Altogether but what you have to do is you know educate people. I know that sounds very highminded and academic in the ivory tower and so on but this kind of exercise, you are not directed at those who are just really stuck in loathsome hatred. You are appealing to the broad middle center to educate. We are not underresourced in terms of Educational Programs about the holocaust and the world anywhere in the world. We shouldnt give up on it of course. Apparently im going to stop in the second. [laughter] yeah promises promises. Partly i made this program to change stereotypes because they are novel thing so highly emotional. We are going past a church one sunday that the sign outside saying 50dollar bonus for signing. He said shonda you cant schama you cant be an how bad can it be . Its disgusting that times are hard. So he goes off and 20 minutes later comes back and moshe said how wasnt . He said it was all right. And then he says 25 hime says thats all you jews think about, money, money, money. [laughter] [applause] yes, it is over. Folks if you would like to get a book you can buy one upstairs. Thank you. Please join me in thanking simon schama. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] next on booktv encore booknotes. Nan robertson appeared on booknotes in 1992 to talk about her book the girls in the balcony women, men and the New York Times. Her book chronicles the history of sex discrimination at the New York Times. It also details the classaction suit brought against the New York Times by seven women in 1974. The suit was settled in favor of the women. This is about an hour. Cspan nan robertson, why did you call your new book the girls in the balcony . Guest the balcony is or was the balcony of the National Press club, an allmale institution until just 20 years ago. And when in 1955 the men decided that they would let in women to cover and to report on events taking place there, they put us in a very narrow, extremely uncomfortable balcony at the far end of the ballroom. We stood there while some of the most important men in the world spoke. It was hard to hear them. We were crushed together. We did not have lunch. We looked down at the male members and their guests scarfing up a fourcourse lunch on the ballroom floor, and it was humiliating. We couldnt even do our job right. This happened between 1955 and 1971, and finally the prowomen forces, who had been fighting in vote after vote, year after year, to have women admitted won in 1971. But just 20 years ago i was standing in that balcony with other women. We could not ask questions. We were not allowed. It was frustrating. And so one of the three women in the New York Times bureau told Scotty Reston one day that she would not go there anymore. And two other women, myself and eileen shanahan, who covered finance and high economics, said that we wouldnt cover assignments there. It was very difficult, you know, because the newspaper business used to be kind of like the army. You were given an assignment and you went on that assignment and you did not discuss it and you did not argue against it. And scotty could hardly believe that we were doing this. I mean, to me, the balcony at the National Press club was the metaphor for this book. And it certainly was the ugliest symbol of discrimination that i knew of in all journalism. Cspan did you ever. Guest thats what i called it. Cspan did you ever ask any male why they wouldnt let women in . Well, they let women in the balcony. Why they wouldnt let them sit downstairs . Guest of course we did. I mean, there were constant complaints from the womens National Press club that went over years, and finally they made the balcony decision. And then we said, but were not allowed to cover the story properly. We cant hear the speakers properly. We cant ask questions. Were not equal still. And their attitude was that women would be a disruptive part of the National Press club, that wed make men feel uncomfortable in the bar, that we might ask stupid questions. Its so hard to remember how recent that kind of attitude was. Its better, but not good enough. Cspan why did you write this book . Guest i wrote it because the story had never been told before, because every major book ever written about the New York Times almost ignores the women who contributed to it. Such books as meyer bergers authorized history of the New York Times in 1951; gay taleses compulsively readable the kingdom and the power, which came out in 69; harrison salisburys without fear or favor; David Halberstams the powers that be. I mean, women were invisible, and weve added a great deal to this newspaper. And i thought, i would like to tell their story. I would like to tell how a group of very brave women pushed the times into the 20th century, made it live up to its own ideals and its public image of being a humane, liberal, progressive lecturing newspaper lecturing the nation in its editorials about how white men would have to give up the power how, of course, they felt uncomfortable with the minorities and the women pushing for equal rights and equal pay. And at the same time, this great institution, which i loved, was fighting the womens suit tooth and nail and historically has not been welcoming to women, until very recently. And its a great story. Its full of heroines, not many heroes, very few villains, however. I think it has a lot to do with ignorance, insensitivity and the fact that nobody who has power and is part of the status quo will move or voluntarily give away any of that power without being pushed. I really believe in organization. Cspan you write about a lot of people who are still alive. Guest yes. Cspan . Still at the times. Guest yes. Cspan the current editor, the current publisher, past publisher. Anybody real mad at you for this book . Guest not that ive heard from. I mean, its very funny. I dont think im going to get any royalties from the New York Times staff because they all asked for advanced galleys of this book, and it was being passed around the building like samizdat. I mean, people disappearing to the mens room and reading it. And the feedback has been wonderful. All of the seven plaintiffs have read it and called me to say how much they loved the book and how accurate it was. Cspan seven plaintiffs of. Guest in the sexual Discrimination Suit against the New York Times, which was settled in favor of the women in the late 70s. They called me, the lawyer for the women called me. I heard a wonderful story about young arthur sulzberger. Can i tell it . Cspan sure. Guest a few weeks before he became. Cspan first tell us who arthur sulzberger. Guest im sorry. He is the son the only son and heir of punch sulzberger, who was publisher from 1963 until january of this year. Several weeks before punch stepped aside and young arthur became the new publisher of the times in january of this year, he was at a bar mitzvah for one of the innumerable, sort of, sulzberger clan, and also there was harriet rabb, who had been the attorney pressing the womens classaction suit. So harriet found herself at lunch seated next to young arthur. And she said, with some trepidation, my name is harriet rabb. And arthurs face lit up and he grabbed her and he said, harriet rabb he said, have you read nans book . Isnt it fabulous . I loved it. Young arthur is a feminist and hes been pushing to close the gap between the salaries of men and women doing the same job, which is countrywide and societywide and industrywide. Hes really doing things. Hes really a devoted feminist and i have high hopes for him. The fact that he does come off well in the book hes promised a lot. He has acted, he has followed through in trying to shrink the salary gap, and has shrunk it. For instance, he told me when i was interviewing him that the salary gap between men and women on the New York Times on the editorial side was averaging 13,000 a year, and on the business side it was averaging 25,000 a year. Hes now narrowed the gap to zero for new hires on the editorial side and to about 7,000 a year on the business side. And this is a big move. I mean, punch is an amiable, decent, wonderful guy, but he never leaned on his managers, saying, this counts on your record, not just putting out a quality product. Lets really do something about women and minorities. He never really pushed. He said, this is a very good idea, and then didnt follow through. Cspan did the New York Times review your book . Guest its going to review it next sunday. Cspan do you have any idea what the review is going to say . Guest of course. Cspan is it written by a man or a woman . Guest i have many moles. Its written by a woman, i think, although its difficult to tell from the name. I do not know this person. It sounds like a womans name and its favorable. Cspan does that surprise you . Guest in a sense, it does, because i knew that they would have to review it, and the times is big enough to review it. I knew that the person who reviewed it, whether male or female, might think that if they wrote a favorable review about a shadowed series of episodes in the times history, that they might think that if they wrote a good review, that they would never be able to write for the times again. Many outsiders think of the times as a monolith instead of a newspaper with thousands of diverse personalities in it. I mean, there are a thousand people on the news staff. There are 6,000 employees altogether. And we do not act and think as one. But you know, outsiders speak of the New York Times as if we were all alike within it, which is not true. Cspan current editor max frankel. Guest yes. Cspan how do you think he likes this book . Guest he has been asked by many people within the times and outside what he thinks of the book. And he has replied that he has not read it. I dont know if max is speaking the truth. I dont know if he has read it and feels that it would be less controversial if he did not comment upon it. Max is a friend. I mean, i am hard on max. Cspan you call him say, his style with women is ponderously gallant. Guest i think thats a very accurate description. Cspan what does that mean . Guest max is rather ponderous. He is not light and gay of heart. I have known max since we were both in our 20s or early 30s. And even then i used to tease him by calling him the young fogey. Hes very earnest. Hes a very decent guy. The times is full of decent men but somehow its almost as if max and i were very close together in age. Im 65, hes about 61 or 62 now its almost as if max and i are in a different generation. I was moved and exhilarated and propelled into action by the Womens Movement that rose in the early 70s. And max, i think there are many things about women that he does not seem to understand. However, the interesting thing about max is he keeps putting his foot in his mouth in public and yet his private performance at the times is quite good. He has moved more women into sort of middlemanagement jobs than any other executive editor before him. And i say that in the book. Hes managed to offend women by some comments hes made for publication. In one case he offended both blacks and women by saying that women had reached a Critical Mass at the New York Times and so it was no big deal to fire them, not that theyd be fired at the times. Its a union paper. But what he meant was, really, that you could treat them as you now might treat a black baseball player. I mean, you could scold them, you could chew them out, but that with the blacks at the paper, you had to treat them very delicately because they had not reached a Critical Mass. And he managed to offend both women and blacks by making that statement. And yet he is actively hiring minorities, particularly hispanics and blacks, which are a very big part of the new york city population. Theyre not doing as well with women. Theyre sort of concentrating on the minorities now. New hires of women are about 18 percent now in the reportorial field, and considering that were half of the worlds population, thats not too good. Cspan where did you grow up . Guest i grew up in chicago. Cspan how long did you. Guest . A great newspaper town at that time. Cspan where did you go to school . Guest northwestern. Cspan journalism . Guest yes, medill. Cspan then where . Guest i went to europe. I sailed for europe in 1948 about a week after i graduated from college. I had a few words of french. I had a French Family that i was going to stay with that i found through the alliance francaise. And being young and stupid and full of hope, i sailed away to europe and began my career there. I was too young to be frightened, you know. And i spent the first seven years of my career in europe; in paris, berlin, frankfurt and london, sort of learning my trade. Cspan when did you go to work for the New York Times . Guest i went to work for the New York Times fulltime as a staffer in 1955 january 19th, 1955. And i had spent seven years doing generalassignment reporting and feature writing for other newspapers. And i was a stringer on womens news for the times for about a year before i came back to new york. That was in london. And there i was with all that general experience behind me, and i was immediately sent to the womens page to cover fashion because thats where women went in those days. Cspan there are all kinds of crazy Little Things that you learn when you read this book. I mean, crazy maybe not to the audience, but for those of us that live here. Guest not to the women. Cspan huh . Guest not to the women. Cspan well, let me tell you what let me tell you what im talking about. You married a man by the name of stan levey. Guest thats correct. Cspan and it turns out that his son is bob levey . Guest yes. He writes bob leveys washington. Cspan here in washington. Guest thats correct. Cspan i mean, we hear i hear him on the radio, i read him in the post. Guest yes. Cspan thats what i mean by things you learn in this book. Guest yes. Cspan you married stan levey when . Guest in 1961. Cspan where did he work . Guest at the New York Times in the city room. He was a labor reporter. Thats where we fell in love. Bob levey fell in love with his wifetobe in the city room of the washington post. Its a family of tradition. Cspan what was the Turner Catledge rule . Guest the Turner Catledge rule was that no wife of a times man could be hired as long as that man was on the staff. And that was true for many years. Flora lewis, one of the most dazzling Foreign Correspondents in the history of the times and for a long time the writer of the Foreign Affairs column, who was my boss in paris, beginning in 1973 i mean, here is this woman with just years and years and years of marvelous reporting behind her for many, many newspapers and syndicates. As long as she was married to sidney gruson, on the staff at the time, she was not hired by the times. And she was separated from sidney when the women of the times 50 women of the times wrote a letter and signed it, to the publisher, saying, this organization is hypocritical and unfair. There is a salary gap, there are no women in positions of power. There are all kinds of subjects they cant cover, such as sports or business and finance, justice, economics. Anyhow, it was just a sort of damning manifesto from the women, signed by myself, among the 50 women. And this was 1972. And flora believes to this day, as i do, that they hired her very hastily. She was not yet divorced from sidney, but she was separated. And she was hired went on the staff about two weeks after the publisher received the letter. She is convinced that if the womens caucus had not been formed, she would not have gotten that job so quickly. That they were able to say, haha according to her, you know we have a woman bureau chief now in paris, one of the prime bureaus. Flora was the first woman bureau chief in the history of the times. And six months later i followed her to paris, by then speaking french fluently. And there was a storm within the management about sending a second woman to paris. I cannot imagine a storm occurring in any corporation about sending a second man to join the head of the agency in paris or anywhere. Cspan were you one of the leaders . Guest yes. Ive always been a troublemaker Abe Rosenthal called me a sort of inveterate tummler. Abe rosenthal. Cspan who is Abe Rosenthal . Guest Abe Rosenthal was the executive editor the most controversial and one of the best in many ways, executive editors of the times. Cspan where is he today . Guest he is writing a column called on my mind on the oped page of the New York Times. Cspan by the way, people want to catch up with all these names and everything. Guest i know. Its a little difficult. Im sorry. Cspan a lot of them are in the no, its not your fault, but a lot of them are in the times. I mean, you can still see. Guest oh, yes. Abe is still writing his column Turner Catledge is dead. He died in 1971. But there are a lot of people alive in this book, men and women. Cspan i should ask you, before we go any farther. Guest yes. Cspan . For those who live far away from here and may never read the times, whats all the big deal about the New York Times . Guest the New York Times is not only the most respected newspaper in the world, one with a liberal, progressive image it is a great corporation, it is an institution, it is a cult. The readers of the times are a cult in the way the readers of no other newspaper that i know of are. Perhaps the times of london at one time had a readership like that. Its a great institution. And the women who sued it for equal treatment, for equal respect and equal salaries and equal hiring and promotion, loved the newspaper. I loved the newspaper. I had a great career on it. They wanted to make the newspaper live up to its ideals, to its public image, to make it better. We werent bitter. We just wanted to be equal. Cspan well, what makes it so great . Guest i remember once when i was in Journalism School at northwestern, standing up in class at that point the New York Herald tribune was my favorite newspaper and the Chicago Daily news and they were writers newspapers. And i found the times to be very ponderous and very dull by comparison. So i stood up in a journalism writing class and i said, what has the New York Times got besides accuracy and complete News Coverage . And the class burst into a storm of derisive laughter because thats a pretty fundamental series of things to have. It has Great Respect for fact and for history. It has wonderful people on it, men and women. One of the things that was the most fun about writing this book was that i got total cooperation from everybody from punch salsburger, then the publisher, on down; from men, from women. They all knew that i was a feminist. And it was very funny, when i would come up to the times at first when i was starting my research and id just retired and people would say, so what are you doing, nan . And i said, im writing a book. And they said, what are you writing it about . And id say, im writing about the women of the times. And theyd go, oh i mean, they knew that the thrust of the book would be a feminist thrust because that is my history within the times. I was shop steward; i was very prounion. I was an activist. I was going to say Abe Rosenthal called me a tummler, which is yiddish for a sort of mover and shaker. A person that sort of shakes things up and whatnot. Im always sort of up to no good. And they knew all of this, and yet every one of them cooperated. Nobody said no. Nobody got dicey or inaccessible to me. Punch salsburger measured the table in the boardroom that immensely long table which is two feet six inches longer than the cabinet room table in the white house. Its so overwhelming to all of us, when we first confronted management we women across that table. People were looking up old appointment books, old tapes, transcripts of meetings. I mean, they knew what the thrust of the book would be and they knew that it would be proWomens Movement. But they also knew that it would be written by a good reporter and one that is fair. I think im fair. Cspan how did you win your Pulitzer Prize . Guest i won my Pulitzer Prize by writing about toxic shock syndrome. I had an almost fatal attack of toxic shock syndrome in 1981. As a result of this, the circulatory collapse and the gangrene that followed all the end joints of my fingers were amputated and i almost lost my right leg and the toes of my left foot and i was deeply poisoned throughout my body. But it was then a very mysterious disease and doctors were misdiagnosing it. They were misdiagnosing it as scarlet fever, as influenza, as food poisoning. It had some symptoms that are analogous to those afflictions. And i wrote for the first time in my life, i wrote a piece with i in it. I had never used the personal pronoun before, but i had to do it because that was the vehicle that carried the medical information that saved lives. I mean, women and men who had it were part of a family in which there was a victim, could recognize it right away. If its very serious, itll kill you within 24 to 48 hours. Doctors were writing in that they had been able to diagnose it for the first time. So this was both a personal ordeal that i went through; it was also, again, like the women at the times, was a great story. Cspan what year . Guest the story was published in 1982. My fingers were very raw from a series of amputations and it was extremely painful to type, except that that was therapy because it toughens the skin of the fingers the way going barefoot toughens the soles of your feet. And so it was very painful to write. It saved a lot of lives. It was a personal story, which people identify more with that than they do sort of cosmic themes. Ive always felt that. Thats why i wrote this book about something that i really knew, that id been a close observer of or a participant in the events described here. And because its a microcosm of what happens in the entire society. Not just a big corporation, not just the New York Times. In any event, i wrote this piece. It was the cover piece in september, 1982 in the times magazine. I got 2,000 letters, half of them from men, even though it was known then as primarily a womens disease and a disease striking women who were wearing tampons, because thats a perfect culture for the bacterium that causes it. The letters were god bless the readers and the New York Times intelligent, moving, empathetic. I mean, paraplegics were writing me, thanking me for writing this piece. Total strangers, of course, were writing in. It was one of the biggest reactions to any piece thats ever been published by the times. And six months later it won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Cspan quote, whats a little bitty thing like you doing winning the Pulitzer Prize . Who said that . Guest Clifton Daniel. Cspan did that make you mad . Guest yes. Cspan why . Guest because he was. Cspan who is he, by the way . Guest Clifton Daniel was the managing editor of the New York Times, a former Foreign Correspondent, husband of margaret truman, very suave, extremely sophisticated and seductive man who was my mentor one of my mentors, along with Abe Rosenthal and so on, at the New York Times. And if Clifton Daniel, who said this to me several weeks after or very closely after my winning the Pulitzer Prize he passed by my desk and hugged and kissed me and held me off at arms length and then made the statement about whats a little bitty thing like you etc. And before the Womens Movement, i would have sort of dimpled and blushed and said, oh, shucks, it was really nothing. But i felt he was being patronizing. I had suffered through an enormous ordeal and had shown a good deal of courage in overcoming it in my therapy, because for a long time people didnt think id ever take notes again or ever write again or ever type or ever walk. And this was the piece that won the pulitzer. And i got through a personal ordeal to win this pulitzer. And he was demeaning me. And i let him have it. And a few years previously, i wouldnt have stuck up for myself. And i really shamed clifton, whom i like enormously and who has been mentor to many talented women and, as a matter of fact, comes off rather well in the book, i think. He understands women. He likes women. In the case of that quote, i felt demeaned, so i let him have it. Cspan this is really out of synch with what were talking about, but i wanted to ask you about this when i read it. I underlined it and starred it and its on page 53, because i guess i was just surprised. Adolph pronounce his last name correctly. Guest ochs. Cspan ochs ochs. Theres another isnt there another name in history of thats pronounced oaks or oats or. Guest yes. Theres a branch of the family that is known as ochs pronounced oaks , and then theres another branch known as ochs pronounced ox , ochs pronounced oaks . Johnny ochs was the editor of the editorial page for a long time. His branch of the family changed their names because the ochses were german jews. And during world war i there was a tremendously fanatic outpouring against people with german names. And so one branch of the family changed their name to ochs. Cspan ok, and adolph ochs was an owner. Guest he was the great founding father, patriarch of the family that still owns it and publisher of the New York Times from 1896, when he bought it, to 1935, when he died. Cspan ok. That helps. This is the quote. Ochs avoided paying a far greater inheritance tax to the government. President franklin d. Roosevelt described it as a, quote, a dirty jewish trick, unquote. Franklin roosevelt talked like that . Guest yes. Its in the record. Cspan more than once . Guest yes. Ah, that i dont know. But, of course, there have been all kinds of books written in recent years about how roosevelt, for a very long time, ignored what was happening to the jews in germany, did not take it seriously. This has been amply documented over and over again that that he simply didnt seem to feel that it was important. Of course, we did not realize the full scope of the holocaust until after the war was over. Cspan where did you get that quote, though . Is that something new that you found somewhere on. Guest its probably in one of the things i read, but its been in print before. It probably is harrison salisburys book without fear or favor. It might be a footnote. But ive read every single book ever written about the New York Times. It may have been in the private archives that they opened to me, but i think its been in print and i think its probably harrison salisburys 1980 book. Cspan this is also out of synch, but there are people that you know, when you read about people you know about, makes it interesting names. Sy hersh, who was he . Guest sy hersh is one of the greatest investigative reporters in america today. He is on a par with bob woodward and carl bernstein. Cspan youve got a quote in the book that he said something to a woman by the name of Leslie Bennetts. Who is she . Guest Leslie Bennetts had just been hired as a reporter for the New York Times. Shed come in from the philadelphia bulletin after many years as a reporter in philadelphia. Cspan sy hersh wrote the my lai massacre story. Guest he won a pulitzer for it. Not for the times. He was then working for an independent news service. Cspan but here you have you said, and then, leslie recounted, he turned to me meaning sy hersh said in the angriest tone of voice, you know perfectly well you never would have been hired if it hadnt been for the womens suit, dont you . guest Leslie Bennetts was hired in 1978. Its amazing the number of talented women who were hired in 1978, which was the year that the lawsuit against the times for sex discrimination was settled in favor of the women who had brought the suit. Theres a whole class of 1978, i found out. And immediately thereafter, the times began hiring more women reporters, particularly because theyre more visible because of their bylines began hiring more women as soon as we confronted the management. We being the womens caucus the newly formed womens caucus i mean, i was sent to paris, flora lewis was sent out as a bureau chief. All kinds of women were being brought into the city room. But they still were being brought in at significantly less pay, and there werent that many of them. There were about three to five in the city room when i first viewed it. I mean, anywhere no women copy readers. When i came in 1955, i was sent to the womens page. And when i came down to the city room, five years later in 1959, there were still three to five women. I mean, i was the first new woman hired for the city room in five years. Cspan weve got to finish this part here. We dont want to. Guest im sorry. Im rambling. Cspan no, no. Its fine. I just have to finish it because i. Guest but im sorry. Cspan . For the audiences sakes. You talk about sy hersh. You said, i must be fair to him. I sat near him for months in the Washington Bureau while he threatened and cozeyed and cajoled his sources over the phone. And i am here to say that hersh was impartial in his treatment of the sexes. He was frequently and brutally rude to both. guest thats right. Thats one of the reasons why hes a great reporter, because he scares people into giving him information. Mike wallace operates on the same principle. I must say here, in all honesty, sy and i are friends. He is a pussycat within, but hes a brutally rude man. Cspan does rudeness work in this business . Guest it can. I think it grows out of personality. I mean, i think people i think interviewing grows out of personality. I never threatened or bullied people. Id listen to them. Cspan but, wait. Let me do that because im going to prove a point. Guest sorry. Ok. Cspan the interruption factor wait, wait i just interrupted you on purpose to you talk about the interruption factor. Guest yes. Cspan . Of men. Guest yes. Cspan what is that . Guest its whats happening to the women who are in higher positions today on the New York Times. Those are heads of departments, heads of sections. They are not listened to in managerial meetings. They are ridden over, they are interrupted. The men do not listen to what it is theyre saying. I have been present at some of these meetings, and it used to be that there werent any women at these managerial meetings. Well, now there are, thank god. But its almost as if theyre not taken seriously. Remember in broadcasting women were not supposed to be serious . Their voices were higher, they didnt use sports analogies; they were not taken seriously. They were fluff balls. You know, they were barbie dolls. And this is true to a certain extent today. Cspan is that interruption factor is that something youall invented or is that a wellknown thing about men . Guest no. I dont know if its a wellknown thing, but its a phrase that women in managerial positions at the New York Times used to me. And i think, like the term the Glass Ceiling against which women have been bumping their heads, that the interruption factor probably is used by other women. But they really and if they interrupt and if they are assertive, they are seen as strident or aggressive rather than assertive. Men do this at meetings. You know, they assert themselves. I tell you, brian, its a tough row to hoe here. Cspan theres another name i want to read you another thing here. Theres another name thats fairly public right now, gay talese. Guest yes. Cspan you mentioned him. Hes got a new book, but you mentioned the book on the New York Times. Guest which is a wonderful book. Cspan but in here you just, again, picking up a quote, that was fitting since talese virtually ignored the women employees of the paper. With the notable exception of charlotte curtis, then in her heyday, and a Patricia Riffe is that the way you pronounce it . Riffe . Guest yes. Cspan thats Clifton Daniels secretary. Guest yes. Cspan whose beauty he chose to comment upon as well as, quote, that nice hip motion that she has when she walks. gay talese doesnt sound like hes one of your favorites from reading this. If he was. Guest i have always thought that gay is a male chauvinist. Again, a friend. We are civil to one another, but i sat right in front of gay in the city room. We were of that same generation and gay talese is a very macho, Southern Italian man. You know, when he had two daughters, i had the feeling he was going to sort of leave them out on the hillside like, you know, ancient sicilians or something. Gay is one of those that i think is and never been comfortable around women. I know this, you know. Finds it a little hes more comfortable in male company. Cspan theres a. Guest and he said that and he wrote that. Cspan theres an awful lot we can talk about and, as you see, im jumping all over the place. Guest its ok. Cspan . Because i wanted you to explain all these Little Things. You can read the book and get the whole story on the suit. Guest yes. Cspan other things grandpa. Guest my grandpa . Cspan meant a lot to you. Guest he was the first man i ever loved. I was rather remote from my father, who was often away from home. He was a traveling salesman. And shortly after the crash, my maternal grandfather and grandmother came to the household to live. And my grandfather brought a very Large Library of classic books. The bulk of them was 19th century novelists english, french, russian, american. And he made a bookworm out of me. And he was, i now know, the first man to treat me as an equal who was an adult. I mean, to treat me like an adult, to talk to me about everything. He had complete respect for my views. I talked to him about everything from is there a god . To sex as i was growing up. He was a man of immense tolerance, and he was a very intellectual man. And i think people who read a lot and ive been a big reader all my life because of my grandfather; the good push that he gave and the direction i think people that read a lot respect writing, although they may not become writers. I certainly became a good speller because of that. You know, people who read a lot generally tend to be good spellers. But he was an immense intellectual influence in my life, as well as being a man that i loved. And i tell a little bit about him in my book. I would like to honor my grandfather. Cspan you dedicated the book to brave women. Guest yes. Cspan how do you define a brave woman . Guest a woman who stands up for herself and what she believes in even though shes scared. I think a brave person is a person who goes ahead and does something thats frightening even though theyre frightened. I mean, every single woman, for instance, who was active in this lawsuit against the times was putting her career on the line, particularly the seven named plaintiffs in this suit. And as a result of the suit, their careers were blighted, but they opened up they were pioneers. They opened up the way for other women. Cspan was your name on the suit . Guest no. Cspan how come . Guest because i was a Foreign Correspondent in paris at the time that they were trying to get plaintiffs. If i had been asked, i would have said yes. I would have been scared to death, but i would have said yes. I was in paris in 1974 when they were deciding and when the suit was finally filed after fruitless negotiation with management. And i would have been a plaintiff. I would have been honored to be asked. And i did have a background of activism as a union shop steward. And its partly my life that taught me to be an activist. Cspan womens caucus in the New York Times, and the lawsuit would you say by the way, what happened with the lawsuit . Guest the lawsuit was settled on october 6, 1978, on the day it was due to go to trial, in favor of the women. Cspan this is a little bit of a tangential question, but there was a strike in new york. Guest yes. Cspan . Newspaper strike, so most of this wasnt covered by newspapers. Guest thats right. I mean, there was a print blackout in new york for three months. It was the secondlongest citywide newspaper strike in new york history. And this all of the drama the final weeks of the womens suit against the times unrolled in darkness and silence. There were only alternative newspapers with very low circulations, outoftown newspapers, local tv and radio shows. Also, as you probably well know, the press and broadcasting does not cover itself very well, does not write about itself very well. I think its a pity because its always telling people what to do and then does not turn the search light on itself. Thats why, i think, the rise of ombudsmen in other words, people who really monitor the newspaper and listen to the readers complaints and listen to whats going on inside a newspaper are a very good thing indeed. We have a media reporter, but on the whole, not encouraged to cover the times in that sort of negative way. However, in 1991, when there was a mutiny an unprecedented mutiny within the times over the coverage of the palm beach rape accuser in the William Kennedy smith case, the times covered itself, covered the storm of protest from the readers for, a giving her name without her consent and, b treating her in a profile as if she had deserved this, as if she were some kind of slut, as somebody put it. The times staffers rose up as they never have before, men and women, to call the management to account. And max frankel was quoted, other people were quoted. I mean, it was in the New York Times that something quite negative had happened there and that the staff was reacting against it by saying that the times was not living up to its own journalistic standards. I got a tape of that meeting from one of my many friends in the times, and Time Magazine said that there were boos and hisses at the meeting. It wasnt like that at all. What rose up off that tape was chagrin and, again, love for the newspaper, wish for it to be the best that it could be, and then the feeling of disappointment that it had really fallen down in its standards. It had become sort of like a tabloid in that regard. I was very proud of the staff. Cspan you go back and you talk a lot about max frankel, the current editor. Guest yes. Cspan and you quote rebecca sinkler, the sunday book review editor, commenting, i think were lucky to have max frankel because hes so completely politically incorrect. The mans wellintentioned but antidiluvian. Hes not hypocritical enough to mind his mouth. He shows us what really is on mens minds. Guest do you understand that quote . Cspan sure. I also want to ask you about this one, though. This is mr. Frankel being quoted. He says, what i meant was that i was manager of this wonderful organization, cant afford to have women fail without having a political crisis on my hands. I do aim for 50 50 men and women on the staff. Fortunately enough, women have already succeeded in high places here so that we can also have them fail. Guest yes. Cspan what i was doing was revealing my own state of mind, really. This is quoting max frankel. Heres what i really want to ask you about. When Branch Rickey recruited jackie robinson, he had to say, boy, this guy had better be great. He had to be better than anybody else. frankel saying, my mother used to say to me, max, youre a jew. Youve got to be better than anybody else. now major black ballplayers are routinely scolded, traded, kicked out, and nobody calls it racism. racism. why would somebody say a mother say, max youre a jew. Youve got to be better than anybody else . guest because jews couldnt be doctors for the longest time in america, couldnt go to law school, have been used throughout history as scapegoats. They are disproportionately and admirably represented in the United States as Civic Leaders and as intellectual leaders. And it creates a lot of resentment as assimilated as they are. Max frankel came from germany. Remember that. And he realized he was a germanspeaking boy when he came to new york city. And he has been struggling all of his life. It might account for his ponderousness and his seriousness that he has had to struggle. And his mother knew full well that he was a member of a minority historically discriminated against and despised and that he had to be better than other people to achieve the same goals. And many women feel that, and were not even a minority. Cspan did you ever wonder i mean, when i read this, all these hangups that people have about where they came from, where they are, whether theyre men, women, jews, catholic and all that. I mean, is it working . Guest i dont understand your question. Cspan the human being. I mean, you portray the New York Times as a great, liberal institution. It sounds like to me that theyve got i mean, this is full of people with all kinds of, you know. Guest publicly its a great liberal institution. Privately, behind the scenes, while they were lecturing the country in their editorials about, you know, things cant be managed by white males alone, youve got to give the women a chance, youve got to give the minorities a chance while they were saying this in print, this truly great newspaper and its lawyers were fighting the womens suit tooth and nail behind the scenes. It was a hypocritical attitude. Cspan i started to ask you earlier caucus and the suit. Guest yes. Cspan . Looking back on it, did both of them get what the Womens Movement at the New York Times wanted . Was it worth it . Would you recommend it to others if theyre caught in a similar situation . Guest you bet i would. Im a true believer in organizing to get what you want im a true believer that nobody is going to move whos already in power or give any power away voluntarily unless they are nudged and pushed and people stand up for themselves. I really believe that. You know, its not enough to have your own brilliant career. Thats your own brilliant career, but who have you helped . Thats why charlotte curtis, the womens editor for a long time, and ada louise huxtable, the architecture critic, both of whom were women of enormous talent and distinction why it disappointed me that they didnt sort of join the womens suit, didnt sign the letter to the publisher, the first manifesto, because they were really focused on their own careers. However, charlotte curtis, at the very end, who had become wellaware of the interruption factor when she went on to the masthead as an associate editor charlotte curtis, at the end, said the charges that the women have brought are generally true this is before the settlement. And she also told anna quindlen, who is now on the oped page of the times as a columnist, that they will only give you they being the male management as much power as they wish you to have. Anna, by the way, is a very, very powerful and wonderful feminist voice on the oped page of the times. Cspan this woman here, harriett rabb. Guest yes. Cspan . In reading the book, again, all kinds of connections her husband, her husbands father and all that her relationship to this city and all that, just tell us a little bit about harriet rabb and what were the problems with her background . Guest harriet rabb cut her legal teeth with kuntsler, kuntsler cannoy, a very famous and, to some people, infamous law firm that defended almost every radical in the United States, black or white, during the 60s and early 70s. William kuntsler is still very wellknown for taking on unpopular clients. That is where she learned her law, at the feet, basically, of arthur cannoy, the partner of kuntsler. She had an fbi file, i mean, this thick. Her second husband, bruce, came from a staunchly republican family. Maxwell rabb, his father, was, i believe, reagans ambassador to italy. He was eisenhowers cabinet secretary staunchly republican family. And bruce rabb was in the civilrights Liaison Office of richard nixon, again a republican white house. And his wife was considered by the fbi as a subversive, and she lost a number of jobs because of the kinds of meetings she was going to, being a lawyer for one client or another. She became the lawyer of the womens caucus and the classaction suit that represented all the women at the New York Times in every job. And she also was the bestknown lawyer for the plaintiffs in the sex Discrimination Suits in the media during the early 70s. Cspan judge david. Guest . Nbc, readers digest, etc. I dont know whether those were her cases, but she had a lot of sex discrimination cases. Cspan you write that judge dave bazelon, if i remember correctly, a wellknown liberal judge. Guest yes. Cspan . Refused to hire her as a clerk. Guest he wanted to hire her as a clerk, but the other judges i think it was the court of appeals said that she was subversive. And one of them said that he would lock his door against her or Something Like that. And bazelon was forced to tell harriet with tears in his eyes that he could not hire her because hc