 JA: Well, well. I would like to say and pick anything you want from the website. And there is one of me that is supposed to come on my email. I do not know if it does, but it is on my Facebook page. 2:05:08 SM: Okay, anybody, have anybody, got a whole list of names that Paul gave me to try to interview. So, if you think of any other names, let me know, because ̶ 2:05:18 JA: You know, I mean, I, I too have a whole list of names. So, you know, if you are looking for what I suggest is if you are looking for people of a certain type, you know, you need a person who can do this and you need a person who can do that, shoot me an email and I will ̶ 2:05:31 SM: I would like more female speakers. That is what I like, more women. 2:05:41 JA: Yeah, well, I am not sure I, you know, I like to say my brain is fried by now. But if I think of any I will, I will let you know. 2:05:49 SM: Alright. Well, thank you very much. You have a great day. 2:05:51 JA: Yeah, you too. Take care. 2:05:53 SM: Yep. Bye now. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Albert, Judith Clavir, 1943- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Political activists--United States; Albert, Judith Clavir, 1943--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Judy Gumbo Albert is a Canadian-born activist who was associated with many organizations such as the Yippies, Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, and The Women's Liberation Movement. She married Stew Albert, a political activist, who was a founder of the Yippies. Dr. Gumbo Albert has a Ph.D. in Sociology. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-04-13 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In Copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.34a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.34b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 125:57 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/603424bc48167a5be22a64408df683c8.jpg 09c4a0496654acb27ca52a20011d1394 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/2d5ec16551d82678bddcb2274dfcda28.MP3 3dc3ee062adb6503d6b24b67395394be Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Audio interviews Title A name given to the resource McKiernan Interviews Description An account of the resource Stephen McKiernan's collection of interviews includes more than two hundred interviews with prominent figures of the 1960s, which were collected between the mid-1990s to 2023 The collection provides narratives of people who were actively involved in or witnessed events in the 1960s, an era which spurred profound cultural and political transformation in the twentieth century. Interviewees include politicians, artists, scholars, musicians, authors, and veterans who delve into the decade’s most prominent issues and events, including the civil rights movement, the free speech movement, the anti-war movement, women’s rights, gay rights, segregation, the Vietnam War, Woodstock, Hippies, Yippies, and individualism.<br /><br /> <h3>The McKiernan 22</h3> <div>Stephen McKiernan interviewed legends of the 1960s. When asked in 2021 where one should start when sifting through his vast collection, he provided the following list:</div> <ul> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/854">Julian Bond</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1866">Bobby Muller</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1175">Craig McNamara</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/910">Dr. Arthur Levine</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/837">Diane Carlson Evans</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/942">Dr. Ellen Schrecker</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/876">Dr. Lee Edwards</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/841">Peter Coyote</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1233">Dr. Roosevelt Johnson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/899">Rennie Davis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1222">Kim Phuc</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/917">George McGovern</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/833">Frank Schaeffer</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/840">Rev. Dr. Frank Forrester Church </a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1240">Dr. Marilyn Young</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/842">James Fallows</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/835">Joseph Lee Galloway</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/911">John Lewis</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/839">Paul Critchlow</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/888">Steve Gunderson</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1159">Charles Kaiser</a></li> <li><a href="https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/2407">Joseph Lewis</a></li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Stephen McKiernan Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright. Template: Simple Audio Player with Transcription This template displays an audio player by Amplitude.js with a scrollable transcription which is loaded from the "Transcription" metadata field. This template displays an audio player with the first attached image file as the 'cover image'. For its audio source, the template looks for the first attached audio file. If additional audio files exist, they should be combined using audio editing software, or a separate Omeka item should be made for each part. Date of Interview 24 June 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Julian E. Zelizer Biographical Text Dr. Julian E. Zelizer is a Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and a CNN Political Analyst and a regular guest on NPR’s "Here and Now." He authored and edited 22 books including, The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society (2015), the winner of the D.B. Hardeman Prize for the Best Book on Congress. Dr. Zelizer focuses on the area of the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century of American history. Dr. Zelizer has a Bachelor's degree from Brandeis University and he obtained a Ph.D. in History from Johns Hopkins University. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:05:29 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Date of Digitization 24 June 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Books; Rabbi; Religious leaders; People; World, Religion, Martin Luther King; Anti-war movement, Protest; Activism; Jewish life; Judaism; Cincinnati; War; Jews; Writing. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Julian Zelizer Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 24 June 2022 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:04 Can you hear me? JZ: 00:05 I can hear you just fine. SM: 00:06 Okay, great. Well, Dr. Julian Zelizer. Thank you very much for agreeing to do the interview on your book, "Abraham Joshua Heschel: A Life of Radical Amazement," and that was an amazing book. Could you describe your, your early years, where you grew up, your early influences in your family and peers? Where you went to high school, and college, and-and how did you become interested in history? JZ: 00:31 Sure. Well, thanks for having me. And I grew up in a place called [inaudible] New Jersey, which is a suburb in northern New Jersey. My mother was, still is a professor of sociology. While I was growing up, she taught at Barnard College. And after I went to college, she moved to Princeton. My father, Jerry Zelizer is a conservative rabbi, in [inaudible], that is where his synagogue was at a place called the Bay Shalom, and I was an only child. So, I grew up there. And I would add, since it is relevant, my father's father was also a rabbi in Columbus, Ohio. And his father, my great grandfather was a rabbi in, in eastern Europe. So, I grew up in [inaudible] and I went to, until eighth grade, a place called Solomon Schechter Day School, which was a Jewish Day School in Cranford, New Jersey, which was half Jewish Studies and half secular studies. And then I moved to [inaudible] Public High School, where I graduated in 1987. And in high school, I started to gain an interest in history. But, it was not anything I was planning to do. To be honest, I, it was just classes I enjoyed. But I was not someone who knew exactly where everything was going. And when I grew up, I did grow up going to synagogue, every week, our house was kosher, I was the rabbi son. It was very important to shaping my identity, in retrospect. Then I went to Brandeis University, between 1987 and 1991, where I started to really gain a focus of what interested me. In my junior year, I won a fellowship at Brandeis, through the Ford Foundation, they were providing fellowships to students who might be interested in academia. And they paid you a stipend, which I am sure was not that much, but at the time seemed like more money than I ever made. And over the course of the year, you have engaged in an in-depth research project and whatever your discipline was, and worked closely with a mentor. So, I started working on the history of liberalism in Massachusetts, during the 20th century with a historian named Jim Kloppenburg, an intellectual historian. And it was coming right after Michael Dukakis had locked to George H.W. Bush in 1988, which was the real first election I focused on in-depth. And I was just curious why the label of a Massachusetts liberal had been so damaging to Dukakis and, and I spent a year working on this project using original resources. And I just really started to enjoy that kind of work. And I continued with this my senior year as a senior thesis project that ended up being like 300 pages. SM: 03:43 Wow. JZ: 03:45 And by the end, I knew I was either going to do history as an academic or journalism, one of the two, as a way to study politics. And I decided in my senior year that academia was the way to go for me, and I applied and I got into Johns Hopkins University. And I went straight from college to graduate school where I was there from 1991 to 1996, when I received my PhD in history working with someone named Luca Lamba. SM: 04:19 Wow. What, your history of, of the rabbi background is, I was reading in your book that your grandfather received an award the same day Dr. King received an award at a function. Could you talk about that just briefly before we get into the main part of your book? JZ: 04:36 Yeah, I mean, the fascinating part of working on this biography of Pashto was obviously there was an element of exploring my father and grandfather's world. Both of them went to the Jewish Theological Seminary, where Abraham Joshua Heschel was a professor for most of his career, and to look back at the world of American Judaism in the 1950s and (19)60s, when my grandfather was a working rabbi, my father was studying and then become a rabbi. And I found these points of connection, which were really amazing. I was just looking by chance, at the program, I found all this old material. I think my father, I am not sure, but I think my father had found all these boxes of material when my grandfather passed away. And he asked me if I wanted them, I took them. And in it was the program for when my father graduated and was ordained as a rabbi. And I was just kind of thumbing through it. And it turned out that Heschel, a king was there to receive an honorary degree, and Heschel was obviously there as well. And my grandfather received an honorary degree as well, at that same moment- SM: 04:58 Wow. JZ: 05:00 -in the program. So, there, everyone was in the room. And it is kind of just symbolic of this project and, and kind of how it was different from some of my other work. SM: 06:07 Your father and grandfather so linked to history, and now you are linked to it. And now you are teaching it, and writing about it, which is exciting. When you look at the period, 1960 to 1975, what comes to mind as a historian, and as a scholar, who is written about this era in different ways? JZ: 06:28 A lot of things I mean, certainly political turbulence, and social turbulence is what I instantly think of with a question like that. It was a very contentious 15 years, or however you want to demarcate the period, where some of the most fundamental elements of what America is about were being questioned. And they were being challenged from left and right. And that ranged from the way race relations were part of the history of this nation and racial inequality was so ingrained in the institutions and culture of the country, to what did the US do overseas? And what were these principles that politicians talked about when they deployed military force? And how did they compare with the reality on the ground? And those are just two of the questions. There were many others. How do we handle poverty in this country? What does the government, what is the role of the government in education? And it is just incredibly broad, and it culminates in (19)74, really, with a big question about political power and presidential power with the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon. So, it is just an incredibly tumultuous period, but not all in a bad way. And that is part of what I have learned, while studying, including writing this book, a lot of the questions were important ones that were being asked, and they really press the nation to think about its values, its aspects, its basic moral core, and what it was going to stand for, for the next few decades. SM: 08:13 You know, the life of Abraham Joshua Heschel was, I mean his whole life, you can study a certain section, and just study that for the rest of your life. Because how did this person become who he became? And this is a kind of a general question, there will be other ones later in the interview, but the life of Abraham Joshua Heschel, I think, fits into the decade known as the (19)60s and early (19)70s, as a religious leader, an intellect, an author, a thinker, and one heck of an activist, extraordinaire. Your thoughts on his role as an icon of the (19)60s and his role in Judaism in general? And I will be asking more questions too. JZ: 08:54 Sure, I mean, that is how the book starts, it actually starts with that framework. And I have, early in the book, one of the most iconic pictures of him, but also an iconic picture of the 1960s. It is a picture of March 21, 1965. It is one of the many marches that took place in Selma for voting rights. And this was a march where King called on religious leaders to come and, and march as a show of support from the religious community for the need for legislation to protect black American voting rights. And in that photo, which most American Jews, and many American Jews have seen at some point. King is marching alongside Heschel, Fred Shuttlesworth, John Lewis, some of the iconic civil rights leaders of the period, in both a moment of civic euphoria in some ways, and also, a scary moment. Because a few weeks earlier, the state authorities had beaten protesters simply for the act of protesting. And that picture is so important because it reflected not only activism in the 1960s, in this moment when so many Americans decided to take to the streets to demand social justice, but the role religion plays in that mobilization, something that is often forgotten. Religious leaders were integral to many of the progressive political movements of the period, and Heschel has come to embody that interconnection. So Heschel, as a civil rights activist, as an anti-Vietnam activist, as an activist who fought for the rights of Jews who are living in the Soviet Union, and much more, really does reflect some of the spirit of the 1960s. And, and a forgotten place of religion in that particular world. And simultaneously, and we will talk about it more. He was also a very important figure, which brought him to this place, in kind of being a public, religious intellectual, something we do not necessarily have any more, writing books that received widespread attention about theological questions. How do we think in the post-war period after the Holocaust, after the nuclear bomb about God, and a relationship of individuals to the divine? SM: 11:32 Yeah, you did a great job in every aspect of his life, very beginning when he was young. Wherever you live, there was anti-Semitism, and he had to, he experienced that, he lived in poverty. The economics conditions are not good within his family. Could you talk a little bit about how this great rabbi who became an icon of the (19)60s were how he evolved from those very beginnings when he was in Warsaw, throughout through Europe before he came to the United States in Cincinnati. JZ: 12:09 Yeah, I mean, he has an immigrant story, which is part of what fascinated me also about him to understand that trajectory. He grows up in Warsaw. He was born in 1907. And January 11, 1907, and, and he grows up in a family of very, that comes from very distinguished Hasidic rabbis. Hasidism is a sect of what today we would call Orthodox Judaism. But very traditional, but also very spirited. It was a kind of Jewish community that prayed with exuberance that devoted much of their life to studying the Torah, the Hebrew Bible, and more. And he grows up in Warsaw being trained to be a rabbi, he is a prodigy, his family assumes he will continue with the tradition. And his father died when he is very young, and in 1916, as part of the influenza outbreak of the time and Heschel's just nine years old. But he continues with his training, his uncle trains him as a rabbi. But during these years in Warsaw, where he lives in, in the Jewish community, and is surrounded by Judaism, in terms of synagogues, and publications, he was always interested in the secular world, even as a young boy. He becomes fascinated with a group of kind of radical Yiddish, secular poet who works nearby. And I described a scene where he goes into their offices and asked if he could publish poetry with them. But ultimately, he leaves Warsaw, which is a big move for someone of his background, and he decides he wants to study at a university. So, he goes to Vilna, first, where he goes to, a high school, essentially, that trains him in secular education. And then he moves to Berlin, where he goes to the University of Berlin, and will work on ultimately a PhD in, in Philosophy. And he continues with his Jewish studies but by the 1930s, he is a guy who is still very religious, and religion is integral to how he thinks of the world. But he is also become deeply enmeshed in the highest intellectual circles of the world at that time, in Berlin at this university of philosophers, of other kinds of social scientists. And he writes his dissertation on the Hebrew prophets, and is fascinated with these figures who told the world that they could essentially hear God, and raged about everything that was bad in the country. He teaches at an adult education school in Frankfort, a very distinguished institution. But in 1938, he was kicked out of the country. He has been watching the Nazis rise to power and in 1938 the [inaudible] rounds up Jews who were not from Germany and expelled them, including him from the country. He goes back to Warsaw, he is able to escape. But ultimately in 1940, he receives a fellowship from the Hebrew Union College, which is a seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio training reformed Jews. And the head of it a guy named Julian Morgenstern, has a fellowship program where he is trying to rescue Jewish, Eastern European intellectuals. And he hears about Heschel, and he is one of the people who receives a fellowship, and comes to Cincinnati in 1940. So, his trajectory is one that always from a young age, mixed very intense Judaic study in the Hasidic tradition, combined with a fascination with the world of the secular, intellectual university. SM: 16:11 Yeah, the thing is though, right away, you notice the connection between Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel, in terms of they both had deep desire for interfaith relationship in terms of social activism and the issues of the day, whether it be racism, the war in Vietnam, even Russian Jewry, which he was involved in, as well as dealing with the Catholic Church, and their-their historic treatment of Jews by saying that Jesus was-was, was killed by the Jews, these kinds of things. He was dealing with a lot of particular issues. He has got a lot of supporters, but he has got a lot of people that are challenging him, too. So, he, he is, he is one heck of a person in terms of history books. You have a quote, in the very beginning of the book, which is, you have already made references to several things. But, I am all over here. Your book is so good with respect to quotes. Wherever he lived, you got some quotes about what he said about certain conditions. And, I am trying to memorize them. So, if I ever make a speech, I can always refer to them because they are, they are unbelievable. This is one you have at the very beginning of the book. I just want to read it. And have you comment on it, commenting on it. "There is an evil, which most of us condone, and are even guilty of, indifference to evil." Dr. King was talking all about this too, indifference with something he could not stand. "We remain neutral, impartial, and not easily moved to the wrongs done unto other people. Indifference, indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is more universal, more contagious, more dangerous, a silent justification it makes possible, and evil ripping us and expansion becoming the rule and being in turn accepted." Could you comment on that? JZ: 18:16 Yeah, that is really, it is a, it is a very important quote in my mind to understanding some of what was driving Heschel. And it is a quote, it also resonated with King who spoke about indifference all the time, in the letter from Birmingham jail, King, famously lashed out, not against the open racists of the south. But he said, the preachers who were because they said they were being pragmatic, were not doing anything. They were the real danger, was the moderate who was more dangerous than the extremists because they allowed the extremists to continue And Heschel agreed with that. I mean, part of where this came from, was Heschel watching the Nazis rise to power. And ultimately, while he was in Cincinnati from 1940 to (19)45, watching the American political community do very little to save Jewish refugees, and even watching mainstream Jewish organizations be very timid in his mind, about making this a central issue and putting enough pressure on politicians. And it was that indifference, which terrified him and he, during the 1940s saw the cost of that indifference. It allowed Nazi Germany to literally ravage the Jewish community. It allowed, you know, the Nazis to ultimately kill many of his own family members, including his mother and three sisters, and the way in which indifference was so important in the Christian community, the Jewish community, to the heart that unfolded during the war would remain with them. And he would spend a lot of the rest of his career, talking about that, really attacking people who were not doing anything, attacking people who were sitting on the sidelines, even when they knew things were wrong. And not understanding that to not act was in some ways, becoming part of the problem, which is what that quote is about. And he talks a lot about this in the book that he publishes based on his dissertation on the Hebrew prophets. And, the Hebrew prophets were not indifferent. They were the opposite. They were people who were often considered. Often, some said they were drunk, or they were not psychologically stable, because they were walking around, screaming and raging about what everyone was accepting as normal poverty, inequality, violence, injustice. And he admired the prophets because they did not do that. They spent their whole life saying this is not acceptable. And so, I think once he reaches the 1960s, and he sees the different movements taking forth, it is almost inevitable for him, to not be indifferent, and to actually devote the last decade of his life to these political struggles. SM: 21:15 You know, the prophets that you just mentioned, are throughout the book. I mean, in various issues in his life, what would the prophets do? And really, he was constantly thinking about them. And during the 1960s, in the part you talk about Selma and Washington and that era, and at the very end of the book, you know, the prophets are brought up in quotes over, and over, and over again, what would the prophets do? And, you know, I wanted to mention, too, that the books that he wrote, were amazing. I know that some of the people that were involved in the Civil Rights Movement and some of the people that were activists, like Father Barragan, Daniel Barragan, who I knew, looked up to Rabbi Heschel as a mentor. Because of the you know, this, making that religion was very important in dealing with the social issues, you know of our time, whether it be the nuclear bomb, the nuclear war in [inaudible], which is what the Berrigans were going after, and the Vietnam War. So, things like this, but it is the books, you know, these books, I have two of them. But the, the books were "The Sabbath Man is not Alone, God and Man is not Alone," "Man's Quest for God and God in Search of Man." Have you, did you have a chance to read all these books? JZ: 22:36 Oh, yes, I read them several times. Some of them are difficult to really absorb. But I read them carefully. Because what I really started to understand as I wrote the book, was there was a clear connection between what he was writing and thinking about in the 1950s. And he is really writing about, in the Sabbath, he is writing about why religion in the modern world, "God in Search of Man," or "Man is not Alone," two other books that were famous works of his where he is talking about the relationship of the individual to God, and how the individual could open themselves up to ultimately hearing God's path of. I started to see, these are not separate from the world of activism that he ends up in, they are often treated that way. You know, first he was a writer and theologian, then he became an activist. But, when you read the book, and you read these books several times you kind of see the path that would ultimately lead him to find the activism so compelling. So, the Sabbath is an example. It is not obvious. But it is basically a book of why does the Sabbath matter? Why in the modern world of finance and consumption, should people take one day a week, which is Saturday for the Jewish people, and not do any work, not use any electricity, devote themselves basically, to prayer and introspection. And he writes about it, in terms of Jewish tradition, but he also tries to make an argument that this is an antidote to the rampant consumption that Americans were engaged in, it was a way to take control of part of the time that an individual experienced and separate it from, from that modern from that modern world. So, he is thinking about how to make the secular world a better place, through religious commitment. And in these other books, he is writing about how if someone is truly pious, if they devote themselves, to prayer, to committing, to engage in what Jews called the Mitzvoth, the good deeds that are obligated of every Jew. They, they ultimately become more spiritual, they become more pious, and they can hear what God is thinking and trying to communicate to them about the world and what is wrong in the world. And he ultimately thinks about this through the Hebrew prophets. But he thinks of it also in terms of what he has seen, from the activists all around, and including many religious activists, non-Jewish, from seeing Barragan, who are also forging these connections between their own religious slash theological beliefs, and the great issues of the day. SM: 25:36 Throughout the book, when you are talking about those, not the books of Sabbath, but the Sabbath itself, that was a very important day for him. And what- -no matter where he was in his life, whether, whether he was in poverty, or whether he was, you know, in New York City, being a professor. I mean, it is a very important day, something, he would not want to do something on that day that had any effect on the Sabbath. And so that was very important. Could you talk about, you know, Cincinnati becomes an important part here. I was talking to somebody about this book, and they said, why did he come to Cincinnati? But could you talk about his time in Cincinnati, and then finally, his, his moving to New York City? JZ: 25:45 It was. Yeah, so the Cincinnati years are quite important, although they were often overlooked. And they are from 1940 to 1945, again, he has brought here by Julian Morgenstern, who was the head of the Hebrew Union College. And he has brought on as a fellow, although they ultimately make him a faculty member. And it is a very difficult five years for him. First, he is living in a reformed seminary and reformed Judaism, basically was the effect of a branch of Judaism in the United States, and in Europe as well, that did not actually require practicing many of the traditions that more observant Jews thought were essential. So, the Sabbath, for example, a traditional Jew will not use electricity on the Sabbath, Heschel would, they will not drive a car, they won't go to a supermarket or store. But reformed Judaism was not quite as strict and allowed for all that. So, here Heschel spent five years living with these individuals who were being trained to be rabbis. But he saw, they did not keep kosher. None of, many of them could not read Hebrew. They did not have the practices or the knowledge that he thought were essential to being a rabbi. It was also during these years, that the Holocaust unfolds, then as I said, his mother and three sisters would all be killed during these years. So, he is all alone. He is living in this seminary, where kind of an oddity, and he does not really mesh with most of the students and faculty around him. And, he is listening to the events in Europe, and he is mourning as different family members perish. And it is during these years, finally, in Cincinnati, that he starts, just starts to engage in a little activism. He goes, for example, to Washington in 1943. Together with an orthodox rabbi in Cincinnati, and he participates in something called the "Rabbis March," which is a group of 400, traditional and observant rabbis again, what we call orthodox today, who marched through the streets of Washington, meet with members of Congress, they try to meet with the president unsuccessfully, to demand that the American political community does something about eastern European Jews. So, these are important years, and he is also gaining a sense of some of the differences of American Judaism as it was taking form, and what was still strong in different parts of Europe like Warsaw. And, he leaves in 1945, the Jewish Theological Seminary, which is in New York, it is a seminary, and it is also where conservative rabbis were being trained. They, a guy named Louis Finkelstein, who is the chancellor offers Heschel a full-time faculty position, in part because he thinks Heschel will be inspirational to conservative rabbis who are being trained because he has that knowledge. He has that background in Eastern European Judaism that was becoming more distant for younger generation of rabbinical students like my father. SM: 26:40 It is really, I have a couple of quotes again from several parts of your book and I, it just reiterates what you have been saying about what he believed in, but the quotes are just wonderfully written, and wonderfully put together. "We affirm the principle of the separation of church and state, and we reject the separation of religion, and the human situation. And, and second one I want to quote here is "To be pious, to be a pious person meant creating a connection between spirituality and progressive politics, leading to battles against social injustice, and the militarism in the lived world." And the third one, final one, here, "He would, he wanted to repair the world by ending injustice, and injustice he saw in Europe, in his youth, and in his battles." This is, you are wording this basically, in America during the Civil Rights era, his desire to end the Vietnam War, that, this, his last years of his life when he, when he is in New York, it is amazing what he did. And, he is everywhere, he is going, he is giving a speech, or he is going to a protest, or he is, you know, going to try to get groups to interface together to work against an injustice someplace in the world. Can you talk about this, the importance at this particular time in the (19)60s of the interfaith connection that he was so involved in? And so Was Dr. King, and I, and I am a firm believer after reading this book, that if Dr. Heschel had not been here, in America, there would not have been a person like him to work with Dr. King. There were a lot of people that want to interfaith within his group, but to get your thoughts on this, on this real close connection between this interfaith effort? JZ: 31:44 Yeah, I mean, there is a lot, of a lot of points there. On the first one, there was an interesting part of the book, and, you know, he is trying to find this balance between what is the role of religion and say, in the political world. And yet, as the first quote you read, says, he is not someone who is saying, you know, religion should guide public life, he is a believer in the separation of church and state. And so, there is always this question of what are the lines, and some of his critics would argue that sometimes they were turned off, by the way, he invoked religion, because it could lead to a kind of fervor, and, and kind of a dogmatic view of issues that isn't always best in politics. It was interesting to think of some of these debates and read them both in real time and retrospectively, but ultimately, he believed that religion just had an important role. And it was not simply that if you are religious, you will see, that you have to join, cause a and cause b, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, he has this other argument which is interwoven through much of his writing after 1945, where, if you have a society where religious questions which are ultimately, questions about ethics and morality, are no longer part of the conversation, no longer part of the lived experience of, of people, then secular society can become extraordinarily dangerous. And, he saw that part of how we ended up in a world where a Holocaust against Jews could happen, or where we could use technology, like the nuclear atomic bomb to just raise two cities was because spirituality had lost its place in modern society, and that these questions that gradually faded from what many people thought about and it led them to be hardened, it led them to be indifferent. And so, he was trying to kind of craft an argument about why religion, as someone who appreciated science, he appreciated modernity, he appreciated the consumer world, but he was trying to argue that even in that if we do not have this religious core, we are in danger, we will end up doing terrible things to, to each other. And he found this interfaith community when he engaged in activism on different issues that was like minded, and the interfaith element was quite important and it was really interesting, he really rejected religious leaders, Jewish or otherwise, who, you know, believed that religions had to stay separate, believed that the basic ritualistic differences between religions rendered any effort to work together as, as impossible. One example, a concrete example was between 1962 and 1965, the Vatican in Vatican two is revisiting a lot of its most controversial doctrines in the wake of WWII and the anti-colonialism. The church is trying to look at parts of the doctrine that had been used by forces of hatred, and anti-Semitism is one of it and, doctrine related to the idea that Jews need to be converted, or that all Jews are responsible for the death of Christ become what the Vatican is discussing, and Heschel is recruited as a secret liaison to the Vatican, to talk with Vatican officials, including the Pope, about these questions, and to lobby the Vatican to change its ways. Well many Orthodox Jews when they learn that this happened, it is ultimately revealed by the press that he was part of these discussions. They are furious with Heschel, they say, this kind of interfaith dialogue is not right, that you should not be discussing with Catholics or vice versa doctrine. There are two different religions, but Heschel railed against that way of thinking. And when he has involved in the anti-Vietnam war movement, it is the interfaith connections, which really drives what he does. And then finally, yes, by the end of his career, and by the time of his death in 1972, he was everywhere, it is kind of like a [inaudible] of American history at that point. And given where he started, just as a, in the Jewish community of Warsaw that this is a guy by the end of his life, presidents are aware of, Popes are aware of, the media will cover all the time, is really a mark of the kind of impact he was able to have. SM: 36:55 Well, he had an influence on Dr. King, for sure. And, I learned something in your book about the fact that the group that Rabbi Heschel was involved with, the clergy concerned about the Vietnam War, or clergy and laity concerned about Vietnam were the ones that invited him to speak at Riverside Church in 1960. No, yeah, (19)67 against the Vietnam War. That is so historic, I never saw the connection. I thought Dr. King just came. JZ: 37:29 Right. And I did not either, actually, I mean, I knew about that speech, it is one of the most important pieces, if you study the history of the Vietnam War, and the politics. King had been very reluctant to speak out against the war, in part because many civil rights leaders did not want him too, many supported the war. In (19)67, the Vietnam War is still popular. Many were scared that if they angered Lyndon Johnson on the war, he would, you know, essentially get back at them by withdrawing his support for civil rights. And King himself was really conflicted over what to do, he famously makes a speech at the Riverside Church where finally decides to, he cannot stand it any longer. And he makes a blistering speech about the war, about the cost of the war, about what it is doing, both to the Vietnamese and here in American society. And it is a turning point, because after that King is forever part of the anti-war movement. It gives the antiwar movement broader support in many ways, because they get connected to the civil rights movement. But the way, [inaudible] was an event organized by this group, that Heschel was part of, it was- SM: 38:46 Yep. JZ: 38:46 -these religious leaders, who King was very comfortable with, he knew all of them, who invited him to speak at this event at the Riverside Church. And if you watch the old videos of it, I believe you can even see it online, Heschel is sitting there right next to him as King delivers this- SM: 39:03 Wow. JZ: 39:03 historic speech. And again, I have seen it, I have heard it, I never like focused in on who organized this thing. So, it is really I think it is an important moment. And you can see the kind of effect Heschel and his cohorts are having by (19)67. SM: 39:19 I wonder if even President Johnson saw that, or maybe he did, maybe he, because he was very upset with Dr. King. But, you did not hear him being upset with anybody else. But, he could have been upset with many of the others as well, who were there from different faiths. And I believe the minister there was Wyatt T. Walker, was not it? I believe that was, he was the minister at that church at that time. And I also want to bring up the fact that, the impact that Rabbi Heschel had on people from other faiths, his mentees, and they both said, they said this and I had all, they all came to my campus over the years. Daniel Barragan, Williamson Coffin, and Richard John Newhouse, and they were all they considered Rabbi Heschel, a mentor. And they were, my golly, they were powerful people themselves. JZ: 40:13 So yeah, they did. You are talking about some of the most important figures of that decade. And, they really admired him. And for Heschel this was important because within his own community, he was pretty controversial. And even at the Jewish Theological Seminary, some would say he had more enemies or opponents than supporters. Some of this was because he was critical of American Judaism, including the way rabbis are being trained. He did not think they were learning enough theology. They were focused more on, on textual analysis and understanding Jewish law. He was an outspoken critic of the modern suburban synagogue, he would make all these speeches, where he would say that the synagogues being built around the country were beautiful, and they offered all kinds of services, but they were devoid of prayer, they were devoid of spirit, there was no reason people would remain attached to it. And this was a direct attack on what his colleagues were trying to do, including the famous guy named Mordecai Kaplan, whose, all his writing was about the centrality of the synagogue. So, he was controversial because of his thinking, because of the way he approached the rabid and, and he was also controversial politically, again, most mainstream religion supported the war in Vietnam as late as (19)67, and (19)68, including the rabbinical assembly, and I have a statement they released in (19)67, where they condemn this group that Heschel is part of. And Heschel is really the focus because he is the Jewish leader in this group, and say they disagree with it. And they do not think what he is doing is right. So, Heschel found a lot of comfort and solace in these connections that he made outside of the Jewish world where you would have people like John Bennett, or Barragan revering him and really admiring what he was doing. And I think psychologically, at that moment in his career, this was extremely important. SM: 42:21 Well, the thing I noticed in the, in the book, you talk about the importance of memory; memory meant an awful lot to him. Here is this man who wrote all these great books, articles, you know, everything, taught students in the classroom. Yet he has this quote, Jewish said, or something that you put in the book, Jewish education to him, should foster Jewish memory. The vital sounds of Jewish education are not books, but the bearers of memories, those who engage with the spirit and bear witness, beware of that, which is, I cannot remember printing I am sorry about that. "Beware of that which has been passed down." Now obviously, throughout his life, he never could forget the Holocaust and every element of actions, even in the civil rights movement, when he saw the poverty and the terrible things happening to African Americans, they could not vote. They were being, they were being hanged. They were being denied their freedoms, treated as second class citizens. That memory of his he does not have to read a book for that, he witnessed it. And I think that is an important thing, too, that your memory is important. Any thoughts on that? JZ: 43:43 No, I think it is, it is true. Ironically, I mean he, he tried to do some of this in his book, I think he was, he was not simply concerned with people won't remember the Holocaust, because in his lifetime, that was almost inconceivable. But he did talk, he talked, for example, when he was trying to garner support for the issue of Soviet Jewry, in the early (19)60s, when it was not really an issue. There was not a movement yet. He, he reminded people to think back to the 1940s, when so much of the American Jewish community established we did not do enough to put pressure on politicians. And he worried that by the (19)60s, a lot of the Jewish community was forgetting that, and forgetting the costs that could be incurred from that kind of, you know, forgetting of the past. But, he was also really worried that American Jews were no longer able to remember that world of eastern Europe that he saw it was so glorious, even with the anti-Semitism and even with what ultimately happened yet, slightly nostalgic look, or memory of the early 20th century in that world in which he was born and raised, and he wrote a book called "The Earth is the Lord's." It is one of his, it is his first book after the war. It is published in English. And it is called "The Inner World of the Jew in Eastern Europe." And it is more, almost like a sermon or a eulogy than a book. It is a poem, all about the magic that he remembered in eastern Europe, where you had a world of Jews, who were focused on studying the Bible, studying the Torah, who devoted themselves to that over material concerns where he argued, every person regardless of wealth was equal, because knowledge was the commodity and everyone was allowed to devote themselves to that knowledge. And he talked about the enthusiasm and fervor of the Jewish community where he was raised. And of course, again, a lot of that was nostalgic, he did not talk about the immense poverty and suffering, he did not talk about some of the problems that led him to leave ultimately. But, the book is about memory. It is a plea that Americans- SM: 46:06 Yep. JZ: 46:06 -use after the war, do not forget that world, which because of the war, was now literally being lost, not just in terms of memory, but physically. SM: 46:15 Yeah, I, just about everything he touches is something you can learn from, you could get a young person, please read this book or please read about the life of Rabbi Heschel, and you will learn something about life. The rest of the interview, I want to concentrate on Rabbi Heschel and the (19)60s. Could you concentrate on, right now on Selma? In the book, you state that he, he was actually watching a program on the Holocaust on T.V. when they broke in and talked about what was going on in the south in Selma, and how they had beaten the protesters. And, John Lewis actually had his head cracked at that one. And, and he said, I got to go south. He could not, it was, just his reaction to what was happening in Selma. And of course, a couple days later, Dr. King organized another March, and he wanted to be part of it. Could you talk about that? JZ: 47:19 Yeah so, so he has, he had been following the civil rights story for, for many years already. He was an avid watcher of the evening news, he would watch it every night, he read the newspapers. And, he said that in the process of revising the Hebrew prophets, his dissertation to be a book, he, then was changing, and he was seeing the connections between what he was writing about, and the protests that he was reading about. He gets involved in civil rights, years before the Selma march. The most important I will highlight is, in 1963, Martin Luther King invites Heschel to speak at a meeting in Chicago, of interfaith leaders on religion and race. And, Heschel gives one of the keynote speeches and I quote a lot of the speech in the book because it is really, it is quite powerful. Cornell West would later say that the speech he delivered in (19)63, is "One of the most, it is one of the best speeches by a white person on race since abolition," and one of the topics. And, he basically said in that speech, which King is watching, that you cannot be a religious person, if you are a racist, that race and religion cannot coexist in the same heart. And, he attacks religious leaders who are being indifferent, who are not seeing that they have to take on this problem in American life, and the speech is covered in the press. And it really puts him on the map in the civil rights community. And before (19)65, he continues to speak in interfaith gatherings about race and religion. He does some protests and activism on the street, in New York City, on issues of education and religion. But ultimately, it is in March (19)65 that this all picks up, and it starts on March 7 1965, that is the first march, Heschel's not there. That is called and remembered as Bloody Sunday because protesters are marching and when they are on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the authorities violently attack them, beat them, beat many of the protesters, including John Lewis, who is the head of a group called Snick, who has his head cracked open by a police baton. And, it is an important moment because the media covers it. And as you said, ABC News cuts away, they are showing the Sunday night movie, "Judgment at Nuremberg," a movie about the Holocaust, to show exactly what was taking place in the south. And, and Heschel is aware of this. He is watching this and he is following the news. And then, he gets this invitation to come to a subsequent march on March 21 where King's bringing religious leaders because the goal after Bloody Sunday, Lyndon Johnson, the president of the United States, has called on Congress, finally, he called on Congress to pass the Voting Rights bill. And so, the marches in Selma are an effort to build pressure on Congress on the administration to follow through with that promise. And then, Tim gets the invitation to go home on March 21. And he is very scared. He is truly frightened. Because going to Selma is not like a trip, I am got to get through part of a protest, Bloody Sunday shows the stakes were high that violence was a reality. And he and his family, he has a wife and daughter, are terrified. But, he decides that he has to go, he decides at this point, there is no turning back. And so, he ultimately goes, he travels there. He is picked up by Andrew Young, whose one of the important civil rights leaders who carries around a copy of the Prophet, and has read it religiously, and really admires Heschel. And then, Heschel participates in this march. And I recount kind of how the march unfolds, I found this amazing diary, where he jotted down notes about the experience that are in his archives. And it is an incredible experience for him. He feels the religious fervor from, from the event and he understands what activism can be in a new way. He famously said he felt like he "was praying with his leg," on-on that day. And he also meets, one last thing, a lot of younger Jews who were there who said they were not really religious ever, they had no connection to Judaism. But one young man who's a reformed Jew says to him, driving back to the airport, that because of that day, because of the march in Selma, and meeting and seeing Heschel who, at this point, he has changed physically, he literally looks like a prophet, he has a long white beard, his hair is overflowing, that because of that day, he understands the connection to the tradition in a very profound way. And I will add, Heschel's also horrified, he is, he is, he loves what he does, he loves the movement, but he also sees the ferocity of the, the racism as they march, they are surrounded by, you know, Alabamians, who, you know, holding up signs, with horrible racial epithets, and often anti-Semitic ones as well, they are often connected in the minds of the white racist, and he does not ever forget just how deeply rooted racism is in this country. SM: 53:13 Yeah, you state in there often that he said at this time, "That racism is our most serious domestic evil," and he said, "It was easier for the children of Israel to cross the red sea than for a negro to cross certain university campuses," which is amazing. It is true. It is, you know. JZ: 53:35 Something that King, I mean, King and him connect on, as other civil rights leaders do in seeing some of the commonalities behind the Jewish experience, and Jewish oppression and anti-Semitism with the Black American experience. And they did not see those two as separate causes, especially in the mid-1960s. And, you know, King would talk about Moses and Exodus and often use that story in his own, in his own speeches. SM: 54:07 Well, his stature was certainly growing at this time, because you also state in the book that he was invited by President Kennedy to come and speak with him about the issues that were being faced in the area of race in America. And, he sent a note to Kennedy could you say when he said to him? [laughs] JZ: 54:27 Yeah, I mean, this is about, about civil rights and I mean, I do not have the text in front of me. But he is really, if I remember correctly, really urging the president to implore religious leaders to make this an issue front and center. SM: 54:48 He said, please, I got it here, "Please demand religious leaders, personal involvement, not just sound declarations." JZ: 54:56 Yep. Yeah, he, he wants, again, it comes back to that theme of indifference even proposes, cannot remember the details of the proposal to, to Kennedy, you know, some kind of substantive action that leaders can take to commit themselves to these causes. He is frustrated with how many people are basically willing to do nothing, even religious leaders, he respects about questions like racism. SM: 55:25 To show how Dr. King and Rabbi Heschel are on the same wavelength, around this time, you know, he was arrested in Birmingham, and then he wrote the letter to the Birmingham Jail. And you talk about this in your book, where King condemns the pragmatism and, incrementalism of white moderates describing them as, "a greater threat than racists extremists." And basically, what he is saying, people always say, [crosstalk] Well, wait, just wait, just wait. And Dr. King had this all the time, when he first became the new minister, in his first church. He talked about this, and they had just fired the previous minister, and because he was kind of an activist and kind of a radical in their eyes. And they looked at him and said, "What another one?" [laughs] That was early on in his career, but he was always dealing with these things. Could you talk about the, the, his involvement against the Vietnam War? JZ: 56:29 Yes, so, this really becomes a central part of his activist career, even though we talk about civil rights. And it was quite important, it does not even come close to the amount of time and energy that he expended on the fight against Vietnam. And he starts in 1965, which I tried to convey, it is hard to convey to a moderate reader in the book, that the idea of really starting to organize against the war in 1965, was a pretty dramatic thing to do. I mean, there was not an anti-war movement to speak of. Those who were involved in anti-war activism were seen as really fringe and pretty radical. It did not have the kind of support civil rights was starting to garner by that time, but he gets involved with a small group that will ultimately be called clergy and laymen concerned about Vietnam. It starts as a group of religious leaders protesting government efforts to crack down on anti-war protests, but quickly it reforms and becomes a group of religious leaders who are critical of the war in, in Vietnam. And the group tries to position themselves as separate from the most radical parts of the anti-war movement. For example, they do not support avoiding the draft, they do not support burning draft cards. But they use religious language and rhetoric and also religious, organizational power, meaning all the membership lists of churches and synagogues to start to grow this organization and it grows. And one of the things they do, is every year, they go to Washington, they bring members to Washington as part of a mobilization that would take place in late January and early February in (19)67, (19)68, (19)69. They would have protests, they would have rallies, they would do kind of media events that reporters would focus on, they would meet with administration officials and legislators to keep putting pressure on Washington to bring the war to an end. And what they bring to the table, in these years when the anti-war movement still did not have mainstream support, was a kind of moral legitimacy that college students could not bring. They were not the hippies and the beatniks on the college campuses who could quickly be dismissed by some politicians as just radical students. These were respected religious leaders. And the group just keeps growing and, you know, by (19)69 and 1970, they were a very important, and known, and formidable part of the anti-war movement. And King increasingly becomes more radical as the years progressed, gradually more supportive of people who are refusing to be part of the draft and going to jail for doing so. He is very defensive of college students who are engaging in protests and says they have the right to do that. And some of his colleagues said that by the end of his life, he died in (19)72, the war was consuming him. He saw this as just an epic tragedy, that was emblem of what the United States was doing wrong, and its relations with the world, and also a tragedy for the American soldiers for the Vietnamese, who were dying, for something he did not think was necessary. He was not a pacifist. But this anti-war movement defined the last real seven years of his life. SM: 1:00:18 You quoted here that he said Vietnam "is an ecumenical nightmare, for Christians, Jews, Buddhists are killing each other." And this organization he was belong to, and he was involved in it, is, was very upset with president too, in Vietnam and what they were doing to the Buddhists, themselves- JZ: 1:00:37 Right. SM: 1:00:37 -and other religious groups. So, not only are we talking about it, he used to say this, another quote, you put in the book, [inaudible] which was a manifestation of a world without God, well, here we are in Vietnam, the United States is supporting this temporary government, hopefully it would survive. But in reality, they were, you know, killing Buddhists. They were discriminating against Buddhists. Buddhists hated that, too. I mean, the government, and we were supporting them. So, it was, it was everything, you look at Vietnam, there is something wrong here. And it took religious leaders like Rabbi Heschel, and Dr. King and many others from different faiths to really, you know, have an impact on the world against this war. I guess we are near the end of our time here. I want to add one final, there is a quote in the book here, and I want you to just respond to it, you wrote this quote, and it was on page 230. And, and this was your quote, "What was so important about Heschel was not that he heroically risked his life. But then he became an emblem for a kind of moral heroism that inspired, and continued to inspire others long after his moment had passed. He serves as a reminder of the often-forgotten role that deep religious conviction held within progressive movements that bent the arc of the universe toward justice." Now, that is brilliantly written. But, any other thoughts on that? JZ: 1:02:14 Look, it was my thoughts. I mean, the book is my thought, but it is a part of the history of religion in the United States that I think has gotten, it has been somewhat forgotten. I think, I say in the book that when people think of religion in politics, in 2022, or whenever they are reading the book, the major storyline, the major issue has been the religious right, and politics, the growth of- -your moral majority in the (19)70s, in the connection of religion, to the battle against reproductive rights and, and different kinds of schooling and more. But there was this whole world in the (19)60s, which I just found fascinating, where people like Heschel, were at the forefront, at the center of progressive political movements. And they did it not just as religious people who happen to agree with progressive causes, but as people whose religion in their minds, led them inevitably to partake in fight for social justice here in the United States, the connection was impossible to ignore. That is what Heschel reflected. And I think, whatever your politics kind of recovering that world today, is something that is extremely important. And thirdly, if you are someone involved in some of these causes, the way in which religion can be part of that conversation, part of that effort is an incredibly important lesson from his life, and one that we need to examine through him, and through other figures of the time. SM: 1:02:43 Yep. I end all my interviews with a question and it is just a very fast, what word of advice would you give to future generations who are listening to this tape, 50 years from now? What word of advice would you give to them? Because the purpose of The Center for the Study of the (19)60s is not only to, you know, do to create research and scholarship materials and for students, faculty and national scholars, but to reach people who are yet unborn too, so that they never lose their, their history. But they are always thinking about where they are, where they are at right now. What advice would you give them? JZ: 1:04:34 Well, if I am connecting my advice, to Heschel's story, it would be what we talked about earlier that it is important, whatever your religious perspective, to keep asking questions about our ethics, our morality, our basic values in society, and to never be indifferent to those kinds of questions, and to understand that we need to always ask those questions, if we are going to have a better country. We are going to have a better community. This was an insight that I derived from Heschel, which I think is incredibly powerful. And then if we do not ask those questions, we put ourselves down the path of a very bad road. And, and we cannot afford that. SM: 1:05:25 Dr. Zelizer, thank you for a great interview. I am going to turn off the tape. (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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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. Julian E. Zelizer https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/fc30ee2fd372ebf02c4536163950fbf9.jpeg 5e5141893c5b151f074de2f225227105 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ab39013ab21ad7a7292913056a47c428.mp3 262a9be4733457fd91d9f14768408b1b 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 2022-10-28 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Kate Clifford Larson Biographical Text Dr. Kate Clifford Larson is a historian, author, and consultant. She is the author of several books including Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter; and Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. Dr. Larson is a specialist in 19th and 20th century U.S. Women’s and African American History and a consultant and interpretive specialist for numerous museums, and community initiatives related to Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in Maryland, Delaware, and New York. She earned a Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Simmons College in Economics and History, an MBA from Northeastern University, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of New Hampshire. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:40:12 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Digital file Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Mississippi; Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer; White; Women; Black; Sharecroppers; Community; State; People; Vote; Mississippians; Book; Students Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Kate Clifford Larson Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 28 October 2022 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM: 00:00 Great. All right. I am speaking with Kate Clifford Larson, who has written a brand-new book called, "Walk with Me," it is a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer, and thank you, Kate for agreeing to be interviewed. KL: 00:16 Thank you for interviewing me. SM: 00:18 Now, could you please tell me about your growing up years? Your, your when you were in elementary school, high school, college, and how you became interested in writing biographies. KL: 00:33 So, I grew up in Lewiston, Maine, which is a mill town in South Central Maine. And, you know, I just, my dad was a lawyer, and he was a history buff. So, we were brought up very much interested in history. There were books all over the house and, and, you know, we go on vacations or trips, and our dad would take us to this historic site and tell us stories. So, I had that, that love of history growing up. So, when I went to college, at Simmons in Boston, I majored in Economics and History because I just, I loved history so much, but I also enjoyed economics. And I, you know, I followed the, you know, the tracks to, into the business world, and I worked for an investment bank, I got my MBA at Northeastern University. And, you know, I followed that path. But, I was always interested in history. I, you know, I used to love to go to old bookstores and get old books, and I did antiquing with my husband. And sometimes, I would find old diaries that people had written in, you know, people would sell them in their bookstores or antique stores. So, I amassed quite a collection of diaries, and most of them were women. And I just became fascinated by these women's lives that they were writing about in their diaries from the 19th century or early 20th century. So, I, it was just something that I was attracted to. And in the, I guess it was in the late (19)80s, or early (19)90s. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, had come out with a couple of books. One was, " The Midwives Tail," which was an amazing book about a midwife in Maine, which I really loved reading, because I came from Maine and I-I just, I knew those landscapes, and it was fascinating to me. And she also wrote, "Good Wives." And so, I read both of those books. And it just hit me that I loved history so much, and I love stories about women in the past, so I decided to leave the investment banking industry and, and go back to Simmons and get a graduate degree in women's history. So, I, it was like a, it was such a relief to admit that I really loved history. And I was privileged enough. And my, my husband and my, my family were very supportive of me, you know, moving on, and striking out in a new career path. And when I was at Simmons, in, I took an African American History course with a professor that I had back in the (19)70s. I adored him, his name was Mark Solomon. And he was teaching an African American History course. And I had never taken that, African American history as an undergrad. And in two weeks of taking that class, I knew that I wanted to study not only women's history, but African American history. And that set me on the path of learning about Harriet Tubman, who had not had a biography written about her since 1943. This was in the early (19)90s. So that was shocking to my professors, to me, to everybody. And I-I thought, "Well, gee, I will write my master's thesis on her," and my faculty members, my advisors were like, "Whoa, wait a minute, this is a huge project. Why do not you do your master's on something else, and then go on, and get a doctorate, and do your dissertation on Tubman and that way, you will have more training and skills to be able to take on such an iconic figure." And so, I did that, and I went to the University of New Hampshire to get my Ph.D. and that is where I worked on my dissertation of Tubman. And that hooked me on biography. I just love being able to tell history through the lens of one person's life and delving into that person, that woman's life, that person's life in a very deep way. I just love that emotional and intellectual connection that I have with my biographical subjects. And so that really, the Tubman work just changed my life and set me on this track of being a biographer. SM: 03:58 Wow. When you wrote the Tubman book, and now you have written the book on Fannie Lou Hamer, what, do you, did you often compare them in terms of what they did, how, who they became, their experiences they had growing up? What were, what was common about both of them? KL: 05:24 So, you know, I learned about Hamer in graduate school, I did not, was not aware of her as a young adult in well, I was a child during the (19)60s, a young adult in the late (19)70s and into the (19)80s. I did not know anything about her, but I learned about her in graduate school. And I admired her and I just thought there was something interesting, but I did not learn that much about her. I just learned the surface. She, you know, spoke at the Democratic Convention, she talked about being a Mississippi sharecropper, and, and the violence in the south. And that was about it. So, when I learned more about her, you know, over the years, I noticed they were biographies being written about her. So, I started reading more and more about her. And I began to get that feeling that yes, she was very similar to Harriet Tubman, just 100 years later. And, you know, it just took me maturing as a scholar, and, you know, becoming more and more aware of, of the diversity of the twentieth century because I focused very much on the nineteenth century. And I just I, it, Fannie Lou Hamer seemed like, someone that I really needed to pay attention to. And so, when I, after I wrote my book on Rosemary Kennedy, which was a long-long, long, process I came out of that, and I was thinking about the next project and Fannie Lou Hamer was really right there at the top of my head saying, you know, like, almost like knocking on my head saying, "Hello, hello." So, I decided to pay a little bit more attention to her. And it really was stunning to me. The similarities between Hamer and Tubman, how they came out of, basically, nowhere, even though that is somewhere and it was really important to them. They came out of a, it was a very difficult circumstances, deeply rural communities, they had limited access to education, actually, Tubman had- did not have access to formal education at all. Hamer had very little. So, I had to learn to, to look at their lives in a different way than I would at a traditional life of someone that had access to all sorts of privilege like a, Rosemary Kennedy. And how, how do women like Hamer and Tubman rise up out of those circumstances? And how, you know, are they natural born leaders, which I think they are, and I think there are many natural born leaders. But not every natural born leader, every leader actually ends up leading because they do not have the support and the circumstances around them that propel them forward. And in, in Tubman's life, she needed the support and care of her family in the community there that helped raise her and protect her in slavery, and then taught her the skills she needed to be this incredible leader. And the same thing with, with Hamer, she had limited education, she lived in a community that was incredibly oppressive against Black people, and the violence perpetrated against people in Mississippi, people of color in Mississippi and elsewhere, was just horrific. And so, she came out of that because of the fierce strength of her family, to protect her help her grow and learn. And the community that you know, by out of necessity and out of survival, the community had to be strong together to protect each other. And so, that was the similarity between Tubman and Hamer. This really strong community and family, and powerful faith that help them survive their darkest moments. They turn to their God to guide them, to comfort them, to give them a sense of moral certainty, and makes them feel that they were loved and protected at times when that really was not happening. So, the similarities are striking. And it made me think of, of paying attention to other leaders in this world that do not come from Ivy League educations, or privileged background, or all white, and because leaders can come from anywhere and they are here today in our communities, and how do we recognize them, because they need support, they cannot do it on their own. SM: 10:02 One of the things that, after reading your book, in every area of her life from her childhood to early adulthood to adulthood. And finally, when she passes, she believed in one thing and, everything she did it was work, work, work, get the job done. And I was, even she had health issues and everything in her life. But, could you talk about that strong work ethic that she had when she was a child working in share, as a sharecropper. And then later in life when she was involved in certain causes and was snick, and everything, she was just a hard worker. KL: 10:47 Yeah, so I think that was the essence of life in Mississippi at the time period. I mean, work meant food, work meant, you know, being able to have clothing, or a roof over your head. So, it was, I do not know, if it was a work ethic, it was out of necessity. If she had a choice to work at something else, she would have found something else that would have been more satisfying to her. Being a sharecropper is incredibly difficult, back-breaking work. And in that environment, it was abusive. You know, the plantation bosses tried to cheat the sharecroppers constantly. So, it was not, I would not say it was an ethic. I mean, it certainly is an ethic. Yes, it is an ethic. But it is, it is rooted in the need to eat, and have clothing, and a roof over your heads. And, but she, what her, her pride in the ability from a young age from the time she was a teenager to pick 200-300 pounds of cotton a day, is that speaks to that work ethic that you are talking about. But it was one of the few places that she could find tremendous pride, this young girl, being able to pick the same amount of cotton as an adult man and an adult woman. So, that work ethic comes out and is displayed in different ways. And of course, you know, she just was a high energy person, she had this, this incredible, like the-the young civil rights workers that worked with her talked about her kinetic energy and her inspirational movement, she just was on the move constantly. She was always moving forward and thinking what, what is the next thing to do, how to do it, she had passion to make change. And that is what drove her to work so hard. It was not, once she was able to feed herself, and have a roof over her head consistently. Her next drive, that ethic to, to work to make change is what drove her. So, she moved from food and housing insecurity, to, you know, civil rights insecurity and- SM: 13:14 Right. KL: 13:14 Making the world a better place. So that is, those were the drivers of her passionate work ethic, if that is what you want to call it. SM: 13:21 Yeah, there were two things on, early in the book that, that really kind of upset me. And it was, learning about this, Senator Eastland. And who he was, he was such a racist, and he was a very powerful senator. And then, of course, John Stennis, who, you know, we know later in years, he was pretty much similar. Their attitudes toward people of color was so, not shocking, because if you study it, it is part of what you expect during that period. But still, to hear it. And to know that Lyndon Johnson had to deal with him on a daily basis, and some of the other senators in the South who believed in white supremacy and keeping the people of color down. Just your thoughts on Senator Eastland and the senators of her state. KL: 14:08 Oh gosh, they were horrific human beings, and they were in the Senate for a really long time, which was not so long ago. And, you know, we are hearing the echoes of that racism today. People are more clever about how they use that language when they are in public, and they give speeches, but it is the same violent, racist rhetoric, that is just, you know, twenty-first century style. And he was, he was a, he was such a bigot. And so was Stennis, and it is interesting, you bring up Lyndon Johnson, so when I did my work for this book, I spent a lot of time listening to those Oval Office tapes. You know, he set up that system to tape everything in the office. He could not stand those senators, he could not, he just thought, he knew they were wrong. He talks about it on, in some of these tapes, how they are wrong. And you know, Black people deserve to vote, and they should have their, you know, representation and etc. And he was trapped in a world, at that time, that was struggling to move into the twentieth century and overcome these racist strangleholds on the-the beauty of freedom and equality in this country. And he needed those southern votes in order to become the president elected in, for, after Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson becomes president. And then the election is right after that in-in 1964. And Johnson wanted to be the nominee, so that he could move forward Kennedy's agenda and his own agenda for the country, a more progressive agenda, including civil rights, but he could not really come right out and say that to the world, especially to southerners, because Southern Democrats because they would not have voted for him. As it turns out, many of them did not, but he still won. But he-he faced these intractable racists who saw, they, their world was just literally black and white, and any person of color was ignorant and beneath them and had no, no place in the political sphere, in a govern, place of government, to, you know, make laws and make, they you know, that he just believed that white people knew what was best for Black people. And it was just disgusting. It really was disgusting. And this is what Hamer and her community and Mississippians lived with. And there were white Mississippians who did not go with this thing. They were trying, they were very supportive of the civil rights movement. But a great majority of them were definitely in favor of Stennis and Eastland. They were horrible people. SM: 17:00 You had another example of this at the time that Fannie Lou Hamer was going to run for Congress. And she and another citizen of the state went to the Capitol, and they were going to register to run for Congress. KL: 17:17 Right. SM: 17:17 And the-the young white woman, could you describe that, the young white woman who met them and was going to give them a form that goes back to the corner of the room and starts talking about them? She used the n word. KL: 17:30 Right. So, and, I think this is what Hamer heard everywhere she went, the N word, it was not, you know, an African American, or Black person, they, the white people use the n word constantly, just it was everywhere. But, I think it is the-the tone that Hamer heard, when that happened, this, she was trying to file her papers to run for Congress. And, she was there with an associate. And she-she, they were, they-they were, they were missing some papers that need to come from elsewhere in the state. So, the civil rights activists are gathering those papers and trying to race them down there in time. And the white woman there, the counter is, you know, whispering to her coworkers. But of course, not really whispering, they can hear everything that the white woman is saying, and she uses the n word. And there is this tone to it. Like, it is, it is just this, there is evil intent in it. It is just, you know, I cannot say it. I do not, I do not want to repeat the words- SM: 18:37 Yes. KL: 18:37 But you know, the tone, the people know [crosstalk] that tone. So, that is what she lived with. That is what she faced, but it made her more determined, you know, she was getting that reaction in the clerk's office. And she was getting it out on the streets, but she knew that she was hitting a nerve. And it was important that she show everybody that you need to stand up and, and do something, you cannot just keep complaining. And it is funny, because at one point in her life, she was going along and doing what she could to make a difference, you know, for her family, and maybe right there in the community. But at one point, she realized, and we can talk about that point in her life that, that, change had to come, and that she needed to be the change she was looking for. And that was an important moment. I think many people come to that moment. And they-they, there is a crossroads, are they going to be the change? Or are they going to continue to go along the path that you know where nothing is going to, you know, change? SM: 19:03 Like Rosa Parks. KL: 19:06 Yeah, exactly. Making that decision, that moment in time. SM: 19:34 For those of you that are, would be listening to this interview, could you really go into detail about the definition of white supremacy in the south, particularly in Mississippi? Because it is, it is so, it is, even though you know what is happening, the more you read about it, and the more examples you stated in the book, the more upset you become, that this can happen, that human rights as like Fannie talked about, eventually human rights. KL: 20:16 Right-right. SM: 20:16 And, you know, treating people as human beings. Could you talk about how serious it was, even in the justice system, even when people could not, you know, could not vote. KL: 20:29 Right. SM: 20:30 Just talk about that white supremacy. KL: 20:32 So, the white supremacy, it was, and it was a lot of white male supremacy that was the overarching, I do not want to call foundation, but the-the crown of this white supremacy pillar, of white supremacy. And so, it, it permeated everything in Mississippi. Literally, everything was affected by white supremacy. So not only did Black people not have the right to vote, they did not have many rights at all, they could not enjoy the public library because the libraries were segregated, and there was no money to build Black community libraries, restaurants were segregated, bus stations were segregated, everything was segregated. Public buildings were segregated, there was a line in a clerk's office for, you know, Black people and a line for white people. And of course, the water fountains, and the bathrooms, and all of that. So that is just a visual that you could see every single day. It was in hiring, you know, Black people were hired for the menial jobs, paid as little as possible, cheated. You know, white supremacists could get away with, gee, not filing those taxes to pay for Social Security for Black people that they hired to work for them. So, Black people would go and retire and they would find out there was nothing in Social Security for them, because the people they work for, for decades, never put into the Social Security system for them. And, and then those employers never got in trouble. There was never, there were never repercussions. Loans to purchase, homes were denied, schools were segregated and the Black schools in Mississippi, only 12 cents out of every dollar, went to, an education dollar, went to a Black school, the rest all went to white schools. Black teachers were paid less. The transportation to schools was spotty in like, say the Mississippi Delta, you know, where children were scattered, you know, miles and miles apart. And to get to school, it was very difficult. They needed bus service, but that might not be provided by the town. Medical services were segregated, hospitals often would not treat Black patients in the same room, you know, emergency rooms or clinics that they served white people, some doctors would not even treat Black patients. Black women were denied access to hospitals to deliver babies, they relied very much so on midwives. Whereas white women, 80 percent of, of childbirth, white children were born, born in hospitals, delivered by doctors, whereas only 20 percent of Black women had that benefit. So, the child survival rate, the mortality rate for Black children, by the time Hamer was born in 1917, and into the 1920s and (19)30s, 1 out of 5, 1, a quarter of all Black children died before the time they were five years old. That is horrific- SM: 23:53 Wow. KL: 23:53 Because there was no access to health care. Sanitation was poor. You know, of course, they would set up you know, good sanitation systems in white neighborhoods, but they would not do that in Black neighborhoods. And particularly out in the fields, where, like in the Mississippi Delta, the sharecropper cabins were on the low point of the property, the worst soil and that is where they would have the, sharecroppers and their outhouses, and in rains, then everything would flood and disease would spread rapidly. It was, it was a horrific, horrific place. And then just the sheer intimidation, of Black people who try to aspire, to do something more to get ahead in the world. You know, Hamer tells the story of when she was young, her family had started to make a little bit of money being sharecroppers, it was a, during the 1920s, the prices of cotton were high. Their father, her father was able to buy a used truck and some farm animals, like a cow and a steer, etc. And, a white neighbor was jealous and he poisoned the food trough for the animals and within a matter of hours, they all died. And there were no repercussions to that. Mississippi has the highest lynching rate of any state in the country, one of their counties, Hinds County has the highest lynching numbers of any county in the country. It was a very violent, violent place. And, you know, the-the efforts that white people went to, to prevent Black aspiration, Black rights. Just it knew, it knew no bounds, and there were no repercussions to whatever white people wanted to do. SM: 25:43 And we're talking about the justice system as well, because two of the major events you talk about in the book is, the Emmett Till murder. KL: 25:53 Right-right. SM: 25:54 And certainly, the murder of Medgar Evers and you know, the trial and, how they are all let off in short periods of time, the people who committed these terrible crimes. KL: 26:03 Exactly. It is a, it is a blood, a stain on Mississippi. It really is a stain on Mississippi. And, and as we are talking about Emmett Till, there is a film coming out today, I believe it is the day that it is premiering, about the murder of 14 year old Emmett Till, a Chicago boy who was sent by his mother down to Mississippi to spend time with relatives and he was murdered by, these white supremacists who ended up being in law enforcement, believe it or not, just it is stunning. But, they murdered him about six miles from where Fannie Lou Hamer was living at the time in, in, in 1955. And, and the same thing with Medgar Evers. He was assassinated in his driveway, in June of 1963, the same day that Hamer and her colleagues from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, that had been arrested and put in the Winona County Jail. They were released after being terrorized and beaten for four days. They were released on, the same day that Medgar Evers was assassinated. SM: 27:09 Wow. KL: 27:10 And the, you know the-the white supremacist who killed Medgar Evers, all these people they got off, they did. It was like a joke. And, and the authorities in Mississippi often knew that violence was going to take place and they did not do anything about it. In fact, they had, they had like a secret service group, it was like a KGB, it was the sovereignty commission that had its own investigators and spies, that would spy on the Black community and keep records on people in, in the Black community and their white sympathizers, much like the FBI did. And, and they knew about plots to, you know, kill people, harass people, fire people, chase them out of town, that kind of thing. And they did nothing. It was just, it was state-sponsored violence, terrorism, murder, you name it, the state was complicit. And when people were caught, white people were caught, you know, doing, committing violence, murder, etc. They-they universally, were not convicted. It is just you know, I do not know, I, it is just stunning to me. And it was such a short time ago. That is what is shocking. It is one thing to write about Harriet Tubman and slavery. That was 150-170 years ago. People just really cannot get their head around it. But this happened 50-60 years ago, and it still happens across this country, too. SM: 28:36 I think I, sent, I go back to Senator Eastland. I believe after World War Two, when the African American troops came home, I think it is in your book, you state that, they were coming back and hoping you have equal rights- KL: 28:52 Right. SM: 28:52 -in, back at home after the war, after serving their nation. And his commentary was, that the African American troops had been raping women in France- KL: 29:01 Right, and- SM: 29:02 -trying degrade them as, in any way he could. KL: 29:05 Exactly. And of course, that is the old stereotype, the trope, that enraged white southerners that, that made them want to fight the Civil War to keep slavery. And also, after the Civil War to prevent Black people from getting rights is by, portraying Black men as rapacious beasts who all, the only thing they wanted to do was rape white women, and Eastland fed right into that, he told lies, he should have been sued. He should have been barred from the Senate for that kind of comment. And, and so you know, and it did not happen, but when Black soldiers came home to Mississippi, they were attacked. There was one man that was murdered pretty quickly. And you know, because they came back they have been fighting for freedom around the world for liberating, oppressed peoples, they come home and they have to go to, you know, the segregated, whatever, even if it was available, they had to go to the segregated places, they could not sit at the front of the bus, they had to sit at the back. You know, they were spat on-on the streets. I mean, who does that? It is just, it is just incredibly awful. And we, as a nation have forgotten it. And it was not so long ago, it has been percolating, it is still there. It is not wide out in the open, like Eastland used to talk and behave. But the tones are still there. And some of the words are still-still there. And it is frightening, very frightening. SM: 30:33 Now, this is important because you talk about this, too, that even though Fannie Lou Hamer only went, I think sixth grade education, she was very well informed. And, a question I want to ask you, and please explain, is how informed was she about what was happening around the state of Mississippi with all these things, not just locally, but through the state and through the nation on these terrible things that were happening to people of color? KL: 31:01 Right, so of course, through the grapevine she would hear about what was happening of, to people of color in her community, it would just, you know, the church, out in the field, people would say, "Oh, did you hear what happened to so and so." She, when she became, nationally known, and she would give speeches, she would say she knew nothing about the Civil Rights Movement, until 1962, when Snick came to her church. That isn't true, she was actually extremely well informed. And she was part of a, national, sort of underground civil rights movement that was going on in Mississippi during the 1950s. And, it was very dangerous to be involved in civil rights activities because you could be murdered for it. You could be harassed, you could be evicted, you could lose your job. So, but she was, she-she was, she tried to get memberships in the NAACP, she would go out and canvass and, and there was a big event that happened every year in Mississippi it was called, mine, "Mound Bayou Days," it was like three or four days in May. TM Howard, he was an insurance salesman, and also a doctor who ran this big event in Mound Bayou, and they would invite outside speakers, like Thurgood Marshall came to speak there in, in the 1950s, and Mahalia Jackson would sing there. And, they would have this huge barbecue and people, African Americans would come from all over the state, and Tennessee, and other states, to you know, listen to speeches, and to gather, and sing, and things like that. So, she was part of that, actually, one of her relatives told me about how she would work with, this relative's father, and they would cook up 500 chickens for the barbecue and, and so she was there. And they would have secret meetings, while the mine, Mound Bayou days were going on and everyone was celebrating and listening to speeches. She was attending private meetings about civil rights and how to move them forward in Mississippi. So, she was very well aware. And she did talk about how she was made aware, it is almost like she would tell two different stories out on the campaign trail trying to get people interested in, in civil rights, she would say that she used to clean the house of the plantation owner where she was a sharecropper. And she would see magazines and newspapers discarded in the trash, well she would collect them all, and bring them back home and read them all. So, she did keep up on current events and, and also in the church, you know, someone would have a copy of "The Crisis," or the "Chicago Defender, “newspaper. And so, she would get to read it there, or the barbershop might have some, some things that people could, could read. So, she was informed. But you know, living there on the ground in Ruleville is different than reading what is happening on the, in the, on the national level, and the national level does not know what is happening to her in Mississippi. SM: 34:14 Right. KL: 34:14 So, there was that, that is why she, in part of her compulsion to make a change, like people needed to hear about what was going on in Mississippi. And that was her voice, once she decided to be the change and she got up on stage. She let people know what was happening in Mississippi and they listened. SM: 34:35 One of the things that was taking place if things were not bad enough in Mississippi, and in the south is when the Citizens Councils were formed. KL: 34:44 Yeah, right. SM: 34:44 Could you talk just briefly about that, and what they were and, and why they were formed? They had the KKK already, I just- KL: 34:52 I know [chuckles]. SM: 34:52 Yeah. KL: 34:53 It is, it is insanity when you think about it. So, after the-the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education and the order to desegregate schools came down. The, white southerners flipped out, they freaked out and started coming up with ways to prevent this from happening. And so immediately, there was a man in, in Mississippi and his name is escaping me at this moment, I apologize. He started the Citizens Councils, because they wanted to make sure. And he used language like, "You know, our white daughters were not prey to Black men in the classroom." You know, we did not want, and they used horrific lane, language, about you know, middle school and high school Black boys as "monkeys and apes," and they were going to "attack their white daughters if they were allowed to be in the same classroom." So, they formed the Citizens Councils, and white citizens, you know, vowed to, it was like a, it was like white collar clan, actually, you know, it was, because some people did not want it, some more elite people in Mississippi, white people in the south did not want to join the clan, they see, that looks more like low class to them. So, the Citizens Council gave the elites something they felt looked more respectable, but it was the same evil, it was the same horrific attitudes and racism. It was just, you know, it was painted a prettier color. And, and more powerful people were part of it. But they did work with the Klan. And so, there was a very fine line between the two of them, if, or maybe a dotted line between the two organizations. And, you know, Fannie Lou Hamer said something really interesting about the Klan, and I would love to quote that for you right now. Hold on one second, let me just find it. SM: 36:48 Okay. KL: 36:49 She, you know, she was such an astute observer of human beings and their-their belief systems. And she just, I do not, I just find her to be, because she, it is a lived experience for her, she was able to articulate it in a way that a Martin Luther King could not. He inspired in one way, and she inspired in another because she could talk about something so personal and what was happening on the ground in Mississippi. So, this is what she said about the Klan and, and white supremacy. And because of her deep faith, she always had this as a theme that she did not hate anybody, despite what happened to her in Mississippi and how she was treated by white supremacists. But she, so she said, "I really do not hate any man. There is got to be something wrong psychologically with the person to have me beaten because of the color of my skin. Hate is like to cancer," she said, "It eats away at a human being until they become nothing but a shell. That same hate will make you stay up at night. That is the reason you have the Ku Klux Klan, and all these other hate groups, that a man should stay up all night trying to figure out how he can fix a sheet to make a point in it, to go out and terrorize another human being is really stupid. The point is not in the sheet. It is in his head." It is such a powerful, powerful statement, and it is true. So, this is, this is what she lived with. And so, while the Citizens Council was, you know, legitimized by the state in a sense because it, you know, it had officers and it was, you know, they had an office and they hired people to coordinate the different councils, but it started in Mississippi, it spread throughout the South. And so, while they had contact with Klan members, and sometimes Klan members were members of the council and vice versa, they also became tightly interwoven with the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, which was like that KGB organization I-I mentioned before. So, the Citizens Council was privy to the-the spying that these, the sovereignty commission investigators did on Black people and then civil rights workers. And so then, they would let you know, white employers know, "Hey, your guy was at this civil rights meeting," and so that white employer would fire that employee the next day. Wow. So, it was just a vicious, vicious circle of hate and, and terror, and manipulation that was going on there in Mississippi and other southern states. SM: 39:39 One of the things is that Fannie Lou was a really good organizer. And with that work-work, work, mentality. Could you talk about before she made links with Snick and worked with them? Could you talk about any other organizing she did when she was younger? Whether it be as a sharecropper or, during, people that were having problems with poverty, with food, with clothing, and she always seemed to be doing something, even though she did not have hardly anything, she was always thinking about helping others. KL: 40:13 Right-right. So, there was an interesting part of her life. I mean, there were so many things she did, whether it was through her church, you know, the church women doing fundraising to raise money to buy food for starving families in the community. You know, those are the basic things that she would do, but in the field. So, this was a common thing where the bosses, the field bosses, or the plantation boss would try to cheat the sharecroppers and weigh their cotton and underweight it. And they had these contractions, they would bring up these scales, they would bring out in the fields, and they had weights that they would attach to a counterweight, and they were called peas. And so, Hamer noticed that some of these peas had been altered so that they miss, read the weight on the cotton that the sharecroppers would pick each day. And so, they were being cheated, so they would get paid less. So, Hamer noticed this, so she got a hold of her own pea. And when the plantation boss was not looking, she would switch out the altered one for the actual, real one. And so that she would be able to make sure that people were paid accurately. And her fellow sharecroppers thought she was crazy to do that, because if she gets caught they figured she would get not only fired, but she could have been killed. So, she was very brave that way. And, you know, she was, she would negotiate in the morning. So, they would travel around once they were, one plantation, if they picked all the cotton, one place, then they would hire themselves out to pick in other plantations. And so, sometimes they would arrive in the morning, and so they would bicker with the plantation boss, or the field boss about how much they were going to get paid per pound. And Hamer, what, it was said, would bicker the best deal for those pickers, and so, she was admired. She was already a leader, in a sense, in the community for-for justice. And so that, that carried her forward so that when Snick did arrive in Ruleville, Mississippi in 1962, they recognize pretty quickly that she was an emerging leader in that community. SM: 42:31 Yes, she is unbelievable. I-I wrote something down that I just want to share. I put down here that her astounding ability to deal with life and death issues while never losing her focus to achieve very positive deeds for others. She was always seemed to be doing things for others, which is, she was a selfless person from the get go. And, and I want to talk about this too, because I want to get into the areas where, really divided into sections in the book, "The Mississippi Appendectomy," the Winona, whenever she was beaten, and certainly there was even the time when her house was shot at, she was not there, but she could have been killed. Just, her mental health. When you think about what African Americans were going through, not just, not just Fannie Lou, but everybody there that, you know, their mental health, how they could even survive that. Could you talk a little bit about her mental health throughout her life and how she was able to recuperate, and I know she had a lot of faith, her faith in God was strong. But still, she had a makeup, to refocus after- KL: 43:46 Right. SM: 43:47 -tragedy and continued serve others. KL: 43:49 Right. So, she did, she continued to weather storms and to face down violence, experienced violence and, and grief, and all of that, and rise up afterwards. And, and a big part of it is, her faith that, you know, her, her psyche, her mental health took many punches. But she found her way out of darkness, through her faith. But also, I credit her mother and her father. She, and the tight family and community she lived in, you know, they-they, she had a very strong mother that was a model for her. And-and there were other women in the community that were models for her. And so, she-she had that sense of security in, in the community, that there were people there that loved her not only just her family, but other people in the community, and that they were survivors and she could survive too. And of course, she was raised to protect herself. You know to, to pay attention to the landscape of white people because you never knew when a white person was going to attack you or do something awful to you. So, she had that radar so, she was insulated in a sense, because she was so prepared. And that is awful that you have to grow up being acculturated, and prepared, for anything that might, violence or whatever comes your way, perpetrated by a white person that hates the color of your skin and what you represent. SM: 45:20 Wow. KL: 45:21 So that was, that is how she survived. Of course, not every person of color did survive, the things that she survived. And that is why, what I write in the book is, "The Mississippi Appendectomy," in 1961. She went to the hospital and Dr. Charles Durrell there, in Ruleville, was supposed to do surgery on her, to get, to take out some uterine tumors. Benign ones, but he gave her a hysterectomy, and never told her. And this was a, it was so common that white doctors did this to Black women that it was called, "A Mississippi Appendectomy." And you know, a woman would, could go into the hospital, this was reported at the time, went into the hospital for, a, an appendicitis attack and came out without her uterus. This happened to Black women and poor white women at the time. So, Hamer comes out of the surgery, thinking the tumors are gone, and maybe she possibly could get pregnant because she and her husband, Pap Hamer, had been trying for years to have children of their own, and she would have several miscarriages, stillbirth, and it was having difficulty getting pregnant. And so, they wanted to their family to grow beyond the two girls that they had adopted. So, she gets home to recuperate, and it is a long recuperation from a hysterectomy. And, the cook of the plantation, in the plantation bosses house comes to her and says she overheard the plantation boss's wife, Mrs. Marlow, speaking to her friend telling her that Dr. Daro had sterilized Fannie Lou Hamer. Fannie was crushed, she was angry, she was filled with hate and, and, and just went to a very dark place, her mother died the same year. So, she was filled with this pain, and grief, and loss of her mother, the loss of her ability to have babies. It was all taken from her. And she just, she really hit the depths of depression. And, she worked her way out of it. She had two little girls at home, she had the beef, therefore her husband, Pap, the community. And when, that, shortly thereafter, in 1962, that is when Snick arrived in August of 1962, in Ruleville, and she decided to go because it was that moment that I mentioned earlier, when she decided that she either, you know, had to just exit and not participate in anything anymore. Just be at home and do her sharecropping, and that was it for the rest of her life. Or, she had to look for a way to make change in her life. And when she went to the meeting of those young snick people, she realized that not only did she need to be the change that she needed to see, those young people were the change that she was looking for. And so, that was a moment in her life. And it, it sent her brain into this recovery mode, and it, she became energized and passionate because she had seen the darkness. And she did not want to live there. She wanted to move towards the light and, and find a path to freedom and equality. And that is what happened. SM: 48:53 Another tragic moment was, that time when she was at the Staley cafe, bus depot- KL: 49:01 Right. SM: 49:01 -and Nona, could you talk about that? And I think, there is, the one, you mentioned in the, describing the situation that she did not want her husband to know about what happened. KL: 49:13 Right. SM: 49:13 She kept that kind of a secret because she feared that he would go out and shoot somebody- KL: 49:18 Again, right, yes. SM: 49:18 -and then he gets killed- -just your thoughts. Right. KL: 49:20 So-so after Snick came and she tried to register to vote, and of course she could not because those literacy tests in, in Mississippi were unpassable and only 5 percent of eligible Black voters were registered to vote because they-they had so many barriers to voting. So, Hamer tried to register to vote, went home, the Marlowe's evicted her, and so, she had to find another home. And Snick immediately hired her because they recognized her leadership and oh, from the fall of 1962, into the spring of 1963, they sent her to various classes to learn different techniques on how to be a civil rights worker, to encourage people to register to vote, how to pass the test, all that kind of thing, and to practice nonviolent protest techniques. And so, in June of 1963, she and some Snick colleagues, young people that were half her age, were coming back from a training session in South Carolina. And they were on a continental Trailways bus. They, the buses and the terminals across the South were now integrated by law, they had to be integrated. So, these young people were testing the integration. They sat wherever they wanted to on the bus, despite the anger of the bus driver who wanted them to sit at the back of the bus. And then at each bus terminal, they tested the new laws that said each interstate bus terminal had to be integrated, no more separate lunch counters, no more separate bathrooms, or drinking fountains, and separate waiting rooms. So, they had no problems going out there and then coming back until they hit Winona, Mississippi, and they hit the bus terminal there. And the young people went in to sit at the lunch counter and then to use the bathrooms, which they were denied. And so, someone at the-the Cast Dailies Cafe, the bus terminal restaurant, called the police who arrived and arrested all of them, including Hamer, who was not even trying to test any of that, she was on the bus and she came off the bus to see what was happening and they arrested her. And the local police and the state police took them to the Winona County Jail. And for four days, the young people and Hamer were terrorized, and assaulted, and violently so, and Hamer was also sexually assaulted. And, they nearly killed her with the beatings that they gave her. She suffered permanent kidney damage as a result of the beating, her eye became permanently damaged too, because of the way they hit her head. And the, bruises on her were horrific. And she, she really almost died. And in the, in the jail cell that she shared with a young Snick worker, Sylvester Simpson, she was laying on her stomach on the cot because she was so badly beaten. And she asked Sylvester to sing the gospel song, the spiritual "Walk with Me, Jesus Walk with Me." And that is, by, why I called the cover of my, I put that as the title of my book is, "Walk with Me," because she needed her faith to help her survive and not lose consciousness. She was so afraid. But she came out of that, she, they were released from-from jail on the same day. As I mentioned before, Medgar Evers was assassinated in June of 1963. And I think the sexual assault and the beating was so brutal. She did not want Pap to see- SM: 53:01 Right. KL: 53:01 What happened to her, or to know the extent of what happened to her because, as you said, he would have gone out and shot somebody. He was, he was a man, that was his wife. And he was at great danger and she knew that. So, she did not go home for a couple of weeks, she traveled to Atlanta, to New York City and to Washington, D.C., where she gave testimony about what happened to her. And I pieced together the details of her beating through the FBI files, through her interviews with civil rights workers, NAACP folks, and then the trial of the men in the jail that beat her so badly. Of course, they were acquitted of any- -assault charges. But the testimony during that trial was horrific. And the details that emerged are just horrifying. So eventually, I am sure Pap learned, maybe he did not learn about the rape. I do not know. She confided that, into, with friends of hers, you know, civil rights workers. But I do not think, I do not know if she told Pap or not. I do not know about that. SM: 53:50 Right. Yeah, her life was in danger many times throughout, throughout this period. And, I can remember two items you state in the book, one of them was, one, she was not at home one day and someone came by and shatter, shattered her house. And, and where she normally sits, I think was only like a foot above where she would normally would have been sitting if, if she- KL: 54:39 Right. SM: 54:39 -was at home. And then, there was another scene where she came home one day and the entire street was dark, all the lights are off. And, and she did not know, if like there was a power outage and no, it was not a power outage. They all turned the lights off because they were, they had been threatened. KL: 54:56 Right. And there was one instance where white supremacists drove down the street, shooting at any and all houses, they would do this in the Black community, particularly during the (19)50s and (19)60s, when the civil rights movement started, you know, gaining traction, and every civil rights gain was met with tremendous violence by white southerners. You know, every time there was, like the March on Washington in August of 1963, a couple of months after Hamer was brutally assaulted in Mississippi, the response was the bombing of the-the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and four little girls were murdered. So, you know, every celebration, every movement forward was met by some massive resistance. Well in Ruleville, Mississippi, tiny little, Ruleville, the resistance was white yahoo racists, going around in their cars and blasting their shotguns into Black homes. SM: 55:55 Right. KL: 55:55 And there was never any police presence to stop it. Never. So, it this is what she lived with, you know, people were killed, hurt maimed. It was, it was horrific. It was really horrific. SM: 56:07 I am going to get into this section, very important part of your book and important part of her life was her work was Snick, which was the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the people she worked with. She worked with some unbelievable people, and, and they had faith in her as well. So, it was a two-way street. Could you talk a little bit about time that she linked up with Snick? Bob Moses, was the, I remember, I think you said, someplace in the book, somebody had made a comment that, it was right to have a man named Moses. [laughter] KL: 56:42 Yeah, right-right, right. SM: 56:43 And that, was that, was a great to put that in there. KL: 56:45 [laughs] SM: 56:45 Because it is so true, because he was an unbelievable person, he had been a teacher, up in New York. And, and you know, Ella Baker and, and certainly John Lewis, and Julian Bond, and of that unbelievable group of people from Snick. That begin, could you talk about the beginning where they met? KL: 57:03 Yes-yes. SM: 57:04 And then we will go into some of them, what they did. KL: 57:06 So, I am glad you brought up Ella Baker, because Snick, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee with her, her vision, and she was an older Black woman that worked for Martin Luther King, brilliant woman. And during the, sit-ins in, you know, 19- in the 1959, 1960, where students would go into these segregated lunch counters, like Woolworths, and they sit down and try to integrate it and they would be attacked. And then, they started the Freedom Rides. You know, John Lewis is famous for the freedom line ride, rides, where they would take buses from northern states into the south and test the interstate laws that said these buses had to be integrated, and so are the stations, but the southern response was bombing these buses, attacking them. When they came to the terminals, people were killed, and Louis was badly beaten. So, she is watching these young people willing to put their lives on the line and do all this stuff. And so, she decided she should organize them. So, Bob Moses was noticing the same stuff as he was teaching math in, in New York City. And he goes down to Atlanta, he meets Ella Baker, and with John Lewis, and as you said, Julian Bond and all these amazing young people, she organizes them into the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or Snick. And they decide they are going to go to the worst of the worst, and that is Mississippi. And they are going to, she tells them, you know, you are all these young, bright, energetic people go into these communities, and do not tell them what to do, or tell them what you are going to do for them. You find out what they need, and how you can help them get what they need. And try to identify local leaders, because you have to nurture local people, you cannot insert yourself and tell everybody what to do. So, that was brilliant on her part. So, Bob Moses goes to Mississippi, and he starts, you know, building a community there with other organizations like the NAACP, and the Council of Federated Organizations and, you know, other civil rights organizations, they are in Mississippi, and then other civil rights workers follow him there. And so, that is how he ends up meeting Fannie Lou Hamer, when they decide to have a meeting in Ruleville, to talk to local residents, as they had been doing throughout Mississippi a great rest of their lives about registering to vote. And that is when she went there. And she saw these young people and she could not believe what they were saying. And you know, one of, they taught, they used biblical language, and they are in Hamer's church, William Chapel in Ruleville, and they are using biblical language to say, "You know, God meant for everybody to be free and, and equal." And, and then there were young people talking about the law, the Constitution, the law is "You have these rights, you need to fight for it. It is, these things that they are doing to you are illegal, it is wrong, we need to fight, because it is in the Constitution that we should be equal." So, she was like, "Wow." And I would love to tell you what she said about Snick. Once she became involved with them, she said, "Snick is the type of people that regardless to what they say, call them far left, because a lot of people call them, like hippies. And you know, they were way too far left," quote, and radical and she said, "Call them far left and radical and beatniks, and all kinds of things, but they are still willing to go into areas with the people that is never had a chance to be treated as a human being. And some have given their lives for the cause of human justice." She said that Snick volunteers showed, quote, "More Christianity than I have ever seen in a church." That is powerful. SM: 1:00:54 Wow. Yep. The, one of the things. Another one of these examples when she worked with Snick, was what happened in Hattiesburg, where it was the whole issue of voting. Could you talk about the issue of voting? And here we are talking about it again, in 2022. I just cannot believe we are talking about it again. And, you know, what was the issue in Mississippi with respect to voting, and if you could give some of the statistics and numbers of those who, how many citizens are were of color in that state at that time? And how many were actually voting and what they were doing to try to prevent people from voting because that was one of the reasons why Freedom Summer evolved? Still there? [silence] All right, we are back. KL: 1:01:57 Okay. So, I think we were talking about Hattiesburg and the rallies there. And so, I, you know, she, the- the rallies that started so she, you know, becomes part of Snick and, and night, the winter of 1963. They start with these rallies. And they have one in Hattiesburg, where they try to get people to register to vote. And so, the resistance in Mississippi is that so there, there were, half the population was Black and Mississippi at the time, but only between 5 and 6 percent had been able to register to vote because Mississippi had all these barriers, which included the literacy test. Poll taxes, you had to pay poll taxes, if you pass the test, then you have to pay poll tax for two years before you are eligible to vote. That is only really for Black people, because they did not, they did not require white people to do that. There were illiterate white people that were registered to vote. And but, when it came to Black people, they used every excuse, and they would have to answer questions about the Mississippi State Constitution, interpret these arcane laws, and rules, and things. It was just, it was ridiculous. And then if by chance you were able to pass it, then if you went to try to vote, sometimes the-the, the towns would give misinformation to the Black communities about where you could go vote. So, people would go there and there would be no polling station, or they would go to a polling station and there would be armed white people outside to intimidate you from going to vote. And some people they watched who went to vote and if they voted, they would get fired from their job the next day. SM: 1:02:05 Yes. Wow. KL: 1:02:27 So, there were all these ways that white Mississippians found to, to prevent Black people from exercising the franchise and it was just disgusting. So, the Snick was there they heard loud and clear, that Mississippians, Black Mississippians wanted to be able to vote and they needed to vote. And but, the white Mississippians were not going to let them, so they would have these rallies and then they would encourage people to go down to the courthouse and register to vote. And so, in Hattiesburg this happened and you know, this was one of the earlier moments that Hamer was part of this movement and, and people flew in from around the country to help the people in Hattiesburg register to vote but they were threatened by white supremacists. And, there was the state police there and National Guard that was brought out and, and it was, it was just, it was, it was so intimidating. And there is Hamer just marching with everybody else and facing down the intimidators and trying to help people exercise their right to register and make a difference. SM: 1:04:52 I think there was a man there too in that building in this, in the courthouse that was well known for not registering African Americans. I think that you have told me. KL: 1:05:04 That is right. SM: 1:05:05 Yeah. KL: 1:05:05 Yeah. Sarah and Lind were this notorious court clerk in Hinds County, Forest County, excuse me, and he refused to register any Black people. And he had for a very long time. And, and so he was, you know, a focus of, of efforts to get Mississippi to start letting Black people vote and get rid of these ridiculous tests. And even after, asked and the federal government stepped in and said, "You got to stop doing this you have to register Black people to vote." Theron Lind continued to defy court order, after court order, after court order to register Black voters, he was so defiant. He was sued, he was hot, you know, he was brought into court time and time again. And he continued to refuse, he became the poster child for you know, these. It was almost a carrot. SM: 1:06:09 Oops. Still there. Oops. Okay we are back. KL: 1:06:15 Okay, so we were talking about Hattiesburg, which was actually, the winter of 1964. And so, the interesting thing is, by 1964, she was really beginning to take a more pivotal role in what was going on in the civil rights movement in Mississippi. And with the help of the Snick workers, activists, she is having access to stages. And it is, it, her voice on the stage inspires so many people. And if you listen to these recordings, there are recordings in the moon collection at the Smithsonian, for instance. And they have some of these, like the Hattiesburg rally and other rallies. And you can hear some of the speakers usually middle class, men are up on the stage talking. And the crowds get very restless. And then all of a sudden, you know, they will call Fannie Lou Hamer up to sing, they always had her singing. And the crowd would always "Hush," and they would be so excited when Hamer came up. And she watched how they reacted to her versus how they reacted to all these men. And eventually, she started talking on stage and she spoke the language of people who were experiencing the same thing that she was. And so, it she had a tremendous impact on the movement there in Mississippi. And Snick, really, they just were in awe of her, these young students were in complete awe of her. And so, you know, she helped found with local people. And with the support of Snick, they founded a new Democratic Party in Mississippi called the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. And she became their vice chair and that set her off on this incredible path to changing the world. SM: 1:08:15 Yeah, the whole thing about Freedom Summer was the idea that Mr. Moses had and others was to bring in college students from around the country, but black and white students from you know, prestigious schools, Ivy League schools, some of the prestigious state universities and-and African American colleges, and it kind of worked. There are a lot of people that, that came could you talk about that, because I know Fannie Lou was in, in Ohio, which is where they did their training. I think- KL: 1:08:45 Right. SM: 1:08:46 James Forman was in charge of the training. And, and she, they did a lot of speaking there. And- KL: 1:08:52 Right-right. SM: 1:08:53 And, yep. KL: 1:08:53 So-so the-the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and in conjunction with Snick, and other organizations in Mississippi decided on this concept of Freedom Summer, and they would bring in young people from around the country to help people to register to vote, because this was the big thing and white Mississippians had been telling. And actually, white southerners had been telling the rest of the nation that Black people were not interested in vote, they could register to vote, but they were not interested in voting. So, the MFDP, and Snick, and all these groups got together and held mock auction, elections so that they could prove to the world that Black people, yes, wanted to vote. And so, but they really needed to try to register the people to vote, to really be able to vote in, in elections. So, they had a training session for 800 students. More than 800 students signed up to be part of this Mississippi Freedom Summer, and they were trained at Western Reserve University or Western College for Women in Ohio. And Hamer went up there to do the training sessions along with people like Bob Moses, and John Lewis, and James Forman ran the-the whole thing. Some of the students, so they were taught nonviolent techniques, protest techniques, etc. And three of the civil rights workers, young Snick workers that were part of this group, some of them had already been working in Mississippi. Another one was part of this new wave of students, Andrew Goodman coming out of New York, and they were down in Mississippi while the training sessions were going on in June. And these three civil rights workers, Mickey Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, were abducted and murdered by the Klan in outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and they went missing and they were missing. And of course, everybody knew in their gut what had happened to them, even though their bodies were not found for two months. And so, the young people in, in Ohio, some of them decided not to go to Mississippi, they were frightened. They realized, well, this is real, this is really serious. The violence that is down there. But more than 800 ended up going down there and spreading across the state. And they went into communities. They lived in the communities, they were harassed by white supremacists, but they stood strong, because they had leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer, who endured far more than they were enduring. And, she motivated them and excited them. And they helped people try to register to vote. They also built freedom schools, because education, as I said, so little was spent in Mississippi on education for Black students. They opened up freedom libraries, they opened up libraries so that Black residents could go and, and experience a library. And they held classes so that adults and children could take English, and math, and science, and things like that. So, it was an amazing summer and they built community centers. These young people were incredible, and they stared down danger every single day. But the disappearance of Schwerner, Goodman, and Cheney was a reminder of how dangerous that place was. And, they really changed the landscape in Mississippi. And in the meantime, Hamer became more and more dedicated to moving the needle forward and challenging the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party that had no Black people in it and did not represent half the population of Mississippi. And that is what propelled her to the-the, the national stage is when she and her colleagues from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, elected delegates, and they went to Atlantic City where the Democratic National Convention was being held that August. President Lyndon Johnson was hoping to be the nominee for the right, for the presidential election in November. And so, Fannie Lou Hamer and the MFDP wanted to challenge the delegates that were being sent by the all-white Mississippi party. So, they met in the Credentials Committee meeting in August, and they challenged those white Mississippians and NBC News was filming the whole thing, live coverage of the national convention. And they taped this challenge to the Mississippi delegates. And Fannie Lou Hamer got on stage and gave a speech that was about eight minutes long. She had no notes. She spoke from the heart about what was happening in Mississippi, what it was like to be a Black Mississippian, and the violence that was perpetrated on her, and what the white supremacists were doing, and what democracy was not like in Mississippi. And, Lyndon Johnson heard her speaking on the television that he was watching in the White House at the time. And he got very nervous. He knew her voice had power. That her story would resonate. And he needed those white southerners to vote for him. And so, he had NBC pull away from her coverage. And they went to the White House where he was standing at a podium. And he made like a three-minute little speech about John F. Kennedy dying, nine months before, it was something he just made up on the, on the fly. And then they go back to the convention room and Hamer had just finished speaking. And Lyndon Johnson thought he had dodged a bullet, that it would be okay. You know, they were challenging, but they would not win the challenge and then he could keep the southern white Democrats in the party long enough to get through the election. What he did not expect was that NBC News would replay her testimony that night to a national audience. And people were stunned, and they were moved, and they were activated. And he realized, uh oh, and you know, to make a long story short, the white delegation was seated, but they refused to take their seats. They were so ticked off that anybody paid attention to Fannie Lou Hamer and her colleagues. They are from Mississippi. And so, they left and most of them I believe ended up voting for the racist candidate, Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater. So, that is when she really hit the national stage and everyone took notice. And she had a voice, and she had learned to use it. And she continued to use it for years and years in pursuit of civil rights, and equality, and justice. SM: 1:15:50 Well, because of that, I think in 1968 at the next convention, which was in Chicago, that historic convention where all the protests were against the war. She spoke again. KL: 1:16:02 That is right. So, four years later, those white Mississippians were not giving up. And they sent an all-white delegation to Chicago, and Fannie Lou Hamer is reconstituted, Freedom Democratic Party. Challenged them again, only this time the Democratic Party rejected the white southern Democratic Party candidate delegates and accepted Hamer's group, it was diverse, and in gender, and in race. And so, they were seated. And Famer received a standing ovation at the convention that year. And it was a powerful step forward, and her voice, she stayed an active part of the National Democratic Organization Committee, because she insisted that there be not only race parity, in delegations from every state coming, moving forward, but gender parity, and she insisted that they start conversations about food insecurity, and housing insecurity, and access to medical care, and, and so on, and so forth. She really was, preschool education, etc., she just was a powerhouse, she just did not stop. And, you know, the civil rights movement was waning in a way that the anti-war movement was becoming front and center. A lot of those young activists were going back to college, graduate school onto professional physicians. So, she started focusing a lot on the local community back in Mississippi, while still maintaining a presence on the national level and becoming involved in the women's movement, etc. But her heart and soul was really back in the fields, and in the towns, and villages, and communities of Mississippi. And, she was continuing to try to make a difference there. SM: 1:17:49 Her voice was always very important, even for the Snick, when they had the issues between white students and the Black students, certain members of the Snick, who are African American had concerns about having white students involved in this, because they should be in the leadership roles, not them. But she said, if, I am correct me if I am wrong or right, that, you know, we were fighting to integrate, and not segregate. And we are trying to end segregation and what we do not want to do that to the people, the white students who want to work with us. Let us work together. KL: 1:18:25 Right-right. It is exactly what she said. And that started causing a rift between her and some members of Snick. As they moved in through the (19)60s. 19(60), by (19)65, (19)66, some of the young Black males Snick workers were becoming more attracted to the like, the Black Power movement and the Black Panthers. And, they felt they had no patience for Fannie Lou Hamer. And when I was doing the research, I was looking at the Snick meeting minutes, it was, that she would might not be there. Sometimes she was there. And sometimes they would complain that she was too old. She was not, she did not represent them anymore. They did not want to deal with her. They wanted to go and be you know, it was Black power. Only Black people could be in the movement, no white people. And so, they cast her out basically. And, and she, you know, she understood their point of view, but she thought it was wrong. And so, she moved away from them, and they moved away from her, and went on their trajectory. So, but there were other civil rights activists that still stuck by her and she worked with them. And then, as the movement really grew and embraced, you know, women's rights too. There were young Black women who wanted to be part of this second wave feminism and, and so, she was part, she was friends with Gloria Steinem, and Betty Friedan, and Bella Abzug, and Shirley Chisholm, and, and Dorothy Height, and all these you know, rising Black female, and white female activists that were fighting for feminine, for female rights as well. And so, she, she wanted to be part of that because she knew that women were discriminated against even though she was very defensive about Black men, she felt that they were targeted more than Black women were, so she had a more traditional view of you know, the men should be able to be protected more than the women kind of thing, they needed their rights too. And so, she clashed with young Black women activists like, Medgar Evers's wife, Myrlie, she-she clashed with her. She clashed with Eleanor Holmes Norton, even though they were very-very close, and very good friends, and other young Black women activists because Hamer became very-very, a very-very conservative feminist. She was anti-abortion and anti-birth control. And so, we can understand the anti-abortion point of view, but the anti-birth control issue, just, no one could understand that, and especially the young women, they just had no patience for her and they grew very intolerant of her voice, they thought she was irrational and, and not considerate of their point of view as young women in their reproductive years. So, part of her, the way she looked at it, as, as a direct result of her own hysterectomy, without her permission, and her denial of her ability to have babies. And so, the anti-abortion thing, I think, was a more of an older person point of view. Because I know as a young woman, she helped facilitate X women getting access to illegal abortion services there in Mississippi. She was the go-to person that young women would go-to, and then she would help them access those services. But after her, her hysterectomy, her sterilization, she did not do that anymore. So, you know, she just she, she still was a powerful voice. But, there were other voices that were contrary to her voice, and they were all struggling to be heard. SM: 1:22:09 I know Eleanor Holmes Norton stated that she thought that, Fannie Lou Hamer was the second-best speaker she had ever heard behind Dr. King. KL: 1:22:20 Yeah, I actually, other-other, yeah. Others said that too. Even some of the people that I spoke to interviews with some of the Snick workers and young activists, they said, yeah, she was just an amazing speaker. And you know, I-I point to her Baptist minister father, and her own innate abilities, her sensibility about an audience, and her own passion. She knew how to deliver that she knew how to speak softly, and then raise her voice. And had, she had a tempo, to the way she spoke. And there was a pattern to her lectures and her speeches. And people really were very, very motivated and attracted to her, through her voice. And she would always add music too, and get people singing and energize that way. So, she-she was incredibly gifted. SM: 1:23:12 Talking about her stand down, those students who are white, who came down to the south to work with Snick. One of those students was Mario Savio. And of course, he went back to Berkeley, you talk connecting the dots, you know, here you got Fannie Lou Hamer, very vocally supporting the, you know, working together, not just Blacks-Black, Black Americans. And what happened is, Mario goes back to Berkeley, and then he is where the other students there at Berkeley. And, of course, we know the whole history there, but the free speech movement, because they tried to take literature away that was being handed out in Sproul Plaza. And because they thought, we are not supposed to hand out political literature, and the students went against this. And a lot of the literature was about Freedom Summer, about going back, and helping with the voting in the, in the south, and other issues- KL: 1:23:17 Right. SM: 1:24:01 -around the country. So, in a sense, her presence, fighting for those white students, directly linked to the free speech movement that took place in Berkeley in the fall of 1964. So, there is- KL: 1:24:23 Right-right, exactly. And I met people who were young students, and she would go, she did a college circuit, she would go around to different colleges and give speeches. And I met a couple of people who said that they heard her speak, they quit school and went to Mississippi, because they were so influenced by her, they just were wowed by her. And, she really had that power. You know, so there was a, one of the young people who was a high school student getting-getting ready to go into college. He met her in Mississippi, he was from Mississippi, it was Dr. Lesley Burr Macklemore. He was a civil rights worker. And he met her in (19)63. And he said, she was the star that they all as young Snick workers, she was the star, the person that all of them were wowed by, no one equaled her storytelling, he told me. He said that she testified, she preached, she led them in rousing freedom songs, she was always the center of attraction for them. And another civil rights veteran wrote that she was a power, that Hamer was a powerhouse. And they quote, "She would shine her light and people caught the spirit." And that is, I think it is a beautiful way to express that. She just, was this incredible inspiration for people and she inspired them to risk their lives to bring civil rights, and equality, and freedom. SM: 1:24:24 -a connection. Another one, another one of those white students I believe was Tom Haden. So- KL: 1:25:58 Oh, right-right. SM: 1:25:59 Yeah. KL: 1:25:59 Oh, yeah. SM: 1:26:00 And also, you know, the-the other powerful people that were with Snick. James Forman is historic, he was one of the leaders of the training and everything and, and I got to know James Bevel, because we have rounded- KL: 1:26:12 Oh, yeah. SM: 1:26:12 -Westchester University twice, and he was a fiery person. But, I think- KL: 1:26:18 He inspired, he inspired Hamer that day in William Shapel in August 1962, when she heard him speaking from the pulpit, and talking about God and, you know, equal rights, and freedom, and quoting from the Bible, she was like I am in. He, he really moved her and influenced her. SM: 1:26:38 -Yeah, he, James Bevel used to say, he, when people talked about him, he was often times punished more than anybody else and beaten more than anybody else, because he would never give in. KL: 1:26:51 Tragic-tragic. SM: 1:26:52 You know, so, I got a question here just about you in terms of, of all qualities that Fannie Lou, Fannie had, what skills or what, what would you like to emulate from her in your life? KL: 1:27:14 Her persistence, her perseverance, even when, you know, the road was really hard and dark, she, she, she kept moving, much like Tubman too, and so I, you know, with all my privilege, I would like to be able to do that, and, and keep moving, and keep fighting, and keep trying to make the world a better place. And not stop. There is no reason for me to stop. And, I think that is the inspiration that I get from Hamer and from Harriet Tubman. SM: 1:27:50 Would you say the same thing, those same things for future students, current, and future students? [crosstalk] Young people, what can they learn from her so they can emulate it in their lives to make the world a better place. KL: 1:28:08 So, you know, young people, particularly really young children are deeply inspired by Harriet Tubman. There is something accessible about her, Fannie Lou Hamer, we need the world to know about her, and make her accessible because she was accessible. And we need to, to bring that forward and talk about it a lot. Because if she could inspire people, young people who became activists and who were activists back in the (19)60s, we can do that today. And these were young, you know, we complain in politics today that young people are not really interested. Well, we need to, it makes them interested and get them inspired. And learning about Fannie Lou Hamer, what she fought for, and struggle for, and we are still struggling, and fighting for some of those same things. Let us use her as the vehicle to get kids motivated. And, and also identify the Fannie Lou Hamer is in our communities today, who can-can go out, and inspire more people to make change, and to make a difference, and to make sure that everybody has access to the ballot. SM: 1:29:14 Could you talk about her life, after her time with Snick? And after she actually ran for Congress, and, and her speech in (19)68 at the Democratic Convention, what were the causes she was involved in the rest of her life? KL: 1:29:28 So, I already talked about like the, National Organization of Women, the National Women's Political Caucus, and those kinds of organizations. But, she really started focusing a lot on Mississippi, and her own community, and she established a cooperative farm so that sharecroppers could grow food because some plantation bosses would not allow sharecroppers to plant their own gardens for food. They wanted that cotton growing right up to the cabins. So, she provided that farm, so that people could grow food. They had a pig bag where people could get piglets in the spring and then in the fall, they could slaughter the pigs for food. And then, so she did those kinds of things. She helped bring in, you know, head start, and, you know, children's preschool, education, and housing, and things like that. So, she was very oriented locally. She tried to stay relevant on the national stage. And, she continued to give speeches and things. But her relevancy was supplanted by the war movement, the anti-war movement, which she was against the Vietnam War. And also, you know, the Civil Rights Movement changed and altered. And so, she struggled in her health, her health, just deteriorated, from you know, (19)63 until the day she died in 1977. So, in the early to mid (19)70s, she had many health problems, she was in and out of the hospital, she was exhausted. And she, you know, she struggled financially. And eventually, she developed breast cancer, and died from complications of that, and her kidney disease, and hypertension. And she had basically been abandoned by the Civil Rights Movement, and all those workers. Pat was very angry about that, that he felt that she had been abandoned, considering everything that she had done for the movement, and for all of them. And so, it was a, it was bittersweet. It was really sad when she died at the age of 59. And almost alone, just her family around her and a couple of friends, so. [crosstalk] SM: 1:31:33 [crosstalk] You know, another part of the-the story of Fannie Lou Hamer is-is her health. Because one of my heroes is FDR, and we all know what he went through and in 1920s, with Polio, and then he became president, he was in a wheelchair, and he had a lot of issues, but he still did-did a lot for humanity. And, he was a leader. And I look at Fannie Lou Hamer, in the same way, she had diabetes, she had all these issues, but it goes to show that just because someone has health problems- KL: 1:32:09 Right. SM: 1:32:09 That does not mean you cannot go out and change the world for the better. KL: 1:32:14 Right-right. People with disabilities deserve the respect and, and, and honor that everyone else does. And the disability does not define them. It is just part of who they are. But if they are a leader, they are a leader. And we should follow them and support them. And, you know, this is, this is, you know, really relevant right now with the election that is going on in Pennsylvania- SM: 1:32:39 Oh yes. KL: 1:32:40 With John Fetterman, who has suffered a stroke, and he has some auditory delays, etc. And that is a disability right now, and he is being mocked for it. Just like the-the newspaper man back in, in 2016, during the election, when Donald Trump mocked the disabled newspaper reporter. You know, we have to just, we have to stop that there should be no limitations on anybody. SM: 1:33:06 I agree. KL: 1:33:07 If they have the energy and the desire and the, you know, the-the want to do things and work and change, make change, then they should be allowed to do that. And we should support them. And we should all be part of that movement forward. SM: 1:33:23 Yeah, the- I guess one of the last questions, well I got two more questions. But what, the next to last question is about if you could list for those people that are really into leadership. And we, and I have worked with a lot of students who the first thing they want to know, what were the leadership qualities of a person that made them be a leader, could you just list some of the qualities? KL: 1:33:45 So, that is a fascinating question. And I think there are some, there are some qualities, but I think that we need to really look at leaders and where they come from. And we have this image of the leader as someone who is polished, and who has elite education, often has a privileged background, etc. And, they have access to resources. But many leaders actually do not come from that background. And like a Hamer, sixth grade education sharecropper, no financial resources whatsoever, but she had something about her and it comes out of her childhood and her young adulthood. On those landscapes in Mississippi, she learned while she did not have perfect diction, and she did not have perfect penmanship and, and literacy, you know, traditional literacy skills like that. She had other literacies, like many other leaders who do not have the benefit of those elite educations, they have literacies. They have literacies, they develop on, out in the fields, in the forest, on the water, in a community, in the church, in segregated bathrooms, you know, in difficult environments, they have literacies they learn from those places, and those experiences that not everybody has. And so, Hamer with her tremendous people literacy, she could read people, she could read an audience, she could, she could, you know, read the landscape of a room, and of the-the pulse of people. And, that is her gift. And she brought that to the stage. And she knew how to, to enunciate, and, and talk about the things that were important to other people. Whereas a Martin Luther King, who had tremendous, you know, great education, a beautiful voice, he, he spoke and inspired people, but he did not speak to them on, this, in the same way that Hamer could speak to people at their own intimate, interpersonal, very personal level. And, that was her gift. So, leaders are not all the best educated with the most, you know, access to resources. SM: 1:36:11 You mentioned that- KL: 1:36:11 And so- SM: 1:36:12 You mentioned that in the book about some of the civil rights leaders said she did not look the park. KL: 1:36:17 Right, that is right. Especially some of Martin Luther King's colleagues, Ralph Abernathy and others. They were disgusted by Hamer. She, first of all, you know, there was lots of misogyny going on anyway, and women had second class status regardless, but you know, they-they criticized her. Ralph told her, you know, he was embarrassed by her because, you know her, she was, her clothes which were borrowed. And when he met her, she was wearing clothes that she borrowed for the Democratic convention. And that her diction, her speech embarrassed him. And he wanted her to go home, and go away, to leave the business to him and other men. Basically, that is what he said to her. And, and other civil rights activists, elite civil rights activists, felt that way about her. And she did not identify with them at all, either. And she just told them to, you know, you know, no man is going to tell me what to do. Only my husband is going to tell me what to do. So, she just fired right back. But there was class prejudice against people like Fannie Lou Hamer. SM: 1:37:17 Yeah, she was, she is something. I am glad you wrote the book. It is a tremendous book. And I hope more and more people read it. And I hope this brings her, up the pedestal, I know, you are described, the very end of the book, her death, when she died, and she was kind of alone. And, people taking care of her. But, when the funeral happened, there were a lot of people there. Yeah, there were [crosstalk] some big names were there. So, they cared about her. KL: 1:37:51 Yeah-yeah. SM: 1:37:52 But they should have cared about her when she was near the end as well. KL: 1:37:55 Exactly-exactly. SM: 1:37:57 Are there any other thoughts, you, that I did not raise that you might want to state about Fannie Lou Hamer? KL: 1:38:03 Just know that she is just one of my heroes, and I hope she becomes heroes to the readers of my book because she is incredible. And we need to celebrate her. We need a national park in her honor, by the way. SM: 1:38:17 Wow. Count me in if you are going to get a group. KL: 1:38:20 All right, great. [laughs] SM: 1:38:22 Yeah, and let us see. You are probably going to write another book soon. Have you chosen who that might be? KL: 1:38:31 I have, but I am not ready to talk about it yet. SM: 1:38:34 Is it Ella? [laughter] KL: 1:38:36 No. Oh, my God, I would love to do that. But no, no, there is a great book about Ella Baker already out there. SM: 1:38:41 Right. KL: 1:38:42 Yeah. SM: 1:38:44 My last, my last question is what, I, the question I ask to everybody, and that is, since people are going to hear this 50 year from now, long after we are both gone, and many in this, in their lives, they are gone. What words of advice would you like to give to students, faculty, national scholars, people who listen to this interview? What words of advice would you like to give them? KL: 1:39:10 So, to keep the records, preserve the records, tell the stories and, and do not erase anything. Just preserve it all and carry it forward and honor the people that are carrying, you know, freedom and democracy forward because this is a perilous time. And I hope 50 years from now, people will listen to this and go back another 50 years to when Hamer was battling the same issues, and find the heroes in our past and celebrate them. SM: 1:39:44 Okay, well, I have been speaking with Kate Clifford Larson, author of "Walk with Me," a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. Thank you very much. And, you have a great day. KL: 1:39:56 Thank you very much, Steven. Bye-bye. SM: 1:40:00 You still there? Thank you. (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>. Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. 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Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Kate Clifford Larson https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ed1243d74a2a378dfc0961e886c47372.jpg 2f1ab9748fccaf576b88fab0c04bf250 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/ecfb3db1eb4146ec9b8acb072139c113.mp3 960bb9fd7af44df301a42a5c56dfffd7 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 2002-07-14 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Kenneth Campbell 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 Biographical Text Dr. Kenneth Campbell is a scholar, reseacher and political scientist. Dr. Campbell is a Associate Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Relations at Universtiy of Delaware, and he is the author for several journal articles and a book titled <em>A Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam and the Hard Lessons of War</em>. He has a Bachelor's degree in History, as well as a Master's degree and Ph.D. in Political Science from Temple University.&nbsp; Dr. Campbell served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War in 1968 and 1969 and received a Purple Heart for his bravery. Due to his expertise in international affairs, he has testified before Congress on the Iraq War. Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Vietnam War; Civil Rights Movement, Anti-War Movement, Women's liberation; Baby boom generation; Jane Fonda; Vietnam; Lyndon B. Johnson; David Cortright; Increased use of drugs in the military; Resistance to draft; Vietnamese interrogation.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Vietnam War; Civil Rights Movement, Anti-War Movement, Women's liberation; Baby boom generation; Jane Fonda; Vietnam; Lyndon B. Johnson; David Cortright; Increased use of drugs in the military; Resistance to draft; Vietnamese interrogation.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 163:15 Subject LCSH Political scientists; College teachers; University of Delaware; Campbell, Kenneth--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: Nancy Cain Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: 14 July 2002 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:03): Okay, here we go. When you think of the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? KC (00:00:13): The (19)60s and early (19)70s. Well, I guess it has to be Vietnam if you are going to cover that entire period. The (19)60s growing up, but the (19)70s, and my Vietnam experience being really the division between my childhood and my family and my neighborhood and growing up. And me then going off to becoming an adult and having a much different life, leaving family, leaving home. SM (00:00:46): When you think of the (19)60s overall, because you are coming from not only growing up in the era but serving your country in that era, do you see a difference between the two in your perspective of that era? KC (00:00:59): The difference between the (19)60s and the (19)70s? SM (00:01:01): (19)60s, yeah. Well, the difference between if you had not served- KC (00:01:06): Oh. SM (00:01:06): ... and serving your country during that timeframe. KC (00:01:09): Well, I cannot accurately imagine not having done that because I did do that. I mean, I guess that I would have been quite different if I had not done that, but I think that it was because I am who I am that I did. I volunteered. I was not plucked out of my life. I do not think that there was any question that I was going to go in the military in some way. As to which branch and at what time under what conditions, those are particulars that I think that I could have played with. But I felt strongly that it was necessary for me to not only serve in that sense of civic duty, but also to use it as a vehicle to grow up, to give myself more opportunities to mature so that I felt that I was going to get a lot out of it, not only give a lot. SM (00:02:23): What do you think of those individuals who did not serve? KC (00:02:28): That did not serve? SM (00:02:30): That did not serve during that timeframe, with particular emphasis on those that could have served but used deferments or any other alternative to get out of service? KC (00:02:42): I do not have a problem with those who used whatever devices they could to get out of serving if they had political or religious or moral objections to the military, in general, or to the war, in particular. That, I think, is a defensible position personally, ethically, defensible position to take. But those who either had no feelings one way or another about the war and about military service, and especially those who supported it, but then found ways of getting out of it themselves, I have problems with. I think that it is dishonorable to avoid your general civic duty, and particularly dishonorable to support someone else going off to die in your place. SM (00:03:39): How do you respond to historians or social critics or sociologists who say that the Vietnam War, and the people that served in the Vietnam War, were basically from working class, lower class backgrounds. They were thrust into it. The upper classes really did not serve, or many of the people that would have gone to college did not serve. Is that a description of the military of that era? KC (00:04:07): Well, it certainly seems like an accurate description of the Marine Corps that I experienced. If we are talking about my personal experience, I was in the Marines and enlisted. Not an officer, I was an enlisted person. And the description of working class, lower middle class, rural, poor, farmer, that is accurate regarding the enlisted people in the Marine Corps at the time I was in there. SM (00:04:50): Getting back to some of the criticisms over the last 5, 10, 15 years on television network shows, you will see people, like Newt Gingrich and George Will and many others, saying that the generation, the boomer generation, the people that were young in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, and when I say (19)70s, a lot of people defined the (19)60s going up to 1973. KC (00:05:15): Right. SM (00:05:15): And so, including those individuals, they think that one of the great reasons we are having problems in our society today is because of that generation with the sexual revolution that took place during that time. As I put down here, "The boomer generation of 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 year, what can you say about the boomers of the (19)60s and early (19)70s as a generation of 70 million? KC (00:05:58): I guess I would have to, first, address the description of the time as being the breakdown, or leading to the breakdown, of American society. I do not think American society has broken down very often in its history. You have to talk about questions of degree, not kind here, for the most part. Certainly, it was under great stress during the (19)60s and early (19)70s, but it did not completely break down. I would define breaking down as actual civil war. And although there were incidents that looked like civil war at times, whether it was a demonstration that got out of hand or an isolated pseudo revolutionary group uprising from the left, whatever, I think, by and large, American society, under great tension, basically held together during that period of time and after. But to address what, I think, is at the heart of that criticism, that the boomer generation is responsible for a lot of the social problems and political problems, and to some degree economic problems, of the (19)70s and (19)80s and (19)90s, and perhaps now, I think that that is horse hockey. Every generation is neither perfect nor completely worthless, and every generation has to take responsibility for some of the problems that follow it. But that does not make that generation any better or worse than the previous or following generation. I think there were, certainly, a lot of committed people, a lot of boomers committed to change, and good change, but there are also a heck of a lot of boomers that, despite what they say today, were not really involved in that change at the time. There is certainly a lot of anti-war stories told- SM (00:08:10): It never happened. KC (00:08:12): ... and exaggeration today, what did I do in the anti-war movement, as much as there are veterans who tell stories, although they never got near any combat. I think it is just a human tendency to want to exaggerate one's importance. From my experience in leadership positions in the anti-war movement of that time, I know how hard it was to get more than a small percentage of people active in the anti-war movement, or any movement at that time, whether it was community movements, student movements, movements against apartheid, or whatever was around at that time, to get more than a handful of people involved, more than a small percentage of people involved. So, I would not credit the boomer generation as a whole with a whole lot of that, and I would not blame the boomer generation as whole for a whole lot of that. I think the so-called damage done is exaggerated, but so are the accomplishments. The accomplishments, I think, sometimes are exaggerated by the historians on the left. I think what was accomplished was great, and through a lot of difficult struggle and sacrifice on the part of some leaders, but the whole generation, certainly. Not even a majority of the generation was involved and had anything to do with that. SM (00:09:50): Good point. Because you read about this era, and they will say that of the 70 plus million that were in the boomer generation, again, the boomers are defined by years. KC (00:10:02): Right. SM (00:10:03): I have a problem with that, too. They say Boomers are (19)46 to (19)64, and now a more recent study by Howe and Strauss- KC (00:10:09): 1946 to (19)64. SM (00:10:10): Yes, 1964. Yeah. KC (00:10:12): As opposed to an age. SM (00:10:13): Yeah, 1946 to 1964. But now, Howe and Strauss have just written a book on the current youth, which is the millennials, who states that the boomers were 1943 to 1961. And if you read earlier books on this period, a lot of the people who were born between (19)42 and (19)46 were upset because many of them were in the lead of the anti-war movement. KC (00:10:37): Yeah. Yeah. SM (00:10:37): So, what I am getting at here, really, the question is this. Another way that people have lessened the impact on boomers is to say that only 15 percent were really involved. KC (00:10:48): There you go. SM (00:10:49): And would you say that is true? KC (00:10:51): I would say that is very true. And I make the same point in my book about Vietnam veterans in combat, that are only 15 percent, and that is probably exaggerated, it is probably smaller than that, were involved in any sustained combat in Vietnam. Few people realize that, whether they are for or against a war, whether they are arguing for veterans’ rights, or just simply trying to study it objectively, few people realize that only 10 to 15 percent of all Vietnam veterans saw any significant combat. Now, that has an impact. That has an importance in certain areas- SM (00:11:32): Right. KC (00:11:33): ... and I will not go into all of that right now, but that is an important figure for people to understand. And as late as two years ago, in 2005, when I got together with some old anti-war hands, some of them which were non-veterans, one of them, when I gave that figure at a public forum, came up to me and said that she was shocked, that she had been around for 40 years in the movement and working in the anti-war movement back in the (19)60s, et cetera. And she never knew that. No one ever said that. No one ever told her that. That that gave her a better appreciation of the intensity of the experience of combat veterans and the isolation that combat veterans feel, even among veterans as a whole. SM (00:12:18): Are we talking here, maybe, about 400,000 Vietnam vets who actually were in combat of the three plus million? KC (00:12:25): Well, I need a calculator. SM (00:12:28): Yeah-yeah. KC (00:12:28): I am not that great at mathematics. SM (00:12:30): Right. KC (00:12:30): But whatever it turns out to be, between 10 and 15 percent- SM (00:12:35): Right. KC (00:12:35): ... because the so-called tail to tooth ratio, meaning those who were in support versus the tip of the spear, or the tooth of the war machine, was six to one. Six people in support for every person out in the bush with a rifle, and that is less than 15 percent. SM (00:12:54): Right. KC (00:12:55): And I have been told by folks who study this even more closely that 14 or 15 percent is still too high. SM (00:13:00): Wow. KC (00:13:01): That when you start subtracting people, like the clerks that worked in the combat units who were back in the rear with the typewriters, and you start doing all sorts of other calculations, it turns out to be closer to about 10 or 12 percent. But I still go with 15 just to be safe. SM (00:13:18): Yeah. Obviously, being down at the Vietnam Memorial on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, the people that are on that stage are the people that are in that 14 to 15 percent, obviously. Yeah. KC (00:13:28): I do not know. You find a lot of them there. Some of them are the most committed. But there are a lot of folks who, well, let us put it this way, a lot of Vietnam veterans that I would look critically at that take strong political positions on various issues, putting forth their experience in the war as their credibility, that really did not experience much or any war. SM (00:14:02): You hear that a lot from Chuck Hagel. KC (00:14:03): Is that right? SM (00:14:04): Yeah. KC (00:14:04): Yeah. I would not be surprised. Chuck Hagel is one of my favorite guys. SM (00:14:07): Yeah. He and his brother, and they did serve. KC (00:14:10): Yeah. SM (00:14:10): And I like him too. Yeah, some people would say, "Well, when is he going to run for president?" I do not think he is going to run. I think he's going to stay in the Senate. When you look at the characteristics, could you give some of the positive qualities, just some adjectives to describe the boomer generation in your eyes? And some of the negative qualities? KC (00:14:27): Yeah. I would say innovative in the sense that boomers thought outside the World War II depression experience. Not having that experience, we were able to think outside the box, so to speak. And imagine a world where, perhaps, you did not have segregation, racial segregation. Perhaps, where you did not simply go off to serve and fight for your country because someone in authority said it was necessary to do. Dared to question authority. Asked critical questions. As an educator, I think of that generic quality that we try to develop in students of critical thinking, being able to see contradictions, complexity, variation, nuances. And I think that politically, socially, that the boomer generation, especially those who were in the leadership on contentious issues, were able to have that kind of imagination. Now, it is not to say that the previous generation did not have that imagination, because the previous generation, certainly, was able to imagine well, in at least leadership, in many cases, how to deal with the depression, how to look beyond the state that did not provide relief, that did not provide welfare, that to be innovative when it came time to fighting a war that was necessary under very adverse conditions. But I think the boomer generation had its most impact for its domestic reforms, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement, which was certainly focused at home. I mean, it was focused on a war, but it was focused on changing the system at home and finding out what was wrong with America that got us in there. And the women's movement. SM (00:16:55): Right. I guess you could include in there the environmental movement, too. KC (00:16:59): And the environmental. SM (00:17:00): Yeah. KC (00:17:00): Very good. The environmental movement, since were sitting here in a nice environment. SM (00:17:03): Yeah. And some of the other movements you think of in that era, you think of the Native American movement- KC (00:17:08): Sure. SM (00:17:08): ... and the Chicano movement, too, as well. To get off the order of questions here, the civil rights movement and the practice of nonviolence and the methods used by people in those movements were forerunners to the anti-war movement. Do you think that all these other movements, their teacher was the civil rights movement? I have read that in history books, that the anti-war, women's movement, all the other movements you just mentioned were learned from the civil rights movement. KC (00:17:43): Well, I think a lot was learned from the civil rights movement. I think a lot was learned from the labor movement during the thirties, as well. Twenties and thirties, but the thirties in particular. Peaceful ways of protesting health and safety conditions or inadequate pay or the right to unionize, not having the right to unionize. A lot of ideas and experience were transferred by older folks who lived and worked through those eras, the twenties and thirties and forties, to not only the anti-war movement, but other movements, as well, community movements, et cetera. I remember Saul Alinsky- SM (00:18:43): Oh, yeah. Rules for radicals. KC (00:18:45): Rules for Radicals, Reveille for Radicals, he had established some kind of an institute in Chicago to train leaders on the left, or not on the left. He was not looking for left or right, but just people who were interested in grassroots democracy. And so, there are important links back to earlier generations and earlier movements. But there was a lot of innovation, as well. A lot of thinking beyond that or differently from that came out of the boomer leaders themselves, the generation themselves. A lot was learned from the civil rights movement. But I think there was, also, something that was very American about the anti-war movement in the sense that there is an understanding among many, if not most, organizers in the Vietnam anti-war movement, that the system probably worked well enough, on most days, for most people, that you were better off not using violent forms of protests. That it was unnecessary and, in fact, counterproductive to use violent forms of protest. So, that nonviolence was for a principle that maybe they built their whole life around it. Quakers or Passivists, like Martin Luther King. SM (00:20:25): Right. KC (00:20:25): But for others it was a tactic. It was something that worked better than violence. But if they had lived under a regime, like the Nazis, they might be using violence because they might give up on the idea of peaceful change. SM (00:20:41): Yeah. Right. KC (00:20:42): So, I think that the structural conditions in America, the fact that America was the way it was with a constitution and a long history of rule of law, et cetera, was a major factor, if not a defining factor, for most people in the anti-war movement. Because most people in the anti-war movement were not out-and-out passivists in the sense of never using violence, pure passivists. We're not the kind of people who would have refused to go to war during World War II. SM (00:21:10): Like Bayard Rustin. KC (00:21:12): Right. SM (00:21:12): Yep. KC (00:21:15): Right, right. So, I think that is an important factor, as well. Part of its civil rights experience and leadership, part of it, earlier struggles, but also part of it, the structural context in which all of us was occurring. America as, basically, a law-abiding country, and it is people recognizing that there are non-violent ways of achieving your ends. And if you choose not to use those, then you are probably at least as bad as what you are protesting against, if not worse. SM (00:21:44): Right. Yeah, I think, on college campuses, in particular, I think one of the lessons learned is that protest is still important, and a lot of people think it is outdated, but I think it is still important. However, you learn from the lessons and the mistakes of the past. You do not disrupt the university and shut it down because that really creates a big divide. So, maybe you can still protest, but learn that shutting a campus down and getting parents all upset. I am leading into another question here. KC (00:22:16): All right, go ahead. SM (00:22:18): And this question deals with the millennials, which are today's young people that are in college campuses, and- KC (00:22:23): Is that the term used to describe them? The millennials. Oh, geez. SM (00:22:24): Yeah, the millennials, yeah. Born after 1984. KC (00:22:28): I doubt that they came up with that themselves. SM (00:22:30): No, they did not. And the Generation Xers, which followed the boomers- KC (00:22:35): Right-right. SM (00:22:35): ... which has been written about a lot. KC (00:22:37): Right. They are the tweeners here. SM (00:22:41): Right. KC (00:22:43): The Xers are the ones that were probably born while Vietnam was going on, but did not know anything about it. They were too young. SM (00:22:53): Yep. Yep. And they, also, now make up 80 to 85 percent of the parents of today's entering college students. KC (00:23:01): Yeah-yeah. SM (00:23:01): Where only 15 percent now are really boomers. KC (00:23:04): Right. That is right. SM (00:23:05): And so, here, we have got another 15 percent. KC (00:23:09): But the equivalent to that are those who were born in the, well, not born, but grew up in the late forties and the (19)50s, who are not really boomers- SM (00:23:21): Right. KC (00:23:21): ... but are of the World War II generation. SM (00:23:22): They are the silent generation. They call them the silent- KC (00:23:26): Yeah. Okay. So, there is always a tweener generation- SM (00:23:27): Right. KC (00:23:27): ... in there. It is either the X generation or the silent generation. SM (00:23:31): Well, one of the things that over the years, since I work in a university, and you are a professor, your comments will be important on this. For quite a few years, there was a reaction on generation Xers. They either wished they had lived in that era because then there were great causes that they could be involved in, or they would be the other extreme. They were sick of boomers because they were nostalgic, and they dreamed of all these things in the past, and let us live for the present. KC (00:24:01): Right. SM (00:24:01): And the millennials today have a sense of, this is my impression again, that it is not that they do not care, but I do not know if they want to learn about the history that preceded them. So, I have real concerns, and would like your thoughts on this about the parents of today's college students now, the generation Xers, and the millennials, in terms of how important is history to them? Do they want to learn from it? Or are the only thinking of today and tomorrow, and the past is the past? That is what really worries me. KC (00:24:36): Well, you have to understand. I think that we have to understand that the generation Xers reached the years when the boomers were the most committed, active, and making the biggest impact. That is late teens, early twenties, in a highly conservative period. You are talking about the Reagan era. And Xers really did not have the social context or support that boomers did. The issues were not as burning, and their lives were not directly threatened, either. That is the other thing. SM (00:25:23): Right. KC (00:25:23): There is always a sense of survival driving boomers during the anti-war movement, fear of being drafted, fear of being used, and even the boomers that became anti-war when they came back from Vietnam, anger for being misuse. The Xers did not have that context to drive them or support them. So, I think they have often been criticized and condemned by boomers in an unfair way. And when you add to that the fact that only 15 percent or less of those boomers really were as active as some much larger group of them claimed they were, you know, have to look at the boomers and say, "Okay, do not be hypocritical here. Do not condemn other people for something you did not do either." SM (00:26:21): Sure enough. KC (00:26:21): "Your generation might have, your leaders might have-" SM (00:26:23): Right. KC (00:26:24): "... but not all of you did. A lot of you sat on your ass when that demonstration went down. A lot of you threw Frisbees and smoked dope and did not listen to the speakers when you went to the demonstration." SM (00:26:32): Whereas, one person told me, "I went to Washington only to see bare breasted women." KC (00:26:36): That is right. Yeah, yeah. It became a happening. SM (00:26:39): Yeah. KC (00:26:40): Like a bee and only with a bunch of political noise in the background. So, I think the criticism of the X Generation has always been a little bit unfair to them because they were born in a different age and raised and came to fruition, to maturity, in a different age. And unfair by the boomers, because many of those boomers were not as committed as they claimed, as involved as they claimed, could take as much responsibility as they claimed for the great changes. So, I believe in being fair to people, and we should not be too hard on our sons and our daughters and our little brothers and our little sisters. SM (00:27:24): A thought that applies with the millennials today, too, as well. KC (00:27:26): Yeah, I do. Yeah. SM (00:27:26): Yeah. KC (00:27:27): But I think I have a better handle on the millennial because I think I think better now than I did 20 or 30 years ago about these kinds of things. And I was just thinking about this again a couple of days ago. I think that the millennials are being criticized too much by boomers and Xers for not being active enough against the war in Iraq, when in fact, that just isn't their issue. They view Iraq, as well as Vietnam, unconsciously, I think, for the most part. Unconsciously view it as old school. What to them is current and contemporary, AIDS, especially in Africa, Darfur, genocide in Darfur- SM (00:28:20): Right. KC (00:28:20): ... human rights, the environment, all those issues that connect with globalization. SM (00:28:28): Right. KC (00:28:28): These are contemporary issues for them, and that is where you can find them active. If you look, you find them active, whether they are blogging, whether they are on websites, whether they are holding meetings, whether they are raising funds, doing 5K runs, whatever it is, that is where they are active. SM (00:28:42): Yep. KC (00:28:43): For the most part, it is the boomer generation that is active in the anti-Iraq war movement. Now, there are certainly plenty of exceptions, but I think, in general, that is true. And I think Iraq, created by a boomer generation by people from the boomer generation that never went, chicken hawks, and protested by those who did go to Vietnam. Or those who did protest Vietnam, but are back protesting Iraq now, or those who did go to Vietnam in turned sour on it. This is a within boomer generation war and within boomer generation issue. SM (00:29:24): Wow. KC (00:29:25): In other words, they are saying that this is all politics. Not only should you not have gone to Iraq, that that is wrong, but this whole argument over it is not relevant to us, for the most part. SM (00:29:38): See, one of the characteristics that Howe and Strauss, they wrote the book Generations, they have got the book on the millennials now- KC (00:29:46): Okay. SM (00:29:46): ... they speak at national conferences. They have studied youth. KC (00:29:50): Yeah. SM (00:29:50): Some, like Dr. Levine from Columbia Teachers College- KC (00:29:54): Okay. SM (00:29:54): ... have written some great books on youth of different generations. When we are talking about the millennials, the millennials have been compared to the World War II generation because they want to leave a legacy. And they are thinking about, according to the studies of Sprouse- KC (00:30:12): Okay. SM (00:30:12): ... they want to leave a legacy, but they want to leave it when they are in their late thirties or starting in the forties. What concerns me, as a person who works in higher education with students, is, okay, we have got a generation now of students who do care about other people. They do. KC (00:30:27): Yeah. SM (00:30:27): They do care about the issues like you just mentioned of human rights, but they have got to wait until they are 40 to start leaving their legacy. And the question is, what happens between 22 and 23 and 40? From what I am gathering from the information is they want to raise a family, they want to get a lot of money in the bank, they want to get a home. So, I do not know if there's an issue here that we have to deal with. KC (00:30:53): Yeah. And I think it is the same issue that we keep coming back to, which is the 15 percent versus the 85 percent. Those people that are active, that are active now, not waiting till they are 35 or 40, are within the 15 percent. They are the ones that are really active, though, among the millennials on these issues of AIDS, of genocide, of environmental issues, et cetera, et cetera. And as I said, if you look for them, if you look at the organizations, if you go to the campuses, if you go to the websites, you find them, they are active, they are working. They are not doing the same things that the boomer generation did, but they are a different generation at a different time, and they found different ways of doing it. Just as a boomer generation did things differently than the depression era generation. It was active in the labor movement or the women's movement, women's suffrage, or whatever, twenties and thirties. The 85 percent are the ones, just like the 85 percent and the boomer generation, or whatever, were busy looking after themselves. SM (00:31:57): I think we are- KC (00:31:59): For the most part. SM (00:32:00): I think we are going to take a break here in a minute. I am- want to just mention here, could you comment on the importance of the boomers in respect to the Civil Rights movement and all the other movements, and with ending the Vietnam War? How important were the youth in ending the Vietnam War? And what do you think was the number one reason why the war ended? Then, we will take a break. KC (00:32:21): Geez. I could answer the first one, I think, easier and sooner than the second one. The first one, how important were the young people and the boomer generation in ending the war? An important part. Not a decisive part, an important part. We have to remember, the Vietnamese also contributed a lot to ending that war, to frustrating the United States in its attempt to win a victory in Vietnam. And whether we are talking about the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong or the liberation movement, whatever you want to call it, the Vietnamese, who were fighting against the Americans, contributed a lot to finally ending that war. Now, the home front, along the home front, I do not think. It was- Along the home front, I do not think it was until the movement was broader than just young people that it really became decisive. It was only when broader sections of society and many of them older sections of society whether it was church leaders, some of the liberal trade union organizations. Geez, by the time I became active in the movement in 1970 after I got discharged there was a businessman's organization against the war. I mean, they began to come from all facets of society and fill out any war movement so that it was much broader than just the youth or just the students. I think that is when it began to be recognized as legitimate by that silent majority or whatever you want to call it in the middle. Those who were not on the far right but certainly... Those who were open to the possibility that the war was wrong and they were in the middle as opposed to the far left or the far right. I think that middle ground, they were really the parents of those Vietnam veterans. The parents of the working-class kids, the parents of the farmers, the parents of the kid that went off from the rural area to Vietnam. From which so many of those lives were lost, they're the ones that needed to be won over and they were Nixon's silent majority and they were eventually won over. I think in part by the Vietnam minister turned against the war, acting as a bridge to them and bringing along that stuff. But more generally, the broadening of the anti-war movement to give it legitimacy in the eyes of those folks. SM (00:35:14): Okay. Kind of like the... But some of the history books say it is when the body bags start coming home, middle America responded. KC (00:35:23): Absolutely, yeah. The more body bags, the classic study is by John Mueller who War, President's and Public Opinion. SM (00:35:32): That is the book I... KC (00:35:33): Yeah. SM (00:35:33): Yep. Let us take a break right here and then [inaudible]. One of the things about the boomer generation, and I can say this from personal experience is when I was on a college campus. There is this feeling that we were the most unique generation in American history because we were going to... Well, not me. That the boomers were going to change the world, they are going to make everything better. Going to end racism and sexism, bring peace to the world, love, the whole thing not hate. Your comments on that attitude that boomers had when they were young and your thoughts about boomers over the years as boomers have gotten older regarding that question. KC (00:36:29): Well, and this question I do not see any great difference between the boomer generation and any other generation. It is youthful arrogance taking what is true at its core that is that you have people committed to change and meaningful, important, necessary change and exaggerating. This is a tendency it's not a uniform, it is a tendency many to exaggerate it and think that they are so different or we are so different and so great, so new, move over old people get out of the way. To some degree maybe we can thank JFK and his inaugural speech, go anywhere, pay any price, we are the new generation coming in. Eisenhower and that crew is the old tired, do nothing, lazy... Not lazy but ineffective generation. Geez Eisenhower had two heart attacks while he was in office, he was on a golf course a lot of the time. I mean, there is this whole sense that it was a new, young, vibrant generation and I think that inaugural address really does speak to the boomer generation and the way we saw ourselves. We were going to do stuff that nobody had done before. I think every generation thinks that though, they just think of it depending on the circumstances in different ways. So the oppression World War II generation certainly did plenty of new things. Only concentrated more in the conventional and the more traditional areas and they built newer and bigger businesses. That is how we got the Whiz Kids that wound up in a JFK administration. SM (00:38:33): Yes. KC (00:38:33): Yeah, that is right. Yeah. After all that depression era, World War II generation really created the large middle class in America where most people actually had the American dream eventually of their own home. Home ownership after World War II skyrocketed. So there were very conventional kinds of goals but that earlier generation was committed to doing things beyond which their previous generation... I think every generation does that and every generation tends to think when they're young. When they're in their teens or their 20s they think that they are greater than the previous generation. Well, they may be in some ways but not in other ways and compared to the generation that is going to follow them they are going to be less. So long as we keep improving in general, so long as humanity keeps improving in general. Next generation is going to do the things a little bit better and they will probably in an arrogant way think that they are better than they really are. So, I think it is a human thing, I would not pin it on any particular generation. It just plays itself out differently in different generations based on the circumstances, the larger structural or societal circumstances. SM (00:39:56): This is a very important question that I have asked in each of the interviews, the concept of healing. The Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C. when it was built, I loved the goals to pay tribute to those who served, to remember those who served and to not be a political entity. It's about the warrior, it's about caring. KC (00:40:26): Right. SM (00:40:27): So the goal was to heal those individuals and hopefully to heal the nation as Jan Scruggs said in his book. The question is this, have we healed as a nation because of divisions that took place during that era? The divisions were so strong, you mentioned even earlier in the interview about we did not have a civil war here. But the nation was being torn apart and if you looked at 1968 at the Democratic Convention, even the Republican Convention. The threats for that convention that year and you saw the burnings in Watts, all that whole era- KC (00:41:00): We are talking about the worst division since the Civil War in American society but not as deeply as the Civil War. SM (00:41:05): Right. But here we are in 2007, I have been doing these interviews since 96 now so as the years progress. But where are we with the respect to healing on these particular issues? Healing over the divisions that happened in the war, the divisions... All the other issues, all the other movements that took place at that time. There were always barricades in many respects in all of these movements were... In short what I am saying is, has the wall truly healed the Vietnam veteran portion of the boomer generation? Secondly, where do we stand as a nation in terms of healing over Vietnam? KC (00:41:54): I think the wall helped and the wall helped in a big way in that process of healing, I do not think it has been the only thing. There have been a lot of other contributors to the healing that has occurred. But there has also been a real limit to the amount of healing that could occur regardless of what device we are talking about. Using a wall, using movies, using meetings of Vietnam veterans to talk stuff like this out, whatever the device is. Legislation to provide some more support for veterans. Whatever it is, it is meant to help heal. There are limits on it and it is not for lack of trying but because some of these wounds cannot be healed completely. Some of these wounds are so deep and remain so fresh that the scars just never healed, they remained open. Now, we are talking about emotional wounds for the most part. Because for some Vietnam veterans, and I would not want to in this case separate the 15 percent of combat intensive veterans from those who experienced very little or no combat. Because here, even the 85 percent that did not see much combat still suffered psychological damage because of the failure of the war and the cold shoulder of the American society when they came back. I think for some of those veterans Vietnam was the best and the worst of their life. On one hand it represented the worst while they were there for most of them, for 99.9 percent of them. I would suggest that one 10th of 1 percent that loved being there might have needed some psychological help but most of us could not wait to come home. Right? SM (00:44:17): Right. KC (00:44:18): So most of us at the time wanted to get the Vietnam experience over with and forget about it as quickly as possible. But the irony is-is that in later years, most of those Vietnam vets cannot forget about it and do not want to forget about it. They gather as Vietnam veterans, they have reunions as Vietnam veterans. They email each other and have websites which they talk to each other because it was the most important experience in their life. It turns out that everything after that for many of them was anti-climactic, whether it was marriage or their job or having kids, who were traveling or success in their business or whatever it was. Now, that is true among a certain segment. I do not know what that percentage is, it is I think a fairly significant percentage of all Vietnam veterans that have problems like that. I do not know, it is certainly in double digits. I do not know whether it comes anywhere near a third or a half. But on the other hand, there are a lot of veterans who... I think they would probably be in the majority of Vietnam veterans who do not have those scars or they are not obvious. So, they are able to deal with them well enough that they have healed well enough, that they have been able to get over it. I am not talking about locking bad memories in a closet or artificially, where someday they are going to pop out and they will go crazy and kill 15 people in a bar for no reason. I am talking about people who really have, for the most part gotten over it and moved on and had more important chapters in their lives. Right? So that they can look back and not be troubled by that all that much and not have to think about it all the time. For those I think the healing has pretty much occurred, pretty much completed. Not completely but it is that other segment, that still significant segment of those who for whatever reason and there are probably lots of different reasons wound up in the strange contradiction of not wanting to stay in Vietnam. Wanting to get out as soon as they could, wanting to forget... Okay. Put it behind them as fast as they could and then winding up building the rest of their life around that experience. Now they're the guys you see that have the bumper stickers, wear the pins in their hats. The worst of them become professional veterans right? That is all they do and their wives are veterans’ widows. SM (00:47:09): What do you think of veterans who live off the Vietnam War? KC (00:47:15): Live off in what sense. SM (00:47:20): One of the... I am going to put this in the book. But one of the criticisms of the Vietnam Memorial is that Jan Scruggs is... I have heard Vietnam veterans saying he is living off it. KC (00:47:27): Yeah, right. I mean I know what you could be thinking about and I guess I am right. SM (00:47:31): But I know Jan and I know that is not what he said [inaudible]. KC (00:47:36): Those who find a way of subsistence on the issue of Vietnam in some way, whether it is Veterans Affairs in some way or something connected directly to the Vietnam War and the history of it, etc-etc. I do not have any particularly ill will about that, if personally some of those folks are doing it only because they do not want to bother finding another way of making a living. In other words, they are not driven by principle, they are driven by opportunism. Right? I say shame on them, look at yourself and in the mirror and shame on you. But I would not make a big deal out of it, I do not worry about it. The people that I find most reprehensible are those who are so hypocritical in their involvement with the Vietnam War and with Veterans Affairs. That they're prepared to turn their own experiences into a lie in order to continue to profit from it, either financially or politically. Those who are prepared to twist the truth of their own experiences and other experiences in a way in which they get ahead financially, politically, socially, some other way. That kind of opportunity, if they are becoming opportunists by creating more unnecessary bodies or more unnecessary victims. Those are the folks that I potentially dislike. SM (00:49:23): How about the healing within the generation? KC (00:49:27): Yeah, that was the second part. SM (00:49:29): Was there a place to go to the restroom or should I go behind a tree? KC (00:49:39): There is a restroom, of course there is a restroom. Of course, yeah. It is right over here, let us stop this at this point. SM (00:49:43): Talk about the generation regarding the question of healing. KC (00:49:47): Right. SM (00:49:49): Your thoughts on the boomer generations, the divisions of the... Do we still have these divisions today? KC (00:49:55): I think in the fringe wings of the generation, we still have these divisions in a significant way today. That is that they are still deep and they are still bitter, still open wounds. The far left and the far right, I think most folks in between have agreed to disagree if necessary but probably agree more now than they did 20 years ago on a lot of issues. I do not think it is a big problem, I do not think it is anywhere near the kind of problem that it is for a lot of Vietnam veterans. SM (00:50:41): There were several books that have been written in recent years, I know Barney Frank wrote a book called Speaking Frankly. Other books have been written about that, that in 1972 when the nation was really torn apart and McGovern became the Democratic candidate. The divisions were intense even within the Democratic Party and the term liberal- KC (00:51:02): Was pejorative. SM (00:51:03): Well, yeah. Yes. KC (00:51:05): By the radicals according to most activists, if you were a liberal that was pejorative. That meant that you were not prepared to make the kind of sacrifices and engage in the kind of activities that would bring about real change. You just postured that way and you were probably part of the elite and benefiting from the status quo anyway. Part of the system rather than part of the solution. SM (00:51:33): Well supposedly people who were involved in the anti-war movement were labeled a radical fringe and it is stuck with them their whole lives. Do you think there is truth to that? KC (00:51:45): Well, there is certainly truths among those on the right and the hard right that they still think of the anti-war movement as a radical fringe. But I think most people who were involved in one way or another either slightly or intentionally in the anti-war movement. I think for the most part in general American society there is a recognition that the anti-war movement was not just the radical fringe, that it was a bit broader than that. But let me back off from that just a little bit and say that the more time passes, I think the more that myth of the anti-war movement thing, the radical fringe gains ascendancy. Because with passing time there is smaller and smaller space given in history books to that period, and awareness is simplistically deal with it is just to label the war movement a radical fringe and show a picture of a riot with tear gas and students throwing stuff and long hair and etc. SM (00:52:59): Why do you think just the word Vietnam, you just bring it up in a conversation today it creates all kinds of whoa. KC (00:53:10): Well, it depends on who you bring it up among. If you bringing up among folks of the boomer generation, it is going to have that reaction. If you bring that up among the millennials, "Huh? What?" SM (00:53:25): Right. KC (00:53:25): It is not relevant to them. "Yeah, that was my grandfather's war." Well maybe not quite that bad, but to them it is not bad it is a long ways removed. To them the first Persian Gulf War is ancient history [inaudible]. SM (00:53:42): Yeah. KC (00:53:48): As you pointed out, even to some of them 9/11 is ancient history. So yeah, if you are talking about the boomer generation. Sure, there is a sharp immediate reaction to it because of how emotional the issue was then and the fact that it has never been completely settled. In the 1970s, essentially mid to late (19)70s we agreed to disagree in the country as a whole and move on, forget about it. But among those who were the most intentionally involved, either supporting the war or opposing the war. It always remained a sharp issue and an open wound. SM (00:54:33): We had just your thoughts on the word activism. We had for a couple of years activist days at Westchester University, I was asked to politely not to end it. We did it for five years, we brought people like Phillip and Daniel Berrigan to our campus. Elizabeth McAllister, Alan Canfora from Kent State, Tom Hayden. KC (00:54:55): So, it was all left-wing- SM (00:54:56): Holly Near... Oh, no. We did bring Michelle Malkin from the conservative. KC (00:55:01): Okay. SM (00:55:02): So, her activist days of last year, because Republicans they believe that activism is a very important part of what they do, the Young America's Foundation. KC (00:55:12): Sure, yeah. SM (00:55:16): What is it about the term activism that seems to turn people off when we actually want people to become involved? But- KC (00:55:24): Are you talking about students today? SM (00:55:26): Students today. KC (00:55:27): That population? SM (00:55:27): Yeah. Some universities responding to the fact that this is not the era the students they are volunteers, but they are not activists. KC (00:55:36): Right, yeah. SM (00:55:36): There is a fear about that term as I have done some educational sessions that at university conferences on this, and there is truth. There is something out there, and a lot of us within the boomers who are running universities but it is also following generations too. What is it about activism too that scares people? Am I- KC (00:56:00): Well, it might be confrontation. It might be bitter confrontation because they might associate activism with the (19)60s and that kind of bitter, nasty confrontation that they are not interested in becoming involved in. That it became particularly uncivil during that period of time in (19)60s and in early (19)70s, and they feel that they can be more civil. That they can disagree with other people in a more civil way. So that for them to become activists would mean for them to break away from those values. Reject those values and adopt values from an earlier period and an earlier behavior that they think perhaps was not the wisest kind of behavior to engage in. SM (00:56:53): See, the current scholars on the term activism will say that activism is any person who wants to make a difference in this world. KC (00:57:00): You cannot rely on scholars for definitions, they do not even agree among themselves. SM (00:57:06): But even activist handbooks will say that. KC (00:57:09): Yeah [inaudible]. SM (00:57:09): What is wrong with wanting to make a difference in the world? KC (00:57:13): Yeah. There is nothing to the millennials that is wrong with making a difference in the world, but you are not putting it in those terms. If you said to them, we want you to try and make a difference in a world they would probably respond. As a matter of fact, you would not need to tell them that they are already involved and they are already responding trying to make a difference. They just do not particularly want to be associated with the kind of activism that, that word brings up. SM (00:57:43): Good point. When the best history books are written, you being a scholar. The best history books are often written 50 years after an event takes place. World War II books, some of the best ones are being written right now. 50 years after the (19)60s and (19)70s what will historians say about that era? KC (00:58:08): Well, first of all I have a question about your premise here. Who decides which is the best book and maybe it is the generation that lived through that period when they are getting old and awfully as nostalgic decide that the book's written and by their own generation and by them are the best books. How do we know that the books written immediately after the fact, or at the time were not better books? Who judges which of the best books? Well, if you let the generation that lived through that judge the best books they are probably going to judge the ones that they write themselves as the best books. Because that is just a little quiver with that, just sort of a bleak way of thinking of that question. SM (00:58:50): I think historians say that the best books are written 50 years after. KC (00:58:55): Well they probably say that because they believe distance and greater objectivity make for better history books and they may well be true, be right about that. But there are also other historians that believe that perhaps those who were very subjective and very involved in it can also contribute a lot to the history of that. Therefore, things like oral history are written and done. So maybe the best book on depression for instance, was written 40, 50 years later. But I loved Studs Terkel's oral history of the depression, Hard Times. SM (00:59:51): Yeah. KC (00:59:52): That was still written about 40 years afterwards, yeah. But it was all based on oral history and oral history is not objective. It is very subjective, it is the collection of very subjective first-person descriptions about that- SM (01:00:16): And that is in my interviews. KC (01:00:18): That is right, yeah. So, I do not know how to answer the question I guess. I have got a number of possible answers, but I do not know when the best books are written about something. SM (01:00:37): This little section of the interview-interview is just for me to mention some of the names of that period. KC (01:00:41): All right. SM (01:00:42): For your immediate response, does not have to be any long in depth but just quick response- KC (01:00:48): Kind of like a Rorschach? SM (01:00:48): Yes. I am going to start out with Tom Hayden. KC (01:00:53): Jane Fonda. SM (01:00:53): Jane Fonda was next. KC (01:00:54): Yeah. I thought maybe this was the scene from The Dirty Dozen where they were all being asked by psychologist to respond to different names or words or whatever. SM (01:01:07): It is similar. KC (01:01:09): Yeah, Tom Hayden. Jane Fonda. SM (01:01:11): Yeah. KC (01:01:12): Tom Hayden. Well, Tom Hayden to me evokes the era of student protest against the war, although I think he also was involved and may have been a leader in the protest for a free speech in California. SM (01:01:29): It was early on, yep. KC (01:01:30): Right, earlier. Well I think a student protest against the war, I think of Tom Hayden. SM (01:01:35): How about Jane Fonda? KC (01:01:36): Jane Fonda, that is a little more different. A little more personal in the sense that I have a great deal of respect for her for stepping up and siding and supporting Vietnam veterans against the war when she did. I had great regret for her, I feel badly for her that she made a young and foolish decision to sit in the seat of that anti-aircraft gun in North Vietnam. I understand and support her motivations for doing that, which was solidarity with the people that did not deserve to be bombed. But it was not a smart thing for her to do, and especially be pictured in it and be laughing while she's sitting there. But that is a youth... Relatively, she was in her (19)30s at that point. But relatively youthful, inexperienced, and I do not blame her anywhere near the degree that many Vietnam veterans especially the right wing of Vietnam veterans blame her for that. SM (01:02:42): The big selling sticker down in Washington is Jane Fonda bitch, and they have it upside down and they also have a Jane Fonda... Some toiletries or something like that that they sell. KC (01:02:54): Yeah. Jane Fonda toiletry. SM (01:02:56): Yeah, something like that. So, the hate for her is still pretty intense. KC (01:03:00): Yeah. My personal pet theory about that is that that is the macho posturing right wing Vietnam vets that take particular offense that a woman has undercut their experience. SM (01:03:14): Oh, wow. KC (01:03:15): There have been a lot of men who visited North Vietnam and did at least what Jane Fonda did, who have not been singled out by Vietnam veterans the way Jane Fonda has. I think it is particularly interesting it is a woman that they singled out. How dare she? As if she is eviscerated them in some way or cut their balls off in some way and they are going to get her back. SM (01:03:38): Robert McNamara is the other one they seem to hate. KC (01:03:41): Oh, yeah. SM (01:03:41): McNamara and somewhat even when Clinton was president, they hated him too for- KC (01:03:47): Yeah, sure. SM (01:03:47): Yeah. So, your thoughts on Bill Clinton and Robert McNamara. KC (01:03:56): And they hate me too. Robert McNamara, I think that the hatred for him was more than Johnson. That is interesting because Johnson was commander-in-chief, it is not like they hey... Well, Johnson is no longer alive. Who knows? Maybe they'd hate more than McNamara today. I think the hatred for McNamara had more to do with him being so much an architect of that war. SM (01:04:18): Right. KC (01:04:19): At least in terms of the strategy and tactics. That war of attrition, that numbers war, he was a numbers guy, war by the numbers and the impersonal persona. Is that a contradiction, impersonal persona? SM (01:04:39): Mm-mm. KC (01:04:39): But the impersonal image that he presented, although we can learn by looking at his video or his movie that he cries and he is sensitive. SM (01:04:49): Right. KC (01:04:51): But that image that he presented and finally, and I think this is most important. That he actually concluded that the war could not be won long before he stopped directing it and I think it is rightfully in this case felt a certain betrayal, a lack of principle, a certain hypocrisy on his part. SM (01:05:17): Yeah. I remember the six... In Retrospect was the book that came out and my very first interview with Senator McCarthy in (19)96. The book had been out a year or so, and I asked for his comment on the book, and he did not believe him. "I do not believe him." I have that in the interview, and then also- KC (01:05:39): Did not believe that he had [inaudible] against the war. SM (01:05:41): No, he still- KC (01:05:44): There seems to be other I think independent verification of that in the documents now. SM (01:05:48): We still disliked him intensely. KC (01:05:50): Oh, yeah. SM (01:05:50): Then interviewed Bobby Mueller recently in the last year, and Bobby has actually done some things with him. Bobby- KC (01:05:59): With McNamara? SM (01:06:00): Yeah, with McNamara and some programs. So, he would be upset with him, but he's- SM (01:06:03): And some programs and so he would be upset with him, but he has grown to understand him. I am not speaking for Bobby, I get- KC (01:06:08): And not just understand him, work with him- SM (01:06:09): You are right. KC (01:06:10): Too. SM (01:06:10): Yeah. KC (01:06:11): And work in common cause with him on certain issues, maybe the landmines issue. SM (01:06:15): Yeah, I am not quite sure, I have to go back to the interview, but there was not the hatred that I expected and Bobby was to be the first one, I respect him so much. If he's against somebody, he will outright say it and- KC (01:06:27): Sure, but I can understand Bobby Mueller's approach to McNamara because at least McNamara admitted that he was wrong, eventually and has taken a position that is against that kind of wasteful destruction now. SM (01:06:46): What is interesting, why I like Mr. Scruggs and also when Lewis Puller was alive back in... They brought Bill Clinton to the wall and I thought that took a lot of courage on their part to do that, and Lewis would went right up to... With his wheelchair and made sure that he was seen next to Bill Clinton, even though he disagreed with him. Although when- KC (01:07:10): It is also a smart political movement. SM (01:07:12): Yes. KC (01:07:12): Part of Scruggs. SM (01:07:15): Yeah, but also Lewis though, and back in February of 19- KC (01:07:20): Well, wait, you said Lewis? You said was- SM (01:07:21): Yeah, Lewis. KC (01:07:21): Lewis, [inaudible]. SM (01:07:22): Yeah, Lewis was involved in that. And Lewis was up there in the States. Of course, the next year he died, he killed himself, but he had made a point that he was trying to... It was part of the healing process and also I guess in February of that year, some issues between Lewis and other Vietnam vets and President Clinton and promises he had made fell through. So Lewis was pretty bitter, I think, toward Clinton. It was not that same other vets, but I have always found, and I am going to get into the questions here, but what makes the law program so important is they brought some very key people there since 1982, and I think the epitome of healing is to bring the people like McNamara and Jane Fonda to speak there. I think it would do an unbelievable part of Jane Fond and McNamara before he passed away, visited and were there at the ceremony, for example, this 25th anniversary, I'd do anything in my power to bring them to this. KC (01:08:29): I think that if Jane Fonda tried to speak in front of that memorial- SM (01:08:32): I know. KC (01:08:32): There would be some right wings there to try and assassinate her. SM (01:08:36): Well, McNamara too, maybe. KC (01:08:37): Maybe McNamara, but certainly Jane Fonda. They associate Jane, she is the epitome in their eyes of everything that was wrong about Vietnam. SM (01:08:52): Lyndon Johnson. KC (01:08:57): Responsible for Vietnam. Tragic figure. On one hand he did a great deal for civil rights and for the poor in America, but on the other hand, he was so wrong on Vietnam and was... Well, it is a paradox. He is a typical tragic figure. I mean, on one hand, you feel sorry for him. On the other hand, he has to take... I feel anguish towards him too, you just take certain responsibility for that. To some degree, he was a victim of the circumstances, the Cold War. I am not sure any president would have done much differently than he did, so I am not sure we can separate him from any other president, even if Kennedy had lived. I strongly disagree with those historians who say that if Kennedy had... There is evidence, if Kennedy had lived, that he would not have done what Johnson did, that he would have pulled us out or not. Certainly not escalated to the level of using combat battalions and brigades. I disagree, I think that Kennedy was at least as much a politician as Johnson and said different things to different people depending on what he felt they should hear and that he could no more escape the politics of the Cold War than anybody else could at that time. SM (01:10:35): This brings me right in just John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy. KC (01:10:38): Yeah, John Kennedy has to share a great deal of responsibility for what Johnson did because John Kennedy, it was on his watch that the overthrow of Diệm, and the assassination with Diệm took place and in my view, the only reason that overthrow occurred, I will separate the assassination out from it because it is possible that Kennedy wanted Diệm to make it to the Riviera alive. Where the emperor Bao Dai was at that point in time too, where most Vietnamese escape wound up [inaudible]. So, I will separate the assassination part of it, that might have been the officers themselves. The Vietnamese officers had decided to do that, but certainly Kennedy wanted the coup to occur, allowed the coup to occur, gave orders for the coup to occur, whatever you want to call it, helped orchestrate that coup through the CIA. The evidence is absolutely crystal clear and credible that the CIA had everything to do with that, and the only reason they would do that is because Kennedy administration and Kennedy having to take most responsibility with the buck stopping there, it's because they intended to carry on the war only with more American involvement, not less, because Diệm at that point in time was an obstacle to them. He did not want the war Americanized. He was digging in his heels and beginning to even desperately talk, he and his brother talk about some neutralization process and talking to the VC and talking to the North, finding some other way out of it in order to keep that war from becoming so Americanized because Diệm was a nationalist. He had plenty of other false... He was all always a nationalist, and he began to conclude that the Americans were simply replacing the French and wanting to control that area, and the war was going very badly under Vietnam and the only way the Americans felt that they could have a chance of keeping the south from going communist was putting American troops in there. [inaudible] was an obstacle, get them out of the way and then put the troops in. So, I think if Kennedy had lived, he would have done what Johnson did. Maybe not exactly the same way at the same time, but I think he would have... The Democratic Party would not have allowed him to do anything differently because the Democratic Party did not want to be labeled as pro-communist, having lost a yet another country, let Vietnam go after China, they wanted the White House. I do not think there is any point in time where one of those two parties says, nah we do not need the White House. We will stand on principle. Uh-huh. They wanted the White House and they would do what they needed to do in the context of the Cold War. This is not the late (19)60s, this is the early and mid (19)60s, and Kennedy could not have gotten it past the Democratic Party, would not have gotten it past the American Electric... The American society, American public as a whole saying, "Oh, we will let Vietnam go south on us, we will let it go to a communist because we do not want to put American ground troops there." Uh-huh, would not have happened. SM (01:13:59): How about Bobby Kennedy? Just a quick thought on Bobby and- KC (01:14:00): Yeah, just Bobby, I did not know very much about Bobby. Bobby died when I was in Vietnam, he was assassinated. I heard about it as I was in Vietnam. I was around Khe Sanh at the time, in the mountains around Khe Sanh and him, and Martin Luther King. I was in the bush when I heard about it, finally. He seemed to... Well, I could say was he younger seemed to be more idealistic than Robert, or not Robert, than John. Robert was more idealistic than John, I think. Probably not as clever and as realistic politically as John Kennedy was. I think John Kennedy was just politically more bright than Bobby, but I am not sure of that. I think Bobby Kennedy turning any war was opportunistic, probably if he was against the war, it might have been before he ever decided to turn against it publicly. I mean, it might not have anything to do with his decision to publicly come out against it. I think he publicly came out against it because he saw that as the best route to the White House. SM (01:15:12): Yeah, how about Eugene McCarthy? Because I was- KC (01:15:14): Eugene McCarthy, I think was more on principle. That is my impression, but again, I did not work with these guys, I was too young, my sense of it is far less direct. My experience with it is far less direct and far less knowledgeable even as a scholar than most of the other questions I have asked so far. I just have not spent a whole lot of time looking at either Bobby Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy. SM (01:15:41): You got Hubert Humphrey in there and you have got- KC (01:15:43): Oh, I got arrested over Hubert Humphrey. SM (01:15:45): Yeah. KC (01:15:46): Hubert Humphrey was running for president in (19)70... The primary in (19)72, and I got arrested as VVAW in Philadelphia here protesting at his speech because he was not anti-war enough. He was still trying to keep one foot in each camp in (19)72, and the government was a clear anti-war candidate, and we supported McGovern and opposed Humphrey, and I got arrested for civil disobedience. That is my immediate association with Hubert Humphrey. SM (01:16:16): Yeah, [inaudible] your thoughts of George McGovern, because we have had him on our campus. KC (01:16:20): Yeah. McGovern is a highly principled, is he still alive? SM (01:16:25): Oh yeah. KC (01:16:25): I think he is, yeah. Highly principled, a good guy, hearts in a right place. He made few mistakes in his presidential campaign just in terms of tactics that alienated them, but now without doing a close study of that, it was an overwhelming victory for Nixon. It is a landslide for Nixon. McGovern only won Massachusetts. There had to be other things that went wrong with that campaign, or perhaps in the McGovern's case, he simply had to be prepared to sacrifice the White House for principal. I think he was, and I think it was only because there was a revolution within the Democratic Party at the (19)72 convention that enabled grassroots people to get leadership pissed off Daley, as I recall, John Daley, because his whole delegation I think was unseated or something at that convention. But they got control of it, and that is the only kind of leadership in a Democratic Party, and it's an anomaly, that kind of leadership that would say, we would rather lose the White House than sacrifice this principle. I do not think they thought that- SM (01:17:47): You see any of that- KC (01:17:49): They prepared to take that risk. SM (01:17:50): You see any of that in the candidates today in the Republican or Democratic? KC (01:17:53): I am a governed kind of approach that it is better to- SM (01:17:55): Yes. KC (01:17:56): No, I do not see any of those candidates that way. None of them stick out to me as being that way. I think they are all more political than not. When it comes down divide between principle and... If [inaudible] gets in a race, I might lean towards him being more principal because I think he has grown a lot and come a long way, but I do not trust any of the rest of them if it came down to a division between principal and winning to go with principal and risk losing. SM (01:18:30): Okay. How about... These are some quick responses to Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers general thought. KC (01:18:42): Some of the most tragic figures in the left and some of the most tragic history. Those with the most grievances and the most legitimate grievances in American society, winding up using some of the worst tactics, embracing violence, seeing violence as the only way to do it. Tragic in that sense that it backfired on them and they suffered personally. The movement, the black liberation movement of that time suffered as a whole and the left suffered as a whole, but... Well, I also have a lot of understanding too. I do not understand it the way a black person can understand it, the way a poor black person can understand it, but I was a poor white kid and I can understand at least some of it, some of the rage, economics, feeling of isolation from the system and the powers at be, opportunities forever closed off or pretty much forever closed off. At least poor white kids had some opportunity, poor black kids had virtually nothing. But the opportunities for poor white kids were nowhere near what it was for middle class white kids. Poor white kids did not know anything about conscientious objection and how to go about doing it. Whereas we're simply getting into the National Guard, or getting into college and getting a deferment that way. SM (01:20:19): Dr. King, particularly with his speech in Vietnam on the go. KC (01:20:23): Yeah see, I did not realize that until many years later how eloquent and how thoughtful he had become on the war. I knew he had turned against the war publicly, not long before he was assassinated, but it was only in later years that I actually read some of the speeches from around that time and saw how truly sharp, at least according to what I read, how truly sharp his thinking and how much courage he had to speak that way regarding in particular America's role in the world at that time. Because to go beyond Vietnam to America's role in the world as a whole was the step that most of the left did not even go because it was focused so narrowly on Vietnam as a foreign policy, as a foreign affair, and King recognized that America had become the greatest purveyor of violence. It might have been even been his phrase, I forget exactly the phrase, but the greatest generator of violence in the world by that point in time. He was essentially saying, we are the bad guys, not just in Vietnam, but in general, in the world, we have to change our attitude about intervention and opposing every indigenous struggle because by calling it communism, whether it's in Asia, Africa, Latin America, I mean, it was pretty far-reaching kind of conclusion he came and a decision he made to say it. SM (01:22:13): He had a lot of courage, I was talking with a couple civil rights leaders on our campus this past year, and no one has written a book on Dr. King in Vietnam. KC (01:22:22): Oh, that is a great idea. SM (01:22:24): There has been a lot of books on Dr. King and his speech is well known. KC (01:22:28): I am going to talk to David Cortright and ask him if he... Do you know who David Cortright is? SM (01:22:28): No. KC (01:22:33): Okay. David Cortright's a former active duty GI leader soldier, Soldiers in Revolt is a well-known book of his from that time. He is now a professor at Notre Dame, and if there was ever a face on the GI movement, it was David Cortright. So, I mean, he was probably the most famous leader of the GI movement against the war, and that is how I first met him, because I was one of the mid to higher level leaders in the- SM (01:23:05): Is he still at Notre Dame? KC (01:23:06): Vietnam vet. Yeah, he is associated with it. There is the Four Freedoms Foundation, and he is the director of it is called, so that is the way he would find them on the internet. Four Freedom Foundation, either the fourth freedom or four freedoms might be the Fourth Freedom, try either one of those. SM (01:23:22): Okay. KC (01:23:22): Or just Cortright, C O R T R I G H T. SM (01:23:29): Okay. KC (01:23:29): David Cortright. And David is a great follower of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and he would be ideal to write this, he just published his memoirs on nonviolence. So, David Cortright did. SM (01:23:42): Oh, really? KC (01:23:42): On nonviolence and the anti-war movement and just in a movements in general. SM (01:23:46): Is that Notre Dame Press or? KC (01:23:48): No, that is paradigm. It is my own press, it is the same press that [inaudible]- SM (01:23:52): That is out now? KC (01:23:54): Yeah, it came out before mine did. Matter of fact, I used his as a model for when I was doing my citation, so I wanted to get the paradigm citation process right, I simply used his as an example. SM (01:24:06): What are your thoughts on the, again, just quick responses, the Berrigan brothers? Daniel and Philip. KC (01:24:11): Yeah. Again, great contributors, highly principled people. They were clearly religious, and it is something that I am not. I was born and raised Catholic, but I lost God in a fox whole. I began doubting a higher being when I looked around me and saw what was going on and all of the myths, religious myths, they became more and more unsupportable to me as I came more directly in contact with the worst of reality. You know what I mean? And plus, that whole Catholic upbringing in a Catholic Church reflected to me and represented to me the rigidness of the conventional life that produced the conventional society, the conventional structure and leadership that produced Vietnam. And I saw many of [inaudible], people like Cardinal Spellman blessing the bombers before they go off for, I do not want to go into great details there. There's some personal connections to include my uncle [inaudible]- SM (01:25:27): Did you become an atheist? KC (01:25:28): Atheist in the sense that I- SM (01:25:31): Or agnostic? KC (01:25:32): Yeah, I do not have a positive belief in God. It is possible that God exists, but if I am wrong about... I do not think it is going to be any big thing, because I think it is most important that you live your life in the best way you can, that you live a good life, that you be good to other people and try and be good yourself, do not always live up to it. But I think that the essence of every religion I accept, which is to do the right thing, that short, sweet version of what is his name? The black film producer, do the right thing. SM (01:26:20): Spike Lee. KC (01:26:20): Spike Lee, in a tradition of [inaudible], just do the right thing. And I think you could gather every serious and sincere religious person to gather around that same thing. Do the right thing, I believe in doing the right thing, that is my religion. Do the right thing- SM (01:26:34): Dr. Benjamin- KC (01:26:34): Of course, I do not always live up to it. SM (01:26:35): Dr. Benjamin Spock. KC (01:26:39): Benjamin Spock, baby doctor? I mean, that is how I associate... Well, I know that through reading and history that he was... And I might, if I taxed myself, recollect, but I cannot trust my recollection that he was connected in the Air War movement. I now know that he was. But no other recollections beyond that. SM (01:26:54): Well, I think this [inaudible], did not it? Yeah, it did. It all is still going. It was... Cannot tell. No, that good click, I heard it. Amazing. Well, it is still in the middle. KC (01:27:11): It is on a very slow speed. SM (01:27:14): Yeah, that is a very slow speed, did not know. KC (01:27:16): Yeah. You wind up, I think with less quality though, when you have it that slow speed, right? SM (01:27:23): Not sure, just something is wrong with this. I think this one comes out fine. KC (01:27:29): All right. SM (01:27:29): Abby Hoffman, Jerry Ruben, the Yippies. KC (01:27:32): Assholes. SM (01:27:32): Okay. KC (01:27:41): Yeah, assholes. Infantile leftist, people who might have had their heart initially in a right place when they decided to oppose things like the war and the establishment, but certainly were silly, stupid, infantile. To me, they were taking middle class tantrums. This was a middle or upper middle class tantrum, carry on the way they did. And they did great destruction to the image of the anti-war movement in the minds of middle America out there. Their thing was to goof on Middle America. SM (01:28:19): They got [inaudible] as the pig to run as president. KC (01:28:23): Yeah, they had no respect for middle America. SM (01:28:25): Malcolm X. KC (01:28:27): Malcolm X, militant, extremist. They are the words I think of first for my oldest, and my oldest recollection of that name from when I was much younger when I was a kid, fear. We in working class white America, row house, inner City America, and the white neighborhoods feared Malcolm X and black militants. In particular, the black Muslims because they were armed and they were fiery and they were angry, and they predated the Black Panthers. I mean, the Black Panthers, as we talked about it, adopted some violent tactics himself. But I have a better appreciation since then, since my earliest experiences listening to on a radio or seeing on television or reading about the black Muslims and Malcolm X, that this guy... Another tragic figure, this guy was attempting to do something for his people who were clearly wronged and perhaps in the most extreme cases, did not use the best approach, made strategic errors. But I do not know a great deal about them, I have never read a biography of them. I have not studied him. So I begin with my sense of him from when I was a kid in a racist white neighborhood of fearing him and fearing that riot that took place in 1964, I think it was in north Philadelphia, which spread up to our neighborhood, it was only a few blocks away. And to the point of better understanding, respect, but also a tragic sense of, it is a shame that he was not able to adopt the methods of a Martin Luther King and strengthened King's movement. SM (01:30:50): Of course, he was changing toward the end of his life. I think there is a direct link between that change and his death. KC (01:30:58): Yeah, sure. SM (01:30:58): Yep. Timothy Leary. KC (01:31:02): Acid, something I never used and never wanted to use because I was afraid I would not be able to control my Vietnam nightmares and my temper and my anger and my violence if I ever took acid. But that is what I associated him with. SM (01:31:16): How bad were drugs in Vietnam? KC (01:31:18): Well, not acid, geez when I was in Vietnam, grass was the thing. (19)68, early (19)69 grass was everywhere. I did not know at the time, I came in a complete novice, a complete virgin to drugs and learned while I was there that grass was ubiquitous and that a significant portion of the guys in Vietnam when they were off duty, downtime in a relatively safe area, smoked dope. And then I eventually got involved with some of those folks and started to smoke myself, that is where I was initiated into. But the heroin that eventually racked the armed forces in Vietnam did not make it is entry until well after I left. It really did not become a big thing until 1970. And those who have tracked that story, who have researched and told that story many years ago, in fact, like Alfred McCoy for instance, in his classic book, the Heroin in Southeast Asia, I think it was called, or was it the heroin Traffic... I forget the exact name. I have a copy of it on my bookshelf. But it showed that, in fact, the big influx of it was almost overnight. The big influx of it took place sometime in 19... It might have been a spring of 1970 now. It was there before then, but it was as well as opium [inaudible], it was pretty much relegated to the Vietnamese or the Chinese ethnic minority in Vietnam. It was not popular among American troops, but Heroin did become popular tragically after about spring of 19- SM (01:33:24): Just in continuing the names here. KC (01:33:26): Yeah. SM (01:33:28): Ralph Nader. KC (01:33:30): Just [inaudible]. I do not have much to say about that. SM (01:33:36): Daniel Ellsberg. KC (01:33:38): He is one of my heroes with the Pentagon Papers, former Marine. I have to be sympathetic to the former Marine. A guy that certainly did his time in Vietnam as an advisor, and then worked in the Pentagon and got access to the papers and based on conscience, the people who follow their conscience I have a lot of respect for, who do the right thing, put the principle over personal advantage, and he is one of them. I have a lot of respect for him. SM (01:34:13): Now, you have mentioned a couple people that had that conscience to the effect of Daniel Ellsberg, can you just list some other ones from that era? For who you think [inaudible]. KC (01:34:22): Martin Luther King, certainly George McGovern, Bobby Muller, certainly. SM (01:34:27): Oh yes, definitely. KC (01:34:32): People who followed their conscience and risked a lot or maybe even sacrificed a lot to do that. Yeah, they are my heroes. I do not want to waste your tape sitting here, trying to think of more negatives, but I could come up with more if it was necessary. SM (01:34:50): George Wallace. KC (01:34:53): Never liked his politics, certainly he was a racist, but he was coming around at least to some kind of a conciliatory politics near the end of his life. Just he represents a negative image in my mind. SM (01:35:08): Richard Nixon. KC (01:35:10): Oh boy, tricky dick. I harbor more dislike... Hate. Okay, hate for Richard Nixon than I do for LBJ. Richard Nixon, as far as I am concerned, was far more responsible for prolonging that war than even most people understand and did absolutely everything he could to not only keep the war going, but hurt those who were legally and morally trying to oppose it back home. He was absolutely vindictive, absolutely. Vindictive is the word I could think of that would most associate- SM (01:36:00): Was the enemy's list as real as we... As it stated it is real in the history books? KC (01:36:08): Yes. He went after people and he had his executive branch bureaus and agencies go after people. So, it is well documented, whether it is IRS people he used, or military intelligence or CIA. I mean, it does not matter. And he used them illegally. I mean, the records clear on that. SM (01:36:42): This gets into the whole issue of the imperial presidency, there has been a book... Well, I cannot forget who worked with him now, the imperial presidency. KC (01:36:52): Oh, it is Schlesinger. It is Arthur Schlesinger. SM (01:36:52): Arthur Schlesinger. KC (01:36:52): Yeah, classic. SM (01:36:53): When did the imperial presidency begin? And where would you rate Nixon in that? KC (01:37:01): Well, I think you have to look at the 20th century as the era of imperial presidency. SM (01:37:09): FDR on? KC (01:37:10): No, even earlier than that. I would start with Wilson because of World War I and then FDR following him because of the Depression first and then World War II. It's the whole sense of national crisis and the need to centralize power in a national crisis. The willingness of the American society as a whole to defer in a special period and an emergency period and a period of real national crisis to a smaller and smaller group of people to make decisions so that they are able to do it quickly and with authority and with unity and all of those aspects one needs to have when dealing with an emergency. If there are 18 of you in a lifeboat and you are out there in the middle of the ocean, you cannot have 18 leaders. You have to figure out some way of pointing the boat and come up with somebody to make a decision. So, if there is a real national crisis, whether it is a world war or a great depression, the natural human, and in our political system, systemic tendency, and I do not think it's just in our political system, I think it is in any political system, the tendency is for a very frightened national population to want something to be done quickly about it. And the only way you can do that is by streamlining, even if it takes some temporary tweaking of the system legally to streamline the decision making so that decisions can be made effectively and quickly. Now that- KC (01:39:03): Well, that I think is not only natural for human beings to do and for political systems to do in general, but it is necessary, because you are talking about survival here. If it is a true national crisis, not a manufactured one. The problem was that, is that when the crisis lets up, you have to go back to normalcy, and you have to let loose those, peel back away those emergency powers that you have, the society has temporarily allowed the executive to take, the president in this case to take. And you have to be, and this is even more important, doubly on guard that some individual president, some president does not manufacture a crisis for you and usurp that authority and scare the hell out of the public with a pretend crisis. SM (01:40:02): Which the Gulf of Tonkin was, was not it? KC (01:40:05): Well, that is what I would say. Sure, yeah. Yeah. It was the creation of a national crisis. So, I think that is where the imperial presidency went wrong. I would not fault either Wilson or FDR for the powers they drew to themselves and used in those two world wars or the Depression, in the case of FDR, economically and socially, and during the Depression. Even in the areas where they overstepped their constitutional rights, because in those circumstances, the public was at least sympathetic, if not outright support of the president doing it, taking the actions he did, he took, and most of Congress generally agreed and did not, so that if you have got the public and Congress not objecting, the president can get away with it. And the President gets away with it, because, gee, it is a real crisis. And we have to survive. But once you are out of that crisis mode, and the Cold War was the structure that enabled fake crises to occur, you have abuse of those powers. And you have the runaway imperial presidency. SM (01:41:21): I know Tom Eagleton, he just passed away recently. He wrote a book on the role of the president to declare war. And it is a really good book. And the question always gets to me is we all knew about Wayne Morse, and I think the Senator from Alaska who- KC (01:41:41): Yeah, [inaudible]. SM (01:41:41): [inaudible] KC (01:41:44): It begins with a J. SM (01:41:46): They were against the war, but the other- KC (01:41:48): Gravel. SM (01:41:48): Yeah, but the other- KC (01:41:49): Was it Gravel? SM (01:41:50): No, not Gravel. KC (01:41:51): Oh, I am thinking of someone else. SM (01:41:52): Yeah, they were against the war. But the other (19)98, it was Wayne, because then of course you had Senator Fulbright and his challenge, and we all know what happened to him when he challenged President Johnson. And then Gaylord Nelson and that whole group. But why it took so long for Congress to... I guess- KC (01:42:13): Well, Congress- SM (01:42:14): Congress should have done more. KC (01:42:16): ... Congress is the sackless branch for no small reason. It does not have a backbone, in general. The exceptions or the principle, ones that will sacrifice their political careers for principle. But in general, just the way Congress is made, just the way it is instituted. It has meant to follow public opinion. It has meant to follow the electorate. It was the one that most closely represents the population, and it has meant to be a check on the tyranny of the executive. But that has a downside. The upside is that, yeah, it checks the tyranny of the executive. The downside is you cannot lead with 535 people trying to represent their constituencies, so that Congress defers in periods of crisis. And Congress defers because it knows its own constituency wants Congress to defer in a crisis, in a true national crisis. If it turns out to be a fake national crisis, first of all, Congress has to be convinced it is fake. And they generally give the benefit of the doubt to the executive, which the population does. And even if they have the evidence that they, Congress have as elites, and they are elites, have evidence that it is a fake crisis, they still will hesitate, because of opportunism, they want to keep their political careers, to go against the President, so long as the people yet do not know that it's a fake, have not arrived at the conclusion it is a fake crisis. And they may even hesitate to inform their people to let the secret out of the bag because they are afraid of what it might do to the system and to their nice state seat. So, there is a lot going against principle here. SM (01:44:16): Maybe- KC (01:44:16): There is a lot of structure, a lot of history, a lot of just human character going against principle here, so that I do not think we should be surprised. We should not accept it, that we still should be surprised that Congress is a sackless branch. SM (01:44:35): Wow. Yeah, it is interesting. Just bringing up, there should be some sort of test given to every leader that goes into Congress, the profiles and courage test. KC (01:44:44): Oh, sure. Yeah. Absolutely. SM (01:44:46): Require them to read the book. And if you do not pass this, you cannot be our senator or our Congressman. KC (01:44:50): Absolutely. That is right. And any elected official presidents too should be required to read that book. I was tempted to write a book not long ago called Profiles In Cowardice. SM (01:45:04): That would be an interesting thing, because I think students need to see the other side, because students do want- KC (01:45:10): And give clear examples of when you had people who should have stepped up, and did not. SM (01:45:15): Yep. Yeah. KC (01:45:16): The causes of that. SM (01:45:17): Yeah. In fact, I know that Caroline Kennedy wrote another follow-up book to her dad, which is a very good book, of people that she felt, and they give the Profiles In Courage award up at the Kennedy Library every year. And I remember reading the one about the congressman from Alabama, I forget his name. He wrote a book. He has passed away since, but I had never heard of this guy, and he got the award, so I wanted to, I never heard of this man. And then, he lost his seat because he was a man of conscience, and he has unheard of. And he got the award. He was in a wheelchair. KC (01:45:52): Yeah, very-very rare case. SM (01:45:53): Right. He was a Southern congressman who lost everything. And he was, yeah, Republican just does not act that way. KC (01:45:56): Yeah. SM (01:45:57): So, Spiro Agnew. KC (01:46:04): Spiro Agnew, what a reprehensible guy. What was that term he used? Effete snobs or something like that? In describing at least the leadership of the left. Well, of course, he... I say of course, because I know better now. Of course, he was right to a limited degree that the leadership of the left was pretty much upper class and to some degree opportunistic. But there were a lot of people in the leadership that worked, of the left, that were not. And I am sure the vast majority of people who followed the leadership were not effete snobs. So yeah, this guy was a... Agnew was, I put him at the level of the gutter. SM (01:47:05): He was [inaudible]. Let us see, some of the other, Gerald Ford? KC (01:47:10): Tragic kind of guy. He was a caretaker. Gil Scott Heron referred to him many years ago as Oatmeal Man on a... part of a record he called, Pardon me, Mr. President, a great rift he did. And I could not forget that. Could not help remember that when they were doing all of these eulogies honoring Ford after he died. And I kept thinking, "Boy." It's not that he was a bad guy, but he was not all that good. He was brought on because he was neither. He was as bland as you could be. And the system produced that. I mean, and the system needed that at that point in time. They needed somebody to follow in the heels of Vietnam and Watergate that would not divide the country further. And the country was so divided that they had to find somebody that the Democrats and Republicans could support, because after all, you are talking about somebody who was not elected either to vice president or to president. And that is the other anomaly. It is not just the end of Vietnam and Watergate, but it's also making somebody president who was never elected to either of those offices, president or vice president. And they knew when they brought Gerald Ford in as vice president, that the president was not going to be around for very much longer. I mean, they were pretty much sure of that. So, they knew that he would be, so that is why they chose him. He was a tweener. He was a bridge. He was just, in that sense, he had a strength in that he could accommodate both sides in a principled way. I think he was probably a pretty principled guy, but he was tragic in a sense that he got to clean up after all that. SM (01:48:56): How about Jimmy Carter? Because when Jimmy Carter came in, he- KC (01:49:00): Oh, Jimmy. SM (01:49:00): ... pardoned all the... KC (01:49:01): Yeah. SM (01:49:03): Does he play into any of this? KC (01:49:04): Well, that was a good move on his part, and that was courageous of him. But his courage was limited. Carter's idealistic side has always been overplayed since he has left office. We tend to think of him now as the kindly human rights, Habitat for Humanity, healing, elderly statesman. And everything he has done in those realms is good, and I will give him credit for that. But he also has to take responsibility for some of the nastier stuff he did, which was to become a born again warrior, Cold warrior when he heard the footsteps of Ronald Reagan getting closer and closer in 1979 and 1980. Because we have Jimmy Carter to thank for the B-1 bomber, for registration for the draft, for increasing the size of the military, for much of the militarization that Reagan then launched into was begun by Jimmy Carter, who finally, "Saw the light," in his words of the Soviet bear after 1979, 1980, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a crushing of solidarity, that kind of thing. You have a guy, who for a short period of time, becomes the most saber-rattling warrior that, just as bad as any one of the Cold War presidents for a very short period of time, because then he loses the election, and he has to leave office. But it not only coincides with increasing of crises with the Soviet Union. If one were to be overly kind, one would say, well, he got that way because he actually saw what was going on around. But I think more tellingly coincided with the poll numbers getting closer and closer between him and Ronald Reagan. He tried out to out-Reagan Reagan, and nobody does that. SM (01:51:13): Yeah. You lead right into Reagan, because Reagan has got a history here too, as the governor of California, disliked by students at Berkeley and a lot of students around the country. He seems to be a voice that symbolizes the establishment. And then, of course, with being president. And then that whole issue, even when George Bush is vice president, when he came in, I think it was George Bush Sr. who said, "The Vietnam Syndrome is over." KC (01:51:41): Yeah. Well, he said that when he was president. SM (01:51:43): Oh, he did say that as president? KC (01:51:44): Yeah. He said that at the end of the first Gulf War. SM (01:51:46): Yeah. KC (01:51:47): "We finally kicked the Vietnam Syndrome," that is the quote. SM (01:51:49): Yep. KC (01:51:50): Well, he was full of crap on that issue. He just did not understand it as well as some of us who have spent so much time looking at it. But in fact, that that experience that he was summing up, that first Gulf War in 1991, reaffirmed the Vietnam Syndrome. It did not undercut it at all. At least it reaffirmed that, certainly among those in the military who believed that they learned lessons from the Vietnam War, which was to sort of the Powell Doctrine approach, which was to make sure that not only you have sufficient military strength to go after your enemy, but you win over the public, you win over Congress, that there is a real national commitment, yada, yada, yada. All of that was strengthened by the Persian Gulf War, so that, and historians now looking back at that period have come to a consensus that in fact it did strengthen the Vietnam Syndrome, because it was still around during the 1990s. It did not go away during the 1990s. SM (01:53:03): That is why when you talk about Vietnam period and why people have such an alarming reaction, obviously, is all the activism and all the other things. But so many lessons can be learned about how we deal with people, how you build trust, the concept of serving your country and what it truly means. KC (01:53:26): Yeah, and a lot of them are bad lessons. SM (01:53:28): Yeah, a lot of bad lessons, but a lot- KC (01:53:30): I mean, in the sense that you have a lot of contradictory lessons. SM (01:53:31): ... You learn a lot about human nature. Yeah. KC (01:53:34): As you know from my book, that it depends on who you ask as to what the set of lessons are. And they often conflict with each other. There are too many lessons of Vietnam, and they contradict each other. SM (01:53:44): What are your thoughts on Barry Goldwater and the conservative movement, the Bill Buckleys, and American, some of the things that really upset a lot of conservatives in the last couple years, so, I interviewed Lee Edwards and a couple other people, is that they have been totally left out of the anti-war movement. The Young Americans for Freedom were against the war. There were conservatives that were against the war. KC (01:54:10): I did not realize that. SM (01:54:10): Yeah. And- KC (01:54:11): They were probably Libertarians, right? Are you talking about against the Vietnam War or against- SM (01:54:14): Against the Vietnam War. KC (01:54:15): Yeah. Yeah. I did not realize that. Perhaps they were against it because they thought it was not being fought properly. Perhaps they were against it because they did not think enough force was used. SM (01:54:25): How important was Barry Goldwater in this era, though? Because he- KC (01:54:28): Oh, he was critically important in the sense that he was what Johnson feared on the right. Johnson feared the left, and Johnson feared the right, and tried to split the difference. And Goldwater was his fear on the right, so that in Johnson's mind, it seems to me, gradually escalating with ground troops beat the hell out of dropping the nuclear device on Hanoi, which he thought Goldwater, or some people thought Goldwater wanted to do. But it also was a hell of a lot more acceptable than just saying, "Well, we will give up Vietnam. We will withdraw." And in Johnson's view, that is that world, Munich appeasement lesson that you do not accept peace at any price. You have to take a firm stand, or sooner or later the Red menace will be in Isla Vista or Long Island or somewhere like that. SM (01:55:30): What about Muhammad Ali? KC (01:55:33): Muhammad Ali. SM (01:55:33): Cassius Clay. KC (01:55:34): One of my heroes, and I remember when he was Cassius Clay, I followed. As a young kid I loved... I paid some attention to boxing, and I loved Cassius Clay. I loved Rubin Hurricane Carter, Cassius Clay, and Benny Kid Paret, who was a Philadelphia fighter who died in the ring, yeah. SM (01:55:52): He died. Yeah. I did a paper on him in college on against boxing. KC (01:55:58): Cassius Clay, yeah. I certainly did not understand his whole black Muslim conversion and his refusal to accept be drafted, because again, I was the kid and a teenager in a white working class, largely racist neighborhood that was afraid of any militant blacks. Anybody from a black community took not only a firm stand, but a firm militant stand, who was willing to fight, and that was my sense at that time. But that is a gap in between my admiration, beginning with Cassius Clay and then carrying on after I got back from Vietnam, of course, and turned against the war. But also just as a boxer, his comeback. I would listened to the radio in 1976 to that Zaire fight. SM (01:56:55): Oh, yeah. KC (01:56:55): You could not watch it on television, but I listened to the round by round summary of it when the radio broadcasted summaries of it from Zaire. I just loved that, that rope-a-dope thing. I was a big Cassius Clay fan. SM (01:57:14): Do you think- KC (01:57:14): [inaudible] Muhammad Ali fan. SM (01:57:16): When you look at his stand against the Vietnam War, boy, some people go after him, but some admire him when he would fall into your conscience? KC (01:57:28): Well, I admire him now because I have a different take on the war now than I did when I was a kid, when he was, I think it was in (19)67, was not it? That he refused to go to the draft? SM (01:57:40): Yes. KC (01:57:42): And I was a senior in high school, and then in bootcamp, and then preparing to go to Vietnam. That was my whole 1967. And my only impression of Cassius Clay was from the neighborhood and from my family background, from the social era, social milieu that I was in. And I was very apprehensive and put off by Clay's... I was disappointed in him. I thought that a great fighter like that, I could not understand it. It was just too much for me to grasp. SM (01:58:25): But when he beat Sonny Liston, I know, I thought nobody beat Sonny Liston. That guy was a- KC (01:58:29): Yeah, he was huge. I remember seeing Floyd Patterson knock out Ingemar Johansson, and the film reel at the movies in between, and I will never forget it, and out cold on the floor. His foot shook. He had those tremors or whatever they call them. I was a big fan of boxing. SM (01:58:56): We cannot, been just mentioning men, but people like Gloria Steinem. I have only got about 10 more minutes. Gloria Steinem and the leaders of the women's movement. Your thoughts on... KC (01:59:07): I think first of people like Bella Abzug and Betty Friedan. They, to me, were the earlier ones. And Gloria Stein probably was around or right after them, or right, maybe the later part. That was also something that I had trouble grasping, understanding, did not get on a visceral level or a gut level or an immediate reaction level at first, but all of this was taking place in the context of me becoming anti-war. And I began to adopt the politics of the left in general, and have a far more open mind there to some of the things I did not immediately get, and therefore became acceptable and tried to understand and incorporate that in the way I lived and the way I understood the world. But it was not on the same sort of gut level as Vietnam. SM (02:00:05): What are your thoughts that some of the women complain about of that era, is that in the anti-war movement and the Civil Rights Movement, women were secondary figures? That men were male dominant, and they put women in secondary roles, and that is a lot of the reason why the women went out on their own to create the women's movement, because the secondary rules in both of those movements. KC (02:00:29): Well, I think it is true in general, and it is true in particular in most organizations, but that is not the end of the answer, because it was more or less true with certain organizations in certain periods. I think that if you are talking about (19)66, (19)67, you're going to find a lot more of that. If you are talking about (19)70, (19)71, you are going to find a whole lot less of that, because women were being far more assertive and taking leadership roles, if not on a national level, at least on a local and regional level, a lot more. And it depends on the organization too. For instance, resistance, which was based in Philadelphia, resistance to the draft, and they had the Omega as the sign [inaudible]. SM (02:01:14): Oh, yeah. Right. KC (02:01:16): And Vietnam Veterans Against the War were very close. They supported us a lot because they worked with active duty GIs. That was their specialty at Fort Dix, at the Naval Hospital, other military bases. They did GI organizers, and they knew that the better they got to know us, the better they could speak to the GIs. Or perhaps they just knew by working with the GIs how to relate to us when we came back. And we actually shared offices together, we socialized with each other, etc. And that was a largely women's organization, all women in leadership there. SM (02:01:48): Very good. KC (02:01:49): And they actually taught us a lot about how to deal with women in the movement. I mean, I was not familiar with women who did not shave their legs and did not shave their armpits until I met women from resistance and did not wear bras. By that point, most young women were not wearing bras. SM (02:02:07): Right. KC (02:02:07): So, that became fairly common in the culture at that time. SM (02:02:11): Right. KC (02:02:12): But what was not common in the culture was having really hairy legs and really hairy armpits. SM (02:02:18): You see that over in Europe and Germany. KC (02:02:20): That is right. It was very European- SM (02:02:21): Yeah, very European. KC (02:02:23): But it became strong among women who were strong and on the left in America. SM (02:02:30): We have a professor. I will not even mention her name. I'd better not. KC (02:02:34): Yeah. Okay. Not on tape. SM (02:02:35): Not on tape though. Finally, the Watergate Committee people, Sam Ervin, Baker Thompson, even Weiker, the Watergate Committee- KC (02:02:47): Yeah, I know them well. SM (02:02:48): Just your thoughts. John Dean and that whole situation there. KC (02:02:52): Well, I am so happy Congress stepped up and took a leading role in that case. It may sound as though what I just said contradicts something earlier, that the Congress cannot lead because they are the sackless branch, 535 them, etc. But there are exceptions, and again, national crisis, but in this case, created by an imperial presidency creates the room for Congress to be that exception. Does not mean that Congress will automatically step into that vacuum, but the vacuum and real leadership in a crisis, because it is clear to much of the nation, most of the nation, the president's taking the wrong direction, Congress has to step up and fill in that vacuum, because there is not no other branch to do it. The Supreme Court by its very nature is passive and waits for cases to be brought to it, and cannot play that kind of leadership role. So, it has to be. If the imperial executive is leading in the wrong direction, and not only manufacturing a national crisis that was not there, but creating a national crisis because of the imperial presidency, then Congress had better step up. And in this case, the Watergate Committee and much of the new leadership and that, old leadership and new leadership, the Joe Biden and so forth, that were brand new coming in, and that Vietnam generation that came in, they stepped up and they played a good role, but it took also others, like good leadership among some principled, courageous journalists to do that. And it took the conditions of the American public being prepared to support that too, being not only ready but overripe for that kind of thing. Because again, Congress, the limit, even in a national crisis created by an imperial president, the Congress is still going to want to make sure that they have their asses covered in some way before they step out there, and the coverage is to have public support for it. SM (02:05:02): When did the (19)60s begin? When was the magic moment when the (19)60s began? By the way- KC (02:05:07): In my view? Or history's view? SM (02:05:09): By the way, my book's title is going to be The Magic Moment. KC (02:05:14): Yeah. Are you talking about in my personal view or in history? SM (02:05:16): No, in your personal view, what do you think was the beginning of the (19)60s and when did the (19)60s end? Was there an incident? Was there a happening? KC (02:05:28): For me, the (19)60s began as the (19)60s that we know and love or hate, depending on what their perspective is, in 1965, when I first sat around late at night listening to a Bob Dylan album, as people around me were drinking and smoking dope and talking about controversial issues. I forget whether it was about the war or civil rights, but clearly had a non-establishment, if not an anti-establishment attitude. And that occurred at a Benedictine seminary. SM (02:06:09): Oh, my God. KC (02:06:11): My uncle's Benedictine seminary. It was a monastery, but they trained seminarians there, Benedictine seminarians in Hingham, Massachusetts. My uncle was the abbot. SM (02:06:24): Oh, my God. KC (02:06:24): And I was up there with my brother as guests for their annual picnic, and after the picnic was over, and after everything was cleaned up, and people were going to bed, some of the young seminarians asked if we wanted to join them in the tower, which they had this big tower. They still have it there, big stone tower. You could hang out in the tower, and just talk and hang out. Well, they were playing Dylan. I mean, I was Motown all the way or-or classic rock or whatever you want to call it, and they are drinking, and they are passing joints around, and they are talking about social issues. And in a clearly critical way, as their attitude. I mean, this blew my mind. Now, after that, left and went right back to my own very conventional working-class situation. That did not change me, but that was my first peek at it. That was my first peek at an alternate, alternative lifestyle. Let us put it that way. If I were to pick anything, that is the one thing I can think of, the very first glimpse of an alternative lifestyle. And after all, that is what the (19)60s was supposed to be about. SM (02:07:51): Right. It is like my brother, when he got married in 1985, the priest that married him was young, and his music he played in his office was Led Zeppelin. KC (02:08:06): Oh, Jesus. SM (02:08:06): My brother said, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" He was a legend. KC (02:08:11): By the way, if my uncle ever had gotten wind around, he would have had a stroke. Honest to God. We never told anybody about that. My brother and I just only recently talked about it again, and see, I did not realize. I do not think I remember. I cannot clearly recall seeing the dope being passed around, but my brother, who was two years older than me told me, "Oh yeah, they were passing around marijuana. They were smoking marijuana." I am not sure my brother ever smoked marijuana before, so it is not like something that he would make up, but I know they were drinking and playing Bob Dylan and talking and acting in alternative ways. These were seminarians. I do not know how many of them remained in there, but actually several of them did because we met them many years later. SM (02:08:56): When did it end? KC (02:08:58): When did it end? SM (02:08:58): For you? KC (02:09:01): I think (19)70, '72 was the end, the loss of McGovern's campaign, the overwhelming reelection of Nixon. The war was over for all intents and purposes. The war was not over for the Vietnamese, but the American involvement was over. After that it became... I mean, the war for me is the most direct connection to the (19)60s, the most, I guess the brightest characteristic. And yeah, one of your very first, if not the very first question about what is it about the (19)60s? It's the war, right? SM (02:09:38): Yeah. KC (02:09:39): Well, the war was... That was the last I was active in 1972 because I figured it was pretty much all over. It was time for me to move on and do other things. I mean, I still remain very active in an alternative sense, but not with the war. SM (02:09:56): What did that helicopter flying off the rooftop- KC (02:10:00): That was (19)75. SM (02:10:02): ... In (19)75, how did that strike you? Just seeing that on the news? KC (02:10:05): Well, I felt it was much too late. SM (02:10:08): Yeah. KC (02:10:09): This should have happened a long, long time before. There would be hell of a lot fewer deaths. We should not have gone in the first place, and it is happening much too late. I did not feel a kind of loss or anger or alienation that I suppose some veterans did. But for me, it was a good thing that that last helicopter was finally leaving so the Vietnamese could have their own country back. And I thought it should have happened a hell of a lot earlier than that. SM (02:10:48): We are going to end with, I got about 15, 16 words of an era or an event. Just very, very quick responses. KC (02:10:57): All right. SM (02:11:00): Number one, Woodstock. KC (02:11:03): Oh, I think of my time floating around in the Mediterranean, still in the Marines and on a ship, and reading about Woodstock in August of, or September of (19)69, as we got the latest Life or Look Magazine, whatever it was in. And I am thinking how cool that was. I wished I had hair that long at that point. I had side, high and tight cut of the Marine Corps, and you're only allowed two to three inches on the top in the middle of your head. I just could not wait to get out. I was back from Vietnam by that time, so I was done with that, but I still had time to do the Marine Corp. I could not wait to get out, could not wait to join them. SM (02:11:44): Black power. KC (02:11:46): Frightening at first. Understandable, eventually tragic in the end. SM (02:11:52): Communes. KC (02:11:53): Commune? SM (02:11:53): Communes. KC (02:11:53): As in commune? SM (02:11:55): Communes. KC (02:11:55): Like a commune? Like a hippie-dippy commune? SM (02:11:59): Yeah, communes. Yes. KC (02:11:59): Yeah. Attractive for a while in my most- KC (02:12:03): Attractive for a while in my most hippy-dippy phase, but then too idealistic. I never could bring myself to trying to live on something like that because I did not think it could survive. And I thought that life in established American society would inevitably take over, would engulf it and swallow it up and make it disappear. SM (02:12:30): Hippies? KC (02:12:30): Hippies. I think I was one. Sometimes some of my old friends tell me I was not because... Well, I must have demonstrated too many of those old establishment or conventional, not establishment, but conventional traits. But I enjoyed it the two or three years I think I was a hippie, with few cares and few resources, little money, living cheaply, hitchhiking. I hitchhiked across the country several times. You could do it then safely with long hair and a beard. Hung out with people in lots of different places. I enjoyed that. But sooner or later, you have to grow up and take responsibility. SM (02:13:20): Yippies? KC (02:13:21): Yippies. Assholes. SM (02:13:24): Counter-culture? KC (02:13:28): A good idea for a while, until you jarred the prevailing culture, and there was a sense of necessary change. But after that, it becomes less and less relevant. SM (02:13:43): Pentagon Papers? KC (02:13:45): Loved them. Great thing that they came out. SM (02:13:49): Chicago Eight? KC (02:13:51): Heroes to some degree, in a sense that they took a stand and suffered through that trial and the fear of long prison terms. But they were, other than that, a pretty diverse group. That is my sense of them, that they were not a close-knit group of people. They were all snatched up together doing the same thing. They were very different people. Dillinger and Bobby Seale are tremendously different people. SM (02:14:23): Oh yeah. And Tom Hayden- KC (02:14:25): And Redman and- SM (02:14:28): The Rubin and Hoffman. And they got the lesser known John Froines and yeah- KC (02:14:31): Yeah, not Redman. Not Redman. I guess Redman was not part of it. Who was Redman in, SDS or something like. I forget. Anyway. SM (02:14:36): Oh, Mark Rudd. KC (02:14:37): Mark Rudd, yeah. SM (02:14:39): He was in SDS at Columbia. John Lennon? KC (02:14:41): John Lennon, fellow atheist, imagining a world without God. SM (02:14:53): Good movie out. US Versus John Lennon, which just happened recently. KC (02:14:57): Yeah-yeah, yeah. He was a good guy. I think he probably was a little temperamental and could not get along as well as he probably should have tried to with his buddies, but he was part- SM (02:15:11): How about the Beatles? KC (02:15:12): Just the Beatles. Yeah. I love The Beatles, but they are not what I consider to be my youth's music. Motown. SM (02:15:26): Oh, yeah. KC (02:15:27): City kid dances, fuss times, dating, listening to music on a radio, slapping on that English leather. Motown. SM (02:15:37): Motown, because that is the music of the year. Because when you think of the music of the (19)60s, you think of Motown, but you also think of- KC (02:15:44): The Beatles- SM (02:15:45): Woodstock, all the rock bands, the folk singers. KC (02:15:47): Well see, Woodstock was after I went to Vietnam and after I came back. So that, to me, I am an adult. That is no longer my safe home, comfortable, great carefree time of shelter to some degree. We were living in a poor working class neighborhood. You're exposed to some bad stuff, but nevertheless, you still have a family, a house, a neighborhood, kids you go to school with. There is a normalcy there and a carefreeness, because your parents, you are not having to work. I had to work part-time, but you know. You know what I mean? SM (02:16:19): Yep. KC (02:16:20): You do not have to take adult responsibility yet. By the time Woodstock happened, well, I was hippie-dippy. I am still not taking adult responsibility, but I took responsibility to lead politically. I did do that. And I took care of myself. I managed to pay the bills. SM (02:16:34): Kent State and Jackson State? KC (02:16:36): Kent State, Jackson State. Triggers for my radicalization. The first trigger was of course the invasion of Cambodia. That son of a bitch, Nixon led. And then Kent State and Jackson State were reactions to that. And then my reaction to Kent State and Jackson State were, because there were demonstrations within days of the invasion of Cambodia, and were protests against the war because of the Invasion of Cambodia. And I am at home, not politically astute at all, not involved in any way. Could not even conceive myself involving any war movement. I am out of the service only a couple of months, and I see this stuff on television, and I cannot believe this war is not ending. I had a gut level of revulsion against the war because I did not think it was worth anything. It was stupid. It was a lie, I knew that much, because the leaders, my leadership, military and political leadership were telling lies about what we were really doing there, and what the people there actually thought about our presence. But I had no political consciousness as an activist yet. But boy, that me pissed off, the Cambodia, and then went right on into Kent State and Jackson. Mostly Kent State, because of course I could relate to the white kids more. SM (02:17:52): See, April 30th, to me, is a big day that we do not ever think about that much. Particularly the boomer generation. KC (02:17:58): What was April 30th? SM (02:18:00): April 30th was the invasion of Cambodia. KC (02:18:02): I always thought it happened around May first, but definitely April 30th. SM (02:18:04): May 4th was when the killings took place. KC (02:18:05): That is right. SM (02:18:06): But April 30th was also when the helicopter went off the roof. KC (02:18:10): See, I was not traumatized by that. SM (02:18:13): April 30th was also when- KC (02:18:13): Good enough. Close that chapter. SM (02:18:14): FDR died. KC (02:18:15): Is that right? SM (02:18:15): What is amazing is that April 30th and Kent State had so much bearing on me because I was a senior at SUNY Binghamton, and I broke my arm. I was in the hospital, had a very bad arm break, and I went to my graduation at SUNY Binghamton on May 17th, but May 7th was when the Grateful Dead were coming to our campus. I was looking forward to it. KC (02:18:37): Oh, boy. So, you are two years older than me. I just did the math. You were graduating from college in 1970. SM (02:18:43): I graduated college in 1970. KC (02:18:44): So, you graduated from high school? SM (02:18:45): (19)66, yeah. KC (02:18:45): So, you are one year older than me. I am sorry. SM (02:18:45): Yeah, (19)66. KC (02:18:49): (19)67, I graduated. SM (02:18:50): Yeah. But Kent State was just unbelievable. It has affected me my whole life. Because even when the tragedy of Virginia Tech took place, and they talked about the worst tragedy ever around the... It was terrible, all the killings and everything. But we seem to forget the four students who died at Kent State, the seven who were wounded, and the two who died at Jackson State. We cannot forget them. Universities pay tribute to the Montreal, the women who were killed in Montreal in (19)89, and they had the Women's Center paid, and we have ceremonies, and it happens all over the country. KC (02:19:27): And the women were killed for what? SM (02:19:29): The doctor who came and killed the nurses. KC (02:19:31): That is right, yeah. SM (02:19:32): So, Montreal (19)89. And so we paid tribute to the tragedy of the women dying. But you could not even bring up paying memorial service to the ones that died at Kent State. It is activism again, it is bringing up all the past. KC (02:19:44): Well, it is because it is politically controversial, and universities do not like political controversy. It makes their trustees nervous because it makes the potential donors nervous. SM (02:19:55): Yeah. When I think of, I went to the Remembrance ceremony at Kent State 35th, and I went there and I spent the entire four day... There is no question to me that when you look at Sandy Scheuer and Bill Schroeder and Jeff Miller and Allison Krause, that they were destined to do good things. You look at their background, their families, what their majors were and everything else. The tragedy is that we lost those four, and then we lost the two at Kent State. And I do not know about one of them. I mean, Jackson State. But to me, that tragedy sticks with me because it is part of the Vietnam War. When I go to the wall in Washington, I know they did not die in Vietnam, but I see them all the time there. Here is some names, just quick responses. President Q? KC (02:20:50): Sleaze bag. SM (02:20:53): The other one, I forget. KC (02:20:54): Key? SM (02:20:54): Yeah, General Key? KC (02:20:56): Yeah. SM (02:20:56): We almost brought him to Westchester. KC (02:20:58): Yeah. A better dressed sleaze bag. He always used to wear an Ascot. SM (02:21:05): William Westmoreland. KC (02:21:07): Oh, God. War criminal. SM (02:21:13): How about Creighton Abrams? Neighbors found him. KC (02:21:19): Probably tried to do the best he could with a bad situation. SM (02:21:23): The two ambassadors, Ellsworth Bunker and Henry Cabot Lodge? KC (02:21:28): Bunker, I do not know much about Bunker, other than he was largely ineffective in dealing with the Vietnamese. Cabot Lodge was far more effective, but in a sneaky CIA way. SM (02:21:45): Dwight Eisenhower? KC (02:21:51): A president that was seen as very inactive in the Cold War, that actually was very active in covertly making sure that the dirty deeds were being done covertly by the CIA. SM (02:22:14): Do you think Vietnam went all the way back to Truman, when he rejected the letter from Ho Chi Minh? Because Ho Chi Minh had written a letter when we first became president, and he did not even acknowledge it because he was a communist. KC (02:22:27): Well, I would trace it back to Truman, but not for that reason. You could reject the letter and still not get yourself involved in Vietnam. America became deeply involved in Vietnam. That is why we are here. America's involvement began under Truman, with Truman's winking and a nod to the French using American equipment, to American money, American equipment, American uniforms, rifles, to win the front door of France for the purpose of solidifying France as a bulwark against the Soviets rolling into Europe, going right out the back door to Indochina. Truman knew all about that and increasingly supported the French effort in Indochina covertly. So, he takes the initial blame and everybody else gets in line after that. SM (02:23:22): It is a long line. couple other final ones here. The beats? KC (02:23:28): Oh, the beatniks? What do you mean, the beats? SM (02:23:30): Yeah, Marilyn Young, the history professor at NYU said that she felt the (19)60s began with the beats. KC (02:23:37): Yeah. See, she might be a little older than me. Yeah. The beats were... SM (02:23:42): Kerouac and Ginsburg. KC (02:23:44): I know who they are in history, but they were not real to me at the time. To me, the beats were what I saw on television. People in berets going, "Hey man..." SM (02:23:56): Maynard G. Krebs. KC (02:23:56): Maynard G. Krebs. That is right. Dobie Gillis. That is where I associate, that is the beats as far... Or the TV show called Bourbon Street Beat. SM (02:24:07): Cannot remember that one. KC (02:24:08): Yeah, that was not a long-lived one, but anyway. SM (02:24:11): (19)62 Missile Crisis? KC (02:24:14): I thought I was not going to live very much longer. I thought that was going to be pretty much it. We all certainly went to church a lot more, or synagogue, or wherever our beliefs led us, fearing that the country would go up any day in thermonuclear disaster. SM (02:24:37): The astronauts. 1969, Neil Armstrong. KC (02:24:40): The astronauts, yeah, pride, but not as much pride as the Europeans had, because I was in Europe when that hurt happened in (19)69. And when we went ashore from the ship, whether it was Spain, or France, Italy, that is all the people we're talking about around that period of time, how great this was. "You Americans had put somebody on the moon." And we said, "Oh, that is cool, and then give us another beer." We thought it was cool, but we did not take it as that big of a thing. But then again, all of us had been to Vietnam, so our own risks, to us, were more immediate, more memorable, and in some ways more direct than what we thought the astronauts were. They had, I think, a better chance of surviving that trip than many of us did going into combat Vietnam. SM (02:25:37): How about that Cold War, and we know that the Cold War was started right after World War II, but Cold War and Vietnam? KC (02:25:44): Well, some trace it all the way back to the establishment of the Soviet Union in 1917. And World War II was just a temporary break, a marriage of convenience between Stalin and FDR and Churchill, and that we went right back into our anti- Soviet approach after that. But one has to point out the exception, it was FDR that recognized for the first time, formally recognized Soviet Union in 1933 when he came into office. So he was at least willing to deal with them. But Cold War, what a huge mistake. I probably differ from a lot of other of your respondents in that sense. So, I think the entire Cold War was a mistake. SM (02:26:27): John Wayne? KC (02:26:30): Great movies, but certainly not like real combat people. SM (02:26:37): He played all those roles. KC (02:26:42): Played all those roles, and all of us who watched him developed all these myths about what combat really was like. SM (02:26:46): Cannot think of anything else here on. Make sure I covered it. Well, the generation gap, too. What is interesting today is there is obviously, I like your thoughts on the generation gap during the (19)60s, but comparing it today with the generation Xers, and even some boomers and their kids, they have never been closer. They are involved in students’ lives, and there does not seem to be any generation gap between generation Xers and millennials, or even the older boomers and millennials. What is happening there? KC (02:27:16): I think it is there, but it is more subtle. Unless you define gap in a certain way, that it takes a real qualitative aspect to it. That is, we are not talking about degrees here. We are talking about something in kind. One could say that, yeah, there was a generation gap among many during the (19)60s, of those boomers with their parents, but not all. I mean, again, we would have to sit down and say, okay, in reality, what percentage of boomers were truly alienated from their parents? And if I had simply come back from Vietnam and did what so many other Vietnam veterans did, there would have been no gap. I would have just simply come back to the life I led. I would have gotten a job or continued to go to church on Sundays with my family, and there would have been some differences because I have been in a war, certainly. But the gap would not have been there. I think the generation gap is most clearly evident between those who took, certainly that 15 percent who took leadership or acting role in a sustained way in the movements of the (19)60s and their parents. But for the other 85 percent, I would take a hard look at that before I would judge that as a gap, because I know a lot of people just simply went home and lived their own lives, and there was never any real gap. SM (02:28:34): What is your perception of the media's role in coverage of the Vietnam War, and coverage of social issues in that timeframe comparing to today? Some people think it is irresponsible that today's media is basically being controlled. That favoritism, for example, access to the White House, is that if you are in with the White House, you are favored, you get access. Has that always been the case, or has a Woodward and Bernstein type of a mentality gone? Investigative journalism? KC (02:29:02): Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Because we still have it. Seymour Hersh is still writing good stuff. Nobody's thrown him in jail. Nobody's tapped his phones lately, that I know of. Well, I am sure the NSA is busy tapping everybody's phone, tapping their cell phones and intercepting their email. But he does not seem to be singled out on anybody's enemy list or anything like that. You can still do investigative journalism to some degree. You do not have to anymore to some degree, because it is just not necessary because there is so many media organizations, outlets, forums, whether it is in cyberspace or print media or whatever, that there is a great deal of competition to constantly expose stuff. The Bush administration cannot keep it secret for God's sake. As powerful as they became in their most powerful years, the earliest years, when the neocons were truly on a roll, and they were doing some truly what I considered dastardly stuff. They still did not have full control, even over their own people, let alone everybody else. So, it has been a lot of stuff. A long list of books have come out critical of this war. Tell-all books from the administration itself, whether you are talking about inside the intelligence community, inside the military, inside the White House. Wherever you are talking about, there has been a lot of stuff uncovered that is been uncovered faster and in a broader way than ever happened during the Vietnam period. And I just think it is a difference. It is a difference in the technology. It is a difference in the times. We did not have cyberspace back then. We did not have the internet back then, so you are going to have differences. So I think the media plays pretty much the same role now as they did then, only in a much different way, because their communications facility, their communications tools in an information age are much different and much better than they were back then. The media plays just as good and just as bad role as, say, other institutions like Congress in these political controversies. Congress waits until they are absolutely sure public opinion is at least turning to their side, if not on their side, before they will act. The media is the same way. The media did not turn against the war first and public opinion followed. It was vice versa. Public opinion according to that polling figures that John Buehler and many others have come up with show that the public opinion swayed against the war before Walter Cronkite ever stepped out and said, "I think we have a stalemate here. We better think about new ways." So that the media does this. Why? Because the media has to sell those papers, sell that airtime, sell those advertisements, and they need to, as a responsible institution, be careful before they go out on a limb. They are careful. So, they are careful that the public has already turned against them before they start, as a mainstream mass turned against you. Of course, among the public, you have a fringe that turns against it earlier, and you have a fringe in the media that turns against it earlier, The Nation, or Ramparts, or something like that. So, I do not fault the media. I do not honor them for doing great things, and I do not condemn them for doing bad. They are doing what they are supposed to do. I cannot condemn them any more than the desert for being hot or the wind for blowing. SM (02:32:22): I keep coming up with questions here and we are going to end this, but I keep going back to Dr. King about one of the statements he made in one of his speeches that the Vietnam War had a disproportionate number of African Americans who served in that war. And when you got down to the wall in Washington, there is a disproportionate number of African Americans who were on that Wall. KC (02:32:43): How do you know? SM (02:32:44): See, I do not know. But then of course, this Dr. King, he died in 1968, and there were other people that died after (19)68, through (19)73. The question is this: the role of minorities in the Vietnam War, and you have made reference already that they at many times did not have any choice but to go through service. Some of it did it to better their lives, because they did not have any other alternatives. KC (02:33:11): Probably because they were drafted, probably because they did not have a job. SM (02:33:12): What was it like when you were there in terms of, we have already talked about drugs, but in terms of black, white, Latino, white, Native American, we have heard about, there has been some things written about Native Americans being thrown to the point because they were natural and- KC (02:33:33): Good trackers. SM (02:33:34): Good trackers, and then a lot of them died because of that. KC (02:33:36): I do not know about that. SM (02:33:37): But Asians, In terms of what was it like, and secondly, just being there, how strong was the anti-war movement amongst the troops? KC (02:33:47): Okay. That is a lot to answer in a short time, but I am going to try and do it briefly. SM (02:33:50): Do it short. KC (02:33:55): The area where there was clear and obvious tension between troops in Vietnam was between black and white troops. That is not to say that there were not racial tensions between Hispanics and whites, Hispanics and blacks, Asian, but I do not remember any Asian Americans in the units that I was in, but certainly Native Americans here or there. I do not recall anybody being singled out and put on point because of any of that, whether they were Native American or black or white or what. But I do recall that there seemed to be a higher concentration of black troops in grunt units, combat units, than in the Marine Corps in general. And I have heard and read and seen figures, I do not know how hard they are, that indicate that that was true in the Army as well. But then again, I have read since I started doing research on the war, that those figures are soft, and that the real story says that blacks did not die in any higher proportion than whites. So, I do not know what the actual figures are, or whose figures to use, but my personal experience tells me that there was a higher concentration, a disproportionate concentration of black troops in the grunt units. They still were not the majority. Whites were still majority of grunts, but if blacks were making 10 to 20 percent of the population up around that time, there was probably 30 or 40 percent of marine grunt units. When I was there in (19)68 and (19)69, they were blacks. Now the tension between there was manifested mostly when one was in the rear. The further in the rear, the more tension. The closer to the bush, the less tension. Because the closer to the bush, the closer to the danger, the more you needed each other. And the bush, you did not let those arguments get in the way. And you were your brother's keeper. And back in the rear, there was a luxury to take on political questions like that in that sense, social questions or whatever. And people could start to congregate among the cliques and shun others. And actually, at the worst times, get into fist fights, gun fights, knife fights, that kind of stuff. So that that is... And then either in Germany or Japan or back in the States, it was even worse. So the further got away from combat in Vietnam, the more the hostility. Because by (19)69 and (19)70, the hostility, you could cut it weather nice. It was so thick. It was really bad. At Camp Lejeune, we were getting ready to go on this med cruise after I was back from Vietnam, getting ready in August of, July of (19)69. And had a big going away party, I did not attend the party, but for the battalion, I was part of the battalion going away. They had a fight in the enlisted man's club after the club let out, and two people were killed, and a bunch were seriously wounded. And it was a racial fight. And by the time we had to leave the next day to go embark for Spain. But by the time we got to Spain, they were waiting for us. The Criminal Investigation Division with witnesses and a motorized, this box of wheels that had only a slip of everybody to get off the boat, single file, and picking out people that were part of this fight. They got shipped back for a trial. And that was a really bad scene. You could not go around a military base without several other people for fear of being jumped, knifed, robbed, maybe just simple robbery, drugs. I mean, the military was coming apart. There's no security on the military base. That was a bad scene. SM (02:37:37): Any final thoughts that you'd like to mention here, or anything that I maybe did not ask that you were expecting me to ask? KC (02:37:43): Yeah, Mỹ Lai. Why no Mỹ Lai? That is my question to you. SM (02:37:54): That was on my list here. I did not read it. Mỹ Lai. Yeah. KC (02:37:55): Well, on a much smaller level, much smaller level, far more typical in Vietnam, that is that killing innocent civilians, purposely killing innocent civilians, two or three or four at a time was not all that uncommon in Vietnam. Sometimes 10 or 20 at a time. Mỹ Lai was unusual that it was four or 500. That is what made it unusual. SM (02:38:15): And that it was Kelly and Medina, the names. KC (02:38:15): Yeah, sure. SM (02:38:15): Kelly got off, and they... KC (02:38:15): They got pardoned by Richard Nixon. SM (02:38:27): Okay. And Medina, whatever happened to him? KC (02:38:29): He was found innocent. Acquitted. SM (02:38:32): We had Country Joe McDonald on our campus a couple of years back, and Dan [inaudible 02:38:35] were in a dinner. KC (02:38:35): An old friend of VVAW. SM (02:38:35): No, he is a good guy. And he said that, Jan, did you want to tell Steve and everybody else in the room why there were no prisoners of war on the other side? They were only talking about on this side. And he wanted me to tell, and he was kind of making a reference to that there were no prisoners of war on the other side, that Americans took them. They gave them to the South Vietnamese troops, and the South Vietnamese troops summarily killed them all. KC (02:38:59): Well, they kill a lot... From my understanding, from my evidence, I did not experience it firsthand. I certainly had experience with prisoners of war, but they got passed on and I did not know where they went. But I found out later they did get turned out in South Vietnamese government, but not always right away. Often the Americans, usually Americans are targeted first, and then South Vietnamese, and it was not all that unusual for those detainees, those Viet Cong suspects or confirmed VC during the interrogation to somehow die, or certainly be seriously injured. And there were various ways of doing this with, field telephones, or water torture, or half a chopper ride. SM (02:39:42): Yeah. I heard the story about how they took them up in the helicopter. KC (02:39:45): Yeah. You never wanted to throw out the important one. You threw out the one that you knew did not have any information, to intimidate the important one. But again, I did not have any firsthand experience with this, but I certainly have been among enough Vietnam veterans, and some of them took pictures of this stuff. I mean, that is what sealed it with Mỹ Lai. If it was not for the journalists taking pictures, and then those pictures by other journalists being distributed through Life Magazine, Mỹ Lai would have passed largely as no big thing, because you would not have had the pictures. We thought we were out. The pictures make it. The stories can occur, but they only go so far without pictures. You got pictures. SM (02:40:17): That is a very sensitive issue for Vietnam, that Mỹ Lai. KC (02:40:18): Absolutely. SM (02:40:19): That labels them all as baby killers. And they all come back at you- KC (02:40:22): That is the 15 percent. That is a figure that is really important. When I first brought that up to you, I said, it's relevant in certain ways, but I won't go into it. This is the connection. And I do not delve deeply into it, but just point out that those of us in the anti-war movement who were Vietnam veterans, who began to talk about, and I did, as a young man, began to talk about what we saw or did ourselves, that were either possibly or probably war crimes, did not take care enough, did not understand and know and take care enough, to make that distinction between the 15 percent that were in combat, and 85 percent that were not. So that it looked like we were saying all Vietnam veterans. And what we were saying was not that... We were also saying that we do not hold most Vietnam veterans responsible, directly responsible for this. We hold their commanders, and especially the people in Washington who created the conditions for this to happen, like free fires on a body camp, all those things to put pressure on the uses of the Geneva Convention, who looked the other way, et cetera. But what I understand today that I did not understand then, and can tell people about, is that most Vietnam veterans deny that that ever happened because they never saw it. And they did not ever see it because they were never in a position to see it. You had to be part of the 15 percent to have a chance to see it firsthand. So, when a Vietnam veteran says, "I never saw anything like that." Well, 85 percent of them certainly did not see anything like that, because they were never in a position. And of the 15 percent who did some of those did not say anything because their particular commander did not let them do that. None of them. It has been buried among the commanders, too. And the time you were there, a lot of more about the early part of the war than later in the war. SM (02:41:47): Back in 1974, my very first job at High University of Lancaster campus, outside of Columbus, there was a Vietnam vet that had an office there. And I can remember that when they were hiring at the university, we were talking about affirmative action for African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Vietnam was not even an issue. KC (02:42:00): There was for Vietnam veterans, yeah. SM (02:42:00): Vietnam veterans are having a hard time sometimes getting a job because they were labeled. KC (02:42:00): They are still federally considered protected under federal law. Still protected. Equal opportunity protection. So those Vietnam veterans who absolutely deny the atrocity stuff you have to ask him, "Were you a grunt?" If you were not a grunt, you're probably not going to have had a chance to see any of this stuff. Well, they are sure did not happen anyway, but they wanted [inaudible] prior to the Vietnam war. SM (02:42:00): He was a little older. He had been in the service and very close to he and his friends. And I remember he was joking. Tell them the real story, how there were no POWs. And the POW stories and other issues, there is a brand-new book out now on POWs, that it has been a conspiracy all along that [inaudible]. America knows darn right that there are people over there. There are still people filing out. [inaudible]. KC (02:42:00): Always a ton of stuff coming. SM (02:42:00): How can you say there were no POWs [inaudible]. KC (02:42:00): I suspect it is horseshit. That does not sit right with those right-wingers. How can anybody want to say [inaudible]. SM (02:42:00): Thank you very, very much. KC (02:42:00): You are welcome. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Kenneth Campbell Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Campbell, Kenneth ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Political scientists; College teachers; University of Delaware; Campbell, Kenneth--Interviews Description An account of the resource <p>Dr. Kenneth Campbell is a scholar, reseacher and political scientist. Dr. Campbell is a Associate Professor Emeritus of Political Science and International Relations at Universtiy of Delaware, and he is the author for several journal articles and a book titled <em>A Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam and the Hard Lessons of War</em>. He has a Bachelor's degree in History, as well as a Master's degree and Ph.D. in Political Science from Temple University.&nbsp; Dr. Campbell served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War in 1968 and 1969 and received a Purple Heart for his bravery. Due to his expertise in international affairs, he has testified before Congress on the Iraq War.&nbsp;<br /><br /><br /><br /></p> 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 2002-07-14 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource In copyright Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.183a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.183b 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. 163:15 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/95a13fc705c68ad4a1494433ac34da39.png c4ed98e01e9d3d4d98aefeb461a5eb23 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/32dc6a5ce929e9d1dc6489a26b88e8f1.MP3 d4b646efdadc8404a6e5b9d76f44e1c4 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 22 June 2022 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Kevin Boyle Biographical Text Dr. Kevin Boyle, a native of Detroit, Michigan, is an author and the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University, with a particular interest in modern American social movements. Dr. Boyle is the author of The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968, and Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age, as well as several books and articles. He is currently at work on The Splendid Dead, a micro-history of political extremism and repression in the early twentieth century. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Detroit, and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:35:34 Language English Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data DIgital file Date of Digitization 22 June 2022 Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords Boomer generation; Movements; 1960s; Vietnam war; Anti-war movement; Activism; Americans; Civil Rights Movement, Radicalism, Martin Luther King. 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Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Kevin Boyle Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Lynn Bijou Date of interview: 22 June 2022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Start of Interview) KB: 00:00 My neighborhood, grade school and high school. And then for undergraduate, I went to the University of Detroit, where I graduated in 1982. So I was there in the late (19)70s and early (19)80s. And then went to graduate school in, at the University of Michigan, where I completed my PhD in 1990. And I would love to have a really exciting story about why I became a historian, but I do not. I really, always gravitated, even in high school to that. I enjoyed most history classes. And when I got to college, I thought that I was going to be, go to law school, I have an older brother, who was going to law school, so I thought that I should do that. And then, I had the wonderful experience of going to a place that was small, and where people, the faculty knew you. And I remember so distinctly a faculty member taking me aside at one point and said, "Have you ever thought about graduate school," and it was like light bulbs going off, you know that someone would think I could do something like that, and have that sort of life that I saw that these faculty members had that seemed wonderful to me, you got to read books, you got to write, you got to teach classes. And so by, say, my junior year of college, I thought, that is the path I would pursue. I had no idea what that meant. My parents were high school graduates, but they had not gone to college. And, I had no idea what that meant. But, it sounded like a very good life. And that is what I did. SM: 01:48 Now, where have you taught over the years? KB: 01:52 I, my first job out of graduate school was at the University of Toledo, which was part of the Ohio University System, the public at bio system. And I taught there for three years. But then I moved to UMass [University of Massachusetts] Amherst, which I loved. I taught there for eight years, then, I just sound like I cannot keep a job. Then, I moved to Ohio State where I taught for 11 years. And then in 2013, came to Northwestern. SM: 02:23 Those are some great schools that you taught at, of course. I went to one of myself, Ohio State. [crosstalk] I was, I went to higher education and student personnel work. So, it kind of set me on my way, for a career in higher education. The book itself, that you, why did you write, "The Shattering?" KB: 02:47 For a number of reasons, my first- my dissertation and my first book, a lot of it dealt with the 1960s. So, this was an era that I had been immersed in for a very long time. I was at Ohio State, I taught a course on the 1960s, which was one of my favorite things to teach. And I really felt as if, in teaching that course, I felt as if there were some wonderful overviews of the 1960s, books that tried to do, or kind of sweep up the 1960s. But none of them really worked for me. So when I taught that course, I would never had a textbook that I used, for a variety of reasons, there were wonderful books that just were not right for me. And I felt that, I would like to give a shot of writing the sort of book that I would have liked to have seen available, to kind of take that I wanted to take on it. And that is, was the origin of "The Shattering." SM: 03:46 When you look at that period, 1960s and 1970s, (19)75, what, not just of your book, but what is it about that period that fascinates you, [crosstalk] that, sparks your interest that your, your antenna goes up? KB: 04:03 I think there is a number of things. And this, actually will tie back one of the main things, will tie back to, growing up in Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s. I was first drawn to the (19)60s as, because of the, really profound moment of racial change. And I think that, that experience is so deeply ingrained in anyone who lived in Detroit, which was such a center of racial conflict and racial tension in that period. That was, so that was kind of the origin point, that here is a period where in all sorts of complicated ways the United States confronted its duty of division. Now it did not solve that division, [chuckles] but it did confront it in multiple ways. And that is, I think, one of the most important stories of the American experience, not just the 1960s, but the American experience. And then, it expanded out from there to the other complex of issues that I think are so decisively important in that period, really dramatic impact of Vietnam War in multiple ways, and the intimate experience of the Vietnam War. The, what I do in the book, that really dramatic expansion, that dramatic confrontation over the government's role in the public role in the regulation of sexuality. But other issues as well, that did not make it into the book, because I did not want to have the book sprawl out in so many directions that it kind of lost the sense of depth and focus. Here is a period for the United States, it embraces the challenge or is confronted with a challenge, I think, is a better way of putting it, of its fundamental promise, its fundamental promise of equality, its fundamental promise of opportunity. It is here that those issues come bursting to the forefront. And I really am, I have literally been drawn to the ways in which that confrontation plays out, and some mixed results of that constitution. I think that is what makes the (19)60s so fundamentally important, and the fact that we are living with those issues in a really direct way to this day. SM: 04:20 Yeah, I agree. What you do in your book in the area of civil rights and issues dealing with African Americans is, goes way back, and you do a great job of connecting the dots, I always call them, I was a history major too. And connecting the dots between this period, and this period, and this period. And, you know, talking about, you know, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, that there were people that were fighting for equality and justice, and, and there was white supremacy and that whole thing, but what is interesting when you talk about that era of the 1950s, that we always talk, as many people talk about is the age of innocence. It was not so innocent, because- KB: 06:40 Oh my god, no. [chuckles] SM: 06:47 -because African Americans were already activists and trying, and you know, and you talked about Little Rock, you know, you talk about what happened at Montgomery bus boycott? Could you talk a little bit about that, the perception that many Americans have, before he talked about the (19)60s, that (19)50s, which was so important for the (19)60s? KB: 07:50 Yeah, I think to me, there is kind of two really key points that you are really hitting on both of them. One is that, one of the challenges of writing a 1960s book now is that there is this very imposing body of literature that has extended the periodization of movements like the civil rights movement, that movement does not start in Montgomery in 1955. It does not start with Brown v Board of Education, in 1954. It has got this long history, that the Civil Rights Movement has of the (19)50s and (19)60s has to be embedded. That is one of the challenges of writing the book is you got to give people that backstory, because I think that is the story, that there is a continuity, not a break. But then to your more immediate point, 1950s has this kind of, it has, it has been wrapped in this kind of power of nostalgia, it is kind of like you said, Age of Innocence, and Age and, of Complacency. And that is nowhere near the complexity of that, of those years, there is a kind of political coalition that is formed, that takes form in the 1950s, that Dwight Eisenhower is really central inbuilt. It is a political coalition that plays to the benefit of a large swath of Americans, to middle class Americans, to the upper end of the working-class Americans, which is overwhelmingly white, to people in suburban America, but it is a political coalition, and its aim is to provide for those people. And it does that really effectively, and that is for millions and millions of people. It is really important. But there is also this huge number of people, and African Americans obviously are kind of the key group who are shut out of that system. But that system is set up in a way to exclude them, and they are demanding entry into that system. That happened throughout the 1950s, some of them, Little Rock is a perfect example of that. It is one of the most explosive moments of civil rights period, because it is a fundamental constitutional crisis. That is not simply the confrontation out on the street in front of Little Rock High School, though, of course centralized. So of course, that is one key part of it. But it is also a fundamental constitutional crisis. This is about the right of a governor to defy through the National Guard, through the force of the military, constitutional law. And that is 1950 suffrage. The culture front, there is fundamental issues going on, in generations in American culture in the 1950s. So, the idea that somehow America was an innocent place that suddenly lost its innocence in the 1960s, as the [inaudible] read it, of American history, Americans love the idea that we were innocent people. We do it all the time, something dramatic happens in the United States, the first thing people say is, "Ah, we were innocent before September 11. You know, we were innocent, before John Kennedy was assassinated. We were innocent before this, and that," it is a cliché, it is a trope. SM: 11:26 And what is interesting as a little boy, when I was very young, I was sitting in the T.V. room, and my mom was working in the kitchen, and McCarthy was on, it was the McCarthy hearings. And so I am, I am a little, I am a little boy in 1950. I did not quite understand it. But I did not like him. I did not like that voice. I did not like that man. And then, of course, as I start finding out, my parents talked about him too. You know that is, that is not an innocent period. That is certainly not an innocent period. And certainly the Cold War, the whole concept of Russia, and the nuclear bomb. That is not an innocent period. So, there is a lot- KB: 12:02 No, definitely. SM: 12:03 -going on leading into the (19)60s. So, for sure. KB: 12:05 Yeah, that is a great example. I wish I had thought of it, a terrific example. SM: 12:11 When, I have a question here, too, regarding your, the knowledge of the (19)50s, (19)60s, and (19)70s, and looking back and forward, as a historian, this is just your technique, and writing is so good. You go back to periods, and then you, you know, in the area of the Vietnam War, or foreign policy, in the area of civil rights, in the area how government overseas, or sexuality. Did when, when you saw that picture in that book- KB: 12:44 [laughter] SM: 12:45 -of the, Cahills were you thinking all of this at the very beginning? Or were you just fascinated by that picture? And by the way, I have that book. [laughter] KB: 12:56 No, I had, I was just fascinated by the picture, there was something about that photo, that, and I cannot even tell you what it was that really hooked me. When I, you have the book, you know that the caption does not even tell you, it says, "Patriotic American on the west side of Chicago, 1961," that is all it says. There is no mention of Cahill, there is no mention of who these people are, does not say where on the west side of Chicago. I was just fascinated by that picture. And then when I started teaching, over the years, of teaching that course, that I mentioned at Ohio State, I kept being pulled back to that picture. And at some point, or another, I thought, man, it is kind of embarrassing that I am showing these kids this picture. And I have no idea who these people even are. And so that is when I started to look for their story, that was a completely random search for a story because it started with this picture. And it was only as I started to learn who they are that I started to see [inaudible]. These people really are emblematic of a really kind of key dynamic of the 1960s that gets almost no attention. And that so, they became something, that their story became something that I could hang a bigger analytical point on. But no, it all started with looking at that picture, God knows when, and thinking, man, that is interesting. SM: 14:23 You know, you used two words or two ideas, and they are so important in this book, and particularly when you are talking about the person you just talked about, but you are also talking about my parents, and you are talking about the post-World War II generation, the people that came home from the war, and that is that issue of security, and upward mobility. KB: 14:42 Yeah-yeah. SM: 14:43 I mean, that is so, that is so truthful. He talked about truth. That is truth. That was the truth. KB: 14:50 I really appreciate that. Yeah, and that was the key for me, with that photo once I started putting, getting some information about it. Because it is, in many ways, it is a simple matter of math. That when you see Stella Cahill in the back of that photo, right, tucked away in the back. And I cannot, let me see, it was 1961. She was born in 1960. Right? So she would have been 44-45, because she was 44 at the time because senator birthday. And all you got to do is the math, if you were 44 in 1961, what that means is that you were born at a time, you lived through some of the greatest upheavals of the 20th century, right? You lived through the Great Depression, you lived through World War II as a young adult, kid in the Depression, a young adult in World War II, I had no idea that they had also lived through the terror of the Spanish flu, where she lost her father, and the poverty of the working class, of the lower end of the working class. I had no idea that was the story I was going to find that was just what I came up with. But, the point is that this was a woman. Like your parents probably, like, my friends, they do it a little different because they did not grow up in the United States. But does not matter, the point is that all, these millions and millions of people in the United States who had lived these lives of profound insecurity, and that they finally have this chance to have a life, that is not spectacular, there is nothing extraordinary about the Cahill story. But, that is the beauty of it, see is that they are able to build the safe, stable sense of, you know, of kind of boring lives that I really admired to that. The problem is that those were lives that were bounded by these other forces, right? That their life out on that, very ordinary side street, way out on the west side of Chicago, was bounded by race. There was not a single Black person in that picture in a city that was a quarter Black by 1968. [crosstalk] SM: 17:06 Go ahead, no you go ahead. KB: 17:09 Obviously, they did not think about that. It was not like they were, they owned that house since the (19)20s. This was not the case, their story was not the case of white flight. My guess is it never crossed their mind much about whether Black people lived in their neighborhood or not, it was a naturalized thing. It so happened that the Cahill family and again, this is just wind block, made their living on a firm that relied on the military industrial complex. Now they did not make big bombs, they made coffee yearns for the military, [chuckles] but they were tied in military industrial complex. They grew up, their kids grew up in very parochial worlds, those Catholic schools, and their Catholic parish. So, they lived in a society that was bounded by all these restrictions that often-excluded other people, or that played on power relations, relied on power relationships. Those are the very things that get challenged in the (19)60s. SM: 18:09 When you, those same categories again, when you get into the (19)60s, and you talk about the Vietnam War, you talk about the Civil Rights Movement, and of course, the issue of sex, you know, the Roe vs, versus Wade, and all the other things. It is, that creates a tension of its own. KB: 18:27 Yep. SM: 18:27 You know, civil rights creates tension in the, in the racist community who are white people who believe in white supremacy, you got, you know, Vietnam War, when people are coming home, you know, how they were treated when they got home. You know, veterans had a hard time, they were not treated well- KB: 18:44 Right. SM: 18:44 -when they returned from the war. So you really hit it, you really hit it very well. I one of the most important things in this book, and you bring it up to is talking to ordinary Americans. You know, we can talk- KB: 18:59 Yeah. SM: 18:59 -we all know about a lot of the civil rights leaders, the Black Power leaders, the politicians in Washington, and leaders who are elected, well known leaders of movements, but it is your ability to talk to the ordinary person like the Cahills and, and others. Could you talk about that, how important that is in the history of any era? KB: 19:20 Yeah, that is really fundamental to me. There is no doubt that powerful people, presidents, and Supreme Court justices, and major civil rights leaders, major movement leaders are important that they shape history, they do. And I think that we are fooling ourselves if we somehow claim they do not. So I think things that are fundamental parts of the story, of the 1960s. But it is also important to see how ordinary people shape and are shaped by large historical forces. To me that is the, that is the part of history that I really love dealing with. I mean, my wife will tell you that I maybe just got a little more fixated, and I should have been a Cahill. [laughter] You know, because I found it so fascinating to dive into an ordinary person's experience, and a huge part of the (19)60s history, about the ways that ordinary people intersect with these large stories. And so, one of the things I have tried to do, the Cahills were the biggest example. One of the things I tried to do throughout the book was weave in the stories that other people swept up in the moments of the 1960s that I think are so pivotally important. So it was important to me to talk about Elizabeth Eckford, walking down the street in front of the troops in front of Little Rock High School in 1957. It was important to me to talk about the Roe v. Wade story through Norma McCorvey in Roe, you know, whose life is very complicated, because ordinary lives are very complicated. And I wanted to get a sense of that story out to, or what I see, as you know, that really fundamental tragedy of Alison Krauss at Kent State, you know, and of course, we know about the events at Kent State it is not like I am uncovering something that has not been written about a million times. But I wanted to do was to find an angle on it that got the human story of Kent State through. And so, I what I did was tried to talk about the reporter going back to her high school to find out what he [inaudible] about her, after her killing, after her murder at Kent State, because I wanted the sense of the tragedy of that event. And the way you get at that is to the experiences, the intimate experiences of ordinary people. SM: 21:57 Yeah, I actually go to Kent State, I have been to 14 remembrance events at Kent State. And- -and I, you kind of get the feel that you know, all four of the people that died there. You get to know who they were- KB: 22:03 Wow. I bet. SM: 22:11 -even though you never met them. And of course, the nine that were wounded, but also how important it is that they have never forgotten at Kent State, those that died at Jackson State, which, a lot of America has forgotten, but certainly at Kent State they have not. And so, when you look at the, the three areas that you talk about in the book where "The Shattering," took place, I have interviewed a lot of people. And I asked a question regarding what was the watershed moment of the (19)60s. KB: 22:15 Oh, yeah. SM: 22:42 Watershed event, a one event that defined the period or you feel had one of the greatest impacts on that decade or the, plus the early (19)70s. And, and of course, there is civil rights, there is Vietnam. But for you, I am talking about you as a historian, I know you have picked three, but is there, Is there one that stands out above everything else? KB: 23:15 Yes, absolutely, it is really a great question. And I know keep saying that, but actually, these are terrific questions. The pivotal event of the 1960s, in my mind, is the Children's Crusade in Birmingham in the spring of 1963. Because what that does, is that is the moment in that event, that "The Shattering," really takes place. It is there that the political alignments that have defined American, the American public life for decades and decades just get shattered open. In that moment where the president of the United States was finally forced to decide which side am I on. And it is at that moment, that the political space of the 1960s that the political realignments of the 1960s are created. So it is, I am not saying that, that event shapes everything that follows, but it creates a new context for everything that follows. SM: 24:22 Very good, you know, that march on Washington in (19)63 was something and- KB: 24:28 That is, I think that is one of the great misunderstood events. I mean, now there has been a lot of good scholarly work on that, though, I am not sure how far it reaches. But the thing that, now I am going to get sort of preachy, [chuckles] kind of literally, I think. What I, one of the things I found most difficult in teaching the course, and I try to do with the book as well, is not simply to say and this is the way scholarship has gotten to say, you know, this was about much more than civil rights. It was about the fusion of civil rights and economic troubles and that is absolutely true, and that is really important. What I find maddening, understandable, but maddening is the way that people dismiss [Dr.] King's, "I Have a Dream," speech. And the problem is that as Americans, we have heard it too often, and so it has become a cliché, it has become a string of clichés. And because of that, it is impossible to hear how radical a speech that is. It is impossible to hear the point of that speech that what King is doing in that speech, is he is holding up in the most powerful and public of moments, this radical vision of the beloved community. And one of the things I really try, I do not know how effectively I did, but it was really important to me is to restore, well, let me put it this way, one of the things that scholarship has done, and it is a good thing that scholarship has done, not being critical of that is it is tried to revive the radical king, the king who talked about fundamental economic change. And that is really important. And I agree 100 percent, with the value of doing that. The problem for me in that is that what we have, underplayed and sometimes really are quite dismissive of, is the radicalism of his religious vision. He was first and foremost a religious figure, that there is a profound radicalism in the religious vision that he is presenting to the United States. And I would love to see more of an emphasis on that. But when he talks about when he talks about passive resistance, when he talked about radical love, when he talked about these fundamentally religious topics of redemption, what he was doing was presenting Americans with an alternative way of living, of conceiving their relationship to each other, and to the nation. And why we see, why we dismiss that is just kind of ridiculous idealism, and embrace as radical, an economics agenda is because we are too locked into a very strict sense of what counts as radical. Now, of course, the economic agenda is radical, but so is this vision where he was saying to Americans, "You can, in fact, we replace hatred with love," that is a radical vision. That is a radical reconstruction of the ways that the nation operated and that human beings related to each other. And yet, somehow, we see that it is just kind of rhetoric. SM: 27:42 Dr. King, was an amazing human being in so many ways. You know, he created not only tension, he created tension within his own group, within the African American community. He did not- KB: 27:54 Oh yeah. SM: 27:55 wave like a, "I am going to go to Chicago, there is a lot of racism up north." While he got there, many people in the, in, you know, other civil rights leader says "No, it is in the South," no, it is also in the north. And he went north and knew no one, you were explaining it in your book. Then, of course, his speech on Vietnam. Oh, no, you know, you do not give a shit about Vietnam. You know, it is, you know, you got to deal with civil rights issues at home. And, and then, the challenge of Black power when Stokely Carmichael or H. Rap Brown, you know, you represent more gradualist approach, we are going to, you know, we are just going to do it. KB: 28:08 Yep. Yeah-yeah. SM: 28:34 Everything King was doing was creating tension in not only communities that were racist, but also in communities that supported what he was doing, but did not like the techniques that he was using. KB: 28:49 Yeah, absolutely. I think that is absolutely right. SM: 28:53 Yeah, in the four presidents that you talk about in the book, you did a great job on all of them. And you give a lot on Eisenhower, which I am glad you did. Because, when you are talking about the (19)60s, oh, he is he is meeting John Kennedy, the day of the election, and talking about Vietnam, and all this other stuff, but it was much more than that. Of the four presidents, when you think of the (19)60s, it is Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Which one do you feel had the greatest impact on the (19)60s? KB: 29:25 That is a great question. I keep saying that [chuckles], but I am really fascinated by that. You know, I think it depends on which angle you look at it from. I was, I was surprised myself how important Dwight Eisenhower turned out to be. But and how it kind of, he hovered over the (19)60s as this kind of model that people were, firstly Richard Nixon wanted to emulate. But I think I would argue that it is a balance between Lyndon Johnson for the dramatic moment, the ways in which he actually embraced change, and by the forces of reaction that he originally or even getting there so that he unleashed that I think particularly of the backlash against civil rights, and the kind of more conservative critique of the Vietnam War. And Nixon, who I think to this day has a really enduring impact on American society, and it is one of the ironies of the 1960s, is that here is this period of deep and profound change that results in a kind of conservative reconstruction of American society. And Nixon is a fascinating figure in that reconstruction. Which is, [crosstalk] so, given Kennedy, kind of the least, importance in the 1960s. SM: 31:18 Do you- KB: 31:18 Which is also surprising. SM: 31:20 -yeah there was, there was thoughts also that there were 2 (19)60s. Now, I have read this in books. There were 2 (19)60s, there was a period 1960 to (19)63, and then there was a period (19)64 to (19)75, because a lot of people talk about the (19)60s as the early (19)70s, too. Your thought on that, and of course, it revolves around the assassination of President Kennedy, and the impact that had on America, and the world. KB: 31:49 I think I do believe that the (19)60s periodization, pushing, definitely pushes into the early (19)70s. I used, once upon a time I think, people, this is a long time ago now, people had a tendency to kind of cut things off in 1968. I think that, that really ruptures important continuity. So I agree with the extension of the period into the (19)60s into the early (19)70s. I am a little less inclined to see that really sharp distinction in the 1960s. I think there is a lot more. There is, it is not just it is not continuity, but I think that the break is not as sharp as that concept of two 1960s suggests it is, I think there is more of a coherent narrative between those periods. There is, there is clearly changes (19)65, I think, is a really important, transformational moment in that, that is the point where the war escalates, that is where voting rights is secure, that is where Griswold was handed down. That is why I devote a chapter to what I called, "The Revolutions of 1965." But I do not, I am a little less convinced by the idea of our kind of (19)60s, the early idealism, and then the divisions later on, the divisions were pretty deep in the early (19)60s too, and the 1950s, as well. SM: 33:16 I think some people try to, who were believing in those 2 (19)60s. We were saying that, well, there was violence in the, well, it all started with the violence against J.F.K., and it just continued. It was violence, and but there was violence going on before that [chuckles] in the south. KB: 33:36 Exactly-exactly. SM: 33:37 So they are generalizing kind of. Now, some of the, I like your thoughts too on the civil rights organizations of the (19)60s. Certainly Snick was a very important one, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Corps, the Urban League, the Black Panthers, the NAACP. Could you talk about, about some of these organizations, and the impact that they had on the (19)60s? And age had a lot to do with some of these too, because Snick were mostly young people. And, but the- KB: 33:40 That is the SCLC. I mean, it was, so was SCLC- SM: 34:16 Huh? KB: 34:16 -you know, I mean, one of the things that is so startling to my students is how young Martin Luther King was, you know, when the Montgomery Bus Boycott started, in (19)55, he was what, 25? SM: 34:16 Right. Yes. [laughter] KB: 34:28 You know, he always seemed older, but he is, but in any case. So in creating the breakthrough moment of the civil rights movement, that moment that runs from the Children's Crusade in (19)63 through Selma in (19)65. That is really good at this critical breakthrough moment. There is no doubt that Snick and SCLC are the driving forces. because they are the organizations that are pushing the direct confrontation of nonviolent protest in the American south, without their pushing that, then the breakthrough moment would not have happened. And that is a really dramatic and challenging moment in a lot of ways. Children's Crusade in (19)63 is an incredibly complex thing to think about because it was about risking children's lives. And there is a serious moral question that runs through that decision to bring kids as young as 8, 9, 10 into the streets of Birmingham, knowing they have could have been killed. But Snick and SCLC [inaudible] two civil rights activism of that period. That get, they are challenged more and more by this long tradition, that runs through the nation of Islam stretches back to Garveyism to the nation of Islam, and then through its movement, Black nationalism, over to Snick in the mid-1960s. The division, the long-standing divisions in Black political life, come to the forefront in the mid-1960s, first with Snick's turn to Black Power in (19)66, (19)65-(19)66 with it is breakthrough in (19)66. And then with the rise of the Black Panthers, really in (19)68, so the Panthers had theirs- SM: 34:42 Right. KB: 34:46 - in (19)67-(19)68. With so, with the rise of Black power, and here is one of the things to me, that was really important to me, in writing the latter parts of the book. The NAACP, everybody in kind of moderate wing of the movement, I think has the most radical moment of the rights activism in the entire 1960s. And that is the movement towards the integration of public schools in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s via busing, that is the most radical social experiment of the entire 1960s racial movement. Because what that does, but the NAACP does with that part of the Civil Rights is it says, no longer should it be completely on the shoulders of Black people, particularly Black, young Black people, children to bear the burden of racial change. Now, it's got to be shared by white families as well. And what that does is it pushes the civil rights movement into parts of white America that it had never touched before. There was a huge swath of white suburban America in the 1960, that, of course, saw the civil rights protests on T.V., but of course, saw it in the newspapers, but it did not touch their lives. They did not have Black people living in their neighborhoods, there was nobody sitting down at a lunch counter anywhere in suburban Chicago or suburban Detroit. And then suddenly, what the NAACP does with the busing movement, is it says, oh, no, you are part of the solution too. That is the most radical moment of civil rights activists in the 1960s. At the same time, I am not trying to diminish the Panthers. But, here were the Panthers who were talking about radical change, but whose primary program was a free breakfast program for poor kids. I am not saying there is anything wrong with the free breakfast program. I am simply saying, that is a pretty mild program you got going on there, when you are talking about the revolutionary change. Here is the NAACP that everybody thinks of as racial moderate, who defined themselves as racial moderates, for a good part of the 1960s who are pushing change that is going to bring racial change directly into the homes of millions of white people across the country. And that is fascinating to me. SM: 39:07 Snick, the people that were in Snick, the leaders that came from this is unbelievable. KB: 39:14 Oh. SM: 39:15 I was looking at the list just last week, there is about 60 names of people who went on to become, you know, in all walks of life, leaders of organizations, running for office heading- KB: 39:26 Yeah. SM: 39:26 -you know. Julian Barnes, just one of them. I mean, one other thing and just, I have heard this today, where are the leaders? Where are the Black leaders that used to be the leaders of the (19)60s and when you when you think about it, there is some truth. You had a Roy Wilkins, you know, Martin Luther King, you had a James Farmer, you had a Whitney Young, you had a Roy Wilkins. You had young people like John Lewis, and Robert Moses, and Stokely Carmichael, and Panthers like Bobby Seale, and you know, Fred Hampton, who was murdered, and-and Huey Newton, and then you think of Malcolm X, the Muslim, Muhammad Ali, [inaudible] with the young. It is just, they were on the news all the time they, you saw them there. They mean they were known. I do not, today, I do not really see that many. And, where are they? KB: 40:24 I think the media landscape has changed so dramatically. You know that here was, one of the really important I wish I had done more about this really, aspects of the 1960s was the novelty. The still novelty of television, you know that the idea of having T.V. news in your home was still 10 years, was new to a huge number of Americans, it did not have a history longer than about 10 years, in the early 1960s for most Americans. And in some ways that is comparable to the world that we now live in, where the generation that, of young people today are living with a technological world that they think of as natural, but is actually more than 10 years old, you know, the idea that you are having your news delivered to you on these multiple platforms that you carry around with you. And I think what that is done to a certain extent is that it is dissipated our sense of political movements. So that, you know, there were only three networks in most of America in the 1960s. They had the ability to kind of create public figures in a way that the more diffused media landscape does not, but that it has not changed, I think, the movement, the ability of a movement to build, if anything that I think it's accelerated it. You know, one of the things that I have stressed with my students lately is that, as a percentage of the nation, more people marched in the protests after George Floyd's murder, in the summer of 2020, then marched at any point in the course of the 1960s. So of course, when in the 1960s, about 10 percent of the population, participated in at least one march or protest, somewhere in the course of the 1960s. Ninety percent of Americans never joined a protest anywhere in the course the 1960s. In the summer of 2020, somewhere about 14 percent of Americans joined at least one march. SM: 42:45 Wow. KB: 42:48 It can still be there. But I think like you said, the sense of kind of key personalities at the start of them. That is changed. SM: 42:58 That word, that comes up in the (19)60s all the time, the word about freedom. KB: 43:04 Yeah. SM: 43:05 When you think, I, you look at some of the main events and Freedom Summer, which was so historic in 1964, you had- KB: 43:13 Yeah. SM: 43:13 -you had the Freedom Rides early in the (19)60s, you had the free speech movement at Berkeley, which is a historic happening. And of course, the man who led that movement at Berkeley was one of the young people at Freedom Summer, Mario Savio. Your thoughts on the word, "freedom," with respect to all the things that were happening in the (19)60s, in terms of the three categories you are talking about and how important that word is? KB: 43:42 Yeah, it is, it is a fundamentally important word that had different meanings for different people. So that when the civil rights activists of Freedom Summer, or the activists have the Freedom Rides used that word, they meant freedom from oppression, freedom from the oppression of the Jim Crow system. Free speech is connected, as you said, that there is a direct line from Mississippi to Mario Savio up to Berkeley that fall, but there is an expression of freedom from structures of, kind of, university structures of mass education. And then you get to the politics of freedom that runs through say Haight Ashbury in the Summer of Love, there it is freedom from constraint. And that is a really, very different sense of freedom, you can do as you want to do, was a very different sense of freedom than John Lewis on a bus challenging the segregation of bus stations. SM: 45:01 Right. KB: 45:02 That is a very different concept. And it is one of the tensions that went through the (19)60s, and that runs through, that, individuals should be free to do as they choose. And another to say, individuals should be free from systems of oppression. That is a really, very different things. SM: 45:27 The birth of beats played a very important role in the (19)60s too, in terms of, they were ahead, ahead of their time in the (19)50s. But they all had, they had an influence too, and they were, everything and everything they were about is freedom. [chuckles] KB: 45:42 Yeah. SM: 45:42 Do it, do it my way. [chuckles] KB: 45:44 And that is another really good example of the (19)50s as being a much more complicated period than we think of it as being, right. SM: 45:53 Yeah. What is the, you know I have, I have been amazed and I have thought about this ever since I was in college, and now I am in my early (19)70s. And that is, why does Vietnam, this war, it was not World War II, it was not World War I, it was not Korea. It was not the Gulf War, while the Gulf War was not that big, but it was not the, the wars in the Middle East. What is it about this war from (19)59 to (19)75, that has really shaped this nation, not only his foreign policy, but in everything? Why-why has the Vietnam War continue to have such an effect on our society? George Bush in 1989 said that, "The Vietnam syndrome was over," when I heard that I said, "Where has he been?" And, [laughter] that was, that was in 1989. But just your thoughts, why does Vietnam still, to this day affect us in so many ways? KB: 46:58 I think there is multiple reasons for that. One really obvious one, is that and it ties back to something we were talking about a couple minutes ago, Vietnam was the first, in some ways almost the last, televised war, so that suddenly what Americans could see who had never been to war. So, you are not talking about World War II veterans, but their families or younger families, could actually see if what war actually looks like, and war is a horrific thing to see. So I do think that was one key piece of it. For the first time, you know, Americans, the American government censored World War II, and obviously, the means of communication were different, to a really dramatic degree, so that Americans could see, you know, the war movies where nobody bleeds, it is a whole different thing to see the footage of someone getting shot in the head on the streets of Saigon, or the young girl running down the street, down the road, being napalmed, to the photos from me live, to see the horror, that war actually is, is one key part of that. Another key part of it is the really, really deep effects that the war has, in turn, and I think we still underplayed this, in terms of domestic economic policy. And I do try to play a bit more about this, the war has an absolutely destructive effect on the American economy that gets replayed over and over again in the United States, in the decades since with the triggering of inflation, with the destruction of the post-war international economic order, so I do think that is a key part of it, as well. And then there is this fascinating thing that happens with our sense of the anti-war movement it is two fascinating things, because there is, of course, a massive anti-war movement, or as I try to suggest in the book, there are multiple anti-war movements in the United States. One of the things that is odd about our sense of the anti-war movement, is that when we tend to think of World War II is the standard by which we measure American wars, when in fact, World War II is the anomalous war, Americans have always had strong protest movements against wars. They just come in different forms. There is a massive anti-war push against the Civil War. There were strong oppositions to World War I. There were strong oppositions to the Philippine Wars and the Spanish American War. There was massive opposition in particular forms to Korea. The popularity of the Korean War just absolutely plummeted in the course of that war and it certainly fueled the rise, not the creation, but the rise of McCarthyism. But somehow, we see the anti-war move into the night of Vietnam, as somehow really new and different. Now, they are in their form, they are very large, and that is certainly traumatic. But I think that is kind of lodged, that is that Vietnam syndrome, right. SM: 50:23 Right. KB: 50:23 Somehow the United States government is complicit in a disastrous war, which of course, the United States government was complicit in disastrous war. That is what we have to shake, that we are going to make the military strong again, and beloved again, then we are going to prove the United States could be a world power that it was before Vietnam. It is just funny that we tend to think of it as anomalous when in fact, it is in the American tradition. That is what Lyndon Johnson was terrified of, not afraid of [inaudible], of the left but of the anti-war movement of the right, which he assumed he was going to get slammed by, which was what had destroyed Harry Truman and Korea, it is the anti-war movement of the right. And we actually see that playing out today, where it is a great criticism of U.S. involvement in Ukraine is from the right. And that ran through Vietnam as well. So, I think Vietnam has an outsized influence, because of the visuals of it, because it did in fact, have an outsized effect on society. And because of that anti-war movement, that, or anti-war movements that were so fundamental to the polarization of American politics. SM: 51:47 The war, not only those who participated in the war, we knew what was going on over in Vietnam. What was happening in civil rights in America was actually happening with a lot of the African American soldiers in Vietnam. KB: 52:00 That is right. SM: 52:01 The experience they have and they were certainly dying in large numbers too, with their names that are now on the Vietnam Memorial. But- KB: 52:08 Yeah. SM: 52:08 -it is also the fact that when-when they came home, there was no welcome for the Vietnam vets. KB: 52:14 Yes, yep. SM: 52:15 And it took the building of a wall in 1982, to, for the first time the Vietnam vets, they were welcomed home, and tried to heal the nation, but no other war, that I can think of, had where Americans just kind of said nothing, or looked down on this. KB: 52:36 Yeah, I agree completely. And I think the American soldiers experience in Vietnam, not all-American soldiers, obviously, but the American soldiers experience in Vietnam was for them, I think so profoundly disillusioning because of the way the war was fought. And then they come, they came home to a sense that what they had done, was not recognized was not valued, was some cases, seen as in fact, complicit in war crimes. And, it is devastating because I will give you a really small example, I lived, when I was teaching at UMass, I lived in a small town. I did not live in Amherst, I lived in a small town outside of Amherst, I could not afford Amherst. And every Memorial Day, there would be the Veterans of Foreign Wars would do a little parade. And, veterans refused to allow the Vietnam vets to march in their parade, this is, you know, the late 1990s. Because, and so they barred the Vietnam veterans from our little town to participate in the parade on Memorial Day. SM: 53:53 Wow. KB: 53:54 And you know, I guess that would be the more conservative version of disrespecting those soldiers experience and those soldiers sacrifice. SM: 54:06 Yeah, I am. One of the individuals I interviewed, John Morris, who is a Vietnam vet from the Westchester area, when he came home somebody took them to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Office and they told him to leave because, because he was a Vietnam vet, and yes, John is unbelievable. Before I ask my next question, there is something here regarding John Kerry's speech too that I thought was very important during the war, when Vietnam Veterans Against the War threw their, you know their-their medals away, and then John Kerry spoke before the Foreign Relations Committee. I think that is a powerful speech, a very powerful- KB: 54:46 It is. SM: 54:47 -very powerful speech, but the man who allowed that, that hearing to take place Senator William Fulbright, he had written several books that were classics on the Vietnam War, you probably We read them. But he, I mean, yeah, we ended up bringing, I took a group of students to see William Fulbright before he died down to Washington. And, and he was, he wanted to know why, I knew Senator Gaylord Nelson, so we actually talked about the war. And I took pictures, and then I took pictures of him with our students, and then I had put it in my office. And we invited Harry Edwards to campus, you know, Dr. Harry Edwards from Berkeley who was- -and of course, he was the one of the leaders of the protests at Cornell in (19)69, and the (19)68 protests in the, and everything. And Dr. Edwards came in and said, "What is that picture doing here? Why do you have a picture of that cracker?" [laughs] Yeah, in your office, and I explained to him, "Well, I know that, you know that Senator Fulbright was not good in the area of race relations, but he was really good in the area of foreign relations and, and, and he had already apologized for what he had done in the, in the one area, but he was powerful in the other area, trying to save lives." But I just want to throw that as an anecdote. [laughs] KB: 55:29 Yes. Yeah. And you know what it says to me, the world is a complicated place. We all do better to recognize it. [chuckles] SM: 55:38 Yeah. [chuckles] One, one very powerful moment you talk about in your book, too, is when Black power came to be. When Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, you know, he was really, he was really to the extreme left but, but it was Stokely and his challenge of Dr. King, Bayard Rustin, James Farmer, young Louis Bebo, all the loss and all the civil rights leaders who believed in non-violence. That was, the Dr. King's beloved community versus Black power. Could you talk about that? Because that was powerful happening. KB: 56:56 Oh, yeah. So, I think this comes back to something we talked about a good bit ago now. That, the tradition of Black nationalism, Black power, is very deep in the Black community. So it stretches back at least to the 19, late 19th century, this argument that essentially says, "Look, people are never going to agree, just surrender their power, we have to force them to, and we have to do it, or we have to separate ourselves out from the Black, the white community as the only way to build to safety and security for our community." That is a long tradition. And one of the things that happens in the 1950s, and particularly in the 1960s, is that whites are confronted with that tradition for the first time. So, they see Malcolm X and they think this is coming out of nowhere. It is not, it is coming out of this long political tradition, but it is a minority political tradition inside the Black community. It always was, it is in the course of the 1960s. And so when Stokely Carmichael embraces, creates that phrase of "Black power," and nationalizes that phrase it causes massive media attention. The other side of the, the Black political traditions, the sides that is represented by the NAACP, or by Dr. King, or by John Lewis. They have their, Rushton is probably the smartest analyst at this moment in my mind. They say, "We know this, this, it is not like we have never heard of this idea before. This is part of the political tradition in our community. But whites are going to be terrified by it." And as Rushton says over and over again, "We are in minority community. And so we cannot have, we cannot afford to have a politics that alienates whites, because they have got, they have got the real power here." And his great fear, and he is coming from another, a different political tradition, is great fear is what Black power is going to do, it is going to intensify the white backlash, and it does. So, the truth of the matter is that while Black nationalism is not new, while it is a powerful expression, and powerful critique of white society, and I think, in my mind, a really important critique of white society, politically, it is got disastrous consequences, because white support for civil rights was always dead. And what King had done is he had managed to build up enough white support to push through these fundamental changes in the law, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. And, but he knew how thin it was at the height of the nonviolent movement in 1963, about half of white Americans think that it is a violent movement. [chuckles] Because they are so ingrained with the idea that Black people are violent. And it is such a troupe of American racism. King knows how thin it is and what Black power does is it plays to that. It said, it plays on that idea of what you, you think I am about, you are right. But, it is your fault. And that is a really dangerous politics to play in the United States. Because as Rushton realizes, losing white support is so harmful to a movement, to a minority movement in American society, in some ways what, this is the kind of odd turn and I am not sure I would even stand by it. So, let us see how this goes. In some ways, King's side of the movement, Rushton's side of the movement, NAACP's side of the movement, they actually might have understood the depth of white racism better than Black power does. Because Black power has at its heart, one piece of itself that seems to think that whites aren't going to assert the power they have, whereas King, knows they will. SM: 56:58 Yeah. Yeah, that was a great analysis there, excellent. And I know, Malcolm X was one of the required readings in the sixth. I went to Binghamton University, and I remember reading the book on Malcolm X, and by "any means necessary," was kind of a scary term. [chuckles] We will do anything- KB: 1:01:44 Yep. SM: 1:01:44 -or we will shoot if we have to, that was kind of the, but-but-but if you know, Malcolm, you know, he grew and evolved over time. And that the last two years of his life, he was changing, I think, in much better ways. And then sadly, he was murdered. And, we never will know those ways that he would have gone. KB: 1:02:06 Yeah. SM: 1:02:08 The other thing here is, during the (19)60s, there were many movements. I know, you have made mention in your book that, you know you concentrated on civil rights, but they are, the (19)60s was about the movements to as well. It is not just the civil rights movement, but the gay rights, the women's movement, the environmental movement, Native American movement, Chicano movement, even the farmworkers movement. And of course, the Vietnam veteran’s movement. And so, your thoughts on that? Was not, but I think civil rights movement was the model that most of them used. KB: 1:02:43 Yeah, absolutely. Civil rights is both, it is, you said, it is both the models that they used, the inspiration for those other movements. And it is the pathbreaking movement, as I said, you know, as we were talking, maybe half an hour ago, I said, since that, that sort of, march from 1963 is so fundamentally important, because it opens up that space, it opens up the space for other movements to then step in as well. You know, take the women's movement, for instance, National Organization of Women is founded out of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which is a creation of those children in the streets of Birmingham. So, that case is kind of a direct line. The united farmworkers movement comes out of grassroots organizing that is very much tied to the King model, you know, it runs through [inaudible] in Chicago, but it is very much tied to King models, a shortcut that is for safe, kind of grassroots activism, that people like Ella Baker was so important in defining. So, one of the painful things for this bucket, and I mentioned this in the introduction, one of the painful movements, things about this book is say, I am going to leave important stories out, right, because what I want to do is I want to have these tight focus on what I think are the really critical, the most important of all those important movements. And, you know, it pains me I mean, it is I was finishing the book, especially on Latino politics. It really pains me to leave that out. But, I do agree that civil rights is the standard by which other movements are set. SM: 1:04:31 Yeah, and it is a well-known fact that people that were involved in the anti-war movement, used the civil rights movement as their model. KB: 1:04:39 Absolutely-absolutely. SM: 1:04:39 And over and over again. And you talk also, you know, when Black power came, and challenged of nonviolent protest. That-that happened in the anti-war movement too, when the weathermen, you know Students for Democratic Society. KB: 1:04:41 Yep. SM: 1:04:43 You know, they, people would quit SDS, if they had, they had to go all the way of the weathermen. KB: 1:05:02 Yeah. SM: 1:05:03 That violence was not the way, because you know, violence in the end, never solves anything. KB: 1:05:08 Well, and on top of that, you know, the federal government is, wields, has at its disposal, a level of violence power that is so greater than any social movement is going to have. Now, I am not trying to say that the federal government is inherently a violent organization. It just has greater power. This is wonderful moment. Remember the old "Eyes on the Prize," series. There is this great moment in the episode that deals with Mississippi, University of Mississippi crisis in (19)62. And they are interviewing, the filmmakers are interviewing Burke Marshall, in the Justice, Kennedy Justice Department. And he says this really fundamentally true thing. He said, "You know, these people down in Mississippi," and he is talking about white people in Mississippi, "They can fund the federal government. But in the end, the federal government is going to win. Because if the federal government wants to it can send the battleship down the Mississippi River." And that is fundamentally true, the weathermen could talk about staging days of rage. But in the end, if it came to it, they were not going to topple the federal government, you know, when the urban rebellions hit in cities like Detroit, in the end, they were repressed by massive force, and people were killed. That is the challenge of movements that embrace violence, but it is, it can be even an understandable decision, right? That you have tried the nonviolence it does not seem to be making the changes you want to see. But in the end, the federal government or state and the state government, for that matter, have way more violent capabilities. SM: 1:05:41 Oh, yes. I remember that, you may remember this too. There was a paper back that came out I think it was in the (19)70s by Ovid Demaris called "America the Violent." [laughs] So and, it goes into the, that violence is all bad. KB: 1:07:19 Yep. SM: 1:07:20 But, America is very used to it. KB: 1:07:23 Very, yes. SM: 1:07:24 Yeah. Colonel Harry Summers, I do not know if you have heard of him. He is the, he is the man, the original editor of Vietnam Magazine, and he was an author- -of a couple of books on strategy in Vietnam, once told me we were trying to get him to come to speak at Westchester University to be, for our, when we bought the traveling Vietnam memorial, and we did a four-day event, and we had Vietnam War programs the entire semester. And sadly, he died of cancer before he could come. But he told me over the phone, that college professors who teach courses on the (19)60s on the Vietnam War, rarely talk about the war from a military point of view, mostly from the protester's point of view, or the politician's point of view. So, think tank point of view. Your thoughts on that? Because he was adamant on that, and he was the founder of Vietnam magazine. And, he was actually writing a speech. And I said, when he died, I tried to say, "Can-can I get that speech from his wife," wife said, "No." But he had written a speech to present and I am sure the wife has also passed away. But your thoughts on that, that the universities that have been concentrating on teaching courses on the Vietnam War and on the (19)60s, rarely present the military point of view? KB: 1:07:32 Oh, yes. Yeah, I think that is actually a valid criticism. I think that is fair. You know that, I mean, obviously, I cannot speak for everybody who teaches a course. But, that certainly would be my impression as well. And, I think I probably do quite a bit of that myself. And I think that is probably a valid criticism. SM: 1:09:08 Yeah, I just bought two books from a used bookstore, and it is the U.S. Army books on the Vietnam War, so. [laughs] And they were expensive. [crosstalk] KB: 1:09:19 Like that, you know, those federal government histories that come out of the Department of Defense, or they come out of other, they are great, you know, they are very particular kinds of history, but they are really useful. SM: 1:09:33 Well I, that three of them just came to this, and they were $50 apiece. I bought them. KB: 1:09:39 Oof. SM: 1:09:39 I, because I want them, I have never seen them before. So anyway, one of the other things is you talk about the ordinary people, could you list maybe a few more, not so well-known people from your book that people may not know, but their- KB: 1:09:55 Sure, so. SM: 1:09:56 -experiences are just as important as well-known people? KB: 1:09:58 Well, because we are talking about Vietnam, I talked about, I tell the story open the chapter on Vietnam, actually with this story of James Farley, who is an ordinary soldier in Vietnam in 1965, who ends up being featured in a Life Magazine story about the war. So, this sounds an awkward thing to say, I hope it does not sound jerky to say this. But the passage in the book that I am actually most proud of where I feel like strongest about is in that chapter, where I talk about ordinary soldiers who were killed in the war, 1966 to 1967. And I kind of list, people whose names I pulled randomly. Well, not randomly, but I pulled from the Vietnam War Memorial, from different parts of the country, and about their bodies coming home, and the flags being presented to their families. That is really important to me to talk about the ordinary soldiers, you know, who were drafted or who volunteered, and ended up as frontline troops in Vietnam. I mentioned talking about Norma McCorvey, that was really fundamentally important to me. All the way through, I try to bring in as many people as I could, whose story is people that maybe they know the events, but whose stories they do not necessarily know, so protesting against the war, like this, the folks or the kids at Kent State. I just think it is, again, I guess I am repeating myself, just so they feel like fundamentally, the one, both, the import, those powerful, important people we know, and those ordinary folks down in the neighborhoods, or down in these horrible moments. SM: 1:11:53 Very good. One of the things you say in the book, you quote Daniel Bell early in the book. KB: 1:12:02 I asked. [chuckles] SM: 1:12:03 Dan, and I actually interviewed Daniel Bell, he was not well, but I interviewed him up at Harvard. And the thing is, could you talk about that, what he said? KB: 1:12:15 Yeah, so this is one of the kind of classic senses again, it kind of takes us back to the 1950s, that you know we had entered into an age of consensus, that each was the great causes of the past had been set aside, and that we had created a consensus society and needless of that, I am not a big fan of increasing consensus society. And I just think that is, you know, I am a great admirer of technical writing, but it is fundamentally wrong, I think, to say that we are, the 1950s was a period, post-war period, is a period of consensus, is to say that, is to miss all those people that the consensus excluded. And, it is a huge portion. [chuckles] It is a substantial portion of American society, because it was not a consensus. The Civil Rights folks did not believe that there was a consensus in the United States, the beats, did not think we have a consensus in the United States. What happened in the 1950s was that Dwight Eisenhower, who was a brilliant politician, portrayed himself as a hapless one. This brilliant politician, managed to create a political coalition that pre-sagged the Republican majority, he was building the modern American Republican majority, not the one that exists now but, the one that would consolidate under Richard Nixon in 1972, was ticking away, it would already broke solid south, it carried most of the upper cells in both of his elections, he consolidated the white vote, white vote becomes Republican in the United States in 1952. And it has remained that way in every single election since then, except for 1964. But it actually starts in (19)52. He consolidated the connection between the upper end of the working class and the American middle class, particularly in suburban areas, he was building a Republican political coalition that, then gets and that is the, that is what we call a consensus is, in fact, a particular political alignment that was committed to certain things. Pursue a Cold War, but do it off the front pages, maintain racial segregation, but without the kind of brutality of the Jim Crow stuff, which is the democratic political order. We maintain middle class, middle brown culture that Dwight Eisenhower perfectly embodied that excluded people like gay and lesbian Americans. That is a political construction that Daniel Bell and other commentators in the 1960s, called a consensus. Well, it was not the consensus. It was a political culture that arranged particular groups of people, a lot of them in a particular order. And then the (19)60s, cracks that open, and what Richard Nixon tries to do, was his goal really, is to put it back together again. SM: 1:15:29 Yeah. KB: 1:15:30 Because he is in fact, trained by, in politics, by Dwight Eisenhower, he thinks of himself as trying to fulfill, to recreate what Dwight Eisenhower created. The problem, of course, is that he was not. He was no Dwight Eisenhower, [laughs] and that the changes of the (19)60s were not reversible in the way that Richard Nixon imagined them to be. So, that is why I think, you know, I start with Daniel Bell, because Daniel Bell sets that standard. We are a consensus society, the end of the ideology, but it is, it is wrong. SM: 1:16:03 Yeah, it is interesting when, when I did speak with him one, one name that came up that really drew his attention was Mark Rutte. [laughs] KB: 1:16:14 Hm, interesting. SM: 1:16:14 He had a lot, he had a lot of thoughts to say on Mark Rutte so, at Columbia University, so. KB: 1:16:21 Yeah. SM: 1:16:24 When you look at the Boomer Generation what, just your general thoughts on the Boomer Generation? Yeah, I-I asked this question early on in my interviews about the, you know, when I was young, even on this campus at Binghamton, there was this feeling, this aura of we were living in different times, and it was great to be young and, and all this other stuff, and we were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society. And it was, it was a youthful feeling. But, you know, we know the history now. Now, the boomers are now the oldest generation, per se. KB: 1:17:00 Yeah. SM: 1:17:01 And we are all reflecting on what really has been done. And in knowing that, in terms of those who participate, you talked about numbers, those who participated in any kind of an activity or protests or, you know, society's issues, it might have been 7 or 8 percent of that 74 or 76 million. Just your overall thoughts on the boomer generation, we are the most, the most unique generation in American history? KB: 1:17:30 No. [laughter] SM: 1:17:30 Okay. KB: 1:17:33 Really, no, that was not. That was a bit quick. Let me expand on that a little bit. I do think that what you said a minute ago, I think you said a couple of really important things a minute ago. Yes, there was a uniqueness to the Boomer Generation in that, that was a generation that grew up, that turned out to be this relative, this very brief period of stability and security for millions and millions of ordinary people. So, I think of, they grew up in the world fundamentally different than the one their parents grew up in, because they have that sense of security that their parents, in particular, my mother never had. That is important. And, when Tom Reid supports you on statement, that is one of the first things he says, right? We are the generation raised in comfort. So, I do think that makes it an unusual generation, an unusually lucky generation. I also think that you are absolutely spot on, to point out that the activist portion of that generation was never as big as people have come to think it was, and as boomers themselves have a tendency to think it was. And it is an understandable thing, I do not mean to be critical about it. But, memory has a way of turning everybody brave. There were massive numbers of young people who never joined the protest movement, who went to their classes, who got the degrees, if they were lucky to go, enough to go to college, which over half of them did not, who got the opportunity, you got married, you had children, who lived completely ordinary lives. I do not mean that as a criticism. I have great admiration for ordinary lives. But, it is not the story that people tend to tell themselves. I have given a lot of talks over the years on civil rights activism, and particularly, I cannot tell you how many white people in particular have told me they marched with Dr. King. Now I am sure some of them did- SM: 1:19:48 Right. KB: 1:19:48 -but a lot of them is that many white people were following Dr. King, every time he walked out the door that would have been a crowd of white people around. It is just the way that we tend to think of the past. We tend to, you know, there is clear studies of this. We tend to think of ourselves as always being on the right side of history. That is [inaudible]. So one of the things and we have talked a bit about ordinary people, I would have loved a bit more to tell you the truth on the Cahills, and they were the Cahills's children and their reasons that I did not follow that. I had more information that the Cahill family asked me not to use, and I honored that. It is about order, the boom, the Boomer Generation did have the great fortune of living in that particular moment of stability and security. But, they also lived ordinary lives, many-many of them. And yes, the minority were central to those changes, there was also a very strong conservative sentiment inside Boomer generation, a lot in the 1960s. A majority of college students, at least in (19)65, (19)66, (19)67, fully supported the Vietnam War. You know that is, that sentiment changed over time. But, support to the Vietnam War actually increased with educational level, except for those with graduate degrees. So, the more college education you had, the more education you had, high school to college, college to graduate school, or professional school, the more likely you were to support the Vietnam War. That is not surprising, given the dynamics of part one and looking at people understood, they were stuck with the war, in the way that people with higher education were not. That is one of the dynamics of the war. SM: 1:21:47 Yeah, and also, when you are teaching the (19)60s, another thing, if you are talking about the criticism, of what I talked about earlier, the conservatives, also were involved in the anti-war movement, and there was a- KB: 1:22:05 Yeah. SM: 1:22:06 -young America, I think it is Young Americans for Freedom or whatever. Definitely, Edwards has written about this, and that he is very concerned that if, you know, he teaches a course, I think at a Catholic school in Washington, D.C., and he teaches on the Vietnam War, and he makes sure that the conservative point of view is also part of the (19)60s- KB: 1:22:26 Yep. SM: 1:22:26 -because we you know, William Buckley, he is an important figure, I mean, his T.V. show with all the people he brought on. I mean, he is a very important figure because he brought everybody on that he opposed- KB: 1:22:38 Yep. SM: 1:22:38 -as well as people that he supported. And, and he had young people in the audience that were conservative and liberal. But I think talking a course on the (19)60s has to have the also the conservative point of view and the, you know, the student organizations that were against the war. KB: 1:22:54 Yeah, I think, I tried to get across it in the book is I think there were three anti-war movements. So it was a radical anti-war movement, one that we tend to think of as the anti-war movement. SM: 1:23:07 Yep. KB: 1:23:08 There was a liberal one that operated on different premises, you know, that did not see the war as a sign of the evil of American imperialism, that thought is a mistaken application of Cold War policies, the wrong place to be fighting on the right principle, and then there is a conservative anti-war movement. And that movement, wanted actually the escalation of the war, because they wanted, they believe U.S. was not using its power to its full effect. They wanted the 20 percent of American people in the 1960s, in (19)67, wanted the U.S. to use nuclear weapons on North Vietnam. And that movement and it had mass marches, there was a mass pro-war- -march in New York City in the spring of (19)67. There were massive marches, pre-war marches, or at least anti, anti-war marches in response to the march on the Pentagon in 19- [crosstalk] I think they call it the Hard Hat March. Was that the Hard Hat March or something like that? SM: 1:23:55 Right. KB: 1:24:08 And the hard hats in (19)70, which is tied with Cambodia invasion. SM: 1:24:16 Yeah, yep. KB: 1:24:17 That is a huge movement. And it just does, and people do not even know it is there. It plays in the polls enormously. You know, and they hate the war because what they hate it the way that the United States is pursuing the war. They do not like the way that it is a war of containment, instead of- SM: 1:24:36 Right. KB: 1:24:36 of a war of victory, and that it is killing American [inaudible]. SM: 1:24:41 I got four more questions. KB: 1:24:43 All right. SM: 1:24:44 The Vietnam Memorial opened in 1992, and its purpose was to, to heal the veterans, and their families. Those who served in the war and the families of those who lost loved ones in the war. It's done a pretty good job. I have witnessed that in person over the years. But the bottom line is this: Jan Scruggs wrote a book around the time the wall was, no 10 years after the wall was, sort of, called to heal a nation. Do you feel that Vietnam Memorial that is the second most visited memorial in Washington has healed our nation from this war? KB: 1:25:20 I think it helped America. A memorial can heal, can do all of that work. But I think it has helped. Like you I have been, like millions of Americans, I am not claiming anything exceptional. I have been to the wall, where you see veterans, touching the wall, putting personal tributes at the wall, and you realize what a powerful, you know, there was an awful lot, is it? Well, no, not a lot of controversy about the form that the memorial took. But I think it was, turned out to be a beautiful expression for veterans and their families. So, you know, I am a great admirer. As I think a lot of veterans are the beauty of that memorial. SM: 1:26:13 And also the Women's Memorial that opened in 1993. You know, the women had to fight for representation as well. KB: 1:26:21 Yeah. SM: 1:26:22 So, it is like everything connected to the (19)60s, there is battles [laughter] in everything and, and there has been some and they had, the three-man statue was a battle. I mean the, so in the course now there is thinking of a group that wants to do, pay honor to the dogs who served in Vietnam. Well, they put a stop to that. But- KB: 1:26:44 Yeah, that is probably a step too far, and I am a great dog lover. Oh, Rustin is fundamental. Because what Rustin does is, well, first of all, because he is a key component of one other strand of the civil rights movement, which is the strength of the civil rights movement that connects activism, racial activism, with radical pacifism, and with socialist politics. So, he is a bridge between various pieces of the movement between a piece of the movement that is tied to a Philip Randolph unionization, socialism, and to the radical pacifist tradition, which is a tiny little tradition in the United States. And it is through valve two connections, actually, that he becomes the, one of the architects of King's rise to prominence. You know, it is Rustin, who makes King, the national figure that he becomes after the Montgomery Bus Boycott, you can just see it in the newspapers, it is Rust, as he is taking this local, dramatic local story and turning it into a national story because he was a brilliant, brilliant political organizer. And it is Rustin, who then serves as the kind of organizational anchor along with Ella Baker, who is a friend and colleague of his- SM: 1:26:47 Yeah, one of the, I am very pleased that you talked a lot about Byard Rustin in your book. There is a long time that he was kind of a forgotten man, he was bad. Some people thought he was a bad man, because he was a communist. He was gay, I mean all this other stuff. And he is from Westchester, which is where I live. And, and so and we had a national tribute to him when I was working at Westchester University. But you, you did a great job of putting him in his role, not only with the march on Washington, but in other areas. Could you talk to us a little bit about why Byard Rustin is important when you talk about the (19)60s? KB: 1:28:47 -in New York City political circles, who then give the substance to the organizing work that the civil rights movement, King's brand, strand of the Civil Rights Movement does. King is a, not a great organizer, but he had really great organizers behind him, and Rustin as a theorist of the movement, and as an organizer of the movement really gives that southern movement much of its shape. Excellent. Yeah, he is, they named the high school after him in Westchester but the battle, the name that, was a battle. SM: 1:28:47 Right. KB: 1:29:23 I can imagine what do you think was the bigger part of the battle, his radicalism or the fact that he was gay. SM: 1:29:28 I think it was, that he was, some people, I think it was because he was gay, and also because he was a communist. And, and but finally I-I went to some of the meetings. I actually stood up once and said some things, but I just sat there. I was in amazement that, but they finally did it and, and, and now Brother Outsiders are being shown all over the country, you know, the film. KB: 1:29:54 Yeah. SM: 1:29:54 And Walter Nago, who I am close friend of, it was his partner and Walter goes, to film and shown. And so he is finally getting the recognition he deserved 40 years ago, so- KB: 1:30:06 Yep, exactly. SM: 1:30:08 Now, two last questions up. Was there one person in the (19)60s that you personally liked above everybody else? And is there one that you dislike? KB: 1:30:20 Oh, that I dislike? [laughs] I think I mean, I know this is a cliché answer. But, it is worth acknowledging, I will just acknowledge that I have just such enormous admiration for Martin Luther King. And I think, and I think it is because he was a flawed human being who, but who also upheld these kind of extraordinary principles. And so, you know, I know that is a cliché answer, but I think it is an honest one. Someone who I really, really dislike, hm, and there is a lot of candidates for sure. SM: 1:31:11 [laughs] KB: 1:31:14 Who would I put at the top of that list? Oh, that is a tough question. I do not know, I would have to think about that one. SM: 1:31:23 All right. Well, if had come up with it let me know. [laughter] KB: 1:31:26 You have got a deal. SM: 1:31:27 One thing, when we started the interview, I think, we did not, something cut off at the very beginning, which was when you were talking about, could you just redo again, your growing up years, I got your college experience- KB: 1:31:39 Oh, sure. SM: 1:31:40 -just your-your growing up years, and that, that early years, those early years? KB: 1:31:44 Sure, so as I mentioned before, I was born in Detroit, Michigan, in October of 1960. To be exact, I was born on the same day as the second Nixon Kennedy debate. And I grew up in Detroit, in an all-white neighborhood in Detroit that was kind of lower middle class, upper working-class neighborhood. I went to the, my neighborhood's parochial schools for grade school and high school. I did not mention that. But I will add that when I was in my teenage years, the neighborhood that I thought of so much as, as my home, underwent the dramatic racial change of white flight. And living through that I think, also had a really big, left a really big mark and my sense of the racial, the cost of American race, one part of the enormous cost of American racism. SM: 1:32:44 All right, and my very last question is this. And I have been doing this now for my last 15 interviews. KB: 1:32:49 [chuckles] SM: 1:32:50 And what is a message you would like to relate to people who listen to this lecture, who will be hearing it 50 years from now, for generations yet unborn, long after we were gone? What would you like to say to them? KB: 1:33:07 I think what makes the 1960s such an important and compelling period in American history, is that maybe a minority of, undoubtedly a minority of Americans believed enough in the promise of this nation, to demand that it be, that promise be fulfilled. And, they did not manage to do that. They did not manage to make it all the way to fulfilling that promise. And in some ways, the dynamics of the 1960s helped in the long run to move America even farther from that promise. But they believed enough in this nation, to take seriously the promise that it made in its founding documents, and to believe that they could through their own acts of courage, and sometimes enormous sacrifice, make the nation, move the nation closer to that promise. And that is an enormously important thing. SM: 1:34:23 Very good, Dr. Boyle. I want to thank Dr. KB: for being interviewed today about his book, "The Shattering: America in the 1960s." It is a winning book. And I think I mentioned to you, Dr., Dr. Boyle that Dr. Nieman who was the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost who is going back to the history department in a year, he is writing a book right now. So he will be away for a year but, he is pushing this book to be one of the books that is going to be used for the (19)60s course. KB: 1:34:59 Oh, cool, as he should. SM: 1:35:00 I am not sure if I have not seen Dr. Nieman since he announced he was leaving as Provost because he is working on his own book now but you know, I do not know if you know Dr. Daniel Nieman he is, race is a very big issue in his career. He is, you can look him up. He is a tremendous scholar. He loves Abraham Lincoln. And he, he was the dean of the school at the time, we started this Center for the Study of the (19)60s. So well I want to thank you again, I am going to turn this off and then give you final instructions. Thanks. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Kevin Boyle https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c821b9f1eb472b8cc3de22f0c389fceb.jpg d6a55fd77b87963a1f1c9246afc96644 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/74bd2d3e7d136bd3d2d3b682feb60d89.mp3 6031a794024318f0faa053ae62ba756e 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 ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Lawrence Davidson, 1945- Language English Biographical Text <span>Dr. Larry Davidson is a retired History professor at West Chester University. He is the author of&nbsp;</span><em>Islamic Fundamentalism</em><span>&nbsp;and&nbsp;</span><em>Cultural Genocide</em><span>, and is an expert on the Middle East. As a student, Davidson was an SDS (Student for A Democratic Society) leader at Georgetown University who made the front page of the&nbsp;</span><em>Washington Post</em><span>&nbsp;along with other students protesting the war in Vietnam. Dr. Davidson received his Ph.D. in Modern European Intellectual History from the University of Alberta in Edmonton.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; War protests; Anti-war movement; Civil Rights Movement; Daniel Ellsberg; John Dean; John Mitchell; Women's Rights Movement.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13228792}}">Baby boom generation; Vietnam War; War protests; Anti-war movement; Civil Rights Movement; Daniel Ellsberg; John Dean; John Mitchell; Women's Rights Movement.</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 96:06 Subject LCSH College teachers; West Chester University of Pennsylvania; Political activists--United States; Davidson, Lawrence, 1945--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: Larry Davidson Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: REV Date of interview: Not dated --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) SM (00:00:04): One, two, three, four, five, six. LD (00:00:08): ... button is? SM (00:00:08): Yes, there is. Pause is right here. LD (00:00:10): Oh, okay. All right. You want to tap? SM (00:00:15): Here you go. You can just kind of sit back and relax. LD (00:00:18): It is running now, right? SM (00:00:19): Yeah. LD (00:00:20): Okay. SM (00:00:20): [Inaudible] toward you and everything. Thank you very much for participating in the interview process here. LD (00:00:27): My pleasure. SM (00:00:29): Second time. First question I would like to ask is a general question. In the news recently, in fact over many years, there has been a lot of criticism of the boomer generation in terms of blaming this group of Americans where a lot of the problems in American society, we have seen it many times from Republicans, we have seen it sometimes from Democrats. We have seen it in a lot of recent books where the boomers are being criticized for the breakup of the American family, the increase in the drug culture, basically any problems facing American society goes back to those times in the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Could you comment on that from your perspective? LD (00:01:12): I always thought it was Islamic fundamentalists that were the new enemy of humankind, but now you tell me it is my generation. I imagine by "boomers" you mean those that were born at- SM (00:01:29): Between 1946 and 64. Which were 60 million people. LD (00:01:34): Oh, okay. Actually, I was born in 1945. That means I am not really one of those. I am a... SM (00:01:38): Dude. LD (00:01:39): All right. Well, I will not pretend. It is an obviously fallacious position. I cannot see how anyone can blame anyone generation for the troubles of the contemporary world. I mean, generations tend to meld into each other. And clearly, in terms of the generation you are referring to, there are people of all stripes and all colors and all ideologies across the American scene. No one group controlled the thoughts and actions of that entire generation, least of all the radicals of the "radicals" of the (19)60s. And I have a feeling that perhaps those are the ones that these critics want to pin all these problems on, if I am not mistaken. And the radicals, I can tell you because I was one of them, and one of them actually still, were just a very small minority within that generation, albeit a very vocal minority, and at least in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, particularly well-organized group. But still, in all, very, very small minority of that generational population. And if you can put a half a million people on the Mall in Washington DC it looks impressive on television. And in fact, it has some effect if you can do it over and over again on the politics of the time, but compared with the overall number of folks in the generation, half a million people is not a lot. And most of the people in the "radical movement" were really quite moderate in their overall politics. It was only a minority within a minority that you could really describe as consistently left-wing. So one has to look for other motives in terms of the critics. Why would they want to point fingers at this particular small group? They're an easy target. They were vocal. They stood out. They opposed a war that opened them up in the long term and at the time to charges of not being patriotic and that sort of thing. They identified themselves with, at the time, unpopular positions, so they were an easy target. And of course, to just point fingers at them means that you do not have to go into any broader analysis, systems-based analysis of the power structure and how it was operating and that sort of thing. So I do not take it really seriously. Obviously, these people write books and get published, but I do not take it really seriously. I do not think it's very near to the truth at all. SM (00:05:06): So when you hear the criticisms of looking back 30 years and blaming the drug problems of today's young people on the boomers of that era and their lifestyles, and the fact that the divorce rate did not happen in the (19)50s, but in the (19)60s, (19)70s and (19)80s, that whole concept of, "You do your thing, I will do my thing; if by chance we come together, it will be beautiful," but that kind of mentality? LD (00:05:41): I do not think that the things that you describe really characterize the majority of people of that generation. Those were the sort of quasi-anarchist feelings of a distinct vocal and picturesque minority within that generation. I mean, Abby Hoffman is not a representative member of the boomer generation. He was very picturesque and he was a great guy, from my point of view, but hardly can he be represented as typical. Just so the kind of free love depicted in, say, Arlo Guthrie's movie Alice's Restaurant. That is not typical of the boomer generation. You want to know what is typical of the boomer generation? Our people are kind of Kennedy liberals, probably more so than Nixon conservatives, but I am not sure how much nor more so. When I was in the SDS there were consistently more folks who stood against us than stood for us. So, what is the real boomer generation? Or are these people, when you throw out those kinds of clichés that you did, which are out there in the press, are those really typical of that generation or are they just the position of a colorful, picturesque, vocal minority that one can easily point fingers to? SM (00:07:25): Larry, I want to just that one more time. That was really good- Larry, I want to ask you a personal question because you said you were involved in Students for Democratic Society when you were at Georgetown. At what point, why did you join Students for Democratic Society, and what was it when you were a young person at Georgetown University that said, "I have got to belong to this group and be involved, and possibly protest against what was happening in America?" LD (00:07:50): It began before I got to Georgetown. I got to Georgetown, I think in (19)68, maybe the September of (19)68. And I had come from Rutgers University, and there was no SDS at Rutgers at the time, at least not on the campus I was at. But I had always been sympathetic to the civil rights movement, and I always knew that I stood against the Vietnam War. And we had a discussion, kind of informal discussion, book reading group, at Rutgers among people who were avant garde. And I guess it was while living and studying among that group of avant garde people at Rutgers that I became really left leaning. Why I was that way? I do not know. My father was a full colonel in the Air Force and I never got along with him. You can delve into some kind of Freudian interpretation of these things. My mother was always a very conscientious, principled passivist, very liberal in her views. I think I have always been just anti-authoritarian. I have always gone for the underdog. So anyway, when I got to Georgetown, there were a bunch of people who wanted to protest not only the war, but wanted to also do analysis and actions around other issues like open enrollment issues or increasing minority participation at Georgetown, getting more blacks and Latinos into the student body and various other civil rights-oriented issues. It was a broad coalition of folks. And at one point, someone said to me, "Maybe we ought to start an SDS chapter if we are really going to be serious about this." And I said, "Sounds good. We should do that. We should organize, at least a leadership cadre, to push this agenda, this sort of liberal... Not even liberal, it is more than liberal. It is sort of a social progressive agenda." And so, it seemed a logical step, so we did it. Subsequently, of course, the House on American Activities Committee chose the Georgetown SDS as a model in its investigation of the organization. And the Georgetown's administration cooperated completely with HUAC in that process. And we all got our ID's pictures turned over to the committee and stuff like that. SM (00:11:09): If you look at the boomers now, that group from (19)46 to (19)64, there is obviously even differences within the generation, perception that I have seen that those who were born in that (19)46 to late (19)50s period are different than those born in the latter part, which are now only in their mid-thirties. But the question I am trying to get at here is, in your opinion, when you look at the boomer generation as a whole, which is 60 plus million, and here they are reaching 50 now, knowing that still that there are probably some people that identify themselves as boomers over in their early (19)50s and maybe even their mid (19)50s. Could you say what the positive things that you feel the boomers have done on American society, and secondly, the negatives? But obviously I feel that you're with the boomers and the fact is you have seen what has happened and what they have done in America over this last 30 years, pluses and minus. What are the pluses and the minuses on the boomer generation in your eyes? LD (00:12:08): I can only respond to that based on my own instincts and my own political orientation. Obviously, I think the civil rights movement is a seminal achievement. There is civil rights movement to the extent that it managed to change people's attitudes and legislate greater equality and openness, essentially was an eminently American democratic step. So it was a way of approaching the ideal, approaching the theory and the ideal inherent in the Constitution. In practice, [inaudible] there are not too many times in American history where you get a giant step in bringing theory in its best sense into practice. I guess reconstruction after the Civil War was another time. But clearly, I think the Civil Rights Movement is that sort of seminal step, and it should be recognized as a great achievement in the course of American history. So, that is a very positive thing. The prevention of carrying the war in Vietnam to an ideological destructive conclusion is a sort of negative yet positive achievement, as far as I am concerned. The war itself was abominable and a betrayal of American principles. We were not in there to promote democracy or representative government. That is all bullshit. We were in fact supporting a corrupt regime. The only difference between the DM regime, say, and the communists were that DM had an allegedly pro-capitalist orientation while the others did not. But American foreign policy has a tendency, despite all the rhetoric, to find dictators, military dictators or civilian dictators, that they latch onto. Latin America, Central America's full of examples like that. And we used to rationalize that in terms of the Cold War as we seem to have rationalized the Vietnam War in terms of the Cold War, but I do not know. I think we would do it anyway. In any case, it was a betrayal of American ideals and I think that to the extent that my generation stopped criminals like Lyndon Johnson and McNamara and these other folks, who I consider to be just plain criminals, from killing even more of Vietnamese and Americans than they managed to do in a bad, in terms of the ideals, anti-American cause. I consider that to be an achievement that each generation has to, at least those who stick to their principles in each generation, have to stand up against these kinds of anti-human, and in the idealistic sense, anti-American acts and behaviors, whether they are segregationist manifestations domestically, or in terms of recent history this sort of inherently evil attack on subsidization of the poor when there is really no economic alternatives for these people, in other words the welfare bill, you have to stand up for that. You have to stand up for your principles and act against that, stand up against that kind of behavior, or you just sell yourself to the devil that way. SM (00:16:41): Those are the pluses, but do you see any negatives in your- LD (00:16:45): Well, again, I would point out that those who did all those pluses were a minority within that generation, that the majority within the generation as majorities always do, went along with the government, went along with the war, went along with segregation. That is why systems can continue as they are within democratic societies, because the majority goes along. The majority of folks are just sheep, unfortunately, so what characterizes... And I mean, the majority of these sheep seems to be somehow necessary to a stable society. I do not want to be too hard on these folks, but what characterizes the boomer generation, perhaps, is that it had a more vocal and more active humanistic minority than other generations before or after it in recent times. And that is why it stands out, and that is why it draws so much flack. So, in terms of the negative, the negative part is that the humanistic minority had to fight so hard just to sway the passive, unthinking majority. I mean, I- SM (00:18:25): [inaudible 00:18:28]. LD (00:18:30): Yeah, we are still going. SM (00:18:33): Okay, point blank, respond to this question. And I have asked this to all... This year done 27th interview, many, and the answers to this question have been as different... Whether you loved Lyndon Johnson or you hated him. Was the student protest movement on the college campuses the main reason that the Vietnam War ended? LD (00:18:59): No, I do not think it was the main reason. I think it was obviously contributive to it, and perhaps like the straw that broke the camel's back kind of thing. I think the main reason that the war ended was that you had a lot of body bags coming back. The anti-war protestors were saying over and over again that this war not only was immoral and a violation of the best principles or ideals that America stood for, but that it was unwinnable, that unless you were willing to use nuclear weapons, ya ain't going to win this thing. And the reason you were not going to win it was because the position that America took was completely and totally unpopular within Vietnam. So, unless you were willing to destroy that country, and we were well on our way to doing that: free fire zones, napalm, defoliation, concentration camps for the Vet, for increasing numbers of the population. I mean, we were well on our way to destroying that country. Unless you were willing to do that and take the casualties that would be necessary to accomplish that, you were not going to win it. And the American people could not see where ultimately South Vietnam was worth, for them, the casualty rates. I knew a fellow who was a Navy medic with the Marines, and he was at... Was it Khe Sanh? Not Khe Sanh. Or Da Nang, or one of those places during the Tet Offensive and the NVA came into the city, and his comment was that the Marines and the other military units in the area could never, ever have stood the assault and won against the Vietnamese at this site during the Tet Offensive for the simple reason that the Vietnamese were willing to take 10 casualties for every American dead. And unless we were willing to match that, we were not going anywhere. This was not World War II, the Vietnamese were not the Nazis, South Vietnam was not France or Normandy, and the American people were not going to sustain those casualty rates. That, I think was the key. Now, the anti-war movement, whether it was students or others, had put forth a message that the war was unwinnable and that in fact, it was a violation of all the best things that America stood for it. Now, that in and of itself would not have changed it, but you combined that with the reality of those body bags, and you can add onto that all the maimed, the injured, the TV, the war was being fought on television and all those visual images, you put all that together and that was it, that is why the war warranted. And even still, it took, what, 10 years to stop it? It is really atrocious. SM (00:22:32): Of course, that new book out by McNamara, which came out a year ago, the memoir In Retrospect. LD (00:22:36): The guy is a criminal. SM (00:22:38): Brought all kinds of feelings about the Vietnam [inaudible]. LD (00:22:45): McNamara's position, is absolutely, absolutely unbelievable. I believe him when he says that in the rarefied air of the State Department and the Defense Department, they actually thought that if Vietnam fell, the Russians would be at the doorstep and we'd be facing nuclear war. That is what McNamara says in that book-book. I believe that he believed that. But the domino theory was so patently contrived, certainly by the 1960s. You might have been able to go with Kennan in the late forties and early (19)50s, but by the late (19)60s to think that if Vietnam falls you're going to be facing a nuclear war with the Soviets, these guys were in a fantasy world and they killed million Vietnamese and 50,000-plus Americans because of this kind of fantasy they could not shake. So, the guy is a criminal, maybe you can make a claim for... SM (00:24:00): So, we [inaudible]? Very good. LD (00:24:03): Maybe you can make a claim from mental illness, as far as I am concerned, but he used to be strung up by his genitals. SM (00:24:10): One of the things, when we look at the boomer generation, is the differences between white Americans and African Americans or people of color that when you look at boomers, there's a differentiation there. We all know, for example, that in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, many African American students on college campuses would not be seen in protests against the Vietnam War because it was not their war, because many people were being sent over who were of color and dying. The question I want to ask is, when we are looking at the war or we are looking at the concept of civil rights, especially in the area of civil rights, many people were not of age when Freedom Summer happened in (19)64, boomers were very young. So in other common criticism we're hearing, and I want your response- SM (00:25:03): Boomers were very young, so another common criticism we're hearing, and I want your response to this, is that the Boomers followed other people in the Civil Rights movement. They were too young, (19)46, (19)56, (19)66, the oldest would have been 18 in Freedom Summer. Could you comment on that, even though it is just an analogy, that really, Boomers were not the leaders of the Civil Rights movement, they followed? LD (00:25:24): I think that the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were African Americans, clearly. I think that those of that generation who were of a socially progressive persuasion, I hate to use the word liberal here, were inspired by King and others like him, and clearly followed in their footsteps, and there damn well was few of us that did that, quite frankly. In terms of the Civil Rights movement, clearly the "Boomers" were not leaders, they were followers in that regard. Now, when I was in the SDS in (19)68, (19)69, (19)70, we had an informal relationship with the Black Panther Party in Washington DC, and I think there is actually a picture that appeared in the Washington Post at some point in (19)68 or (19)69, of myself and Eldridge Cleaver holding a banner, and I cannot remember what the banner said. SM (00:26:43): You do not have that picture? LD (00:26:44): During some march. Someday I will have to go back and go through the newspaper, and look for it. He is holding one end and I am holding the other end, and it was during one of these demonstrations, or something like that. I should really get that and make a poster out of it, even though I am really disappointed the way Cleaver went fundamentalist Christian subsequently. Anyway, we did have this informal relationship, and I think our analysis basically of American society at that time had a lot of points that touched together. There was a big falling off, or break with African American groups like the Panthers and a lot of individuals within the SDS who happened to be Jewish because of the position that the Panthers and other leaders in the African American community took over the issue of Palestine, Palestinians, Israel. There was a big break there between certain individuals and the African American community leadership. But that is a very specific issue, and I am proud to say that I held to my principles, and did not make a break over that issue. Many Jewish kids left the movement over that issue. SM (00:28:15): How would you want to define here on this one, I want to make sure you define this towards the end. Okay. Have you changed your- LD (00:28:27): I do not know whether I answered your question. SM (00:28:30): Well, it was a commentary that among the criticism that people who were, I would not say anti-Boomer, but critical of the Boomers, is that they lay claim to a lot of things that are not true. They were the Civil Rights movement. They ended the war. LD (00:28:48): Well, I do not know who's making those claims. I have not read all the books that you have, but the reality of it is as I described. You can trust me, Steve. SM (00:29:06): Would you say when you look at the Boomer generation, one of the terms that was used often at that time is, "We are the most unique generation in American history." I remember that happening when I was in Ohio State University, and it was always, "We had the opportunity of being the most unique generation in American history," because of trying to stop the war, and the Civil Rights movement. The women's movement came to fruition at that time, the gay and lesbian movement came after Stonewall. There was a Native American movement was happening. Everybody remembers Alcatraz, and the Native Americas taking over Alcatraz, Dennis Banks, that group. And then of course, the Chicano movement also and they were all around the same time. Student leaders from a lot of walks, Cesar Chavez came to power, around that time. Are the Boomers the most unique generation in American history? LD (00:29:58): Obviously, it was a somewhat unique time. Where, as you describe, many of these socially progressive movements came together at one moment in history. Whether that makes it the most unique generational period in the history of the nation, I really do not know. Probably it makes it one of the most socially active times in the history of the nation. I think that is a safer way of putting it, and probably a more historically meaningful way of looking at it than whether one is the most unique generation or not. I think that a sign of the fact that it is, or was one of the most unique periods in the history of the nation. Maybe one of the ways of seeing how unique, relatively speaking, this period of time was, is in fact all the flack and all the controversy that the activities of this generation, or at least this minority within the generation, this active socially progressive minority within the generation. That is my take on it. All the activities and the progress from my point of view that they generated and the issues that they raised and the gaps between theory and practice that they pointed out. So, they certainly set precedents, whether it is the Chicanos, the gays, the blacks, the anti-war folks. They set precedents for trying to close the gap between theory and practice within the American scene. SM (00:32:11): How do you respond to another thing too? LD (00:32:13): And that is why they raised so much flack. That is why they have so much opposition. SM (00:32:18): In your face mentality of that era, the confrontational approach to dialogue. There was such a thing then. The fact that, again, I am just using this as a barometer of yesterday, there was a survey in Philadelphia on what is wrong with Philadelphia. I do not know if you have not seen that. And one of the things that Philadelphians are never really pleased with anything, and I mean unbelievable things in Philadelphia magazine, but the bottom line was this, that Philadelphians are being labeled as a group of people that are in your face, and that brings a terminology of that period that a lot of the people that were involved in the movement were active, were basically in your face people. And so again, I do not know your thoughts on that, but that is again, going back to a criticism that we have heard that the lack of dialogue in society today sometimes can go directly linked to that era. LD (00:33:09): Well, I do not know whether you can trace the lack of dialogue today back to then, but clearly, I mean, you could not be anything but aggressive and confrontational in (19)68, (19)69, (19)70, and likewise, it would be very difficult to be anything other than confrontational and quote in your face during the civil rights period. You were going to get nowhere by polite dialogue. Okay, polite. The desire for polite dialogue is the desire of the establishment, wanting to set the parameters, set the rules for analysis of the contemporary situation. But when you have got a draft, when they are trying to draft everybody into an immoral, unwinnable, deadly war, when people are not allowed to go to decent schools, when black folks get crap and are not allowed to sit at the same lunch counters as white folks and they get crap in terms of their schools' jobs and everything else, what does polite dialogue mean? It means shut up, take it, and if you do not like it, be polite about you are not liking it. I mean, you get nowhere that way. The only way to deal with that is to be in someone's face. It is the only way. SM (00:34:52): What I think about the Dr. King analysis, that non-violent protest is not in your face, but it is certainly. LD (00:34:58): Sure, it is. SM (00:34:58): Well, non-violent protest is, it might be, but it was still a polite, there was a politeness there where they did not create. LD (00:35:05): If it was that polite, they would not have brought the police dogs out. I mean, when we say in your face, we do not mean necessarily that you are going to go some slap somebody around, it means that you are going to stop people from just having business as usual. The tactic that you use does not have to be with guns. I mean, you can just bring a 100 or 200 people into an area and sit down. Stops business as usual. And it is by the establishment's definition, not polite. SM (00:35:37): That is the deal. Have you changed your opinion of boomers over the last 25 years when you were young and now, have you changed? LD (00:35:45): I have simply never ever thought in generational terms. I mean I was part of a minority, political minority and understood that the majority of people of my generation did not agree with me, did not feel the way I did, even though people tend to now use these big categories and lump all people in one generation together as if they all believed the same thing. It's not true. And so when I grew up, I did not grow up thinking of myself as belonging to this generation. I mean, I belong to a distinct political, socially progressive minority that had in it folks of different generations. I mean the people that came together in those anti-war demonstrations, a lot of them, I was in my mid-20s early to mid-20s, and a lot of them were 40 and 50 old 1930s, left-wing working-class type organizers, wobbly types, labor parties, socialist types. So, I never thought of myself in terms of one generation or another, so I really do not care to comment. SM (00:37:00): One of the things about this generation is that one of the greatest impacts was their size. That they were the big, well, it was the biggest generation ever. 60 million plus because of the of course. LD (00:37:09): Right. SM (00:37:10): War and everything. And so again, their size has had a lot to do with their impact too in many respects. LD (00:37:18): Well, that might be true, that might be true. But the bigger the generation, the less likely it is to be monolithic in its outlooks. So, it is a simply mistake historically inaccurate to see it as somehow uniform in its outlooks and its behavior. SM (00:37:38): One of the constants that the literature states is then you have reiterated this in your commentary and that is that probably only about 15 percent of the boomers ever were ever involved in any sort of activism. LD (00:37:52): Yeah, I think that is probably accurate. Yeah. SM (00:37:54): Protest on college campuses and all these other movements that we have mentioned here. I am going to lead right into a question here because one of the basic premises behind this project is to look at the impact the boomers have had on American history both then and now and as they come into leadership roles, but it is also the concept of healing. Please comment on this premise. My premise is that boomers in many respects, and especially a lot of those that were involved, the activists, but even many who were not activists are having a problem with healing from the tremendous divisions that took place at that time. Those were for the war, those who were against the war, veterans who obviously have a different healing because they were treated poorly upon their return. And even though when you look at the boomers, they are still a minority. What are your thoughts on that? Because of the fact that in the many trips that I have had to the memorial, I have overheard veterans, I have seen people talking, I have tried to be an observant, and now I have got to be active in trying to do something when I help people hopefully heal the generation a little bit. That the healing, even though the wall was built to help the veterans and to help the nation heal, there's still a tremendous amount of healing that has not taken place. And I am not sure if it ever will. Could you comment on that in terms of the healing and the divisions? LD (00:39:17): You are right. I do not think it ever will. Again, I personally have never thought in these terms that I understand, and I accept that my attitudes and my reading of history and my attitudes and towards how this country operates is puts me in a perpetual minority, and I simply accept that. And so, given that position I mean there is no healing. I am not sure what healing means in terms of the veterans of the war except in these symbolic ways like the building of this memorial. There is no way that we can go back and give these guys a hero’s welcome. Quite frankly, they do not deserve a hero’s welcome. They are not heroes. That does not mean that they need to be vilified, they should not be vilified, and they certainly should not be blamed for the catastrophic policies of the people, of the leadership who sent them over there. They are victims, all right? They are not heroes, they are not villains, they are victims. And of course, the people who are dead are the most victimized of all. The only way these, so I do not even think that that veterans should think in terms of healing. I do not think it is possible. I mean, I have a very good friend of mine who lost the calves of both legs in a landmine incident in Vietnam. I mean, in what sense does this man heal? I mean, even if the Congress held a big rally in demonstration in which people, and the same number of people come as were in the largest anti-war demonstration, all to say that my friend and people like him are good guys and great guys and did a great service to the country, is that going to heal this guy? I do not know. Maybe it will make him feel better for the moment, but I do not know whether you can describe it in terms of healing. What they need is not healing. They need some justice, some explanation as to why they were sent there and why this happened to them, and something other than all that patriotic crap. I think that if the leaders that sent them there, those who are still alive could get up and say, this was a really big mistake, and like the Japanese kowtow and apologize to these people or their survivors, maybe that would be in some sense justice, but there can be no healing in there. They can never be compensated for being victimized this way. It is just not going to happen. SM (00:42:41): What about the tremendous divisions that happened between those who were for and those who were against the war and bringing them together to try to heal, to understand the passions of the time, whether it be veterans or protestors, those who supported the war? LD (00:42:56): Yeah. Well, I mean. SM (00:42:56): Both divisions. LD (00:43:02): Well, I think that those are useful exercises, but unless those who supported the war can come to understand and admit the erroneous analysis that their position is based on and the disastrous consequences in the physically disastrous consequences, not only for American veterans but for Vietnam, and we have slaughtered over a million of those people. Unless those folks can come to admit that, then I do not see how there can be any coming together unless, oh, I guess also, I mean the people that stood against the war could somehow fall into the trap of saying, oh, we were wrong. And I am, in fact, I know some anti-war folks, leaders who I work personally with, who have subsequently said, oh, we were wrong and we should not have done what we did. That in doing so, these people opened up career doors for themselves. But unless one side agrees with the other side, there is going to be no ultimately no healing. Well, I do not even know what that means, healing. SM (00:44:26): I want to make sure it is recording properly. There we go. LD (00:44:30): Yeah, it might be that, again, I do not think in terms of healing, I am not exactly sure what it means. And for me personally, I do not feel the need for that process. So, it is hard for me to give advice to others who seem to feel the need for it. SM (00:44:49): One of the main reasons this question comes forth is when we took a trip to Washington DC a couple of years back with some, we were on the road students here at Westchester University. We met Senator Musky, and one of the questions that happened during that two-hour session, it came up from yours truly, and it is fact, I talked about the concept of the inability to trust leaders because of what happened during that period, and I have had to deal with that as an individual. But I was especially referring back to 1968 and the protests that happened in Chicago, and he was the vice president as a running mate for Hubert Humphrey and his thoughts about the divisions in America at that time and the healing process. And at that juncture, I did not realize he was not a well man. And he'd been in the hospital and he had a melodramatic pause there for a while and the students looked at each other and did not really respond right away. And then when he did respond, he talked about the fact that he had been in the hospital and that his secretary had been bringing him tapes of Ken Burns civil war series, and he said, you realize a whole generation of Americans were basically wiped out during that civil war. And he says, my answer to your question is thus we have never healed since the Civil War. So you're talking about trying to heal since Vietnam. We have not healed since the Civil War. LD (00:45:55): He can push it further back. SM (00:45:57): Yeah. And the fact is, and there is still things today about the North and the South and their answers for each other. But the question I am trying to ask here is, and this is the direct question, it says, are we going to be another generation like the Civil war generation who went to their graves with bitterness? Now, in many respects, a lot of people who cares, I am raising a family, it does not bother me one bit, but a lot of people, we look at our lives and what we have done and are we going to our graves, whatever it might be, the bitterness, lack of forgiveness, lack of understanding toward the other's point of view, for example, your point of view should be understood by the person who is totally opposite of you to try to better understand where we come from. That is what I am getting at. LD (00:46:42): Well, it is a sweet ideal. This country, its history is a function of division. The American Revolution was the most divisive war this country ever fought, more divisive than the Civil War, even actually. You can look at the personal history of Benjamin Franklin and his son, I mean, which was typical of that. I think that ultimately the lamb does not lie down with the sheep or whatever that biblical analogy is. The lamb does not lie down with the lion. Right? I do not believe that happens. I think that there are very deep serious divisions in this country about social policy and the directions that the country should go in terms of social agenda. I think the vilification of the term liberal is a sign that those divisions are very, very deep, and I do not expect them to be resolved in the foreseeable future. I think that the divisions or around the Civil rights movement and around the Vietnam War are in the same vein as the divisions that we see now between right wing conservatives and liberals, if you want to use that term. That there is almost a hatred on the part of what I consider to be the radical right. I think there is almost a hatred on the part of the conservative elements in this country for people and for ideas of the Democratic left, and I do not think it is the Democratic left or I do not think it is the aging anti-war movement folks who do not want to heal or do not want to dialogue. I think it is the other side. I think it's the people who put up TV ads and other types of propaganda essentially vilifying the concept of liberal, vilifying the Democratic left that are the obstacle here, and not the folks who led civil rights marches or anti-war movements. SM (00:49:29): The generation gap was a term that was used a lot during the (19)60s and the early (19)70s, and in the World War II. Now we see would be young people today on college campuses, 20 somethings may not who also have differences with the boomer generation and themselves, and as the boomers get older, we keep hearing prophecies from, again, writings that there will be a major gap between this generation or because of the social security and a lot of other issues. Could you comment on what you thought was the generation gap of that year of the year. SM (00:50:03): ... [inaudible] what you thought was the generation gap of era of the (19)60s and the (19)70s, the difference between parents and young people [inaudible] between boomers and their kids? LD (00:50:12): Well, first of all, there's always a generation gap. I mean, it seems to be a natural flow of generations for children to contest with their parents, at least in Western culture. It is more submerged than other cultures. But in Western culture, every generation of children contests over one issue or another with their parents. So, it is a sort of natural part of the landscape, of the demographic landscape. Now in the (19)60s though, that natural process of contesting between children and parents was sometimes accentuated by the issues of the day. If they are out there trying to draft everyone who cannot somehow manage a deferment, that is going to add tension. Obviously, it is going to add a lot of tension to one's everyday life. And so, it is going to accentuate whatever else is going on between parents and children. If you have got a household of Black folks, African Americans, where the parents have learned that the best survival skills is to just keep your head down and not let the sheriff even notice you, and all of a sudden you have got a kid who wants to go and sit in at the local lunch counter, that is going to accentuate whatever differences there generally would be, naturally would be within the culture of the parents and the child as the child matures and tries to find his own independent space. So, the extent to which the generation gap was greater in the (19)60s than, say, before or after, is a function of the context, the historical context in which those natural tensions and confrontations between child and parent were being worked out. You understand what I mean? SM (00:52:21): I do. LD (00:52:23): And that is the only thing that makes it different. Now today, I mean, the people who forecast these great problems, the only thing I can say is that I believe ultimately, they are going to if not fix the Medicare and Social Security problems, they will patch it up, perennially patch it up so that it will limp forward. It is just too politically suicidal not to patch it up. So, I have no doubts that they will do that. And in terms of the 20-somethings or the 18-somethings or 19-somethings that I know in abundance here at this university, I do not think most of them could define Social Security for you. And I am not sure if I at 18 could have defined Social Security for you. So I do not want to be too hard on them. So again, I think that the folks that point fingers at these great generation gaps and foretell with great foreboding about future generational gaps are exaggerating, probably for the sake of book sales. I do not know. But I think it is somewhat hyperbole. SM (00:53:44): The term activism obviously is a term that is identified with the (19)60s and early (19)70s. What role does activism play in the lives of today's young people, if any? A lot of people will term the boomers says an activist generation, even though we know 15 percent are really the activists, but are there any activists in today's generation now? Do students today have the passions that a lot of the students of the (19)60s and early (19)70s had? LD (00:54:12): Well, I mean, actually I think the answer is obviously no, not because they are not inherently capable of exercising those passions, but I do not think the issues are there to bring those passions out. In terms of are they more aware or whatever, I mean, you probably could answer that more than I. I mean, you deal with them, or at least a certain segment of folks on this campus, in terms of their political orientations or issues. And so you probably know the answer better than I do. In terms of my students, my students are not politically aware or politically interested. And I think that goes for like 95 percent to 99 percent of them. I think that if there were riots in the ghettos or a big war and they were drafting everybody, probably that would galvanize a greater percentage of them. You have to have issues that affect people's lives to in order to bring out whatever political potential is there. SM (00:55:31): I want to get back to a question. What is the lasting legacy of the boomers? LD (00:55:38): Well, again, I will go back to one of my opening remarks, and that generation, working within the historical context it found itself in, dealing with the issues that were forced upon it, created precedence, the ongoing challenge to bring practice closer to the ideals of the nation, which I see not only as in terms of the Bill of Rights, but also in terms of social justice and what have you, economic justice, to try to bring the practice of the nation closer to the ideals. I think that our generation, at least the 15 percent that was active in it, set a great precedent and actually moved the nation a step closer in terms of bridging that gap. I mean, after all, despite the destructive efforts of Ronald Reagan, and despite the destructive agenda of Newt Gingrich and all those guys, this country today is a better country and a country where the gap between theory and practice is more closed than it was, say, before 1956, and Brown v. the Board of Education. And so you have to keep pushing to try to close that sort of gap between ideal and theory. And I think my generation took a big step in that direction. Now, others today want to reverse that, and they might. I mean, it might be two steps backwards, one step forward, sort of one step backwards, two steps forwards. I mean, it can go either way, but you got to keep pushing. You got to just keep doing it, if you believe in social justice at all. SM (00:57:39): Yeah. What is your thought following that now? What is your thought of taking one step forward, two steps backward, attacks on affirmative action, attacks on a lot of accomplishments that took place? I know there were problems in the Great Society with Lyndon Johnson and all those things, but there was a genuineness to really want to make change to help a lot of people. And maybe there was some failures along the way, but to pointblank say the times are different now in the (19)90s than they were in the (19)60s and the (19)70s, it is no longer necessary to do the things that we did then, what is your thought on that? Because we see it in the universities too. LD (00:58:17): Well, yeah, I mean, if you accept the notion that times are different and it is not necessary to have these programs in place, I will guarantee you that within a generation you will need them again. Because if you take the programs away, you just do not coast at the place where you were when you removed the programs. The inherent instinct of the right is not to stay still but is essentially, from my perspective, to go backwards. And they will do it all in the name of individual rights and the notion of getting the government off your back and all that sort of stuff. But in fact, you just do not stay in idling and neutral. You go backwards if you take away these safeguards. And that is what the programs really are, is safeguards. So, it is cyclical, in many ways. I mean, to a certain extent they will succeed and they will undo a lot of what was done. And sooner or later, you have to just come back and fight all over again. Seems to be one of the imbecilities of human behavior, human organization, that you cyclically go through these things. SM (00:59:42): Now, this next segment of the interview is going to be to throw out the names of some of the individuals that were known at that time, and if you could respond in two ways: number one, your thoughts on their impact then, and basically your thoughts on how they are looked upon today by many of the boomers and historians. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. LD (01:00:05): Well, I liked them, even though actually, in the late (19)60s, the folks in the SDS were critical of Rubin and Hoffman, because we perceived them at the time as being somewhat fools. And they did not have the type of sort of tight political analysis that we fancied that we had. But I think there was a grudging admiration for their daring. And so I have a warm and fuzzy, loving kind of response to them. Now, I think that of course Rubin sort of went over to the enemy, if you want to point it that way. The really truly consistent fellow was Abbie Hoffman. And of course, I mean, his life ended tragically, driven probably to suicide by this picture of the country going back in a reactionary fashion. SM (01:01:16): I wanted to ask you, before I ask any other names here, mention any other names. When Abbie Hoffman died, I remember there was a small article written in the Philadelphia Inquirer. And there was a note that he had left saying, "No one is listening to me anymore." And I thought, "Wow, that is pretty heavy." I know it is one individual and I know some people characterized him as kind of a wacko, but then he kind of lived a consistent life, even in hiding, on environmental issues. His whole life was really dedicated to activism. But is that what is going to be written on a lot of boomers' tombstones, is "No one is listening anymore"? LD (01:01:55): Well, again, which boomers? SM (01:02:01): Okay, right. Say [inaudible] the boomers that were active. LD (01:02:04): Right. I mean, it is the boomers who were not listening anymore to Abbie Hoffman, not that most of them ever did listen to him. I mean, most of them probably found him contemptuous. But again- SM (01:02:20): Back talking about Abbie Hoffman. LD (01:02:23): Yeah, I think what Abbie Hoffman could not deal with is the cyclical nature of the quote, "struggle," unquote. I mean, progress is not linear. I mean, maybe it is in a technological sense. We do not blow ourselves off the planet. But social progress certainly is not a linear, straight line kind of scenario. I mean, there are setbacks. And those setbacks can be serious. But unless you are willing to simply abdicate to kind of a reactionary, segregationist, anti-human attitude that would write off not only minority groups and their position in our society, but the poor as a lazy group that deserves their own fate, unless you are willing to accept that, you simply have to continue to struggle against these folks, accepting the fact that that progress where it can be had is sometimes hard fought and sometimes hard to keep. I think Abbie Hoffman was ultimately just too fragile to live in a world where you have that kind of cyclical shape to the struggle that he really was dedicated to. SM (01:04:02): Lyndon Johnson? LD (01:04:06): Well, I mean, Lyndon Johnson was a politician who was willing to sell the youth of his country and certainly sell Vietnam down the river for the sake of this sort of Cold War ideology that he had based his politics on. Now, on the other hand, he was perfectly willing to sell the kind of conservative segregationist agenda of his home state of Texas down the river to back the civil rights movement. So Lyndon Johnson was simply a typical American political opportunist. So, you can remember him either way you want to go. SM (01:04:53): Richard Nixon? LD (01:04:54): Well, I cannot deal with Nixon. He tried to kill me. I mean, this guy tried to draft me and send me to Vietnam. And so I always had great contempt for Richard Nixon. I do not give a damn if he opened up China at all. I do not care. And I do not care if, just like with Lyndon Johnson, if he passed legislation that was good for the American Indians, or whatever. I mean, he did not do that from the bottom of his soul. He did it for the same reason Lyndon Johnson did it, because it seemed politically opportune at the time. But Nixon, and particularly Kissinger, I hate that man's guts, I perceive these people as criminals, not only for what they did in Vietnam, but also for what they did in Central and South America, Chile, particularly with Allende and the Pinochet regime that Kissinger helped bring about. These are murderous, criminal people, and they should be tried for crimes against humanity. SM (01:05:59): [inaudible] McNamara, Robert McNamara? LD (01:06:00): Well, again, I mean, I think I have commented on McNamara before- SM (01:06:03): [inaudible]? LD (01:06:05): Yeah, I mean, I guess there is some gradations in the levels of disdain I have for particular individuals. I mean, my gut does not revolt against Russ quite as much as it does against McNamara, but ultimately, they are all of a crowd. And I have not got too much sympathy for any of them. I really do not think that they serve their country well at all. SM (01:06:33): Spiro Agnew? LD (01:06:36): Man, this is sort of a featherweight intellectual political opportunist who had two sets of standards, one from himself, one for everybody else. I think he is going to be forgotten and well gone. SM (01:06:55): John Kennedy? LD (01:06:57): I do not particularly care for John Kennedy either. I mean, I know he is sort of an ideal, and he probably saved that ideal image of himself by dying young. It probably would not have lasted if he had lived longer. But I do not have very high regard for Kennedy. I mean, this is the guy who mounted an invasion of a foreign country for no really good reason, in terms of the Bay of Pigs. And quite frankly, I happen to have a certain regard for Fidel Castro. So, I mean, he does not do much for me, Kennedy. SM (01:07:40): Robert Kennedy? LD (01:07:42): Yeah, I do not have much opinion about Robert Kennedy. I think that his behavior towards Martin Luther King was despicable. And so, Ted Kennedy is probably the best of that family, quite frankly. And so who knows what Robert Kennedy would have turned out to be like if he had lived, but he did not. So, I mean, I just do not have much opinion about him. SM (01:08:15): Martin Luther King, Jr.? LD (01:08:17): Well, he is a seminal figure on the American landscape in the 20th century. I basically agree with the movement he mounted. I have no inherent attachment to nonviolence, I have no principled detachment to nonviolence, as he did. But I think that it was the right tactic for the time and place, that you want to use violence only when it is the last resort. I would not deny it for an oppressed people as a last resort. But if you live within a culture that will allow you to achieve your purposes without the use of violence, if there is that kind of space, and it seems that in this country there is that kind of political space, then I think he understood that. And his tactics were appropriate and they worked. SM (01:09:21): And the same token, Malcolm X? LD (01:09:27): I think that, again, I happen to have a high regard from Malcolm X, almost as high as Martin Luther King. It really is yet to be determined whether King's tactics could carry over beyond, say, desegregation of a lunch counter or a school system into being able to achieve the economic justice that King also aimed at. I suspect that if you could sustain a non-violent movement sufficiently long enough and effectively organize it enough, you probably can get a lot of economic justice out of that kind of movement. But clearly, from the perspective of a guy who is coming out of the ghetto, the Northern ghettos, like Malcolm X, you are going to be very suspicious of that non-violence, I mean, because your reality is the cops are coming in, beating you up all the time, as they still do. And so, it is hard to get out there, dress in a suit and go walk down the center of the street, when in fact they put up barricades, they will not let you walk in white suburbs. So, both King and Malcolm X came out of different social milieus, and those different social milieus created a different perspective and led to different kind of tactics. So I do not condemn Malcolm X for his tactics. I know where he was coming from. And I think that Malcolm X was a man who was eminently capable of evolving, as he in fact did evolve. SM (01:11:29): What about [inaudible] people here, Huey Newton and Angela Davis? LD (01:11:30): Right. Actually, at one point, I think I met both of them briefly. Well, I had regard for Huey Newton. I think he was a man of great organizational skills and incredible bravery, along with the other Black Panthers. Again, he seemed to be doomed to tragedy, as most of these people were, ultimately because unlike the institutional achievements of the King movement, the economic justice that really these folks were aiming at was something that the capitalist system could not accord them very easily. And so they were in many ways doomed to failure. And I think Huey Newton died as tragically as Abbie Hoffman did. SM (01:12:32): Oh yeah [inaudible] situation shut and open [inaudible] like that. LD (01:12:36): Well, perhaps that is fitting. I mean, it is sort of apropos of the whole situation, but- SM (01:12:42): How about Angela Davis? LD (01:12:43): Right. Oh, Angela Davis is an incredibly astute and principled intellectual. And she is a rare individual in that she is both an intellectual and a person of action. It is very rare in history that you get people who are truly intellectuals and also people of action. And I think she is an example of that, and I have a very high regard for her on that basis. SM (01:13:18): How about George McGovern? LD (01:13:20): I think his heart is in the right place. He is ultimately dedicated to the system that he was born and bred to. But I think that that given the limitations of that position, I think his heart is in the right place. SM (01:13:44): Senator Eugene McCarthy? LD (01:13:46): Well, the same thing. Though many people in the SDS at the time dismissed McCarthy with disdain and felt that the whole Come Clean for Gene phenomena was a clever attempt on the part of the quote, "system," unquote, to co-opt the anti-war movement. And they might have been right. I mean, you have to ask yourself, what would have a man like McGovern or McCarthy done if they had been elected president? Would they in fact have essentially stopped the war, or would they have done what Nixon did, simply continue the war while they try to negotiate their way out of it? So, we do not know. SM (01:14:43): Dr. Benjamin Spock? LD (01:14:48): Well, I do not know very much about Spock. And he is obviously a man of high principle and willing to stand up for the principles that he believes in. And since his principles aren't completely different than my principles, I mean, I will go- LD (01:15:03): ... since his principles are not completely different than my principles, I will go with them. SM (01:15:06): The Berrigan brothers, two priests. LD (01:15:08): Right. Right-right-right. Actually, I knew them briefly because they passed through Georgetown. Again, very, very brave individuals. They not only had to risk the displeasure of a wider society that they were part of, but they had to risk the displeasure of the smaller Jesuit Catholic society that they had made careers in. There were many, many priests Catholic priests like the Berrigans. There was one at Georgetown whose name was McSorley. I do not know what ever happened to him. Yeah, who led anti-war protests, night vigils, candlelight vigils, marches and stuff like that. These were brave people who were willing to risk their futures, their careers, and take on popular positions based on their principles, whether the principles were motivated by secular or religious reasons. And so you have to admire them. You have to admire them. Those types of people are what really the best the society really has to offer. SM (01:16:30): Muhammad Ali. LD (01:16:35): I do not know. I have no real reaction to a Muhammad Ali. Again, obviously an outspoken, principled kind of guy, probably whose heart is a humane one. And of course, a leading role model in the African American society, for the youth. SM (01:17:01): George Wallace. LD (01:17:03): Well, again, at least you can say about Wallace is that he had his principles. There was nothing wishy-washy about the guy. So to the extent that you can respect your enemy, because at the very least you can clearly recognize him as the enemy, I will give him some credit. As, again, say Lyndon Johnson, who was kind of a political opportunist. Wallace, he was a politician certainly, but he was clearly a man of his culture. That southern culture. And took a principled Stand for it. It was the wrong stand, it was an anti-human stand. At least you knew where he was coming from. SM (01:17:55): Daniel Ellsberg. LD (01:17:57): Right. Again, I see Ellsberg as an individual that is deep within the governmental system. That is his career line, that is where he's at. And he finds himself in this sort of conflictual situation where he cannot deal with the Vietnam War. Now, I am unclear as to why he cannot deal with it. Now, is it because, for instance, from my point of view that it's a violation of the best principles of the nation and a contradiction in terms of the ideals of the nation? Or is it just that it is unwinnable? And that we are making a mess, we are getting deeper and deeper into this quagmire and we really ought to have to cut our losses? I am not sure where he is coming from, but he is coming from somewhere out there like that. Probably the latter, but I cannot say for sure. But in any case, has got the gumption to blow the whistle on this deal, where the myriad number of his fellows are just going to go along with it. So, you have to give this guy some sort of credit for having the courage to do that. SM (01:19:15): What do you think of John Dean? LD (01:19:19): Right, John Dean. Well, I do not know. If the man had never really... Obviously, john Dean would have probably wished to hell that he had come to the forefront in some other administration than this one and the one he happened to be in. I think he was a little man. An [foreign language], to use that kind of Russian phrase. He is a little guy. He is a cog in the machine. He tries to give Nixon the best advice he can and he gets screwed. SM (01:20:01): John Mitchell. LD (01:20:04): Now, Mitchell is a big cog in the machine. Mitchell is without principle and without conscience. And he, like Averell Harriman, I think it was Averell Harriman during the Truman administration. This is just a short but apropos diversion here. During the Truman administration, there was a debate over the issue of Palestine and whether to support the creation of the Israeli state or whatever. And the State Department and the defense department both recommended against it. And I think it was Averell Herman who was a, and I might be wrong, but it strikes me that is who it was, went and had lunch with a guy who was the assistant secretary of state, whose name I cannot remember now. And the guy said to Harriman, "Look. Recognizing the state of Israel at this moment is going to so screw us up with the rest of the Arab world, where we have real economic interests, that it is not in American national interest to do it." And Harriman looked at him and said, "The reelection of Harry Truman is what is the American national interest." All right? So, I see Mitchell in that light. He confuses the survival of the regime he happens to be tied up with, with American national interests. In other words, ultimately, he confuses his own position, his own outlook, his own ego with American national interests, as I suspect Nixon did too. So, I do not have much regard for those guys. SM (01:21:51): [inaudible] the names here, Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan in terms of the women's movement. Thoughts on them. LD (01:21:57): Well, I am, in principle, in favor of "women's liberation." So I basically agree with their analysis of the women's positions in society. And also, to a certain extent, the need for an out front, in your face kind of tactic when it comes to women's issues. Because I do not think, for instance, that polite dialogue is going to get women through any kind of glass ceiling. I just do not think it is going to happen. So, you need the analysis that they gave, and you need a sort of confrontational approach if you're ever going to move women forward in regard to entrenched positions for essentially a man's economic and institutional world. Now, that being said, I do not mistake that for any real faith that women can run the world in a more humane fashion than men because I do not really think men and women are that different, that we are both products of our culture. So, you are going to, and particularly in a culture where the definition and concept of family is really very kind of shaky, I think you see just as many conservative women as liberal women out there on the scene. And so, in just switching men for women is not going to make the world all rosy. But in principle, generally, there should be equality and opportunity. And there's certainly equality in terms of intellect. The SDS chapter I moved in in Washington DC, the person who really was the brains behind that out outfit was a remarkably intelligent and organizationally capable woman. SM (01:24:07): It was a rarity in that time, because women are really [inaudible]. LD (01:24:11): Well, the- SM (01:24:12): [inaudible] criticism that when people were active in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, men were in the leadership roles, women just were the paper shufflers at the thing that many of the people in the movement talk about. LD (01:24:23): Well, this particular woman, she was not at Georgetown, but there was a larger SDS contingent within Washington DC as a whole. Her name was Kathy Wilkerson. Now, she and I had had a parting of the ways when the SDS movement fell apart because she became involved in the Weatherman movement and where I did not. But in terms of conceptualizing an agenda and organizing the daily activities and presenting an analysis of the situation going on, she was the moving force in the SDS of that area at that time. And I have great admiration for her. And it is just my opinion that the differences, the intellectual differences, that are sometimes described between men and women are just false. Women have babies, men do not have babies. And I imagine there is some hormonal and there is some genetic quality differences between the two, but they do not, in my opinion, affect intellectual ability. Even, I think, physical ability is overplayed. There's no reason that women cannot be in combat. Though, quite frankly, I cannot imagine why they or men would want to be. So, there it is. SM (01:26:10): I guess two final questions. I just want to ask you, what does the wall mean to you? [inaudible] over the wall, you have been there. What happened to you? LD (01:26:23): Quite frankly, I think that, for me, it is a symbol of an immense tragedy. I think there ought to be another wall adjacent to it dedicated to all the Vietnamese that we killed, and then the monument would be complete. And perhaps between the two, we can have another stile, another kind of thing with the names of all the butchers who caused this to happen, with the proper epitaph for them. To me, it is just a symbol of a great tragedy. And to the extent that people do not understand the origins of that tragedy, and simply analyze it in terms of an oversimplified patriotism and betrayal of patriotism, that is a horror. SM (01:27:32): The basic premise of that wall was to be a non-political statement. No politics here, just to pay tribute to those who served. What happened. LD (01:27:40): Well, they died. SM (01:27:41): [inaudible] came of those who died. Of course, many have died since, who did serve, for variety of reasons. And many are still living post-traumatic syndrome lives. But majority of them though, have gone on to be successful, which is something that sometimes the media does not portray correctly. But it is supposed to be a non-political, so if you make a comment that there should be Vietnamese, then we are getting into the politics of the war, which is the war was not meant to be. It is supposed to be a healing. LD (01:28:09): I do not care what it is meant to be. I do not care if it is meant to be non-political. It is, of course, inherently political. The war was a manifestation of American politics. Just by saying it is supposed to be not political, does not make it unpolitical. It cannot be unpolitical or non-political because the war itself is a manifestation of politics. SM (01:28:37): What are your thoughts on Bill Clinton went to the wall and spoke? And of course, [inaudible] look at him as like, "Here is the typical boomer, Bill Clinton." But he is president of the United States. But he went to the wall and that was a very, for or against it, a lot of Vietnam veterans will never forgive him for what he did, but still he went to the wall. LD (01:28:55): What the hell did he do? What did he do? He tried to avoid and successfully avoided going and serving in a beastly war that served no real purpose but to betray the highest American principles. So he avoided being a piece of cannon fodder. Now, if, in fact, the Vietnam veterans cannot forgive him- SM (01:29:26): Not all, but some. LD (01:29:27): Right. Or some cannot forgive him for escaping their fate, for not being victimized like they were victimized, then their analysis of their own fate, their own history is simply erroneous. Now, people live with erroneous analyses of their condition all the time, but does not mean how they perceive it is true. Though for them it might be true, but historically it's not true. See, I can condemn Clinton for a lot of things, but I am not going to condemn him for trying to avoid getting butchered in Vietnam. SM (01:30:08): How about Fonda going over to Hanoi? LD (01:30:12): I think it was a brave and necessary act. SM (01:30:14): In fact, that is a name I did not mention. Jane Fonda. LD (01:30:17): Yeah, I like Jane Fonda. I think it was a brave and necessary act. It was a time when you had to be in their face. Nothing was polite in those days. So, you had had to have some sort of shock value kind of statement that says, "Look, there is a significant minority of Americans who are simply not on the side of the government that is doing this." I do not see the anti-war movement as enemies of the American troops in Vietnam. I see the anti-war movement as their very best friends. They were the ones, the anti-war movement people were the ones who were trying to save the lives of American troops. And, for that matter, Vietnamese. And if they had been listened to, you would have had many, many thousands of Americans alive today who are now dead. So what are you going to do? You're going to point a finger at those who are trying to save your neck and condemn them? SM (01:31:22): But how would you respond to, "Well, you're trying to save their neck, but she actually trying to save your own neck"? LD (01:31:27): Jane Fonda's neck, she put her neck in a noose by going there. In what sense was she trying to save their- her own neck? SM (01:31:35): What are your thoughts on Jane Fonda personally? And Tom Hayden? As a follow-up in terms of- LD (01:31:45): I do not know. I do not know. They're divorced now, are not they? SM (01:31:45): I know, but their impact on the boomers and what they did, their lives. What do their lives mean to those who lived in that era? LD (01:31:53): I do not know. I do not know. I basically agreed with Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden as they acted in the (19)60s and early (19)70s, and I cannot really comment on their careers beyond that. SM (01:32:06): This is my last question, which is going back to this whole business about healing, where the divisions were so wide in America back then and this concept of trying to heal today, as boomers go into their (19)50s. Is it important for you to heal and forgive? I am not talking about Robert McNamara now or Richard Nixon, but just in general, the concept of maybe forgiving. Do you think, is it important for you to forgive, to heal from this era? Or do you feel the bitterness will remain? LD (01:32:40): Well, I am not sure you can describe my feelings as bitterness or the need to heal. I do not think in those terms. I have certain principles and a certain political position and certain goals, if I can be so bold, for the nation in terms of economic justice, social justice, civil rights, that kind of thing. And those are ongoing struggles. Okay? Now, I recognize that there are people out there who are essentially opposed to me. If I have any bitterness, it is towards the people, of course, who are opposed. SM (01:33:22): It is just for woman the next time. LD (01:33:28): Well, when I say jackasses, who I believe their position is anti-human, that condemns the poor, condemns minorities to second class citizenship, and gets us involved in wars that kill a whole lot of us and a whole lot of them, to no real use. Who screwed up Central and South America repeatedly. So, of course, from my bias perspective, people that are opposed to me are anti-human. They are really nasty, evil people. So, if I have got any bitterness, it is towards them, not towards some grunt in Vietnam, whose interests I think I was trying to look after in the antiwar movement. And it is ongoing. And it has nothing to do with generations. It has nothing to do with Lyndon Johnson's generation against my generation. There is plenty of people in my generation who stand against me. And there is going to be plenty people in the next generation. And so it just goes on until the day I die. And it is part of what makes life meaningful, to continue that struggle. And quite frankly, while I would like to win, I do not expect to win. And ultimately, I do not think that that is the most important thing. Though, I certainly do want to win. But what is the most important thing is to carry on the struggle and to be consistent to your principles and to be able to sleep at night with yourself. And that is what is important. SM (01:35:06): And as we all hope someday, and we all know we are going to pass beyond this planet, that when we reflect on our deathbed, yeah, we might have family around us, but we are alone at the very end and light flashes before us. And oftentimes, it is very important to know that your whole life flashes, but you think of the good about what you have done. And it is not always in terms of the amount of money you have made and the car you had, the possessions you have, but how you have lived your life. LD (01:35:32): Right. And at least at the moment, anyway, I am basically satisfied with what I have done. I have never second guessed myself in terms of what went on in those days. I do not think I have changed in any real way. My politics is the same and I am satisfied with that. And I will continue to fight and struggle for the principles that I did in the (19)60s, and that is the way it is. SM (01:35:58): Well, Dr. Davidson, I want to thank you very much for participating. Thank you. LD (01:36:01): Sure. SM (01:36:01): And have a good day. (End of Interview) Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Larry Davidson Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Davidson, Lawrence, 1945- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource College teachers; West Chester University of Pennsylvania; Political activists--United States; Davidson, Lawrence, 1945--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Larry Davidson is a retired History professor at West Chester University. He is the author of <em>Islamic Fundamentalism</em> and&nbsp;<em>Cultural Genocide</em>, and is an expert on the Middle East. As a student, Davidson was an SDS (Student for A Democratic Society) leader at Georgetown University who made the front page of the <em>Washington Post</em> along with other students protesting the war in Vietnam. Dr. Davidson received his Ph.D. in Modern European Intellectual History from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. 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.10.2016.67a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.67b Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-03-14 Is Part Of A related resource in which the described resource is physically or logically included. McKiernan Interviews Extent The size or duration of the resource. 96:06 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/746e0e4ea16151fd8be36b3b636141aa.jpg a9b52159bca4537d09179dff56cdcc8d https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c0024555d5db98fb83571e496f22849e.mp3 9844b63db1f037b916adf6373b9e352a 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 ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Lee Edwards, 1932- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Lee Edwards is an author, educator and a leading historian of American Conservatism. He is a professor at the Catholic University and Chairman of a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington foundation. He has appeared on many television broadcast and his books have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and many more. Dr. Edwards has a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University and a doctorate inPolitical Science from Catholic University. He also holds a doctor of humane letters degree from Grove City College and attended the Sorbonne in Paris for graduate work.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:8401665,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10,&quot;26&quot;:400}">Dr. Lee Edwards is an author, educator and a leading historian of American Conservatism. He is a professor at the Catholic University and Chairman of a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington foundation. He has appeared on many television broadcasts and his books have been reviewed in the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, the <em>Boston Globe</em> and many more. Dr. Edwards has a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University and a doctorate in Political Science from Catholic University. He also holds a doctor of humane letters degree from Grove City College and attended the Sorbonne in Paris for graduate work.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data MicroCassette Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Counterculture; Tom Hayden; Woodstock; Jerry Rubin; Young Americans for Freedom; Civil Rights Movement; Baby Boomers; Feminism; Activism; Richard Nixon; Jimmy Carter; Lyndon B. Johnson; Eugene McCarthy; Hubert Humphrey; John F. Kennedy; Gerald Ford; Black Panther; Muhammed Ali; Daniel Ellsberg; George Wallace; Robert McNamara; The Beatles; Janis Joplin; SDS&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:3,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:13689059}}">Counterculture; Tom Hayden; Woodstock; Jerry Rubin; Young Americans for Freedom; Civil Rights Movement; Baby Boomers; Feminism; Activism; Richard Nixon; Jimmy Carter; Lyndon B. Johnson; Eugene McCarthy; Hubert Humphrey; John F. Kennedy; Gerald Ford; Black Panther; Muhammed Ali; Daniel Ellsberg; George Wallace; Robert McNamara; The Beatles; Janis Joplin; SDS</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 112:41 Subject LCSH Authors; College teachers; Historians; Edwards, Lee, 1932--Interviews Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Lee Edwards Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Benjamin Mehdi So Date of interview: 7 August 2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 00:11 SM: This is working properly, and I know it is. When you think of the (19)60s and the (19)70s? And what-what is the first thing that comes to your mind? When you think of that era? 00:20 LE: Well, for me, it would be the rise of the right. And I have to warn you that I am going to be giving a class I am teaching a class at Catholic University starting in three weeks, on the politics of the (19)60s, really happy to say that it is oversubscribed, and I had to put a cap on it. And what I am going to be doing with these with these students, their politics majors is the Department of Politics. They are Catholic, and I am an adjunct professor, and have been for 16 years now. They are Catholic, is to present both sides of the picture. I mean, normally, they hear about John Kennedy, they hear about SDS, they hear about the Port Huron state, but they hear about Dr. King, they hear about the civil rights, movement, revolution, and so forth, all of which is certainly very much important in history. But what I am going to give them is the other side, not only rise to the left, but the rise of the right, and that is Barry Goldwater, Young Americans for freedom to share instinct, Ronald Reagan being elected governor, and so forth. So to me, that is the great untold story. But most historians political story, as is the rise of the right during the 1960s. 01:39 SM: So, when you think of the (19)60s, what do you think of? Yeah, that was thinking, you know, and since you raise a very good point, because there is a book that has come out in the last two or three years, to actually paperback, it is the Young Americans for freedom and your involvement in the antiwar movement, and they were real big antiwar. So that is great that you are doing that, when in the boomer generation is really defined as a group born between 1946 and 1964. Oftentimes, you find that a lot of the people that were the leaders of some of the protests were actually two, three and four years older, born in the early (19)40s, or (19)42. Around that time, when you look at the boomer generation, just your thoughts on some of the criticisms, the middle level they have over the years, by the likes of George Will, Newt Gingrich, that basically a lot of the things that are wrong in America today are because of what the boomers did during the (19)60s and early (19)70s. Particularly the drugs, the issues of sex, a counterculture? You know, I just liked your thoughts on- 02:46 LE: Well, I think it is, I think it is a little bit I think it is true, up to-to a point we would talk about, for example, the design of the counterculture and a turning away from the-the philosophical and moral moorings, which-which existed before that there was a narcissism, there was a radical emphasis on-on I, on me, the so called me generation, and so called, feels good, do it. So, I think that is, it is valid, that that that many in the boomer generation were, were guilty of an excessive self-centeredness, and narcissism and willingness to-to experiment in all kinds of ways, without perhaps, giving too much thought to-to the consequences. At the same time, I do remember one thing incident this, participate in 1968. I was at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. And we were there my wife and I, because we just read the book called you can make the difference and we were promoting the book and as a conservative how to do it political action. And everybody was-was-was in a good humor. I mean, the cops the Chicago cops were in a good humor or and the people that we met in the streets were in good humor, and even the young people when we met and we were there and talking with them on the streets and so forth. They could humor what was what happened was that a certain group of leaders, radical leaders, radicalized the, the young people there, deliberately provoked the cops into using excessive force, and brought about the chaos of the Democratic Convention and we will just never forget was his extraordinary difference between the mood before the convention And then what happened during the convention by what I think were professional revolutionaries, whether you are talking about what was his name, David Dellinger, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman Tom Hayden. And Tom Hayden certainly was very much a, a professional, political revolutionary for any Davis landed and really knew what he was doing. And that was to try to radicalize these young people. And they succeeded. So, I do not want to I do not want to put all of the blame. Simply on-on-on the baby boomers themselves, I think they were used and manipulated by-by certain people, at times, at times. And certainly, I can attest to that in my own personal experience in (19)68. 05:46 SM: When you look at the boomer generation, at the time of (19)68, when boomers are obviously in their youth, late teens, early 20s, and how you reflect on today, in the year 2003, what were your thoughts in that (19)68, about that generation? And what are your thoughts today has changed or is pretty consistent? 06:03 LE: I think, probably (19)68, we were my wife, and I were probably a little bit in despair when they know what was going to happen to America with these young people. Whether it was Woodstock, or was the counterculture whether it was what we thought was being so unpatriotic by their opposition to the war. And so many other ways, and but I am always something of an optimist. And so I was hopeful, prayerful that maybe they would mature in time. And I think that was what has happened. I mean, we know the examples of Jerry Rubin becoming a stockbroker and other leaders of the so called the Chicago seven, who became less radical, with the exception of Tom Hayden. as they got older, as they got married, as they began raising children, they were saying to their kids are having second thoughts who want to do drugs, forgetting very convincingly that they have been doing drugs and doing sex in the (19)60s, so-so time and maturity, and experience has as changed, I think they have changed the boomer, large parts of the boomer generation. 07:27 SM: The boomers, some again, I was young at that time, I can remember conversations and all they were all over the country and read them in newspapers. And that is that boomer generation thought they were going to be the change agents for the betterment of society that they were going to be, they were going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, that there is the most unique generation in American history. Just wait, because you will see what the good things, we are going to do your thoughts on that kind of an attitude that they had at that time? And whether they have done it? 07:58 LE: Well, you know, young people, left or right, are always idealistic. They always think they can change the world. And I think it is good that they have that, that those feelings, but otherwise the world would not get changed. I think certainly we on the right. And I was a little bit older than some of the people you are talking about on the right. But certainly, we did change the world through the-the-the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964, which led to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1966, as governor of California, which led to his election as president in 1980. So I think that you can it can be argued that Young Americans for freedom did set out to change the country, and it did. Now, the baby boomers did do some good things. I think that their part in the civil rights revolution, and the Civil Rights Movement was an epic victory. For-for-for America, not just for blacks, but for all-all Americans black or white, or brown or a red or what have you. And I think they deserve full and adequate, a full-full credit for that. And some of the other areas. Not so, so happy about their-their impact on our politics. You know, the so called Vietnam syndrome, which affected our foreign policy for a number of years. The counterculture which we are still struggling with, what is the right balance? I think also that the baby boomers deserve credit for the initial women's movement because women were not being treated fairly and even handedly. My wife, who was a conservative was also a feminist. He was a conservative feminist in the (19)60s because she said that she was not getting equal pay for, for the same for the job that she was doing, that men were getting more or getting more for. Then, of course it got became radicalized in succeeding years. But I think in those two areas, the feminist movement and the civil rights movement, that the movers did make salutary contributions to American society. 10:34 SM: Do you feel that the term I was talking about full Miranda, and an activist, as I as I define an activist, a person who believes that he or she can make a difference in this world, he did not even throw the politics out here. You can just say, activists or just liberals or conservatives or whatever. Now the concept of activism was I was see something was very strong within the boomer generation. As a person was raised children, what are your thoughts on the activism of the boomers have they passed it on to their kids? Number one. And number two, is the whole concept of empowerment. The lot of the boomers are involved in activist protests or whatever that were head of, that we were not up to create violence, but we are really sincere and moral in their efforts, believe they can change things. And just your thoughts on that. 11:32 LE: Well, obviously, I for political activism, I was a political activist myself in the 1960s. So, I think that the boomers? Well, as I said, I think it is important, I will keep saying it over and over again, we are not only all liberal, there were many-many conservative boomers. Right. And I think that is a very important point we have to keep making here that the boomers were not all at one particular philosophical hue. There were conservative boomers, as well as liberal voters. And they were active in American freedom as well as SDS that is making in my class, they became activists, because their fathers and mothers were-were not they-they-they came out of having won World War II. But we had some experience, even in the Great Depression, they were concerned about, you know, making a living, starting a family, having a building a house, buying a house. But you know, the good life, the American life American dream. The Boomers came along and had the luxury of political activism because it meant to worry where the bread was coming from and have to worry about a job. So they took advantage of that. And as I say, we were able to do good as well as not such good things for our, for our country, have they passed that along to their children. In any generation, any one generation are only going to have five or 10 percent of the of that generation, they are going to be active as politically activist, it was a higher percentage in the (19)60s, with the boomers because of the Vietnam War, primarily. And then also, a second one, second contributing factor was the civil rights. So those two things combined to increase the level of participation, from probably 10 percent to I have seen some figures in low 20s 20 to 25 percent. On the campus. 13:55 SM: I know that term that is often used numbers is 15 percent of the students are involved in some sort of activity now students, young people, college students, were involved in some sort of an activism. And some of the critics say only 15 percent of 70 million people were really involved in in any corner of activism. That is a lot of people still, you know, consider most time. Quick question here. And this is just a general question of concern. I have not gone to reach them that folder is are you concerned as an educator about the-the inability of our young people to vote? And the fact is, do you feel this is in any direct way, a feeling of a sense of lack of empowerment that their voice does not count? So why do it. and it is and-and having the parents who were the people who were supposedly activists and talked about the importance of their voice being heard, not passing this on again to their children? 14:55 LE: Well, again, I we have never had high as high percentage of political involvement as the as the utopians want. And, and if, if the figures, you know, we have all seen these figures were 50, or 60 percent, or something like that, and turnout for elections and so forth. That was at a time when we did not have as many people as we have today, when we did not have the kind of situation where we have a lot of Hispanics who do not vote, or we have a lot of African Americans who do not vote and a variety of reasons for that. So, I do not I do not think I mean, if you were to look at the number, probably of the children of the boomers as separate, apart from the various people who come in through immigration, I think you will find that the percentages are about the same. I may, I maybe I am being too wrong about this. But I that is, that is my impression, and there are a lot of political activists, but to to-to-to engender political activism, you must have causes, you must have issues, which will activate people. And we just simply do not have those same kind of overriding issues that we did. Back in the (19)60s, for example, those people who had the most people, the mobilization people against the war in Vietnam, following the not so much 911. But that poll period, they are leading up through Afghanistan, and then Iraq, you did have a number of people demonstrating against those of conflicts and, and are getting involved in, but the numbers are much smaller. And why was that? Well, one obvious reason was the no one was going to be drafted from Harvard, or Yale or Wisconsin to go fight in Afghanistan or Iraq, because we do not have the draft anymore. We have a volunteer army. And that was one of the major factors in motivating young people to get active in the 1960s. They did not want to go to fight and perhaps die in Vietnam, which was a very real possibility, through the draft. 17:28 SM: One of the important issues of that particular period, obviously, with the anniversary of Watergate, which are going through right now, is supposedly lack of trust that a lot of the boomers had in anyone in position of leadership, I can remember, again, on a college campus, they would even listen to a minister, if anyone was in a position of authority to not be the university president of the United States or United States senator or congressman, it could be the head of a corporation, anybody who was quote, labeled a leader, including ministers. And in the trust factor, I, I worry about this as a person, I am going to start with that folder, because I have worked with college students that I think need to trust people. I can remember psychologists telling me in a class once that people who cannot trust me not be successful in life, you have got to have some people in trust. Do you feel that boomers, you know, you cannot define an entire 70 million people but that in some respects, the things that happened in the in their youth, the negative effect that it had on them, whether it be Watergate, or the Vietnam War, or a lot of other things? They just did not trust anyone in leadership has been passed on to their kids. And so that was we have an ongoing problem on the issue of trust in America. 18:45 LE: I think it is a very valid question. And the way I the way I put this I have written a little bit on this is that I think that Americans, generally and baby boomers specifically were traumatized by the period from about 1963 through about 1978, (19)79, starting with John Kennedy's assassination, then the Vietnam War, then the murders of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy in 1968. Then Watergate and Richard Nixon aligned to the American people and using illegally unconstitutional the powers of his office to cover up his unlawful actions. And then finally, Jimmy Carter's inept handling of the presidency in the late in the late (19)70s. Culminating in his trying to blame the American people for what was going wrong going on rather than themselves. It was the public the public's melees that was to blame not his own being taking the-the letting the economy spiral into his Your unemployment rates and interest rates and all the rest of it. So, I think that was what I call a, a psychological depression through which Americans and particularly baby boomers suffered and endured during those 15 years or so. And that it was only with the election of Ronald Reagan that we began to come out of that, through his optimism, his vitality his repeating to the best of people of using some of the same techniques of his favorite President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to lift up the spirits and, and to rephrase the only thing to fear but fear itself and-and Reagan's idea that the best days are yet to come, I think resonates with the old FDR rhetoric. So that that has been a problem which we have had to deal with. Yes, I think that has been inevitable that the baby boomers have passed that on to their children. 21:05 SM: When you look at the Vietnam War, and the ending of that war, what do you think were the one or two most important reasons why the war ended? Was it because of the antiwar movement, like many people believe on college campuses that by constantly protesting and maybe Americans aware? Or was it when bodies start coming home in middle America start protesting against the war? 21:28 LE: Well, I think initially, it was the-the protests, which-which forced the issue onto the, into the front pages, and maybe people pay attention to it. But we have to remember that. Up until January of 1968, most of the polls showed a solid majority of American people handling and supporting rather the-the Vietnam War was with the Tet Offensive, which was the real shocker, and which just stunned not only American people, but also members of Congress, and also the median voter pride cake, made his famous trip to Vietnam, came back and said, look, we really ought to get out of Vietnam. And LBJ is alleged to have said, well, you know, if we have lost bought a private kite, and we have lost the war, or words to that effect, we have lost the man in the street. So that on top of that, you have the ever increasing numbers of Americans being drafted you then you had the number increasing numbers of deaths, we had the realization that he had been lied to as to who was winning the war. And so all of these things came together. And people said, in effect that is enough. 22:53 SM: When you get into the war itself, the whole concept of healing to as a nation. Your thoughts on the impact of the Vietnam Memorial was- had, obviously it has had impact on Vietnam veterans and their families, and the warriors who fought and died in that war. But what effect has it had on the nation as a whole? And secondly, do you think that a lot of members of the boomer generation are having second thoughts about that serving? Or having second thoughts about? It is like, all I can say is, it is like a child or young children with their parents at the wall and the parent and the child looks up to the dad and says, “Dad, what did you do during the war dad?” It is, just it is a thought that is that do you think there is some, do you think there is a problem with healing within the nation with respect to this particular war and what it did to our nation at tour nation apart? So within the psyche of the boomer generation, and also in the body politic of the country? 23:59 LE: Well, I think first of all, that the Vietnam Memorial has-has-has helped the healing, no question about it. That is one of the most popular memorials here in Washington, DC. It is very touching to see, particularly veterans and their families and the survivors that come there, and the names, touch the wall and so forth. So, I think it has been tremendously important in the healing process. But I do think, though, that the-the scars of that war are still there with the baby with the baby boomers who oppose it at the time. Some of them probably have just said, oh, well, let us let us move on. I think some still think it was an unjust war. They still think it was the wrong war. They still think that we should not have been involved and I think that will always be there. So, I think, at least certain leaders that I have that I have heard or the interviews that they have given, they certainly have not regretted their opposition-based database for me to post to it. 25:22 SM: One of the one of the interesting scenarios during that period is the fact that Dr. King spoke up against the war as a civil rights leader took a lot of courage. Even that phone wreck, he mentioned it was a great interview, talked about the moral leadership of Dr. King, he was a moral man, he is problems like a lot of people have personally been more a leader. But I would like your thoughts as obviously personnel who is going to be teaching a course on what curries it takes for an African American leader of that magnitude to be against the war when he was criticized by his peers. And it was at that very same period of lack power mill was taking place and they were looking at people like King Ruston, Farmer young in the red Wilkins, is your time has passed. Just your thoughts on Dr. King's antiwar stand? 26:10 LE: Well, I think I have to divide that Dr. King's legacy. And the two parts number one, I think as the as the leader of the civil rights movement, and standing up to people like O'Connor and other bigots and racists like that. I think he showed extraordinary leadership. He was certainly somebody I looked up to, as a matter of fact, other line by conservative I was there at the March on Washington, in 1963. Here in Washington, DC, I wanted to be there and want to see what it was like feeling. And I was deeply touched to move by, particularly by his, by his speech by his dress. So, I think without his leadership, without his example, that we would not have had the-the advances that we did, we would have had the Civil Rights Act of 64 W. H Rights Act of 1965, and so forth. I am not so sure about his opposition to the Vietnam War. I do not know. I am not quite sure why he did it. Was it out of moral conviction? Or was it an attempt on his part, to sort of show more radical young blacks that he could take a-a strong position on a more current issue? I did not, I do not, my recollection is he did not seem to be as comfortable and as convincing in that role, as he was in his earlier role as a civil rights leader, well, maybe that is unfair to him. And-and I do not want to in any way, denigrate him, or diminish his try to diminish his-his extraordinary contributions in the first part of that decade. 28:23 SM: When I read some of the reasons, I believe there is, I think, two speeches that he gave two major speeches on Vietnam, one of the Riverside Church in New York City, I have copies of them. And some of the people sent me that he actually gave a third speech, Vietnam, Rabbi Heschel, I believe was a very important person persuading him to-to go against the war. And I am trying I do not know if anybody has written biographies on Rabbi Heschel, but I am looking for the-the impact and I might have to go to the Jewish center to find that out because he had a tremendous influence on Dr. King. I do not know that story on Vietnam. I am going to go into some names of the period here and just your comments and reactions to them and I am going to come back and have two or three final questions. Your thoughts on Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. 29:11 LE: Oh, golly, golly coffee Well, I you know, I just think Jane Fonda cause such extraordinary pain and anguish and, and real harm to our, to our fighting men. And also, to the POWs if you read some of what John McCain said about devout Jane Fonda it was- she refused to, to be honest about what she saw in the POW camps in the north, and I never have been able to forgive Jane Fonda for what was as close to an act of treason as I think you can get. Tom Hayden, I think it was a professional, agitator, radical and always with-with a definite cause in mind, whether whatever he said or whatever he did and that I am I am very pleased that he failed because I think he would have taken America in the wrong direction. 30:17 SM: The yippies, the two people, you all think of are Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. 30:22 LE: Yeah. Right. Well, I think they were entertainers. I think that they were engaged in shock tactics. I do not know that they ever took the revolution that seriously, but Hayden did. Lanny Davis do they were serious revolutions. 30:53 SM: I am going to interject a story here. I am going to change the tape. Just a couple of names here, Lyndon Johnson. 31:08 LE: Well, Lyndon Johnson was, was a man of obsessions is obsessed with the idea 1964 of winning by the largest margin ever in presidential politics and besting his mentor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's margin over Outland, in 1936. And that was why he said and did the really reprehensible things that he did say about Barry Goldwater, accusing him of somebody caring about nuclear Armageddon, and then destroy Social Security and all the other things that he said that he allowed his people to say about very cool water. He was also obsessed with the idea that he had to he had to win, quote, the Vietnam War, but he had to do it his way. And therefore, he kept trying to manage it. Not a military man. And all he did was to bring about the deaths of 10s of 1000s of Americans. He was also obsessed with the idea that he could, he could not be, he would not be corrupted by political power. But in point of fact, he-he was and was someone who used everybody around him, whether it was men or women or aide or mistresses, or all the rest of it, for his own personal satisfaction. aggrandizement has been one of the one of the most personally reprehensible men we have ever had in public office, certainly in the White House. He Did one. One good thing. And that was the-the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or whatever x-x 1965. Great Society again, it was an obsession and this idea that he could make over and make a great society, just through spending money and his idea of management from the top. It was just this obsession is this grandiose utopian dream, it is. 33:39 SM: Bobby Kennedy. 33:44 LE: I think a man caught-caught by his name, caught by his family caught by his reputation, forced to probably to run for president and probably did not want to force to pursue that. That goal in the name of his brother in his family. I do not, I do not know what would have happened to him if he had gotten the-the nomination in in 1968. Just how, what kind of a campaign he would have run because he was beginning to show some appreciation for the private sector and some of his speeches. So, he was not as liberal as some people made him out to be or hoped that he would be a very dramatic person. I think. 34:38 SM: Eugene McCarthy. 34:42 LE: A brilliant iconoclastic again fiercely independent. A poet as well as a politician somebody who I think is not very easily put into a particular catalogue, or category rather, party or philosophy certainly made a difference in, in American politics through almost defeating Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire. Without that Richard Nixon were not elected president in 1968. 35:32 SM: The bitterness between McCarthy and candidate Bobby Kennedy is very strong. 35:38 LE: Yeah. Well, Eugene was-was told by Bobby I am told that, you know, if you go, I will not. And then, after McCarthy almost spun to Hampshire, Kennedy, realizing just how vulnerable Johnson was got into it, and never forgave him for that to Catholics, by the way. 36:00 SM: George McGovern. 36:04 LE: Well, George McGovern, a, an ideologue who saw the error of his ways he certainly in his later years was not the same kind of pacifist and an anti-capitalist that he was running in 1972. 36:31 SM: Hubert Humphrey. 36:33 LE: The happy warrior, love to love politics, love to talk about politics, love to practice politics. Came out of the nonpartisan tradition of Minnesota, and got chewed up by the much superior, well-oiled political machine of the Kennedys and West Virginia, and then was humiliated by a by Lyndon Baines Johnson, as vice president, deserved better than he got. 37:06 SM: You think that if he if curiosity, if he had spoken up against Johnson against the policy that he might have won the election in (19)68 because he was coming on toward the very end in history books say that it said go on another week, he would have been an excellent, he was really- 37:25 LE: He might have the AFL CIO did a brilliant, magnificent job of almost winning the election in 1968. And it really turned out really turned to that neighbor coming on strong. And so it was Humphrey. Yes, that is, that is possible. Humphrey, who I think probably was-was worried about, you know, backlash among-among some Democrats. And maybe he could see that he was coming on strong, I thought he could pull it out without risking that possible division in the party. 38:05 SM: John Kennedy. 38:10 LE: Well, you know, it is so hard to think rationally about him. But we have learned so much about him. Since I, I know this in the (19)60s, and I had a chance to see him up close because I was a press secretary to the United States senator in the late (19)50s. And early (19)60s, and I saw Kennedy in action on the Senate floor. Close was closed some this is where you are and where I am. And he was he was charismatic. He was charming. He was, I thought, extremely intelligent. Dynamic. Just captivating loved us used to love watching him in the press conferences and enjoying him with those presidential press conferences. But a very flawed man, I am not talking about the sexual peccadilloes. But it was a certain, I think, weakness or a certain uncertainty there at the core, which showed in his non reaction to going up with a sense of direction of the Berlin Wall in his withdrawing CIA support of the Bay of Pigs operation and his ambivalence about the war in Vietnam. At the same time, he did show some true grit with the Cuban Missile Crisis. So I think hard to sum him up. Do not know what he would have turned out to be if he had run for the election? Whether you would have won one way you know that in October of 16 Free. Time Magazine did a poll of Goldwater versus Kennedy. And it was a near tie. Really? Yes. 40:11 SM: What do you think of John Kennedy? The critics that drew I just had to review debt to Jim Hilde. He is a professor at Temple University. He is a liberal professor. And he was mentioning that in the revisionists are all really hurt the Kennedy image. And then except- 40:30 LE: For people, right, except that the people I mean, whenever there is a public popular poll name, your favorite president, John Kennedy always winds up in the top three or four, someone just came out a month or so ago. 40:44 SM: But when you ask him, one of the terms that I always remember hearing about President Kennedy when he was a pragmatic politician, yes. So that, for example, when Harris Wofford or whoever Bobby Kennedy made the call, or Mrs. King made the call to get Dr. King out of jail. John Kennedy did it Bobby told was the right thing to do. And Harris was involved in it. But the question is, there was always the thought of the impact that would have on the southern politicians, but any even the how he responded to the March on Washington 63, when he worried about or maybe riot or something in the streets. And the effect that supporting the March on Washington would have been the effect on the south, the Democrats This is the question I am asked basically trying to get to is, did John Kennedy truly care about the black man. truly care? Or was this a pragmatic, just a pragmatic power? 41:42 LE: Yeah, I think I think it was strictly pragmatic politics. I do not think he truly cared about it. I think in that sense that Bobby Kennedy, later in that decade, showed more true caring and empathy with the with the plight of the African American. I think you are right; I think Kennedy was ruled by the by his brain, not by his heart. But I think Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy is coming more, or as rules very often by his heart is. 42:12 SM: Very-very good. I want you to talk about Barry Goldwater. He is the next version. 42:19 LE: Well, a very unlikely revolutionary. But he was, I mean, he was a college dropout, wrote a book. So 3.5 million copies, it was a son of a millionaire who liked to hang around and jeans and go unshaven and go down the Columbia River up in the Grand Canyon. A salesman but also global elite and fiercely in the idea of individual freedom and unlimited government. A guy with from knees and eyes who yet first his life flying airplanes during World War II. And somebody who just was determined that he was going to offer a choice not an echo in 1964 which is why he went to-to Tennessee and seven we have got to do something about this TVA sellable sell part of it often went out to South Dakota, great big plowing the contest and said we are doing the farm subsidies and went down to Florida and said we got to privatize at least part of social security. I mean, these are not, you know, pragmatic. 43:40 SM: Right. 43:44 LE: This was a man who said this is going to be a campaign of principles, not a personalities and just stuck to it. And as a result of that, although he lost badly, the-the election to Lyndon Johnson still provided a-an inspiration for all sorts of people to get into politics, including it folder, and add crane both who got into politics as a result of Barry Goldwater and who provided Ronald Reagan with the opportunity to make a TV address, which made him for the first time in this life, a national political star and- 44:27 SM: I was I saw my home on TV. 44:31 LE: California, if it had not been for Barry Goldwater being the nominee, Ronald Reagan would not have made that speech and would never have become the, I think the governor of- 44:42 SM: Richard Nixon. 44:44 LE: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde brilliant man, filled with insecurities filled with seething with animosities towards his enemies, resentful at the same time understanding you can trust a communist and only to be a communist. Somebody who loved his children and was fiercely loyal to his friends, but-but hated his enemies, test all kinds of combinations I think Jacqueline. 45:23 SM: Spiro Agnew. 45:27 LE: Oh man who was caught up in and sort of carried along by events. He was always sort of the, fortunately for him the right time to first become governor and then to become vice president. Again, personally and morally flawed individual who did not see anything wrong. And sitting there in his office in the White House, which is where the Vice President has office in those days and receiving a payoff in a brown paper bag from a Maryland lobbyist. I mean, it is just makes you want to shrink him in repugnance. 46:13 SM: Gerald Ford. 46:16 LE: Good man, honest man decent man did the right thing by pardoning Nixon a minor figure in American politics but did that one major thing which was the right thing to do. 46:31 SM: Some of the African American leaders, you already made reference to Dr. King with any other thoughts on Dr. King. 46:46 LE: I think truly one of the most inspiring Americans of the 20th century. 46:56 SM: How about Malcolm X. 47:01 LE: A reflection of the of the anger and resentment well justified of African Americans, somebody who seemed to be changing toward the very end of his life. And maybe might have made some very interesting contributions to better relations between-between whites and blacks in America tragically cut down. 47:35 SM: The Black Panther Party was a Huey Newton’s and the Bobby Seales of the world. 47:40 LE: Well, I am I am I am influenced by-by Horwitz Collier on that destructive generation so forth. I think these cynical power-seeking hedonistic opportunists who were using people did not really give a damn about-about African Americans. Just their own power, sexual and personal recommendations. 48:06 SM: How about the women's movement, the leaders Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem leader. 48:12 LE: I think any of them I think, the beginning of the movement, I think, as I said earlier, I think some of them have the right idea that women had were not being treated fairly and accurately in the marketplace. But I think it slipped away from I think a certain maybe a certain arrogance set in and then then all of a sudden they allowed the real radicals to take it over. I think alienated a lot of a lot of conservative if you vote conservative feminists and that is not an oxymoron, like my wife. 48:49 SM: How about Muhammad Ali? 48:52 LE: Cassius Clay, but yeah, yeah. Oh, I a sweet-sweet fighter. Somebody that you just need all of his with his grace and, and power and endurance to for that matter. 49:15 SM: Throughout the antiwar stand things. Yeah, a conscientious objector, seemed to be sincere in that. 49:21 LE: I think you are right to take that position. 49:24 SM: So, I am in Columbus side bid. He came and he was dethroned. And I was working at Ohio University at the time, came down to see him at a theater they paid him $3,500 to come and speak. And at the very beginning of the trailers for protesters outside against on a rally and he gave the $3,500 back to the local community that needed it for four in the city. He did not need the money. He gave three the cash back. 49:53 LE: I am not surprised. I have always thought he was very sincere. Somebody, man of conviction. I really, I was always my impression. 50:05 SM: Timothy Leary. 50:10 LE: Well, I think he probably deserved the hand that he got. I think that he misled so many people think the arrogance was pretty, pretty evident from the very beginning. And I think it is, it is, it is appropriate. He is really a minor figure in this whole story. We are talking. 50:40 SM: Daniel Ellsberg. 50:46 LE: Well, there-there is somebody who after signing a document, by violated it by stealing the documents, and then turning them over to the to the New York Times and The Washington Post and others in direct violation of his word. So, it is hard for me to feel much sympathy for a perjurer. He is an imposter. 51:23 SM: How about George Wallace? 51:27 LE: George Wallace was a at best, a cynical opportunity to opportunist and at worst, a bigot and a segregationist. He was-was a was a demagogue the way that he would appeal to the-the baser emotions into people. And I think he has been given more attention than he deserves as a major political figure of the time. 51:59 SM: Robert McNamara. 52:08 LE: Well, what can you say about somebody who said publicly that we are winning the war in Vietnam, and then at Georgetown party said that we were losing it? And then it has never been able to satisfactorily explain the dichotomy between these two positions should have a decent thing by this resigning the Secretary of Defense. 52:34 SM: John Dean. 52:41 LE: I vote pass on Dean. 52:44 SM: The music of the year, because the music of that period was so influential in the antiwar movement, whether it be the Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin as well I think if I Dylan's. 52:56 LE: Yeah, I think you have got to differentiate between the different kinds of whatever you are talking about, you know, hard rock and electronic rock or rock and you know, Joplin and Hendrix. 53:06 SM: Richie Havens. 53:09 LE: Those guys right now, I watched I went to so Woodstock at the movie. I did not go to Woodstock in person. And one sense it was fascinating. But to me it was also so it was it was not only chaotic, but it was an archaic and in a sense that he would say it was sort of the-the combination of the of the counterculture ethic and so three days of drinking and drugging and unprotected sex with people behaving more like animals than that human beings as opposed to that, I think that music would have to include you know, the-the Beatles would have to the Beach Boys would have to vote even-even-even Elvis. And then that kind of music is far different. 54:17 SM: Then I am pretty much done here. It is a couple questions at the very end, just your gut level reaction to these terms from the period SDS. 54:32 LE: Faux revolutionaries, F A U X. 54:37 SM: Counterculture. 54:43 LE: Hedonistic destructive self-destructive, destructive and self-destructive. 54:53 SM: Pentagon Papers. 55:12 LE: A chapter in American journalism. Which is not as-as salutary as many journalists think. 55:27 SM: Woodstock, I think we are covering may come off of the Beatles, John Lennon. 55:39 LE: I mean, I sort of liked the Beatles. I mean, I did not listen to him a lot by sort of like the Beatles. And then again, I did not know that those see in the Sky with Diamonds was, was a plug for LSD, which shows you how naive I am. 55:51 SM: But you know, when John Lennon died in 1980, and voila, Beatles he was the one that was the big anti-war. That is the one that Nixon did not like, and all the other kinds of things. You just some general individuals that were over in Vietnam, we in Westmoreland president to general Kochi, and Maxwell Taylor, certainly great names of people that ran the war in Vietnam. Well, I am going to change the tape here before we. Go, if you look at the Vietnam War, I think that is the question we were talking about we looking at the Vietnam War. What is the main reason that that war ended? 56:41 LE: I think the young played a very important role as they always do. If you want political and social change, you know you young are the place where it happens. And there is very little current anyone else can do to speed things up as the young want to be passive or just alienated. You know, there is no other source of truth unless you have a tense labor situation. And that would be the other example. Right now we have a situation in which people are afraid even to go out on strike, is there going to be replaced? We have people who are afraid to complain about their work conditions, because they will be downsized. The real thing about students is they not only have time on their side aside, but there are very few threats you can make against them. They are not, they are not in the system yet, in that sort of way. Now why did it take them that long? I do not know how many it was it was I mean, guys sign of the veritable obstinacy of the system, which is demonstrating itself again. These days, I- 58:11 SM: I want to go over again, talking about how important you say the students, the ministers are in a movement, because you were talking about that on the tape. And- 58:18 LE: I think ministers are very important, and they are paid to be moral. There. They make it possible for other people to do things. In other words, if you are in a congregation, and you may feel a certain way, but you do not feel like you have sort of a moral authority to do it. I mean, a lot of people do not. Whereas if the minister helps to bring some people out of their out of their shell in that regard. I have seen situations in which kind of nations on the other hand, I have been very restrictive on the ministers. 59:11 SM: Okay, one of the issues, again, is the issue of healing. I have had an opportunity to go to the Vietnam Memorial for the last couple of years that Veterans Day and Memorial Day ceremonies. And I like your thoughts on the importance that the wall has done for America, not only for Vietnam veterans, but for America itself. And on top of that, do you feel that there has been healing between not only within the Vietnam veteran generation but amongst those who were for and against the war? 59:45 LE: Ah, I suspect that the-the memorial has been the has had the strongest effect on those who were directly involved in the war or who had people friends, relatives who were, I have a friend whose name is about the 39th up there on the wall. However, I think what is sometimes called Healing is really amnesia and a simple time you know, there will be come a time when there will be nobody with any direct contact with Vietnam, at which point people will have a harder time relating to that wall. Versus they do-do a civil war monument in Gettysburg. And that is in the nature. However, as monuments go, it has, it has been an extraordinary one. I take people around town visitors around town, it is one of the places I always want to take them especially I want to take them at night because I think, as a special quality at nighttime. You enter it in the dark. 1:00:57 SM: Has there been healing between those who were for and against the war? The divisions were so- 1:01:04 LE: I do not think they even talk about it do they? I mean, it is not it is like, again, it is almost it is more a matter of it is no longer important. That is what is so absurd about war, in the first place is that you can kill 50,000 People of your own people and what was it 2 million of others? And then you-you know, a few years later, it no longer makes a difference. I am not sure I use the word healing. I mean, it is not a word that comes to mind. It certainly has lost its place in the semiosis fear no longer has the symbolic power at once did. And I cannot explain to my own sons what it was like what the fuss was about. And I suppose I lose have the same problem. I recall trying to understand how to how hard it was to relate in any meaningful way to my fact that my parents both lost brothers in the First World War. But that was a war that I had no connection with. On the other hand, I had a lot of connection with the Second World War in the sense that as a child in Georgetown, we did have blackouts and we had I stood on the roof and look for German planes and, and relatives would bring German insignias back from the war and my father was working for the government. So all those things added to it. And then after the war I went to went to France in the still in then in the (19)50s You know, maybe 10 years after the war. And there was still plenty of places which were shell marked. They were all over Europe and 10 years later, there were cranes I think the French word is grew these great big because literally they looked like cranes and Europe was rebuilding itself but at the same time you could see buildings that were still had all the marks of having bombarded and when you were in Paris, I remember this the number that what struck me was the number of men in wheelchairs so then I went back maybe 10 or 15 Later years later and there was nobody in wheelchairs in Paris and that is what happens if you do not have those experiences and it just cannot mean the same thing. 1:04:51 SM: Let Me- start again. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. 1:04:56 LE: Yeah I always like Abbie Hoffman better than Jerry Rubin for two reasons. I guess first of all that Abbie Hoffman had a real sense of humor, which I related to and Jerry Rubin eventually sold out. Hartman was a bizarre and he was a, he was a- it was a truly eccentric character, and I guess maybe a little bit sad character in many ways. But he was he was sort of the sort of the spirit of the (19)60s. And I found out the other day that when I was at Harvard, I had been director, news director of the radio station at the time that that Fidel Castro came to America. And it was a, I was responsible for getting the-the broadcasts of Fidel Castro out from Memorial Stadium and went all the way down to Cuba and to Latin America. It was very exciting. And Fidel Castro went to the faculty club for dinner, and came out with his lieutenants and all the students were there clapping room that and then I interviewed one of his lieutenants at Hays big for telling you about all of these out in the mountains. Well, it turns out that Abby Huffman was at that Memorial Stadium speech that same night, which I think sort of- 1:06:25 SM: how do you feel about the suicide note that, that Abbie Hoffman left when he died in Bucks County several years back and supposedly said the note, no one is listening anymore. And I guess he only had about $2,000 in the bank, but you have given a lot of his money away and kind of civils involved and causes. But when I heard that, I thought, is that symbolic of a boomer, especially those that still care about the issues of that time that no one is listening anymore? He is just a symbol that. 1:06:57 LE: Yeah, well, you see, that goes back to what we were talking about earlier. If you are an existentialist, you do not expect anybody to be listening. I mean, it is you are engaging in and like Sisyphus, you are rolling a rock up the hill is going to roll back, but you still have no choice. You know, what is it the plague in which [inaudible] as the doctor who was taking care of people, even though that, you know, the plague, so far, as anybody knows, is incurable. That is a that would be the, I think the different from way I sort of approach it in a way that that someone like Abbie Hoffman might have approached it. And I do not know what that comes, what sort of experiences that comes out of, you know, where you help people end up having a different approach like that. And some people might say, hearing me speak, you know, wow, terribly depressing. What you have just said is, but in fact, I think it is tremendously optimistic because of sustaining I mean, if you, if you realize that it is not your is not within your power to determine the outcome of what you do, is only within your power to make the choice to do it. And, and so that you do not control history. You, you, you it is not, it is not within your privilege, to be born at the right moment. And I was talking to somebody the other day about how if, you know, was it better to have been in our 20s in the (19)60s, and have to live through all this shit afterwards? Or the other way around? You know, would we be happier if we had, you know, come into the (19)60s When we were 16? Now, the answer is probably no, because we would probably be like our parents and would not have liked it very much. We probably did the right thing, and we are now paying the right price for it. But in any case, it is it is nothing we can do anything about. So, Camus said somewhere that the-the-the only sin we are we are not permitted is despair. And I think that there were an awful lot of people who set up too large a fantasy. And I do not think it is wrong to have myths and hopes and dreams, but I think that they have to be within the context of knowing that it may not work out. And that way you-you continue to have the strength to keep trying let success come as a surprise rather than as a necessary standard by which you judge what you are going to do. 1:09:46 SM: Let me let you get that. Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. 1:09:52 LE: Oh, I never paid that much attention to. I was never very much involved in all that. You know, I mean, that was not my (19)60s. I mean, I was, certainly was aware of it, but it was not it was not central to anything I did. 1:10:06 SM: How about Muhammad Ali? 1:10:11 LE: I was sort of I was sort of interested in because in the early (19)60s I had been in the when I was in the Coast Guard had been in Louisville and I was visiting Hugh Haney was a cartoonist there. And it was in the lobby of the Louisville courier journal. And here comes his young black guy doing all this crazy stuff. I said, Who else? And he said, well, that is a new fighter name, Cassius Clay. And so I met him. I did not meet him, but I saw him before he was famous. So, I do not remember what my reaction is whatever I would say would not be honest. Because I do not remember. But he was against the Vietnam. Yeah, I do not I cannot tell you what, what I thought of that. But I approved, but I did not leave a strong impression. 1:10:54 SM: How about some of the older individuals Dr. Benjamin Spock, the Berrigan brothers? 1:11:00 LE: I Like them. I-I-I in my local work, you see, the truth of the matter is because being in Washington, you got to see how things were organized, you know, the big demonstrations and, and the truth of the matter is, a lot of these things would not have gotten off the ground a lot without a lot of old leftists both locally and nationally. It was the old leftists some of them, I presume, were communists, who really put things together. They knew how to do it. And it is part of the story of the (19)60s that has not been told, because it was assumed that there were all these brilliant young people who staged these marches. Well, there were a lot of people who were, and you know, who went back all the way back to the (19)30s. You know, and had a lot of experience in this sort of stuff. There were lawyers say in town, like, like David Ryan, who was an old (19)30s National Lawyers Guild lawyer, people like a balloon folks like that. Now I like for a for a Seventh Day agnostic I have a I have a certain fondness for ministers. I do not like I do not like t-shirt very much, but I like ministers when they are good. And, and I think that the Bergen brothers, you know, sort of lent a good moral cast to the to the show, as the Duck Fuck. 1:12:40 SM: Some of the politicians of the era starting with John Kennedy and then his brother Robert Kennedy. 1:12:49 LE: Yeah. I covered the covered the hearings of the investigation into the teamsters union as a young radio reporter. And her is something I wrote recently about that. My radio days. Among those seated at the long panel table was young John F. Kennedy, Democrat from Massachusetts. His brother Robert served as a counsel for the committee. At one point a prostitute witness made some off color comment that bought brought guffaws from the audience and Bobby's own giggles were amplified by his mic. The humorless Chair John McClellan wrapped his gavel and told Kennedy. This is not a joking matter. It would be the only time I ever saw Kennedy look chastened. I was not particularly impressed by the Kennedys. They struck me as lightweights hardly in the same class with Humphrey and Dirksen. I wrote in a September 5, 1959, letter, quote, the Kennedy brothers like to remark about the Quakers came to Washington to do good and did very well. Jimmy Hoffa, who was a student of corrupt told me once in the midst of the racket’s hearings, Bobby Kennedy is trying to make headlines for his brothers so he can get into the White House, but he cannot find his way out of this room and quote, now that the labor reform bill is passed, one big source of Kennedy headlines has disappeared. Let us hope the Kennedys do likewise. That was what I wrote. 1:14:20 SM: Oh, wow. Well, that was (19)59. What are your What are your thoughts on Kennedy from 15? John Kennedy from (19)59, to (19)63. And Bobby certainly through 1968. 1:14:31 LE: Well, the best thing that Jack Kennedy did was to bring my wife from Wisconsin to Washington where I could meet her merrier. I mean, she was part of that generation that was, and by today's standard, it was an extraordinary group of people. She came to work for Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. And it was, it was a very-very exciting time, it was a time in which passion and commitment was not only favored, but you could get bills passed based on it. And so, Kennedy himself, I think, was not the myth that he was made out to be. Started, I think the tradition of what I call mob politics. And I think he paid a heavy price for it. You know, he won the election from all appearances by the assistance of the mob, and in Illinois, far too close to the really deeply corrupt side of politics, and I think started a precedent, which, like I say, may have resulted in his own death and certainly set a pattern for, for future politics. In my book, I have a chart of what I call mob politics or history of mob politics. And it starts with Jack Kennedy, in Illinois. And it my thesis is that for 30 years, our politics had been repeatedly interrupted by a variety of crooks. Freelancers out of controls, crooks and-and others that have distorted our-our political system, then so I do I do. You know, I blame him for that. Bobby Kennedy, I believe was-was a quite a repugnant character in his early days when he was working for McCarthy. But I think he was it would be in a category of very, very small category of politicians who actually improve with age. I have seen that very, very rarely. And I would have to say, even though I was a supporter of Jean McCarthy, by the time that that Kennedy was running for office, I you know, and I was I could live with that. I would find something here. 1:17:20 SM: Okay, we are into the area of civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. 1:17:26 LE: Okay, Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the truly important people in my life and for a little bit eccentric reason is that I read stride towards freedom. While I was in college, and I was very-very moved by it, it was, it was perhaps the most important book I read while I was in college, even though it was not on any reading list. And what particularly moved me was that I was a product of a Quaker school, German ham friends in Philadelphia, and I had never really gotten to all the pacifism. stuff, it always seemed to me a lot of what the Quakers did seem very mushy, and I, and what Martin Luther King did for me, which was sort of unique was that, well, where I sort of connected with him was not just on the Civil Rights thing, but even more so on his description of his own struggles with pacifism and, and how he resolved them. And so that I came to know, King not as a civil rights leader, so much as but as a person who helped me think through some of my own problems, you know, which is an interesting experience in itself. Now, I would later learn things about the reality of King which, you know, as with everybody is not always what it appears, I mean, for example, everyone is very reluctant to get involved in Montgomery Bus Boycott initially. And in fact, it was a guy named Ed Nixon who was a member of the Sleeping Car Porters union called him up finally and said, you know, and I said, we want to use your-your church for meeting place, so Monday and King said, well, let me think about it. And a few couple days later, he called back and said, I made up your mind he was in King says, well, yeah, I think that will be okay says good because we have got 200 People coming. So, I mean, just that, you know, that sort of contrasts with the, with the popular image of and yet it also was a story. Yeah, I mean, I think it is a very common story of, of greatness inside. It does not-not just come, you know, burst out for I want to hear king with a girlfriend of mine at Howard University and I think 1960, who was speaking at Chapel. It was the first time I had ever done anything of a political protest, or I was a radio reporter here, I had covered the site covered sit ins, I had covered the sit ins and protests of that medical park. I had, you know, my girlfriend said, you know, I want to go here. And so we went and we, we got there a little bit late, and we had to sit outside, maybe there was a chapel was overflowing, and we sat outside and this beautiful day, listen to follow them quite closely, and I admired greatly. Malcolm X, I did not have that much consciousness. So frankly, I think Malcolm X has grown much larger and his depth and he was in his life. You are not meant to say that. But I think that is really true. I do not I do not recall, for example, being particularly conscious of Malcolm X as a factor in local civil rights. Things here in DC and this person, so biggest, most black city in the country Now may have been quite different in Chicago and New York, but- 1:21:56 SM: Would you, would you rate him I am sure, okay. Would you rate him like Bobby Kennedy in terms of one of those few individuals who kind of redeemed himself as he, as he got older because the last two years of his life, he no longer was going out and espousing the white man is a devil. He had been to Mecca and came back and Salva? 1:22:18 LE: I think there is that there is that element about it. And the other thing about Malcolm X was awkward relate to him is that he lived in Massachusetts, not far from Boston. And he was a musician. So I mean, I felt a feel sort of a companionship within there because I had that same period, I was at Harvard and a musician also. By but in terms of my own life, Malcolm X did not have hardly any influence. 1:22:50 SM: Could you comment on the Black Power advocates of that period? I always remember the scene of Dr. King was arms folded and Stokely Mark- Stokely Carmichael is speaking, saying that a new generation of black leaders is coming forth Black Power, Black Power, not the concept of Dr. King was all about, if you talk about the Stokely Carmichael's the H wraparounds. The Eldridge, cleavers, the Bobby seals, the Huey Newton's Angela Davis. The list goes on and on about the Black Power advocate like- 1:23:24 LE: It is like, it is like any politics. No. People spend a lot of time talking about a lot of interesting characters there are in politics that that are sort of interesting, but they are not necessarily over the long run, that they may just be sort of big players. Stokely Carmichael was clearly more than that. And as was Angela Davis. And the Panthers certainly had a big influence. On my feeling was that it was very often more anger than direction that the anger was-was-was well phrased, but the next steps were not, were not clear. And as I think I said in that article that you have got that I was, I was quite supportive of the Black Power movement made sense to me. I mean, I was an anthropology major, I understood what-what it was about. It did not it did not strike me as threatening or strange. And it did not, particularly it bothered me. What bothered me was not that that. STOKELY CARMICHAEL said the whites could no longer be in the civil rights movement. But that out of that post, riot period in this town, there was such a divide that came down between blacks and whites, which in many ways we have not recovered from. And, you know, there were I lost black friends just overnight. seemed like it was just because there was a whole different whole different paradigm moved into town. And there was nothing that one could-could do about that. And I do not know, you can say that it was wrong because it was not. I mean, the Black Power movement was right in its in its essence, but it like everything like that it has all sorts of spin off effects. The best civil rights leaders I ever knew, was a local one and never got a national attention guy named Julius Hopson Jr. Right there. And he was the head of the DC statehood party. He was he was a Marxist. Louise Hobson was a march within the status station. So he took a little bit different view of that he could always see the class element. And it was not just race. He did something extraordinary here in town, he went and he sued the DC school system for not spending equally in the various schools. And he pointed out as part of his argument, and while is maybe most dramatically illustrated in the comparison between black schools and white schools, you could also demonstrate it by comparing the middle-class black schools with the more black schools and was one his case. And we became, I believe, the only place in the country which dealt with all question of public schools and integration by saying that it was a, it was a money problem. And we did not live with not a busing was not done by busing. The only busing that occurred in in Washington DC occurred as a voluntary program at the suggestion of the of the school board. And in Montgomery County, and after a short experiment, the school board the black school board decided it was demeaning and stopped. Julia said had quite a different take on this thing. And he was strong enough though, to deal with Stokely Carmichael. He was a powerful, powerful guy, and-and-and was respected even though his particular form of civil rights activity was quite different. He, he said that this solution, for example, to the fact that nothing was being done about the rats in Northeast Washington was that he was going to collect the rats and trap them in and let them loose in Georgetown. And in fact, he only he only had a Volkswagen with one rack in a cage on top of it, but he sure got on the front page of papers for that. 1:28:33 SM: [Inaudible] Because there is any books been written on him? 1:28:36 LE: Well, no books, I wrote a book about Washington called captive capital back in 1974. And I have a few interesting pages on that. Tell that story. I tell the story about local department store which he was trying to integrate. And they, they said they, they, they could not really find any qualified negros. But as Julius Hopson could bring some qualified people with you, they would be glad to consider them. And he said he was not running any goddamn personnel program. But if they did not have some blacks hired in the next two weeks, he was going to boycott the store. And he was very well, I mean, he-he talked up but he was actually extremely well educated. And that was why he was able to pull something out like this school suit because he could do this. He could out data, his opponents and then one of my favorite stories, maybe I do not know what I still got the book here. Here this is Julius Hobson on the nature of the struggle and the struggle is and whether you like a Nigger-Nigger likes a cracker or white he is a pig or any of that stuff I have called people Why do you and pig in the FBI never said a word. All I have to do is put on a dashiki get a wig go out there on 14th Street and yell Whitey is a pig and I am going to take care of them, and the FBI will stand there and laugh at me. But the moment I start to discuss the way goods and services are distributed I start talking about the nature of the political system and I show that. It is a core area of the of the economic system. That is when the FBI comes in for a cat- for harassment. Can Black people ever win the fight for freedom, so long as they accept America's exploitive capitalism as the economic system within, so they must wage the battle? Black people have not confronted this question whether from a lack of understanding or of our economic and political systems or from an unwillingness to challenge them, their silence is a betrayal of the trust of the black people they purport to lead. This will tell you I mean, I mean, this was this was now in the 1960s and (19)70s. This was a black man who was standing up and saying these things and needs on a local black minister. I was asked to speak at his church one Sunday, I went over there. And when I went there, I looked over the congregation, I would say, the average person in their head, I own a pair of Tom McCann shoes that their suits cost an average of $35, a piece that their shirts were from hex basements. And they were very poor and very illiterate, almost illiterate, people who were emotionally shocked, just came to the church to let out this screen. The Minister took up a love offering, he took up a minister's travel offering. And then he took up a regular he took up five or six offerings. So when he got to me to speak, I got up and said, God dammit, this is Christianity. I want no part of it. And I said, this son of a bitch is stealing from you. And the thing is, he is not just stealing your money. He is stealing your minds. And I refuse to be part of this. And I walked off. 1:31:38 SM: What a character. Well, thank you very much. 1:31:39 LE: Some of the chapters are the chapter on race and on, you got a technique and the history on neighborhoods, we will give you a little feeling. 1:31:49 SM: We are going to have you sign this to definitely before you leave. Thank you very much. A couple of politicians. I know you would probably like to talk about Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. 1:31:58 LE: Okay, Lyndon Johnson was a crook who became a good guy who ended up as a tragedy. And he was, you know, if you read the early life of Lyndon Johnson, that you see very little that is admirable about it. But for a brief moment, in the 19(19)60s, he was an extraordinary president. Whatever happened afterwards, whatever happened before, you cannot deny that. Joseph Conrad says somewhere that the difference between a hero and a coward is paper, thin heroes and cowards are people who, for one brief moment, do something out of the ordinary. And what Lyndon Johnson did in the 1960s, along with Adam Clayton Powell, who was an equally false flawed man was extraordinary. Richard Nixon, I grew up hating. I mean, it was, it was early, it was his race against felon [Helen] Gahagan Douglas, my parents were talking about what a terrible man Richard Nixon was. And so that long before there was the 1960s, I knew that Richard Nixon was somebody to watch out for. In the last few years, I have learned that it could be worth grin, I will have to say, again, notwithstanding Vietnam, notwithstanding, Watergate, that Richard Nixon was our last liberal president, the last president to believe in the social welfare system around I mean, it took me a long, long time to understand that and the only way sometimes you learn these things is to see what happens later. But the fact of the matter is that Bill Clinton is incredibly to the right of Richard Nixon. And this flies in the face of what I always believed in what I was raised to believe, but all you have to do is think that Richard Nixon favored a negative income tax. And that was shut down by liberals like George Wiley who complained that it was not big enough. But if Nixon had succeeded, we might never be having the welfare dispute we were having today. Because we would have had structured it on an entirely different basis. We have there was a long list of things which slipped my mind at the present but there-there was a long list of issues. I do not want to say them because I will get some of them wrong. Have issues that people just do not even connect with, with the Nixon administration, which essentially- 1:35:06 SM: how do you feel the ca- so called enemies lists affected the psyche of the boomer generation? Because he had those lists, anybody who was protesting around college campuses, they were taking pictures on ovals. Anybody who was involved? 1:35:24 LE: I do not know. I mean, I, I guess I have had the honor of standing a chance to be on to enemies list because I might have been on Nixon, I guess it was not, I have never asked for my FBI file, I, you know, I, I feel I either would be disappointed if it was too thin, or angry if it was too thick. So, I would rather sort of leave that as a as an unknown. But I also am reasonably confident that I may be on Bill Clinton's enemies list. And I would say, this is no defense of Nixon. But but-but, you know, it is very hard to get people to look at these things realistically, you know, to step outside of your own ideology and look at the facts, the facts of the matter, that Chuck Colson went to jail, in part for looking at I think it was three FBI files, on people. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, they have had access to 900, at the least, at the least. And there is right now, you know, at least a reasonable journalistic supposition that I have seen that, that this whole White House Office database, when far beyond that, that it may have been directly tied into the FBI. Not that that, you know, you could just put your push a button and pull up somebody's FBI file, but you could automatically make a request to the FBI and a low level figure would make a decision and could send the file over. And it seems to be working. So now we have moved from-from-from paranoia, distrust and Machiavellian politics, to automated distrust paranoia, and Machiavellian politics. Now, that does not make Nixon a saint, it makes him, but it is something that you have to deal with. You have to deal with the fact that Bill Clinton is more conservative and Richard Nixon on domestic issues. There is just absolutely no doubt about it. And that on civil liberties is probably worse. I mean, it is a race, but he is probably worse. Bill-Bill Clinton has not he has yet to find a civil liberties worth standing up for. And he has played a key role in in the evisceration of the Fourth Amendment. He has a content he has an underlying he basically has a soul of a southern share when it comes to civil liberties issues. 1:37:55 SM: How about Senator Eugene McCarthy and Senator George McGovern? 1:38:00 LE: Okay, well, I was a McCarthy. supporter, I was a, I ran on a, we had an interesting thing. We had a combined Bobby Kennedy, Gene McCarthy, slate for democratic Central Committee and for convention delegates here, because the problem was, we decided that if we did not get together, Humphries would beat his boat. So I think this was a rare case of a fusion slate in American politics. And I was on as McCarthy, candidate for the Democratic Central Committee. And we won, and we had a wonderful Central Committee, and it was a wonderful, very, very progressive group, including the National committeeman was, there was the, there was the perspective, Phillip Pinkett support Hannity. But Channing Phillips, who was the first black person ever been nominated for president was the runner of our slate, the National Committee. So I was very pro McCarthy. Years later, I would come to know him and become quite good friends with years later. And I think that we just happen to share a lot of, of interest and love of politics, of humor, of irony of the importance of viral and in the world. And it has been a very pleasant experience. Governor McGovern, I certainly supported I was never one of his really great supporters. I was actually sort of pissed off at him very early because he had sent very strong signals that he was ready to endorse DC statehood. So, but what apart Ryan, John Hechinger to local members of the McGovern committee, were opposed to statehood and they got government back off. And it is funny, you know, when you are in politics, and you are around somebody and you see something like that happen, it really soured you because you, you draw a conclusion if you see it once, it is going to happen again. And so I never after that could be quite. I mean, there certainly was no data. There is support McGovern over Nixon. But in terms of my personal respect for the man, I just never could get it up to 55 again. 1:40:41 SM: How about some of the women leaders of the time Betty-Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, women that stood out in- 1:40:51 LE: Shirley Chisholm I liked in a big way. Better Friedan, I did not. She was not that strong on my scope. The glorious time was the other person. Bella Abzug. Yeah, she was she I enjoyed her, I thought she was saying that. But I also got later on got to know a few people who worked for her and she apparently was an absolute tyrant to work for. It was interesting, because of course, one of the things that-that is the real talent for those of us who are in our- grew up in the (19)50s is that we spend our entire lives adapting to one thing or another. Maybe one reason why we have never produced the president, although I think that in a way that we might produce a very good president, because we are a generation that has-has serially seen what this country is made up geographically. In other words, we grew up in Republican America. And we were sort of serially introduced to other parts of America and make our peace in our way. And then. And so my own generational bias, is that, that we would be actually quite good leaders. If-if-if it were not for the hubris of those who came before us and after us was not so strong, that we got squeezed because, see, the thing is that we cannot have any hubris because we have been beaten about the head too much. So, we, you know, we had the insert traditional arrogance of our parents, and then the-the, you know, the-the self-assurance of the, of the boomers on either side of this and we get squeezed out. And the woman's movement was part of that. I- my perspective on that was, again, a little bit strange, because I had grown up with four sisters. And one of whom went to Red Cliff. My father was not in any way supportive of them going even going to college. And I think he was quite negative and that so that I was aware of those-those tensions quite early. And having one of the things about the Quakers I think I can say this without exaggeration, certainly a German have French school is that I never heard, while I was there any feeling on the part of the of my women classmates that they were treated in a second class fashion, I think that has, that has been pretty generally true of the Quakers it just, it just was not part of their-their-their-their view. And I mean, in writing my own memoirs, you know, in writing about trying to remember 11th grade English class, I refer to an English teacher, who was seen far more interested in the, in the girls in the class, who were more sophisticated, you know, as women of that age often are, and are then someone like myself, you know, I always I found myself sort of, you know, not quite as clever as they were. And so that and then when I got to Harvard, I had a couple interesting experiences in this regard. The thing is you get to a place like Harvard, you suddenly you run into people going to boy’s prep schools. And it is, a, it is a tremendously different paradigm. Enormous and you can see why you have trouble when these folks get to be CEOs. It is But I was not aggressive about it was not a big deal for me, it just seemed like it serves stupid or natural. So I occasionally got myself involved in things like I was on the Harvard sailing team. And one time I did not have a crew, I could not find a crew. So, I called up a friend of mine at Radcliffe. And I said, you know, your name is Alice. And you know, nobody's going to notice that it is not a be either male or female have it proven for me. Well, when we reached in this race, Medford Lake, I will never forget it. The problem was that I won the race gave me undue attention, and it was discovered that I had a, a woman crew, and I was literally hauled to a disciplinary meeting of the of the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association. Was I look back on that, you know, I mean, look at that and go that was dumb. I am sure. You know, I mean, my reaction was not, it was not anger, it was not a cause. It just sort of seemed to me sort of stupid and sort of funny, you know, I mean, it was. And then later on, I also was involved in trying to get women at the radio stage, and unsuccessfully, but they did come a few years later, so. But I am not trying to suggest that I was any great. You know, it just was I had a different perspective on it. And then that worked against me, I think of a way a bit in a woman's movement, because when the women's movement did not come along, because it was assumed that my attitude was different sometimes. And because I was not prepared to sort of make all the advances, you know, that I might I, so that, that sometimes I did not know how to handle the issue very well, because it was not something that that had ever been a particular issue. And my growing up, and, and I believe I believe I handled it the way that I think is the smartest way to do which is you give people power. People do not have power, and they deserve it, and you give them and so that there are a number of from my, when I had a staff, they were putting out the DC Gazette. There were a number of women who wrote for that, who did very well in what is now president of the of the pen Faulkner Foundation. And I had a whole bunch of critics and eventually kicked them all out, because they were taking up too much space. And I did not know how to edit critics. But they- that was in (19)76. And we and it became a-a art paper called The Washington review. But there, which still exist today. But the point is that there were all those shifts going on there were all these little things little instance, you know, that you remember, like, when-when I first started putting out the paper, Kathy, my wife, Kathy, who was-was listed on the masthead as the editors wife, which I thought sort of adequately described her-her real role, you know, sort of ambiguous and-and as I said, in that piece I gave you know, so I had a Turneresque quality she is, you know, sort of threatening quality. And she actually had a column called editor's wife. Well, we are long when-when all these you know, new women movement. 1:48:19 SM: I cannot you imagine. Why aren't you the husband? 1:48:23 LE: Yeah, right. So I found my ass in the sling over that. And the curse the irony of it was that then they got Kathy me talking about the whole deal, we decided that maybe it was better to stay married than to have her working. So-so it was it was an interesting-interesting time that you-you had the sort of waves of change washing up you. 1:48:51 SM: Few final names here and then we have a final question. That is a few sentences for like Hubert Humphrey. 1:48:58 LE: Hubert Humphrey was my childhood hero. Hubert Humphrey came to my parents’ house in Philadelphia and gave a speech. My father was one of the organizers of ADA and Hubert Humphrey gave a speech and the thing I remember about the evening was a Joe Rao was there. I wish I met Joe Rao, Joe rouse doted on one of my mother's antique chairs and gave us money raising pitch, and I was very much you know, Huberdeau Humphrey was God. But I, Joe rousing even on a higher plane, because, you know, the idea of someone just standing up on one of my mother's chairs in their living room. And I looked at my mother, and she seemed absolutely super hungry, would say pleases, punch, right. And I sit down, there was a guy with real power. I told that story to Joe Ross shortly before he died and he laughed. He said, he no, he said, I remember that evening. Well, he said, went in there and I saw all these older people, it was an older crowd and said, I wonder what Hubert is going to say. And Hubert started right out talking about Woodrow Wilson. And but the thing I remember about that evening was then driving from my house to the airport with my father and Hubert Humphrey and he and Hubert Humphrey engaging in a 45-minute monologue in hallway. Wow. 1:50:26 SM: The musicians of the year, the (19)60s, boomers have always identified with the music. The Bob-Bob Dylan's and, and I just your overall thoughts. Even though you are not a boomer of the music of that era of the Bob Dylan's Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, the list goes on and on Janis Joplin. 1:50:49 LE: Well, again, I have to, you know, from where I have come from, and I was a, I was a jazz musician. I had my own DJ show jam with Sam on the college radio station. I am still today a piano player. I was drums then. But now I do the piano and vocals. But my world was the world of Miles Davis. And you know, Count Basie and the closest I got ever got to rock was I used to play I once played Earl Bostic on my show, who was a rhythm and blues saxophone player. And I was bawled out by the jazz director at the radio station because he was not jazz. Actually, just so basically, Dylan I never understood I to this day, I do not understand why anybody gets excited about Bob Dylan. Joan Baez has a beautiful voice. And it was not, it was, it was but for the most part, it was not part of my experience in a big way. I mean, it was not that I was negative towards it just was part of the background noise of the period. And but for my own tastes, I was into jazz and, and, and symbolically just as just as important for people who were boomers. You know, they have all these-these feelings, they relate to the music. To me, I relate to the alienation of modern jazz and to the sort of democratic spirit of mainstream jazz. Um, that is, it is just part of me in a way that rock is part of people who are into that. 1:52:38 SM: Do here is [audio cuts] (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Description 2 Microcassettes Rights Statement Many items in our digital collections are copyrighted. If you want to reuse any material in our collection you must seek permission, or decide if your purpose can qualify as fair use under the U.S. Copyright Law Section 107. If you think copyright or privacy has been violated, the University Libraries will investigate the issue. Please see our take down policy. If using any materials in this online digital collection for educational or research purposes, please cite accordingly. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Dr. Lee Edwards Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Edwards, Lee, 1932- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Authors; College teachers; Historians; Edwards, Lee, 1932--Interviews Description An account of the resource Lee Edwards is an author, educator and a leading historian of American Conservatism. He is a professor at the Catholic University and Chairman of a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington foundation. He has appeared on many television broadcast and his books have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe and many more. Dr. Edwards has a bachelor's degree in English from Duke University and a doctorate in Political Science from Catholic University. He also holds a doctor of humane letters degree from Grove City College and attended the Sorbonne in Paris for graduate work. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 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.10.2016.46a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.46b 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. 112:41 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/746d3df3989c502202124b667d3d608f.jpg b4ec5dc64ca1cfd47c99ea4d61d6ea59 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c02f58a4523e578725f8135e19973262.mp3 abbacef87de037a730409f8a11cce370 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 2010-03-25 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Lewis V. Baldwin, 1949- Language English Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Lewis Baldwin is a historian, author, and scholar. Dr. Lewis is a Professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. He specializes in the history of the Black churches in the United States. Dr. Baldwin received his Ph.D. in American Christianity at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois&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}">Dr. Lewis Baldwin is a historian, author, and scholar. Dr. Lewis is a Professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. He specializes in the history of the Black churches in the United States. Dr. Baldwin received his Ph.D. in American Christianity at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.</span> Digital Publisher Binghamton University Libraries Digital Format audio/mp4 Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data 2 Microcassettes Material Type Sound Interview Format Video or Audio Audio Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Montgomery Bus Boycott; Rosa Parks; Teenage Pregnancy; Individualism; Segregation; Civil Rights Movement; Martin Luther King Jr.; Barack Obama; Black Nationals; Black Veterans; Dorothy Height; Ella Baker; Black Church; Richard Nixon; John F. Kennedy; Elvis Presley; Stevie Wonder; Aretha Franklin; O.J Simpson; Kent State; Jackson State&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:2,&quot;4&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:14281427}}">Montgomery Bus Boycott; Rosa Parks; Teenage Pregnancy; Individualism; Segregation; Civil Rights Movement; Martin Luther King Jr.; Barack Obama; Black Nationals; Black Veterans; Dorothy Height; Ella Baker; Black Church; Richard Nixon; John F. Kennedy; Elvis Presley; Stevie Wonder; Aretha Franklin; O.J Simpson; Kent State; Jackson State</span> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 152:21 Subject LCSH Historians; Authors; Scholars; College teachers; Baldwin, Lewis V., 1949--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. Lewis Baldwin Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Baldwin, Lewis V., 1949- ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Historians; Authors; Scholars; College teachers; Baldwin, Lewis V., 1949--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Lewis Baldwin is a historian, author, and scholar. Dr. Lewis is a Professor of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University. He specializes in the history of the Black churches in the United States. Dr. Baldwin received his Ph.D. in American Christianity at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Binghamton University Libraries Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-03-25 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.10.2016.19a; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.19b 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. 172:21 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/cd4662855fa8154460bd498084384a2d.jpg 2bc186292a060a9625368568d048141e https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/bb7e1245387b00efd44b49eeac34433b.mp3 4cf8d95ae435790625b01ff6f58d3d13 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 10 August 2004 Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Dr. Lois DeFleur Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 1:22:41 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 Dr. Lois DeFleur, native of Illinois, was the first female president at Binghamton University (1991-2010). She came to Binghamton after being provost at the University of Missouri. Before that DeFleur had served as a Sociology professor at Missouri State University and Washington State University. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from University of Illinois. Keywords 1960s; Women rights; Democracy; Baby boomers; Protests; Millennials; College students; Vietnam War Memorial; Communities; Minority groups; John F. Kennedy. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound, or alternative text from a visual medium McKiernan Interviews Interview with: Dr. Lois DeFleur Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan Transcriber: Kimberly F Mourao Date of interview: 10 August 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Start of Interview) 00:06 SM: How is a- going there? I just interviewed last week, Arthur Levine. And what an interview, it was great. 00:15 LD: He is a phenomenal human being. 00:17 SM: When you think of the 1960s, and the early (19)70s, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? When you think of that period? 00:26 LD: It is a period of expanding voices and expanding rights for people who had been on the margins of society. Including women. 00:42 SM: Explain a little bit more about the, the women's aspect? 00:46 LD: Well, you see, I mean, I remember when I have been the first woman in all of my different positions, I was only the second woman who got a PhD from Illinois in my field. And I remember the difficulty and trying to get a job, and just working on my PhD, and they did not really take you seriously. And then they would have trouble. If you were a single woman, they would say, well, you just going to get married, or, and I had gotten married. And then they said, well you are not serious about your career, and you, we will hire you, but you can be the so called “Junior professor” who works for one of our stars. And, and then just, I mean, as a student, and then later as a professional, and then seeing other women come along in their, and, you know, I helped in the (19)70s, early, late (19)70s, early (19)80s, I helped the Air Force integrate women. So, what I see is I know it was a period of national divisiveness. But what I, I just see is so important to this whole society and to the people are all of these, you know, reaching out and having developing a more inclusionary society, even though we still are not. I mean, obviously. So, to me, it was not just about the political, but I guess that I just really felt that it was the key time for the social revolution. 02:42 SM: It is interesting that in recent years, I can even go back to when Newt Gingrich was in power, you can, George Will all the time when he writes, he likes to take shots of the, the boomers in that period of time. Your thoughts on you know, the criticisms of the boomers in terms of boomers are often defined as those born between (19)46 and (19)64. But anyone who knows what happened in the (19)60s knows, as a lot of the leaders of that particular era were born around 1940, (19)41, (19)42. But your thoughts on this concept of it, George Will and Newt Gingrich were the boomers responsible for the breakdown of our society of its values, because they you hear that criticism a lot from people like that? 03:33 LD: Well, if I look at the values of this society, we talk about equality, opportunity, openness, democracy, I mean, the we were not fully I mean, there were so many people who were not fully able to take advantage of the values. I mean, it was really you know, the gunner Murdock Murdock book, The American dilemma, which is here as your theory about equality opportunity. And here is reality. And the American dilemma is what do you do with a society where there is such a gap between theory and the reality. And to me, this was a period when we began to close some of that gap between theory and reality. 04:36 SM: I have the first edition of that book. I go into a lot of use bookstores, if you looked at the boomer generation, again, when as a university president, but also as a scholar and as a great sociologist to what, what has been the impact of the generation at that particular time on our society. As these as the boomers has evolved in the middle age, and now we were approaching old age, have they lived up? To this a lot of the things that they were involved in, in that group? 05:16 LD: I do not know. I mean, you could, I mean, many of the leaders of different movements have, I mean, they do not sustain a life of, of, you know, challenging and rebelling. In the society. I mean, very few people do, there are a few people who probably their entire lives are, you know, challenging and rebelling and, and really devoted to major change. I mean, I do not know how you would interpret that, I mean, you have got someone like a Ralph Nader, or, or you have gotten Jesse Jackson, or there is others, John Lewis, but I, in being a social scientist, I think it is more natural for people to evolve over time. And what was so phenomenal about that period is you had such large numbers, who came together, who were concerned about a whole range of social justice issues and the opportunity issues and, you know, the, the direction of our society. So, I would not expect those people to sustain that over a lifetime because that is not the course of natural, sort of, or the typical human development. I mean, what is, you know, as people, it is well known as people get older, they tend to become more socially politically. Con-, you know, you might say, quote, I do not know if it is conservative, I hate to use that label, because it now has different meanings. But people become, well, what people, people become less involved in social change themselves. Not I mean, as a general rule, and most people in social movements are younger people, there is less at stake, there, you are more of a risk taker, when you are younger. 07:38 SM: I always remember when we had Dave Dravecky, the baseball player on our campus, and then he is a conservative and not a liberal and we got into a conversation, he said “Steven in time, in time, you will be just like me.” No, I am not going to be like him politically, ever. But- 07:59 LD: But, but, you know, you are, there. People when their age and their concerns, and they change, and it makes it, that is why people really, I mean, there is some things that, you know, your general tendencies, I guess, remain the same, but your attitudes and values really do change over the decades of your life, because you are in different life circumstances. 08:30 SM: When you look at the- 08:33 LD: That was what was so funny, when I came to Binghamton, and I have met so many of the group who were here in the late (19)60s, (19)70s. And some, the bulk of them say, Oh, yes, I remember this. And here, you know, we were doing, we were protesting, we were in your office, we were doing that or that. But to, you know, many of them are in very ordinary and even extraordinarily capitalistic, you might say endeavors. 09:11 SM: They became part of the establishment- 09:13 LD: Well, right, that is not atypical- 09:17 SM: When you break down, if you were to list two or three or four qualities that you most admired in that generation, and, and qualities that you least admired. What would those qualities be? 09:31 LD: Well, I think the concern for the what I admire most is looking beyond yourself to other groups and other, you know, things happening in society and being concerned about it being willing to take action to express that concern. Today's students at least here at Binghamton, they are so focused on their individual life course, as opposed to, you might say the broader life, you know, life course of our society. I mean, they still are, there is more. Well, I think, I think that in the late (19)60s, early (19)70s, most students would say, here at Binghamton, they are liberal or to left to center. Today, when we do those same surveys, the students are distributed more on the normal curve. We have a good chunk of students who say they are conservative in their social values and in their attitudes, the bulk of them, of the students today describe themselves as moderate, very interested in their own personal futures. But they also I mean, they, they do worry about the environment, they worry about different things, and then we have a very few who say that they are left to center or they are liberal. And in fact, the women, the young women have no concept that they might not in some future date have legal rights to abortion. I mean, they just or that they might not, I mean, they do not understand that they, it was not easy for, you know, older women like to get loans to buy houses to get, there was open discrimination in jobs like, well, a woman, you are a woman, you do not need to apply. It is not to say everything is perfect now, but things you know, they are women like got, a lot of economic and social rights during that period, as well as other groups did too. 12:07 SM: We hear talking about the qualities question later on, but I am going to move right in here. When you think that today's college students are the sons and daughters of boomers, and now we are seeing the first sons and daughters of the generation Xers, the real, the ones that had children very young, so I cannot say they are all boomers. But what have, what have the boomer parents really done with their kids? I remember interviewing one person at Westchester University, she said, I am not going to bore my kids with the civil rights movement, because it does not. Oh, Mom, you are going back to your past. And I and I do not know how often that happens. I am curious as to have, have the boomer parents instilled in their sons and daughters a concept of service, a concept of caring about others, a concept of “we” as opposed to “I” and I, and then but then as to the some of the qualities you are talking about where their career oriented? Maybe this has not been instilled in their sons and daughters. And I want to know what your thoughts are. 13:14 LD: Well, I think it is a mixed picture. Because we have a much higher proportion of students who come here who have already done volunteerism participated in community service, and who are concerned about their communities. I guess what I would, they do not have I think they, they, believe in some things, and they have some causes. But they also, I think, they are more. At the same time. They are conflicted, because they really are very career oriented, very, very, particularly the students at Binghamton, a high proportion have double majors, they want to have internships, they want to get leadership experiences, so they have a competitive edge. At the same time, I would have to say that there are some that you could call are, you know, that their social and political views are more conservative, but the bulk of them say that they are, they described themselves as moderate. And actually, they all they just take it for granted. That for example, as a young woman, I have to tell you when I talk to young women they take for granted that whether they personally ever wanted to be able to have an abortion that it would be available, they take for granted that they will be able to have a full-fledged real high-powered career and through you know, whatever arrangement be able to do family. So they, they really want it all, but they are less, I guess they are less focused, focused on broad, you know, broad groups of people and trying to change things for like, even though we have a, you know, fairly active rainbow pride here, I do not see the students really talking to me about we are concerned because here is the group that like women or minorities, they do not, they know do not have all the rights, or they do not have the possibility of even the opportunities or taking full advantage of the so called rights in our system. 15:51 SM: There is a brand-new book out it's a fantastic book, I went to the ACPA conference and I went to force sessions on millennials. You know, my nephew's a millennial trying to understand them Bowling Green University has a tremendous staff there that has really studied this issue very hard. And there is a book out by Irving Howe and, and I would like your thoughts on his-, and I asked this to Arthur Levine as well, his premise is exactly what you are saying with today's college students. You cannot criticize the parents. Today's college students do care about a career. And in fact, a lot of the boomers have done very well in their lives. There is some very rich ones, the richest people in the world. And they were the ones that were antiestablishment. But one of the qualities that this young generation of millennials thinks about already is a legacy. Now, it is interesting Howe believes the millennials have no time, right? They want their career, they want to raise a family, they want to know, you know, their career and all these other things. However, they are thinking about giving back when they when they get older, and have the money to be able to do so and, and Howe basically states that the millennials are very close to the World War II generation in wanting to give back, and Arthur Levine said that, oh, wait a minute. He got right into what the boomers going to give back. So, I do not know if your thoughts on Irving Howe thoughts on today's students, but- 17:24 LD: I think they do what I think they are concerned about legacy. And I think they do, you know, to some extent want to give back. I think that varies. But what I do not see them doing is, you know, if we have a protest, we have occasionally still we have protests. But it only draws a few people. 17:50 SM: Christopher told me about a few that were here. 17:53 LD: I mean, but it only draws right 30, 40 people. But, you know, I think that is understandable because they are there for a variety of reasons. There began to be people who say, look, we have not been treated, right, we have been disenfranchised in a variety of ways. And then they are also at the same time going on in the society with the Vietnam. There was a sense that, you know, we had the draft, people were getting killed. I think having an all-volunteer army takes a lot of the wind out of the sails for some of these international issues. 18:43 SM: That could change next year. 18:45 LD: I do not think so knowing the military, they do not ever want to go back to that. They would rather use incentives and get people because they just I mean, they I know it may be challenging, but they it is just a much better situation for them. 19:07 SM: We have some activist students on our campus that are organizing a two day teach in, in October, about, about Iraq trying to- 19:16 LD: Well we had one here and we actually brought in some speakers. there We were out of we have about 13,500 students, and maybe a couple 100 participated and they had it over a period of a week. 19:38 SM: We have Bobby Miller coming in. And H. Bruce Franklin from the Newark campus of Rutgers and Dr. Radu from the Foreign Relations Council. So, it is an interesting group for and against. Do you think that, getting back to Vietnam, that the antiwar movements, particularly the college students, were responsible for ending that war? Or they were, what? How important were they in ending the war in Vietnam? 20:08 LD: They were very important. But I think it was a combination of things. It was not just the protests here, the simple fact was we were losing the war on the ground over there, we were fighting a war that we did not understand. And we did not understand the people, we did not understand that the Vietnamese have been, you know, what, they have had four different major powers try to invade and dominate them. And they are very proud of the fact that they beat back all of them. French, the Japanese, Chinese and, and Americans, I mean, they, you know, they are very proud people. 20:54 SM: Vietnam- 20:55 LD: There is that if you, you know, I went there with a group of educators before we had all the formal relationships, and we were looking at the universities, which were in terrible shape. And in talking to people, you know, you are friendly, do you know, what do you feel about the Americans and they said, we do not feel anything, we won the war. And now, America is in competition with Australia and Sweden and other countries trying to get, you know, opportunities over here. We have a long history, there is a wonderful museum in, in Hanoi, about the sort of the social cultural history of Vietnam. And it shows how they feel like they beat back all the foreigners who wanted to remake their society. 21:52 SM: That is, 80 percent of people live in Vietnam now were not even born when the war ended in 1975. It is amazing. 22:01 LD: See I think, I think that one of the big differences is that the young people do not face going off, being forced to go off, you know, fight really challenging or being, you know, a very, very distant and very, very foreign to most of them, they do not know and understand a lot about, you know, the Asian cultures, which are very different than the western one. And, you know, having all of that, and at the same time overlaid with, with minorities and women and others saying, look, we have been excluded from opportunities in this society. So it all came together. 22:52 SM: Yeah, the, the arguments right now, about if there is going to be a draft cause in Westchester, we have several individuals who are in the National Guard, and the Guard has been talking about there is talk behind the scenes, whether it will ever happen or not. I do not know, currently, Rangle has been one of the members of Congress has been kind of pushing for it. And the declaration and the talk at Westchester and data renew is going to bring this up from Foreign Relations Council that if it does happen, it is going to affect college students, but that was, they are going to make it, it would be totally different than it was before. College students that maintain a B or above average would not go would not be drafted. And the pressure to maintain a B would be pretty high. 23:35 LD: See I do not know how they could do to tell you the truth. I mean, the military needs a wide range of skills, and they need some of the people who are doing you know, different levels and different kinds of work. I just, I just do not you know, I just having worked with the Air Force for four or five years. I was on loan, I was not in the Air Force. And they just felt that when you look at all the other indicators, like getting the skill levels that they need, having people you know, really work together as a unit, having lower rates of AWOL, I mean, all of those things. I mean, what they have done of course is reached out to people and said look like women and women who go in like it a lot of them because it offers them the opportunity to get training that they cannot easily get whether it's pilot training, whether it is mechanics, training, whether it is military police training, whether you know, being you know, whatever. A lot of these jobs is too hard outside here to really go in. And they and the military is the only institution in this society where men and women and different racial groups get equal pay and equal benefits. The only one, the only one. 25:24 SM: Well it should be interesting. I also do not believe it is going to happen. But, but to hear discussions at National Guard, unit weekend gatherings is interesting because they do not want to, they feel they are going to have to take the brunt of it. 25:40 LD: Well they are. 25:41 SM: Yeah, well, they are not too happy- 25:44 LD: Yeah because I know- 25:47 SM: We have a couple of Westchester that ended up just getting off my interview. But we have a couple at Westchester that signed up and because of the fact that their college education is being paid for, but they did not think they would have to fight. So, this, this gets into the whole issue of trust. We all know people that live during that period young people at Watergate and Vietnam War it was full lies. We saw leaders like Johnson the Gulf of Tonkin was really a lie. I have even met- 26:19 LD: Oh, I am sure glad it is not going on today. 26:23 SM: Oh, oh you are darn right if the university- 26:26 LD: Oh, it is not going on today, there are not any liars. 26:29 SM: The next time you see Arthur Levine ask him about knee pads. What? How did you find out about that story about knee pads? Well, when you do see him, ask him just I will not tell you the story, knee pad. But the whole issue of trust. I think a lot I am seeing on my campus at Westchester is students are not trusting their leaders are not trusting national leadership. And that is why there is a question they think that they will sneak the draft in. And of course, we went through the boomers went through a whole period of not trusting their leaders. What, what influence as a sociologist in this society as a nation, what did that period do? The Boomer when boomers were young, to affect the concept of trust in this nation toward leaders toward, toward anything and is an ongoing? 27:23 LD: It still is, I mean, to some extent, I think that that people are, you know, they are not just passive and acceptive, accepting. But they, you know, I would say, yeah, I mean students, that was the whole era of student rights too, remember? I mean, and when we really lost the in loco parentis, the whole thing. And so, I do not think you ever go back to that period, where any group is willing to just sit back and say, oh, well, you tell me what is good for me. I just do not think any group in our society is willing to do that anymore. Maybe there are some that I do not see, because I am in academia, but you know, I just do not see in the workplace. I mean, are the workers here? I mean, I cannot just go out and say, okay, we are going to change, you know, the way you know, what people do in certain work, you know, place settings were going to change. I mean, they, they want to know why they want to know, you know, you know, what's happening why, and, and they are, I mean, this, of course, is a very open egalitarian organization compared to I think, to a lot of what should I say sort of traditional businesses compared to an IBM and all of that. 29:08 SM: When you look at you mentioned one of the qualities of students today well they want to be involved in leadership roles they want to get Marines. So how does that compare to the, the boomers who, in general, did not trust at least the people that were involved in the antiwar movement in any kind of activism did not trust and young people are striving to be leaders, but they do not trust leaders. Is not that an oxymoron or there is a conflict here. I want to be a leader but I do not trust them people who are leaders or is that the inspiration to become a leader is I am going to become a better leader. 29:43 LD: I think that I think through you know, our experience that people are, people are just more questioning and they are more skeptical. And I mean that. I do not think it has anything to do with saying I can do a better. I just think in general people are. They are more litigious, and they are more, you know, they are more assertive. Well, you see it in the university, the students and the parents, they are demanding, they are assertive. And I think that is because, you know, it is hard to take advantage of the so called, you know, opportunities in America it is still hard. It is very hard. Back then, probably harder than it was at other times. And so, people are, you know, God, they are questioning, they just do not, you cannot, I mean, they do not trust you. On the other hand, they are not. They are not ready to, like, say, the heck with most other things, I am just going to devote myself to these one or two causes. They are going to question they are going to demand their rights they are going to send, you know, our students were upset because the Provost changed the drop deadline. You know, itis the longest of any, it used to be, you could go, what, 10 weeks or 12 weeks. And so, we figured out that that was that was costing a lost opportunity of seats for students, other students, because they could, you know, you at the other. I mean, on the one hand, you could you could not drop, I mean, you could drop, but you could not add for all that time. And so, what happened is that people were taking this time, and others did not have the opportunity, like to get in courses and do that. And it's just so competitive, that, you know, they, they wanted to retain that. And so what did they do? A couple of students, the leaders, the SA passed resolutions, but more importantly, some of our students in our so called Honors Program, scholars, organized a giant like both petitions plus they got a listing of parents, I think, from the directory, and they do they sent they got money, they raised money themselves, plus the SA gave them some so they sent all of these letters to parents say, you right, you know, here is a letter they included a draft letter send this to the provost, and then it says, “We are never going to give any money to bring him to we are not going to do this or that and you are mistreating my students and all of this.” So, they are activists. But you see, it was over a very and they did it, it was some of our best students and they did it in a rather creative way I thought, I thought, within the system almost 33:28 SM: Right. It is a different type of an activism but it is not the Vietnam War, but it is- 33:34 LD: They were not willing I mean, to, like not go to their classes. That is the difference too. And they are they are not willing. In fact, they get mad if professors like canceled their classes. 33:47 SM: And heard of students going to protest and this is- 33:50 LD: No no. 33:53 SM: One of the things and I this is a general question you touched on it a little bit is I can remember even the students here people, a lot of the boomers will always think as a group that we are going to change the world. We are going to be the most unique generation in American history, and almost kind of an arrogance. Of being young the world's going to be a lot different. We are going to end racism, sexism, homophobia, all the -isms for bring peace to the world, nuclear arms are going to disappear. There was that attitude and a feeling when you think of that, was that all was it sincere. Your thoughts on that was it a sincere feeling at that time and have they lived up to it. Were, I guess basically I am saying were they the most unique generation in American history. 34:48 LD: I do not know that would be hard because when you go back in I think that is hard to say. They certainly but they are different. And they you know, but I do not know. I mean, there have been other generations where there is been tremendous social change. And only it has been done in different ways, in a different way, I would say. I mean, you know, I mean, the technological revolution, I mean, it is the students who are leading that the ones who were, you know, at the, at the cutting edge, in terms of all the computers, the technology, I mean, they are more at the cutting edge than most of our faculty, and so the students are out there on the cutting edge, and they talk about how they are going to change the society but not point in the same ways. I think, I think, I think this generation, they are so concerned about what is going to happen to them. What is going to happen to them when they are older? What is going to happen to them, when they you know, when they are middle aged, old age. 36:14 SM: If I was a, if I was my nephew today, I would be thinking, what is a college education going to be costing in 20 years? At the rate things are going. God what kind of a salary, am I going to have to make that and then you, then you have to think as we think of equality within our society, the concept of opportunity, making sure that minority students will continue to come, there is access to grants and monies to bring all students in and we are cannot forget that as, as prices go up. 36:46 LD: I mean, what, what they are seeing is a diminishment of that access, not only for some minorities, but for the lower socio-economic levels, we are seeing educational accesses has been curtailed. Because today, basically, although not for the really lowest income, I mean, most of the things today are need base, not, of course, merit based. And so, it is sort of the working class and the middle class that are feeling the real pressure, real pressure. Most of the parents I talked with here, when they are bringing their students they number one, both of them have jobs of some kind. Number two, it is often a merge sort of family. So, they would say, well, her daughters we are sending her daughter to this school, and my son is going here. So, they have multiple children to pay for. They have got you know, trying to do you know, their jobs, multiple jobs. Plus, in New York, we have a lot of immigrants we have, we still have a lot of students who are first generation college here a lot of more immigrants we have, what is it 20 some percent where English is not spoken in the home. 38:34 SM: Did not know that, how many Vietnamese students do you have here? 38:39 LS: Not a lot, some but you know, the Vietnamese I mean, there are some around this area and some in New York, but I do not think that New York was as big a resettlement area as some of the other places really 38:56 SM: Philly is a strong Vietnamese community. And I advise the AAAO. I am their advisor, I have gotten so close to them. They are. They are the sons and daughters of the boat people. And the stories about their parents met and when they were on an island camp waiting to come to United States, but it is just a tremendous story. Because they are such a successful group of people. I- it is amazing. It is a very sensitive issue. You know, I read a lot of sociology too. And a lot of books that have been written about the Korean community, about the African American community. They got the Latino community, and the African American community in Miami. And then and then in Philadelphia, the community of Vietnam. They started on a lot of businesses on the streets of Philadelphia selling glasses and, and then they work their way into businesses that have become very successful and their kids are going to school and they are doing real well. And it has become a very sensitive issue in the African American community. And so, there is a lot of tensions with a minority group. So yeah, and but what the university seems to bring people all together, you kind of get a family there. But then in society, they got to deal with all these issues. 40:13 LD: Well, you still, you know, we still have very segregated housing patterns. 40:20 SM: Now, that is still the same in Westchester too- 40:22 LD: It is everywhere. 40:23 SM: I wanted to ask this business about healing. A lot of the things that I have been working on deal directly with the Vietnam War, and the Vietnam Veterans and those who protested the war, the whole concept of healing. The Vietnam Memorial was built in 1982. It has been there now for 22 years. And we all know that the Vietnam Memorial was supposed to be a nonpolitical entity to heal the families and to heal the vets. It was done a pretty good job with the vets and their families. Although the question I am asking is what have, what has that wall really done with respect to healing the nation and this war? And have we as a nation healed as a society from that war? The healing processes? 41:17 LD: You know, I think the society is forever impacted by it. 41:22 SM: And I am referring to the boomer generation as they age, because you hear the stories about the, the sons and daughters being at the wall with their parents, what do you do in the war Daddy, and he was a protester or something like that. So, and the story is over, and over and over. So, I do not know. What is whether healing is an issue within the boomer generation. 41:47 LD: I think they have moved on, I do not know whether maybe for some it was the healing. I look at it more that most of them have gone on to different phase in their life. And they believe that our society has gone on to another phase in its life. 42:09 SM: You kind of believe what Senator, I interviewed Senator Nelson. And he said that people do not go around Washington, DC boomers that are in politics with on their sleeve with healing about the Vietnam War. But he said it has forever changed the body politic. It had that kind of an impact. 42:30 LD: Probably, I would say is true. Well, you saw it, as we start to go into any kind of conflict. Is this going to be quote, another Vietnam? You know, I mean, it. It raises questions about, again, about the US, and do we have the right to just go in anywhere? And I mean, it brings a lot of questions about our foreign policy, about our priorities about, you know, relationships. 43:13 SM: Civil Rights was the center core of the (19)50s and (19)60s and most people realized that all the movements use their example, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and certainly the anti-war movement. Your thoughts on the civil rights movement, where it is today? Obviously, what the boomer, we talk about the boomer generation having a direct bearing on the civil rights movement. Well, they were the young people, the marches, but they were older people that were the leaders of the marches. They were not boomers. And just your thoughts on where we are with civil rights today, and the impact of that period had on civil rights. 43:49 LD: Well it was transforming. But again, if you look at what is theory in terms of our nation, our political theory, I mean, you know, women still make lists. And then, man, the bulk of the people who are in prison or African Americans, they, African American males do not finish school. The height of the unemployment is huge, the AIDS, HIV among you know, and each of these different, you know, minority groups has some different, you know, challenges that that it faces. And so, I think they are, I mean, there is still quote, an American dilemma. There still is a gap between what our theory says about how we run our society and what reality is, I mean, you just look at our older people, our healthcare or, you know, any of these social problems. And I will tell you, I mean, we still got a lot of, we have got a big gap between, you know, this so-called what America, it says in terms of our rights and our opportunity living up to living up to this theory. Yeah, living up to the dream. 45:28 SM: Yeah you cannot really blame the boomer generation because every generation has a responsibility. And including this new generation- 45:38 LD: Yeah it will be interesting to see if, in a few years, if, you know, we are in an era where they are not paying attention to social and a lot of economic issues. A lot of social, cultural and economic issues here in the US, they are not putting those at the top of the priorities. And it will be interesting to see. Particularly, the boomers come into the retirement and they need the health care, and they, they need the drug, the prescription drugs stuff, and, and, you know, a lot of surveys show that Americans really value having, you know, a good environment, open spaces, you know, and all of that, and that Americans are not necessarily behind the assault on a lot of these areas of our life. So, it will be interesting to see, not only what happens in the short term, but if, you know, there is sort of ups and downs like this. And I think we are at a point where there are a lot of people who are older, and they are. They are from a different generation, and they are willing to accept a lot more than the group coming up. 47:15 SM: I think a lot of the boomers refused to join AARP for many, many years. Either like, not admitting that they are, they are 50, or finally, in deciding when they get into their mid-50s, or late 50s. “Well gee there are some benefits.” Actually, definitely Levine was hilarious on this one, he refuses to join. Because it was the was the drug policy that happened this past year. That infuriated him, he said I will never that that particular organization- 47:48 LD: They sold out, they sold out. My poor mother who was in her nineties. I mean, she was gone, she and some of her friends. I mean, they are lifelong. I would say rather, not super conservative, but republicans a whole area, my whole family. And they have had it because they do not understand these new drug programs. They were losing different benefits. They have my mother lost finally, my dad's like executive pension. And so, they are getting to be, you know, like a gray Panther. And I said, well, Mother, what are you and your friends going to do? They are all women; the men had died. And she said, “Well, we may not vote.” And I said, “No.” She said, we cannot bring ourselves they are not they are not comfortable with carry. But do you know the way they are talking is back, you know, is really, that we have given and lived all these decades in this society. We have worked hard we have given you know, sweat and blood in different arenas, whatever it might be. And we have supported it. And like now, they are not going you know, we were we cannot make it on social, maybe on Social Security, the medical and the drugs. I mean, are scaring them to death, long term care. 49:19 SM: My dad had that. He was just so totally confused we had to help him. My dad was always smart. He was up to date on everything. He was in insurance sales but- 49:27 LD: But I you know what I was, I have been stunned to hear and I mean mother in her mind, she goes and volunteers that the old people's home, she is in her 90s these other people, she is taking care of them. But they are all so upset because they worry. You know, will they have to choose between paying the rent or paying, my mother said I am not going to renew my cable, because she has to take a couple of these drugs are so expensive and I do not want any charity, you know? So I say, Oh, well. So, I say, Okay, I am not going to pay for your drugs, you take care of that. But then I go there, and I pay for all the other stuff. And somehow, I guess that she sorts of pushed that out of her mind. But you know, they are upset. They are upset- 50:21 SM: Yeah, that organization disappointed a lot of people. And the ramifications on this are pretty substantially are pretty substantial because I believe the concept of trust, again, the faith within an organization, within a generation, and particularly if you know, the boomers and they question that either that either they will never join, or they will eventually join, but then revamp the philosophy and the leadership and the whole kinds of policies, and you know, and they may do it, because, I have one more question. All right. And then I have just some names that I want to ask you real fast. The last basic question is about referring to a couple of times as the concept of empowerment. We had Tom Hayden on our campus this past year, and Tom came into meet with our students before his lecture. It was a we have what we call active state. WC you and yours truly. Yeah. And we have had the Berrigans there. And we actually have Holly Near come in, the singer, and Randy Shaw from San Francisco works in the tenderloin, really good people who devote their lives to others. But Tom came in and sat down with the leaders of student government who were at the dinner and he said that you, you realize, I like to ask you, what does student power mean to you. And this is Tom Hayden. And student government of Westchester University, said, Well, we have we have power, you know, we give money out to student organizations we, we give we, you know, we are part of the decision-making process with Dr. Adler assets, we are involved in a lot of things, you know, we hand out monies and so forth. Tom is sitting there, and it looks like he is getting No, I mean, I am talking about student power. Well, and then I remember why just we just told you. And so already the tension was forming within the room between these students and Tom Hayden, do you understand that you have real power, do you want me to explain what real power is? And I do not know if they really liked him in the end, he gave a great presentation that evening. But what I am getting at here is the concept of student empowerment, the belief that students, students voices, and students can have a say in just about anything. And to and, and, like Tom did, he used the philosophy what life was like when he was young. And he was he had just come off a fellowship up at Harvard. And he had the same issue with Harvard students. And he had a class with about 300 students. And he said, he talked about power with them. And he said, they just did not get it, but they were brilliant. 53:06 LD: It is a different kind of power. I mean, that's why it's what the students are interested in today as a result of their life of their lives. I mean, to them, power means different things. It is partly what they experience, it is partly the circumstances under which they are, you know, growing up, and it all came together in that boomer generation. And it's, the whole circumstances are so different. They have, you know, that was coming off a relatively affluent time. I mean, these students today, they are so into competition, they are so worried about making it and making it not just for not just for material things, but also making it in terms of getting, whether it's a job, a good job in social work, or, you know, it is just a whole different, you know, they have been shaped by a whole different environment, a whole, you know, different set of situations because they, from their point of view, again, their power, they, I do not even think that they really want to run the university. Truthfully, 54:27 SM: I thought, you know, I think at that magic moment there at that particular time, there was a dead silence for a minute. And I said, this is another generation gap. They did not understand what Tom was getting. And Tom was saying, he was talking about the world, the War on Terrorism, the whole issues out there. crime in the streets, do not you get it in? 54:51 LD: They do, but it is different. They find it as they can make a difference. Like in Habitat for Humanity. tea or they can, you know, our students, we have the highest proportion in SUNY who have an international experience. And our students, they really are want seeking that out, because they do realize that whether it is economic, environmental, social, whatever political, the problems these days, just like global, instantaneous communication, they the problems are global. So, they are focused in a different way. And part of it has to do you know, with growing up with mass media, instantaneous communication, and, I mean, it is just, I mean, we are a product of our times, I mean, I get so tired of my mother telling me how she had to drive the horse and buggy, you know, and that, that changes that, that, you know, the environment as well as your immediate, whether it's family and friends, and then the, you know, the conditions you are going into that affects you, you cannot escape it. You cannot recreate your generation. 56:17 SM: You cannot recreate it. But also, I think that there is a big difference here to understand that issues that we face in this world today are complex, the complexities when you look at the World, War on Terrorism, it is understanding cultures, but it is much more, it is got a historic link goes back, like really everything. And maybe and I am starting to sense that maybe today's students have one up on the boomers. And that is they sense the complexities. And whereas it oftentimes sometimes the boomers did not, it was the we are going to end the war. And that was like, that was our goal and, you know, means justify the answer. There is a lot of things here. 56:58 LD: You know I think it is true that with the instantaneous communication, and you know, been in their lives this generation. I mean, can you imagine, I mean, they experience the world in such different ways than I did or you did, I mean, such different ways. I mean, and they are so sophisticated, these little tiny kids. I mean, they know about other parts of the world, they know that technology, I mean, it blows me away these little tiny kids are just so smart. In different ways. 57:44 SM: Christopher is a wiz the computer man, he knows everything. It is just I am waffling him around. It is just a few, just some brief comments when I list these names. Tom Hayden, these are all people from the era. 58:03 LD: What do you want me to say? 58:04 SM: Just any, just your immediate reaction, one or two sentence description, your thoughts on them as people or their impact on society or 58:18 LD: Well Tom had an impact at that time. I think he is still trying to have an impact, but he has not found the right way to do it. I mean, he clearly had an impact. He was the leader. But it does not mean that leaders appropriate in a different setting and in a different time. 58:39 SM: Jane Fonda- 58:41 LD: Jane Fonda, I do not know I mean, she has had so many different lives. 58:52 SM: Did you know that she donated money to Harvard and did not I she? She endowed some sort of scholarship there but did not want to win? No, but 59:00 LD: I know I mean, she has gone through a variety of transformations I you know, I do not I do not fault her, I, I am I think that she has, she has been able to pursue many, you know, a wider range of opportunities than most people. Because you know, when she was married to Ted Turner, I mean both of them they did phenomenal. 59:41 SM: Everybody knows what people say the ultimate mistake was being a gun. SO now she will deal with that for the rest of her life. 59:53 LD: She just she is a person who is gone through many more transformations. I think- 1:00:01 SM: This is your interview. So, I just want to bring this into this and be away from the tape, but I know one of her best friends, Torie Osborn. We had her here for Activists Days. She wrote Coming to America, which is a gay story of gays in America, and she runs the Liberty foundation out of Los Angeles. And I am sitting with her at Activist Days three years ago, and I was saying, she knows Tom, can we help me get Tom to our campus? And she said, Well, I know Tom, he has, he had open heart surgeries he is not doing too well. And I said, Yeah, I know a lot of vets that admire him even though he was against the war, but they would really dislike Jane and I started talking about Jane, and she is sitting there, keeping very quiet and I thought she was just going to make a comment about her. She says, Well, I was Jane’s roommate for a year. I lived with Jane after she divorced Tom Hayden. Before she linked up with Ted Turner, and you got to know her. She is a lifetime of causes. And she is really sincere in what she does. And she has made enemies but, but so it was it was, it was, I guess, for me and for all students. It was an it was an experience of not judging someone unless- 1:01:16 LD: I do not judge her as harshly because she you think about her environment, and the way she was raised, and the kinds of influences to Hollywood-ish, all of that. I mean, I mean, it has got to have an impact on you. 1:01:35 SM: Her mother just tried to commit suicide? Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, these are just these are all personalities from the ‘60s. 1:01:46 LD: Well, you know, I think they have pretty much gone a very different direction. You know, I guess as a social scientist, I understand that people change, and people go in different ways. And I do not I do not hold it against people because of that. Because I think that what was most important is people being able to, to change. And you know, whether you like the way I changed or not, is not the issue, but people being able to, you know, develop and change and then having the opportunity to do it. So, I do not begrudge these people, some of them who have gone on, they have made money or they have gone into the establishment. I think that is a natural part of your life cycle. 1:02:45 SM: The concept of development, lifelong, lifelong learning. 1:02:50 LD: Yeah, I think it is phenomenal. 1:02:53 SM: Some of the political figures, John Kennedy- 1:02:56 LD: Well, you know, he was he embodied sort of the American dream and ideals even though he really did and he came along at a time when he had charisma and he could you know, he was able to mobile, you know, I think inspire and mobilize people because he had ideas he had charisma I think Bill Clinton too, think Bill Clinton you know around Bill Clinton in one was you know, a leader in higher ed and Bill is a charismatic brilliant guy just did not know how to control certain excesses in his life. 1:03:52 SM: Bobby Kennedy 1:03:57 LD: Well, I mean, I, I guess I would say the whole all of the Kennedy’s, he did not have the ability to be as inspirational I think as JFK. Maybe it's JFK had lived he wouldn't have been as inspirational. You know, that is an important question. 1:04:20 SM: His greatest moment was that Cuban Missile Crisis. Because he was a good counsel. For his brother. Robert McNamara- 1:04:30 LD: Oh, god that is really fascinating because his recent, he was certainly had he certainly personified you know, the sort of organizational big business you know, aggressive foreign policy person, but yet in recent years he has come around. I heard an interview with him on NPR A few years ago, he, he went back to Berkeley and he gave some lectures there, where he said that these were wrong decisions. And I, you know, he, he basically said that he did not have good information, they were wrong decisions. I was stunned. I mean, I am I do not know why I should be stunned because people, you know that, to me the mark of a bright you know, inquisitive person, is you look back and say, you know, I believed this or I had these attitudes, I did these actions. But you know, now that I am in a different set of circumstances, I look back at it, and I have a broader perspective. That was wrong, I should not have done it. I mean, to me, that's part of growing and developing. And he has come around and come straight out on all of this. 1:06:02 SM: I interviewed Paul Hendrickson, who wrote the book on McNamara. And actually, this is kind of private, but he, Mr. Hendrickson, almost had a nervous breakdown after that interview, because he had done so much research on doing that book, and he well its quite an experience. I interviewed him on a lot of things. Lyndon Johnson, 1:06:31 LD: Lyndon Johnson's the ultimate politicians, politician. Shrewd. I mean, I guess I admire him for his political acumen, even though I mean, he, he made some decisions that clearly were not, well, it is hard to say. I mean, he made them based on information he had. But he also made them based on the political situation. I guess, that you got the feeling that Lyndon Johnson, to some extent would do what it takes to get the political outcomes. And I do not know, it's hard with, with JFK and Robert Kennedy. You did not see that as obviously with them, but you did not have as long a time to observe it. 1:07:36 SM: Richard Nixon- 1:07:41 LD: Oh god, Well, he, I think he was a I mean, it is, obviously it is coming out more and more, I mean, he was a, you know, a narrow thinking paranoid guy who probably did not have he is willing to do whatever it took, but in a different sort of way. I mean, he basically was a sort of cold, not trusting and non-optimistic sort of guy. Compared I think, I think people like, you know, Lyndon Johnson and others certainly, were had, you know, they just had a different sort of personality. When I mean, some of the things you read or hear about Nixon, I mean, he must have been just not an easy person to be around. 1:08:42 SM: He was, this campus. The night he gave a Cambodia speech. This place erupted. And of course, there were I think two things he said. Arthur Levine told me about the number of college campus that were not even affected by the war was amazing the numbers. Yeah, but he, I think 270, I think the number was 272 schools were so affected by that Cambodian invasion- 1:09:10 LD: And that is out of over 3000. So, you know, it was pretty concentrated. 1:09:17 SM: Well they had here. They have the they have a concert here. The Grateful Dead. They performed here, right after the invasion. And I believe it was because I know I had tickets to the concert I broke my arm. So, I was in the hospital. And but the Grateful Dead concert was here. They were supposed to have the band concert and they were supposed to be within two to three days of each other in 1970. And it is historic right now because the Harper College concert is now you know, they have a they have a CD of that Harper College, which I have in my office and if I ever want to get a there is a- There is a tension there, but they consider one of the top three or four concerts in their history. Because that it was the gym. The West Gym, all the history and I happened right at the right here at this campus. A few more names and then we will be done, Timothy Leary. 1:10:20 LD: I think Timothy Leary was. I mean, he started what I guess I would call sort of a cult, a social movement. And he continued throughout his life. 1:10:34 SM: His ashes are in heaven, not in heaven. That was a Freudian slip. Dr. Benjamin Spock? 1:10:46 LD: Well, that is an interesting man who was influential in his, his specialty, and, you know, but yet, he, he, he was determined to be an activist leader outside of this field. And I do not think you find that anymore. Very much because our fields are so I mean, our fields have become so specialized and so demanding. But I think that there were people who use their status and their knowledge in one field to try to have transference to another. I think he did. 1:11:37 SM: How about the Berrigan brothers? Barragan brothers, Philip and Daniel. 1:11:40 LD: I sort of remember them. I do not remember a lot about them it seems. 1:11:46 SM: Daniel Ellsberg. 1:11:48 LD: You know, I have met him actually heard him talk. And I know one of my sociological colleagues had an affair with him. He, he was, he was a, he was more of an intellectual. And he, I think he saw a broader picture. And he, he took advantage of it. And I think we still have people who do that, where they are not maybe out on the frontlines, you know, doing things with others, but they are trying to expose, they are trying to bring situations to the forefront, whether it is nuclear or whatever, I see him in the same vein, as that, that there, that there is like scientists, like scientists for social responsibility, some groups like that. And I think that I think those groups are really important. There is also it is called Business Leaders for Fiscal Responsibility. And they are, there is some really big heads of some big corporations that are trying to, I guess, redirect more of our resources toward, you know, have a good safe mili- have a good sound military, but also try to also address some of our, you know, our social our health problems, our environmental problems, did you see it was in Sunday's New York Times? Where they said the cost today, it was a whole page on the editorial section. So, the cost today of the Iraq War 144 billion, and that that went on this side. Then it said, “What could that well, how could that money have been spent?” was on the other side- 1:14:05 SM: Can you imagine coming into education that money? 1:14:09 LD: Well they had college, they had education, they had an environment, they had drugs, they had elderly, they had homeless, they had HIV, and they showed how much you could tackle social and health and economic and, you know, environmental, 144 billion, and that is before this next allotment, and what they say that after, if Bush wins the election, he is going to come back for another 80 billion. But it was a you know, it was a whole page. To me, that's people like Ellsberg. They draw attention to some of the disjunctures in our society- 1:14:58 SM: Is he, you know that whole Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg that he is there, he is a direct link of why the Watergate happened. Because, you know, there was a leak, called Nixon call it a leak, you know, and leaks and so, so he so he is trying to go in Well, you know, history of Watergate. 1:15:18 SM: But you see we have some groups, we have some groups like that. I mean, they are they may not be quite as numerous or have quite the depth of the money with them. But you know, there are these business men for something rational priorities. There are, you know, these groups. Well, the so- the Physicians for Social Responsibility, there is a whole set of them that are still really and then then the major environmental groups. They are still out there. I mean. 1:16:04 SM: Physicians for Social Responsibility ended up with the Medal of Freedom Award in Philadelphia, about six years, six, seven years ago- 1:16:12 LD: Was under the Democrats. 1:16:13 SM: Right, right. Actually, Mayor Rendell was the mayor then. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the Black Panthers. 1:16:26 LD: Well, I have very mixed feelings. Yes, ma'am. We are just finishing. Yeah, I know. Okay, thanks. I mean, I have mixed feelings because of the intersection. I have read enough about sexism and racism. I mean, obviously, they, they took a different tack on the racism and fighting it. But also, I mean, apparently, they were not fighting for women. It was awful the things you read. I mean, they were I mean, I think in a social movement, you need people that are, you know, radical, reformist. And that was a part of that whole social movement, from, you know, the Martin Luther Kings- 1:17:12 SM: Yeah that is my next person. Martin Luther King and comparing him to these individuals. 1:17:18 LD: They serve different roles. Not all social movements. I think a current social movement would be different, particularly with the, you know, with the instantaneous, sort of world global communication. I think it would be different. 1:17:38 SM: Well I know you got your next appointment, but I'll try to end with Gloria Steinem, Muhammad Ali, and Spiro Agnew, quite a combination. 1:17:52 LD: Well, you know, I, Gloria Steinem. I mean, she was she and Bella Abzug and oh, what is her name? Betty Friedan. I mean, they were major figures in, in opening up rights and opportunities for women. Absolutely. I mean, obviously, they took, you know, they took different approaches. And, but god they really, they changed the lives. I mean, for me, even though I was all I was older, but they still I never would be a president, if they had not really, you know, pushed on, on, you know, major rights for women, owning a house. I mean, you know, women could not on their own get credit. If you were married, you could not readily sign up and just buy your own house. I mean, you could not, you just could not do a lot of stuff. You try. I remember trying to get I had an independent job. And I was trying to get a credit card and they said, well, we will give it in your husband's name, but not in yours. I mean, you know, so many things have changed, you know, whether it's no fault divorce, you know, community property. I mean, the whole range of opportunities and thinking about women in new ways. Spiro Agnew, I do not know. I mean, he was a, I do not know. 1:19:24 SM: And then Muhammad Ali. 1:19:27 LD: Well, you know, poor, I guess I see. The boxing world is a pretty awful world. And he tried to bring a sense of humanity to it. But I think that whole thing is a pretty awful, awful world. Pretty uncivilized part of our society. And this poor guy got swept up in it. 1:19:58 SM: There is more names, but I’ll end it with this one final question that is, if you, if you had a room of 100 boomers, and you were to ask them, what was the single event in your life that had the greatest impact on you when you were young? What do you think they would pick? You might try this sometime with the Alumni Association. 1:20:28 Well, you know, we have actually, and they, they say that it was the, I do not know of a single event, but they all talk about sitting around the social and political consciousness. And, you know, that even there in their classes, they spent a lot of time on, you know, sort of social, political, that's what they say, they say that that was, you know, it permeated their- you might say, their personal and their private in a way that I think, you know, today that most young people, they have sort of got their sort of professional, you might say, you know, their student, and they want to make sure they fill in all of the checks, the categories at the same time, then they sort of separate out the, the public and their private. And I think and what amazes me is to listen to them talk about how sort of their public and their private came together during this era. Then, when they thought of themselves, you know, that is making a difference doing these things, and they thought they just thought of their future and what their priorities were in the same way that you know, these broad, you might say public and, and national priorities, and you do not I know you get that separation today, you get the separation, and like, Oh, I am concerned maybe about Iraq but that but first and foremost, I do not have time, I have to worry about getting a double major, getting an internship, you know, so I think people have, you know, separated those more and more in in in succeeding generations. 1:22:33 SM: Very good. I thank you. I wanted to talk to you but I do not have time now. (End of Interview) Accessibility Copy/Paste below: Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. Binghamton University Libraries is working very hard to create transcriptions of all audio/visual media present on this site. If you require a specific transcription for accessibility purposes, you may contact us at <a href="mailto:orb@binghamton.edu">orb@binghamton.edu</a>. 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. Lois DeFleur https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/a9f7c48eebed926d0aefd8ef8d6ad97e.jpg 9f6aaa00641f2286df920bb1b7407e43 https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/files/original/c837a6a1c48109543f09e069a35145c0.mp3 84d1f87db34c4262fe02a965ed786822 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. Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Marilyn Blatt Young Date of Interview ND Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Stephen McKiernan Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 62:58 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 Biographical Text <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Dr. Marilyn Young (1937-2017) was a leftist, feminist, anti-war historian, and professor of history at New York University. She was a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars. She received her Bahelor's degree form Vassar College and got her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Young's Ph.D. dissertation became her first book. \n&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:13311,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:1},&quot;4&quot;:[null,2,4884200],&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;7&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;9&quot;:0,&quot;10&quot;:2,&quot;11&quot;:4,&quot;12&quot;:0,&quot;15&quot;:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;16&quot;:10}">Dr. Marilyn Young (1937-2017) was a leftist, feminist, anti-war historian, and professor of history at New York University. She was a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars. She received her Bachelor's degree from Vassar College and got her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Young's Ph.D. dissertation became her first book. <br /></span> Keywords <span data-sheets-value="{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam War; Anti-War Movement; Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Generation gap; Jane Fonda; John Kennedy; Richard Nixon; Kent State; Jackson State.&quot;}" data-sheets-userformat="{&quot;2&quot;:513,&quot;3&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:0},&quot;12&quot;:0}">Civil Rights Movement; Vietnam War; Anti-War Movement; Nineteen sixties; Baby boom generation; Generation gap; Jane Fonda; John Kennedy; Richard Nixon; Kent State; Jackson State.</span> Subject LCSH Peace movements; Feminists; College teachers; New York University; Historians; Young, Marilyn Blatt--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. Marilyn Young Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Young, Marilyn Blatt ; McKiernan, Stephen Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/wav Subject The topic of the resource Peace movements; Feminists; College teachers; New York University; Historians; Young, Marilyn Blatt--Interviews Description An account of the resource Dr. Marilyn Young (1937-2017) was a leftist, feminist, anti-war historian, and professor of history at New York University. She was a founding member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars. She received her Bachelor's degree from Vassar College and got her Ph.D. from Harvard University. Dr. Young's Ph.D. dissertation became her first book. 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.10.2016.173a ; McKiernan.Oral.10.2016.173b 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 Requires A related resource that is required by the described resource to support its function, delivery, or coherence. 62:58