Ear kenearly will change in transform tiff ways. It is a prime example to integrating the arts into all aspects of the University Experience and to making it a true arts destination. Tonight, were in for such a treat as wei hear from john meacham and kenneth hume kenerly as dr. Robbins said, david will collaborate and work closely with faculty in aerz arz arts and the college of soech and behavioral, archive as an Invaluable Research for Student Research and for research. I am deeply proud that the center for creative photography will be home to this archive. The leadership and the staff of the center put in countless hours working with david and his team to make this acquisition possible and im really, really grateful for their efforts and hard work. I want to extend my gratitude to director brokenridge, director of the center for all of her work. [ applause ] and her work not only on this project, but making the center in many ways the jewel in the crown of what we mentioned arizona arts to be. This evenings remarkable event would not be possible without the sponsor bank of america and i would like ask you to help me to welcome adrian romero, tucson market president bank of america. Thank you very much. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you, andy. Good evening. On behalf of bank of america, it is my honor to welcome and being with us tonight. I also want to thank university of arz, dr. Robert robbins and the center for creative photography for all their hard work and partnership in planning out tonights events. At bank of america we ask the question, what would you like the power to do . A response we often hear is to build strong and thriving communities. So its exciting to hear about this partnership that the university of arizona has developed with the arts and with david hume kenearly because we believe in the power of the arts to help economies thrive, educate and enrich societies and create Greater Cultural understanding. Art has the power to help individuals embrace and appreciate peoples background, culture, heritage and experiences which helps to strengthen communities. Tonight, david hume kenearly and john meacham will highlight some of the most important cultural and political issues of the time. David and john will discuss photography and culture and the way it bears witness helps us understand complex issues, evokes emotion and leads to a Greater Knowledge of our world. I am proud to support and celebrate the Great Partnership that bank of america has with david. Hes been a longtime partner not only working with our board of directors and hes traveled around the United States and to other countries covering our extensive social Responsibility Program such as our Global Ambassadors Program and our vital voices. Through our tenyear Partnership David has created a vast archive for bank of america and among other thing, photos underscore how we contribute to the local communities and the customers that we serve. So now david told me that working with us has been a Good Partnership in its own right and we also feel the same about him. So its for that represent that we are proud to sponsor this wonderful event. It is exciting to be extending this Partnership Bank of america has with david to include the university of arizona and the center for creative photography. These partnerships will ensure that davids historic work is shared with the University Community and beyond to provide a unique perspective on history that helps create greater insight of iconic events. So without further ado, i want to thank you again for being here tonight, and i hope that through tonights presentation you will see how photography can help see a different perspective to create insight, open up dialogue and invoke a greater understanding of some of the most important cultural and political issues of our time. Thank you. [ applause ] for more than 50 years David Hume Kennerly has documented history with his camera, his singular perspective and relentless determination have helped kennerally create unforgettable images of the powerful and the powerless alike. The David Hume Kennerly archive is unparalleled for his depth and breath ask it takes a look at history in the making, the people who made it and some of the important events of our time. It all started with a cat. Our family cat. I took a picture of her when i was 10 years old. That early photo got me excited about what was goicapturing wha on around me. I was always dreaming of being somewhere other than where i was at the moment. Howard feinman, former newsweek chief Political Correspondent says kennerly is as good as it gets in a craft that he defined. I was in saigon when i got headquarters, kennerly won a Pulitzer Prize for photography and in typical fashion, need soonest comment. Vietnam was the biggest story of my generation. I felt an obligation to document the story that was killing so many of us. Every frame i took in vietnam went straight to my heart. Im proud to be a photographer, and im fortunate to be one who went into war and came out alive. When i got back to vietnam, watergate was the big story. I took a picture of gerald r. Ford that ended up on the cover of time after nixon picked him to replace Vice President agnew who had resigned. That led directly to me becoming the chief White House Photographer. Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev said ken earlys work is more than just photography. Its history. People ask if theres any world event that i regret not shooting. Of course, everything i missed, but it wasnt much. Every photographer, no matter what they do, provide a service and that is to give insight into who we are, and what makes us tick. We will fand those secrets in the photographs. Ancell adams said kennerly puts forth that photography as a language, can speak truth. Journalists, photographers are the people who keep us informed. Were the truth it willers. My job is to show people what they dont want to see and its how they find out whats real. Photo is one that makes you sit up and pay attention. There are certain pictures that you see that never go out of your mind. Im going to keep shooting until the day i die. I will never stop being curious and i will never put down my camera. music ladies and gentlemen, please welcome jon meacham and David Hume Kennerly. applause after that, we dont have to do anything else. Welcome to the only funeral i have ever been to where the corpse is still breathing. David and i laughs are both the episcopalian we are two of the last six in america. This is our first bar mitzvah. This is going to laughs be a remarkable evening. There are a lot of folks who are known by one name. Cher, bono, madonna. Then there are some who have three names. Lisa marie presley. J edgar hoover. And David Hume Kennerly. It requires the three names to capture the greatness of the man who is sitting with us tonight. applause david thank you. I am honored to be here. I was davids editor like a being that Radar Operator of pearl harbor. He was an laughs uncontrollable force. A dear friend and an even longerterm admirer. This will surprise some of you i was an odd child. Odd child magazine. Covers i remember his Time Magazine covers from long ago. He bumped Matthew Brady out of the way to get that lincoln shot. There is nobody better at doing what david does and the remarkable thing is in many ways, he invented the genre of which he is the master which is that of being in the room. David thank you. Jon now we will sing a hymn for laughs our funeral. David you might wonder why my archive is here. Jon tell us why we are here. David the university of Arizona Center for creative photography is the Perfect Place for i think, and by the way i want to thank rebecca kennerly, my wife without whom this would not have happened. My three sons are here one of them was playing the violin on stage. He end also did the music for the video that you saw. Compose, played and the other two boys are here. They all missed out on a Great University im sorry they didnt go here. Thats how it goes. The reason i take pictures are so people can see them. Thats the whole point for me. Its important for students and historians to have access to these photographs. Im going to slide this forward. In the creative record, if we didnt have photographs, and history from the start of photography of the early 1800s, we know so much more because of them. I think i should talk about my first big record creating thing. I could have been a student here. 19 years old covering Robert Kennedys trip to portland, oregon. This is my first major assignment i worked for the oregon journal. I was given the assignment to cover kennedy come in a 1966 and he was in a labor hall and it was jampacked and i couldnt get in the room. That was going to be a real problem because you being an editor dont like coming people coming back saying i didnt get the story. So i panicked, but i saw this photographer sitting at the edge of the crowd and he was traveling with kennedy and he must have sensed my desperation. I said how do you get to the crowd . He said hang on to make it. He sliced through the crowd and he got to this place. This is where i am. With Robert Kennedy. He said this is where you going to get your best shot. You see the crowd, the candidate. This is the angle i had. In a closer upshot from the same spot, to this day these photos stand up for me. What happened after this, it affected my life in a profound way. Followed the motorcade at the portland airport, there was a d. C. Three on the tarmac with the prepared propellers twisting and it was Robert Kennedys plane. The photographer of life magazine went in, the door closed and the plane took off. I have never had a feeling like that. I wanted to be on that plane and see where he was going to go how do you follow history that was a huge thing for me. Huge thing for me. Jon so you were in the room from 1966 to 1968 which is more than half century ago. That began to shape everything after. 1968 is in many ways the beginning of the era in which we live. David two years later, i got on that plane and this photograph here was taken by a local photographer. It is right here in tucson. Kennedy came in from new mexico to here to give a speech than it was here in centennial hall. There were two locations for that then he went to window rock where he visited eight navajo reservation. I was with him and this is me taking a photograph of him getting off of the plane with ethel kennedy. We figured it was march 29. Jon it was friday, march 29, 1968 which i could argue is the beginning of the most significant week of the modern era. Rfk is here with kennerly. Lyndon johnson gets out of the race to this later. Martin luther king delivered his final sunday sermon at washington Nasa National cathedral. Then he was shot in memphis. Bobby puts on his brothers overcoat and announces the death to that crowd in indianapolis. In almost every conceivable way, you have the end of an old democratic order, the murder of dr. King, and the hope that was bobby kennedy. Bobby kennedy. David two months later, i was working for upi in los angeles and i was at the Ambassador Hotel with Robert Kennedy. If you minutes before that, i was upstairs and i talked to Robert Kennedy and he was being interviewed. Another was up there also. Then, i went downstairs to cover you can talk about what happened there. He lost oregon. He won in california. Jon he only got in the race a few you weeks before he came here. Jim mccarthy is the one who gets the credit for bringing bobby into the race because johnson was weak. Mccarthy surprises lbj in new hampshire. Bobby gets in. His last words which you heard were its on to chicago and lets win there. He didnt know if he could get the delegates against humphrey. David this is essentially last picture of Robert Kennedy alive. He gave a little quick v sign and went into the kitchen when he was shot. Made an incredible photograph. One of my colleagues was with him also. I heard that something had happened so i ran outside and i saw ethel in the back of the ambulance. I took this photo through the ambulance door. It was shocking to me what had happened. It was clear i didnt see the senator after that. This picture really made me feel bad. It was 21 years old when i did it and it was the idea of intruding on someones grief like that. Thats not something i like to do or i dont think anybody does what i did it. Many years later, i asked mrs. Kennedy, i told ethel how bad i felt she said dont worry, you were doing your job. She understood. Those people had lived in the public life forever. 50 years after this day, the family invited me to be at the graveside with them to celebrate the life of Robert Kennedy on the day of his death. This is the picture i took of ethel. You can see, being a photographer is about getting through the veneer of peoples souls. She had lived through so much. I caught this one moment and the sadness is evident. Our our theme and the hallmark of your career has been being in the room. What does that mean . David it means to me that i am the other person at a place where history says i will give you an example, when george bush meets gerald r. Ford and they talk about him possibly becoming the Vice President of the United States. Bush was the rnc chairman at a rough time. I was in there and history says the two men met privately and that was it but i was the third person. To me, this is like being a photographer or it means never repeating stories. Having the trust of the subject not talking about what you hear. President ford once said my gravestone should read here lies the worst source of washington. They trusted me. In the room also means in the theater of war. Its like a big idea of being in the room. My whole life has been trying traveling trend to get intimate moments or big moments. I think one of the remarkable things about what you have done is, you were in that room with george h. W. Bush and gerald r. Ford. George w. Bush was that a keg thats the pinnacle of power a man who becomes cia director. Party back then. David jon jon that was the highest point in our system. Yet you went to the places where the decisions made in those rooms had reallife implications. David thats right. John and i worked together in newsweek and this was my first cover which really killed my relationship with bob dole. As you remember well. When i first met john, i was meeting with the editor of newsweek who was in 1995 wanting me to work for the magazine and cover the campaign. Jon meacham walks and and Maynard Parker said i would like you to meet jon meacham our nation editor. I thought he was an intern taking coffee orders. He was 25 or 26 years old. You have probably been carded most of your life. Jon i have a bit of hair dye now. I tried to use that. David at least people have not referred to you as this photo is one of the first we ended up with a fantastic relationship. He is the guy relationship. He is the guy who was picking the pictures that i was taking. Jon with the bob dole picture and the bill clinton picture, when youre the guy receiving these images in washington, its a threepronged test. You have to have the image, the words, and the ethos all have to wind up. I would say this behind his back, no one ever produced what we needed better than david did. The bob dole cover was at a particularly glum moment in his early campaign. He would call to complain and you knew who it was because he referred to himself as bob dole. Bob dole is mad. Sorry, senator. Then, bill clinton this is little rock area it jon yes david yes little rock election night. Bob dole was shaken by the cover because it said doubts about dole. He was dropping in on former president bush and governor bush and they were sitting together and he pointed at me and said David Kennerly just about cost me five points in the polls. He was really mad. Jon you need the marriage, what percentage of your photographs have been published . David i would say maybe. 1 of my pictures. The incredible things about having the archive. People can go back and look at the pictures that have hopefully they will be scanned online. The context of all of these other people in the room, thousands and thousands of pictures that you have never seen any good chance to go back and say well theres dick cheney when he was chief of staff of staff of the white house. Before he became darth vader. It jon he had most of his own body parts then. Jon i envy what the center for creative photography has here. This is the raw material of what people like me do. Its more valuable in many ways than oral history or some of the documents because you can actually, people like me spend time trying to recreate what a scene looks like. Imagine a world which you now have here where you can go see what it where you can go see what it looked like. And the raw material of that, imagine if we had david tried to shoot the Constitutional Convention credentialed. David they would let me in. Jon imagine having the photographs of that. Thats what this is so much about. The arc of the Clinton Presidency is absolutely clear. David little rock after he won the second election, they were watching photographs. Television. He had gotten through his difficulties and this was the lead picture of newsweek area the the next photographic goes directly this is after the Monica Lewinsky business. He said i dont think theres any fancy way to say that i have sinned. I love having print on my photos. Suddenly you have the context. This is a powerful moment area bill clinton has made a statement in the east room. With a room full of ministers. We went from this subject to impeachment. This was right after he was impeached he came out with his first Vice President and first lady. Whats interesting is look who is standing behind hillary. Why is larry david at the white house . This is laughs where history springs forward. Now, bernie ran against hillary and thats one of the reasons she lost. He was a congressman and he was standing out there. Then when bill clinton was tried in the senate, acquitted, a shocking outcome, you think why do they do that . This is the rose garden and he came out and made a statement after the acquittal. As a photographer, im not just looking for a closeup of bill clinton but i saw the shadow on the wall. These pictures dont happen by accident. Well every now and then they do. Generally not. Lets talk about what photographs do. One of the important things they do is they reveal meaning. Theres this arguably quite essential moment of postwar politics unfolded right here probably about 11 15 a. M. Or so on friday, august 9, 1974. David it was anything we can show you a video, this is how i saw it and hopefully most of you werent born yet. Watch how fast this happens. This is a man who just announces he resigned the presidency. I am on a press stand watching this whole thing. In my sequence of pictures which you see here, if you look at the lower left that is early in the roll. When i saw nixon i turned the camera like that in order to keep the flag in. Its funny i remember that moment. Thats a big decision as a photographer. The more importantly, this is the first frame as he steps up. If i were Richard Nixon looking at the white house, its like right there. Its huge. The helicopter lands out there. At this moment, maybe i am just projecting here but it seemed to me this is the moment of realization. The sad grief like im seeing this place for the last time. To date, he is the only president who has resigned the presidency. The photo that i always thought was a better one was this that after looking and studying these photos over the years, this is the classic. If you saw how fast the wave happened and the grim resolve of Richard Nixon, to date this is one of the most stunning events i have ever covered. Within forward, moving forward it looks like a campaign pictureperfect context is that the staff came out and they were applauding then he did this like a Campaign Rally, he was noted for this kind of thing. It wasnt a Campaign Rally it was one of the darkest moments in president ial history. This is why what you all now have here is so important because you can go and find this. If you saw the video, thats the image people remember. Cracked its weird. Its published all the time. That was the story. Maybe everybody missed the first part of it. You have first part of it. You have the only photos of nixon looking grim. There are other photos that exist of him looking grim. Yes there were. Here is Vice President ford waving goodbye. You cant see through the reflection but nixon is sitting in the helicopter. Then, the next moment, the fourth walk away and this man who is going to be president of the United States and 45 minutes. I asked him later i said what rethinking about when you walked away . He said all i can think as i wanted to get in and start to work. This is such a moment for me and all of us. And he went in and went to the east room and gave one of the great inaugural addresses in American History talking about how we were a government of laws not of men and our Long National nightmare was over. He provided me the title to my book, extraordinary circumstances. He said i assume the presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by americans. The night he became president , he invited me to his house. I figured he was going to ask me to be his White House Photographer. He never talked to anybody for fear of looking like he was going to push nixon out and when i become president im going to get u. S. Secretary of state not you, henry you already are and you will stay. The brief history of White House Photo operations, white house chief photographers before him was with lbj who had unparalleled access. He took you into the oval office. He is a personal hero i have based my White House Photo career on his. He would really get you on the room in the room. Another came along with nixon and nixon gave him no access at all. As someone who was ready to become the third civilian White House Photographer, i sat on the couch with president ford in his little living room and alexandria. If they didnt move into the white house for another 10 days. He was smoking his pipe like that picture and he asked me to be his White House Photographer. I looked him right in the eye on two conditions. What i report directly to you and number two i have access to everything going on in the white house. I am 27 years old. I have a kid from oregon. I was brought up with modest circumstances. He quit smoking his pipe. It was a shocking moment. He started laughing and he said you dont want air force one on the weekend . And so i got the job. Then the next day, i am right in there. Look at the empty shelves. All of next step is been taken out. You have a man who is comfortable and his own skin behind the desk. Also, i am right there in the office with him. Jon those go back to that for a second because it says a lot about your capacity to make people comfortable when youre around. Secondly, it says a hell of a lot about gerald ford, his sense of confidence in himself. Come follow me around i have nothing to hide. David it was incredible and the one thing about him, lbj i believe his photographer told me this, lbj did it out of a sense of vanity and wanting to be documented. It was a different motivation were president ford wanted to have me around. I became friends with the whole family. He never onetime said dont run that picture. I dont think he cared about the pictures. Could to pictures of him and his jam is or in the swimming pool. He never said dont use that. Or i want to see it before you put it out. Jon you made him laugh also. David yes. Not always. He got mad at me one time. Jon the shooting story. David no i asked him two days later after the pardon of nixon when the avalanche of negative publicity came out i said we were in an elevator i said i cant believe i said this i said you think by pardoning nixon on a sunday morning that nobody would notice . He got really mad at me. Anyway, moving along. Your training, subtlety intact, was not entirely in washington. You were at the front. I was at the front indeed. Photos, we said they go to the heart of the story. I left for vietnam in 1971. It was a rare case. I joined the army, the National Guard i did all the basic training and all of that than i had to get out of the army to go to the war. They didnt do weekend meetings in saigon so luckily, i worked for a general who worked that out. I went to vietnam. It was important for me to go. I couldnt be sitting here with you today making some excuse about why i didnt do it. Four of my High School Classmates from oregon were killed in vietnam. I was the class photographer. I did the annual, the newspaper. These were guys i knew. I want to go see for myself what took them away and i wanted to show the impact upon people that came from decisions made by folks sitting halfway by folks sitting halfway around the world. Mainly, i wanted to cover the story. The camera, it has been a mission of me to do that. These were all photos, briefly i wanted Pulitzer Prize for photographs that i took i won the Pulitzer Prize for photographs i took in cambodia, india, pakistan and the Muhammad Ali Frazier fight. This suggests also you were in danger you were under fire. Part of the job was going into danger. You couldnt avoid it. My first book, shooter i dedicated to the photographers in vietnam. There were 17 of them. Photographers have been killed in wars forever and its part of the job. Part of the job is not getting killed you can avoid it. I dont want to overstate this. Then you come to Something Like this and it doesnt look like your classic war picture. Its not a war picture. It was taken and more several hundred charts from an active firefight. That was the vietnamese soldiers and cambodia. This photo believe it or not is my favorite photo of the pulitzer collection because it is a photo of optimism and resilience like life goes on. It goes to the core of who i am. Despite all of the horrible things that i have seen and my colleagues have seen, i still believe in the better angels as you would put it. Lincoln used it once. President ford sent you back to vietnam. As vietnam was falling in april, 1975, actually march. The north vietnamese had invaded. He was dispatching the army chief of staff who was a vietnam veteran to see if there was anything that can be done to stem the tide. I went with him and i did my own mission. This was one taken in cambodia. I saw people dying. They were surrounded by the khmer rouge. I went to vietnam and i was in a train when it was evacuating. These photographs can be taken today. This is going on right now somewhere. The turks are going after the kurds. I photographed the chaos. I saw a ship loaded with troops coming into camp monday. Cameron day. The ap said the president s photographer has been shot at and thats how my parents heard about it. They didnt know i was in vietnam but it was a secret trip allegedly. So my dad picked up the phone and called the white house and asked to be put through to the president and the operator said whos this . He said im David Kennerlys dad. I had a great relationship with the phone operator every christmas i would send them a case of wine. No one else did that. They just put my dad through to the president. He said dont worry about it hes on his way back. When i came back and the general gave his report to the president , i showed something that they had never seen and it was a personal photograph report about what was going on over there. I have pictures of people dying, the refugees, i had told him about the vietnamese friends of mine had asked me to take their kids out with me. They knew i was going to the states. The place was falling apart it was a really difficult situation. I was emotionally wrapped up with vietnam i had been there for two years. The president looked at my black and white photos and said i want these up in the west wing of the white house and you have been over there. Thats a remarkable thing. If you have not been in the west wing, one of the ways to decorate the halls, its a very contained space. We have an image of president s walking the halls of the white house and they see lincoln they see lincoln. Not so much. What they see are pictures of themselves. They see pictures of the easter egg egg roll or a parade or a stop somewhere. It is an enforced solecism. For president ford to use that real estate to put the attention outward and not inward is yet another testament to his character. It was and somebody, not knowing the president was involved in that decision, took the photos down that night. The president got very angry about it. He issued a proclamation to put the photos back up. This was a historic moment. You were in the room. Thats the roosevelt room in the west wing. When at the National Made a final decision to pull out. Its an ironic moment. I look at the portrait of Teddy Roosevelt who have been the charge the hill guy. Nobody is talking but the president who just made a decision to commence withdrawing americans. What had also happened was a lot of his top advisers wanted just to get the americans out and not the vietnamese. Talk about your mission in which a future ambassador, and nsc guy had talked about the fate of refugees. I could not believe that there were people who didnt want vietnamese refugees to come out. I was very involved with trying to convince the president which by the way didnt take much convincing that we needed to keep the doors, we need to evacuate the vietnamese and bring them in this was not a hard call for him. This is the most humane human being i have ever run into. Kind of like our current president. The pictures got to him. The plight of the refugees. Under his watch, over 130,000 vietnamese came in. Think of that. They have become great citizens of the country. Their kids are some of the most productive people we have. It was because of president ford. It was one of those moments where photography, the power of photography became evident. That is a hugely important lesson historically and particularly in an academic setting. In an era where many people have declared war on facts and war on self evident truths, whatever evidence can be presented that will compel us to open our arms more widely than we clench our fists is important. Jon i have a very soft spot for president ford. His already been rediscovered in many ways. In the way truman and george h. W. Bush have been. He was in many ways an eisenhower like figure. In a critical moment in our history. Can you imagine if we had an egotistical, insecure i know this is hard to believe. David narcissistic. Jon the move from gerald ford to the incumbent disproves darwin. laughs applause we will move on. Lets move on to something equally cheerful. Were going to talk cheerful. Were going to talk about mass suicide. Jonestown 1978. The students will not remember this. The 1970s were a chaotic time. They start with Charles Manson and the murders. The age of aquarius went into violence. A lot of millennial movements, the late great planet earth. There were apocalyptic prophets and one of them was jim jones who took people to ghana, put cyanide in a bucket and convinced the parents to have their children drink this. Leading to the most significant cult massacre. And a congressman went over, leo ryan. He was one of the few assassinations in the history of congress. When he tried to break this up. David his assistant was with him and was wounded down there. Jon you get off the plane and thats what you see. David it didnt happen just like that. Getting there was a remote part of the jungle. We heard is that leo ryan had been killed. There were other people possibly involved. We didnt know, it wasnt like today or you can find out in an instant its going on. I was doing a story with Time Magazine we were doing a story on cocaine trafficking from columbia which ended up being a cover story. We chartered a drip jet and managed to get to the area. The story was that there were troops being held off by these people and as we got closer and closer from our little plane, i saw all these people down around a pavilion. I said look there are hundreds of people down there but as we got closer, it became the shock of my life which was they were all dead. This was really, and i have been in a lot of combat everything from vietnam to name a war. Nothing approach for that. Nothing. The only living thing in johnstown was a parrot and into your point little kids around. It does is the only story that ever gave me nightmares. Thats hard to imagine. Jon thats how you come out of an experience like that . David in this case, i came out of it like i still recall the one that i had we went on to columbia and it was there but i still remember the nightmare. Unfortunately, fortunately that was in the past. I am really lucky and i appreciate people with ptsd. It could be anything. Getting this to a car i dont know. Getting missed by a car i dont know. Im very lucky. I have a lot of colleagues who that happened to. Jon one of the many other roles of photography is to shape, tell us not only about tragedy but to record triumph and inspire us. David hoops there we go. Someone called it the decisive moment. In the archives here, i didnt really get into it but ansell adams is a friend of mine. I did the only, you saw the cover in the film the picture of ansell adams which today is the only photographer who has been on the cover of Time Magazine. I got to know him we became friends. I was a teacher at one of his workshops in yosemite. There are all of these other great photographers. When i say the decisive moment, smith was one of those people. Richard avedon, edward weston, they are all in different lanes. Great with the collection, i would say gene smith is a photojournalist. Richard avedon did great portraits. On and on. To be in the company of those people, its overwhelming for me. In the decisive moment category, im going to show you the film of muhammad ali and fraser 1971 in Madison Square garden so you can see. You have to look fast. Oh my gosh hes down. Imagine trying to get a picture of that. Thats the 15th round of the fight of the century. The photograph i took is here. This was one of my Pulitzer Prize photos. Joe frazier, ive got to get a copy of this. Joe had this blown up huge. In his living room. Somebody took a picture of him standing around ali like that like hes going to catch him. This is muhammad ali in midair. March 9, 1971 which happened to be my 24th birthday and the day i left for me to vietnam and to wake up and see this was to me, i almost didnt want to go to vietnam i was like hang it up after that. Jon thanks to connie and her great team, they put together this stuff. This is the moment. This is the single most dramatic moment i have witnessed in my years doing politics. We will take a tour around through the faces. Misses bush looking a little bit uptight, if you look at her hand, that is not someone who is relaxed. George w. Bush is still in a state of shock. Thats who i went over with. There were two other photographers. When everything was going well. There was no one around to kick me out. On the right is his daughter and her partner. Kind of the chief of staff for cheney on the campaign. We go over to dick cheney. Hes a pretty cool customer. George h w bush is on the phone and i made the mistake of asking, who was he talking to . He said, i think he was putting 50,000 on gore. This was a another pardon in the elevator moment. That was not funny. That was really unfunny. This is a man seeing his life pass before his eyes. Jeb bush had been celebrating a victory and had two or three cocktails. Hes very sober at this point. His state is going to lose the election for his brother. That gives you a tour of history in a still photograph. I know everything i know from ken burns. Lets move ahead. You cant always do that in one image. Here is secretary clinton at the beginning of the journey. What is going on here . Secretary clinton, who was a 26yearold lawyer on the impeachment committee. The nixon impeachment is becoming a real thing. Ive been there for two, i figure i will be there for number three. I may partial observer. If it was going to happen i will be there. We are going to see the evolution of Hillary Rodham clinton. This is hillary before she married bill clinton. A little bit different hairstyle and she lost her glasses. And then to 2001, this is senator hillary clinton. This is january 20, 2001. I love the picture and the bushes get along fine. As you know, misses barbara bush referred to bill clinton as the black sheep of the bush family. She the incumbent. Images help us understand events unfolding. We can see an hour of crisis. One of the reasons you went into this and you have gone forward is the complexity and the panoply of every kind of human condition, ups and hes doing great work. Weve never had president ial to that you know who talked about it . If you ask if jfk had survived he and bury gold walk water talked about it they were both senators. They knew each other. They respected each other. Here, when you look at Justice Oconnor and Justice Ginsburg and then look at the dead white guys around them, you realize that yes, progress is possible. Progress is possible. Sandra day oconnor i became friends. She was a mother who raised three boys and a republican, a conservative republican and she and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were best of friends. This is kind of the female equivalent of the kerrymccain picture. President ford loved interacting with the press. He was one of those president s who actually believes in the constitution and the first, second, third, fourth, all the amendments, but he would interact with the press and always called on sarah mclendon, a reporter from a little newspaper. She would always ask him some totally offthewall question. His press secretary said you donet have to keep calling on sarah. He said, i just cant wait to hear what she is going to ask me. In this photograph, you see the clues of photos, film cameras and then a video. So this is really a transitional moment in media. This is where everything changed to media coverage. 1976. We are watching the press here. We are not just looking back because of the power of photography, power of history, power of journalism has pushed forward. The ethos in which you have made your living is under assault here in a way it has not been since 1798 when john adams tried to outlaw the press. I bet trump didnt even know that. I think he thinks john adams is probably a beer. That was his brother sam. They are both doing great work. Talk about this. We have been called the enemy of the people. Information which some people dont agree with. You have been doing this a long time. You have been on both sides. Youve been on the inside recording history and the outside journalistically. I would see president ford not ricochet off the walls. There is not one president who hasnt been unhappy about what has been written about him. Its really not that complicated. I covered trump a lot in the campaign and it strikes me in my gut. I hate what he says. We go out there and die doing what we do. Thats a First Amendment right. If it wasnt for writers, photographers, you would have idea what is going on out there. People got it wrong. Newsweek never got it wrong. When i hear some of the attacking us as a group. Its so deeply disturbing to me, i cant begin to tell you. Gillibrand comes populace a phrase that journalism is the first rough draft of history and david and i started working together, something in the magazine had not been quite right. And a United States senator had called on monday morning to register his displeasure really. She then registered her displeasure with our friend and colleague evan thomas, and i was in his office, i could hear mrs. Grahams wonderful voice through the phone and have been said, well, man, we will fix it but you know it is just the first rough draft of history and i heard that amazing voice say, but doesnt have to be so rough . laughs so, it is rough that third. And there she is. Speaking of formidable women. A formidable person. She was one who gave bravery a name. She had Breast Cancer and her staff advised her against tlaking about it, she went out and said women need to her husband stood by her there. Came out and established the betty ford center, saved countless lives. Friends of mine have gone through there. This day, the last day the fords were at the white house, we walked by the empty cabinet room, which was the gallery of dead white guys. Mrs. Ford said, i always wanted to dance on the table. The secret service agents, i could see they didnt believe this, but she had that certain mischievous look i had gotten to know in her eye. And she was a dancer. She was a Martha Graham dancer. She was incredibly agile. She took off her shoes and climbed up. You never saw this picture before. She was planting this feminist flag in the middle of the room. It was fun. And it was sort of the best of betty ford. We can skip along to one of your favorite guys why this sitting out there of course one of the few constitutional requirements requirements. What we think it was not what we think of as a spectacle and adams both went to congress and gave a speech. Jefferson was not a public speaker, so he moved it to a written document. No president until Woodrow Wilson began this process. By now its become the annual which are all we have. Constitutional fiat the Vice President of the United States and george bush, the only thing you do until you wait for the president to die. And the speaker of the house, democrat of massachusetts. They are waiting for president reagan to come down the aisle. John used these photographs in your book on president bush. I have no idea what the joke was. This is a heartwarming moment for me. They are waiting for the president of the United States to come into the room. They are yakking it up in front of all that. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States. Everything changes when you hear this is the president of the United States. laughs applause i love this so a road biography of george bush. Much. Is that available on amazon . Probably. I show these pictures to the president. I said, do you have any idea what we were talking about . He said, no, but it was funny. Here we which you saw are in geneva. I got this photographer. Reagan just charmed the hell out of mikael gorbachev. What did he tell you . The two critical moments at the end of the cold war in terms of the American Soviet Union directly was this summit in geneva in 1985 and the way president bush handled the fall of the berlin wall. This was incredibly important for both men. Reagan had come into office as this ferocious office as this ferocious cold warrior. He said himself that people think, combination of the mad bomber and ebenezer scrooge. He knew he needed to overcome that. He couldnt meet with soviet leaders because they keep dying on me. Then they get this 54yearold breath of fresh air. Reagan, market for air. Reagan, Margaret Thatcher told reagan, i think this is a man we can do business with. I could have stayed for the whole meeting. They were going on their way. I walked you got it out and i came back in when they broke up the meeting. The rate the way reagan handled the meeting was impressive. It was pretty incredible. The reason reagan could make that stuff work is his central job for becoming president was not so much governor, but being the head of the screen actors guild. For eight years he negotiated with all the studio heads. People used to say, what is it like dealing with gorbachev, they would say, you have never met jack warner. And he was a democrat at the time. Yes. I did not know president mrs. Obama, but i was one of the photographer the inauguration, putting that this book, and a photograph of him in the elevator, the big freight elevator, at one of the inaugural balls, to me really went to the heart of who these people are. I mean, if i make a picture like this, i love the idea of the pictures, but the main thing is that i think i have revealed something about people that i did not know, because i had not covered the campaign. Pizza ended up being about most photographer and was in, there a county shell who is working for time, but look at this. It is like a High School Prom moment. I mean, you really learn something about who they are, and you learn something about who he is, also. Now, as i recall, this is the first time this was shot. It, was the first time i photographed him. Youve got to be careful these days, from what i mean. Mister president oh so, has he changed to work for you . Does it look like it i would say, no. No, i was covering the campaign for politico and then for cnn and i covered it down the pipe, i spent some time with hillary and her campaign. And so i was going to be covering, watching the trump lose the election, i thought, and i and much of other people, and in fact, the 91, i was in the new york hilton ballroom and, all these people called me and said, how did you know . , you never hang out with losers. I said, i did not know, trust me, but the main thing that happened after this was, we convinced through our people, a guy who work to time warner, doing a book called unprecedented, the work, of the elections, all matters of gone in there and it came right after the election and had hillary and donald trump on the cover and one of the guys new jerry kushner, called him and said a lot, we would like to have a special inaugural edition with trump on the cover, and obviously it is not, that is like. It was not a tough sale. And so they agreed to it, so i got my sit down session with him in his office at trump tower and, he sat down hes wily and he is smiling and my first photograph of him was this and i thought, you know . This does not look natural to me. I covered his whole campaign. I really saw him smile. I think he looks like walking in phoenix in the joker. And so i kind of got worried about this and i thought, well, here is a guy who can take direction from photographers that is the thing. We will not listen anybody else but he will listen to the photographer. And i said well how about you make the youre fired look for the apprentice and he did that, and that was good and i thought, well, and i want to put that on the cover although it has lengths, although, as we see in the business and we ended up with this photograph, and if you watch cnn regularly, this is the picture you will see all the time, it is the one they use, in front of, it during the session, and by the, way this photo session lasted, and it is all in the legal requirement of the meter and the cameras, about two minutes or 15 seconds, the whole photo session. 17 pictures. About four or five, pictures that he wanted to see the photo any look at the back of the camera and he said while, i look better there than i do and realize. I thought, my god, that was almost like a sunny thing. Like, i did not know he could joke and so i, said so youre not gonna fire jared, right . Once i did not get in trouble he said no, jarrett is ok, flash, forward the book comes out, he tweets that cnn has this election book out a worth of war and i wish him luck. Worst picture of me ever on the cover. Okay, moving along. Lets get back to normal here. So, here they are, tell the back story. Well, this was a picture in the oval office, george w. Bush, the president , had brought the obama, president elect obama over to meet with the former president s club and from the front, there was a controversial a little bit what jimmy carter was kind of standing away from the others, you cannot see it in this angle, but the important thing about this picture for me was a, getting it and knowing it to be a good snap but they were not going to let me take it if i was working for the barack obama inaugural book, not a big item for them over at the Bush White House and there was going to be a rose garden event where all these president s posed for pictures, everybody could come, including me. It was bad weather. They decided to do in here with the pool, it was the New York Times, so i was not going to get in, so i pull the ultimate card, i called my friend cheney, whom i had worked with in the board white house, and was right on his support at his private number in the white house and he said dave, how you doing . And i said, look do you still have influence over there . And he said, not much. And i said, i need to get an issue this picture this through, and i would not budge you about it normally but it is really important to me, i was there the first, time five president s ago at the reagan library, when bush senior was the president and the move he said, let me see what i can do, two minutes later the phone rang, it was the press secretary for bush, oh, yes, we love, we want you to be here, so that is how i got in, and i think our last moment here certainly we would be certainly the favorite picture i have taken in my career. You flip it and just a background on this, former principal well, one of my principal clients is bank of america and they were one of the big sponsors of the African American museum and so they asked me to go and shoot this for them which was a great event, it was one of the most emotional things i think ive ever seen and, but when michel obama came walking in resistance, there was just his brief hug, and normally, if you are someone who has their eyes closed it is like, a picture is screwed up, in this case, it just made the photo. I just want to say, historically, this capture is the best of who we are at a moment where, in many ways we were commemorating how we had moved as much as we could from the worst of who we can be and in a museum that has so much to do is slavery a reporter and i think one of the things that david can it, work or unfolding cannot work shows us is that we are just trying to get to a more perfect union, not a perfect mind, and if you are looking for an image of what it is like for the struggle between our battle better angels at our worst instincts, our better angels can win 51 of the time, that is a pretty good percentage, you get an image like that. I also became a hero with my three boys because the picture went viral with your fall. What you thought was a medical term. I did, yes, i thought it was something that they had no cure for her, but as it turns out, a lot of people have seen this picture, really this photograph as some really funny stuff, and i dont mind that at all. A quick a final thought from me, david is obviously my friend but i am someone who like all of you who live in the light of his achievement. I do, shot up high. Highly uncharacteristic winner, david is an architect of culture, and is the part of the culture that matters most to all of us because it is the history of the republican, republic in the original light means the public thing and the stories he has told him moments he has captured are the moments it of shape the way we live now and i can imagine a more fortunate place in the university of arizona to have this kind of work here. Thank you. applause we are now going to bring out someone who actually knows something about this, and breckenridge bear, the director of the center for photography will join us. I felt good. While, they even have a chair. You get a little while, we kind we got a little music. The news is that an original . It is a reversal. Are you going to sell cds of this . He gets it up a little. Table paper that education. Thank you, both. That was incredible, wasnt it . applause so, we get you were going to do the queue in a portion now and my husband is probably up their cringing because i am not greatly technology but youre gonna text your questions and theyre going to pop up on my ipad, and we will go from there. There is the number. Heres david here is one for david quietly. Why did you choose the university of arizona this is the way . Well, this is the best place for photography on the planet. I agree. And your center, the center for photography, as i mentioned earlier all, one just has an allstar lineup of great photographers and of course angela being the foundation for, john schaffer, doctor john schaffer, tried to get my archive in 1979 and i said hey, man, ive only been out of high school ten years, but john, thank, you you must have seen Something Like, 38 years later here i am. He had the vision this is a test. This is a question for john. In the lead dear sir, issue in the last print issue. Stop with dear sir, i like that. No one has ever done that. Im sorry. Dear sir, in the last print issue of newsweek the, year wrote the fate of journalism is uncertain worth. That was december 2012 years. As the furious rage against truth and responsible language, for you remember what do you think today . I think the fate of journalism is uncertain when. I think that journalism as an enterprise is facing unique pressures both culturally and politically, which we talked about, but also economically told. I would draw a distinction and i try to make this point, i dont know how useful it, is i think the media is one thing and depressed is another. We are all part of the media, you have a phone, you have the power, if something goes viral, to reach more people than Walter Cronkite ever thought about. That is. True and so, there is a media world, a media ecosystem river that is driven by, i think, three characteristics, predictability, speed and hyperbole the word people. That is the way to build an audience relief for. You dont get many followers for a feed that is called, on the one hand, on the other hand, right read . If everybody who says they love the news our actually watch the news hour, the ratings would be higher, right . They would not have enough tote bags to hand out. Well. Said and so, i think that it is on all of us, if you are not subscribing to the Journalistic Institution that you believe helps shed light as opposed to generate heat, if you are not voting with your wallet and if you care cannot quite help it but maybe just checking in with msnbc our fox depending on where you are doing, it ideologically, with you are complicit in this far and so, my large view about this is that politicians are far more often in mirrors of who we are, rather than boulders and that is an uncomfortable reality we have to confront. Absolutely. Also, the economics of, it i was asked him when, i was giving a class for Wounded Warriors i cant pendleton and, one of them asked me, i showed slides, ranging through some of what you have seen and, i was asked, would i be, able working for a magazine these days, to do those kind of assignments . No way. I mean, Time Magazine, i would jump on the concord and go to london and catch a plane to cairo and maybe two or three times a month, because we have an interview or something that happened, the amount, the value and just what people spend on assignment for me to go cover these assignments were like millions and millions of dollars worth of pictures that you would never be able to do now. Right, right. A cable, we have yes, no, there is more. A lot more and. And i said and i should say, if we have a slew of questions and we probably will not be of get them out of this evening but what we are going to do is take them. We will give them to you, david, with and we will push them out on social media on our website later, so all your questions will be addressed. It sounds like a homework assignment. Yes that. Hey, ive got you know, right . We will have to work harder to dodge them with even with. President ok, david, which president s personality was the most different in a private first public. Oh, that is a good question. I think abraham lincoln. Dont you think were not . Probably . When i interviewed him. I think well that, i think Richard Nixon might be a one who seemed to be certainly the kind of things he would say in private. I see what you mean. Like, when president ford, certainly what you saw was who he was and reagan, pretty much. I mean, i dont think any of those people are like jekyll and hyde, necessarily, and certainly not donald trumps. No, he is just hide. World. I dont really know any of them that well. Did i get that right . Is that the right one that . We can cut this all loaded. That is all good. David, what is the one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring photographer . Im proud of you for doing it and before you do the best way to learn how to take pictures is to take pictures. What i pretty much taught myself and rideau even though big magazines are not what they used to be or do not exist,s there are so many outlets now. What do one thing, one reason i like facebook and instagram is because i am the editor and the curator yeah. And you can do what you want and i would never i am really i would never discourage anybody from getting into it. We need people to be writers and photographers, it is really important and all i can say is my advice to them is to do it, you have to figure out how to do it yourself or your own way, but do it. Sure. It sounds like a nike ad, but it is not just. Just do it. This question is actually this question is actually for me, of her why is the center collecting photojournalism on . Im on a file. I thought it would be good now. Im on. It photojournalism it allows us to look at images that have chronicled history, right and . So the center it could take the work of a photographer photojournalist like you and put it into conversation with other with other photographers. You take the work of ensalata, added, on to david, and all of those photographers use images to communicating community. They communicate the beauty and the joy in what we want to see i think that and i think feel that they also show talent the hard times in the challenges that we must see so, if you think about photojournalism as just one dialect in the multitude of languages of photography, the center is a place that speaks to all of them. How did i do . Good metaphor. I like that. I am a student here i am a student here at the university. Its just this is just in . This is just in. I love it. Im a student here at the university, when what is the best way to get young people like me to understand the Historical Context of the period we are in today . And it is for both of you. I will go back to what mueller said, it is important to subscribe now, the whole model of how people are going to keep newspapers going is not going to be getting them at their front door. I still get, them you get them, but youve got to read the big ones, youve got to read a daily diet of New York Times, and washington post, l. A. Times, politico, that there is no excuse for not knowing what is going on and you think about, it like with me jim and i, it is a never ending quest for the truth. I mean, we are not shading things. I mean, you get news from reputable sources that despite this onslaught of fake news and the feeling New York Times at all this bs, and so i think these people are professional people. And it is like, where professionals for the wire services, if you branch out and put one in a photo, shop you are fired. You have to believe in who is delivering you the news and i have real faith in the big players who are, and everybody is like, why would you read a block firm some Insane Person . Everybody has a everybody has a voice but you dont have to listen to them all. Absolutely. No, absolutely, but id like to say is that just because we have the means of expressing an opinion quickly does not mean we have been asking inwards expressing quickly and i include myself number one in that. On the context question, what i would advise, and i do advise undergraduates is, pick an era that seems resident and one and find one really good narrative piece of nonfiction and read it and i would not be doing what i am doing if i had not read books that i did not think would be exactly relevant to the work of that particular moment iraq. Amanda david shot, of, course herman both, my vision of world war ii and many ways in the whole panoply of that, was shaped by his novels you can do and you can do worse if youre trying to figure out american populism and the vicissitudes all of the politics that we are now so hyperventilating about, four you lead William Manchester was, the glory and the dream and if you see it i dont think, i dont have for years but then there is, there is a power, i believe there is a power and a utility to knowing that 20 what we are experiencing guys may not have exactly happen, but we have come through difficult times before and fort softer was pretty bad week for. Joe mccarthy fell from power, Richard Nixon fell from power, and to know that there have been moments where various institutions and various people have finally said, that is enough is i think, the way to go. And also you, yes i agree, for you that there are people like gerald ford there to pick up here because before you, important and because of my and both of us are optimistic people, i think they are definitely out there. I mean, there is no question about that. Absolutely. So we will read books and we will look at photographs. You should try the Andrew Jackson biography by tom meacham, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize we flurries. Absolutely. We have learned so much tonight. David, john, thank you. Thank you for letting us. Thanks. That was good. Thank you. Nice job, thank you. ,. Thank, you. . Prethat six and the last time i have come to light this Christmas Tree in the nations capital. My pair now, as it has been in each of these other decembers who, work is for peace and reconciliation abroad, for justice and tranquility at home you. My name is kim mccarthy, i security here at washington historic park and pennsylvania. Today is a very special day. We are doing a reenactment of George Washington crossing the river in 1776. What happened here is one of the most unexpected and daring military maneuvers of the american revolution
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