Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Louis Lapham and Harper's Magazine are forever linked. As its
Speaker 1: editor for nearly thirty years, Lapham began each issue with
Speaker 1: notebook and essay written in his beautifully precise prose on
Speaker 1: the political and cultural climate of our times. He's been
Speaker 1: compared to Twain and to Montaigne. His expensive looking suits,
Speaker 1: complete with pocket square evoke another comparison. To sit with Lapham,
Speaker 1: you're struck with the sensation that you've stumbled onto some
Speaker 1: film noir set, and some of the stories he recounts
Speaker 1: belonged to that genre, like when he got his first
Speaker 1: job as a rookie reporter at the San Francisco Examiner.
Speaker 1: Seven reporters would lie around on couches with hats over
Speaker 1: their faces, waiting for news of a murder, and then I,
Speaker 1: as the cub, would go out to the scene of
Speaker 1: the murder with the photographer. The photographer had a speed
Speaker 1: Graflex camera, wore a shark skin suit and a loud
Speaker 1: hand painted tie, and his name was Seymour Snare Seymour
Speaker 1: and I would prowl the lower depths in order to
Speaker 1: find sensational headlines for the first edition. In those days,
Speaker 1: paper had six or seven editions, and we would do
Speaker 1: the late afternoon edition with the murder headline. And they
Speaker 1: told you I was twenty two, So you're a kid,
Speaker 1: entirely a kid. And you this was not the background.
Speaker 1: You came from a tough, working class background. No, no,
Speaker 1: And that's one of the describe where you came from
Speaker 1: when I came out of the you know, the affluent,
Speaker 1: privileged San Francisco society, San Francisco society. My my grandfather
Speaker 1: was the mayor of the city between nineteen two and
Speaker 1: nineteen forty six and wing World War Two, and he
Speaker 1: would go out on the launch to meet carriers when
Speaker 1: they would come in from the Pacific War. And I
Speaker 1: would be piped aboard with the mayor to meet Admiral
Speaker 1: Nimitz or Admiral Halsey on the bridge of the enterprise. Also,
Speaker 1: he as the mayor, presided over the Charter of the
Speaker 1: United Nations in San Francisco, and he made sure that
Speaker 1: I was excused from school to attend the plenary sessions
Speaker 1: and then he would give diplomatic cocktail parties. And I
Speaker 1: can remember at the age of ten passing Canapays to
Speaker 1: Molotov and to Stutenius and to Alger Hiss and John
Speaker 1: Foster Dallas. And then I went to boarding school in
Speaker 1: New England, and from there to Yale University and after
Speaker 1: that to Cambridge, England. At Cambridge, Lapham considered becoming a
Speaker 1: history professor, but decided he wasn't cut out for the footnotes.
Speaker 1: Then he briefly toyed with acting, but realized he was
Speaker 1: only good at playing characters to whom he was sympathetic.
Speaker 1: In the end, journalism called Louis slap him says he
Speaker 1: was a precious youth. When he got back from England
Speaker 1: and took the job at the San Francisco Examiner, he
Speaker 1: had a lot to learn. I can't remember, like the
Speaker 1: first piece I ever wrote for the for the paper
Speaker 1: was in Oakland. They sent me to cover a flower
Speaker 1: show that I went to the flowers show and I
Speaker 1: wrote four thousand words and with all kinds of wonderful
Speaker 1: adjectives straight out. And the senior guy on the beat
Speaker 1: in Oakland was a man named Crowley, and he looked
Speaker 1: at me and he said, Louis, these are the most
Speaker 1: beautiful four thousand words I have ever already said, they
Speaker 1: tears in my eyes. But he said, I tell you what,
Speaker 1: why don't you see even cut it in half? Great pain?
Speaker 1: I was, you know, destroying immortal. I brought it back
Speaker 1: to Crowley, and Crowley looked at He said, Louis, I
Speaker 1: thought the first four thousand words are truly beautiful, but
Speaker 1: these are even more beautiful. But see I didn't cut
Speaker 1: in half again. And we went through this over a period.
Speaker 1: It finally came out as one paragraph. And what I
Speaker 1: learned in the newspaper business was to write on deadline,
Speaker 1: but also to trim and concision, concision and then when
Speaker 1: you and the other reason, of course to be in
Speaker 1: the newspaper business was to learn about the you know,
Speaker 1: the American democracy. I mean I didn't know how a
Speaker 1: city worked, or what politics were, or you know, I
Speaker 1: lived privileged. Why in a bubble? What were some of
Speaker 1: the first insights you had into the American political system? Form?
Speaker 1: That was? It was really about who you knew, I
Speaker 1: mean a way. It wasn't the right or wrong. It
Speaker 1: was what was the deal? What was the trade? Could
Speaker 1: we both get something out of this? It mattered that
Speaker 1: you could speak well, that you were adroit, also that
Speaker 1: you liked people. My sense of most of the politicians
Speaker 1: I've known have been that they have genuine liking for
Speaker 1: their their fellow human beings. And I mean there there
Speaker 1: exceptions such as Cheney would be a beautiful example. I
Speaker 1: mean Cheney, I think. And and the trouble with so
Speaker 1: many of the conservative politicians that have been in power
Speaker 1: of over the last thirty years is there they don't
Speaker 1: have that quality, or at least they don't seem to
Speaker 1: me to have that quality. You see, this is the
Speaker 1: difference between a democratic society is one and it is
Speaker 1: held together by mutual feeling and respect for one's fellow citizen.
Speaker 1: I hold my fellow citizen in thoughtful regard, not because
Speaker 1: he is beautiful or rich or famous, but because he
Speaker 1: is my fellow citizen. The kind of a society that
Speaker 1: gathers around a court, the kind of society that you
Speaker 1: would see in the court of either Elizabeth the First
Speaker 1: or Louis the fourteen. A court society is one where
Speaker 1: it is all about interest, It is all about hanging
Speaker 1: in the trapeze of one's connections and what it's very
Speaker 1: very cold. I mean, that's the whole move towards the
Speaker 1: resort uh communicated community. I mean the the rich the
Speaker 1: in the United States today, I mean living in a
Speaker 1: completely different world. But do you think it's always been
Speaker 1: that way? Meaning are the wealthy today different from the
Speaker 1: wealthy two generations? Three generations? I think they probably are.
Speaker 1: I mean there's always a distinction between there's always a
Speaker 1: class distinction. I mean you can there's no society in
Speaker 1: the history of mankind that hasn't been organized along some
Speaker 1: form of class distinction. I mean, we organize it in
Speaker 1: terms of money. We were doing that pretty much from
Speaker 1: the beginning. I mean, the the settlement of Plymouth in
Speaker 1: in six is a venture capital deal. It is, I
Speaker 1: mean it's backed by by merchant bankers in in London. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, if you when you talk about people
Speaker 1: aligning themselves from the beginning on the basis of class,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering how you've experienced that in your family,
Speaker 1: what was your father's politics to the extent you want
Speaker 1: to say, and did you differ from your family were
Speaker 1: your politics because your politics are pretty I wouldn't use
Speaker 1: the word liberal or progressive, but they're but they're candor
Speaker 1: is the watchword here. I think, yeah, no, when they
Speaker 1: disappointed in the way you know, you know, was your
Speaker 1: father a pretty open minded guy. Yes, my father had
Speaker 1: been very strongly in favor of Roosevelt two and his father,
Speaker 1: my grandfather, I want to became the mayor, was strongly
Speaker 1: conservative Republican who thought that FDR was the end of
Speaker 1: the world. Wouldn't carry a dime in his pocket right
Speaker 1: on the hand. By the time grandfather got to be
Speaker 1: mayor of San Francisco in two he ran as an
Speaker 1: independent and he was very open I mean he would
Speaker 1: pick hitchhikers up. He never had a you know, a bodyguard,
Speaker 1: He never had tinted windows. He used to like to
Speaker 1: go into the you know, saloons in San Francisco late
Speaker 1: at night. And the he wanted to get a bond
Speaker 1: issue passed to replace the street cars on Market Street
Speaker 1: with buses, and there was some resistance about that. So
Speaker 1: he put it to a bet. He said, Okay, there'll
Speaker 1: be a race. I will race from the Ferry Building
Speaker 1: to city Hall. I will write an elephant against a
Speaker 1: trolley car, and if the elephant beats the trolley car,
Speaker 1: we have the bond shoe. If not not. But he
Speaker 1: was a gambling man. So he insisted on a handicap,
Speaker 1: and the handicap was that the elephant would be allowed
Speaker 1: to go through red lights. The elephant one the bundle
Speaker 1: as you passed. Now, when you leave, uh, San Francisco
Speaker 1: three years the newspaper, Where do you go from there?
Speaker 1: I go to New York. I go from the San
Speaker 1: Francisco Examina and come to New York the Herald Tribune.
Speaker 1: How long were you there? I was there, uh two years?
Speaker 1: Write about them? First of all, I was general assignment,
Speaker 1: covered the city, the mayor crime who was the mayor? Wagner?
Speaker 1: I think? And then I was sent to the u N.
Speaker 1: I became the third correspondent over there was the u
Speaker 1: N when Kristoff was there pounding a shoe on the table,
Speaker 1: and when Castro was there carrying the chickens to Harlem.
Speaker 1: I was then sent down to write about the the
Speaker 1: Cape Canaveral first subspace shot. So you know, I did
Speaker 1: a lot of different things. So after the Herald Tribute,
Speaker 1: what did you do? There was a new magazine called
Speaker 1: USA one, and I became staff writer for the new magazine.
Speaker 1: It folded after six months. I then became a staff
Speaker 1: writer for the Saturday Evening Post, which was a big deal.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty three. They were still going strong. They
Speaker 1: were still going strong. I mean in nineteen sixty Life
Speaker 1: and the Saturday Evening Post where the equivalent of what
Speaker 1: the networks became by the end of the sixties. If
Speaker 1: the president wanted to talk to the American people, he
Speaker 1: would either sit down with Joseph Stewart Alsop for the
Speaker 1: back page interview in the Post, or with Teddy White
Speaker 1: in the back page interview Life. That was mass media
Speaker 1: back in the time. People also, I remember my grandfather
Speaker 1: in the early sixties and either in Brooklyn, he would
Speaker 1: read five newspapers a day. There was a morning paper,
Speaker 1: there was an evening paper. New York was swimming in newspapers.
Speaker 1: There were eleven newspapers in New York in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: when I can, including the Brooklyn Eagle, which was the
Speaker 1: best newspaper by in some people's opinion, in the all
Speaker 1: the five boroughs. So I travel all over the world
Speaker 1: for the Saturday Post. I mean, I went to did
Speaker 1: stories in California, went and spent two weeks with the
Speaker 1: Beatles and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and in Rishikesh. What
Speaker 1: was what was that experience like? And you encapsulate that.
Speaker 1: Where was it like hanging out with them in India? Well,
Speaker 1: did you get any time with them? No? Not really,
Speaker 1: I got I got a little time with them. The
Speaker 1: the there was something called transcendental meditation, which was all
Speaker 1: of rage in nineteen sixty seven and the Mary she
Speaker 1: was giving people mantras in you know, handing whispering them
Speaker 1: in the your ears and and the Beatles have gone
Speaker 1: there for a retreat. They needed to chill out. They
Speaker 1: needed to chill out. Being a Beatle was stressful. Stressful,
Speaker 1: I mean the oppression and all those love letters, seeing
Speaker 1: those songs. McCartney told me once that they would record
Speaker 1: four songs a day. They want to keep the studio
Speaker 1: time down to a minimum. It was expensive. They record
Speaker 1: two songs in the morning and they could have some
Speaker 1: fish and chips, smoke a cigarette, come back and do
Speaker 1: two songs in the afternoon. It was a real grind,
Speaker 1: he said, being a Beatle in the early days. But
Speaker 1: by seven or the biggest thing in the world now
Speaker 1: they're taking a little more time. I was sent to
Speaker 1: become a potent, to somehow get into the ash Ram.
Speaker 1: No press, of course, was allowed. So how how would
Speaker 1: you do that when when someone you're working for says,
Speaker 1: go get into the ash ram? How do you do that? Politics? Dealmaking?
Speaker 1: First of all, I studied. I went to California to
Speaker 1: talk to devotees of the Maharishie's a little brief so
Speaker 1: that when I got to Rishi Cash and I got
Speaker 1: in the cabin, I said, as the driver to the astra,
Speaker 1: I said to Rishi Cash, and he says, you go beatles.
Speaker 1: I said, I go beetles. And it was twelve dollars
Speaker 1: a hundred and twelve miles the days. And then I
Speaker 1: found out that one of the Maharishi's main men, Rag Vendor,
Speaker 1: a major domo, would come down once or twice a
Speaker 1: day to the town the shop, and I struck with
Speaker 1: an acquaintance with Rag Panda. Impressed Rag Vendor as to
Speaker 1: my knowledge of He dropped a few clever phrases under
Speaker 1: the understood mo of the of the transcendental world. Exactly
Speaker 1: worded my way into the confidence of Rag Panda, and
Speaker 1: then explained to him that I was from the Saturday Post,
Speaker 1: biggest media in America, and the Maharishi was a publicity hound.
Speaker 1: But believe me, it was in no way critical. I
Speaker 1: I was here to gaze into into the into the
Speaker 1: mysteries of the East and too and at the same
Speaker 1: time make the Maharishi exactly and eventually rag Venda admitted
Speaker 1: me to the ash Ram. I was allowed for the gate.
Speaker 1: There must have been oh seventy meditators present, as well
Speaker 1: as the Beatles. I mean, because he ran this Ashom,
Speaker 1: and the Beatles didn't have a private they had a group.
Speaker 1: They had a bungalow to themselves, and they also had
Speaker 1: provisions that were sent in from London. Because the and
Speaker 1: the food that was being served at the common table,
Speaker 1: I was wanting, yes, very very bland someone someone seasoned doll. Yes,
Speaker 1: But you know I attended that some of the open
Speaker 1: sessions I had, and I would have an occasional um
Speaker 1: aside with one of the Beatles, I mean McCartney, I
Speaker 1: thought was had a wonderful sense of humor, and so
Speaker 1: did Ringo. I never really got far enough into abstraction
Speaker 1: to understand Lennon, but there were a lot of other
Speaker 1: people right about. I mean, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: conversation with Mia Pharaoh. He showed she showed up The
Speaker 1: most beautiful model in the world at that time was
Speaker 1: a girl named Marissa Barrenson. And she showed up with
Speaker 1: her French boyfriend who had a mint coat. And then
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys showed up, and Donovan showed up. There
Speaker 1: was the wife of an Air Force colonel from California,
Speaker 1: had been living in Beverly Hills, and but her husband
Speaker 1: had left her one night because a UFO had landed
Speaker 1: on the lawn of their house in Beverly Hills, and
Speaker 1: and he had gone with them. There were there were
Speaker 1: a lot of characters. And up until then it's you
Speaker 1: and Mr Snare taking pictures in Oakland, and then you
Speaker 1: come and do the general General Assignment and you're covering
Speaker 1: Wagner at all in New York for the trib But
Speaker 1: would you say there was a time in your writing?
Speaker 1: Was there a moment and can you track it? Was
Speaker 1: there something happening in the country. Because I'll give you
Speaker 1: in a prefatory way, like a story about my dad.
Speaker 1: My dad turned forty in nineteen sixty seven, and when
Speaker 1: he turned forty, he was a school teacher making no money.
Speaker 1: I had six children, back in the day when people
Speaker 1: had six children. On faith, you know there was this
Speaker 1: believes in problems, these Irish Catholics. And in the ensuing
Speaker 1: twelve months from the fall of nineteen sixty seven, my father,
Speaker 1: who was a staunch Democrat, he was a Democratic Committeement
Speaker 1: and a very progressive Democrat when I was young. In
Speaker 1: the ensuing twelve months, King is shot, Kennedy is shot,
Speaker 1: my father's political nemesis is resurrected from the dead. The
Speaker 1: Democratic Convention is a is a debacle in Chicago, Nick's
Speaker 1: and becomes president, and his mother dies that October. So
Speaker 1: in that twelve months, like everything my father held dear
Speaker 1: just seemed to come crashing down. And I will say
Speaker 1: that my father was never the same again. Was there
Speaker 1: some series of events? Was a period you went through
Speaker 1: whenever they started to getting a lot more real to
Speaker 1: you politically? A period in our history perhaps, well, there
Speaker 1: were several. I mean, I said earlier when I was
Speaker 1: talking about about Maharishi, was sixty seven. It wasn't It
Speaker 1: was sixty eight, And that is the It's the same
Speaker 1: month that's as Ted, and that's the same years as
Speaker 1: Kennedy and King King and Chicago, Nixon and Nixon. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, I was kind of prepared for that
Speaker 1: because when I was in Cambridge, England, and here I'm
Speaker 1: still twenty two years old, young and at at Yale,
Speaker 1: I have not been a I wasn't a white shoe
Speaker 1: type guy. I I didn't. I went to one football
Speaker 1: game my freshman year, and then I spent the rest
Speaker 1: of the weekends in New York because that was wonderful
Speaker 1: in New York and in the fifties. I mean, I
Speaker 1: had access to an apartment that Orton would sometimes hold
Speaker 1: fourth and down in the village, and my idea of
Speaker 1: an evening would be to go to listen to Auton
Speaker 1: hold Fourth, and then go up to Birdland and listen
Speaker 1: to Parker uh Play and the or Mingus, and or
Speaker 1: go over to the White Horse Tavern and watch Dylan
Speaker 1: Thomas drink himself to death. I mean extreme mean I
Speaker 1: was love with perfect poetry. I knew we wanted to
Speaker 1: be a writer. I didn't know what kind of a writer.
Speaker 1: But then I go to England. The Fall of nineteen
Speaker 1: is the Uprising and Hungry and the uh was crisis,
Speaker 1: and a couple of the young Englishmen that I had
Speaker 1: become friends with went to Hungary to take part in
Speaker 1: the protests against the Soviets, and one of them was killed.
Speaker 1: If you remember the history, we had promised the CIA
Speaker 1: had promised to back the Hungarian Revolution, which of course
Speaker 1: we did not. Then I suddenly was asked to explain
Speaker 1: the Suez policy of John Forster Dallas, which I couldn't
Speaker 1: do because I hadn't been reading as an undergraduate newspaper
Speaker 1: as I've been reading auton Or brect Or literature. And
Speaker 1: I decided. When I first came back to America in
Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen seven, I went to Washington to
Speaker 1: apply for jobs. I went applied to the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: the White House to see if I could get some
Speaker 1: sort of clerk's job in the basement. And I went
Speaker 1: to apply for uh, the C. I A, what did
Speaker 1: you imagine you were going to have to offer the CIA?
Speaker 1: What were you gonna do? I was going to right.
Speaker 1: It was totally no, it was totally romantic, and it
Speaker 1: was drench coat last train of Berlin Communism, Finding Communism.
Speaker 1: I passed the mental tests, and I passed the physical
Speaker 1: and psychological tests, and then I had the interview with
Speaker 1: someone what I said, some of the younger guys, I'm
Speaker 1: twenty two these these guys must have been somewhere between thirty.
Speaker 1: I mean like that, Oh Yale looked like sounded like
Speaker 1: George W. Bush w W. So this year you're saying,
Speaker 1: is it what kind of a demeanor to them? Frat
Speaker 1: boy demeanor? Yeah, these are the kind of guys that
Speaker 1: I had avoided during my entire four years where you
Speaker 1: were at the ball game, you're reading, I I'm in
Speaker 1: New York, right, But I've studied for this, so I
Speaker 1: haven't quite written things on my cuff, but I I'm prepared.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know the four roads into the Orgon Forest.
Speaker 1: I am prepared to talk about the roman Off dynasty.
Speaker 1: I know about Stalin's crime. Since you know I'm first question, Alec,
Speaker 1: I'm not making this up. If you were standing on
Speaker 1: the thirteenth tea of the National Golf Links in Southampton,
Speaker 1: what club do you had? I got that one right,
Speaker 1: I've done that. I knew the answer to that question.
Speaker 1: The second question, six pm last week in August, you
Speaker 1: were coming in on the final approach to the Odd
Speaker 1: Club at Hey, Harvard, Fisher's Island. What tack are you want?
Speaker 1: I knew that too, because I've done that too. So
Speaker 1: you're doing well. Two for three. Third does make See
Speaker 1: I can't remember Mixi's last name were a slip. MIXI
Speaker 1: was the great numpomaniac of the Iva circuit in the fifties.
Speaker 1: And not to have known Mixi was not to have
Speaker 1: lived to have known her wardrobe. Yes, And I said them, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: my information is second hand. I've had rumors French silk,
Speaker 1: Belgian lace. But I I sources are untrustworthy and we're
Speaker 1: usually drunk. And then I said, and besides that, I
Speaker 1: apologized for wasting your time. And I got up walked out.
Speaker 1: I thought, my god, I mean, if this is the fence,
Speaker 1: I've got a jump. I've never been surprised since about
Speaker 1: the blenders, See I mean, I mean the arrogance that
Speaker 1: the idea that they, well, we'll figure out your coledge
Speaker 1: of Yugoslavian history later on or in of that region,
Speaker 1: one of us. Are you fit for the fraternity? Thus
Speaker 1: Louis lap Him tossed aside another career possibility. This is
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. You're listening to here's the thing. More in
Speaker 1: a minute. This is Alec Baldwin. You're listening to here's
Speaker 1: the thing. My guest. Louis lap Him's job at the
Speaker 1: Saturday Evening Post abruptly ended when the magazine folded in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine. He was quickly hired at Life Magazine,
Speaker 1: which also went bust. In nineteen seventy, lap Him joined
Speaker 1: Harper's Magazine, where, except for some intervening years, he stayed
Speaker 1: until two thousand six. Lapham started at Harper's as a
Speaker 1: contract writer and soon became an editor. He has mentioned
Speaker 1: that he quote edited the magazine with a sympathy for
Speaker 1: the writer rather than the editor end quote. And as
Speaker 1: you know, I like, I mean, you know, good writing good,
Speaker 1: essay writing good. Any kind of writing isn't is an adventure.
Speaker 1: I mean you really don't know where you're going to
Speaker 1: end up. It's not a program attic. It's not like
Speaker 1: writing an annual report or writing a uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a baseball score. So over the course of time, I
Speaker 1: taught myself to write essays. And when did you take
Speaker 1: over the show over there? I took over the show
Speaker 1: nineteen and you created the Harper's Index. Correct, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I do that later I do. I'm now the editor,
Speaker 1: and then I get fired in nineteen one because by
Speaker 1: this time it's changed hands. It's now in the hands
Speaker 1: of the MacArthur Foundation from Chicago. And the first time
Speaker 1: I was introduced to the board, I knew that it
Speaker 1: was over. It's not a question of whether there I
Speaker 1: was going to be fired next week or next month,
Speaker 1: but it was six months later because they didn't like
Speaker 1: what I wrote. I mean I was writing essays that
Speaker 1: were sometimes critical of American policy, politics, culture, so so
Speaker 1: seven So you said, he and then what happens? Then
Speaker 1: I spent two years in exile, and then uh, young
Speaker 1: John MacArthur, heir to the MacArthur Foundation fortune, became a
Speaker 1: member of the board and I was reinstated. I said, Rick,
Speaker 1: I'll be happy to go back, but only if a
Speaker 1: I can fire all the members of the board that
Speaker 1: fired me, and two that I can completely redesign the magazine.
Speaker 1: And when do you invent the index when I come back?
Speaker 1: I mean I redesigned that. When you say we designed
Speaker 1: it was in order to do what you're just a layout? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I brought the readings to me. Now, now, when you
Speaker 1: started your own magazine, when you started the last quarter,
Speaker 1: whose idea was that mine? I mean, it was something
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. For a long time. I mean again,
Speaker 1: it goes back to my um interest in history. The
Speaker 1: quarterly is a lot of history in the quarter. What
Speaker 1: it is is the great books made topical. I mean
Speaker 1: I take a subject in the news, war, money, politics, nature, medicine,
Speaker 1: and then assemble texts. My contributors are people like Escalus, Cicero, Gibbon, Machiavelli, Shakespeare.
Speaker 1: It's based on my notion. That is actually the notion
Speaker 1: of German poet gert Is talking about history, and he
Speaker 1: says history is it's our inheritance. The story on the
Speaker 1: old walls were printed in the old books is also
Speaker 1: our own story. And Gurta says, he who cannot draw
Speaker 1: on his three thousand years is living hand amount. And
Speaker 1: that's true. You find history exhilarating. I do. I find
Speaker 1: it essential essential, I find it a great source of
Speaker 1: energy and hope. I mean you have a quote here
Speaker 1: in which you say the reading of history damps down
Speaker 1: the impulse to slander, the trend and tenor of the
Speaker 1: times instills a sense of humor, lessons our fear about
Speaker 1: what might happen tomorrow. That's true when you understand the
Speaker 1: obstacles that people have had to overcome. Nothing that improves
Speaker 1: man's condition and circumstance is accomplished without going up against
Speaker 1: very heavy odds. This is what history teaches you, so
Speaker 1: that you don't despair of your your own time. You
Speaker 1: don't say, God, America's in decline. If you look at history,
Speaker 1: that America has always been in Yeah. If you look
Speaker 1: at history, a golden Age was really just the time
Speaker 1: when they got away with it. That's right. History is
Speaker 1: not what happened two hundred or two thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: It's a story about what happened, what happened to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Now you have how many children? Three? And
Speaker 1: are any of them involved in publishing at all? No? No,
Speaker 1: do they have? Are they deeply political people? Are they
Speaker 1: have strong political opinions? Do they share yours? For that matter?
Speaker 1: My older son does to some degree, My older my
Speaker 1: oldest what does He's in the financial business, in private
Speaker 1: equity in Toronto and Canada. How do you end up
Speaker 1: Prepare He ended up up there because he married a
Speaker 1: Canadian girl. And also in Toronto is a pretty good
Speaker 1: place to live. I mean, he has four children. He
Speaker 1: could provide for them better life there than he could
Speaker 1: say in New York City, And what about your other
Speaker 1: two children. My daughter is married to an Italian prince
Speaker 1: and lives outside Rome, and my younger son is also
Speaker 1: in a financial business and he is working in a
Speaker 1: small venture capital firm in Monaco. Do you ever think
Speaker 1: you'd have kids and you'd be able to say that
Speaker 1: you have three kids and all three of them live
Speaker 1: overseas in Canada, one in Rome, one in Monica, and
Speaker 1: my six grandchildren are overseas two four for them. You
Speaker 1: travel there all the time. I travel not all the time,
Speaker 1: but I travel enough to keep it warm, and they
Speaker 1: come here. Now. You've obviously are very keen on history,
Speaker 1: and that's that's uh embedded in much of, not all
Speaker 1: of your writing. And for people who don't know you,
Speaker 1: you're a very handsome, very elegant. The pockets square, the
Speaker 1: crisp suit, the tie, you're very handsome devil. You know what.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that every door has been open to you
Speaker 1: for you over the years. You're great. You're the person
Speaker 1: every wants one wants to sit next to at a dinner.
Speaker 1: And my question becomes, I'm gonna name five figures from history,
Speaker 1: and I'll keep naming some until we get it right,
Speaker 1: because maybe maybe the answer is you never met them
Speaker 1: and you had no opinion of them. But I'll name
Speaker 1: some over the course of American history, and you tell
Speaker 1: me what your assessment of them was, to the extent
Speaker 1: you're willing to um either John or Robert Kennedy? Did
Speaker 1: you meet other one of them? I met them both.
Speaker 1: With the circumstances of meeting John. It was a party.
Speaker 1: It's actually I met him both at the same time.
Speaker 1: It was a party given for Teddy Kennedy and it
Speaker 1: was a birthday party for Teddy and I. It's either
Speaker 1: sixty two or sixty three, Southampton, No, New York, Fifth Avenue,
Speaker 1: had big apartment on Fifth Avenue. I was at the
Speaker 1: time going out with a young lady who was also
Speaker 1: going out with Bobby. I was Beard at the familiar
Speaker 1: with that term at the dinner at Beard. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is two. I think this is sixty years old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: aside or sixty two or sixties three? Would you make
Speaker 1: of either one of them? What do you make of them?
Speaker 1: In retrospecting history through the prism of history? What do
Speaker 1: you think about either one of them? I'm learning to
Speaker 1: like them more now than I did then. Let's go
Speaker 1: back on the U. N. Correspondent for the Harald Tribune
Speaker 1: when Kennedy is inaugurated. The speech asked, not what America
Speaker 1: can do for you when you do for American I'm
Speaker 1: watching it with the correspondence from foreign correspondence and the
Speaker 1: guy from Lamonde listen to that speech and says, that's
Speaker 1: the worst naive treacle treacle right, almost gotten with him, Right.
Speaker 1: I was very gung hog Kennedy the I think seeing
Speaker 1: him in the setup at the you had Smith's, no
Speaker 1: Smiths apartment, it was a real disappointment. He seemed like
Speaker 1: he was a guy who was hounded by demons on
Speaker 1: the You know, I also know something about his relations
Speaker 1: with women at the time, so we didn't think he
Speaker 1: had his house in order enough to be I didn't
Speaker 1: think so. Yeah, and what about his brother? Did you
Speaker 1: get the same brother? I thought it was a bully
Speaker 1: because many many people have a very negative assessment of
Speaker 1: him up until his brother's killed. Yeah. Did you meet Nixon? Yes?
Speaker 1: I met next time once And I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: I had a I never liked or trusted Nixon, and
Speaker 1: I can't remember where I met him. I met him
Speaker 1: some place in California, but at a distance. I mean
Speaker 1: that was never you know, I was part of a
Speaker 1: crowd or something. But isn't it interesting how people that
Speaker 1: I know who are not as a stute as you
Speaker 1: are about history, but there're students of history there. There's
Speaker 1: certainly students of American history. They certainly know the political
Speaker 1: history of this country. And many of my friends who
Speaker 1: are politically active, and I mean beyond writing checks and
Speaker 1: that kind of uh, you know, that kind of political
Speaker 1: class where it's all about giving money and in that world,
Speaker 1: I've I've heard people say, God, I I take Nixon
Speaker 1: back tomorrow compared to these guys that are here. And
Speaker 1: there was a lot of good with Nixon. Do you
Speaker 1: agree with that? I don't know enough to agree or
Speaker 1: disagree with it. I know that he backed the Environmental
Speaker 1: Protection Agency. I know that he backed the what's the
Speaker 1: Unemployment Act? That that if you get hurt workman's compensation.
Speaker 1: But there was a lot of good under Nixon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you think of rom What did you think
Speaker 1: of Romney? And more importantly, inside the question of what
Speaker 1: you think of Romney, what do you think about, shall
Speaker 1: we say, the casting Department of the Republican Party. They
Speaker 1: seem to because Obama was there for the taking. Don't
Speaker 1: you think I think Obama could have been defeated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he was lucky to win, just the way
Speaker 1: I think he was lucky to win. Uh. You know
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight when the Republicans put up
Speaker 1: Sarah Palin. But yes, the I thought it was a
Speaker 1: pretty clownish group of primary candidates that were fielded by
Speaker 1: the Republicans. They my sense of Romney again, I saw
Speaker 1: him in a small room once, but you know, trying
Speaker 1: to draw him up money from some Wall Street guys
Speaker 1: in New York. He didn't come off any differently than
Speaker 1: than what you've seen him on television. Was almost impossible
Speaker 1: for him to overcome what Gingwich said about him during
Speaker 1: the primary. Um, what do you think about Obama? I
Speaker 1: think Obama means well, Um, I think that's enough these days?
Speaker 1: Probably not again, how much can a president really accomplish
Speaker 1: it is another problem? And you I don't think he's
Speaker 1: the he likes politics in the same way to say
Speaker 1: Johnson did. Johnson really wanted to use the office of
Speaker 1: the presidency to do something and knew how to make
Speaker 1: it work. I knew that it was political. I'm never
Speaker 1: sure that Obama is about anything other than a striking
Speaker 1: opposes Nor am I sure that that is not what
Speaker 1: the office of the presidency has become. Why anybody would
Speaker 1: want to become president of the United States is it's
Speaker 1: something that I have Um, I can't imagine wanting to
Speaker 1: do that, because when you think about what is that
Speaker 1: life like, I mean you're surrounded by people that are
Speaker 1: probably lying to you. I mean it's like a life
Speaker 1: at court in in um Queen Elizabeth England or only
Speaker 1: the fourteenths France. It's cold hearted self interest. It's not
Speaker 1: require a degree of vanity that that you know, I
Speaker 1: can I can imagine it, but it but it's it's uh, well,
Speaker 1: we've heard that comment before. What people have said the
Speaker 1: type of man or woman that would want to be
Speaker 1: president now is someone we certainly don't want to be president.
Speaker 1: Probably not Lincoln wanted to be president. He wouldn't have
Speaker 1: wanted to run for I mean he's running for a
Speaker 1: second term. I mean he was reluctant. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: there are people that are happy to leave the office,
Speaker 1: to leave the stage, to leave the stage. As my
Speaker 1: one friend said, about one political figure that leave the stage.
Speaker 1: It's a thankless task, really is It's Yeah, it's service.
Speaker 1: It's get service to your come. Yeah. Louis Lapham continues
Speaker 1: to serve his country. At seventy seven, he still goes
Speaker 1: to work every day at Lapham's Quarterly. After our conversation,
Speaker 1: I wondered why Lapham hadn't cultivated more personal relationships with
Speaker 1: the political leaders of his day. So Hello, it's Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin calling for Mr Lapham. Mr Lapham is speaking. You know, Lewis.
Speaker 1: When you were here and we talked about, you know something,
Speaker 1: a number of things, but one thing that kind of
Speaker 1: stuck in my mind was that you had this access
Speaker 1: to all of these political figures, government leaders of their
Speaker 1: time and so forth, and you were around them and
Speaker 1: reporting about them, and yet it sounds to me like
Speaker 1: you didn't make them intimates of yours. No, I did not,
Speaker 1: And I was wondering why was that the case. Well,
Speaker 1: because I thought of myself as a journalist and I
Speaker 1: wanted to be free to say what I thought or
Speaker 1: report what I thought I had seen, and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to become obligated. I wanted to keep a safe distance.
Speaker 1: You know, I appreciate that because I mean, that's a
Speaker 1: very common thing that people, uh, you know, you know
Speaker 1: when when the political leaders started to you know, hang
Speaker 1: out and party with the press, when they invited them
Speaker 1: in the door to stay, everything began to change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything does begin to change. And that's what begins to happen,
Speaker 1: of course, in the sixties, when politics becomes glamorous and
Speaker 1: Kennedy and cameloged and the heady association with power. It's
Speaker 1: you would ascribe that phenomenon kind of beginning with Kennedy. Well,
Speaker 1: that was when I first became aware of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was true at the Court of Louis
Speaker 1: the Four Teeth and Elizabeth the First. It's true of
Speaker 1: any court society. I once wrote a essay about the
Speaker 1: American media. The title was Rosencrantz and Jill's Stern, And
Speaker 1: that's the way I tend to think of the Washington
Speaker 1: press corps. The struggle for me is that if you
Speaker 1: and I don't mean to sound lofty here, but you
Speaker 1: have kind of a Clinton war room Carvel esque approach
Speaker 1: toward dealing with the media, which is that you put
Speaker 1: out every fire and you address every issue where your
Speaker 1: name is dragged in, or you try to remain above
Speaker 1: the fray and ignored, knowing that will all I mean,
Speaker 1: unless there's real criminal charges at stake, you know that
Speaker 1: it will dissipate. And I'm wondering if you have any
Speaker 1: advice for me, and it was, do you think I'm
Speaker 1: better off where there's nothing serious involved? Do you think
Speaker 1: I'm better off not engaging and letting it go and
Speaker 1: it just wafts away like smoke? Or do you think
Speaker 1: that journalism today and the media establishment today is a
Speaker 1: bull I need to be fighting from time to time.
Speaker 1: I don't think you need to fight it Alec, because
Speaker 1: you always lose. Can I tell you my introduction to that.
Speaker 1: My first lesson in this was in the Oakland City
Speaker 1: Hall press room. I mentioned Seymour Snare with the The
Speaker 1: press room is in the same building as the police
Speaker 1: department and the courts in the Mayor's office. The head
Speaker 1: of the by squad was anxious to become a particular
Speaker 1: friend of the media, of the press, and so that
Speaker 1: the press would play him as as an heroic figure,
Speaker 1: which the press obligingly did. The vice squad guy also
Speaker 1: had a girlfriend who was a serious nymphomaniac. He used
Speaker 1: to make her available to the members of the press
Speaker 1: room on the third Friday of every month. She was
Speaker 1: very good looking, but she had only one leg. She
Speaker 1: was a beautiful, one legged nymphomaniac who was the paramour
Speaker 1: of the head of the Vice squad exactly, and I,
Speaker 1: being the cub I was not invited to the Friday
Speaker 1: afternoon celebrations, nor did I want to be. But that
Speaker 1: they then comes when she was married and the ladies
Speaker 1: husband files divorce suit and names the vice squad captain
Speaker 1: as the correspondence. I was in the press room the
Speaker 1: day that that announcement was made, and suddenly these four
Speaker 1: guys rise reluctantly to their typewriters and begin to write
Speaker 1: morally outraged editorials. How can such things be? How can
Speaker 1: our fair city of Oakland tolerate the behavior of a
Speaker 1: corrupt police captain. I mean, you see what I mean.
Speaker 1: I mean they turned on a dime. What I'm telling
Speaker 1: you is the media is is not trustworthy. It's Claude
Speaker 1: Rains closing down the casino. Yeah, I'm outraged. I'm outraged.
Speaker 1: And the guy your winning, sir, I'm shocked, shocked at
Speaker 1: this gambling. Here your winnings, sir. Yeah, it's not good
Speaker 1: to get into involved. I don't think in an argument
Speaker 1: with the media because they always have the last word.
Speaker 1: You wanted us to think. You've just done me a
Speaker 1: big favor. Your pen is mighty, your mind and your
Speaker 1: your words are mighty. And with a single phone call
Speaker 1: who you have crushed my entire public relations apparatus in
Speaker 1: to powder. But I'm grateful to you for thanks. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: m