Hourlong event. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am the Wilson Centers vice senior vice president. Event, whichdays is another in our ongoing books of wilson series that marks the publication of new books by fellows of the Wilson Center. James reston is a Wilson Center global fellow. [indiscernible] i believe so is it . I was once at an event Henry Kissinger was speaking at and the chair said can everyone hear me . And from the side, Henry Kissinger said, by definition, the people who cannot hear will not respond. [laughter] now audible. To repeat station identification youre at the Wilson Center and , today is another in our books at wilson series featuring the latest book by the remarkable james reston who is a Wilson Center global fellow. The topic of the book deals with a contentious period in the history of the vietnam war, and the book itself deals with the contentious debate over how to mark that war and the american role and sacrifice during that period. That was fraught with politics and contention over the appropriate artistic expression to memorialize that dramatic period in American History. The Gold Standard of book reviews remains the new york times. They reviewed it this week and described the book as superb and unexpectedly affecting unexpectedly affecting in terms of the emotions it evokes as one reads it. It is a fantastic volume. Jim has been affiliated as a fellow at the Wilson Center. It is remarkable the topics he has taken on in 17 books. The range from the renaissance to the contemporary is remarkable for any individual. His book, the conviction of Richard Nixon was a bestseller and inspired the film frost nixon. He has won awards for various publications and we are delighted to host todays event to mark the publication of his latest book. The wilson format is conversational, and we cannot have a better moderator and person to engage in this dialogue then jan scruggs, who is the founder of the Vietnam Veterans memorial fund. Which was the organization authorized to build the memorial. He is an authority on ptsd and the memorial project float from academic flow from work he did while he was at American University. The format will be that jan and jim will have a conversation for 20, 25 minutes to discuss the main themes of the book, then over to you all for any comments or questions, and then the author will sign copies of the book, which are available just outside the door in the foyer. Let me turn the floor over to jan. James i had intended to speak for about 40 minutes, so i will see if i can compress what i had in mind to about four. I am arguing that there are two vietnam wars, there is the one fought between 1959 in 1975, and the second war began in 1979 and is still going on. That is on the question of how this war, the first lost war in American National history and very divisive, how that is to be remembered and how it is to be memorialized. I have been preoccupied in my entire literary life with the lot of my own generation, and the moral dilemma that it faced during the vietnam period, the decision as to whether to serve in the military or not, to avoid it, all my friends avoided service. After my three years in the army, 1965 to 1968, i became involved in the reconciliation movement, especially with vietnam war resisters, and wrote two books about that. This overarching theme of reconciliation after a divisive war, i believe, is an eternal question and one that we will face, perhaps today in relation to iraq and afghanistan and in the future, forever. I remember the choice my generation was faced with, to be involved or not in the illconceived, arguably immoral war, to protest and avoid or to serve. I was personally and deeply involved in trying to decide that in my own personal life and therefore very interested in how that extended to other of my contemporaries. This book is not about the vietnam war that was fought, but the memory of that war. How it should be remembered that first phase had its most intense time with the fight over a Vietnam Memorial, whether there would be one at all or if there was going to be one what should it be. That period is totally forgotten now, the intensity of the fight between 1979 and 1984, but i believe it is instructive to go back to that period and to that fight. With the ken burns documentary we are going to get this fight all over again with intensity. The book has two emotional ties for me. One is that i have one friend on the wall who was killed in january 1968 when the North Vietnamese came through. I trained with him and knew him well. He was a good friend of mine. It is the brilliance of the vietnam wall that it is by virtue of its black granite a reflective surface, so i believe that almost by accident, the reflective quality of the granite to those who have survived is a magical accident that i came upon. The second emotional tie is the sculptor of the soldiers at the memorial was a friend of mine, and i was not sure when i started to focus on this question as to whether this book would work. I had done dual biographies before, pete rose, a baseball book, saladin versus richard the lionheart, a medieval book. The form of dual biography interested me greatly. Whether i could do a dual biography was a question in my mind. I was interested in the artistic process that those artists went through. What should the place be for a lost war, a divisive war . What shape should it take, what went through artists minds to try to figure out what would be appropriate. What would be the right move to go for . What i quickly understood from searching the library of congress was there was an enormous effusion of creativity that this commission brought into existence with 1421 submissions, all of those designs are in the library of congress. It is a fascinating range that goes from very kitschy to quite interesting, and there was significant competition. There is a very rich historical record at the library of congress of the materials that come out of the Vietnam Veterans memorial fund. This memorial began as a Veterans Memorial about one war and the veterans who fought in it. The magic of it as the decades have proceeded is that memorial has become universalized, it is not only about veterans, but about the entire vietnam generation and its dilemma. It is not only about the vietnam war, it is about all wars. It is not a place only for warriors, but equally for pacifists. Even draftdodgers and deserters can go and have a place of reflection and contemplation about a choice that was foisted on an american generation that should never happen again. The story itself has six phases. It begins with one veterans vision, a veteran who was wounded and then returned to duty, then witnessed a terrible accident of friends blown apart, and openly declares that he suffered, then and perhaps now from ptsd. His sacrifice and his service were something he felt should be memorialized personally and for all who served under these difficult circumstances. His determination to follow this through is an amazing thing. He felt strongly that if there was a memorial, it was not to be stuck away in some hidden place in washington, as if this was a shameful thing. It should be on the National Mall in a prominent place, almost in your face. The second phase was beyond the raising of money an artistic competition. It was presided over by a handsome, prickly professional who gathered a panel of distinguished artists and architects to figure out how to choose between these 1421 submissions. What would be the best. There were several rules that were laid down for all those who submitted. One was the insistence of the veteran founder that all the names of the dead be on the sculpture or whatever it was to be. Secondly, that it must be nonpolitical. The memorial does not state that the war was right or wrong. What happened there after was this remarkable scene in a hangar in Andrews Air Force base where these 1421 submissions were put on display, and the seven or eight judges had to go through and winnow it down to a couple hundred and then 30 and then down to three and then to choose a winner. All of those submissions had to be anonymous. There were major architectural firms and major artist who put forward submissions to this. Phase three was the results, with this 21yearold yale undergraduate, her design was a single chevron in black granite, belowground. All of which were inflammatory and subsequent phases. The actual drawing of that submission was almost high schoolish. It was a black chevron that many people might have done. What won her the competition, and this appeals to the writer in me was not the design, but her description of what she wanted the memorial to be. It was walking through this parklike area of memorial appears as a rift in the earth, along polished black stone wall are merging from and receding from the earth and it goes on in a very poetic way. It was also part of the rules that that description had to be in their hand writing and there could be no print. I hope i have this all right so far. Then came the next phase. This was the blowback. It has been described and i believe accurately as the art war. Black granite was the color of shame, by it being belowground was shameful. Only the dead were on the wall and not anything about the survivors, and this was unfair. It was depressing. There was no glory in it, no honor, no heroism. There had been no Vietnam Veterans on the panel of judges that chose the final result. This blowback was led by a powerful character by the name of jim webb, subsequently senator from virginia and a very failed president ial campaign. A powerful individual, indeed. Very wellconnected in washington who gathered congressmen and senators behind him, wrote beautifully written oped pieces in opposition, who went around and spoke all over the country against this. It was a powerful effort to undermine the maya lin design and it nearly succeeded. The fifth phase was the compromise where a superb figure was brought in and he was commissioned to do three soldiers, a three soldier sculpture and this was to satisfy veterans who hated that of shame as it was called. To harts credit, he rejected the pressure to create a glorified sculpture which would glorify the experience of the vietnam veteran, or for it to be a heroic statue the way you might find at a place like quantico. When this started to gain legs, there evolved an interesting debate between the detractors of maya lin and the Architectural Community who felt there was a strong principle here of the integrity of an artistic work that had been chosen in the most professional and fair way. Nevertheless, it became a washington story in which the white house became involved and congress became involved and ultimately, it felt to this agency in washington called the u. S. Commission on fine arts to decide what to do about this. Ultimately, they agreed that the statue would be added, but it would be added as an entrance experience, so as you entered from the Lincoln Memorial to the wall, you went past the three soldiers. It was therefore meant to not be two memorials, as was argued by the purists, but it was one integrated experience. Frederick hart was very much bought into this notion of his respect for the winning design and he, too, won the day at the u. S. Commission of fine arts by what he wrote with what he was doing with his statues in relation to the wall. He wrote, the gesture and expression of the figures are directed to the wall, affecting an interplay between image and metaphor. The tension between the two elements creates a residence that echoes from one to the other, i see the wall as a kind of ocean, a sea of sacrifice that is overwhelming and incomprehensible in its sweep of names. I place these figures upon the shore of that see, gazing on it, standing vigil before it, reflecting the human face of it, the human heart. That won the compromise and i would think won the day for frederick hart. It was still a shotgun marriage. The last phase is where we are at now. With this remarkable embrace of this work, and its place, it is the most accessible monument in the district of columbia, 5 million visitors every year visit it. It is copied all over the world. Interestingly to me, when i was in North Vietnam in december, it is also copied in the memorial to the North Vietnamese dead in vietnam, the black granite with the names of those who were killed. It is a place for all of the vietnam generation, and it is a place for all generations to come. If you go there, it is a fine place to take a child. With this ken burns think we going to relive the vietnam war and get ready to see the fight start all over again. The rift of the generation is going to be on display, but at least now we have a place of contemplation for what is the ultimate cost of war. The brilliance of the black granite to reflect the experience of the survivors, beyond that, to celebrate the key players, the modest vietnam veteran whose vision and determination made this happen, the whitehaired manager of the historic competition, but also the artists who are not here today, maya lin and frederick hart. Thank you. [applause] jan can everyone hear me . Im the founder of the Vietnam Veterans memorial, born in the Nations Capital and i grew up in bowie, maryland. Ended up in the vietnam war at age 18, seemed like a good enough idea for me to serve for two years. Got the draft out of the way. At American University i did research and i did become an authority on posttraumatic stress disorder to become an authority all you have to do is write an article for the Washington Post and appear in front of a senate committee. I figured that out quickly. I had some credibility when i came up with the idea for this memorial, which flowed from the idea of survivor conflicts. A lot of work has been done on survivor conflicts, people who have survived the holocaust in world war ii, tortured people, why did i survive and my children to not . People who survive wars, their life is different, even car crashes and so forth. I became interested in thinking of carl jung who was a student of Sigmund Freud who had this idea of the unconscious mind. He talked about these historical archetypes, what is the hero. Who is the hero to jung . The hero is the man or woman who faces the dragon. He fights the dragon with a sword, he wins or he dies, that he is the hero for facing danger. Flowing from this archetype came the idea of a memorial with names, names of the fallen from vietnam. The memorial would honor all. The trick i came up with was to separate the war from the warrior. That became a mantra. The vietnam war is one issue, service to your country is a separate issue. We tried to keep the vietnam war out of the Vietnam Veterans memorial which is not possible, but held off the lions at the gate for a while. In order to get this memorial built, i was very lucky. Some graduates of the u. S. Military academy at west point, who also went to the Harvard Business school, descended on this project early on and made the Vietnam Veterans memorial into a Harvard Business school problem. I owe a lot to the Harvard Business school, i owe a lot to west point for getting this done. This book is fantastic. It should be the official history of the Vietnam Veterans memorial. It is also a history of art and art history and washington, d. C. This is not the first time people have disagreed over a structure. I wonder if you could tell us about the fdr memorial. Many of us have been to it, but we do not know about the one that was not built. James you are putting me on the spot about details of the whole thing. For Something Like the vietnam war where the dead were a lot less than world war i and world war ii, the memorials for fdr and for George Washington, and we know that general eisenhower continues on with terrific contention between the family yoursr this memorial of to have become a reality in five years is absolutely amazing. And, you know, even Something Like the George Washington memorial, the design itself was totally different initially than what was built. In that respect, there is a connection between the and theon monument Vietnam Memorial in the sense that they are both very simple and indeed, quite scaled down. I mean, it is one of the things that surprises into all of this, going the way the vision developed for this thing, it was originally a design whereiwar andas not just the chevron stonesere a series of werehese stones going down meant to be the dominoes of the if those whoas ofd surfed down the stones the domino theory to their death. Fromlking to her professor yale, the inspiration of her design, she said, the chevron is great, but what are these stones with the men surfing down to their death . Get rid of that. Final memorial was more of a scaling down. So putting a memorial in washington, much less on the National Mall in less than five years is an extraordinary accomplishment. Let me read some people are very good at writing. Most of us are not. Mr. Me read something that reston wrote. There were important implications about this contest. Who would control the memory of vietnam . Would it be veterans . Would it be artists . Would it be resisters who took validation, politicians who simply wanted to allay the political pressures and put vietnam to rest. The competed in one of the largest Architectural Design com