Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Of The Nation 20240622

It just fell together as i went along. I think one thing that struck me very dramatically was my decision to leave vietnam and to see how seductive war is. And i knew i didnt want to be someone who went from one war to the next and be kind of a war groupie, because i couldnt make a life. I wrote once that i wanted roots that went down to the source of water. And at the time, when i was in vietnam, i wasnt sure what that would have meant, and i was too young to be thinking about that, but when i went back to vietnam in 1989, it was the first time and i traveled with a small group from hanoi all the way through the country, and i was in saigon and did the memory walk of the places i had lived. And i realized, there was a moment when it just hit me. I thought of my daughter who was then 8. And i wanted to go home. And i miss the life that i had created. And i think that was when i really realized that i had, i had done that, that i had somehow chosen or life had chosen me. I didnt want to just go from war to war. , and i had to make another life, which i did. But its, you know, the tradeofs a trade offs are always there, and you do the best you can at the time. Barbara, can i Say Something . Please. I think of all of us here, im the only one who actually stayed being a Foreign Correspondent and a war correspondent for 25 years. And i think that it definitely was a tradeoff, particularly for my generation. Right. I think it would have been impossible for me to have covered all the wars and conflicts and gotten on planes and run off all over the world, and to have been married and raised a family. So it was a choice that i made, and i have had an incredible life. But it was a choice that i made. Hi. Im judith. My question is directed to most of you. Many of you had been both reporters before and after the vietnam war. My question is, how did it change the environment for women, both your life before and then coming back afterward . And my question is a little twofold. Also between you and other women journalists after the war, was there a different level of respect or ease because you had had the experience or no . No. No, no, no, no. Vietnam was, i remember first coming back from the war, and i was looking for a job in television, which was my experience. It was like, oh, yeah, you were in vietnam, but you dont know film and tape. It was like, oh, that was there, but this is now and you dont you know, there was a time when vietnam just was it wasnt almost heard. I remember when i went home, i was in the drugstore where i had been for years and years. They said, laura, i havent seen you for a while. I said, i was in vietnam for the last two years, and i was living in paris the past few years. Paris . Oh, tell us about paris. For a time, vietnam was erased in consciousness. For me, i agree. Vietnam was the war that everyone wanted to forget. When i came back, i went back to san francisco. I remember all my friends saying, oh, how was it . Did you have an interesting time . Yes, i did. Well, heres whats been going on while you were away. Professionally, for me, it was very positive because i left vietnam in like august of 1973. Then there was the war that broke out. I was one of by then, working for the ap, and wes gallagher, who sent me to vietnam, then sent me to israel and sent the other reporter to cairo. Professionally, it was a positive because we had proven that women could actually do the job. I think, one thing, shes talking about her job, and laura also, but it also is emboldening personally. You think, youve been in vietnam and youve covered that. Then things i didnt really know my profession and my craft, i went from being writing about parties to writing about wars. I needed to learn the craft. I needed to be a police reporter. I needed to cover courts. I needed to do politics. That gave me the guts to do that, even if i didnt understand it and i thought itd be hard. Hi. My name is meg. Im a student reporting here for the summer, so its awesome to see all of you. Im wondering, was there ever a moment when you were reporting or when youre stationed out in vietnam, when you just really, really wanted to go back home to the u. S. . While we were there working, i really didnt. I felt that it was such an amazing story. But it was very lonely. And i knew denby was out there, but i didnt know her. We were not friends. There were so few women. When i was out on patrol, i was with the guys. There was camaraderie. I felt really, you know, important, engaged, alive. After a couple days, go back to my little room in saigon, all alone, no one to really talk with. It was hard. Really had to say, okay, let me get out of saigon and back on patr patrol, back where the story was. We have i see a young man im sorry on the left. Well probably tie it off with you. Sir . Im sorry. Manners are terrible. Trying to learn patience right now. No, no. Its very hard to see. Its all right. Im so sorry. Aloha. I recently just moved here from maui. Graduated in 2012 from the best school west of the rockies. Anyway, my question is two parted. This is your job, and i understand that, and its an amazing job to have. But there are so many tragedies, so many things that maybe i shouldnt bring up, but its a question i want to know. How did you stay focused . How did you just like drain everything out and just remember that this is your job and your job is very important, because without your job, we wouldnt know any of the things youve put down in history. Also, i dont know about you guys, but its kind of hard. I just moved out here sorry you know. Jump in whenever you want here. Youre obviously very aware that covering a war, you see a lot of sadness, a lot of death, a lot of fear, a lot of injuries amongst troops. Journalists, you know, ill just say it, and jump back in where you want to, reporters are very famous for, oh, it doesnt get to me. We do the job and push it out of our minds and we go ahead and do what you know, its our job. Thats why were there. People handle things differently. It would depend on your question is really good. It would depend on the temperament of the individual. You wont know it until you get into something really hard, how youll handle it. I remember watching gone with the wind, and watch scarlet walk through a hospital with dead people, and people seeking her help. That was fiction. For me, i found out when i saw something terrible in vietnam, i did that. I closed it out. It was automatic. I didnt think about it. It was like a veil, to just keep going and not get deeply not bring it all in, like you were saying. How do you do it . So mine was a strange thing that happened automad icaltically. I think it comes back. Weve all read about young troops with posttraumatic stress. They tell us its a matter of resilience which is, you know, you acknowledge the stress, acknowledge what has happened to you, but how do you develop the techniques of resilience, to keep moving . Ill share a story. It was not in a war zone, but i walked into the room of a young marine who had been wounded. Were chatting about, where i had been in afghanistan and where he was wounded in afghanistan. This young marine had done a really hard time. I thought i was making a light hearted remark, something like, i would never be able to be in the area that you were in. It was so hard. It was so dangerous, et cetera. This young man looks at me and says, look, were all afraid. Anybody out there who tells you theyre not afraid, theyre lying. But its that ability, perhaps, to put one foot, you know, the soldiers who do this, the marines, the most awesome thing that you see, i think, in a war zone, is, of course, theyre afraid, but they still put one combat boot in front of the other. Thank you so much. I also have i think its important, too, one of the things that is very significant is that if theres meaning, if theres a reason to tell the story, ill do anything. I think that there is among the best journalists i know, a sense of mission and calling. People are doing the work because theyre passionate about it, that carries you, too. I think, yeah, i mean, i think the challenge is always, how do you keep the heart alive . How do you keep the heart open and not get numb . That takes, you know, a lot of work. I think one of the gifts of the reporting and one of the gifts of sort of entering into anything thats hard is that it takes you deeper into yourself. If you can find ways to work through it, it will break you open and break you open into a richer and deeper connection to life. And one of the really great things about great reporting, and i think of gloria emerson, particularly, is being able to capture that emotion that youre watching. And translate it into words, into stories that humanize war. And i mean, none of us are zombies. We all have emotions. The real talent is to be able to put those emotions in a place that you can report on whats actually happening, and then at a time when youre writing or broadcasting, that you can convey the sense of that incident to a broader public. I also have another question, as well. I dont know if you guys are religious or anything, but how did you guys come out of this war . Were you guys did you guys have more strength in your religious resolving, whatever your views are, it doesnt matter, but did you guys come in like, how did you guys come out of this war . Did you guys have more resolve in your religious views, or were you was your faith in humanity broken down into nothingness . Im sorry. Yes, thats my question. All right. Ill tell you what, what were going to do, because we have little time left, and i want everybody to get a question in, were going to have one of you answer, and well move it along so we get laura, ill have you answer. Im working as a hospital chaplain now. I went to seminary from 2006 to 2009. I think vietnam took me deeper into my own life. The question you get, of course, we all have to reconcile with, is where was god in vietnam . Where was god in the holocaust . How can there be something so awful . I was interviewing a woman who has been a nurse in vietnam. This was a question i had struggled with. She said to me, as any soldier will say to you if you talk to them, well, i never loved like i loved in vietnam. I loved my wife and kids, but i love my buddies. The nurses will say there was something about the love i had for my patients. It was so intense and so different. Linda vand linda said, i know in that love, thats where god was. That was the moment that i thought, yes, god is in the love, not the bonds of the bullets. Hi, im kay kofman, a former worker. The question i have, and youve talked a little about it, is reintegrating once you got back at the time. The gis were not welcomed the way they are now. We were not talking about posttraumatic stress disorder. How was it for you to come back and, to the extent you had to reintegrate into society, what were the challenges for you at that point . Lets have one person take that on so we keep moving. The only thing id like to say is my views on the war changed when i was there. I was prowar, because i was anticommunist. Toward tend, i saw the tragedy and the waste of war. But coming back to america and seeing the antivietnam demonstrators broke my heart. While politically, i agreed with them, to hear them ho, ho, ho, theyre going to win. You know, it was very, very difficult to walk straight into that very hostile environment. Just as a, i think, her point is excellent. It really wasnt until the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial that we were able to separate the warriors from the war. I think one of the, perhaps, ultimate obscenity about vietnam is the soldiers who went were blamed for our losing it, and the result of the war is not the outcome. The outcome of the war is not the result of the people who fought that. By the time the memorial was dedicated, we could see that as a nation, finally. Lets get through three more quick questions. Im sorry to rush you. Thats okay. My name is annie. My question is, what are your thoughts about vietnam and the war before and after you came to vietnam, becoming reporters . In a sound bite, i can say i went with all the answers and i left with the questions. I saw the war in black and white before i went there, and when i came back, after knowing vietnamese and seeing more sides of the pictures, there are many shades of gray. Great answer. I think i might have to use that in other circumstances. My name is dan. Im in the theater. I have a huge military family background. My question for edith. Based on your pow experience, and im curious, given recent comments, my question to you would be, what advice would you give or say to somebody who says that pows are not war heros, because theyve been captured, given everything that youve seen . Thats a loaded question. Well, you know. But i believe that anyone who puts his or her life on the line, ready to sacrifice for their country, in any shape or form, is basically a hero in the broader sense of the term. And for those who were inpris imprisoned and captures, suffered terrible hardships and indignities, its magnified. Because they actually had to face an even greater test than their fellow soldiers who survived and went home to their families when their tours were up. The word hero, i personally believe, has come to be sort of a catch all word. Everyone is a hero in our culture. Everyone is a hero. As i say, i think that soldiers, say it was marines ready to sacrifice for their country, they all should fall in that category. I think it can also be heroic to heal, to come to terms to the war, for someone who tries to find beauty and meaning in life again, who has to learn to walk again, tie a shoe. For the family who stands beside him, for the children who learn that dad or mom is upset because of i think there are many things that are courageous that we sometimes overlook in our need to create heros. Healing is ultimately very heroic. Thank you very much. Sir, youre going to have the last question of the evening. No pressure. Sure. My name is hunter forte. My question is for all of you. How might you see yourselves in journalist or reporters in particular, female journalist and reporters, in this modern or current age of journalism . I wouldnt want to be a war reporter today. I think its so dangerous and so just random. One thing about vietnam is our enemy there, the north vietnamese, they wanted to get through the war and live. They werent going to kill themselves or kill civilians. They tried it once before i came, blew up a boat in saigon that served this delicious pepper crab, and a lot of vietnamese would go there. They win the war and win them oo their side. So they stopped. But the danger in the current war is the people that are an enemy, they dont care. They will kill civilians, they will torture people. We did not have, when people were cabture tucaptured, like was not tortured. Vietnam was plenty frightening, but in a different way. I think theres no gender bias anymore. I may be wrong, but when i see women reporters covering from the middle east, its now, if im correct, more than 60 are female. Nobody bats an eye that shes standing there with a flat jacket. I think the opportunities are amazing for women. However, journalism itself as a profession has changed, and thats a different panel discussion. In the military, i learned the lesson of vietnam, keep reporters as far as you can from the field. Which is impossible. We did something that cant be replicated today, which is a tragedy. Most of the news organizations dont have foreign bureaus. I think thats a huge change. As someone who works for an organization that still does have a lot of foreign bureaus, one of the rare american organizations that still does, there are a lot of women out on the front lines. The United States is not involved in many countries where there are conflicts going on. There are more civil wars today than there are intercountry conflicts. I think the fact that we live in a 24 7 world, where the communications and the interconnections are so instantaneous, and the fact that you have not only governments, but you have rebel fighters, and then you have extremist groups on every range. The players have grown dramatically, and i think that for all of that, it is much more dangerous to be out in the field on the front lines today. But there are plenty of women and plenty of men who are doing it, and plenty of men, young men and plenty of young women who really would like to be doing it. And on that note, we want to thank everyone for coming. I think its been a terrific conversation amongst our panelists and with you in the audience. We really do thank you for coming out tonight. You know, the News Business has been changing, i think, more rapidly with more volatility and faster than most of us can really keep up with it. But what it really does come down to at the end of the day is the reporter out there, filing under the most difficult of circumstances, making sure that the story does get to the american people. And these are four women who stand head and shoulders in making that happen. [ applause ] so i think well turn up the house lights so nobody everyone can see their way out. 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, which 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 e 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 they 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