website, c-span.org/history. you're watching c-span -- you're watching american history tv, all we can every weekend on c-span3. memorialetnam veterans was dedicated on washington, d.c.'s national mall in 1982. restonuthor james discusses the memorials creation. of,s reston is the author "art, memory, and the fight for the vietnam memorial." good morning ladies and gentlemen. i am the lisbon centers vice president. james reston is a wilson center global fellow. i believe so -- is it? i was going to an event henry kissinger was speaking at and the chair set can everyone hear me and from the side henry , by definition, the people who cannot fear will not respond. -- the people who cannot hear will not respond. [laughter] you're at the wilson center and today is another in our books at wilson series featuring the latest book by the remarkable james reston who is a wilson center global fellow. the topic of the book deals with a contentious period in the history of the vietnam war, and the book itself deals with the contentious debate over how to americans'ar and the role and sacrifice during that period. that was fraught with politics and contention over the appropriate artistic expression to memorialize that dramatic period in american history. the gold standard of book reviews remains "the new york times." there reviewed this week and described the book as superb -- unexpectedly affecting unexpectedly affecting in terms of the emotions it evokes as one reads it. it is a fantastic volume. jim has been affiliated as a fellow at the wilson center. it is remarkable the topics he has taken on in 17 books. the range from the renaissance to the contemporary is .emarkable for any individual his book, "the conviction of " was a best-seller and inspired the film frost/neck frost/nixon. awards for various publications and we are today's eventost to mark the publication of his latest book. the wilson format is conversational, and we cannot and a better moderator person to engage in this who scruggs, is the founder of the vietnam veterans memorial fund. the project stemmed from work he be thathe format will jan and jim will have a conversation for 25 minutes to discuss the main themes of the book, then over to you all for any comments or questions, and then the author will sign copies of the book, which are available just outside the door in the foyer. let me turn the floor over to jan. i had intended to speak for about 40 minutes, so i will see if i can compress what i had in mind to about four. i am arguing that there are two vietnam war's, there is the one fought between 1959 in 1975, and the second war began in 1979 and is still going on. that is on the question of how this war, the first lost war in american national history and very divisive, how that is to be remembered and how it is to be memorialized. i have been preoccupied in my entire literary life with the lot of my own generation, and the moral dilemma that it faced during the vietnam period, the decision as to whether to serve in the military or not, to avoid it, all my friends avoided service. army my three years in the , i became 1968 involved in the reconciliation movement, especially with vietnam war resisters, and wrote two books about that. this overarching theme of reconciliation after a divisive war, i believe is an eternal question and one that we will face, perhaps today in relation to iraq and afghanistan and in the future, forever. i remember the choice my generation was faced with, to be involved or not in the ill-conceived, arguably immoral war, to protest and avoid or to serve. i was personally and deeply involved in trying to decide that in my own personal life and therefore very interested in how that extended to other of my contemporaries. this book is not about the vietnam war that was fought, but the memory of that war. -- it should be remembered that first phase had its most fight overe with the the vietnam -- a vietnam memorial, whether there would be one at all or if there was going to be one what should it be. that period is totally forgot now, the intensity of the fight between 1979 and 1984, but i believe it is instructive to go back to that period and to that site -- and to that fight. with the ken burns documentary we are going to get this fight all over again with intensity. tiesook has two emotional for me. one is that i have one friend on in wall who was killed january 1968 when the north vietnamese came through. himained with him and knew well. he was a good friend of mine. of thehe brilliance vietnam wall that it is by artue of its black granite reflective surface, so i believe that almost by accident, the reflective quality of the granite to those who have survived is a magical accident that i came upon. the second emotional tie is the sculptor of the soldiers at the memorial was a friend of mine, and i was not sure when i started to focus on this question as to whether this book would work. al biographies rose, a baseball versus richard the lion heart, a medieval book. the form of tool -- the form of dual biography interested me greatly. dualer i could do a biography was a question in my mind. i was interested in the artistic process that those artists went through. what should the place be for a lost war, a divisive war? what shape should it take, what minds tough artist's try to figure out what would be appropriate. what would be the right move to go for? what i quickly understood from searching the library of congress was there was an enormous u fusion -- and a norm us a fusion -- and enormous effusion of creativity that this commission brought into ,xistence with 1421 submissions all of those designs are in the library of congress. it is a fascinating range that tschy tom very ki quite interesting, and there was significant competition. there is a very rich historical record at the library of thatess of the materials come out of the vietnam veterans memorial. memorial began as a veterans memorial about one war and the veterans who fought in it. the magic of it as the decades have proceeded is that memorial has become universalized, it is not only about veterans, but about the entire vietnam generation and its style i'm a. it is not only about the vietnam war, it is about all wars. it is not a place only for warriors, but equally for pacifists. even draftdodgers and deserters can go and have a place of contemplation foistedchoice that was on an american generation that should never happen again. has six phases. veteran'swith one vision, a veteran who was wounded and then returned to duty, then witnessed a terrible apart,t of friends blown and openly declares that he suffered, then and perhaps now from ptsd. his sacrifice and his service were something he felt should be memorialized personally and for all who served under these difficult circumstances. his determination to follow this through is an amazing thing. that if therely was a memorial, it was not to be stuck away in some hidden place in washington, as if this was a shameful thing. it should be on the national place, a prominent almost in your face. the second phase was beyond the raising of money -- and artistic competition. it was presided over by a professionalckly who gathered a panel of distinguished artists and how tocts to figure out choose between these 1421 submissions. what would be the best. there were several rules that were laid down for all those that submitted. one was the insistence of the veteran founder that all the thes of the dead be on sculpture or whatever it was to be. secondly, that it must be nonpolitical. the memorial does not state that the war was right or wrong. happened there after was this remarkable scene in a hangar in andrews air force base where these 1421 submissions , and theon display seven or eight judges had to go winnow and window -- and it down to a couple hundred and then 30 and then down to three and then to choose a winner. had tothose submissions be anonymous. there were major architectural firms and major artist who put forward submissions to this. phase three was the results, with this 21-year-old yale undergraduate, her design was a granite,evron in black belowground. inflammatorywere and subsequent phases. the actual drawing of that submission was almost high schoolish. it was a black chevron that many people might have done. competition,the and this appeals to the writer in me was not the design, but her description of what she wanted the memorial to be. it was walking through this of memorialea appears as a rift in the earth, along polished black stone wall are merging from and receding from the earth and it goes on in a very poetic way. it was also part of the rules that that description had to be in their hand writing and there .ould be no print i hope i have this all right so far. came the next phase. this was the blowback. it has been described and i believe accurately as the art war. black granite was the color of shame, by it being belowground was shameful. only the dead were on the wall and not anything about the survivors, and this was unfair. it was depressing. , noe was no glory in it honor, no heroism. there had been no vietnam veterans on the panel of judges chose the -- that final result. was led by a powerful character by the name of jim webb, subsequently senator from virginia and a very failed presidential campaign. indeed.ul individual, very well-connected in washington who gathered congressmen and senators behind writtente beautifully op-ed pieces in opposition, who went around and spoke all over the country against this. it was a powerful effort to designne the maya lin and it nearly succeeded. the fifth phase was the figureise where a superb was brought in and he was commissioned to do three , a three soldier sculpture and this was to thatfy veterans who hated -- of shame as it was called. to hart's credit, he rejected the pressure to create a glorified sculpture which would glorify the experience of the vietnam veteran, or for it to be a heroic statue the way you might find at a place like quantico. ,hen this started to gain legs their evil and interesting -- there evolved an interesting debate between the detractors of maya lin and the architectural community who felt there was a strong principle here of the integrity of an artistic work that had been chosen in the most professional and fair way. nevertheless, it became a washington story in which the white house became involved and congress became involved and ultimately, it felt to this agency in washington called the u.s. commission on fine arts to decide what to do about this. ultimately, they agreed that the , but itould be added would be added as an entrance experience, so as you entered from the lincoln memorial to the wall, you went past the three soldiers. meant to not be two memorials, as was argued by the purists, but it was one integrated experience. much --k hart was very bought into this notion of his respect for the winning design won the day at the u.s. commission of fine arts by what he wrote with what he was doing with his statues in relation to the wall. the gesture and expression of the figures are affectingo the wall, an interplay between image and metaphor. the tension between the two elements creates a residence that echoes from one to the other, i see the wall as a kind sacrificea sea of that is overwhelming and incomprehensible in its sweep of names. i place these figures upon the gazing on it,see, standing vigil before it, reflecting the human face of it, the human heart. that won the compromise and i would think won the day for frederick hart. it was still a shotgun marriage. the last phase is where we are at now. with this remarkable embrace of , and its place, it is the most accessible monument in the district of columbia, 5 million visitors every year visit it. it is copied all over the world. interestingly to me, when i was in december, it is also copied in the memorial to the north vietnamese dead in vietnam, the black granite with the names of those who were killed. it is a place for all of the vietnam generation, and it is a place for all generations to come. if you go there, it is a fine place to take a child. with this can burns -- with this think we going to relive the vietnam war and get ready to see the fight start all over again. rift of the generation is going to be on display, but at least now we have a place of contemplation for what is the ultimate cost of war. the brilliance of the black granite to reflect the experience of the survivors, beyond that, to celebrate the vietnamers, the modest veteran whose vision and determination made this happen, the white-haired manager of the historic competition, but also the artists who are not here today, maya lin and frederick hart. thank you. [applause] >> can everyone hear me? i'm the founder of the vietnam veterans memorial, born in the nation's capital and i grew up in a gooey, maryland -- in bowie, maryland. ended up in the vietnam war at age 18, served like a good enough idea for me to serve for two years. got the draft out of the way. an american university i did research and i'd did become -- and i did become an authority on posttraumatic stress disorder -- to become an authority all you have to do is write an article for the washington post and appear in front of a senate committee during i figure that out quickly. i had some credibility when i came up with the idea for this memorial, which flowed from the idea of survivor conflicts. a lot of work has been done on survivor conflicts, people who have survived the holocaust in tortured people, why did i survive and my children to not? people who survive wars, their life is different, even car crashes and so forth. i became interested in thinking g who was a student of sigmund floyd -- of sigmund frueeud who had this idea of the unconscious mind. he talked about these historical archetypes, what is the hero. who is the hero to jung? the hero is the man or woman who faces the dragon. dragon with a sword, he wins or he dies, that he is the hero for facing danger. flowing from this archetype came the idea of a memorial with names, names of the fallen from vietnam. the memorial would honor all. the trick i came up with was to separate the war from the warrior. that became a mantra. is one issue,r service to your country is a separate issue. we tried to keep the vietnam war out of the vietnam veterans memorial which is not possible, but held off the lions at the gate for a while. in order to get this memorial built, i was very lucky. some graduates of the u.s. military academy at west point, who also went to the harvard business school, descended on this project early on and made the vietnam veterans memorial into a harvard business school problem. i owe a lot to the harvard business school, i/o a lot to west point for getting this done lot to west point for getting this done. this book is fantastic. it should be the official history of the vietnam veterans memorial. it is also a history of art and art history and washington, d.c. this is not the first time people have disagreed over a structure. i wonder if you could tell us about the fdr memorial. many of us have been to it, but we do not know about the one that was not built. me on this ballot details. for something like the vietnam memorial or the vietnam war, which left -- the number of dead were a lot less than world war i or world war ii. memorials for fdr and for george washington -- and we know that general eisenhower continues off with terrific tension between the family and the powers that be here in washington. yours tomemorial of become a reality is absolutely .mazing even something like the george washington memorial, the design itself was totally different initially than what was built. there is a connection between the washington monument and the vietnam memorial in the sense that they are both indeed quite scaled down. it's one of the surprising things -- surprising to me and all of this was going into the way in which the vision developed for this thing, it was originally a very deeply antiwar design where it was not just the in her she presented class, but it was the chevron were there were a series of stones coming down to that chevron. and the stones going down are meant to be the dominoes of the vietnam war, as if those who died, all 58,000 serve down the stones of the dominoes to their depth. to me thatlear talking with her professor from yale that in the consideration of her design they said, what are these stones with the men surfing down to their death, get rid of that. the memorial was scaling down. much lessmemorial on than five years is an extraordinary accomplish. corrects some people are very -- >> someting people are very good at writing. there were important far-reaching questions over this contest. population would ultimately controlled memory of vietnam? would be the veterans, would it be the artists looking for a stylistic statement? -- would it be war resisters? that wouldliticians want to lay the political pressures on them and put vietnam to arrest? mile and a time was at yale. individual teams competed in the architecture in maybe the history of western , later quipped by the quibble memorial in world war ii. tell us about professor andrew burr. he became infamous for giving a to my lynn -- to maya lin the good news is in this book in can see what was turned -- >> it's hard to imagine a mess you have extraordinary skills. tell us about angela. >> a joke about the his name is -- he deserves a tremendous amount credit for managing those 1421 submissions with fairness and professionalism. andrew burr's this very jolly in 1980ofessor at yale who goes to france in the summer and looks at world war ii whereals in france hundreds, tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands were killed and memorialized. he was very interested in that, and to theo yale dean of the architecture school, a famous architect in america now with a notion of having a in -- memorializing the dead. students, had eight including this young who was aican girl really rather bad student, difficult, and was not doing all of her homework. when it came to the announcement of this vietnam memorial competition, he changed his programs and asked his students to go ahead and imagine what memorialize.ke the student came down with a couple of friends to look at the landscape of what is known as constitution gardens as part of the national mall. pretty much on board for rolling quality of the landscape. competing with the landscape itself. famously, as and legend has it, had her initial design done in a plate of mashed potatoes. this -- resented presented this done -- presented and he brought in three judges to replicate normal , andtectural competition it was in those three judges they came back and said the idea of a granite chevron with low appropriate, but what on earth were the steps going down, and to get rid of those. that is what she did. ultimately she got a very good grade for that project. ,hen it came to the final grade he gave her an incomplete. angerme in tears and in saying i'll never get in the harvard architectural school as a graduate student. and was so powerful in all of ultimatelyer acquiesced gave her this famous b plus. it is the most famous undergraduate grade in the history of higher education. she was a very persuasive and tough woman. there was someone else tough and extraordinary, who referred to her as an ingenue. the young woman who is the archetype of everyone comes to save her. this fellow is frederick hart. why don't you tell us about frederick hart and then we're going to open up for questions and discussion. to artists get together on two competing projects you can be sure there will be blood in the water. lin and frederick another, after one statue was being added to her asign -- you referred to statue being added to her design as a mustache on the mono lisa. and i was an important principle of the integrity of the piece of art from the artist. was no shrinking violet. he was a very good insider and artist, and also very good with words. iny went after one another an article i have milked for all , them detracting one another's work. frederick hart had agreed booster in tom will -- tom wolfe. her work of art should not be violated. ladies and gentlemen i'm sure someone would like to add something to our discussion. there is a microphone. >> gentleman right there in the white shirt. >> john mcauliffe. , what you did is phenomenal. i'm also with a group called the vietnam peace commemoration committee, which is antiwar folks trying to lift up memory of the antiwar movement. comment or question about what is not in the memorial, and there is no way negative about it that it has come up in discussions. those 58,000 were not the last of the american casualties. there are the people who then relatedm ptsd psychological issues, suicides, agent orange, and a variety of long wounds that ultimately led to their deaths. there are also the americans who protested the war, the kids at cannes state or a jackson state or a lot of others whose names noton't know that are recognized in that memorial as explicitly. we are doing a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the what we will do is walk to the vietnam memorial to point out that if the memorial included 3 million cambodians who died, the wings for of it would stretch for miles. it's not the say america ,emorial should do that anymore i don't think it diminishes what you accomplished to point out how much is not memorialized. >> i'm going to let it stand right there, you are next. >>. hathaway here at the center. congratulations on yet another a very richy book, entertaining presentation. i would make two very quick comments. jim started out by describing the vietnam war in a way that no at leastis room visibly to the exception to it, but it used to be a controversial statement. i don't know any historians who would disagree with the adjective lost. for a long time you couldn't get away describing it in that way. strikes me as a step toward enlightenment. the other brief comment i wanted to make was you referred to this being -- this basic around the world. i remember how struck i was when i visited oconomowoc -- visited okinawa years ago. there is a monument there that list the name of not only the japanese defenders and the american invaders and all civilians. it is on a scale, the number of names is on a scale which dwarfs the vietnam memorial here. i found it a very moving memorial. it also invoked memories of this memorial. is i recall the fact that maya lin was young, the fact that she was woman, the fact that she was asian were all and givencontroversy his reasons why this was the wrong selection, my recollection is that this was a very scarring experience for her, notwithstanding the great honor. can you bring us up to date what has happened to her since. today, where she has been for a decade since. i had a literary question for book asn writing this to whether i wanted to develop a deep relationship with her, to tap her memory of the thing. i decided i did not want that, what i wanted to do was capture that had brought her into international fame, which she basks in to this day. done subsequent to that memorial some wonderful work. most people remember her memorial to the civil rights era. interesting woman stable outside the sterling library. she has donned an anonymous range of artistic works since. books that have been done about her. she will always be defined by this amazing and that has happened to her when she was 21 or 22. i get a sense in facing this literary question in the that i didn't really want to push her. me that despite the importance of this to her international fame, it is a very unpleasant experience for her to remember. she did write to me she was happy to talk about the design itself. but she did not want to talk about the controversy that surrounded the design. that's my experience with her. >> yes we haven't had a woman speak yet. eager for all of this and i think it is genuinely important for younger people to understand. remember you and your compatriots in fatigues at the wedding kiosk in constitution avenue and i would love to hear from you about whether you feel for yours at that time daily 24-hour presence, whether you accomplished your goals and what kind of reactions other veterans have had who were involved. >> i am a simple man with very simple goals. a national to build memorial for military veterans of the vietnam war. you're not going to do any better than that. never with any of these kiosks. because of the vietnam veterans memorial, and this is why i'm so unpopular among the establishment, we had something called the korean war veterans memorial. a few years later the world war ii memorial. yearow with any luck next there will be a world war i memorial near pershing plaza. i created this need for a national memorial. i didn't mean to do it. i think there's is absolutely fantastic. did have to face is the allegations that was communist involvement with the memorial design. one of our design team had taught a course in landscape architecture of the california labor school. maybe there was a congressman running around the california labor school. this was very tough. ,hese guys were after us unforgiving, they ran political campaigns, they had access to senators. the group -- the day the groundbreaking effort was issued , they called secretary walked and said do not give them the permit, we have to stop this in its tracks. who was working for james baker, former secretary of state, he was very helpful to on behalf of the secretary, you will issue that permit, because you have problems with the beach boys and other difficulties. you're going to issue it and you're going to issue it now. i got a bunch of construction -- thist and said these place looks like a bunch of b-52s came through. one of the greatest men of all times in terms of architecture design competitions. the onlywhat may be book, but it is the best book. much foryou very -- i want to ask you one question. the point i'd make is we look at as one of process great controversy. if it hadn't been for the full the -- and the planning commission and park service, and a number of federal agencies, that memorial would never have happened. if you look at federal agencies as obstructionist, in this case they protected the integrity of the design all the way through. carter brown is the principal hero. discussion 35 years after and all of the i think is auses token of what a touchstone it was. you had for some years the idea of building a visitor center, where these further -- were these ideas could be further discussed. i know there has been some difficulty getting that done. vietnamired from the veterans memorial fund. i don't know much about how the visitor center is coming along. i am now the principal advisor to the global war on test -- war on terrorism memorial. snipers and syria have been fighting for the past 15 years. that's what i'm doing now. i wish the best to the vietnam veterans memorial fund. >> chris davenport, former fellow here at the center. one of the things you wrote war, is that we all own that war. it doesn't matter if you said i'm against it or a voted for george bush. there's a similar thing with the wall, it had to be in a prominent place. >> one of the things that strikes me -- one of the things that strikes me about the wall, and you see it in the reflection of people looking at it. it's interactive and not just a memorial and tribute to the names. i was curious if that was part of the design and what designers thought about that. >> in her case, whether she understood the reflective b she couldn'tnd understand what the blowback .ould be being the color black thing is that the tractors -- when they start to -- they made some demands and one of the principal demands was that it not be lack but that it be white. and if it was a white memorial it would not have that reflection to it. you get to know reflection from white granite. that is an extraordinarily important point in all of this. near, book, a rift in ont a fantastic discussion the history of creation of the asorial, which was contentious as the war itself. copies of the book are available for purchase outside. we think all of you attending today for those of you viewing on c-span and please join me in jan.ming james and [applause] >> one of my interested in american history tv. visit our website printed you can view our tv schedule and watch college lectures, museum tours