That was more important. When in the middle of that situation, the thenpublisher didnt want to give us an option to buy it. He had it was for sale for 150,000. But we needed 1 million in order to go into business because it was losing a certain amount of money every year. I had told ham, its useless if you dont have an option because who knows what will happen. So edgar came to a meeting with ralph nader, a man named ping ferry, who is a marvelous guy, and his wife, and ham and me, to get the option. They spoke eloquently, with edgar leading the way on why he ought to give the option and how, et cetera. So they had a funeral this morning for the family, and what i said there is i blame edgar for the next 20 years of my life, because he was as responsible as anyone else for my getting there. So i came to the nation when, finally, the funding was in place and we got the opportunity to go there. I, of course, had not finished naming names. I spent too much time raising money along with hamilton. But i was pleased to start at the beginning of 1978. It was the ideal job for me. I had been working at the New York Times as an editor, and my inclination, because i sat at the desk at the times, where my boss sat behind me. I just turned around when i had an idea. I felt the first day i got to the nation, it was on 6th avenue, i turned around and there was my reflection in the window. Were you nice to yourself . I gave myself great assignments. I realized it was all on my shoulders. We started an Intern Program and did other things which we can get to. One of the great assets of our Intern Program is sitting on my left. Katrina became one of the nation interns in short order, and the rest is history. So what was it like working there . Fast forward, just to pick up on what victor said, i grew up in a different family. My father was much more of a vital center figure, though he cared deeply about political values. I came to the nation in college, partly because i traveled to the soviet union in 1978, and i was always interested in why americans, those who had been disillusioned or found hope in that experiment were repressed or subjected to marginalization to the mccarthy period in the country. I then took a course at princeton called politics of the press, run by the editor of the nation a brief moment before victor came, who had run mccarthys campaign. I did my papers there on mccarthyism and the press, on a columnist known for clearing people. My First Experience in an archive up at columbia, on how ordinary people suffered during the mccarthy period. As victor said, he at a different time, i found in this publication, a publication that never capitulated to the kind of, you know, conventional wisd wisdom, pressures of that time. Blair clark said, go be an intern at the nation. I think Victor Navasky just started the program. I arrived two years after the first group, victor. It was my journalistic boot camp. It was my political education in many ways. At princeton, i had great professors who challenged traditional orthodox views. At the time, you had an Exchange Program from the new stateman. The theneditor was went to london. Andrew copkind, a great radical journalist was doing informal seminars at all moments. I learned so much. I had the Great Fortune to work with former interns. I remember amy, i dont know if people know her writing on haiti, but she marked into victors office and said, the lead editorial is going to be about john lennon and his killing. At a moment, we thought victor thought of another lennon. She said, lennons been killed. That was and then one of the things, you know, it was a very different from pprogram then. People have come out of that. Alexander steele. Edward miliband, who has not suffered a good fate in the last months. But what victor set in motion has put into the american and other journalistic systems, 800 extraordinary journalists, activists over this time. So i then, part of my work as the intern was to organize williams, the great editor of the nation, he was the only editor, i think, west of the hudson. Came from california in 19 i want to say 48, 52, never went back. I got to know his extraordinary widow, iris, and learned an extraordinary amount of the Nation History through that. Thank you. Victor, its 1978. I believe jimmy carter was president. Whats the nations what role is it playing in the american left in 1978 . Can you take me back . Its hard to say. I mean, people would talk about a stereotypical image when they talk about the nation. To me, it was a place where you could have a debate, but it would not be between the democrats and the republicans. It would be between the radicals and the liberals. The libertarians eventually joined the debate, but the nation was one of the few places where you could have that debate. Its influence on american politics or World Politics is very hard to document. To me, it takes place over time. For example, in advance of today, you said you wanted to talk about the irancontra thing. The nation invited the Great British social historian e. P. Thompson to write for us. He wrote his essay about the disarmament movement. Also, it made the social case for nuclear disarmament. And explained all of its ramifications. I personally believe that the iran deal that is going on right now is partly the result of e. P. Thompsons writings. That partly is the result of the nation discussions that began in this country in the nation magazine. People like john kerry and hilla hillary, i think, grew up being exposed to the ideas in the nation. Whether they subscribed to it or not, they were affected by it. How do you measure impact . But i think its there. Ill pick up on that. Someone who came to the nation when victor was editor and i continued to work with was Jonathan Shell, who did a special issue for the nation a decade before obama stood in prague and called for the disarmament of Nuclear Weapons. It may take a decade to see those results, 20 years, 50 years, but thats and you know, people one of the values of the nation is you stand for values and ideas, which might at one time seem heretical. A decade later, it may seem in the mainstream. The abolition sf Nuclear Weapons is still, you know, but president obama was influenced by the Nuclear Freeze movement, which began with an editorial in the nation in 1980. A young reporter in vermont reporting on the freeze movement, two years later, there were a Million People in central park for one of the largest antinuclear marches in the for. The nation had its own contingent in that march with our signs. I guess id say that we are people of values and principles, but there is the question of and i feel it especially now at this moment because its like a Movement Moment were not activists. Were thinkers, journalists, writers. Victor said the debate isnt just believe democrats and republicans, its broader. I think the nation has a special role through time in covering movements and understanding how to cover movements in a way the Mainstream Press does not. Lets we dont have to go chronological order. Lets talk about the challenge of covering occupy. Lets say in 2009, the nation decided to do a special edition called the new inequality. We thought it was going to lead to, at best, protest, at worst, violent, unsustainable protest. This came out, you could publish it tomorrow with a few changes. Three months later, the financial crisis. By the way, the nation in 1999 wrote an editorial, castigating the repeal of glass stegiel, which key people are calling the reinstatement of. Then occupy emerged. I felt with occupy, that because and victor might speak to this because Carrie Mcwilliams published 68 editorials opposing the vietnam war, published bernard fall calling for negotiated end to vietnam in 54. But he didnt tell me if im wrong he didnt capture the countercultural protest in the streets. Sadly, andy copkind, at the new republic, caught that spirit more. When occupy erupted, it was key to send a couple young reporters down there to embed. Embed, embed at occupy, and report. Give a sense of the voices. Give a sense of the mayhem. Give a sense of what was going on culturally, politically. In the beds, in the streets, in the confrontation with cops which, in some ways, precedes some of what were seeing. That was my sense. It wasnt as an activist, rah, rah. There was critical minded coverage. There was a debate in the nation about whether there was a movement. It didnt have concrete commands and concrete leaders. Ill close by saying, we continued this debate. My husband and i interviewed Edward Snowden last october and had a conversation with him. Cohen, who victor brought on years ago, russianologist, said, what did occupy lead to . Snowden says, movements move, zigs and zags. They have outcomes you dont predict at the beginning. Let me add one thing. Unrelated but related by association. My favorite sentence for the launching of a magazine of all time is the first sentence on the first page of the first issue of the nation magazine. July 6th, 1865. To me, its the most courageous sentence in the history of magazine launches. The sentence, which i have committed to memory and hangs in our the cover hangs in our Conference Room to this day, is as follows the week was singularly barren of exciting events. [ laughter ]. Now, the reason i love that sentence, would tina brown have had the courage to publish that sentence . The reason i love that sentence is, what it really says is not just that the week was singular by barren of exciting events, it says that were not going to play the game of false sensationalism. We are not going to hype stories that dont deserve it. You can trust us. We are going to tell the truth. Were not going to qualify. Were not going to do what the New York Times would do. On the second paragraph say, actually, Thaddeus Stevens who lives in the deep south says the week was not that barren of singular events. Theres another opinion. Et cetera. So that sentence, to me, was onehalf of what the nation stood for, that you can trust us. The other half is what katrina has been talking about with reference to occupy, in part. Was that the nation inherited 5,000 subscribers from garrison, William Lloyd garcrison magazin, in favor of abolition, and his favorite sentence, i will not excuse, i will not compromise, i will not retreat a single inch. You put those two sentences together, the idealism and theologicalness ologic willin to fight on what you believe, and the journalism built on trust. You have something at its best, it seems to me, which is what the nation helps to incarnate. Journalists attempt to do, they all attempt to do their version of that, but i think the nation, which has been in business for longer than any of them for good reason, does as well as it can be done. How did you strike the balance between journalism and opinion . Ill ask katrina that question, too. Ill tell you, in my case, it probably was unbalanced. It depended on which week. When you get a great, investigative story, when you can reveal something that is that no one else has published on, you go with it and you devote your resources to it. On the other hand, when you have opinion journalists, like alex covern, you give them their space. They shared values but there is a difference of opinion between our various troublemaking columnists. So its a week by week balancing. Now that katrina is running the show, you know, when people come to me and complain about something, i say, i have nothing to do with it. Its katrina who is running the magazine. On the other hand, when they praise what the nation did this last week, this great story, i take full credit. [ laughter ]. I had, at one point, behind my desk, a famous line, cant we all get together . Cant we all we used to get letters from readers, just, you guys, youre all circular firing squad. Theres a line between the debate. At one point, you know, you had columnists writing 5,000word denunciations of each others cats. No, okay. But its a complicated media moment. I mean, the old media order is disappearing, the new one is yet emerging. What is a magazine . The print remains our anchor, but in a magazine, you try to have a pacing and different forms each week. Youd have columnists, opinion, ca and a 5,000word investigative piece, reporting on new forms of warfare, covert special ops, before people even knew what that was. Out of that emerged black water. Or Jonathan Shell opposing the iraq war. But in the opposition, laying out a case for, lets abolish Nuclear Weapons and not just end this, you know not fight this war. But i think the nation plays different, as victor says, very different roles. One of i think the important thing is when there is a consensus, and i think one of the most important moments for me was in the runup to iraq. When the conventional wisdom was, you know, coerciveness brutal. We forget the liberal hawks. There were few opposing that war full throatedly. The nation, its not a path of popularity to oppose government during wartime. The nation was called unamerican. But, again, to say what i said earlier, that that opposition, which was considered heretical, ten years later, everyone was saying iraq was a debacle. I think it was important, and part of that is that the nation, for 150 years, if theres one consistent thread, theyre not fully consistent threads, as you know, timothy, youve read the book, but its the belief that empire is toxic for democracy. In that belief, theres also the understanding that if that militarism is toxic, and you find alternatives to war. Were not pacifist publication, but it was the animating principle that animated editors through time that was in our dna and came to life in that moment. The other part of it is that even when you have impassioned writers who are, like the late robert sherrel, and other people what were talking about, one of the things the nation interns do is fact check. The nation does not hide inconvenient facts, no matter how passionate the case is its making on behalf of whatever the subject is. It deals with them in a direct way. It seems to me thats part of the journalistic nonopinion side of even of opinion pieces. I was watching katrinas face when you were describing the debates that occurred. I was wondering if we could talk about some of the people youve edited and what it was like. Tell us about edit iing gorbech. I contacted him and invited him to join our editorial board. I went out to california, and e he he, of course, to me, was a great writer. A lot of fun and a troublemaker. He agreed right away to join our board, because he had a lot of admiration for the nation in years past. I had known him a little bit in correspondence. I used to put out this satire magazine, and he was an admirer of it. We had had correspondence about it. He so he agreed to join our board on the one hand. On the other hand, you could suggest assignments to him, but he also had his own things that he wanted to say, so the first article he published in the nation in this new arrangement, he had published it before was an article i forget what it was called, but it was basically some gays and the jews in which he made the argument that the Jewish Community should be supportive of gay rights, and he made it in a Gore Vidalian way and he was a lot of fun to deal with, but he was not someone who you in my case, katrina you may have had a different experience with him but he was not someone who you rewrote or assigned to some editor to say we want you to put the beginning at the end and the end in the middle and did things that editors do, often for purposes of clarification, but the thing was that was onehalf because of his temperament but it was one half because he was a superb writer and advocate for the things he believed this. He was terribly funny and he cared about words a lot, and so you stayed out of his way when you were editing him and basically in my experience was you said yes or no to what he wanted to do, and you could say no, and its not for us, and but i like to say grow gore vidal. I was going to speak of someone else in the protradition of great writers and essayists contributing to the nation. Tony cushner, who i brought on to the editorial board, he in 1994 was so incensed by Andrew Sullivans piece on the case for gay marriage because it was in a very participatory aroundal capitalist, militaristic framework and we talked about it and he wanted to reply. I knew as victor has done brilliantly over the years he wanted to put tony cushner with any copkind, who had, who was really someone who came to the nation with a sensibility the nation had not had and did the first issue on gay rights called the gay moment when victor was editor, but in that piece, tony finally produced called the socialism of the skin its an extraordinary piece about liberation and the project of liberation, and also about the importance of utopia and not losi losing sight, the left not losing sight of utopian vision, even as its grounded in today. Now tony in some ways doesnt fully agree with that piece anymore, but thats fine, and there are many people as our special issue in a very different context of people who came to the nation of the left and turned to the right but thats a case or you know, victor also brought Tony Morrison onto the editorial board, so the tradition is one of having great essayists. Another writer who ill tell you a story about, you ask what it was like to edit him. Christopher hitchens, who was a supreme stylist. Now, of course christopher had his own differences, even before he left the nation over political, what he decided was a political reason to leave, which i was sorry he left, because his column was called minority report and i encouraged him to stay and even though he didnt agree with much of what we were saying about the war in those days, it was a voice that it was worth hearing, it seemed to me. Anyway, christopher used to have running disagreements with, among others, Katha Pollitt on issues of abortion, feminism and all of that, and christopher, the first he came toe the nation because i had written things he had written for t