Those boys, the legendary high chamberlain of upi. [laughing] [applause] sounds like a lot of you knew him. Looking forward to a terrific discussion this evening and now i have the pleasure of introducing the chair of the National Press club history and heritage team, the 87th president of the National Press club, the bureau chief of the gaylord hughes Washington Bureau or university of oklahoma, and a dear friend, mr. Gil klein. [applause] thanks so much, mike. The thrill of the National Press club history and the Heritage Group is the legacy of the clubs 112 year history as well as to explore the history of journalism especially in washington. We are pleased that a new history of the club called come hails from the National Press club, is scheduled to be published by the history press. It explores events that happen at the club who have had an impact on American World history. This event tonight was proposed by our moderator, edwin grosvenor, who himself is part of the Great Washington journalism family. For generations they published National Geographic magazine, founded by his greatgrandfather, Alexander Graham bell. Who by the way and that is the telephone. He is not editor and publisher of the American Heritage magazine, a magazine that has inspired generations of young historians. Ed is also the publisher of 13 history excuse me, ed is also the author and editor of 13 history books, and hes the thirdgeneration club member. Ed will introduce our distinguished panel who not only were on the campaign chronicled by the book the boys on the bus but also covered president ial politics in many of the 12 elections at apollo. Well have about one hour with the panel and then well open it up to questions from the floor and will pass around a microphone so your question can be picked up by cspan. I ask you to ask succinct question. If you ramble, the microphone might disappear. Immediately after the program please join us for a reception for our guests. Ed, thanks so much for doing this. The floor is yours. [applause] thank you, gil. And also congratulations on your book that just came on lafayette square. I dont know how you found somebody good history stories, amazing, great book. Welcome everybody. Were really pleased with this crowd. Were going to have a lively discussion tonight about political campaigns come specifically about the experiences of our three distinguished handle members. When the boys on the bus book can let a reviewer to subscribe a whole gaggle of political reporters, pundits, pontificated, network, glenn boys, drunk, fornicators, hacks, hatchet men, cumbers all crammed like monkeys with typewriters in press bus frenetically dogging the candidates all looking for a piece of the story. That may be a little overthetop, but the book really did provide a fascinating window into how we learn about political campaigns and the people who bring those stories to us like the distinguished journalists on our panel. For most of you, they dont need an introduction that i will give brief ones anyway. Carl leubsdorf is at dallas news and was there for nearly three decades. On the bus he covered the Mcgovern Campaign for ap which gave him special status with reporters looking over his shoulder to see what his lead was for the next morning. Carl is a past president of both the Gridiron Club in the White House Correspondence Association where he had the distinction of being roasted by jon stewart. Carl recently published his memoirs entitled appropriately, adventures of a a boy on the b. Tom oliphant you all know, cruz reported tom was known as the kid on the bus. Even though he had worked for the boston globe already for four years. After the 72 campaign he helped manage the globes coverage of School Desegregation in boston which won a pulitzer prize. Tom was later the long time washington correspondent for the globe and reported on ten president ial campaigns. Hes been a frequent commentator on pbs and the networks known for his insight with and handsome bowties. [inaudible] [laughing] hes also written five books including most recently the road to camelot with curtis wilkie. Connie chung, last but not least, were so delighted connie has come down from new york to join us. A true pioneer, she was only the second female coanchor to coanchor and Network Newscast as part of cbs evening news and has also been an anchor and reporter for nbc, abc, cnn and msnbc. Thats in demand. Couldnt hold a job. [laughing] tim krause in the book refers connie disrupted the cozy clubby male world of the boys on the bus by always showing up well prepared, bright and early, with microphone ready and never hung over. [laughing] never what . And never hung over. Oh, right. Was a real advantage. [laughing] i tell you about that. First of all i i was when if each of you could tell us, just tell us briefly how you came to be on the campaign in 72, where were you in your career at the time . Given most of my career, le since that date i had joined the ap in 1960 out of columbia Journalism School. I was assigned to the tampa bureau. Fortunately three days after i was assigned, a spot opened up into new Orleans Bureau and i think new orleans got to be more interesting than tampa. What he did know was there about to desegregate the schools there and was about to get very interesting. The next two years i covered a lot of desegregation come mostly illegal end of it. In june 1963 after a brief tenure a brief tenure in new york i got to the Washington Bureau, courtesy of my new orleans. You can put in a good word for me. How long ago this was, this was six months before john kennedy was killed, although the day kennedy was shot of doing due to come at 10 30 p. M. When heard what happened i called it, sugar, no . Though, come in at 1030. But as the world war ii generation of journalists begin to retire and die off, spots began to open up. In the mid\60{l1}s{l0}\60{l1}s{l0} i covered the house of representatives for two years. Then i covered the senate for several years. In the 60 campaign i spent some of the campaign covering Hubert Humphreys campaign. By the time 1972 came around i was one of the main ap political writers along with walter, another boy who still is around in north carolina. I was assigned mostly to mcgovern. I covered mcgovern virtually the whole year. After that i stayed with the ap a couple but it went to the Baltimore Sun at the end of 1975. I thought i would probably always go to work for a newspaper and they gave me a good offer to cover politics at the white house. In 1981, a former editor of mine from the ap became the editor of the Dallas Morning News and hired me to be the Washington Bureau chief. As you correctly said i lasted 28 years as bureau chief and i retired ten years ago, but im still writing the column i wrote all those years. Thats how we got to where i got. 1972 was by second of 11 president ial campaigns. I had covered bob kennedy and George Wallace in 1968, but 72 i started in New Hampshire where i met this one, im pretty sure. And so that was my second. Tom and and i are actually t the same age but we didnt we shared a number of thats off the record . That . The number but its off the record. But he had a lot more experience than i did. I had just started at cbs news, and i was in my mid20s. I had only been there a few months and i was suddenly assigned to cover George Mcgovern 72 president ial campaign. I was really surprised, but it was great but i was a cub reporter. The third string. In other words, usually there was a first strain corresponded and that was bruce morton primarily. He was smart and respected by even the print journalist. The print journalists did not respect any television journalist. Truly. We were, people talked for a living, didnt think about what we were saying. We were glamour boys. But bruce was good, and i think most people respected him. There was a Second String, and often that was david, and i would then be bumped up to third banana. So i was i merrily primarily covered the radio. That was my job. I obviously didnt know what i was doing but i persevered. So theres a lot of interesting details in this book. What did you guys think when it came out and why, just briefly why do you think were still reading it today . I was just happy my name was in at. [laughing] i didnt like the picture much, but better than no picture. Im not really sure. I think it captures a time and a place that somehow got a romantic atmosphere about it. Part of it was the Hunter Thompson side of it. The Mcgovern Campaign was one of those things. He carried wednesday. He didnt do very well and yet those this sort of romance about it that Mcgovern Campaign reunions almost up to the point where he died several years ago. I dont think there was much has changed in some ways. In the boys on the bus Timothy Crouse says quotes joe as saying we have to Pay Attention to what Middle America thinks. Really . [laughing] its the same today, right . One of my favorite moments towards the end, what came to be known in our slang as big feet, columnist the most Senior Network people didnt come out all that much during the general. In fact, one of the things i learned about that part of the trade was how little those guys worked. It was mostly where you for some of us who had corresponded responsibilities in those days, the arrival of the big book was very much to be appreciated. Because the good ones would do your job for a day. And you could wrestle is kind of nice. I remember toward the end, two of the most hawkish of the washington colonists, joe kraft who is famous for his association with the kissinger at that time, and the mcgovern people, god bless them, what kind of tough with that sort of thing. And i think they showed up thinking it was 1960 and they would immediately be shown to the candidates claim and ushered up to have a drink with the nominee, blah, blah, blah. It was cleveland, and they told craft and mr. Allsop that it would be riding on what we call does you plane, which [laughing] connie can describe what does you plane was like. We with the press and it was an elite group that could fly on mcgovern splaying and they were often part of the pool mcgovern was playing. But then it was the rest of us, and we were thus. We were animals we were this. Acted like it, too. Yes, we did. I think carl was a bigfoot. No, because he ap didnt have a bigfoot problem. We had a couple people on the plane and the week. The main had about 40 journals, all the major papers were on. It was the backups and the tv crew. When you with a third person with an organization you ended up in the as you play. Also as a funny story that shows in some ways things have not changed. One of the people was exiled to the zoo plane was bob novak, another conservative colonists. Mcgovern didnt like anything you wrote. They put them on the zoo plane. You think everything is changed, i remind you of the story the other day about the npr reporter was not allowed to travel with mike pompeo. Thats about what happened then. I traveled with spiro agnew in the early 70s, the Washington Post of the Baltimore Sun were not allowed to go with him because their editorial policy was little. That will not change. I will never forget the governs plane, called it dakota queen to because the first one was this world war ii plane. He flew the max Bombing Missions during world war ii but anyway, the dakota queen two pulling away from the tarmac at cleveland and everybody waiting byebye out the window at alsop and joe kraft. [laughing] so for a lot of younger people to it must just be difficult for them to fathom what it was like for us to file articles. No computers, no internet, no email, no cell phones, not even facts machines. We all technologically advanced persons covering the nominee in the general was the ap guy. Carl had more gizmos than anybody else. By the way, it shows what a different world it was. For example, i remember coming back from south dakota after the summer senator mcgovern and senator eagleton had their famous meeting and mcgovern had not announced or told everyone he was going to dump eagleton and speedy will get to that story. This is a story about technology. The ap reporter with a written the story for morning papers. In those days we wrote separate stories for morning and afternoon papers. I said you give your copy, all find a phone because we got to mitchell town, there was no filing centers. There were no cell phones. You how to find a pay phone somewhere where you could call your story in. I said you go with mcgovern, all find a pay phone. Sometimes the secret service regarding the payphones and you couldnt get to them. What did you do for radio on a pay phone . Unscrew it. Yes, the receiver part you had to be able to unscrew it and use your alligator clips to your recorder for a little phony recorder. It was really hard to unscrew the payphone. I mean, really hard. I i think i recall being askd over to your place. Yes. Connie, but with the film you would have to get that back to new york well before seven. You would have to send your film back in the morning. Yes. I had a notorious story. My husband told me you have to tell because it just shows how aggressive and brutal you were. Little old me . I wasnt that way, was i . So ill just tell it to you quickly because its true. And those days you had to fly your film to a location where it could be indeed developed, or literally flown back to new york and we would take these rickety planes. Maury, i can do this. I was always accused of trying to go around the big guy, whether it was the first string guy or the Second String guy. David said he was supposed to show me around, show me the ropes and everything, and that i kept going around his back calling new york try to sell stories directly for me to do. This time my father had a heart attack, and so they said you can come home. I said great. But since im flying to the location with the film, instead of having that can do the report, why do i do it . And they went no. You are outrages, and it went all through the pure and everybody was appalled. Whoops, you know . I wasnt supposed to, you know . That still happens in tv. Do you ever hear of Andrea Mitchell and chuck todd . Its cutthroat. But im sorry. The one thing that i can add first of all, in the world of print they were portable typewriters yes. Did you have i had an underwood that i think data to the late 1930s. And you had these little typewriters and you had a paper. The tape recorder was just beginning to be miniaturized so that you could hold it in your hand. In 1968, for print people tape recorders ridiculous because they just got in the way of taking notes and whatever. But there was Something Different that is long gone because of the demise of monopolies in communication. But once you had a nominee, the candidates plane always had a guy from this monster called at t whose job was to make sure that whatever you stopped, there was a big, several rows of telephones that worked. So we didnt have to fight for pay telephone space. They there were Western Union guys. You could write your stories. A couple of times i wrote stories in the middle of nowhere on come i did it once on toilet paper with a pen. And the Western Union guy would take it and there would be operators waiting at the next who would do the telex transmission. Very cool. And all of that is gone today. But he wanted to add something to your point about live for you. Because she really, one of the things about them that perhaps is different from now is this was at the dawn of the women in age. 19 72 saw the arrival of three people. One, and absolute by discourse by as cbs who was just marvelous, special in New Hampshire and later at the convention, Michele Clark who we lost in a plane crash the following year. If i may, she was africanamerican. When i was hired, the equal Employment Opportunities commission was putting great pressure on networks to hire women and minorities, and so cbs and news, which was in the neanderthal years, still kind it is, hired four women in one fell swoop, a black woman, Michele Clark, knee, a chinese person, leslie stahl, a nice jewish girl with blonde hair, and sylvia chase, i stuff with long hair. Were good. And look like one of those tickets in the old new York Democratic party where he always had come yet one of everything. There was one other woman, a third woman that year in 1972 who broke through hilary benn a print order for the hearst newspapers, the primers 1972 lit up the set on the convention with nbc. She is gone, sadly in the early 80s. Thats really all there was. I i mean, connie would go throuh a stonewall for a story, but then you saw the story and you realize it was a generational thing at that time. The younger ones, we had grown up with television. We were totally comfortable with it. Most of us in personal life or political life had to be comfortable with the Womens Movement that was gathering steam. It was the poor older guys who had trouble with women and with television. Tom married a forced to be reckoned with, a correspondent a long time at cbs