Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Of The Nation 20240622

Almost every single one of them saluted back. It was an incredibly moving experience, and you always have to wonder when youre talking about faces and people that you remember how it impacted the lives of those young men. I guess, among many other things, ive always wondered were they able to rebuild their lives and to have good families and decent jobs and to really have a decent life. I want to interrupt then and tell an anecdote. Im going to take one second here. I was inside the pentagon working on the morning of 9 11, and as we came to understand the people who perished inside the pentagon, there was a man, older man, civilian, worked for the department of the army. His name was max bilky. You know who max was. Max bilky died in the pentagon on 9 11. Max as a young army draftee is listed in American History as the last combat american soldier out of vietnam, and he came home and he had a good life. Thats good. By all accounts. And he died that morning. So vietnam, its just its just fascinating because it is so woven in the fabric of this country and the journalists who covered it are so woven into the fabric of our profession. You know, let me be the one to ask the trite question. As you look back now laura, want to start with you and lets go down the line. Through the prism of history, where did it matter what you were a woman, a female journalist in terms of being denied the options that otherwise had . Lets talk about that. And as you look back seeing these americans come off helicopters, who on earth cares whether it is a man or woman covering that story as long as it is getting covered . It is partly looking through the prism of time. What am i going to do . Ask these women, did it matter being a woman in vietnam . Well, sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Talk to us about this. I was there so late in the war that i was standing on the shoulders of those who had made real sacrifices to give women the opportunity. As i mentioned, it was not only the women at the New York Times and the sex discriminate suit, but people like urate who fought to have women have access, so i didnt have obstacles in my path that way, but i think i knew as a woman i had to earn my place at the table. There were some things that were a given. I would never show fear. I would work as hard as any man, and i would never do anything that would embarrass my profession. I felt that very strongly. Did it matter being a woman . Was the coverage different . I think one thing for me being i was in vietnam from the time i was 22 to 24. I was young and i was always underestimated, so i was always smarted than i appeared. I was not threatening. I think sometimes politicians talked to me. G. I. S would talk to me. Vietnamese are not tall people. For a woman, youre the same size as the Government Official youre interviewing. I think sometimes that was an asset. I think as i dont know what my colleagues think. I think as a woman i was someone who was always more comfortable talking about feelings, so it wasnt it was a natural far me. So if im interviewing a g. I. , ill ask the second and third followup question. Denby . My thoughts on it were that i think being a woman was important because it showed that women could do that. Everyo even up to the end, edie and her boss and kate webb and other female reporters, we were kind of freelancer. Edie was among the first to become as a staffer, but her boss said no covering combat and also to tracy wood. He had sent them over. There was a push to have woman covering important things, but still you had this overhanging layer of my experience there, my worst we were almost on the edge of getting set back in my era. Mine happened when i was out at a forward fire base. The general in charge of the armed forces in vietnam, he happened to fly in because they were under fire and a lot of people had died. 36 people had died. It was very bad, so he came do give a pep talk. And he came around. I just waited until he was finished talking to the soldiers. And then he came up and he saw me and he said, oh, what are you doing here . And his family had rented a house near ours in hawaii and my mother played tennis with his wife. He said, oh, how long have you been here . I said, oh, two nights. He said, oh. Then he laughed. Then we heard later that urate and i and the few female reporters, he wanted to close it down for women reporters. He decided then that no women could spend the night in the field and that meant that we couldnt cover things because its not like you could call uber and say get me out of here. I have to be home for my bedtime. So, women all banded together, and we managed to get that changed. I think women matters because the women of our era were starting to get emboldened. It was the 1960s. What happened to women before us they would often buy into this myth that you cant do these things. I was a little bit that way myself, but the 60s are coming and the times, theyre a changing, so we were braver and we fought things. Start thinking about your questions. Were going to get to questions in about three minutes. If you dont have ones, ill call on you anyhow. What do you think . I think the military at that time was very paternalistic with us, like denbys story. Oh, you remind me of my daughter, and they would really say things like why arent you writing about widows and orphans. Occasionally, they would say, okay, youre here. You know, youre such a morale boost. Could you just go around the fire base and pose for photos . Pose for photos with with the kids there. You know, there was this weird disconnect. You had this legitimate press pass and were trying to write about combat. Yes, there were show girls in vietnam, and there were also nurses, but reporters very few. And it was very hard for them to see you as a professional. This is why i mean im sitting here and im just awestruck because anything we have been able to do in iraq and afghanistan, bosnia, the middle east, the horn of africa, really is owed to the women who have gone before. Edie, i suspect that maybe who any American General who told you you couldnt do something might have had an adjustment made to personality. I would like to start out by echoing laura and paying tribute to denby, urate and kate web. Kate web captured in cambodia and one of the very few people to come out alive, but i would also like to say that we were all products of the dawn of womens liberation. We were that generation that really started to believe that women could do anything that we put our minds to. And in a sense, thats what i think made a difference for all of the women who came of age and into this profession of being war correspondents and Foreign Correspondents starting in vietnam. We, as a whole group, were actually able to prove that women actually do have what it takes to cover wars and disasters. Unlike what aps then Foreign Editor ben bassett believed. Not that were naming names. I always felt that i was grateful that i could prove that he was wrong, and that i was able to do it not just in vietnam but in the many other wars i went on to cover. The other thing that i wanted to say about women was, you know, just because we were there and we were working hard doesnt mean that, at least for me, on many occasions i wouldnt use the fact that i was a woman to try to get information and to get stories because one of the things i learned instantly on arriving in vietnam was there was so few american women there that you could basically talk to any man about anything. And particularly in the military, where i actually did not know that much, you could ask them to explain things to you, or you could ask what might sound like a stupid question coming from a man and often would elicit great quotes for a story. I got no problem with that. I really dont. If they want to cough up the information, thats theyre problem. Lets go to some questions. I think you were probably first. You want to tell us who you are and who youd like to ask a question of. My names dee young. Could you tell us something that you hear from American People and from vietnamese or any other nation countries that people say about and how do they express their emotion about the wars . About how people today when you were in vietnam, when you hear the people say, when americans say or vietnamese or some other countries stay how do people feel emotionally about the war when they were reporting . What kind of emotions did you hear from the people of vietnam, i think thats your question, about the war when you were there and reporting on the war . What did you hear . What do they feel about you how did they feel about you as american journalists covering the war . I could answer just kind of briefly because i lived with the veietnamese family in the heart of saigon. It was so bizarre. They were just going about their business in the war. They were trying to make a living and trying to survive. And they didnt think of me as anything unusual at all because i was working too, so we didnt really discuss the war at all. We were just kind of going about our business. Yes, getting through life. Im so sorry. No, no, please. One of my great disappointments about having been in vietnam for almost two years, i did not write enough about the veietnamese people. I was so focused on the americans. For a freelancer, i would be very hard to get a story published and i regret it terribly. Thank god for Gloria Emerson who went there and wrote day of day about the vietnamese people. We went through the villages and the devastation and people crying. It was heartbreaking to see how much the vietnamese people suffered. Id just like to say that i think i echo what they said. There was a tremendous amount of suffering, and one of the stories that i did want to write was about the impact of the war on the South Vietnamese because we wrote about all the american casualties, but we didnt write about the massive South Vietnamese casualties. And in order to do this, i had to go and find a South Vietnamese family that had lost this woman had lost either three or four sons, and she had one who was still fighting. She didnt know whether he was still alive, and she was living under the most horrible circumstances in a shack where she didnt even have walls of her own. She had a roof over the walls of the two adjoining huts, and so i think that there was a tremendous amount of suffering, but i think a lot depended on the economic class of the people. I think there was a certain middle class in South Vietnam that sort of rolled with the punches and some who made money, but i think a lot of the very poor, the poorer people, really, really suffered. Maam . My name is peggy lewis and im with trinity washington university. We are so proud of you and so grateful to all of you for being here. I have a number of students and faculty here from the university who are aspiring to be journalists, but i wonder what your thoughts were when you heard Brian Williams embelli embellishing his experience and you were there. Im going to leave it to these ladies to decide if they want to answer. Its your floor. Anybody want to is that a no thank you. Im not trying to make you Say Something you dont want to say, but im certain women who had been there covering it, to see a man who embellished and was taken out of the anchor chair for the embellishment is it a gender issue . I dont know that it is. You have students here this evening . Are you guys up there in the rafters . Raise your hands. I think its an okay question, but it doesnt have to do with being a man. It would be anyone who would embellish and still have this position of stature and speaking out to the American People. You worry for them and feel sad and think, why did you do that. Journalism 101, accuracy, accuracy, accuracy. After that, theres really nothing. Its not about anybody else. Its about you and your accuracy. Im not commenting on mr. Williams. Im commenting on journalism, the journalism profession. Im a Political Communications student at gw. Thank you so much for being here. Raise your hands. Theres a great book by tim obrien, the things theyve carried. Its a fictitious account. I was hoping that you ladies could possibly share either some things that you brought along with you in your own bags as you traveled along or some of the momentos you picked up along the way. Thats a great question. Did you have a good luck charm . Did you have something you always had bottom of your bag . I know it was very important for me to still have some kind of femaleness out there. Im 6 feet tall. I mean, this is an amazon, walking through the jungles. As it should be. Dressed in fatigues, combat boots, carrying a pack, the whole thing. You know, i always kind of wore maybe like a yellow tshirt underneath my fatigues. I did put on lipstick every now and then. One of the nicest compliments i ever got after a couple of days on patrol in the rain, in the mud, sleeping in a fox hole with somebody, and the guy says to me, maam, i dont know how you do it, but you still smell better than we do. [ laughter ]. I took i was always thinking of eating. When im nervous, i like to eat. We had sea rations, which were canned. I would take an onion, saigon, and there was a little store there in the era, and they had a can of wine. Figuring this is going to be my last day on earth, so im going to have some wine with my feast. I didnt know that. I was also into the lipstick, nail polish, sort of wearing combat fatigues, but also trying to look like a woman. And i try and take that wherever i went. I also tried to sneak along some biscuits and cookies, stuff that was not part of any kind of rations. I dont remember taking anything with me, but something ive carried or kept is a small helicopter that was made from hospital junk. Iv tubing, some needle caps, and its a perfectly constructed miniature helicopter with a small rotor. It was made by a young boy who was, i think, about 10, who had been shot in the spine from an american chopper. He was paralyzed. What he did was create this helicopter from the junk in the hospital, and he was selling it for, you know, 25 cents or whatever, to raise money for himself and for his family. So ive always kept that very close by. Its usually on my desk. I keep it as a reminder of what war does. Thank you. Sir . Good evening. Gary thomas. Im a retiree. First off, i have to remind you the marines isnt the smallest service, it is the coast guard. Thank you. For all five of you for what you continue to do for role models, thanks. Denby, early in your career, you made career decisions about your professional life and personal life that sometimes had to be conflicted, and sometimes dealing with the fact that bob was also a journalist, brett was born overseas, things like that. Can you talk a little bit, for the younger people out here, how you made those decisions. How did you judge your personal life, professional life, and how did you make it work out in the end . Gary and i know each other, and he has a wife who is a pioneer, also. Shes an admiral in the u. S. Coast guard. We ran the 14th district on our island of oahu. I think, for me, i cant say there was a pattern. I just was alone for a long time in vietnam before i was married, reporting alone, and things kind of fell together. Then i always kept working when i was married. I dont know how i did it. It wasnt really a conflict. It just kind of fell along, fell together as i went along. I think one thing that struck me very dramatically was my decision to leave vietnam and to see how seductive war is. I knew i didnt want to be someone who went from one war to the next, and be kind of a war groupie. I couldnt make a life. I wrote once that i wanted roots that went down to the source of water. And at the time, when i was in vietnam, i wasnt sure what that would have meant, and i was too young to be thinking about that. But when i went back to vietnam in 1989, it was the first time, and i travelled with a small group, all the way through the country. I was in saigon, and i did the memory walk of the places i had lived. I realized, there was a moment when it just hit me, i thought of my daughter who was then 8, and i wanted to go home. I missed the life that i had created. I think that was when i really realized that i had done that, that i had somehow chosen or life had chosen me. I didnt want to just go from war to war, and i had to make another life, which i did. But its, you know, the tradeofs a trade offs are always there, and you do the best you can at the time. Barbara, can i Say Something . Please. I think of all of us here, im the only one who actually stayed being a Foreign Correspondent and a war correspondent for 25 years. And i think that it definitely was a tradeoff, particularly for my generation. Right. I think it would have been impossible for me to have covered all the wars and conflicts and gotten on planes and run off all over the world, and to have been married and raised a family. So it was a choice that i made, and i have had an incredible life. But it was a choice that i made. Hi. Im judith. My question is directed to most of you. Many of you had been both reporters before and after the vietnam war. My question is, how did it change the environment for women, both your life before and then coming back afterward . And my question is a little twofold. Also between you and other women journalists after the war, was there a different level of respect or ease because you had had the experience or no . No. No, no, no, no. Vietnam was, i remember first coming back from the war, and i was looking for a job in television, which was my experience. It was like, oh, yeah, you were in vietnam, but you dont know film and tape. It was like, oh, that was there, but this is now and you dont you know, there was a time when vietnam just was it wasnt almost heard. I remember when i went home, i was in the drugstore where i had been for years and years. They said, laura, i havent seen you for a while. I said, i was in vietnam for the last two years, and i was living in paris the past few years. Paris . Oh, tell us about paris. For a time, vietnam was erased in consciousness. For me, i agree. Vietnam was the war that everyone wanted to forget. When i came back, i went back to san francisco. I remember all my friends saying, oh, how was it . Did you have an interesting time . Yes, i did. Well, heres whats been going on while you were away. Professionally, for me, it was very positive because i left vietnam in like august of 1973. Then there was the war that broke out. I was one of by then, working for the ap, and wes gallagher, who sent me to vietnam, then sent me to israel and sent the other reporter to cairo. Professionally, it was a positive because we had proven that women could actually do the job. I think, one thing, shes talking about her job, and laura also, but it also is emboldening personally. You think, youve been in vietnam and youve covered that. Then things i didnt really know my profession and my craft, i went from being writing about parties to writing about wars. I needed to learn the craft. I needed to be a police reporter. I needed to cover courts. I needed to do politics. That gave me the guts to do that, even if i didnt understand it and i thought itd be hard. Hi. My name is meg. Im a student reporting here for the summer, so its awesome to see all of you. Im wondering, was there ever a moment when you were reporting or when youre stationed out in vietnam, when you just really, really wanted to go back home to the u. S. . While we were there working, i really didnt. I felt that it was such an amazing story. But it was very lonely. And i knew denby was out there, but i didnt know her. We were not friends. There were so few women. When i was out on patrol, i was with the guys. There was camaraderie. I felt really, you know, important, engaged, alive. After a couple days, go back to my little room in saigon, all alone, no one to really talk with. It was hard. Really had to say, okay, let me get out of saigon and back on patr patrol, back where the story was. We have i see a young man im sorry on the left. Well probably tie it off with you. Sir . Im sorry. Manners are terrible. Trying to learn patience right now. No, no. Its very hard to see. Its all right. Im so sorry. Aloha. I recently just moved here from maui. Graduated in 2012 from the best school west of the rockies. Anyway, my question is two parted. This is your job, and i understand that, and its an amazing job to have. But there are so many tragedies, so many things that maybe i shouldnt bring up, but its a question i want to know. How did you stay focused . How did you just like drain everything out and just remember that this is your job and your job is very important, because without your job, we wouldnt know any of the things youve put down in history. Also, i dont know about you guys, but its kind of hard. I just moved out here sorry you know. Jump in whenever you want here. Youre obviously very aware that covering a war, you see a lot of sadness, a lot of death, a lot of fear, a lot of injuries amongst troops. Journalists, you know, ill just say it, and jump back in where you want to, reporters are very famous for, oh, it doesnt get to me. We do the job and push it out of our minds and we go ahead and do what you know, its our job. Thats why were there. People handle things differently. It would depend on your question is really good. It would depend on the temperament of the individual. You wont know it until you get into something really hard, how youll handle it. I remember watching gone with the wind, and watch scarlet walk through a hospital with dead people, and people seeking her help. That was fiction. For me, i found out when i saw something terrible in vietnam, i did that. I closed it out. It was automatic. I didnt think about it. It was like a veil, to just keep going and not get deeply not bring it all in, like you were saying. How do you do it . So mine was a strange thing that happened automad icaltically. I think it comes back. Weve all read about young troops with posttraumatic stress. They tell us its a matter of resilience which is, you know, you acknowledge the stress, acknowledge what has happened to you, but how do you develop the techniques of resilience, to keep moving . Ill share a story. It was not in a war zone, but i walked into the room of a young marine who had been wounded. Were chatting about, where i had been in afghanistan and where he was wounded in afghanistan. This young marine had done a really hard time. I thought i was making a light hearted remark, something like, i would never be able to be in the area that you were in. It was so hard. It was so dangerous, et cetera. This young man looks at me and says, look, were all afraid. Anybody out there who tells you theyre not afraid, theyre lying. But its that ability, perhaps, to put one foot, you know, the soldiers who do this, the marines, the most awesome thing that you see, i think, in a war zone, is, of course, theyre afraid, but they still put one combat boot in front of the other. Thank you so much. I also have i think its important, too, one of the things that is very significant is that if theres meaning, if theres a reason to tell the story, ill do anything. I think that there is among the best journalists i know, a sense of mission and calling. People are doing the work because theyre passionate about it, that carries you, too. I think, yeah, i mean, i think the challenge is always, how do you keep the heart alive . How do you keep the heart open and not get numb . That takes, you know, a lot of work. I think one of the gifts of the reporting and one of the gifts of sort of entering into anything thats hard is that it takes you deeper into yourself. If you can find ways to work through it, it will break you open and break you open into a richer and deeper connection to life. And one of the really great things about great reporting, and i think of Gloria Emerson, particularly, is being able to capture that emotion that youre watching. And translate it into words, into stories that humanize war. And i mean, none of us are zombies. We all have emotions. The real talent is to be able to put those emotions in a place that you can report on whats actually happening, and then at a time when youre writing or broadcasting, that you can convey the sense of that incident to a broader public. I also have another question, as well. I dont know if you guys are religious or anything, but how did you guys come out of this war . Were you guys did you guys have more strength in your religious resolving, whatever your views are, it doesnt matter, but did you guys come in like, how did you guys come out of this war . Did you guys have more resolve in your religious views, or were you was your faith in humanity broken down into nothingness . Im sorry. Yes, thats my question. All right. Ill tell you what, what were going to do, because we have little time left, and i want everybody to get a question in, were going to have one of you answer, and well move it along so we get laura, ill have you answer. Im working as a hospital chaplain now. I went to seminary from 2006 to 2009. I think vietnam took me deeper into my own life. The question you get, of course, we all have to reconcile with, is where was god in vietnam . Where was god in the holocaust . How can there be something so awful . I was interviewing a woman who has been a nurse in vietnam. This was a question i had struggled with. She said to me, as any soldier will say to you if you talk to them, well, i never loved like i loved in vietnam. I loved my wife and kids, but i love my buddies. The nurses will say there was something about the love i had for my patients. It was so intense and so different. Linda vand linda said, i know in that love, thats where god was. That was the moment that i thought, yes, god is in the love, not the bonds of the bullets. Hi, im kay kofman, a former worker. The question i have, and youve talked a little about it, is reintegrating once you got back at the time. The gis were not welcomed the way they are now. We were not talking about posttraumatic stress disorder. How was it for you to come back and, to the extent you had to reintegrate into society, what were the challenges for you at that point . Lets have one person take that on so we keep moving. The only thing id like to say is my views on the war changed when i was there. I was prowar, because i was anticommunist. Toward tend, i saw the tragedy and the waste of war. But coming back to america and seeing the antivietnam demonstrators broke my heart. While politically, i agreed with them, to hear them ho, ho, ho, theyre going to win. You know, it was very, very difficult to walk straight into that very hostile environment. Just as a, i think, her point is excellent. It really wasnt until the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial that we were able to separate the warriors from the war. I think one of the, perhaps, ultimate obscenity about vietnam is the soldiers who went were blamed for our losing it, and the result of the war is not the outcome. The outcome of the war is not the result of the people who fought that. By the time the memorial was dedicated, we could see that as a nation, finally. Lets get through three more quick questions. Im sorry to rush you. Thats okay. My name is annie. My question is, what are your thoughts about vietnam and the war before and after you came to vietnam, becoming reporters . In a sound bite, i can say i went with all the answers and i left with the questions. I saw the war in black and white before i went there, and when i came back, after knowing vietnamese and seeing more sides of the pictures, there are many shades of gray. Great answer. I think i might have to use that in other circumstances. My name is dan. Im in the theater. I have a huge military family background. My question for edith. Based on your pow experience, and im curious, given recent comments, my question to you would be, what advice would you give or say to somebody who says that pows are not war heros, because theyve been captured, given everything that youve seen . Thats a loaded question. Well, you know. But i believe that anyone who puts his or her life on the line, ready to sacrifice for their country, in any shape or form, is basically a hero in the broader sense of the term. And for those who were inpris imprisoned and captures, suffered terrible hardships and indignities, its magnified. Because they actually had to face an even greater test than their fellow soldiers who survived and went home to their families when their tours were up. The word hero, i personally believe, has come to be sort of a catch all word. Everyone is a hero in our culture. Everyone is a hero. As i say, i think that soldiers, say it was marines ready to sacrifice for their country, they all should fall in that category. I think it can also be heroic to heal, to come to terms to the war, for someone who tries to find beauty and meaning in life again, who has to learn to walk again, tie a shoe. For the family who stands beside him, for the children who learn that dad or mom is upset because of i think there are many things that are courageous that we sometimes overlook in our need to create heros. Healing is ultimately very heroic. Thank you very much. Sir, youre going to have the last question of the evening. No pressure. Sure. My name is hunter forte. My question is for all of you. How might you see yourselves in journalist or reporters in particular, female journalist and reporters, in this modern or current age of journalism . I wouldnt want to be a war reporter today. I think its so dangerous and so just random. One thing about vietnam is our enemy there, the north vietnamese, they wanted to get through the war and live. They werent going to kill themselves or kill civilians. They tried it once before i came, blew up a boat in saigon that served this delicious pepper crab, and a lot of vietnamese would go there. They grenaded this boat, and a lot of vietnamese were hurt. They realized right off the bat, that was not a way for them to win the war and win them over to their side. So they stopped. But the danger in the current war is the people that are an enemy, they dont care. They will kill civilians, they will torture people. We did not have, when people were cabture tucaptured, like was not tortured. Vietnam was plenty frightening, but in a different way. I think theres no gender bias anymore. I may be wrong, but when i see women reporters covering from the middle east, its now, if im correct, more than 60 are female. Nobody bats an eye that shes standing there with a flat jacket. I think the opportunities are amazing for women. However, journalism itself as a profession has changed, and thats a different panel discussion. In the military, i learned the lesson of vietnam, keep reporters as far as you can from the field. Which is impossible. We did something that cant be replicated today, which is a tragedy. Most of the news organizations dont have foreign bureaus. I think thats a huge change. As someone who works for an organization that still does have a lot of foreign bureaus, one of the rare american organizations that still does, there are a lot of women out on the front lines. The United States is not involved in many countries where there are conflicts going on. There are more civil wars today than there are intercountry conflicts. I think the fact that we live in a 24 7 world, where the communications and the interconnections are so instantaneous, and the fact that you have not only governments, but you have rebel fighters, and then you have extremist groups on every range. The players have grown dramatically, and i think that for all of that, it is much more dangerous to be out in the field on the front lines today. But there are plenty of women and plenty of men who are doing it, and plenty of men, young men and plenty of young women who really would like to be doing it. And on that note, we want to thank everyone for coming. I think its been a terrific conversation amongst our panelists and with you in the audience. We really do thank you for coming out tonight. You know, the News Business has been changing, i think, more rapidly with more volatility and faster than most of us can really keep up with it. But what it really does come down to at the end of the day is the reporter out there, filing under the most difficult of circumstances, making sure that the story does get to the American People. And these are four women who stand head and shoulders in making that happen. [ applause ] so i think well turn up the house lights so nobody everyone can see their way out. Thank you again. On the next washington journal, margot sangerkatz joins us, looking at Health Care Insurance and costs. Then Sharon Epperson on the 80th anniversary of Social Security and what the future holds for the program. Later, a conversation on the u. S. Foster care system, with the director of policy reform and advocacy. Well also take your phone calls, Facebook Comments and tweets. Washington journal, live each morning at 7 00 eastern on cspan. With the senate in its august break, well feature brook tv programming week nights, starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. For the weekends, here are a few special programs. Saturday, august 22nd, live from jackson, mississippi, for the mississippi book festival, beginning at 11 30 a. M. With discussions on harper lee, civil rights and the civil war. September 5th, were live from our nations capital. Followed on sunday with our live in depth program, with former second lady and senior fellow at the American Enterprise institute, lynn cheney. Book tv, television for serious readers. Founded in 1865, the nation is americas oldest weekly magazine still in circulation today. To mark the magazines 150th anniversary, publisher Victor Navasky and katrina vanden heuvel had a discussion with timothy naftali. This is 1 hour and 20 minutes. Im sure i dont need to introduce the people beside me. We are honored that nyu is about to be the home of the editorial records and many other records of the nation during the period that Victor Navasky was editor, publisher, and from the current period, when katrina vanden heuvel is the leader of the nation. Its a great, great privilege, to have the records of a journal of opinion. Because the strength of our democracy, i believe, rests on the survival of opinions and the opportunity for the expression of those opinions. So to be in a position, to protect forever this material, is a great, great privilege. We now have the opportunity to learn some of the back story to the materials and to the magazine, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. So i promised victor that i would start by asking him how the heck he ended upcoming to the nation. Well, thanks for asking. [ laughter ] you want the short version or the twohour version . Its not for me, its for them. You know, its a sad day pau because we just came from edgars funeral. He played a role in me being at the nation, which is not publicly known, but ill share it with you. I knew ed fgar when he was the editor in chief of dial press, while he was working on i see in the audience marvin, he was a dial author. He saw edgar put his own manuscript under his desk, because he was working on the book of daniel, which was a great novel. I knew edgar from those days. We had collaborated on a number of projects, one which we can talk about later. When it became evident that the nation was up for sale, i spoke to hamilton fish, who i had known from the ramseyclark campaign, when i was the chairman when he ran for the senate. He was just out of harvard as a young man, and he was a fundraiser. Everyone took his phone calls because why would ham fish be working for ramsey clark . He was a great fundraiser. When marcells film, story, appeared in the New York Times, a great film maker, he was fired from his new film. Ham called him up and said and he was fired because it was for a British Company and it was supposed to be a onehour film. By the time they got to the third hour, the company said, enough already. Ham called and said, if i can raise the money, would you finish making your movie . He ended up being the producer of the movie that became memory of justice, and did very well. I said to ham when the nation was up for sale, that he ought to do for the nation what he did for marcell. And i had been reading through all of the magazines of the 50s and 40s. I grew up in a house that got the nation and the new republic. I was working eventually on a book that became naming names about the mccarthy period. I had to read through all of the magazines of the mccarthy years. I came to admire the nation more than any other for its coverage of those years. I said to ham, you want to do that . Ham met with the owner, and he came back and said, ill agree to do it on one condition. I said, whats that . I said, you agree to be the editor. I said, ham, i left the New York Times in order to write this book that became naming names. Let me think about it. He said, well and i said, i have a wife, and we had two children at that point and a third on the way i said, i have a thiwife, two children. He said, suppose i pay you whatever the New York Times was paying you, suppose you have total editorial control and you tell me how much money i have to raise for the magazine to survive. And you dont have to start until you finish your book. I said, if you meet all those conditions, how can i say no . Of course, in the end, i raisin did. It took a lot longer. But to get ham to go out to raise money, i made call to my friend. I told him what was going on. Edgar was a fan of the nation. Edgar wrote out rag time had come out, and he wrote a check for ham of 10,000, which he called Walking Around money, so ham could try to raise money while spending edgars 10,000. That was more important. When in the middle of that situation, the thenpublisher didnt want to give us an option to buy it. He had it was for sale for 150,000. But we needed 1 million in order to go into business because it was losing a certain amount of money every year. I had told ham, its useless if you dont have an option because who knows what will happen. So edgar came to a meeting with ralph nader, a man named ping ferry, who is a marvelous guy, and his wife, and ham and me, to get the option. They spoke eloquently, with edgar leading the way on why he ought to give the option and how, et cetera. So they had a funeral this morning for the family, and what i said there is i blame edgar for the next 20 years of my life, because he was as responsible as anyone else for my getting there. So i came to the nation when, finally, the funding was in place and we got the opportunity to go there. I, of course, had not finished naming names. I spent too much time raising money along with hamilton. But i was pleased to start at the beginning of 1978. It was the ideal job for me. I had been working at the New York Times as an editor, and my inclination, because i sat at the desk at the times, where my boss sat behind me. I just turned around when i had an idea. I felt the first day i got to the nation, it was on 6th avenue, i turned around and there was my reflection in the window. Were you nice to yourself . I gave myself great assignments. I realized it was all on my shoulders. We started an Intern Program and did other things which we can get to. One of the great assets of our Intern Program is sitting on my left. Katrina became one of the nation interns in short order, and the rest is history. So what was it like working there . Fast forward, just to pick up on what victor said, i grew up in a different family. My father was much more of a vital center figure, though he cared deeply about political values. I came to the nation in college, partly because i traveled to the soviet union in 1978, and i was always interested in why americans, those who had been disillusioned or found hope in that experiment were repressed or subjected to marginalization to the mccarthy period in the country. I then took a course at princeton called politics of the press, run by the editor of the nation a brief moment before victor came, who had run mccarthys campaign. I did my papers there on mccarthyism and the press, on a columnist known for clearing people. My First Experience in an archive up at columbia, on how ordinary people suffered during the mccarthy period. As victor said, he at a different time, i found in this publication, a publication that never capitulated to the kind of, you know, conventional wisd wisdom, pressures of that time. Blair clark said, go be an intern at the nation. I think Victor Navasky just started the program. I arrived two years after the first group, victor. It was my journalistic boot camp. It was my political education in many ways. At princeton, i had great professors who challenged traditional orthodox views. At the time, you had an Exchange Program from the new stateman. The theneditor was went to london. Andrew copkind, a great radical journalist was doing informal seminars at all moments. I learned so much. I had the Great Fortune to work with former interns. I remember amy, i dont know if people know her writing on haiti, but she marked into victors office and said, the lead editorial is going to be about john lennon and his killing. At a moment, we thought victor thought of another lennon. She said, lennons been killed. That was and then one of the things, you know, it was a very different from pprogram then. People have come out of that. Alexander steele. Edward miliband, who has not suffered a good fate in the last months. But what victor set in motion has put into the american and other journalistic systems, 800 extraordinary journalists, activists over this time. So i then, part of my work as the intern was to organize williams, the great editor of the nation, he was the only editor, i think, west of the hudson. Came from california in 19 i want to say 48, 52, never went back. I got to know his extraordinary widow, iris, and learned an extraordinary amount of the Nation History through that. Thank you. Victor, its 1978. I believe jimmy carter was president. Whats the nations what role is it playing in the american left in 1978 . Can you take me back . Its hard to say. I mean, people would talk about a stereotypical image when they talk about the nation. To me, it was a place where you could have a debate, but it would not be between the democrats and the republicans. It would be between the radicals and the liberals. The libertarians eventually joined the debate, but the nation was one of the few places where you could have that debate. Its influence on american politics or World Politics is very hard to document. To me, it takes place over time. For example, in advance of today, you said you wanted to talk about the irancontra thing. The nation invited the Great British social historian e. P. Thompson to write for us. He wrote his essay about the disarmament movement. Also, it made the social case for nuclear disarmament. And explained all of its ramifications. I personally believe that the iran deal that is going on right now is partly the result of e. P. Thompsons writings. That partly is the result of the nation discussions that began in this country in the nation magazine. People like john kerry and hilla hillary, i think, grew up being exposed to the ideas in the nation. Whether they subscribed to it or not, they were affected by it. How do you measure impact . But i think its there. Ill pick up on that. Someone who came to the nation when victor was editor and i continued to work with was Jonathan Shell, who did a special issue for the nation a decade before obama stood in prague and called for the disarmament of Nuclear Weapons. It may take a decade to see those results, 20 years, 50 years, but thats and you know, people one of the values of the nation is you stand for values and ideas, which might at one time seem heretical. A decade later, it may seem in the mainstream. The abolition sf Nuclear Weapons is still, you know, but president obama was influenced by the Nuclear Freeze movement, which began with an editorial in the nation in 1980. A young reporter in vermont reporting on the freeze movement, two years later, there were a Million People in central park for one of the largest antinuclear marches in the for. The nation had its own contingent in that march with our signs. I guess id say that we are people of values and principles, but there is the question of and i feel it especially now at this moment because its like a Movement Moment were not activists. Were thinkers, journalists, writers. Victor said the debate isnt just believe democrats and republicans, its broader. I think the nation has a special role through time in covering movements and understanding how to cover movements in a way the Mainstream Press does not. Lets we dont have to go chronological order. Lets talk about the challenge of covering occupy. Lets say in 2009, the nation decided to do a special edition called the new inequality. We thought it was going to lead to, at best, protest, at worst, violent, unsustainable protest. This came out, you could publish it tomorrow with a few changes. Three months later, the financial crisis. By the way, the nation in 1999 wrote an editorial, castigating the repeal of glass stegiel, which key people are calling the reinstatement of. Then occupy emerged. I felt with occupy, that because and victor might speak to this because Carrie Mcwilliams published 68 editorials opposing the vietnam war, published bernard fall calling for negotiated end to vietnam in 54. But he didnt tell me if im wrong he didnt capture the countercultural protest in the streets. Sadly, andy copkind, at the new republic, caught that spirit more. When occupy erupted, it was key to send a couple young reporters down there to embed. Embed, embed at occupy, and report. Give a sense of the voices. Give a sense of the mayhem. Give a sense of what was going on culturally, politically. In the beds, in the streets, in the confrontation with cops which, in some ways, precedes some of what were seeing. That was my sense. It wasnt as an activist, rah, rah. There was critical minded coverage. There was a debate in the nation about whether there was a movement. It didnt have concrete commands and concrete leaders. Ill close by saying, we continued this debate. My husband and i interviewed Edward Snowden last october and had a conversation with him. Cohen, who victor brought on years ago, russianologist, said, what did occupy lead to . Snowden says, movements move, zigs and zags. They have outcomes you dont predict at the beginning. Let me add one thing. Unrelated but related by association. My favorite sentence for the launching of a magazine of all time is the first sentence on the first page of the first issue of the nation magazine. July 6th, 1865. To me, its the most courageous sentence in the history of magazine launches. The sentence, which i have committed to memory and hangs in our the cover hangs in our Conference Room to this day, is as follows the week was singularly barren of exciting events. [ laughter ]. Now, the reason i love that sentence, would tina brown have had the courage to publish that sentence . The reason i love that sentence is, what it really says is not just that the week was singular by barren of exciting events, it says that were not going to play the game of false sensationalism. We are not going to hype stories that dont deserve it. You can trust us. We are going to tell the truth. Were not going to qualify. Were not going to do what the New York Times would do. On the second paragraph say, actually, Thaddeus Stevens who lives in the deep south says the week was not that barren of singular events. Theres another opinion. Et cetera. So that sentence, to me, was onehalf of what the nation stood for, that you can trust us. The other half is what katrina has been talking about with reference to occupy, in part. Was that the nation inherited 5,000 subscribers from garrison, William Lloyd garcrison magazin, in favor of abolition, and his favorite sentence, i will not excuse, i will not compromise, i will not retreat a single inch. You put those two sentences together, the idealism and theologicalness ologic willin to fight on what you believe, and the journalism built on trust. You have something at its best, it seems to me, which is what the nation helps to incarnate. Journalists attempt to do, they all attempt to do their version of that, but i think the nation, which has been in business for longer than any of them for good reason, does as well as it can be done. How did you strike the balance between journalism and opinion . Ill ask katrina that question, too. Ill tell you, in my case, it probably was unbalanced. It depended on which week. When you get a great, investigative story, when you can reveal something that is that no one else has published on, you go with it and you devote your resources to it. On the other hand, when you have opinion journalists, like alex covern, you give them their space. They shared values but there is a difference of opinion between our various troublemaking columnists. So its a week by week balancing. Now that katrina is running the show, you know, when people come to me and complain about something, i say, i have nothing to do with it. Its katrina who is running the magazine. On the other hand, when they praise what the nation did this last week, this great story, i take full credit. [ laughter ]. I had, at one point, behind my desk, a famous line, cant we all get together . Cant we all we used to get letters from readers, just, you guys, youre all circular firing squad. Theres a line between the debate. At one point, you know, you had columnists writing 5,000word denunciations of each others cats. No, okay. But its a complicated media moment. I mean, the old media order is disappearing, the new one is yet emerging. What is a magazine . The print remains our anchor, but in a magazine, you try to have a pacing and different forms each week. Youd have columnists, opinion, ca and a 5,000word investigative piece, reporting on new forms of warfare, covert special ops, before people even knew what that was. Out of that emerged black water. Or Jonathan Shell opposing the iraq war. But in the opposition, laying out a case for, lets abolish Nuclear Weapons and not just end this, you know not fight this war. But i think the nation plays different, as victor says, very different roles. One of i think the important thing is when there is a consensus, and i think one of the most important moments for me was in the runup to iraq. When the conventional wisdom was, you know, coerciveness brutal. We forget the liberal hawks. There were few opposing that war full throatedly. The nation, its not a path of popularity to oppose government during wartime. The nation was called unamerican. But, again, to say what i said earlier, that that opposition, which was considered heretical, ten years later, everyone was saying iraq was a debacle. I think it was important, and part of that is that the nation, for 150 years, if theres one consistent thread, theyre not fully consistent threads, as you know, timothy, youve read the book, but its the belief that empire is toxic for democracy. In that belief, theres also the understanding that if that militarism is toxic, and you find alternatives to war. Were not pacifist publication, but it was the animating principle that animated editors through time that was in our dna and came to life in that moment. The other part of it is that even when you have impassioned writers who are, like the late robert sherrel, and other people what were talking about, one of the things the nation interns do is fact check. The nation does not hide inconvenient facts, no matter how passionate the case is its making on behalf of whatever the subject is. It deals with them in a direct way. It seems to me thats part of the journalistic nonopinion side of even of opinion pieces. I was watching katrinas face when you were describing the debates that occurred. I was wondering if we could talk about some of the people youve edited and what it was like. Tell us about edit iing gorbech. I contacted him and invited him to join our editorial board. I went out to california, and e he he, of course, to me, was a great writer. A lot of fun and a troublemaker. He agreed right away to join our board, because he had a lot of admiration for the nation in years past. I had known him a little bit in correspondence. I used to put out this satire magazine, and he was an admirer of it. We had had correspondence about it. He so he agreed to join our board on the one hand. On the other hand, you could suggest assignments to him, but he also had his own things that he wanted to say, so the first article he published in the nation in this new arrangement, he had published it before was an article i forget what it was called, but it was basically some gays and the jews in which he made the argument that the Jewish Community should be supportive of gay rights, and he made it in a Gore Vidalian way and he was a lot of fun to deal with, but he was not someone who you in my case, katrina you may have had a different experience with him but he was not someone who you rewrote or assigned to some editor to say we want you to put the beginning at the end and the end in the middle and did things that editors do, often for purposes of clarification, but the thing was that was onehalf because of his temperament but it was one half because he was a superb writer and advocate for the things he believed