This course is, is interesting to me, it's
difficult for me because I usually go 10-15
hours a day dealing with contemporary events
of politics. It's hard for me to dissassociate
what happened in the 60's from what's happening
today. In fact, before I came here this evening,
we were talking, we had a meeting in my office
with people involved in the Burlington Peace
Movement, talking about tactics, how do we
build a movement?
How do we deal with Nicaragua which is in
many ways Vietnam except that it's worse and
it's more gross. So it's hard for me, it's
going to be enjoyable because it allows me
to do something that I often don't have the
time to do and that is to reflect a little
bit but I'm probably not going to do it as
well as I should be able to because I haven't
caught up very much in the day to day activity
and it's difficult.
But, let me start off by saying as I reflect,
one of the events that stands out in my life
is I went to, I spent one year at Brooklyn
College. I was born and raised in Brooklyn,
went to public high school there. Then I went
to the University of Chicago and the thing
that I remember, very deeply. I became involved
in the civil rights movement and we had a
sit-in demonstration to protest racial discrimination
in Chicago.
The University itself was and is a major landowner
in the city of Chicago in fact it's one of
the wealthiest institutions in the city of
Chicago. You have the catholic church, the  University and so forth.
And The University owned massive amounts of property
worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of
dollars and it turned out what we had done
is we had a biracial group of people. We had
white young people going into an apartment house
that was owned by the University and they
would say "I'm interested in getting an apartment"
and they'd say " Well fill out the forms, come back tomorrow."
And we had some black friends going in and
they'd say "Sorry we have no vacancies here."
and we learned, the students themselves learned
that the university was owning a segregated
property. This of course, the University of
Chicago was one of the great institutions
in America and also one of the "liberal" institutions
 and to make a very long story short.
Students became mobilized and there was a
sit-in. A demonstration. And what I remember
probably most profoundly was, uh, we had meetings
with the president of the university, that
had been a nobel prize winner. A very distinguished,
wonderful gentlemen, and he lied cold right to
our face, dead lied. And it was rather shocking. It was rather shocking and I would say that was an important event
in my life with dealing with all of these
important, impressive, wonderful people and
they lied. And that was very startling to
me on a personal level to begin to understand
a little bit about what the world was about.
Rik mentions, John F. Kennedy and so forth but
my reaction was different.
At this point why one becomes the way we become,
you become who you are, or I become who I am.
God only knows. We don't know really.  A thousand forces, our parents, our early upbringing to make us who
we are. Uh but I always had a rebellious streak
in me which has not manifested in political
activity. I knew nothing about politics. My
parents were not political, my brother was a little bit, not much.
But I remember for
some reason, being very excited when Fidel
Castro made the revolution in Cuba. I was a kid and I remember reading that and it was  just seemed right and appropriate that poor people
were rising up against ugly rich people. And
I remember again very distinctly. A very distinct
feeling. I was watching the debates, you remember
the famous Nixon/Kennedy debates. That was
the first time presidential candidates actually
debated but I was becoming increasingly interested
in politics. I didn't know much, but I remember
sitting in a student lounge in a dormitory
watching the debate and at that time. Well
we could talk about Cuba now but I was very
excited and fascinated with the Cuban revolution
and there was Kennedy and Nixon talking about
which particular method they should use about
uh destroying the revolution.
And I remember the irony is, we learned the history later
on. Kennedy was saying that Nixon was too
soft on communism. To pick up a point that Rick was
making and Cuba, we should deal firmly with
Fidel Castro. Nixon was playing the role of
"Hey, you gotta be patient, you can't do these
things, you gotta negotiate." Well of course,
what he was upset about is that secretly
they were planning the Bay of Pigs Invasion right
then. But for security reasons he couldn't
come out and say "We're already planning
the destruction of the Cuban revolution. Don't
worry about it. " So he was the liberal, and
Kennedy was playing the conservative. Actually
you know there are, when you read novels people
say there is a sick feeling in your stomach.
Usually I've, officially unemotional, but
I actually got up from the room and almost
left to puke because for the first time, in
my adult life what I was seeing was that the
democrats and the republicans, both of them.
And of course as Rik points out, Kennedy
was the flashing young liberal.
And what we were, what I was seeing right
before my eyes way back then and I didn't
know anything about politics, but that clearly
that there really wasn't a whole lot of difference
between the two.
The 60's for me was a period, I think to understand
the 60's you have to understand the racial
situation in the country at that time.
