Transcripts For CSPAN3 Women Reporters In Vietnam 20240622

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 makingpeople 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 audience demographic has evolved, because theres such a rich history and what you see and hope for moving forward. I was talking to tim about this earlier coming in. So the print, i want to say the print is the median age is probablily early 60s. We Just Launched a new website the main demographic at thenation. Com is 25 to 34. The continuity in change, the ability to bring people in and i mean, i want subscribers who are 105 and i want readers who are 12, and we had writers who are 13 and writers who are 104. So i think thats a great span, and its complicated, because i remember tom frank, many years ago did a cover story for us, what is hip . And i got angry calls, this is years ago. Richard was sitting anyway, what do you mean . What about my Health Insurance program . [ laughter ] so we got straddled. But i take great, i take heart in bringing in a new generation and thats partly the interns, its partly the student nation program, we have 60 campus correspondents all around the country, all kinds of campuses. Do you want to add something, victor . No, i agree. Well weve been privileged this evening. Victor, thank you. Thank you. Katrina, thank you. Soon some of this material will be on the web. We want to you make use of it, learn from it, and given the candor with which both of you spoke today, i cant imagine, i cant wait to read your papers. Thank you all for your attention. Thank you. Goodbye, thank you. Dbka first Lady Helen Taft called knellie made several notable chanlgz to the white house. The most obvious replacing the white male ushers with africanamerican staff. Also while in washington she led an effort to raise funds to create a memorial for victims of the titanic but her greatest legend is bringing thousands of japanese Cherry Blossom trees to the capitol. We examine the public and private lives of the women who filled the position of first lady and their influence on the presidency. From Martha Washington to michelle obama, sundays at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan3. We recently sat down with david hadley, ph. D. Candidate at Ohio State University to talk about the cia and the press in the early days of the cold war. This interview is from the annual meeting for society of historians of American Foreign relations. Its 20 minutes. David hadley, graduate of Gettysburg College and a doctoral candidate at the Ohio State University in columbus, lets talk about times like these, the press and the cia brought in the early cold war, in researching this, what did you learn . Well, what i really learned is that the cia and the press had a pretty at times contentious and very multivaried relationship between the two of them, and it was really founded early on in this common understanding of cold war struggle that the United States is facing this new threat after world war ii, and the soviet union, and that theres in the early days, theres a really strong sense that had to Work Together in order to advance american interests, but over time, that really declined, and so when the press starts as an institution pushing back against the cia more, thats when the agency really got into trouble in a big way in the first time in the United States. How so . Well, byc  1975, the cia, wh has for most of its existence been trying really hard to avoid permanent congressional investigation of its activities, finds itself under investigation by two different committees and the two houses of congress, the Church Committee and the senate, and the Pike Committee and the house of representatives, that really turn out a lot of the cias, what you might call its dirty laundry. There was a cia report that was called the family jewels, that basically was a collection of illegal or at least questionable cia activities that had gone on from 1959 until 1972, and that gets aired to the American Public and its really, because theres a greater willingness on the part of the press to challenge the cia, the entire thing starts because Seymour Hirsch in december 1974 publishes a story that the cia has a massive domestic Surveillance Campaign going on in the United States, which is in direct contravention of the agencys charter as its prohibited from operating within the confines of the United States. On cspan radio a couple weeks ago we played the audio of senator frank church, democratic senator from idaho, and if you listen to what he said back then about listening in on phone conversations and trying to ta. Into your information, we could play that today, and it is the same argument. Yes. Lot of the lessons about intelligence we kind of first a lot of the questions i should say first really started going during these investigations, and its interesting with the National Security agency today, and those questions is, the church in Pike Committees are looking at the cia, the fbi, and to some extent the nsa, and they really recognize that the biggest threat in terms of you know, potential violations of privacy, and listening in on americans do come from increasing electronic communication, but theyre all sharing this idea that surveillance does change things, that knowing youre under surveillance will have an impact, and that by having a Surveillance Program against the cia specifically looking at antivietnam war protesters under the belief that they might be influenced by some foreign power in order to, you know, work against american interests, that cia surveillance there could be really damaging to the Free Expression of ideas. The cia also werent helped by the fact that the name of that program was called chaos, and had very negative connotations, even though the cia insists that it was just a randomly chosen code name. 40 years later, we are still talking about these two committees. Just how significant were they . Well theyre very significant for the cia and the fbi. The fbi had been conducting its own very questionable activities under j. Ed dpar hoover, and those get very tcurtailed. The Central Intelligence agency permanently established by the senate by the congress thats not just a kind of blip on the radar. Its permanently under supervision, which is why we get now for example dianne feinstein, who has an investigation into the cias enhanced interrogation tactics, thats kind of coming from the foundations of oversight that get laid down by the church and the Pike Committees, and theyre also very important for ushering in a new era in the cia in the sense that a lot of the more active or more you might say reckless things the cia had done in the cold war for some time at least get curtailed now, how long or if theyre just changing to different ways of doing things rather than what theyd been doing, back in the cold war, thats a question for debate. But i think the church and Pike Committees really changed the environment in which the cia is working in. It knows that theres some people looking at it now when it hadnt known that before. This is a minor point but its only been relatively recently that if you travel in northern virginia, you can identify where the cia is. It used to say it was a transportation or highway office, but on a larger issue of before the cia was developed after world war ii, what did we do . Well, you have military intelligence agencies that are, you know, the office of Naval Intelligence or the bureau of military intelligence for the army, and they essentially were focused on the tasks that were deemed important for their specific services, and they often didnt talk to one another very well. The state department had something called the black chamber that was actually pretty effective in reading diplomatic mail, and intercepting cables, but it gets closed by the secretary of state henry stimpson, who says at least according to the story that gentlemen dont read each others mail, and so going into world war ii, theres not a real central organizer of the american intelligence effort. T intelligence effort. And thats really where the cia gets created after the war, because a lot of people look back at world war ii, and especially on pearl harbor, and the lesson is, you know, not that we didnt have reason to suspect that the japanese were going to attack at pearl harbor but that all of the different elements of the early American Intelligence Community werent talking to each other. So thats kind of the cias initial role, is its less about operations and more about coordination of effort. But you can actually see that this happens again and again. The 9 11 Commission Report has very similar conclusions, that the problem wasnt a failure of collection, but a failure to put all of the pieces together in time to prevent, you know, such a major attack. I was just going to ask you about 9 11. Researching this topic, does it surprise you that that break down occurred, leading up to 9 11 . It doesnt really. And part of the reason for that is that the cia, even though its originally conceived as something thats going to be, you know, working with all these different agencies and kind of a central hub for intelligence to work through, it pretty quickly gets directed more towards covert action, towards, you know, aggressive activity against communist nations or potential communist nations in third world or in the eastern bloc during the cold war, and i actually argued that part of the reason for that change is the nature of the press coverage. That from reporters who support the mission of the cia, or who dont talk about its activities, you know, they kind of give a certain amount of cover to people who want the cia to be a more active and aggressive agency. Whereas, every time theres, you know, an event that happens that is somehow against u. S. Interests, the cia in its early years is getting blamed. Why didnt you predict this . And so theres riots in bogota in 1948. Those disrupt a conference that secretary of state george mar marshall is at. So the cia gets blamed for not predicting violence arising in bogota. So youve got this kind of dynamic going where covert action is either supported or at least not talked about, whereas the more analytic, the more predictive side is attack from early on. I dont think it gets the chance to really develop as strongly as it might have. In its nearly 70 years, who are among the cia directors who have made a difference, who have played a significant role in shaping the agency . Well, really significant early on is alan dulles. Alan dulles is the brother of the secretary of state during the eisenhower administration. So 1953, the eisenhower dulles is kind of in charge of the United States public interaction with the world, and alan dulles gets in charge of the notsopublic interaction with the world. Its under him that the cia first successfully overthrows a Foreign Government in iran in 1953. And he is very much an advocate of this more aggressive, covert actionoriented agency. But theres others, very important, come later that leave their own distinct mark and change the agency and shift it. I dont want to suggest for example that theres no analysis being done, but cia, and you get a guy like john mccomb in the 1960s whos, hes director of Central Intelligence during the cuban missile crisis. And he really buckles down and focuses especially on providing good intelligence and keeping a lower profile. So id say those are two of the most important early directors of the cia. Why did you get interested in this topic . I got interested in this topic, based on a conversation i was having with one of my professors. We were reading about the overthrow of the government of guzman in guatemala, in 1954. And my adviser wondered, what did the American People think about this . And that really led me to start investigating how the cia and the press interacted with unanother. The press is really how we as a people know what our countrys actually doing. And so what i found is theres some stories about whats some stories about whats happening withy9 reasonable, you know, analytical person looking at press coverage in 1954 can tell that were doing something in guatemala, but that its not nearly as, you know, investigative or sustained in its investigation as it would be later. And yet, its ironic, because reporters want to know everything, and this is an agency that prides itself in secrecy. So describe that interaction between this agency, these agents and the press. So, where you get this interaction is that, well, the press wants to know things, and they look to the cia for information. They dont necessarily want to write about the cia, so the most basic relationship you have between the press and the agency is, you know, a reporter will go and have lunch with an agent at the cia, and hell get some Background Information that he can use. And the cia is often a valuable source of intelligence for reporters. At a certain point, intelligence work and the press, theyre doing the same kind of thing for very different reasons, in terms of getting information. So if youre getting a lot of good stuff from the cia, you dont necessarily want to do anything thats going to aggravate them or to close down that source of information. The press wants to keep access. The New York Times had a, you know, an arrangement with the cia, during the 1960s, that every once in a while, theyd send reporters from the Washington Bureau to the cia headquarters and get briefed on world events for deep background, so it was a mutually beneficial relationship between the two of them. And then there were some reporters who just really wanted to cooperate with u. S. Intelligence. Theres joseph and stewart alsop. Two famous americans who went beyond just Trading Information to working with the cia on some of their projects out of a sense of patriotism and adventure. Joseph alsop took a trip to visit orwells wife. The animated animal farm gets a lot of support from the cia because of its antisoviet message. Joseph alsop offered to get a reporter briefed by the cia, so all this information that the cia wants out, that it cant necessarily just come out and tell people about, and then send those reporters to europe and have them report things that the cia is giving them. And presenting it as information that has come about through just basic reporting practice. So, if david hadley had unfettered access to go to the cia headquarters in virginia, see everything, talk to anyone, what would you look for . I would look for any file on arthur hayes sulzberger, who is the publisher of the New York Times for the early part of my project, hes there until the 1960s. And whether or not the cia actually paid him to cooperate with them, because thats a question thats been debated quite a bit. Id really like to find out about that. How did you go about researching this dissertation in where did you go for information . Who did you talk to . And what was available to you . Well, a lot of things are available in terms of government files from the freedom of information act. The freedom of information act reve reveals a lot about some communications between the cia and the press. The New York Times has a really great archive that i looked at, if you want to look at records of how reporting was done in the 1940s and 1950s, thats a great place to go. And honestly, i read a lot of newspapers. I read about 26 years worth of newspaper stories rs anything relating to intelligence in the times, the washington post, the Chicago Tribune to kind of see what kind of an impact the cia has, so that even if you cant see the precise impact, you can see kind of the wake that it leaves behind it, like its a whale in the ocean. You might not necessarily see it, but youll definitely see, you know, the waves coming after it. Theis is, of course, one aspect of the cia story as you move ahead and look at other areas of this topic, what would be next . Well, i especially want to form a more indepth information of the church and the pipe committees, because they kind of show up at the end of my work now, and i think that theyre very important for understand being the country that we live in today, and the way that this huge part of our government, the National Security, you know, apparatus, really functions, and i think its important to try and better understand what they got right, what they might have gotten wrong and why it happened the way it did. Two final points. First, in terms of your research, you provided a couple of examples, but anything that really surprised you . Anything that was really a wow moment for you. One thing that was surprising to me is that in 1967, the cia is discovered to have been involved in the National Student association and has a much bigger role in private affairs than i necessarily, than most people necessarily would have suspected. And the New York Times is so disturbed by this that they have an indepth investigation as to whether theres been any inappropriate contact between them, their reporters and the cia, and they find some really interesting stories that theres an official, a member of the Associated Press in hong kong whos accusing everybody of being a communist and who is almost certainly working for the krft ia, at least according to this one secondhand reporter, that the cia approached a times reporter in berlin in 1948 to spy for them, that he had a secret rank within the government at least according to this reporter to conduct operations for them. And it was really surprising how out in the hope it was. How much of an open secret it was among members of the press. And finally, why is this relevant today . I think its relevant today, because the cia is going to continue to be a part of our government and our nation and forms an important task, but in order to keep track of what its doing, the most reliable oversight has been done by the press and not by congress. And so we really need to understand how the press interacts with the cia, how the press performs its watchdog function in the democracy to make sure that these necessary parts of the u. S. National Security State dont go to the kinds of abuses that have happened in the past. Will this be a likely course offering for professor david hadley . I very much hope so. I very much hope so. Good luck with your project, from Ohio State University, doctoral student, david hadley. Thank you very much. Friday night on American History tv, the cold war. At 8 00 eastern time, real america with an army film about exercise delaware, a joint u. S. Armed forces operation to defend against a potential soviet invasion of iran. At 8 30. Lectures in history, with a look at the 20th Century Nuclear arms race, and at 9 25, a discussion about the korean war and how it led countries to crackdown on perceived threats from their own citizens. American history tv at 8 00 eastern time, here on cspan 3. This sunday night, on q a, institute for policy fellow phyllis bennis. On the war on terrorism. Who is isis, what are their origins, what do he ththey beli . Why are they so violent. Its something we can do something about. What is the u. S. Policy regarding isis . Why isnt it working . Can we really go to war against terrorism . Are we just doing the war wrong . Or is it wrong to say there should be a war against terrorism at all. I think those are the questions that in some ways are coming up on American History tv in primetime, the history of journalism in america. Next, women reporters discuss their experiences in covering the vietnam war. Then a look at the longest lasting weekly magazine the nation on its 150 anniversary. Later a discussion about the relationship between the cia and the press. Youre watching American History tv in primetime on cspan3. Now, a panel of women journalists discuss their experiences in covering the vietnam war. They talk about the challenges they face in a field of journalism that previously excluded women. The museum hosted this hour and 20 minute event. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the museums theater. Im john maynard, director of programs here at the museum. In may, the Museum Opened reporting vietnam, a provocative new exhibit marking the anniversary of the vietnam war. The museum explores the stories of how journalists brought news about the war to a divided nation. Tonight we are so thrilled and honored to be joined by four courageous women who covered the vietnam war. Their stories are both unique and fascinating, and we look forward to hearing from them. Our panel is faucet, who quit her job as a reporter for the Honolulu Star bulletin. She was hired by the honolulu advertiser and was sent to saigon and reported on everything from marine combat patrols to buddhist uprising. Another used her 500 winnings from the game show password to buy a oneway plane ticket to saigon. She reported from many battle scenes, including one where she was wounded while interviewing marines for wrr radio. Edith letter was the first woman assign assigned fulltime to the Associated Press staff reporting the vietnam war. She has covered the 1973 middle east war, the war in afghanistan, the first gulf war, the conflict in northern ireland, and many other conflicts around the world. Since 1998, she has been aps chief correspondent at the united nations. And laura palmer left for vietnam after graduating from college in 1972. She covered the war for Rolling Stone and reported on the u. S. Evacuation of saigon for time magazine. She currently works as a hospital chaplain in pediatric oncology. Were in good hands tonight with our moderator, Barbara Starr. She joined cnn in 2001 and during that time has made repeated trips to afghanistan and the horn of africa. Shes also reported directly from the persian gulf, russia, central america, and the chinesenorth korean border. Tonight is just one of the many programs the museum has hosted and will host about vietnam. We hope youll keep an eye on our website where well be talking more about photojournalists. I want to give a special welcome to our press pass members and friends of the First Amendment society. Id also like to thank our Corporate Engagement Program members who make programs like this possible. It was done in memory of bob simon, the correspondent whose legendary war reporting over five decades began in vietnam. It is now my privilege to introduce Barbara Starr and our distinguished panel. Thank you. [ applause ] good evening to everybody. Sorry for bringing all my stuff out here, but i was trying to stay organized a little bit. Its just delightful to see everyone here this evening for this conversation, and i had a whole plan of how to start until i was talking to edith letter backsta backstage. Shes going back new york tonight yeah, i have to share. Shes going back to new york tonight to cover the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Hell be at the u. N. Tomorrow. The pentagon said to me, no, no, no press. Edith got her way into it. I think thats where we start tonight. But if it makes news, youre got to give me a full. Absolutely. I expect that we will have an absolutely fascinating conversation tonight. I want to start by saying one thing. I am not a war correspondent. Im a pentagon correspondent, and im thrilled, honored, and humbled to be with these women tonight. I work out of the pentagon. I have traveled to war zones, but nothing, nothing, approaches what these women have done and what so many journalists, regardless of gender, i think you would all agree, men and n,