Transcripts For CSPAN3 Mary 20240703

And other Public Affairs events and weekdays at 5 00 and 9 00 p. M. For a fastpaced report for the stories of the day. Listen to cspan anytime. Tell your smart speaker, play c span radio. Cspan, powered by cable. Our speakers are wellknown journalists and host of the podcast 2022 politics war room and the other of the book, Mary Llewellyn mcneil. More about them later. Since the book has not been released before tonight, the presenters asked i give you a very brief bit of background. Who was wallace carol and why should we care about him . Wallace carol, although i know today was one of the most respected and influential journalists, editors and publishers of the 20th century. A reporter for the united press in europe during the 1930s and early 1940s, he covered some of the most significant event events leading up to and during world war ii. He then went on to work for the u. S. Office of information undertook two stints as editor and later publisher of the winstonsalem journal. He served as number two to james reston in the New York Times. Again, more details to come. Carol was much more than a globetrotting journalist giving us eyewitness accounts as dramatic events or even just your runofthemill editor. As allen will tell us, he was an example to a generation of journalists who even today still remember and try to follow his tenets of good journalism. These include an absolute commitment to accuracy and the truth, extraordinary attention to detail, total independence, and as a david recently wrote in his wall street journal review of the book elegant and balanced reporting. While the world of journalism is different today, many working journalists as well as all of us who cherish and read the news would do well to read this book. Centuries witness at long last shined the light on wallace carols remarkable life. Were looking forward to learning more about those demands and centuries witness tonight. A little bit more about our speakers. Al hunt as mentioned right directly, column. The 2022 politics war room podcast with james carville. Previously, he was a bluebook opinion and New York Times columnist covering politics and the executive washington editor of bloomberg news. Before joining bloomberg, he spent four decades at the wall street journal as a reporter, bureau chief and executive washington editor and wrote the weekly column politics and people. Mr. Hunt new wallace carol and credits him with getting him to take his first job at the wall street journal. Something we will learn more about. Mary mcneil, student of wallace carol at Lake Forest University is a former editor and writer for Congressional Quarterly and the primary author of environment and health, reagans first year and the nuclear age. She worked as an editor at the Smithsonian Institute and the National Academy of sciences and as a journalist at the winstonsalem journal. During a 28 year career at the world bank, she launched two global publications and led efforts on Civil Society strengthening Community Driven development and government accountability. This is her first fulllength biography. If you can please join me in welcoming al hunt and mary mcneil. Thank you very much. You guys, you know, thank you yvery much. Can you hear me back there . Im going to turn this over to the star in a minute. I want to say i revered mr. Carol. I can never call him wallace he always is mr. Carol. It was so nice to have his daughter here and his granddaughter today. There is no one that deserves recognition as much as he does. Let me start by asking you. You got away from us in 1978. You were a mere child and you had a wonderful career in journalism many years at the world bank. Why in 2017 or 18 did you decide to do a book on your constitutional law professor . Thats a good question. If you are lucky when you are young, you run into people that stay with you. And that you look at. And for some reason you want to emulate and you just respect. When i was at wake forest i was 21 years old and it took a course on the First Amendment from wallace carol. There was something about him then that you just want to do well for this person. He didnt talk about himself. He wasnt loquacious. He didnt tell you everything he had done in his life but you just knew. He stayed with me and i went to do work in journalism and left jerusalem to work at the world bank. About 5 1 2 years ago i was in london and i came across a book called citizens of london by lynn olson which is a wonderful book. Is about three americans who were in london right before the war, basically trying to convince the u. S. To come in to the war. I was reading the book and wallace carols name kept popping up all over the place. I thought, is this my old professor . What was he doing in london . I find out he was the United Press Bureau chief in london beginning in 1939 and was in charge of all of the coverage of the coming war. I thought, wow, who knew because mr. Carol never talked about the things he had done. I started to research this and it was like peeling an onion. The more i looked into his life, the more interesting and fascinating it became. It was a Real Adventure story in terms of his work as a foreign correspondent. He went to europe in 1929 as a 22year old, covered riots in london and paris. Went to cover the league of nations. Saw the rise of fascism. He was made the chief of the united press of london at 33, covered the bow of britain. Then he was one of the first correspondence to go into the soviet union when the invaded in 1941 and after going to the front and writing about that and seeing that on his way east to get out of the soviet union, he landed in pearl harbor about four days after the invasion, the destruction of the bombing. This is like, this guy was everywhere. That was sort of the beginning of the story. So, that was why i got intrigued , why i wanted to write about him in the first place and then why the more i learned about him the more i thought it was a great story to tell. Lets stay with that european experience. The london blitz, spanish war. And, he very strongly believed that the west had to counter hitler. He understood the menace well before others did and was frustrated by his country. Is that fair to say . I think it is because in the 1930s he went to geneva in 1934 and was the diplomatic reporter for united press. He witnessed all of the deliberation surrounding the rise of hitler and mussolini in the league of nations. Theres some interesting parts of the book where he talks about this. Including one instance where he listened to of the emperor of ethiopia and as you recall the italian italians invaded ethiopia. He came in and gave a speech where i will never forget this quote. Mussolinis son is describing the bottom of ethiopians as a wonderful thing because the bomb fell down, people exploded like red flames. And i remember reading that and thinking, oh my god, so he knew all of this was going on but was frustrated because as he would write these stories back to the United States, it was very little interest at that time and what was going on in europe and very little understanding of the dangers that were rising on the continent. This all set into his beliefs that hitler really was something we should be paying attention to and fight against. And then he went to the soviet union i guess before i forget, was at geneva that he met his wife was a fulltime partner . Your mother was formidable as your father. One of the things about the book, and we will get back to the historical part, its really a love story. I had written the book and i knew about peggy carol. She was very well educated, articulate, smart, well traveled. Her father was the head of the Rockefeller Institute and was one of the founders of the first yellow fever vaccine. She had grown up living all over the world, australia, traveled in the east, went to vassar, was an economics major and when they met, they were a perfect pair because there intellects matched but she was very outgoing, very effervescent. He tended to be much more introverted and shy. Together, they were a formidable couple. They were married for 67 63 years, but what i wanted to say about the book, i almost finished the book and i got a note from pat and said we found letters that my mother wrote to her mother back in the United States during the blitz and also following the blitz and into North Carolina. Do you want this box of letters . I was like, yeah right. And, so this box arrived on my door and my husband can attest to this. Im reading and i kept saying, oh my god. Because they were so vivid and so brilliant into themselves. Because she wrote almost every day and it was really something. I was able to weave this into the story and it not only contained her impressions but it talked about how she felt about him. There were letters about how he felt about her when he was going to the spanish civil war. He wrote a letter to her saying, leaving you was the hardest thing i ever had to do in my life. They have been married for three months. She said, but you have to go. So, a little bit of a signed but its a story of both wallace carol and peggy carol. We have so much to cover and so little time to do it. Just one more thing. Soviet union, he was right before the germans invaded. You can describe his conversations with stalin or that incredible harrowing trip he took back to meet his wife and new daughter in new york. 116 days . One half months 2 1 2 months. And it was by rickety plan, a desert where you have to pay off the camel driver and then flying across the pacific. I mean, he literally used everything he had in terms of his ability to get across the asian continent in a time one that was a rough thing to do. He did travel by train, biplane, rickety plane. At one point they flew 100 liters or yards. Took a taxi across the desert. Them nomads came and, then he really did its an adventure tale. When you look at the map you get scared. He was negotiating to get visas at one point he pretended he was a highlevel reddish Civil Servant and he made up a name for himself and he said this is who i am and i need a visa. The guy said, oh, okay, so it was a use of his skills and its a great story. Why i have that story is that later in his life he gave a series of lectures to the winstonsalem community where he lived and he told these stories and margaret carol, wallace is oldest daughter kept these tapes and she sent them to me and i was able to listen to them and transcribe them. He was a wonderful storyteller and all of the details of this, i was able to capture and get in the book. Im going to skip over the role he played working with the government during the war. Is a fascinating chapter but we dont have as much time. He comes back after the war and gordon greg was the secretary of the army then or about to be. He owned the winstonsalem journal and another highlevel contact. He was introduced to mr. Carol. And offered him a job. Right. And this is 1949. Wallace carol had spent the last couple years about his time with the soviet union and basically he had three Young Children and this gentleman who was an heir to the reynolds fortune and owned the paper invited him to come down with peggy to winstonsalem to see if he would take this job. They decided that it would be a good place to raise their children. I think after all they had been through, it was a peaceful, nice place to be. He went to work for the Winston Salem journal. Im going to combine the two stents he had there and talk about the in between with the New York Times. From 49 to 55 and 63 to 77, he really made it the best newspaper in North Carolina. He hired some Extraordinary People who went on to do great things like tom walker. He did not he did not count out the establishment. He was certainly not a bomb thrower, whether it was tobacco or integration or other issues. Talk about some of the courage he displayed. I think one of the reasons he would like winstonsalem, gordon greg who owned the paper really thought the paper as a Public Service and he was willing to let carol sign the paper. I think that independence was something that he really wanted and appreciated. So, he did make the Winston Salem journal a wonderful paper. We would go back and look at this early version. Its amazing the coverage of that paper. Its unfortunately nowadays its hard to find. If you can find it at the local level. But when he went back as editor and publisher in 1963, it was right on the cusp of the demise of the Tobacco Industry if you remember, this Surgeon Generals report came out saying that tobacco was bad for your health. He is in winstonsalem, a town that is basically run by the tobacco folks and a lot of people hired by r. J. Reynolds. He didnt hold back. He wrote all about the Surgeon Generals report. He put it out there that it was dangerous and he took a lot of heat for that but he said, i feel the people in this town need to know. They need to know of these dangers and so on and so forth. Similarly with other issues in the 50s there became desegregation schools. It was clear that he and peggy were very much in favor of the desegregation. There was a book where it was said it was previously talked about peggy how distressing it was the segregation in North Carolina at the time. He, instead of being a flamethrower, he managed the coverage of that to push desegregation but to not inflame it more. There were riots in Winston Salem and he would go to the office and spend the night to make sure things didnt get out of control and was in very careful coverage, careful of the coverage. He pushed the agenda. He was able because he was so respected to push the desegregation agenda forward. Issue after issue during that time, you can say he did that and had a major influence on a town in the south too. He was the leading newspaper person in the south of the time. I was in North Carolina in the 60s. North carolina had its problems and they had riots and demonstrations but it fared better in those turbulent times. Than any other, certainly much better than virginia or south carolina. A lot of it had to do with terry sanford. He made a big difference down there but a lot of it had to do with these papers. There was a number of other good newspapers in North Carolina but mr. Carol Winston Salem journal was provably the best. I think they had a huge influence. Im going to come back to one or two things in winstonsalem but he worked for eight years on the New York Times Deputy Bureau chief although i think. I knew him at least and he told me he had never known a newspaperman that had better judgment than wally carol. Thats what he trusted him. If you havent read that wall street journal review, david went to work for the New York Times in 1981 and it was 18 years after mr. Carol left and he said around the office they would ask questions when it was a burning issue, what would wally do . It was a huge impact he had there. But he wrote in 1968 one of the really landmark influential editorials in the winstonsalem journal, frontpage on the vietnam war. Mr. Carol was a cold warrior. He was he grew up with the cold war, george cans and the vietnam war back then for those of you who werent around, it really did split the country. The democrats were split too. Johnson was the president and the cold war years were back to the stone age. He wrote this editorial that came not from the west but argued that was not an american issue. We are so influential, showed it to Lyndon Johnson and two weeks later Lyndon Johnson announced he was not going to run for reelection. He was going to focus on ending that war. Tell us a little bit more about that extraordinary interaction. Its true. I think it was probably the thing he was most famous for because when he wrote the editorial in 1968, it not only appeared in the winstonsalem journal. It was picked up all over the country. The timing was perfect because johnson was under a lot of pressure. There has been some significant defeats in vietnam and other things. I think this was part of his, why he was so great. His timing and understanding of World Affairs was so great he produced it right at the right time. It was a very laid out point by point what it was not in the interest of the United States to stay in vietnam. It was very rational. It was very clear and it was a very convincing document obviously for johnson but across the country too. I think this is one of the things he is most remembered for and people that rumor that editorial. I talk to people that say i remember reading that editorial. It was really significant. Carol never went into tv or radio because he had a real belief in the power of words. It sounds a little archaic now given the world we are living in, the Digital World we live in but i think the quote where do we go from here translated, is the single example of the power of words to influence policy at least in carols life because it really did have that kind of influence. You wonder, if any reporter writer today would be able to have the same kind of influence because he was so well respected and people would say, yes, this is a great article but only on a par for wallace carol. This was not. I think you could write the same editorial city about afghanistan or iraq. Lets stay with he also won a Pulitzer Prize because he was devoted conservationist and environmentalist. I think later in his career both he and peggy had bought a piece of land in the country up in the mountains and i think they became very interested in environmental causes in preserving the environment. There was stripmining in western North Carolina that was being developed. One of his reporters, the woman who basically was not in Investigative Reporter but he put her on the case anyway. I woman reported. He had more women reporters than most newspapers back then. One of the great things. Was much better than his dear friends on that. I think you are right. Anyway, he put this woman into the story and she said, i started to call the Mining Companies and they lied to me. As soon as they lie to me i said, okay. We are going to get them. Wallace carroll said, okay, lets go after this and for about four or five months, almost every day they had something in about the stripmining that was going on and what it was dangerous to the environment and so on and so forth. Finally, the company, they said, okay. We are going to stop this. The company pulled out and there has been no stripmining in western North Carolina, which is a beautiful part of the country. And then in 1971 he was a member of the Pulitzer Prize, the Pulitzer Board for several years. In 1971 the paper submitted their submission to the board for the Pulitzer Prize and carroll said he could be involved in the negotiations but they were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their environmental reporting. For a paper there, that was a huge wonderful thing, for a local paper and original paper to get that kind of a claim. I think it was very well deserved. It was. I was in washington and we would have lunch periodically. One time he told me, what a good job you are doing covering washington. He was one of my idols and he said, let me ask you a question. Why do you do those Silly Television shows . And i said, well, the town is changing. You are reaching a different audience. To expand, blah blah blah. He said, i see, midlife crisis. When mr. Carroll retired from he didnt exactly retire. Among other things he thought he taught people like you. He was engaged in a lot of other important endeavors. The challenge of writing this mans life, there was a so many incredible things he did because he lived to 95. He had a long and very wonderful life. He taught at wake forest and he also was very involved in the preservation of the new river. He and peggy both together. They took this on as a cause. At the time, the river was to be. The Power Company for many years had been working to get the river in several places. They started basically an effort to stop the dams and get the river preserved. I think peggy was also this was her thing in a big way too. One thing he did was, he wrote every editor he knew in the country. That was a lot of editors. It was like 150 editors from small towns newspapers to the wall street journal, Washington Post and he said, we need to really write something. You need to write something in your paper that says this is a national issue. We cannot let these rivers be. People living in the banks need to be safe and this is one of the Countries National drivers and we cannot have it damaged. What happened is, all of these editors, and in the book i have quotes. They didnt really know him personally but they knew who Wallace Carroll was. They just rent editorials all over the country calling for preserving the river and it turned it for a local regional issue into a national issue. I think that was his big contribution to that. In 1976, the river was taken into the National Scenic rivers act so it was preserved and peggy and Wallace Carroll were at the white house when jerry ford signed that bill and then it has now become, as many of you know, the new river is in the valley and is now the countrys latest National Park protected forever, which happened in 2020. So, this was sort of their legacy i think among other things that they really worked on. Smoke it wasnt easy to get that through congress. I dont think without mr. Carroll. Tell me any other store you want to tell before we go. If you can do in 60 seconds. We are going to go to your questions but i dont want to leave out anything that i skipped over that you want to touch on and then we will get better questions out there. I think there is something about Wallace Carroll going back to your original question, why did i write it . I sent out to people who didnt know me from anybody but were very very. And really high up, formal commentor on magazines. Wall street journal. And i say, hi, im mary and i just wrote this book and i thought if i hear anything back it will be a miracle. I swear it was the most gratifying thing because every last person because of Wallace Carroll he passed away in 22 wrote me back and said, you need to get this out. This is wonderful. We need to remember what Wallace Carroll was and the message he taught us and the influence he made in a very quiet way. On a generation of generalists. So thats one story that i wanted to get out and then the last is that, it goes to when you are a College Student and you dont really know what you are doing and you are nervous and anxious. I was working as an intern at the wall street journal sorry at the Winston Salem journal. Not even close. And i was sitting in the corner and i was really nervous and not knowing what i was doing and i was in the newsroom and that time, it was very busy and noisy and everybody it was full and running in and out and all of a sudden everything got quite. And i thought, whats going on. I looked around and everybody in the newsroom had stood up and i went, what . And i looked down and Wallace Carroll had walked in the back door and as soon as he walked in, he didnt say anything. Everybody stopped working and stood up and was just like this. And i told this story to Donald Graham who is wonderful. He knew Wallace Carroll and he helped a lot with the book. He was an intern there. He loved this because he said, boy, reference in the newsroom is very scarce. He wrote in the 60s i guess about journalism about the tyranny of objectivity thinking about the mccarthy era. Its something that is as applicable today as it is back then. No one would argue that you ought to give equal treatment to mothers for drunk driving and i think we get so caught up in this ridiculous term of objectivity. You want to be fair and he understood that. Its a brilliant piece of journalism. I am going to tell my story, when i worked my last year of college at the winstonsalem journal, parttime, it was really a very joyful newsroom. It was a great newsroom and it was my last year and i wrote to a number of places to see if they would hire me. I had been offered a job at the wisdom salem journal which was a good place to be. The wall street journal had flown me up to new york and offered me a job and i accepted. I told them, they were very nice about it and the weekend, about three weekends before school was out, there was a journalism contest. I went down there they pulled me aside and said we would like to offer you a job. I said thank you but i accepted a job at the wall street journal. They said is the biggest mistake you made in your life. They are notorious for taking people to new york and you never hear from them again. My career is over before it has begun. And i came back and monday morning i went and asked if i could see mr. Carroll and i went in and i told him the story and i said, i dont know if its possible if your job offer is still there. And he really didnt get angry but he said that man doesnt know what hes talking about. He said that is so dumb. There is no paper in the country that better achieves its objectives than the wall street journal. Stay there for one year or 10 years, you will be a better generalist. So i decided to stay for 40. I wouldnt say that without mr. Carroll. Lets throw this open mary. Tt make their way. We have some people coming do have some people coming up . I cant read my own writing. I took notes and i have no idea what i was saying. The ruston carroll relationship was an extraordinary one. I sought tom the other day who said there is no one that my dad had greater respect for professional admiration or fondness for then wally carroll. It was a very special one. One store you do have, please come on up. I will continue with my story later. Go ahead. Tell us who you are. My name is richard smith. Im an ordinary citizen. As he went through the early part, the really exciting and do part of carrolls story struck me and this happens here at book talks here from time to time that exciting things like this say, well this would make a great movie. Its very cinematic material. I dont know whether you have already addressed that but it also occurred to me that as you go on in the story it gets less daring and more intellectual and more newsroom and so forth. Just your comments on the movie worthiness of the book and whether you would want any movie to cover a piece of it. Who is going to play pat . Well, i mean, sure. It would be wonderful if that happened but i do think. Henry fonda would be. I do think that there is an adventure story there. If i were to do the book over again, i might just focus on one part of his life because it really was so many things that were substantial and interesting. But, when i listen to these tapes about his adventure and this trip he took, i think it very much is something that could be turned into something that would be very interesting as a movie. But every author hopes that and, you know . You could actually take different parts of it. You could take even parts of it and make it into something because it was such a rich life. I appreciate your point about derringdo in the 30s but standing up for integration in the south in the 60s, taking on the Tobacco Companies or at least honest reporting about it , coming out against the vietnam war, i dont know if he called derringdo but it was certainly very courageous. The character in the movie would change but its a great thing. I mean it would be something that reviewers would take note of and if it were done while it would be great. If you had met Wallace Carroll, you would beand this was part of the fun of researching it, you would never have thought he was the kind of guy who would be doing these kinds of risk taking adventures , travel here and there. He was very quiet, very dignified, and that was part of the fun of it. Im looking at pat because it was. He had incredible daring and in the spanish war and other places, he really risked a lot of he barely survived. So, thats part of the interesting thing about him. Someone else is here. He hea pillar of and i used to be hi, im frank record and im a friend of marys and michaels. Im a big fan of the book. Mary, i want you to talk a little bit about the book he wrote about russia, that soviet union. And its impact on the u. S. , thinking about reviews of the americas after world war ii and how he thought about soviet union from his experiences there with stalin and others and about the aftermath of that , how it affected him. And also one more question, a little further on about what he did land in hawaii, pearl harbor , i think he wrote some article or editorial regarding japanese americans and their role, that they might have played, in the attack or whatever and i think those are things he might have regretted later. Im wondering how some of those events, those articles might have influenced him later and some of the things he wrote or thought about including. Thats a very good question because we sort of painted him as rather saintlike. He did make a couple mistakes and i think he admitted it and he did regret it or you could call that mistakes, first the soviet union. When he was in the league of nations in the 1930s, he actually watched at that time, the delegate to the league of nations from the soviets, a man named maxine. He was very impressed by him because he thought that soviet union was the only real country that was looking for peace in the league of nations. I think he had a little bit of a predilection to be sympathetic to the soviet union and what he went in and 1941, he was there for three and half months. He went to the front line and he was there for the sole purpose and i will tell you why the sole purpose to find out, could the soviets stand up to the . And we knew very little about the soviet union army back then because stalin would not let anybody in. He had purged the senior staff of the soviet army and in fact, in the book i found george marshall, when the soviets invaded, when the invaded the soviet union called in a bunch of reporters and executive editors and said, we dont know whats going on there, can you help us find out . And one of them was Wallace Carroll voss who said, the u. S. Government intelligence needs to know what the status is of the soviet army and if they are going to be able to hold off this onslaught. Marshall himself felt , only for a couple of months, the thought was that they are going to be overrun and so on and so forth. When he went to the soviet union, that was his purpose. To find out. Therefore, when he went to the front lines and he observed, i only have my eyes to observe and the people i can contact. He came back and said yes, his feeling was that soviet union was going to be able to hold off and they were committed and behind it and then he wrote a book in 1942, the book is called we are in this with russia. He said he felt they would do that. Now, he did not go into the issues with stalin, which we have now come to know in terms of what stalin was doing to his people. And how horrible stalin was. He had met him and interviewed him. I think therefore later in 1945 when all of this came about, he regretted that he had written in such a glowing report on the soviet union. I think thats one reason he became a real cold warrior. The more he found out about what was really going on in the soviet union, the more he recognized. In his book in 1942, he said, i dont think the soviet union after the war is going to want to invade Eastern Europe or do any of that. They have too many internal problems. He was wrong. He was wrong about that and he felt bad about that. And i think, you know as time went on, he joined and he was very much recognized that the questions were a problem and he was honest about that. In 1949 he actually wrote an article in which he said that if the germans, when they invaded ukraine, if they had accepted the help of the ukrainians who hated the soviets , then the germans could have really gone in. But, hitler wouldnt do that. Instead of accepting the help of the soviets, the ukrainians who hated the soviet union, he shipped them off in cattle cars and so on and so forth. Thats the first part of his wrong that i think he learned and changed. You have to put into context of the time. Could hardly come back and report out that we shouldnt be working with the soviets to see hitler because that was the main goal. On the japanese thing, this is really interesting, he did write an article which said that there were japanese spies on hawaii around pearl harbor that helped and aided in the attack because he was well known and basically the only reporter on the ground at the time, the story ran all over the country. It did leave an impact that was unfortunate. At the time, the u. S. Led by people in the Congress Republicans in the congress were very vociferous in their hatred of the japanese and this set into, you know, that feeling that we had to round up american japanese and put them in camps and they were a danger. This is also something i think he deeply regretted moving ahead because i dont think he recognized the impact that might have but he did get the story confirmed by a military officer at the time. He did get out in the field and talked to a lot of people who told him this. You know, he got it wrong but he wasnt the kind of reporter that would just do it without having sources and getting it okayed. It was certainly unfortunate but in the context of the times, one of the great proponents of the camps was earl. The Supreme Court chief justice. Im not defending, i think he was wrong and it was unfortunate. My name is rebecca cooper. I was a former journalist and now work for a nonprofit. My generation of journalists read whatever books elma tells us to read. Im excited to read your book and right now im rereading catherine grahams great autobiography and we forget what all the fame of watergate, so many of the crises that she faced during her tenure not only on the editorial side but on the business and publishing side and i just wonder what you think was his biggest crisis or a couple of the biggest crisis that he faced in the newsroom during his tenure. Thats a good question. I will jump in. Everybody faces crisis. Theres no question of that. He would have faced a lot more if he had been there 20 years later. I mean, the newspaper business, the local journalists in america is dying. Its one of the great sad stories pick wall street journal, Washington Post New York Times is doing great. Local papers are not and i think having a great editor like mr. Carroll would have made of great difference. Mary, you jump in if you think you faced a crisis like kathy graham. I do think he lived in a time where you had all your owners like in North Carolina, gordon gray, who, they had the means and they had him do what he wanted to do. They saw the newspaper as a Public Service and every profit was put back into the paper. Gordon great never took assent. Thats a different world. In terms of a specific crisis, when he was in the New York Times, there was a change of management at the times and he and Scotty Reston had a lot of independent. They did what they wanted. They got to be that the times was certain to come down to washington, editing their copy. Max frankel said, a famous reporter who was there, reading their copy after it had been edited in new york was hard to keep done your lunch because they changed it so much. Carroll didnt like this and he wrote an article about where he interviewed john f. Kennedy and new york wanted him to put a quote in from kennedy that Wallace Carroll had not heard and he said no i did not hear him say that and the New York Times ran it anyway and shortly thereafter, Wallace Carroll left. He said i can see the writing on the wall and this is not the independence that i want. That was a little bit of a crisis for him. In a sense, having to stick to his guns in terms of the kind of reporter he wanted to be. As the Washington Bureau chief for new yorkbased paper i am shocked there is tension between new york and washington. I hated the best of. Whos next . Hi, i just want to ask a quick question about quo vadis. You were saying he didnt know the impact of the japanese stories they wrote. Did he know this editorial was going to be a galvanizing piece or did he just write it out of his daily business and it came out or was he aware this is going to be a massive break and its going to change things . Thats a good question. I have to say, im not sure. What i think he did know and i mentioned it earlier, his timing was impeccable and he may have thought, okay, now is the time to write this kind of article. I think he hoped that it would be influential, but i dont know that he wrote it knowing it would be as influential as it was. You have to understand, he knew everybody in the administration. He was best friends with atchison and they respected him a lot. They put the editorial right in front of johnson and said you need to read this. So, its hard to predict whether he knew what would happen but in a way it was the right guy at the right time and the right message for his timing doesnt just happen. You have to know whats going on and have a real handle on Public Policy and international affairs. We have time for at least one more. Hi, i am wallaces great granddaughter and so when i was growing up. Wow. Thats okay. But, i didnt really hear a ton about him growing up and i havent read the book yet but i will i heard about my moms dad john carroll and his experience in newspapers. I was wondering whether if you knew whether wallaces career had influence on johns and whether or not you talk about that in the book at all. I do talk about it somewhat in the book but i think, what is it . Eat the fruit doesnt fall far from the tree. I think the more i learned about john carroll the more i realized that they were very similar in the way they approached the profession and their integrity in their courage. I do think, this is an understated family, looking at pat. They are not people that go around and say, im great. I do think that the messages of Wallace Carroll really were fulfilled and played out through john carroll. I think there is very little difference in the way they approached journalism. Also, i can say, and the way they were beloved. I talked to many journalists who worked with john and they really respected and really learned and thought very highly of him. I would add that your grandfather and your great grandfather, they were so strikingly similar. They were just both softspoken but with a will of iron, tremendous integrity, courage. And as mary said, they just commanded such respect and adulation from the people that worked with them. Talk to people from the l. A. Times, the lexington paper when he took on the university of kentucky in sports. Thats like taking on tobacco. So, i think mary is right. It didnt drop very far from the tree or whatever the cliche is. Lets take one more. Hi, im rick collins. , classmate of marys from wake forest. Another classmate here to. So, i did not have the benefit of having Wallace Carroll as a professor. In fact, mary probably wouldnt have liked me to be in class anyway. But, i would be really interested in hearing Wallace Carroll, the professor. Just react to that however you want. Its true, my old friend meg walsh is here. She did have Wallace Carroll as a professor and i say in the book, he was very quiet and he was you know, i say in the book that he was very quiet and would listen to what you had to say. You did not want to appear stupid. Lets put it that way. Not that he ever said anything threatening or was trying to be intimidating in any way, but there was something about his presence that you just kind of new and i also included the book, i interviewed a couple of former students who all said the same thing, you just wanted to do well for the guy. Even as a student, you wanted to write the best paper you could and did not want to screw up in any way. Even though he was sort of quiet and dignified, he also was very welcoming. He took us up to his farm in the country. We would have picnics with peggy and him. Like i said, you are lucky if you run across somebody like that when you were young and impressionable. I think he gave a lot to those students. He taught for 10 years, but only taught one class. I have talked to those students. Sam ervin. Relevant today. One of his students i talked to, she said, everything seemed relevant to the real world outside the wake forest bubble. Everything we would learn would be important. I remember how regally he stood, how elegantly he dressed, and how regularly he strolled across the campus for his swim sessions. This particular commentator went on to win two Pulitzer Prizes. She is a journalist in North Carolina. This has been terrific. I dont want to cut it off, but nicole will give me the hook if i dont. Are you going to cheat and get one in . No. Anyway, read the book. He was an extraordinary man. He changed so many lives, including mine. Mary captured him. My only regret in reading the book was that i wish i had know more about him before. He really was the centuries witness. Thank you all very much. [ applause ] if you are enjoying American History tv, sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive the weekly schedule of upcoming programs. Scanned the code to order your copy today or go to cspan shop. Org. Every purchase help support our nonprofit organizations. Weekends on cspan 2 are an intellectual feast. Every saturday, and. In history tv documents americas story