Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Of The Nation 20240622

Thank you again. On the next washington journal, margot sangerkatz joins us, looking at Health Care Insurance and costs. Then Sharon Epperson on the 80th anniversary of Social Security and what the future holds for the program. Later, a conversation on the u. S. Foster care system, with the director of policy reform and advocacy. Well also take your phone calls, Facebook Comments and tweets. Washington journal, live each morning at 7 00 eastern on cspan. With the senate in its august break, well feature brook tv programming week nights, starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. For the weekends, here are a few special programs. Saturday, august 22nd, live from jackson, mississippi, for the mississippi book festival, beginning at 11 30 a. M. With discussions on harper lee, civil rights and the civil war. September 5th, were live from our nations capital. Followed on sunday with our live in depth program, with former second lady and senior fellow at the American Enterprise institute, lynn cheney. Book tv, television for serious readers. Founded in 1865, the nation is americas oldest weekly magazine still in circulation today. To mark the magazines 150th anniversary, publisher Victor Navasky and katrina vanden heuvel had a discussion with timothy naftali. This is 1 hour and 20 minutes. Im sure i dont need to introduce the people beside me. We are honored that nyu is about to be the home of the editorial records and many other records of the nation during the period that Victor Navasky was editor, publisher, and from the current period, when katrina vanden heuvel is the leader of the nation. Its a great, great privilege, to have the records of a journal of opinion. Because the strength of our democracy, i believe, rests on the survival of opinions and the opportunity for the expression of those opinions. So to be in a position, to protect forever this material, is a great, great privilege. We now have the opportunity to learn some of the back story to the materials and to the magazine, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. So i promised victor that i would start by asking him how the heck he ended upcoming to the nation. Well, thanks for asking. [ laughter ] you want the short version or the twohour version . Its not for me, its for them. You know, its a sad day pau because we just came from edgars funeral. He played a role in me being at the nation, whi is not publicly known, but ill share it with you. I knew ed fgar when he was the editor in chief of dial press, while he was working on i see in the audience marvin, he was a dial author. He saw edgar put his own manuscript under his desk, because he was working on the book of daniel, which was a great novel. I knew edgar from those days. We had collaborated on a number of projects, one which we can talk about later. When it became evident that the nation was up for sale, i spoke to hamilton fish, who i had known from the ramseyclark campaign, when i was the chairman when he ran for the senate. He was just out of harvard as a young man, and he was a fundraiser. Everyone took his phone calls because why would ham fish be working for ramsey clark . He was a great fundraiser. When marcells film, story, appeared in the New York Times, a great film maker, he was fired from his new film. Ham called him up and said and he was fired because it was for a British Company and it was supposed to be a onehour film. By the time they got to the third hour, the company said, enough already. Ham called and said, if i can raise the money, would you finish making your movie . He ended up being the producer of the movie that became memory of justice, and did very well. I said to ham when the nation was up for sale, that he ought to do for the nation what he did for marcell. And i had been reading through all of the magazines of the 50s and 40s. I grew up in a house that got the nation and the new republic. I was working eventually on a book that became naming names about the mccarthy period. I had to read through all of the magazines of the mccarthy years. I came to admire the nation more than any other for its coverage of those years. I said to ham, you want to do that . Ham met with the owner, and he came back and said, ill agree to do it on one condition. I said, whats that . I said, you agree to be the editor. I said, ham, i left the New York Times in order to write this book that became naming names. Let me think about it. He said, well and i said, i have a wife, and we had two children at that point and a third on the way i said, i have a thiwife, two children. He said, suppose i pay you whatever the New York Times was paying you, suppose you have total editorial control and you tell me how much money i have to raise for the magazine to survive. And you dont have to start until you finish your book. I said, if you meet all those conditions, how can i say no . Of course, in the end, i raisin did. It took a lot longer. But to get ham to go out to raise money, i made call to my friend. I told him what was going on. Edgar was a fan of the nation. Edgar wrote out rag time had come out, and he wrote a check for ham of 10,000, which he called Walking Around money, so ham could try to raise money while spending edgars 10,000. 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 the new statesman and i sent a letter inviting him to contribute to the nation and he sent us two or three pieces while he was on the road for the new statesmen that we were thrilled to publish and pried a one day this head popped, stuck, this person stuck his head in my door and christopher had a deep voice and it was christopher hitchens, very beautiful to look at, and he said one word, which was drink . Question mark . So we went out for a drink. In those days the office was down the block from the lions head. When i say a drink, im understating christophers capacity, because for christopher and me what would be one drink, and i like to drink, christopher would have two or three during that period, and then when you went to lunch with him, he would, after lunch, where you might have two or three drinks to start, he would say he had to go to the loo and meet me back in the office, that was code for stopping at the bar for another glass of wine on the way back. So the nation started some years ago a fundraising cruise, and various of our writers would come on it, and the first cruise christopher came on the following thing happened. He was on a panel at 8 00 or 9 00 in the morning and he put a bottle of scotch down in front of him, and he said, let me begin with a question, a joke, however he put it. Why is princess di, who was still alive at that point, like a land mine or what do they have in common . The answer, they are both difficult to lay and expensive to remove. At which point the audience started booing and hissing and laughing a combination. Lanny guaniere on the cruise organized a womens caucus to protest and the rest of the cruise dealt with how to deal with christopher hitchens. And i have to say, my advice to incoming interns, when christopher was at the magazine was, in factchecking christopher, you should give him your report before lunch, because after lunch, he would not accept any criticism of what came in. You got your fact wrong here, you got your fact wrong there, but before lunch, he was reasonable and would listen to what they had to say and we saved him from a lot of aggravation that way. But christopher could go to lunch, have three drinks and come back, sit down at his typewriter, and write beautiful editorial prose, not a word of which had to be changed, but the facts of which had to be checked, so thats about christopher hitchens. I wondered, i recommend to everybody deedee gutterplans history of the nation. I was reading about sorry, i recommend to everyone deede deedee guttenplans history of the nation. Theres a story that the back of the book, which is where you have your book reviews, there was a very harsh review of Jesse Jacksons book, just before i think andrew copkind wrote this. You had an editorial in favor of Jesse Jackson 1988. I think it says a lot about the character of the magazine and of the editor, that this could happen. Could you tell us a little bit about because it shows how you really did have sort of a marketplace of ideas. Among other things the nation has an independent book review section, and in hiring the editor for the back of the book, before i came there, i have to say i lined up someone to be the editor and then i met elizabeth bacoda who was already there and i had a long talk with her and asked her for a memorandum of what she would advise for the next, for successor, because i told her that i had someone that i had already spoken to as possibly coming, and it was so brilliant that i told whoever it was going to come in, forget about it, and betsy stayed, but the deal was that when you have someone whose values and intelligence you trust, that basically you dont interfere and you dont interfere with what theyre going to do. You feel free to give them suggestions. You talk over what comes in, and ey will, and the healthiest environment, ask you what you think about this or that, if theres a problem and alert you to problems that are going to come down the line, but the understanding at the nation was always that the back of the book was independent, and this goes back to Carrie Mcwilliams, when, during the height of the cold war and before that, the back of the book editor didnt agree with what the front of the book editor was assigning and doing, so it had a history, and katrina, i dont know how its played out for you that way. I was going to say you drilled down a little bit, i was an editor at large, liberty and freedom living in moscow. And i think you have to use the mike. I was an editor at large and at liberty living in moscow during this period, but the reverberations were so deep that i could feel the waves in moscow and i later learned that, tell me im wrong, victor, but that Jesse Jackson editorial, which was a very important editorial was an endorsement of Jesse Jackson in the new york state primary in april 1988. That precipitated, you know, i cant say i mean, i think its a great thing but precipitated fist fights, almost fist fights inside the office because there was a real division on the Editorial Team. I wont name names, that is our mantra at the nation, but it did, and so that victor, i dont know, we never really talked about this, how you resolve that, because it was, you know, you had tough people on both sides who were making the case. Yes. And then people weighing in and this is before, this is before email. This is way before social media you can imagine now. You had people on the west coast and abroad weighing in on which side the nation was going to take. To me, you dont resolve it. The beauty of having a weekly magazine is you move on to the next week. No, no, wait a minute, that editorial your letters column becomes a more interesting column because of that. That editorial is a very important statement and somewhere, somehow, there was a resolution that the magazine was going to endorse Jesse Jackson, and do it in it was an endorsement of Jesse Jackson and the movement. The endorsement of the movement was the advanced way to resolve that question. There were questions about him personally. There was, it seemed to me a consensus on the values that his movement stood for, and i tried to be as careful as possible in the language of the endorsement that it was an endorsement of the movement, but nevertheless, what you say is right. But just in terms of endorsements, the history of endorsements, the magazine is structured, its been a forprofit, making a profit for five years under victor, two minutes under me, and anyone on cspan who wants to contribute to the nation, email me, email me, contact me at the nation but ralph nader, ralph nader, who wrote his first piece for the nation in 1959, which became the safe car you cant buy, i think one of the most interesting moments at the nation in terms of debate was when you had a magazine divided, half, you know, magazine wanted to endorse ralph nader for president and half felt that the history of third parties nationally was not a happy one, there had been a division over Henry Wallace in 1948, with the magazine not endorsing Henry Wallace in the end and so it was people on the barricades and the resolution there was we called it the molly ivans principle, we did, inside the office. If you lived in a state in which your Electoral College mattered, vote pragmatism if if your state, Electoral College didnt matter, vote your conscience. I dont know, somewhere in there the liberators founder is not finding the purity of the great idea. Garrison. But this was the consensus of the group that this was the principle that would be followed . There was an editorial which was, you know, we believed what i dont make light of it. We believe what is at stake is the supreme court. We believe in that lives will be, you know, lives are in the balance, so there was an argument, but it was a complicated the other thing that should be said is that, for many of these magazines, the nation, i suspect National Review and human events way on the other side of national and the weekly standard, that the editor is a dictator. The editor has the final say of everything that goes in. At the nation, the, i was going to say katrina is much more democratic than i was, but at the nation and much more consultative than i was in a much smarter way, but at the nation, the exception to that rule was president ial endorsements, that from at least from the time i was there, we would always open that to a discussion. It wasnt that we would count up the votes at the end, but we would try to reach a consensus on that which didnt mean that everyone joined it, but we came as close as it was possible. Were going to open up the session to questions, and wed like to you use one of these two microphones, and line up behind the microphone, if you could. While youre doing that, i, in honor of edgar, i wanted to ask victor about the report from Iron Mountain. Yes. Which is the one of the great spoofs in literary history. Okay so the report from Iron Mountain. The nation mondayical magazine, this journal in political sapphire which Marvin Kitman and Richard Langerman who are in my audience today were very much a part of and we were in the Book Business at this point, and we would get our ideas for books and then have basically they would be idea books rather than written books. They would be and like a collection of famous funny telegrams and then have a researcher collect them. And one day, i read in the New York Times i believe it was a story that the headline of which was peace scare breaks out and the stock market had taken a fall because of a scare about peace, and i said, hey, this is wild. The stock market goes down because of the possibility of peace . Its supposed to go up, and we had this idea for a book that would tell the story of how a government, the government had commissioned a study of how to make the transition from the war time to the peacetime economy under the kennedy administration, but the commission which met at the secret place called Iron Mountain which had underground vaults, which was a real place and included people and we didnt identify the names but you could tell who they were, harvard professor with a gutteral accent, you could figure out who each of them was, the commission had the series of meetings and they concluded that you couldnt stop that you couldnt have a transition to a peacetime economy because the economy would tank if you gave up all of the military investment that the government was making, so they killed the report, and that was the idea, and we hired a writer who had written a drill brilaliant paroy for monacle before that, len aerd lewin to write the story how they killed this report. Leonard said i cant write the story about the story of them killing a report until they have a report to kill. He wrote a brilliant parody of the government report which made the case for, ending a planned transition to a peacetime economy, because you couldnt do it. The thing about his parody was, the parody was all false and a hoax, but all of the footnotes were real, to real sources, and what happened was that we found, we were looking for a publisher that was willing to pub lush this and not tell its sales force that this was a hoax, a parody, and would treat it like a real study, and we found an unknown editor named e. L. Dr. Rowe who is working at dial press at the time and a quirky publisher named Richard Barron and together they agreed, with he had worked with them on a collection of essays about what was happening at berkeley, together they agreed to list it as nonfiction, and the result of that was, when the catalogue went out, the reporter for the New York Times called to ask questions about it, and was told by prearrangement that, and this prefigured edgars ability to take fiction and nonfiction and do something totally original with them, and was told, look, if you dont they didnt lie to the reporter. If you dont believe it, check the footnotes. So the reporter checked the footnotes and then called the white house, and the white house was the Johnson White house, and what did they know . Maybe kennedy had commissioned such a thing. So instead of saying no, theres no way that they would have published such a report, although they suspected it wasnt, they said no comment, the result was the reporter for the New York Times wrote a front story that ended up on the front page saying this possible hoax is possibly a real government report, and the book ended up on the best seller list, and then in a weird coda many years later it turned out the liberty lobby, this right Wing Organization on the assumption that it was a real report, without clearing copyright, published their own version on the theory that it was a government document and anyone could publish it. And Leonard Lewin sued them, and they made a settlement and they had to withdraw that. So thats the brief story of report from Iron Mountain. Great story. Became a best seller. Thank you, sir, you have a question sir . Yes, thanks a lot. That was a terrific talk, and my question really is, because we are in the premise of the law school im very, very much interested on the intersection or the absence thereof rather of journalism and law. Now, we have of course three branches of government, one of them is judiciary, federal judiciary, and which is really operating in my experience, its the ministry of justice, and the judges give themselves the right through the caseload to maliciously and corruptly the whole thing is sort of arbitrary. They replaced partys argument with their own imagining, so that they can judge, adjudicate the case which ever way they want. All this is in the open, and press expresses not the slightest interest. Here it is absolute cesspool of inequity, corruption, federal judiciary, are essentially sleazed, legalize sleaze, and why is it that the press, and im not talking just about the left wing press, the right wing, press, the conservative press, the professional press, the legal professionals, they all want to look the other way from the judicial procedure and kind of treat judges and those kind of supernatural creatures where they would have ripped to pieces any member of the executive or any member of the legislature who would have presumed to say well, you know what . Ive got the right to act malicious and corruptly. Judge writes it in his opinion and thats kosher and im really not understanding it. So if you could explain the journalism of all this, id appreciate it. Thank you. I can explain the journalism but i want victor to reply but i would say the nation treats the courts ooze a political instrument. I sat here a few years ago and the nation just published a special issue called the 1 court but the history of the nation the court attempted to invalidate the new deal, key elements of roosevelts new deal. The nation became, if you read theres a book called supreme justice by jeff schessel, came out a few years ago, about roosevelt and the Court Packing plan. I grew up in a family we called it court reform, no, but [ laughter ] but the nation divided in those years and this was in the 30s to the point where the then owner of the nation, morris worthheim, may be better known as barbara tuckmans father essentially sold the publication to a group of editors because he was so sick of the infighting, the debating, the vitriol. You had a group saying roosevelts plan is worthy, had a different proposal it be a constitutional amendment and Hayward Brune and others lass rate rascetrating it. We have i would say in victor and i brought him on one of the great legal correspondents in this country in david cole. Before david there was her man schwartz. I invite you to read the columns and essays of david cole and her man schwartz and then come back and say again what you said about the nations coverage of the court. In fact these are tremendous gifts youve given to the library, tremendous archives, and everyone interested in researching or writing about this period will be indebted for you for decades and decades and decaded, so thank you so much. Youve talked about several nerve end issues. The nation covers nerve end issues but theres also nerve end fights within the writers and editors. What is making people fight right now . I dont i fear that there is less well, let me give you an example. This is not a fight within the Editorial Team as much, but we did a cover story interview with senator Bernie Sanders about a week or so ago, and as some of you may know bernie sappeders was at something called net roots nation, which is a major gathering of net roots activists, and the hall was occupied by black lives matter activists. This was about a week ago, and Bernie Sanders, who has a history of speaking out against structural racism, fighting for civil rights, and spoke about this in our interview with john nichols, came out and instead of engaging that audience, was angry at being heckled and said, listen to me, i have been there all these years. Ive fought for civil rights. I marched in 1963, but there was anger among the activists in that hall that bernie sappeders didnt seem to be listening to them, and he wasnt putting their issues at the forefront, and i think, and today at our editorial meeting we have a weekly editorial meeting thursday mornings, victor is always a part of it, our executive editor just helped launch this beautiful new website, said on facebook and we have a huge following on facebook, 85 to 90 of the nations readers were angry with something we had just posted at thenation. Com criticizing Bernie Sanders for not engaging the activists, for not speaking more directly to, and so i dont think thats but its going to be an emerging debate and its going to be a debate that raises issues of can you fuse Economic Justice and Racial Justice . Does one take priority over the other . These are debates that are not new and that the nation engaged with over time, whether it was James Baldwin in 1966 report from occupied territory where he laid out issues were grappling today, stop and frisk, alienated communities, Police Brutality. These are back and its incumbent upon the nation i think to have debates about where these different moments come together and diverge. I totally agree, and i would add, this is another example, because i go with katrina on the cruises fundraising cruise, we had a panel and Jesse Jackson was on this, the beginning of this cruise, and he got off the ship after the first half, and on the panel, our columnist eric walterman, who is a very smart person, who goes out of his way, i keep telling him, to make unnecessary enemies. I love eric, and hes a really good writer, and i look forward to his column regularly. Eric said after jesse was off the boat, just in passing on this panel, im very glad that the first black president obama had been elected was not Jesse Jackson but was barack obama. At which point Jeremy Scahill brilliant Investigative Reporter and catholic worker writer said that is the most racist comment ive ever heard and all hell broke loose, and other things happened on the cruise, but thats another kind of issue on which there are differences of opinion in the liberal Left Community and in the black White Community and so the nation is not immune from having differences and im very glad katrina is dealing with them these days. I was going to say the nation is also changing the whole concept of the cruise. I thought you were going no, i am proud that one thing i started last year, trips to cuba, and i say that because its charles bittnor has been involved with them but i was at the reopening of the Cuban Embassy this past monday which was an extraordinary moment to see the 1961 flag be reraised at the embassy, but its values aligned, the nation for more than 55 years has been fighting for cuban independence from u. S. Imperialism, et cetera, but its also a mark of a changing journalistic environment, not to get too downtoearth here, but i dont know if you saw National Journal closed its print edition a week or so ago, and the publisher in doing so basically said weekly print journalism cant survive anymore. I would disagree. I know victor would disagree. The nation is not National Journal. Quegs were a publication of views, not winning the morning. I dont know if it you follow that expression inside the beltway who is going to win the morning. That is not what we try to do. But you do seek additional revenue, and the cruise was victors brilliant, its both something where you build a community. Its what these publishers call events. These are our events. We dont have sponsored events like the atlantic. Were not going to aspen to mingle with the inside the beltway crowd. Were doing the Community Building and the cuba trips have been wonderfully powerful and informing both citizens, but also informing our coverage and making new kinds of alliances in a moment where its ill just anyway. The mojitos are very good. You have a question . Well, i have been very impressed with the discussion, the willingness to be so open to actually talk some about controversies in the press room, having to do with covering Jesse Jackson, whether or not to endorse him, how to endorse him, and so on, and im curious about your coverage of Jesse Jackson. I know its been extensive. Its gone on for many years. The coverage deals primarily with income inequality or poverty. Recently with Police Brutality and ending it, but at the same time he has been very involved in promoting diversity, particularly in the work setting, and yet there is almost no mention in the nation of his work, and we go all the way back to 1996, when pepsico had executives disparaging blacks in withholding talking about withholding evidence for a federal discrimination lawsuit, and Jesse Jackson actually spoke out and called for a boycott, which hastened the settlement of that lawsuit and yet there wasnt a single thing mentioned in the nation. I might refer you to joanne wippiciewski wrote a 5,000word article, what was it, ten years ago, victor . I think in there she, really was a full wideranging portrait of Jesse Jackson but i do agree with you. Jesse jackson comes through the nation every five to six months, i say to give us sort of our secular sermon. He comes in the room and he walks around the table, the conference table, talks to all the interns, asks them if they have student debt, meets with everyone and he talks about whats on his mind and it is the case that he has been very involved in these last couple years and Silicon Valley. Exactly. And trying to push for more diversity in an area which is going to define this countrys future, and weve been meaning to, and ive talked to people who are working with him. Im delighted you do that. We do follow him. I will say weve given more attention partly because when he comes in to talk to us. At the end he mentions the Silicon Valley work but hes leading with voting rights, leading with moral issues on his mind, not that this isnt. Oh good, im absolutely delighted because i looked, i looked really carefully to see if you had covered his thing about the boycott with texaco and his work with Silicon Valley and there was not a single mention so im absolutely delighted to hear that. Thank you. Thank you. Question . The president ial race is shaping up pretty asymmetrically, and [ laughter ] i like that expression. I wondered, since clinton would be the new, uhm, the new john kerry i guess, uhm, whether Bernie Sanders would be the new nader, i mean whether people would view Bernie Sanders as spoiling clintons run or something, and i also as a side issue wondered what you think the future of donald trump might be. [ laughter ] oh, wow. Ill let you open. It doesnt matter what i think is the short of it. Im happy to tell you what i think, but i think its very important that Bernie Sanders is running. I think one of the, personally i think this, i dont want to speak for the nation here, that one of the consequences of his running is that Hillary Clinton has adopted most of his Domestic Program and i think thats a good thing for the country and the democrats, and Hillary Clinton herself in the long run. I think he has very little chance of getting the nomination, but i hope the dialogue and conversation continues to play out, and a part of me hopes that im wrong in what i think is going to happen. On donald trump, i would call on Marvin Kittman who is sitting in our audience who is a new jersey lapsed columnist for newsday but he publishes his own stuff online and hes my expert on anything that has to do with trump, and people like that. Marvin, by the way, when we ran our satire mag keep, we ran marvin for president of the United States. He was running against barry goldwater, and he was running on abraham lincolns 1864 platform, which called for the freeing of the slaves, the Unconditional Surrender of the south and the reinforcement of the garrison at ft. Sumter. And sitting behind him Richard Lingeman was his holy ghost writer so thats my thought about this. I think, could i i think one thing that i find fascinating about Bernie Sanders run is how you see millions of americans meeting him for the first time, which is a testament to our media system which is blocked, someone like Bernie Sanders. Last year was the first time he appeared on meet the press. John mccain is on every other week. Be it contributes to this downsize politics of excluded alternatives and millions of people looking beyond the label socialist and saying wow, these are ideas that i agree with. These are ideas that i havent heard about ever. Theres a great power in that. The nation last year started an editorial line which ises were not endorsing anyone right now for sure but we seek a competitive primary because what we want is a contested set of ideas. You want new ideas. You want debate so i think its very exciting and Bernie Sanders is someone the nation has been covering close on to 30 years. He comes through the nation every time he does the Steve Colbert show which is now over but he came through in november and he sat and he talked to us in the interns and he talked about his ideals, ideas, why he might run and not run. Then he asked people should i run inside the Democratic Party or independent candidate . This was a real insight to me because there were 35 people in the room. I think it would have been different prenader. Two people said run as an independent. The rest said run inside the Democratic Party. Ralph nader did not want to do that and in that, he did expose the antidemocratic nature of so much of our system to get on the ballot would have caused Bernie Sanders half of his time, to get on tv and explain why he was running as an independent socialist, so i think its exciting. Donald trump i think elections are a mirror of a country, in addition to other things, put up a mirror to, and i think hes not in the knownothing tradition, which elevates him too much. [ laughter ] i think hes someone who is an entertainer, but has decided and its so in sync with the Republican Party platform, that the rich can do anything, they can rewrite the rules. They can do anything, and hes going to be above it all. He is not going to be constrained by the rules, and i dont know, hell be on that stage in cleveland. Cleveland i was just saying, cleveland not this weekend the following weekend is convening of black lives matter, thousands of activists. The following weekend is the first gop debate. Cleveland is going to to, if it survives. Question . Question . Good to see both of you, and see you looking so well. You alluded earlier to the period of time that it takes for the seed of a social change idea to germinate and bear fruit. I wonder if youd venture any guesses as to what seeds are being planted now that we can look at, well, some people can look at 25 years from now, and then see the fruit being borne. I had trouble hearing that. He asked, he said we were talking about how the seeds of the future change, the seeds of future are important ideas, are sowed decades before they appear. What seeds do you think are being planted now that will have political influence, importance . Is that fair . Yes. Great question. You know, i think to take something that is not resolved in my own mind, the whole impact of the internet on questions of privacy and how it affects the First Amendment and how it relates to our intelligence community, how that plays out in the long run, it seems to me is going to have a deep impact on our democratic society, and to me, its cause for alarm rather than a seed being planted. That is a good thing, and so thats one thought. I was struck today that one of our long time contributors, gara alpavitz was in the New York Times with an interesting editorial called socialism american style which was essentially retrieving radical ememts in our countrys history. The tva, the alaska sovereign fund, and i think there is a fundamental questioning now of capitalism, and i dont need to tell you why, and you have a pope who is extraordinary making Bernie Sanders seem like a centrist traveling around, but i think that is in question, and at the same time i think were in the fight of our lives in terms of corporate power, and the lack of citizens control of their lives, but somewhere in there its certainly not placid period, and i think that is very important. Finally, the future, i think what john, not just but the lifting up again of diplomacy as a way of resolving conflict is something this countrys imagination has lost, but at the same time, we are possibly on the cusp of a new cold war, and in there could be the seeds of destruction, and terrible damage to all, so much of what i think people in this room care about. Timothy is the cohead of the cold war center. I think you should have a discussion about are we confronting a second cold war . What does that mean for the future of not just this country but i dont i i dont believe we are entering a new cold war, but that doesnt mean there arent people who want one. The difference now is that the challenge is not one that could involve our extinction. This is not our differences with russia, which are i believe great are not at the level that they were when the United States and the soviet union were superpowers. I would disagree but thats a different debate. I think there were rules then and i think in some cases the rules are not set in the ways and there is reckless talk of use of tactical Nuclear Weapons because people have forgotten and are distanced. Anyway action requethe nation played an important role. This is a congealed consensus right now about u. S. russian relations and the nation as it has through time is at least challenging that, its seeking debate, one hand clapping in the media and the political world and youre right there, is a war party. I think another area where the seeds of radical change are being, i wouldnt say planted, but are out there right now, has to do with sexual identity, and the new, there was a piece in the times yesterday on how the new marital law may lead to polyga polygamy. I have a daughter who just made a documentary about transgendered children, and whats happening with them for front line. The world is changing on that front in a major way, and peoples attitudes are already changing, and whats going to happen there, your guess is better than mine probably. We have two questions. Just think of the social change that we have witnessed. Its just, think of the social change that we have witnessed in the last decade. Yes. Sir . Hi, thank you for this presentation. I believe it used to be said of reagan that he was teflon coated and i think that also may be applied to some of our liberal leads, the woman was complimenting Jesse Jackson, but i havent seen much attention to his engagement corporations in ways that maybe werent truly representative of the populous interest that he claims to support. For years hes been wanting to diversify wall street, and he was doing that project to get more diversity there. It seems perhaps he would have been better off challenging the interests of wall street rather than engaging in that process of engaging, who is raising money and it would be interesting if people such as he were held accountable. Robert redford you could call his tv channel the jpmorgan channel. His environmental chaired formerly by Fred Schwartz years ago he was lambasted by bob fitch but gave us nafta, its recently green washed fracking in california, and illinois, and if you look closely its a very corrupt, conflicted organization. Theres the daughter of enrons biggest shareholder on their board while they were legitimizing selly Belford Malkin whose husband owns the empire state building. Anyway i would find it interesting, if we could have more coverage of that, Robert Kennedy memorial, green wash sweat shops, taking money from sweat Shop Companies and it would have been interesting to ask some of our liberal leaders how can you legitimize this. Thank you. Thanks. I think weve done some of the toughest coverage on environmental conflict of interest, but you know, in we have pissed off a lot of people. We havent taken up every issue you mentioned but we have done at least twothirds over the last 25 years. Victor could tick off, but we take on many of the conflicts, and dont shy away from them, and you know, it speaks to the independence we prize. We dont really were unlike any other, most publications in terms of the advertising is not really our base. I could cite another example, victor spoke about it in a documentary film made on the 150th, to mark the 150th which is we were one of the first publication to expose the link between cigarette smoking and cancer. That takes an advertising free or liberated from advertising publication. Johann hawery took on the big green. Mark dowery, names if you havent checked them out but that independence i think is one big reason this place has survived for 150 years. [ inaudible comment ]. Sir, somebody elses turn, thank you. A thank you for this presentation. Im interested in how your work might be affected by the changes that have occurred in the nature of argument on the other side. In the late 70s that you were talking about, i could read the nation and think about approaches in policies on poverty, for example, and then i could read the neoconservatives and they would have different approaches. Now if we want to talk about an issue like climate change, half of the people deny that it even exists, they sort of have created an alternate reality of facts. So when youre trying to express opinions, the question is, can they even get through or do you have to take a step back and say well, lets go back to the facts first. I dont know if that has an impact on what you do or it would seem to me that it probably would have to have some impact. You want to take that . Ill just give you a personal opinion about magazines of opinion like the nation. Yes. I think one of the reasons in my view that print should and will survive is that it is a place where you can put forward for longterm rumination and cogitation and thought, the facts and issues behind climate change. Much harder to deal with that in the new media it seems to me in a way that people are going to have to wrestle with what is true and what is not true. I think what youre describing is an accurate description, but it is colored by the current political situation where you happen to have a Republican Party that dominates whose base dominates much of the Republican Party and the immediate qula itself so you dont get the kind of exchange youre calling for which is one of the reasons the nation is in business. Yes, but at the same time the thursday editorial meeting this morning we talked about transpartisanship. The limits and possibilities for example on criminal justice issues, youre seeing at the moment Newt Gingrich and van jones, you know, i mean so the question is, what are the common areas there, or on surveillance you had john conyers aligned with justin aymish, on limiting surveillance power. That isnt quite the factual element youre describing. Victor talked about Eric Alterman our media columnist. The Mainstream Media encable and others buy into the false equivalents they give the climate deniers equal weight and thats terribly destructive and something the nation never buys into. Id argue transparency is our obje objectivity. Were honest where we come from, accurate in our facts and principled but that false equivalence i think is something that is still embedded both in television, in the old and new media. Last question. Im just curious about how your a