International the boys on the bus is required reading and i have the pleasure and the challenge one of those boys sounds like you know pie chamberlin. [laughter] looking forward to a terrific discussion this evening now i have the pleasure of introducing the chair of the Heritage Team the 87th president the bureau chief of gaylord news bureau and a dear friend. [applause] thank you so much. The role of the National Press club history is the legacy of the 112 year history as well as digitalism history in washington. The history of the club called tales from the club are scheduled to be published by the History Press and explorers those of an added impact on history. Thisis event tonight was proposed by our moderator as part of the growth and for generations for the greatgrandfather who by the way invented the telephone. [laughter] and is now editor e and publisher ofam American Heritage magazine of young historians and also the publisher of the history books and the thirdgeneration member. Now well introduce our distinguished panel and then to open it up with questions i will pass around the microphone so it can be picked up by a cspan. If you ramble the microphone might disappear. Please join us for a discussion and thank you so much for doing this. [applause] congratulations on your book. We are pleased with this crowd you will have a lively discussion of journalism specifically about the experiences of distinguished panelce members. When the boys and the bus came out to describe a whole gaggle of political reporters pontificate hers hacks and had chipman all crammed like monkeys. Dogging the candidates. That may be a littlee overthetop but and how we learn about political campaigns and those who bring the stories to us like a urjournalist on our panel. And columnist for the Dallas Morning News and then to cover the Mcgovern Campaign for ap and looking over it is past president of the Gridiron Club and the Correspondents Association and those that are appropriately the adventures of the boy on the bus. The reports to be known as the kid on the bus even though he worked for the boston globe for four years after the campaign to help manage school desegregation. The washington correspondent for the globe president ial campaign. A frequent commentator on pbs known for insight and handsome bowties. And thosels most recently and connie chong last but not least were delighted she is here n a true pioneer only the second female coanchor to coanchor Network Newscast as part of cbs evening news. And then nbc and abc and that is in demand. And with the boys on the bus always showing up wellprepared bright and early with microphone ready. And never hung over. [laughter] so first of all tell us briefly how you came to be on the campaign in 72. And to join the ap write out a Journalism School i was assigned to the tampa bureau three days after i was assigned there a spot opened up in the new Orleans Bureau i thought that is more interesting than tampa. We didnt know they were about to desegregate the schools so for the next three years i covered this desegregation and in 1963 after a brief tenure courtesy of the new Orleans Bureau chief of how long ago this was it was six months before kennedy was killed although before he was shot and then said come in at 1030. Obviously i wasnt critical at that point. Virtually the whole year and after that i stayed a couple of years but i went to the caltimore sun at the end of 1975 and thought i would always go to work for a newspaper. A former editor of mine became the editor of the Dallas Morning News. It lasted 28 years as bureau chief and retired ten years ago but im still writing in the column i wrote all those years. George wallace in 1968 in 72 i started in New Hampshire where i met this one im pretty sure, so that was my second. We shared this a little bit ago but its off the record. She had a lot more experience. I have just started at cbs news in my mid20s. Only been there a few months and i was suddenly assigned cover George Mcgovern president ial campaign. I wass really surprised that it was great i was a cub reporter. Usually there was a first stream correspondent and he was smart and respected by the print journalist who didnt respect any. We were people who talked for a living, didnt think about what we were saying. Most people respected him. There was a Second String and i would be then bumped down so i called and covered for radio. That was my job. And i obviously didnt know what i was doing but i persevered. Theres a lot of interesting detail in the book. What did you think when it came out and briefly why do you think we are still reading it today . I was just happy my name was in it. I didnt like the picture much but its better than no picture. I think it captures a time and place when somehow i got a good romantic aspect of it. There was a sort of romance about this campaign almost up to the point she diedos three years ago. I dont think much has in some ways. Its the same today. One of my favorite moments towards the end what came to be known as the most Senior Network people, didnt come up during the general. One of the things i learned is how little it worked. For some of us that have corresponded responsibilities in those days, the arrival was very much to be appreciated because the good ones was doing your job for a day but i remember towards the end, two of the most hawkish who was famous for his association with kissinger at the time and that mcgovern people were tough with that sort of thing and they showed up thinking it was 1960 it immediately showed the candidates playing an it usherep to have a drink with the nominee. It was cleveland and they told craft and mr. Allsup that we would be writing. In we were animals not to be respected i think car think carg foot. It was the backups and tv crews and when you ar youre thd person in the organization it wasnt only crafted but it shows in some ways things haveme not changed. One of the people was exiled was bob novak. You would think if anything changed i would remind you of the story the other day about the npr reporter who wasnt allowed to travel with pompeo. That part has not changed. I will never forget that mcgoverns plans. The dakota queen to point away from the tarmac in cleveland and everybody waving out the window. A lot of younger people today it must be difficult for them to pass on what it was like for us to file articles when there was no computer, email, no cell phones. Carl g had more gizmos they than anybody else. I remember coming back from south dakota where they had their famous meeting and told everyone he was going to dump eagleton but this is a story of my technology. They had written the story from the morning papers. They said you give me your copy and i will find a phone. It would have tbut to find a pae and i said you go and i will find us a payphone. Sometimes the secret service guarded them. What did you do for the radio on a payphone . The receiver part you had to be able to unscrew it and use your alligator clip for a little phony recorder and it was hard to. I think recall being asked over. For the film you would have to get that back to new york well before seven. I had a notorious story they said you have to tell us because it shows how aggressive and brutal you were. Little old me, i wasnt that way, once i . So i will tell you quickly because in those days you had to fly to a location where it could be indeed developed and sent or literally flown back to new yo york. I cant do this. I was always accused of trying to go around the big guy whether that was first string or Second String. David was supposed to show me around, show me the ropes and everything and then i kept going around trying to sell directly. This time, my father had a heart attack and they said you can come home. I said great, but since i fly into tham thefly into the locate film instead of having him do the report, why dont i do it on the evening news. And theyo went no. You are outrageous and it went all through the bureau and everyone was appalled. That still happens in tv. Every year as Andrea Mitchell and chuck todd . Its cutthroat. One thing i can add, first of all in the world of print, there were portable typewriters. I had an underwood that dated back to the 1930s. You had little typewriters in into the tape recorder was just beginning to be miniaturized. In 1968 for print paper, it was ridiculous because people were taking notes but there was Something Different that is long gonbut is longgone because of tf monopolies and communication. Once you had a nominee, they had a monster from the sky at t whose job was to make sure wherever you stop there were several rows of telephones that word so w we didnt have to figt them. A couple of times i wrote stories in the middle of nowhe nowhere. The Western Union guy he would take it into their wouldbe operators at the next stop who would do the transmission and all of that is gone today but i want to add something to the point about life for you because perhaps what is different from now if this was not the gone into in 1972 saw the arrival. One absolutely fabulous correspondent who was just marvelous especially in New Hampshire and later at the convention, Michelle Clark who we lost in a plane crash. Of the equal Opportunity Commission was putting great pressure on the network to hire women and minorities and so cbs news which was in the neanderthal ears, and still kind of is how hired for women and in one fell swoop Michelle Clark and me, a chinese person, a nice jewish girl with blond hair and sylvia with blond hair. It looks like one of those tickets in the democratic party. There was one other thought had been a print reporter for the newspaper and arrived on the scene in 1972 and lit up the set in the convention. Connie would go through a stone wall but then you saw the story. It was a generation thing at a time. They were totally comfortable with it most of us in personal life fort. Political life had become comfortable with the movement is gathering steam into this but were older guy that had traveled with women in television. Tom married Susan Spencer was a force to be reckoned with on her own as a Television News correspondent. Trying to think of a career and wonder if there is a way to have a meaningful professional life to see these three that long ago. It was the breakthrough and it remains in a lot of respect you there were a few women covering the campaign and by 80 there were few women covering the campaign and everything changed. Elizabeth was there from the new yorker. Elizabeth rarely came out at that point. I read her when she wrote for the star and i used to watch her because i always thought she was an incredible writer and i was such a poor writer i would be sitting there in the middle of the night and we would be the only ones there and i was just trying to come up with something mundane so that i could convey what has happened and she was flailing away in the middle of the night and i would watch her out of the corner ofng my eye. She had already achieved this status but she was a character, too we were in a press room and since mary isnt here to jump down my throat, she might have had a couple at dinne of dinnere the returns [laughter] she was a boston tough talking now and very fastidious about her appearance. Her hair was always done. There we were in the newsroom as the return started to come in that night. She was on the phone and a bunch of us were watching this siggerud at getting closer and closer to her hair and all of a sudden it lit up. Mary liked young men to carry her bags on this occasionbased bring forward and poured water. [laughter] being the only woman, there was a lot of game playing but i was used to that because it was an everyday affair and they would see the need to Movement Today but back then it was a daily occurrence and all of you know what im talking about. Can you tell yours first. Remember of all the things the pioneers did that helped establish the idea of women doing this, and one of the things was they were one of the boys and i remember one night during the general election we were somewhere and sometimes we would have a couple w before we turned in. Connie was pretty good about hanging out with us a little bit. I realized that was how they were getting your story. [laughter] she never said who i was in bed with. [laughter] he said when i realized i was breaking stories right and what did you were breaking story is right and left, you go down to the bar into phuket over japan like on the campaign, then they might be able to play you something. So there we are, three or four of us including connie and how many times have you seen this happen started to hone in and awkwardly making passes and connies direction. I was struck first of all by how calm and cool she was as if she didnt even notice the guy and he kept coming back the way they do sometimes. He would come back and was starting again and i was just starting to get that out of my chair when connie gave him one of the most withering this tears ive ever seen in my life and said a line that has stayed with me forever. Said connie, look, you dont want to go to bed with me, you would just be horny 20 minutes later. [laughter] we were emailing back and forth and he said he had a story. I had forgotten it. [laughter] i have no memory anymore. I forgot it, but i had to develop a little repertoire because there were so many of these things coming up every d day. Roger mudd reminded me when he was working on his book he says jim of the New York Times and lets see, another one working at the times before he came to the post and i think it was the Biltmore Hotel on the phone, the kind of oldfashioned payphone witwithin the accordion glassb. I was talking to someone i had been dating and they came up and pressed their noses harassing me and so they pushed their way in i could see their belt buckles they were at that height. To get rid of them i pulled their fly is down. He said did you do that and i said i think so. [laughter] on that note, thats a hard one to follow. [laughter] did you feel you had a lot of access im just curious how when the journalists were covering a campaign they would get close to the candidate enough that they felt almost possessive for something after they tanked in the polls seeing a group of his journalist knocked down five rounds of whiskey because their guy was out. That is one of the things about 19,721st of all we are on the same playing with the candidates and the staff and there are no. Theres. You can go off and talk to mcgovern. I remember being in New Hampshire and early january 1972. I rode around with him in a car and maybe the only person in the car was the driver. I dont know if you want me to tell the story, he wa she was a thousand behind eagleton and they had a press conference where there were treatments for depression including electric shock treatment you think what is the next cycle and i saw the postdispatch going to the cabinet and said ive got to figure out how to get an interview. I found out somehow he was playing tennis so i went over to the tennis court and asked if i could talk with him and he said sure you couldnt get within 10 miles of the candidate today. Most cases you dont apply fly on the same plane with them so i went back to the press room and had one of those little tape recorders they couldnt afford we had one of these big things one for the two of us and i got it for my colleague not telling him why i wanted it because i didnt want to tell anyone. And they interviewed mcgovern and in the course of the interview, i asked him what he thinks of the public reaction to the announcement and he had been very supportive when i asked that question he said we will have to wait and see. Hes still supporting eagleton. We will have to wait and see how the public reacts. A Simple Service lead, totally innocuous. I filed it and now you have to understand the communications in those days half of the staff is in south dakota, half is in washington. They barely have phone communication back and forth. They dont have wire or internet and have no way to see my story for hours and hours and when they see my story they go crazy. Hes coming back from eagleton. We have to do something about it. Mcgovern says i wont deny it and press secretaries as i dont think you can do that. His solution was to put out a statementlu saying im a thousa behind eagleton. The statement was put on the wall at the press room into the prison here is sitting in the third row. [applause] she had red hair then. On the eagleton mcgovern thing, his point overall we failed the story we fail to transport how manipulative, i love eagleton but how manipulative he was to try to stay on the ticket. And then how skillfully manipulative mcgovern was in trying to grease the skids to get rid of him without having press conference to say im getting rid of the guy. There was a confusion. But to that point all of this was a farce and not genuine drama and that is the larger point he was trying to make in the book. Because there is something wrong because in many respects about drugs and booze head sex is Hunter Thompson who can make a campaign more real by going off to pluto in blat and back that he had discovered the relays mind muskie was a boring candidate stiff as a board that somebody had smuggled into new england this drug from n brazil and then we would go on the nose which could be like this. Annoyed by his stature. And that these were more real. And that is tims message. And wholesale decision about everyone. That one of the questions wrestling with was this one. So how does the whole institution have been dead wrong quirks its not whether he is a good guy or bad guy but the situation. On practically the eve of the New Hampshire primary there was a massive structure. And alive and well. We are beginning to have a debate among ourselves usually in b