Just make sure i have the right one is last call at the Hotel Imperial. The reporters who took on a world at war in conversation with peter slevin and deborah cohen. Deborah and peters books will be available for sale and signing at the book sale and signings tent. An availableforsale and signing at the book sale and sign tent and right side of this building you will see a tent and it is marked in and so they will be available in meeting the afterwards. We also askedyo during the q a time you please use the standing mic here and also a note that this presentation will be recorded by cspan. Deborah cohen is the professor of history at northwestern university. Her previous books include household god, the war come home and family secrets. She writes regularly for the atlantic on subjects ranging from punk rock to world war i photography. Our moderator is a contributing writer to the new yorker and a professor at Northwestern School of journalism. He spent aos decade on washingn post national staff, and seven years as the european correspondent of the miami herald. Ch he is the author of michelle obama, a life. Please join me in welcoming our distinguished guests today. [applause] thank you. Thank you so much for thatks at thanks everyone for being here. Ive been looking forward to this for many weeks. This is a wonderful book. Its both intricate and clarifying which is a rare feat, purely britain and really quite riveting about a time between the wars in europe when some of the momentous events in the 20th century were unfolding and watching this and telling the stories back here. With these remarkable rather crew of reporters who deborah has discovered and shes escalated their lives, both their personal lives and their professional lives. Id love to stop asking about that contrast. You had this moment inth the 19s and 30s when the world is changing. The bolsheviks have come too power in the soviet union. World war i is over. World war ii may be brewing. The rise of s hitler, the rise f mussolini,i, the stock market crash. You focused not the one Winston Churchill or in the journalism world on Edward Murrow or even William Scheidler but these four rather unknown to us now journalists. How did you discover them and choose to spend these tales . So first of all thank you so much, peter come for joining me. It truly opposed to be able to be conversation with you at thanks of a straight one for being here. And so i actually knew this group of people at least a couple of them because the books of john gunther were on my parents and probably also a number of other maybe those of you ines the audience shelves as well. He had more bestsellers, american bestsellers that any author other than the romance novelist from the mid 1930s to the end ofif the 50s. So it used to be you could walk into a a used bookstore withot saying a john gunther book. An Vincent Sheean had written a book in 1935 called personal history that was one of these kind of era defining books, and my father was born in 1930, itd been one of his favorite books. So i chose to focus on a group of american reporters, two of whom whom had actually worked for chicago papers, but all of whom had come from small towns and midwestern cities, and one of them from texas, and that shot off to europe and asia in the early 1920s. And there they would become really the most influential reporters of their day. Shire does it would make his work of the Second World War after it comes same thing with murrow. If youre looking for who was really important in bringing the news home to millions of americans in the 1920s, the 1930s, it was it was this group of folks. And let me just say who they were. So john gunther ive mentioned. Vincent or jimmy sheehan, Dorothy Thompson and mna h. R. Knickerbocker. Note to one as all as nick, possibly inevitably. They did not emerge from these east coast. Did not emerge from the ivy league. He did not have pedigrees at all. Where did they come from . Tell us all been a bit abod then what they brought because of that experience to these momentous events. Yeah, they were outsiders. So they were not people who were born to rule in any sense. John gunther grew up on wellington avenue in chicago which is actually where i live, too. Vincent sheean was raised in the small mining town which at that point had a population of 7500 in southeastern illinois. Southwestern illinois. Dorothy thompson was born administers a daughter in a sl town outside of buffalo, and h. R. Knickerbocker grew up in yoakum texas. So what did they get from that experience . They were people who really understood what the people back home needed to know and what were the strategies of reporting that would interest them . So they had a finally green since in this is true not just of the crowd the last crew but i think also of the big interwar reporters of the air like Eric Sevareid or merle or edgar and paul mowrer who grewmi up in bloomington illinois. So they knew what their neighbors back home wanted to know. The joke was that they knew how to speak to people who thought the prague was a sort of a ham, and they were reporting their reporting tended to be much more focused on the kinds of almost tabloid subjects like politicians personal lives, john gunther became famous for reporting an inside joke published19 in 1936 on the kindf psychodynamics of hitlers upbringing, or the kind of relationships thatre mussolini d with women. So those were the kinds of things they thought that the neighbors, that would make them snapped to attention. The way the operator is so intriguing and id love to have occurred here how you peace her story together but before we get to that, that notion that they had a deal for what audiences wanted long before focus groups and metrics that we have in our news organizations t today. They like interviews. They like to go find the people who were in power and find out about them. You have guenther anything trotsky and georgia. Hes going with uncaring correspondent in search of hitlers relatives and found them. I think thompson and nick interviewed hitler. That was something european correspondent a little bit, didnt they . For european correspondent that the lobe of less british but id say european correspondent that was a less elevated way that you were to try to get the news. Where as i said these people come so the people im talking about a group on bigcity papers. Thats what they were cub reporters like the Chicago Daily news or the tribune, and they knew how to report on gangsters and on bigcity bosses and what they really liked was the sense of trying to take the measure of the man. And, of course, one of the subjects they were reporting on were rising dictators who all seem to be all surface picky student in the newsreels. You see them there sort of polished perfection of the uniforms. You see all of the crowds in the stadiums saluting you and so the idea was heres a way to get to the essence of this person, which is sit down with them, y to crack the facade and see behind the man i love the store you tell in last call about nick going to interview hitler, which i i would imagine was a tough interview to get. He sits with him and hitler is stressed in a rather dressed up i guess you could say, and you write that nick wrote that he seemed like a rising young District Attorney in a in a secondclass county in texas. Easily dismissed, and then, however, except once hitler began to talk, youre right, he turned out to be rather impressive come far from it. The man with the dangerous demagogue. And thompson having metet him cl them an agitator of genius. So sitting down with them actually did change their stories that sounds like . I think it did. I think the thing about, and we can see this w in her own time with the emphasis onbi the big personalities, the putin or zelensky. One of the problems is when you approach the news do these people who are sometimes only you can see, i mean, you get a much more about that, its a difficult toug gauge Public Opinion in the country where opinion is not free and theres no really free press, and that wasou a case across much of central and Eastern Europe by the 30s. But one of the things that they do is, right, they sit down with these men butso they also make some really big gaffes. So knickerbocker totally understands hitler. He sees him for like the racing district da, District Attorney in some small that in texas, but when he sits down with mussolini he is actually really quite impressed by him. First of all mussolini is a charmer. He is not the kind of prussian store of stack of dictator type. Mussolini is really well informed or if you want to understand the calculations aboutt recovering from the great depression, mussolini is a guy you talk to. And mussolini aer former reportr himself loves to charm foreign reporters and so theyre having history intricate psychological game between them that actually makes knickerbocker think you know i wouldnt say this but any of the country but maybe in a place like italy i divided backward country like italy, mussolini is exactly the ticket. And you know he changes his mind eventually but for a very long time knickerbocker key sense is the english, the british and french have to keep mussolini on their side. They had to keep mussolini and hitler from forming any kind of an alliance together. And if im not mistaken, Dorothy Thompson at first thought hitler might not be the worst thing. Would end up with the Coalition Government. She did not early on for see any of the things that happened which gives a sense of these relatively inexperienced in Foreign Affairs journalists dealing their way. Is that what you totally yes. This is a part of the book that it. Wanted to reserve for the reader, which is we tell our history backward. Were trying to explain what we know is the endpoint but here are smart, ambitious, aggressive people who are plopped down in the midst of events that are really difficult to figure out. They are living really in the thick of things. Theres a huge burden on them to try to predict correctly what is going to happen, and they make mistakes. Or as Dorothy Thompson says it doesnt matter ifet you get lonr first time so long as you get it right the secondhe time, or the third time. So yes, Dorothy Thompson we should sit hitler she thinks how could a man like this actually rule a nation like germany . This is ultimately even if he comes to power he will be crushed in a Coalition Government by people who are able to outfoxed him. And as i said, as others say it say terrible gaffe, a huge mistake on the other hand, she came home she became one of the most vehement agitators calling attention to the rise of fascism across europe through the rest of the 1930s. It may not i come, and may nt be a a surprise to anyone in e audience as i was reading this story about these journalists trying to see into the future, trying to look at their crystal balls and the wolves can happen in europe through mussolini and hitler and whether russians would fit in, i was thinking about 2015 and 2016, and how journalists hadt to decide what to doum with donald trump. And we know how that story went and how manyw different paths there were and what we know now versus event. I love the notion that we tell history backward. We know how it turned out. In this case, each of these journalists went through something of a transformation in their approach. In their conclusions. And so by the end of the 30s they had really come to decide whether to take sides and what to say about what they knew. Just exactly. The dilemma we think about is running through reporting today is the object come socalled objectivity question, otherwise known as the view from everywhere, or both sides is. Meaning if you report without taking, without in some ways declaring your opinion, are you misleading r readers . He goes k your leading them to kind of put all information on the same plane. This is exactly the dilemma that was posed to these reporters in the 20s and 30s, which is to what extent should they take sides . They had all been raised in the newsrooms of the early 20s were objectivity again was enthroned. The reaction of the respectable papers like the Chicago Daily news against the hearst papers for the yellow press. And yet they go to europe, they go to asia, and that confidence that they have in both sides being fair and how you can be there begins to break down because they realize as they can fund the rise of dictatorship or they confront us agents that are just lying toat them, that you cant report the handouts thatbe youre being given come the chapter take sides and foreign correspondence in the United States always had more latitude to actually put an interpretation without their opinion, if that makes any sense, on the reporting at this time. So that was an avid into doing this, but they ended up really as full throated partisans. So just to give an example Dorothy Thompson becomes an opinion columnist here shes a firstop woman political opinion columnist from the late 1930s. Vincent sheean becomes one of theav most avid partisans for te antiimperial cause. So he goes to israel, and so i come he palestine in 1929 and is there for the rise of the western wall and essentially says zionism is just another form of imperialism. This is despite h the fact hes been sent there by zionist press organization. All of them find themselves in a situation where unless they declare themselves, unless they show the reader the world through their eyes they felt that theyre not doing their job. Theres a remarkable moment where gunther ideally is sending back so many stories on a particular topic that is editor in chicago says please, can we find a little more better news . Tell us that, this great detail but you felt. Gunther is there in berlin in 1933 after the nazi, nazis come to power for hitler, becomes the chancellor in late january 1833 and almost immediately there are these brown houses, as they are known, brownth after the color f the fascist uniforms were in any of the regime social communist jews,ro professors, are being beaten up in these places. Dorothy thompson is in i their reporting, and she goes to the casualty wards of hospitals and tries with our european colleagues to try to figure out how many people have been murdered. John gunther comes and hes o reporting. The chicago giving news was a liberal paper, and yet gunther is sending back so much a news of nazi atrocities that is editor to Chicago Daily news says we cant just run stories from germany aboutut nazi atrocities. You need to actually send this mother stories. I think as we consider the degree to which americans, what americans knew about the nazi campaigned against the jews, about the plan to exterminate european jewry, these reporters actually paid a really, really crucial role. They are sending that news here the fact that it doesnt get reported is sometimes late at the feet, should be the late at the feet of editor. Editors are the bane of every reporters existence, are they not . [laughing] i have been saved by many and other. I say that as an aside. One of the things that so remarkable about your book is how you almost with inside the heads of these characters, and you write with Great Authority but the authority is backed up by rather extraordinary bits of evidence. Tell us were all that came from. Yes. So that is one of the things that was captivating to me about this group of people, which is that they had left hundreds and hundreds of boxes archives that put you squarely in the middle of the action. Within the 258 more than 250 boxes at the universityf of chicago just at the counter papers alone, and then thompson has hundreds more boxes. Jimmy was a character soviet boxes scattered around the world all over the place when he left stuff. H. R. Knickerbocker is somewhat smaller collection reasons youll see in the book. But what those archives did for me really were two things. One of them is they contained all their notes. So as gunther is interviewing trotsky, you have notes that hes writing down about his impressions of the man, and so you can seeto the story actuall, you are there, right there on the spot with him. Incredible. But then you see another thing which is a huge amount of this archive is devoted to inner life hurts its not just him interviewing trotsky. Its also am writing about his marriage and itsts him writing about his love affair with his best friends wife. So its him writing about his insecurities. And so these were archives. Its like the officer a pandoras box which is like letting them out. I opened up the archives and was sucked in. I kind of emerged many years later, but they put you in the center of dilemmas that people were really experiencing after that first sexual revolution of the 1920s. So not only are they a way of telling a story about reporting and authoritarianism, anticolonialism, the coming of the war but also a way of telling a history of private life that is otherwise incredibly difficult of access for good reason. People throw away the stuff. They burn the diaries. They threw away the letters. Here they were all preserved in the reason was because all of this group of people felt that the was an intrinsic connection between the geopolitical events that they were reporting on and the way that those events were coming to kind of almost be rooted to take a kind of place in their soul come in the relationship, that they were permeable to the universe. Sometimes quite literally so. Jimmy sheean thinks that he is a kind of finely honed lightning rod, orrk tuning fork. He feels like he convinces but what is going to happen because theres no barrier between himself and the events of the world. Whats wonderful is, are the ways you in a week the personal and professional with these world events. As you embarked what did you think your book would be about . So i threw away a version of this book. I wrote probably some 100 or so pages. So whatbe i was hoping to do because i thought these archives speeded to be clear you started with 100 paged and it said no, its a different book . I started with 100 pages and to thought well actually i was very please pleased with them of course, as you are, and i gave it to my agent i think and to a friend and everyone was totally bewildered, like i dont get what youre doing here. So i do that all away. What i was trying to do was because i thought heres a c