They were among the very first to recognize and articulate the threat of fascism that were sweeping through europe in the 1930s, while most of their colleagues, male or female, refused to acknowledge the blatant signs of nazi imperialism. West and thompson fought the only way they could, not on the military battlefield, but in the arena of ideas. Willing to risk everything and smashing literary and social icons in their wake, rebecca west made sicily was nothing if not icon. Sicily, the youngest of three daughters was born in 1892, in the outskirts of london. Her father, a gifted cartoonist and journalist, soon revealed to be a notorious gambler, thief and womanizer, abandoned their families when sicily was only 8 years old. Devastated, she was unable to recognize to reconcile, his apparent adoration with the pennery and shame into which his leaving had cast them. This, i believe, was the defining moment of her life. Her fathers betrayal forever destroyed her faith in people and in god, permeating every aspect of her life, including her writing. She would search for him in all her relationships with men and in her own way, she set out to become him. Aware that her beauty, intelligence, and verbal acuity was akin to his, she must cast aside extraneous ambition over her overarching ambition, her life became a game of chest. Believing that the formal schooling of a woman, such as herself, was a waste of time, she educated herself in classical literature history and moral philosophy. By the time she was 19 years old, sicily, now known as rebecca west, the protagonist of a in a freethinking drama by ipsens, was a prolific journalist, writing essays and book reviews for a feminist magazine. Sensing that a famous foe might become an enabler, in 1912, she wrote a scathing review of h. G. Wells most recent novel. Marriage. In which he denigrated women as golddigging parasites. West dared to blast this sacred icon as a flagrant misogynist, who knew nothing about the true nature of women or the institution of marriage. Where he lived with his golddigging, parasitic wife, and their two overprotected and underdisciplined sons. Within the course of the afterno afternoon, west fell head over heels in love with him, seduced by the quality of his intellect and his radiant sexuality. She describes him as having, quote, the walk of a matador, into the center of an arena, when he is going to fight the bulls to the finish. West longed to be the bull. Relished the oncoming fight. And longed to be, shall we say, finished. To full understand their mutual fascination, one must know just who wells was in 1912. He was possibly the most celebrated author in the englishspeaking world. He had already published his famed Science Fiction novels, the time machines, the invisible man, war of the worlds infused with social commentary to wakening the public to the dangers of science, unmitigated by moral philosophy, h. G. Wells, in short, was an intellectual rock star. And yet he had a strange selfdestructive flaw, perhaps that one that rebecca anticipated. An insatiable lust for beautiful, intelligent women. Wells had had several affairs before meeting rebecca, but this time he sensed he had found the real thing. His intellectual equal with a sexual desire that matched his own, and within two years, rebecca would give birth to their son anthony and, like it or not, she and h. G. Were bound for life. Now, in august of 1914, when rebecca was giving birth to her son, dorothy, a more conventional sort, had chosen to attend a university in upstate new york. And upon graduation, she was looking for some meaningful work, and for dorothy, nothing could have been more meaningful than making sense of her mothers death. Like rebecca, dorothy, too, had lost a beloved parent at the age of 8. And the loss molded her stance toward the world and her drive to succeed. In an effort to empower women and to give them voice, she worked as a new york state suffragette and, later, among a rare breed of female foreign correspondents. In the method of her father, a methodist preacher, she would treat her readers and listeners, and just about everyone else, as lost souls, in need of faithful guidance. Thompson had sailed to new england in 1921 with 100 in her pocket with dreams of becoming a correspondent, while making her way along the heirarchy of fleet street, she met the precocious rebecca west, already a journalist on both sides of the atlantic, the mistress of a luminary and the mother of a feisty 7yearold boy. But when they were to meet again, five years later in berlin, they met as equals. Thompson had become the first female head of a news bureau, responsible for reporting on nine Central European countries for the New York Post. Soon to be divorced from a hungarian gold digging parasitic cad, she was about to embark on her own relationship with a literary icon. Harry sinclair louis. When she met red, as he was called, at the bar at the adlon hotel in berlin, louis, unbeknownst to dorothy, was on a drunken brawl through europe, was simultaneously drowning his sorrows of being dorothy was struck not only by reds honest face and radiant loneliness, but also by his international celebri celebrity, and she was immediately drawn as she was want to do to this sad, lost soul. But while thompson was a professional on the assent, louis was probably the most internationally famous social saturnist, soon to be the first many to win the nobel prize for literature. By the time he met dorothy, louis had already published main stre street, classic works that document life in america between the wars. But he, like wells, had a selfdestructive flaw. An alcoholic on the verge of divorce and confident of nothing except his ability to spin a tale. Louis was drawn to dorothys strength of character and overarcing drive to succeed. He would relentlessly pursue her until she agreed to marry him. Upon which dorothy, believing she had met the man she had been searching for all her life, the man for whom she had been divinely ordained, quit her job at the New York Post and prepared to find fulfillment in wife and motherhood. Although her friend rebecca and everyone else who knew him wondered that louis was an incorrigible drunk, the daughter of the methodist preacher, naively believed that with him by her side, he would conquer his alcoholism and salvage the great literary career. But it only took three days into their honeymoon for dorothy to realize that red would never change and that she could never survive without an independent source of income. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the lady became pregnant, and although she was trapped in new york city in his nightmareish life, she harbored hope for their marriage until the birth of their son, michael, in 1930. But the event neither cured louis alcoholism, nor quelled thompsons ambition to influence the course of world history. And so once again, she sailed to europe to reignite her career. She would cross the atlantic many times in the early 30s, garnering an interview in 1931 with adolf hitler. The first foreign journalist, male or female, to do so. And while she saw the madness of the man, she missed the power of his political instincts that would sweep him to victory. Nonetheless, her interview became the basis of a book i saw hitler very few people outside of germany had ever seen hitler and it was this book that would catapult her to national and international fame. But when she returned to berlin one year later, hitler, now wise to her scathing contempt, demanded that thompson leave the country or face incarceration. Arriving at the west side dock in new york city to a heros welcome, her newfound celebrity would be the death nail of her marriage. But it was also the fulfillment of a dream that she had begun more than 10 years earlier. Tossed about in the turmoil of unfulfilled promises and bringing up their difficult sons, these two women were struggling to maintain a semblance of order in their personal lives, while riding the wave of professional success. But the force of historical events would turn these friends into political allies. In the late 1930s, at the nazi war machine games momentum, and a Second World War seemed inevitable, rebecca west understood that western democracies were deluding themselves by prospects of peace through appeasement. A trip to yugoslavia on government assignment persuaded her that its violent history of conquests, oppression and intermixing warfare put the face of europe under nazi siege. It was on this premise that she wrote what would become her magnum opus, black lamb and gray falcon. A clarion call to her countrymen to confront the existential threat of hitlers quest for european domination or risk the destruction of western civilization. But equally important, in the process, west had discovered a new genre that would mark the watershed of her career, a mosaic of history, biography, culture, sociology and moral philosophy, black lamb and gray falcon became a modus operandi, for studying the vital, social and political issues of her day. In 1946, on assignment from the new yorker, west covered the nuremberg trials, later published in two parts, they read more like philosophical treatises on good and evil than repertage. She concluded that both the victors and the vanquished were equally guilty by virtue of their humanity. With merely a batter of perspective and degree. It was a strange conclusion, considering the genocideal aims of the nazi regime, but consistent with her beliefs that violence and cruelty were intrinsic to human nature, which is to say you can kill the people but not the evil impulses they harbor. That is intrinsic to humanity. Strange, but brilliance in its multi facetted but probing issues, her coverage of nuremberg earned her a reputation for astute observati observation. She could see a world of culture and history and social status in the face and demeanor of an individual. Quite a gift. And it also gave her entree into the study of treason, a subject that permitted her to bring her own personal scars of betrayal by her father into the arena of postwar political espionage. These articles, written for the new yorker and ultimately published in tandem as books, the meaning of treason in 1947 and the new meaning of treason of 1964 revealed the roots of war and postwar malaise that motivated people to abandon democratic ideals in service to savage utopian creeds. In her book she would articulate a reality that still rings true. The implications of treason in a postwar nuclear age are e irrevocable and catastrophic. When black lamb and gray falcon was published in the states of 1941, dorothy was engaged in a fullscale crusade for american intervention. Now friends for more than 20 years, she begged rebecca to come to america to join her in the fight. Dorothy had risen to the height of her influence in the 1930s, in the late 1930s, with a twiceweekly column in the New York Herald tribune, read by millions of readers a day, and Radio Broadcasts with national and international reach, having experienced nazi brutality firsthand when she had toured germany in the early 1930s, she too understood the evil beneath hitlers utopian dream of german dominance. In early 1944, fearing that britain was on the verge of collapse, dorothy found in Franklin Roosevelt a perfect mix of principled statesman as practical politician, who understood the need to persuade the publics to embrace what americans saw as europes war. The first of her generation to be born in america, she understood both intellectually and viscerally that the loss of freedom to fascist thugs was simply unthinkable and, much like west, thompson had found had her calling. To the top of her right wing colleagues at the Herald Tribune along with her reading public, who in mass cancelled her prescriptions, she turned away from wilkie, and backed roosevelt and gained access to the white house and capitol hill that would mark the pinnacle of her career, but its the death of f. D. R. And, even more important, the death of her beloved stepson, wells louis, who was the son she never had, she never felt she had in michael. His death in the battle of the bulge balked at the sense of her meteoric rise. In another traumatic reversal, thompson became a staunch pest, raging against unconventional surrender and after the war, turned against american jewry and working tirelessly to bring jews out of occupied europe. But the final death blow to her career would come when she espoused the palestinian cause and the major newspapers in the syndicate that had carried her column after the Herald Tribune began to drop her one by one. Until she was muzzled in silence. Although dorothy would find love through marriage toward the end of her life and regain her childhood faith in god, like rebecca, her work would always trump her commitment to even the moest infant of her relations. Realizing too late that their ambitions eroded their relationship with their husbands and sons, Michael Louis and anthony west were to pay a terrible price. While anthony would eviscerate his gifts as a writer, spewing out venomous books and articles, in an attempt to bring his mother down, michael found comfort and even revenge in failu failure, and undisciplined and mildly gifted after he, like his father, would die an abusive drunk at an early age. But it is west and thompsons motive for writing that ultimately distinguishes them from one another. Thompson was certain she served a higher good. She wrote because she felt she was divinely ordained to make the world on earth in tandem with god more perfect. West wrote, because she simply couldnt help it, her mind was so quick and fertile and her interests were so farranging, that not to do so would have been tantamount to suicide. While they both were to reach the height of their professions, west was clearly the more gifted of the two women and dorothy agre agreed. Thompson, i should say, agreed. Deemed by many as the greatest 20th century writer in the english language, rebecca west wrote as though her words alone could save the world. And when one reads the glorious passages in black lamb and gray falcon, her novels, articles and essays, one can almost agree. While thompson was the quintessential Public Policy wonk, fixated on the daily turns of the world, who had even contemplated a run for the presidency, west at the core was not a political animal. She was interested in the big moral issues of her day and had the clairvoyance to follow them into the future. While thompson frowned on feminist ideology, believing her accomplishments alone were enough proof that women that a woman could succeed as a man, like a man, west, had she been a young woman in the 1970s, might have marched down 5th avenue, hand in hand, with gloria steinem, demonstrating with her flamboyant style the intellectual equality of women. West would outlive thompson by 22 years, dying in 1983 at the age of 90. Having written 30 books. And hundreds of columns and essays. And so i offer a portrait of two extraordinary women who made tragic errors in judgment that shattered their personal lives, even as they soared to fame. Tragic errors. The decisions women make in the course of fulfilling their lives as professionals have always been my interest. I write to learn, to understand the flow of history and the personal and political machinations of individuals as they seek to steer, harness, or merely survive the force of its current. Of one thing im certain, the dilemma of a gifted and ambitious woman remains the same today more than ever as women become increasingly educated and are expected to follow a professional path, the dangers abide. And i believe that the lives of these two pioneering women offer insights into this ageold, yet contemporary challenge. Thank you for listening. [applause] does anyone have any questions . Anyone . This one right there. Yes. She was hired by helen ogden reed. Actually as a kind of antecdote in a way to Walter Whitman with whom she shared this column on alternate days, she wrote three times a week, he, too, and she was asked to she was helen reed hired her because she thought she would teach women how to think. And Dorothy Thompson would never have been satisfied with that. And by the end of her tenure there, she had 8 to 10 million male and female readers per day, and they fired her because they were for wendell wilkie. It was as simple as that. Henry and clair were republicans and when she made that switch to f. D. R. , she was no longer welcome. Yes . What was her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt . Eleanor roosevelt didnt like her. She didnt like her especially in her passivist metaphor thank you met a metaphor because she organized what she felt was a women movement, women for peace movement, in which she says cant we all just be friends, let us put our guns down and Eleanor Roosevelt believed that the greatest defense was a highly avantgarde stateoftheart military. And she actually she, meaning Eleanor Roosevelt denounced her, denounced Dorothy Thompson on the floor of the u. N. When she was when Eleanor Roosevelt was the head of the humanitarian commission. Thank you. And Dorothy Thompson was just mortifi mortified, very embarrassed. As a matter of fact, after that, her Movement Just died on the vine and she resigned. We have time for one last question. You have given us an amazing portrait of each of these two women. Could you say a little bit more about their relationship with one another . Did they encourage each other, did they compete with each other . Did they see each other as parallels, women with difficult sons . How did they relate to each other . Well, i think initially they related to one another as women who were bent on doing the same thing, which was to break in to this maledominated world of literature and journalism. But i think their relationship was very complicated because of their different personalities. Rebecca west was quite cagey and what she said in public was not necessarily what she wrote in letters or said in private conversations to friends, and while on the surface she was very warm and loving to constance, she saw dorothy as this is her word an intellectual lightweight. And she felt dorothy couldnt understand what her work was all about. Dorothy would have said that rebecca was more talented than she. She would have agreed, and that if she, dorothy, could write like rebecca, she certainly would have. But dorothy was a straight shooter. She wasnt manipulative. Whatever she said, she meant. And she really valued her relationship with rebecca, and she would have been heartbroken to hear it was a bit of a charade, but they did, nonetheless, when their sons were in trouble and when they were professionally downhearted, they would have commiserated and enabled one another. But i think their relationship was as complicated as the personaliti personalities. So thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] youre watching American History tv, 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan 3. Follow us on twitter at cspan history for information on our schedule, upcoming programs and to keep up with the latest history news. Now you can keep in touch with Current Events from the Nations Capital using any phone anytime with cspan radio on audio now. Call 202 6268888 to hear congressional coverage, Public Affairs programs and todays Washington Journal Program and listen to the recap on 5 p. M. Eastern on washington today. You can also hear audios on Public Affairs program. Call 20262688 202 6268888. Long distance phone charges may apply. Next, the discussion about the history of covert activities in the United States and the impact of the Church Committee hearings on congressional oversight on the intelligence committee. As a result of the watergate commission, the Committee Held hearings in 1965. Taking part, former c. I. A. Director for assistance and production. This program is sponsored by the National History center. Its about an hour and 10