he three marker out there whether to prime the pakistani, who knows? i think it is mostly political consumption and he knows if he does not give some lips service to the possibility of withdrawal that politically we will become a quagmire for him. i do not necessarily put much stock in his statement we will begin withdrawal in 18 months. with a question to be not will the american public cold his feet to the prior 18 months from now? to answer part of the first question, the president does not need to build a political coalition to decide to withdraw it he can as long as he is willing to whether the political storm that in sues. that is a problem. he does not want to whether

the political storm. so he is trying to find a consensus on withdrawal. because we do not need congressional approval to go to war and you don't need funding so much too withdrawal as to keep troops deployed, he can make the decision. it is all about politics. >> we may not see withdraw from my wracked by the end of 2011. they could renegotiate the agreement and maliki has indicated he may want to do that. even taking the iraq war with stroll for granted which i am not sure we can even if fireman's starts again. we have too much invested. check is right because in the vietnam war when nixon came in he was the candidate to get this out and started the vietnamization program and you saw that go down and

tell you saw he was escalating the war in cambodia and running a secret war. chose the president saying we will begin withdrawing in 2011 that quiets the anti-war left because they say problem solved. because eventually we will get out of here. but that doesn't mean we will withdraw from in a country any time soon. >> but first, let's be clear congress authorized both of the wars. but they did do it and have not repealed it. that authorization is there. i think president clinton's trip to bosnia which has been announced for one-year went in with significant force there was no violence that year and was successful and at the end of the year

the deployment continued with virtually no public opposition. i imagine i think president obama is sincere in what he is saying. the radio that we bring in significant additional force to accomplish a mission as we did in bosnia than the situation is better and you hope you can withdraw. i hope for the reasons i outline which primarily have to do the absence of a local partner i have reservations but on iraq i certainly think the withdrawal will go ahead. we never did have a strategic interest in iraq but once we were there of course, we changed things so now we do have some obligations and i would think we would like to have at least the possibility to go back and if we do with al

qaeda and in the city areas i think it is true we have an obligation to kurdistan which was on our side is a real -- reliable ally and can the dissed -- this first hah 2003 with a no-fly zone. >> that is it. thank you for coming. [applause]

>> it is my pleasure to welcome you here tonight. i am the director here and we're here to have a conversation about andre schiffrin and new book, at "dr. seuss & co. go to war." this is a sequel, i guess,

to the first venture of dr. seuss and world war ii which was published roughly 10 years ago. on jury has now uncovered a new treasure trove of dr. seuss kerr to mount -- cartoons from pm the world war ii archives and the new book is bringing those wonderful cartoons and illustrations from this moment of the second popular front. andre schiffrin has been the editor for more than 50 years. first up the ante on -- 82 books but the mre publication and of dr. seuss is a political education a coming 10 days of rage in paris and new york where he presented one of the chapters at a seminar

roughly a year and a half ago. i am also pleased to note that andre, about the same time, donated a wonderful archived document. the pre-editorial wife life as looking for student for industrial democracy which provides a very interesting window into the birth of the new left. andre will be joined by paul milkman. he teaches english in the new york city school system and has a ph.d. from rutgers university. andre is going to say a few words to give some context to the buck. paul will then time been a and andre will rejoin the

conversation then all of you joined us hopefully. the floor is yours. >> thank you so much for having this location this is the perfect place to have the full microfilm and of course, the rest of the history that goes around it. so what we will talk about tonight is a mixture of things. we will talk about pictures as well as text. we will talk about the role of pm which, as you know, was a left-wing tabloid to be started in new york and last through the war years prepare lasted, the first day it came out is when the germans marched into paris 1940 and lasted to the top after the war then succeeded by another incarnations like a compass and the star before dying in the cold war. the importance of pm is that

it was a microcosm of what the american left was thinking it during the war and the conflicts that took place during that period. we tend to look back and a patriotic pays as if it was a time of national unity where we were out to beat the access and have common goals. that was far from the case. what we will talk about tonight, paul will talk more specifically about "pm" as a newspaper i will talk about the general politics and we will mention also the fact the words in p.m. were accompanied by these pictures. this is not just dr. seuss and drawings which are in the first 100 pages of the book, but all of the other cartoonist who worked for p.m. including those who became very famous in "the new yorker" and elsewhere. we have a whole range of people here, including saul

steinberg whose cartoons a thing for the first time published since during the war. it is an interesting footnote. saul steinberg was working for the os us if they had the clever idea to have them draw cartoons to be dropped over germany newspaper. and that paper of course, appeal to the germans after the four it became the name of the leading east german paper. they continued without his illustrations unfortunately. [laughter] these pictures are here for the first time in american printed form as well as cartoons from al hirschfeld and other people that were known for classic yorker and political cartoons but yet they were all very committed. and they were editorial

cartoons appearing on the editorial page and expressed editorial opinions and very often complemented what was being said and by others. but they also have a very clear political stance which i will talk about a little later. which was typical of the american left at the time both with the strengths and weaknesses. we will go into that with greater detail. but before i tell you more of the sidebar in journalism, paul would give you a little context of what "pm" was about and how would deferred from other papers at the time. >> "pm" was actually the perfect venue for political cartoons not just for me and politics but also because of a conscious decision on the part of the founders to create a beautiful newspaper. only recently in the last few years the newspapers

that you can buy today it looked as good as "pm" looked 65 bourse 70 years ago. that was a conscious decision. the founder of the paper, ralph, who was very much a leftist was also very much a magazine man and is actually the person working who created life and made "life" magazine the spectacular photographic entry into journalism that it was. no sooner did he created he was stumped off of it and once that happened he wanted to create his own daily newspaper that would revolutionize gen -- journal was some because it would empower all the people that worked for it. four people to express themselves unfettered. it would not rely on advertising pressures and in fact, by the time "pm" went into publication there was

no advertising. alone in the press, it was vitally connected to pressing for a laughter version of the new deal. and read the paper began, let me show it to you. to prove how beautiful the paper kid be i will take it out of the plastic casing to show you what it looked like in the first two years of its existence before the war rules ruined it imagine black and white and most of the time it was a burnt orange color although several issues looked different it was stapled and cost $0.5 which was very expensive. the news and the mayor cost $0.2 and others cost three but "pm" was a nickel so you

really had to want it. he created enormous rules on the campaign so that on the first day the paper came out june 19 the new stance never even got the paper the delivery trucks were mobbed trying to get the paper. and they took it over. it relied on photography in a way the new york press didn't. even though the new york daily news was the daily picture newspaper the photographs were but the and ugly and the ink ran off in your hands but here i am holding a newspaper from 1942. 67 years old. notice how well it still holds together. it has been a plastic but i have no danger that ain't will runoff on my hands so the photographs still reproduce well. similarly for the arch there

is a dr. seuss cartoon in this paper. here it is. i think you would recognize the dr. seuss style looking at the cartoon. this was the perfect venue. no other newspaper would give an artist that much space on the page s. "pm" was willing to do. it was a great place to me if you were a writer or artist or photographer. the other thing that made "pm" so different from the rest of the press is how totally committed it was to anti-fascism and perhaps nowhere near more obvious than in the period from when it came into existence june 1940 until 2 catastrophic events of 1941 common the invasion of the soviet union and pearl harbor day which we just celebrated the anniversary

yesterday. those two events, the first one unified the mayor can left because you may recall at the time "pm" came into existence, already stolid and hitler had signed their pact and the thought was it a fascism was no longer the credo and what was the credo was piece. ingersoll flew into the face of that politics and similar precipice politics in the socialist party as a matter of fact too actively crusade and in that period before june 27 in particular 1941 "pm" was clearly the lone voice demanding active anti-fascist activity. added time when that was not a popular position and for

reasons already cited, for the group of people surrounding the creator of the paper, this was a unique opportunity to express themselves artistically and express themselves politically in this crusading anti-fascism journal. if you aren't interesting -- interested later i continue of the crusades the paper went on up to the fore and after the united states was involved but that total commitment to anti-fascism has been the most important political stance of the time is what made "pm" a totally unique place to me. >> calls marvelous book is based on his phd thesis but in spite of that one would

expect it not to me as entertaining and well written as it is in he has gone against the usual rules of academia and it is a marvelous read and does explain the end curious thing that ingersoll started out with "life" magazine then he started fortune but before that he was at "the new yorker" and eeo man and a socialite and used to going to all of the parties that was covered in talk of the town so it was an unlikely background. of course, we forget that this time how incredibly reactionary the loose press was. anti-roosevelts and against going into the war, so are and, in a way "pm" was the paper that would represent all of the values that moose

did not have. the "pm" name meant it was an afternoon paper but also meant to be a picture magazine so that ingersoll used the idea is of life and fortune. they had photographs from walker evans but one does not think of them as having been as important in the field of photography as they were. he got this newspaper that paul has explained very different in format but also in its politics and it's important to realize two-thirds of the american press was against roosevelt in 19,306th three quarters were against him in 1940. the press was overwhelmingly republican at the time. and as i will mention later was more than against

intervention at a time by the way when 84 percent of the american population was in favor of hoping the allies would win in favor of helping them but one of the differences that resonates today is out adamantly to the right the republicans were. when finally passed in 1941 most americans had bid for it, 1305 out of 159 g.o.p. representatives 17 of the 27 they had not quite worked out fit total party discipline they are now showing but certainly going in that direction. and they were just saying no os what is interesting in the third term we have a cartoon called the fair ground of roosevelt's 518 this bullet

and of course, it is an exaggeration in every way he was crippled but equally the opponent called fascism nazism unemployment reordering problems the opponent was to his left in many respects. the paper was going to back rose about come what may in a way that was very exaggerated and reducing in at any time to be critical of anything that roosevelt did even though they would be against what the attorney general was doing. and throughout the more they refuse to be critical of him in any way. they're all sorts of interesting things to say but one of the surprising

things is the right wing press was in this respect they may today's republicans looked good is really on the extreme right to the degree they were following willingly or not the german propaganda line. dr. seuss and others constantly had cartoons that they showed the voice coming out of the it daily news and the chicago news and the hearst press when the government was established in 1940, they said this will show that europe can cooperate under german peter ship date of the line completely or they came to it independently i cannot say which is which since we don't have the information, but they would constantly come up with

arguments parallel to those arguments when the russians and germans finally went to war republican said keep out of this let them kill each other we are not involved. >> and harry truman. [laughter] and later they decided let's fight the war in the pacific and leave your aplomb but at that time the republicans are worried russians taking over europe so it is not consistent in what they were saying the very much to the right and consistent but at the same time is about had his own right wing 70 approach and i think it is hard now to remember any of us are old enough to have read since how incredibly racist both the country and the southern democrats were.

this south was a block of reactionary southern democratic voters who were e elected for the most part roughly 10% of the constituents the blacks did not bode at all been in the 40's the tax and florida was repealed and wishbone 70% of the whites were not able to go to either. said you had an extraordinary minority government of a racist reactionary tied to be able to get more or less what they wanted out of roosevelt he could not even get the anti-lynching law passed in the forties when that was symbolic at that time. there were hundreds before that time the seven years complained bitterly that could wpa was going to increase the wages of southern agricultural

workers and black working 12 hours per day would make $75 per year. with cultural labor although the dollar was worth one-tenth of less than it is now it was still third world wages you have a situation that roosevelt on both sides roosevelt on one side and the seven democrats on the other they were determined to block can no matter what they did and for the most part the press was not willing to go along with what he wanted so "pm" was very important and overly pro roosevelt eleanor love the paper and they talk to other people in the white house and have a consistent link to the white house and people like it is the stone and for a while walter rancho all joined these cartoonist following the

white house line. what is interesting, and it is documented in the book to some degree, the degree to which the limits on "pm" were perhaps the limits of the american left. i cannot quite say that but the limits on anyone who is trying to speak up against racism in that country. p.m. before the war had a long campaign against that ads running in the new york press including "the new york times" which was a jewish owned staying in apartments not rented to choose. do not even talk about the blacks but it was the euphemism that you may remember from some of the other films at the time. "pm" did manage to get new york state to block that ads

in the new york state legislature but not the practice. that is in interesting indication how far you can get. >> before the "pm" campaign they said christians only after the "pm" campaign, and the law passed by the state legislature then became restricted. if you know, what we mean the. [laughter] >> this is a period where we talk about the anti-black feeling at the time which there was also over half of the country answered public opinion polls saying they were anti-jewish come of 53 or 54%. 35 for 40% would have favored the anti-jewish campaign, of whatever that meant. this was not just willing to rent an apartment but father and others were inciting mobs to attack the jews on the street too really have

what was happening, of violence, nonstop by the police of a racist kind. you have a country which anti-black was not even a question, that was understood. nobody would talk about that. what "pm" tried to do, they did it in a very gentle, and you will see it in the images, the indecisive fashion they would have two identical figures under the manhole by big business one was jewish and the other was black but it was not indicated in either way as to which was which but it was a symbolic idea to be against oppression and racism. but of course, business was totally against hiring blacks at first with the war effort and only under the pressure with the march on

washington they finally gave then and the employment practices commission and so then you have a situation where big business and republicans have their way there was no price controls but no 40 hour week because they were against them it. you have a situation that makes today's republicans look a lot better. and only because of extra parliamentary pressures such as the randolph threat for the march on washington that these things were change. a threat that the communist party opposed because it went with the war effort. you have a situation in today's terms it is difficult to understand how reactionary much of the country was, what a difficult time roosevelt had.

and of course, his own reluctance in many instances to do, in retrospect, we wish he would have done. . . . .

>> nobody had knowledge of somebody who read any of the other huge language papers. so either they didn't know, they didn't ask but they didn't feel they could run the stories. in spite of the fact that pm and other aspects had an extremely good record. they were extremely critical of the french could have a whole series of cartoons here attacking and so on. at a time when the american government was still dealing with these people, accepting them, had diplomatic relations and so on. when roosevelt was still hoping to persuade the d.c. french to work on his behalf when they were totally under german control. when the americans were about to convey north africa, roosevelt actually drafted a letter that

started my dear old friend, which was just too much even for churchill, who got him to change the citation, if not the content of the letter. and the american ambassadors to madrid were old conservatives who were completely persuaded by the local fascists that they were okay folks. so we had the incredible situation and your pm is really going against the grain completely, when the american troops entered north africa, they had made a deal, to keep the french troops from shooting back. they were only partially successful. but they kept the v.c. government in place so that you

had after the american troops were there, you have people who are working for the gall. your spanish republicans. you at people who helped inspire to help the americans to land. being kept in prison by the authorities. if any of you had read, there were marbles on this. he was one of the few american journalists who could speak french. and you actually understood what was going on. and he wrote these devastating reports. and pm ran articles of this kind of saying, you know, what is this anti-fascists were where we make a deal with a fascist government in order to make our conquest easier? >> two things that you said earlier, they ran these articles, fiercely critical of the state department, but acted as though the state department did not have a boss.

everything is said about the state department collaborations with fascism were absolutely right, but it never -- it never went further saying why does a roosevelt by these guys. >> they didn't realize to the full degree of how in this respect roosevelt was very bad, and i quote in the book something which i was very shocked to discover, that roosevelt who was french was very good, actually called up the governor of morocco, and said, you know, we really wouldn't like you to continue keeping all of these quotas against the jews in place, which had been told. could you give them a little according to the population will, and then roosevelt said we don't want to have a situation as we had in germany where 50 percent of the lawyers and

doctors were jews. as we notice something like something like 4 percent of the professions were occupied by jews. to me this is the first time i've actually seen proof in these conversations that roosevelt had internalized a nazi propaganda and was still running the war with those ideas in his mind which to me anyway was a great shock. i hadn't realized the rot had spread into so many minds, that you had this kind of thinking going on. and then of course, the americans made a deal or were trying to make a deal, with the italian fascists when mussolini was kidnapped. by the germans. they were making a deal.

and again, the same questions were raised by pm and by the american left say, what's going on here, are we going to maintain fascist governments throughout the liberated countries? and the deal took so long to take, the germans we invaded all of italy and the government. but this was again part of pressure from churchill who order to maintain really a right wing stroke fascist manner train as later he did when he interfered, intervenes in the greek civil war. so he had a very consistent pattern that he wanted to make sure that mediterranean, which continued to be a british link, bolstered by these right wing governments, of i don't think roosevelt, you know, had that idea in mind that such. but he was certainly willing to go along with the pressure from

the brits. and maybe from the american military. but i don't know who argued for the deal. but certain for the people on the left in the u.s., the question was, what kind of anti-fascist war is this, when all the countries that we're going into are being allowed to maintain a fascist government? and of course, the same thing happened in spain with a vengeance. and this is, again, one of the saddest group of cartoons in the book are the anti-franco cartoons where pm constantly hopes that the spanish people will overthrow franco at the end of the war, along with the help of the americans. and a few thousand hapless spanish republicans did come in from france, from the north towards the end of the war, and they were all killed. and he did not have the backing either of the spanish communist party, or of the allies.

and so they were doomed to being exterminated, which is what happened. so the whole question of the future of europe, was a major theme in the pages of pm and the cartoons of the whole group of cartoons here on hitler's allies. which are very telling. but this was of course not a debate that was taking place in main street u.s.a., and it was not a lot of debate taking place in the press. the "new york times" followed, and this is not the talk of the hearst press and the others who were so far on the other side, that they were at going. the final thing, of course, with pm was much the fault as the rest of the american public was in its ruthless anti-japanese bias and the cartoons, even a

dr. seuss are filled with caricatures of the japanese that are pictured as being readied to attack the u.s., ready to be a stiff column, people who should be put in concentration camps and so on and so forth. and as we know, by contrast the nazi -- the german silver shirts and others in yorkville were constantly being protected by the supreme court whenever the government tried to crack down on them, they had to prove there was anything to do all sorts of criminal things, which of course the government couldn't do. and of course none of these criteria were applied to the japanese who were simply moved into concentration camps. and that some of you may know, in hawaii where there were too many japanese to do anything, of that time, nothing ever happened. there was no hint of japanese,

pro-japan activity. there was no threat, no word of possible to have a solid -- sabotage. three have a perfectly controlled experiment and how i would japanese were far closer to the homeland, if that was the homeland, japan, who were totally patriotic americans. and then in the u.s., where there was as we know, this panic, people panicked literally panicking in the streets fearing that japanese bombers were about to hit the west coast. and were roosevelt and the others were quick to incarcerate them all. what's interesting is that from the very beginning, pm is really delighted in the news of air raids over japan, and over germany. and that's one of the big debates in pm, comes from the fact that one of the new york

masters, reverend john, actually spoke out against the bombing of german civilians. and for the most part, the pm cartoonists were celebrating the bombardments, much too early, because the early bombardments did nothing at all. celebrating them, the annihilation of the german cities. and one of the worst cartoons in the book, which is in the very income is a black page, the day after hiroshima with the caption, so sorry. which of course, was, usually said the making fun of the japanese and ability to pronounce those words. but that was the mainstream opinion within pm to the credit of its root, a number of readers did right in and complained about the ruthlessness of the cartoons. and these of course, without any mention of the real war crimes of the germans, there's no

cartoons, except very, very few addressed to the state department about the holocaust or about the equal number of or greater number of known jewish civilians massacred by the germans in poland and in russia. and we were talking before whether there was, you know, whether it was the fact the jewish press did not want to make it look as if it was a jewish war and therefore the leadership certainly, the jewish committee like that were very careful in pressuring roosevelt on these issues. they could have said, you know, christians are being massacred as well. as many polls, catholic poles were killed in auschwitz as were jews, this kind of information just simply did not make it through. and certainly never affected any of what the cartoons are doing. so you have a picture of the

war, which is mixed to say the least, but representative in any case. i think pm was certainly not just represented in this respect of the american left, but it was representative of the country as a whole when it came to japan and so on. but the real battles as far as pm were concerned for the domestic battles, first for intervention and then against the isolationists, and then against republican opposition to any of roosevelt's domestic policies about the war. which included price controls and all sorts of things like that, that looked relatively esoteric, but which of course were very important in terms of the power of the newly hired working class. because suddenly, both black and white americans were able to get jobs at a decent salary, which could easily have been eaten away by inflation. and the pm cartoonists

understood that are gone and the bosses understood it as one want to control -- opposed price controls. as you look through the cartoons, it looks a bit on the same are all these cartoons about buying war bonds, why do so many cartoons about price control. but these were direct, if hidden, domestic issues that were understood partially by some people, was recorded at the heart of pm's domestic agenda. >> let me turn to you. >> pm continued campaigning about the war in several different ways. one was, and this is somewhat embarrassing thing, they led the campaign to shut down what they consider to be fascist mouthpieces. they were the first people to

expose them lindbergh himself was anti-semitic. and their exposure of lindbergh's anti-semitism drove him out of politics. and out of the america first movement during this period before the war. then they turned their guns on coghlan. and you know, and bill, the attorney general, found themselves forced to proceed against kaufman because of the pm campaign. and social justice, this vicious journal, like fox news is fair and now, social justice was the newspaper. was shut down. on the basis of having bad ideas that and it was pm those in the forefront of trying to shut it down by having bad ideas. i think that was going a bit far, but anyway it was one of his campaign. campaign. then he campaigned against the hearst press and what it called the mccormick axis of newspaper, the chicago tribune, the daily news and "washington times."

what are all owned by the same families with her pro-fascist politics, which i think you adequately talk, usually talk about well. but again, they wanted to shut those papers to, but there was not a chance that that was going to happen. you were going to shut down the most populous papers in the country. they also contribute to the political scene by documenting how the leading industrial firms in the nation had cooperated in the rearmament of germany and japan, and secret cartel agreements to enrich them, up to the moment that pearl harbor happened. long after the war was started, these industrialists were still having these kind of ties. in fact, the campaign in pm led to, and the demand and industry recovers from war production,

laid the groundwork for truman's committee to force just that, to force reconversion. so it had a number of, you know, direct -- far, far out of proportion to its size, this is a newspaper that had an average circulation of 150,000 people. but among those 150,000 people, on a daily basis were the first lady, the secretary of agriculture, and then the vice president. and three supreme court justices, all of whom were roosevelt appointees. so that it did have kind of influence on the body politics, although no one knew the kind of debt and assumed it had. >> the lindbergh example, pursuing formula, part of because dr. seuss was a dozen cartoons against lindbergh in this book and many more in pm. of what happened was lindbergh made a speech in which he said,

he could understand the jewish race opposing hitler. but they had much too much influence in controlling the press and the media and so on. and if the war was to be started, they would be the ones to suffer the most from it. little realizing how right he would be. but the interesting aspect, of course, is this was hitler's line throughout the '30s, the jews were causing the war. they would be the ones to suffer from it. now wended lindbergh actually heard or read hitler saying this, i don't know? and roosevelt tried to keep lindbergh and the full because he was such a popular figure, and finally gave up say he was persuaded, that lindbergh was really was a fashion statement intriguing question of this indirect threat to the jewish race, that even the hearst papers said was too much, should have come about when there was kind of an automatic assumption among the american right that

went along the same lines of the germans, or whether they read each other's stuff, or i don't know the answer to that. but it's an interesting question. and that was the point where lindbergh went too far. the germans went too far, and the german is he actually wrote back to berlin saying, even the normally anti-semitic ruling circles felt we had gone too far. on that occasion. and of course, as you never, never come it was not just a distraction of jewish churches and property and so on. it was the beginning of the series of the horrendous anti-jewish laws which forbade until jews going to concerts, going to library, traveling, etc., etc. so they really indication of always going to happen, though i don't think the american public or anyone else would realize

that what seem like temporary punishment would turn in to the beginning of the state policy of extermination. but at that point, american public opinion was overwhelmingly against what the germans had done, even though they were still at the same time and tight jews at home. so it was an odd mixture. somehow lindbergh did cross the line, from what was initially a perfectly reasonable assumption that the germans were too powerful and we couldn't beat them. and he simply said, look, these guys are going to win the war in europe, why are you taking all these risks? they are going to win. which is not an unreasonable position to take it at the time. but it was build on as infrastructure of anti-semitism and other feelings, which i'll be seeing when he unwittingly, i suppose, expose them come a they finally turned him loose. >> so we have been talking

perhaps there is a questions or comments from the audience. >> is. [inaudible] >> you have to use a microphone. >> i think it's interesting, kind of visual supplement to that is these contradictions that you're describing, i guess this is really just more maybe a café conversation question than an intellectual one, but what you think of these that look like human smoke, i may be two years ago actually as kind of a test to worry -- period, these

raw materials from the press to show the complexity of the move towards war? >> i'm afraid i haven't read that. >> i don't know the book. >> sorry. [inaudible] >> its fastening. it really is pick it's an interesting book. it's not a historian's book. so it's reflect on history at that time. there was a way not to fight. and it's right in there. it's not that he is pro-hitler. he is against -- >> yes a quicker. it strikes me those these other genres, or say filled plot against america which i really love it as a book i have to say, and i really appreciate that you're putting out these popular history that are also very rich

and complex and not just telling us sort of a single story of a row system or whatever. >> i can't say how much pleasure it gave me in reading the plot against america to have pm delivered to the households. [laughter] >> what i found fascinating, this whole history, but the role reversal between the then left or the state called right, or reversal in positions where talking about the nazi fascism as german fascism's and not isms and how aggressive the left back then was to confront and to actually fight it, financial war against it, and how it is eager today to run away from today's

fashion please come and how the left press, have the right press rather back then was almost the moth these and today's you read articles about left a central talking, taking to the line, quoting essentially thinking, their own thoughts, you know, the muslim extremists, and taking their position and upholding their position. and i just couldn't help wondering what happened, why the sudden crisscrossing of today's right becoming left, and the left becoming right. what happened? >> do you want to talk a bit? >> yeah, i can't tell you how much i cringe at this phrase islamofascism which is a word invented by the bush administration. there are many things wrong with many islamic regimes, and the world. but as far as i know there's not

one of them that wants to conquer the world. which i, as the essential -- which is the essential danger that hitlerism and for that matter, the japanese pose was their stated that that's what they wanted to do. and oppose this, you know, in pose this kind of racialist regime on the world's population. i find it not contradictory at all to want to destroy the old fascist regimes and to stay away from a crusade led by americans with their social agenda, very different from mine, to try to lead us into wars. >> i wonder, audrey, was the doctors is already an established children book writer before the war started? >> 1938 was on mulberry street

and that was the first one. so it had begun to expect when did he become political? because i'd never heard of him as political anyway, right, left, or senator. >> his children's books are political, if you look at them. i think the undertow is not the underdog. [laughter] >> was someone who is going to rebel against those above him. many of the same pictures, of course, are the ones that he is in the children's books. >> the characters are something very recognizable. they all just sort of standing up for yourself, the motto of the children's books. >> well, this was partly the workers should stand up for themselves as well. of course, he had several life. i mean, he was famous also for his advertising, the quick henry flint campaign in which he was doing illustration for an antimissile spread. argues again in this. there is a cartoon of workers

striking against henry ford, and some of thank you for, quick, henry. and of course, ford unfortunately did not use the flip. at a private police force. so i think the children's books are consistent, and i think ideologically with what's in the book. and of course, after 94 do you want to work for the office of war information and good war movies. so there was a continuity there. >> julian has a book out a couple years ago when she really unpacks this connection and demonstrates the book, the political content. we're bringing her in for a cold war seminar program in the spring, but take a look at that book. she really does make the

political undercurrents and substructure of dr. seuss pretty clear. >> there are three children's authors of note who got their -- who cut their teeth at pm. don freeman of quarter when famed, drew pictures for the sunday magazine. and are you familiar with henry, the cartoon? crocker johnson who did this strip bar becomes later became famous for the children's book at i am not forgetting, the kid with the magic crayon. [inaudible] >> herald and the purple crayon. but he did this is a real, this a real comic strip for pm, which in a way is almost talent and

hobbes, it has hobbes of course i'm sure you're familiar with calvin and out. hobbes is an imaginary tiger in calvin's mind. barnaby had an imaginary leprechaun friend, mr. o'malley. and in fact, barnaby was more popular than pm, so when pm died, it continues. in other parts of the daily press. >> this gives a new meaning to the infantile leftism. [laughter] >> first of all i was wondering, that's a presentation. i was wondering if there were two things i want to ask about, one was the eternal discussion within pm around the hitler-stalin pact and had the editorial stats are coped with the change in policy. and of course, my area of interest, which is how pm was treated later during what

happened to pm contenders during the mccarthy era, if you could comment on those two points. thank you. >> first of course, the pakaf and for pm came into existence, so by the time transform was published there was a tactic the so many people who would later be accused of being communists, that when ingersoll announced to the staff committee brought the whole staff together and said, we are going to war. this is january 1941. this is after already hinting at it from the earliest parts of the first moments the paper existed, if there was this gigantic commonest party faction at p.m., which was later accused of being, you would imagine there would have been mass opposition. there was no words spoken. . .

creating their radio page. an this call was a controlling p.m. and forcing it to be, forcing it to be irrelevant. it was crap. i have no doubt there were common sympathizers on the paper but it was much more a kind of popular front creation,, you know, a sympathy for the common

man, a passionate friend of the labor movement and committed to defeating hitler which was some positions that shared with the communist party but on specific moments like that first time during the pact in its support for labor and even while supporting the war which the communist party was not able to do. when wildcat strikes developed after war was declared the communist party sounded like the first press and attacking those strikes. pm it would say the strikes are bad for the war effort but let's understand what the grievances of the workers are and would consistently do that. also there were rational differences in the incipient civil rights movement, pm was very much on the naacp side of things as opposed to the cp side of things and, on the other hand, there were people who had been in the party. the last of it the daily into fascist papers was the

accomplice. pm a veteran and great writer for pm, tom o'connor, became the editor in chief of the compass. he was called before and refused to name names and a week later died of heart attack at the age of 38. now, i'm also told to by his former roommate that he had had terrible lung disease as a kid which had weakened his heart and soul maybe it wasn't just the mccarthy committee that killed him and mccarthyism that killed him. so there certainly were people associated with a laugh, but pm was also very strong in a wallet differing with thomas party politics and strong in denouncing every single step of the anti-communist hysteria that took place after world war ii and correctly identify the attack on communism as basically a way to try to undo the new deal and undue the advances of

the labor movement that he had been made and defended the right, the civil liberties of all of those under attack in the mccarthy time. >> let me just add to that. that ingersoll it sounded a little bit like obama had said he wanted to hear every viewpoint and then he would decide and in order to do this he asked the head of the communist party to send in official communist journalist to the paper. which they did and if the guy gave up a few months later. i'm not quite sure why, but for the most part the paper business on the day of the german attack on russia there is a dr. seuss opportune saying it will be fun reading the daily worker tomorrow. [laughter] and so they were making fun of the communists.

in ancillary to that is a conversation with eleanor roosevelt and it's amazing to think that he had conversations with her. imagine anything like that happening now. complained that pm was run by trotsky. so obviously the cpu was not totally satisfied and as paul has said, they did you send a apart from john l. lewis who was to the right, they did if an all the labor leaders including harry bridges who was a communist -- that roosevelt was trying to deport back to australia so it was a risky thing to do ran him that walter reuther. so there were very strong on those lines i think. now as to the post war time and do you want to say anything about back? >> i try to answer that, is there something more? >> i guess it was ultimately about the article that kept getting repeated and repeated it, do you remember that when

blacks there was one piece that came out i remember when hours researching pm it was james wexler, his memoirs where there was one piece as said that pm was run by communists and then it kept getting repeated in later articles. >> there were two publications i'm aware of. wexler first lit up the charges and the progressive right after he had been forced off the paper. and he wrote a two-part article for the progress of which was a kind of a, you know, in rehearsal for his book, the age of suspicion. were he lays out all these things have flatly lies about the journalism, totally. he pretends that he did not participate in some of the best pro labor material because he was too smart to but if anyone who looks at the microphone knows that wexler was riding terrific, really terrific staff in 1940 and 1942 and it behalf

of the trade unions, the left-wing lunes -- unions included and pretended he wasn't too smart to be a communist dupe in any way he started on the american progress of. at the same time tim crawford who had written for the paper almost simultaneous with wexler is resignation from pm published an article in the new leader, the socialist party publication that was also anti-communist, that accused pm of upping in the control of the communist of our. he didn't sign him name, he called himself curled collins, like an proffered, everybody knew it was cheap. but by that time he was ensconced in newsweek and a moving steadily right as he went. i don't know the american mercury article. >> [inaudible] >> etkin to be fair and i don't know how rep. this was of but

there were blind spots in the pm after the war. i remember reading an article by richard hajj left to some of you may remember was a cbs newscaster from prague in 47i think it was in which she said everything here is what he dory and there's no problem etc. at a time when it wasn't quite not civil borat becerra also thought it was really torn and enormously between the various factions and the communists finally won in what might have been a victory without a coup-detat. there were so well organized they were about to take control in any case, but if you read the pm and riss can you would have thought nothing was going on of any kind. i have read the new york times coverage of the same time, it may have been equally 91. >> in the case of pm there was often the wish becoming able to the deed. survey results and was invented as a hero or are in proportion

to what he was enduring where anybody who fought against hitler was a hero. that included such odd choices as douglas macarthur and shanghai scheck we should not have been heroes obviously. but they were really two -- anyone who was in a role in the work by definition became somewhat heroic. after words the communists who wrote about the way europe was proceeding had this kind of a fervent wish that a popular french governments would be established in eastern europe and real popular governments, in other words, not governments run by the communist party but other party is being decorations' but total government's of the laughed. and it was actually masaryks suicide if, indeed, it was a suicide in czechoslovakia that brought lerner and less of hanover, and other writing columns, into open despair about

what was going to take place in eastern europe. it was clear the popular front politics was not going to happen in your either going to have with capitalist governments in western europe with more common as participation was verboten to or you're going to have these communist party surrogates in eastern europe and the kind of -- they're kind of romance about what politics should look like. they recognize after masaryk's death was just back, a romance that had no basis in reality. >> there is an odd continuity and personnel also and it's a foot mount, but after pm and stop it was succeeded by a magazine called compass in the star. >> the star was. >> the star was more or less the same paper. >> but the money, marshall

field, pulled out and they started again and they've tried valiantly to continue for a few months and then the star continued. one of the editors of the compass was joseph bonds zero ping as it has -- as it happens was a ghost writer of wendell willkie is a book one world and had worked for the zero ss during the war. he made the mistake when the allies entered italy to write broadcasting we're bringing you democracy and he told me himself that he was severely criticized by his bosses were talking about a democracy in italy. when the government was going to maintain a once you have the battles that were being written about in the pm at the time being lived out and then, of course, intend to continue and that after the war, but in the time of the mccarthyism it was

just impossible who. >> when >> what was the policy response to the true doctrine? >> it hated it. they saw the truman doctrine, i talked directly as the declaration of the cold war and they were also horrified in particular by what it meant for grace thought where anti fascist partisans rely with the communists were now being chased out in behalf of the collaboration which. in and the truman doctrine impact was probably the final break. there were two of moments of great despair about truman. the first happened during the 1946 strike wave and a truman's military response to the coal strike or the steel strike with the height of that and the columnists and were furious. on the other hand, things got

moderated a bit when truman introduced the civil rights program into the democratic party and that was seen correctly as a progressive step so for some people on the staff truman was a little battered but with the truman doctrine the entire year pm net staff was a post. >> [inaudible] >> but ironically pm was the only paper in new york. >> truman in 48. >> by then it was the compass, the star. the star backed with truman the stone columns were fervently pro lawless so he was at war -- it was bonds' writing the editorials about truman and the stone, of course, was dou him. >> even the post had given up on truman. it was a lost cause and the as far as most people were

concerned what ever the ideology. >> you have covered so many of then some of the era, i am wondering how about both real and imagined the soviet espionage, how did they react. and also korea? >> area was too late. in rio was, indeed, too late. the spy stuff, well, they published early a statement, they interviewed einstein ended yuri and oppenheimer and pointed out what they were saying which was that despite what american politicians were saying there was no such thing as a secret that, in other words, there was no secrets in atomic energy, it was a matter of applied guesswork. you kept on going. i can't say i remember them actually commenting on the arrests of the late '40's of the