watching. i am matt welch. upgrading technology, and powering opportunity in communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> welcome to the national press club the world's leading professional organization for journalists. i'm the media president of the national press club. the former general manager of cbs radio network now journalist resident at university of maryland global campus and

executive producer of the kalb report public broadcasting series moderated by today's virtual headliner guest. we are pleased to accept questions from those tuning in today and i will ask as many as time permits to submit a question e please e-mail. for 27 years now i've had the privilege and pleasure of working with and introducing this gentleman for 101 programs at thegr national press club. the reduction is always the same. ladieshe and gentlemen please welcome the last correspondent e personally hired at cbs news by edward morneau into the gold standard of journalism. >> please do it again and again. >> published by brookings press,

the second installment of his autobiography. it's entitled assignment russia becoming the correspondent in the crucible of the cold war. he's described the book as a long letter home after an unforgettable personal adventure. itfr covers the. of hisiv life from the arrival n 1957 through his years as the correspondent from 1960 to 1963. it's a coming-of-age story that has deep roots in family history and a love of the country that welcomed people from around the world with open arms and opportunity. once again welcome back to the national press club. >> it is a pleasure for me to be here and i think the press club and you especially for not only being a gracious producer but also the guy that opens so many doors.so >> he called you professor and

you called him sir. he described the colleagues as our kind of guy. i'm speaking of course of edward marino, mentor to you and icon to the rest of us. talk about the beginning of your career and cbs which is where the book begins. >> the book begins with what may strike people as and all the chapter but if you've ever been a journalist andmo you arrive at this you know you've become professionally a journalist i can tell you that for me late in june of 1957 it was not what i had expected. i had expected a huge newsroom, lots of people. reporters trying to get as

quickly as possible, editors, producers getting upset. everybody screaming news, news. i walked in at midnight cbs 52nd street in madison. there wasn't a soul.m nobody. i walked into an empty newsroomm and there was nothing more empty in life forr a journalist than n empty newsroom. i knew i had this dissertation but no one ever said you're going to have to write a three

minute and 552nd radio broadcast. no one told me how to do it. i had no clue. i walked in. there was nobody there. i was terrified and i kept walking around from one to another but the tapes were miraculously silenced that night. one was helping me. i began to go into a panic at about 3:00 when the suddenly bells went off and indicated. i ripped a copy off and it said 27 people died when the boat they were in capsized.

my first reaction i'm ashamed to say was thank god because i have a news story. i have something to write about. and i finally did write something and i gave it to the editor who came in at 4:30 in the morning, a yankee baseball hat, carried his lunch with him in a small bag. he said you must be kalb. i said yes, who are you. he said i'm your editor, do you have your copy. i gave it to him, he sat down and looked at it and my heart dropped because i was hoping there would be a smile on his face, something to indicate satisfaction but in about five minutes until five, he threw my copy aside, put a fresh paper

into the typewriter and batted out at a ferocious speed the whole broadcast, a man came in, picked it up, went to the studio, read it and it sounded like my earlier vision of cbs. it was so well done. but of course i didn't do it. when the broadcast was over, he came over to me and said marvin, you're a really good writer but you don't know how to write radio and he explained what it was like and he became one of my greatest teachers. >> there often is a moment in time when you can merge what you bring to the mix with what you learned on the job.

was it evolutionarys for you? was there a particular moment when you felt i've got this, i really can do this? >> this may come as a surprise, but to this day, i never feel that i've got it. i always feel that i'm doing the onbest i can to convey informatn to the public. as best as i can and as straightforward as i can but i can tell you right now that satisfaction with my own work is never something that i felt. i've always had a sense that it could be a lot better and then i try harder but i can say to you that when i was in moscow for the first time as a reporter,

which was may of 1960, i did feel a coming together of the knowledge that i had accumulated about russia, the language, the history that i had been picking up in college and graduate school working at the u.s. embassy in moscow in 1956 and 57 of takingquirements that knowledge and putting it into a radio spot, and minute and a half television spot that somehow or another despite the compression still to convey the reality, the substance to the american people as best i could do so in a sense, the two did come together but never to my total satisfaction.

>> i'd like to read something and get your view of it. our wonderful mutual friend and colleague offered the following description of edward marino. even now many years later i think of the superlatives a skilled tenacious reporter and brave man, a fine human being as a boss he laid down no rules or suggestions as to style or content. he demanded only a clear andnd appropriate presentation of fact. he was scrupulously fair and his colleagues had accepted his choices without complaint. he led by example, not a command. his usually for rhoda brau abouw express to a pessimistic slide perhaps to guard against indulging a nationwide audience that wanted good news yet when he smiled, it was like a sunrise. he knew his own worth but will sendan arrogant or overbearing. he had a sense of theater as in

his stress as well as a seniority that often marked his speech, his physical bravery was matched by his moral courage that rang out in his television documentaries. his style was serious, experience of the microphone didn't make him casual. he saw his broadcast as a service to the american people. an accurate depiction? >> absolutely. that is so beautifully stated only by somebody that worked with him for a long time. he started back in 1944 in london he was a young reporter who spoke german and wanted very much to persuade murdo who was the bureau chief of cbs london to hire him and he had a doubt

about his broadcasting capabilities but he eliminated that immediately because he said to a friend he knows what the story is. he knew the story.. i can tell you the first time i met him was may of 1957. i had written an article for "the new york times" magazine about the soviet union. i was at the library on monday morning and the librarian came over to me and said there's a guy on the phone named ed margo and he would like to talk to you. i turned to the librarian and in one of the stupidest sequences of my life s i said ed margo ist calling me. forget about it it's obviously some quack. hang upp on him.

whether she actually hung up on him but late that afternoon she came back to me and said it's the same man and he still calls himself ed margo. maybe you want to pick up the phone and talk to him so i didn't believe he was calling me but when i heard his voice, i thought what a total jackass i had been. how could i not pick up the phone the first time. and i apologized to him repeatedly. he said don't worry about that. can you come and see m me tomorw morning and i said yes sir i will be there and he answered professor, i will see you and thatth established that professr

and server relationship we had with each other. i was there the following morning. his secretary said to me as i walked in he was very busy. he's only got about a half an hour and i said absolutely fine with me. we spoke for three hours. he asked me question after question about the soviet union, the religion, their education, when they got married did they apartment. twhat was it like with in-laws. he wanted to know everything about the soviet union which was a principal adversary in the midst of the cold war and after we spoke for three hours he put his arm on my shoulder as we walked out and he said by the way, how would you like to work for cbs?

it took me all of three seconds to say yes sir and that is the way he hired me. the description of him is so perfect because he did often look as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and he probably felt that way. but he also felt he had an obligation to convey reality no matter how tough it might be to hear, to convey the reality to the american people and they will decide what it is that had to be done. your job as the reporter was simply to provide them with the information. they can then use the information as they choose. he felt that very seriously. >> you mentioned that he spoke german. you speak russian and are a

scholar and russian studies as is your wife. tell us about the underpinnings of the interest in russian studies and the desire to be in moscow. >> that's a long story and i will try to cut it down. my mother and father were both products of the empire that stretched into poland, ukraine, it was a very large empire. my father came here in 1914 just before the outbreak of world war i. my mother in 1913 and this country opened its doors and welcomed these two people who had suffered different forms of religious persecution.

they welcomed them to the united states and provided them the opportunity. nothing is guaranteed but they provided them the opportunity for personal freedom, religious observance as they chose and economic chance, opportunity. if you can pull it off, great but you don't necessarily pull it off as i felt right then and there as a reporter, i wanted to pay back. that's an expression that's very special to me. the idea is you pay back the country for what they've done for you. it had done wonderful things for my mother and father and then for us as their offspring and this was an opportunity in the

book to describe them and my brother, my sister in a way that gives the reader an opportunity for understanding payback. thank you america for what you did for my parents and then for us. and monroe is somebody that understood that immediately. ..

>> . >> y did you think war was imminent? what are the signs you overseen? >> actually getting into last couple thoughts that my brother and extremely influential in my life essentially scared me and when i was in the army intelligence.

and then to look at the us embassy moscow he more than anyone else that that was may of 1960 the cuban missile crisis was and 62 in my that time i was an experienced moscow correspondent i felt that i knew the direction to the americans as well as other people in the question if i thought we would have war, yes that possibility went to my mind but i did not feel ever to the cuban missile crisis that we were going into war. >> and using the key to

khrushchev that he described as a bone in my throat and then striking a deal with all of berlin in the united states from berlin. and very dangerous diplomacy and not a step toward war and of course that made it easy for me that my boss in new york asked me if i wanted to to go shopping up in scandinavia because he feared there very well could be an

attack. i did not think there would be. >> during the cold war americans tended to think of russians as a mysterious other about whom they knew little so could you share some stories of russians and how they impressed you? >> let me tell you that russians come in many different shapes. theyar are not of the standard form the intellectuals with whom any professor could feel very comfortable spending an entire day week or month or year scholarship and wonderful people like you who run the

country and many bureaucrats inre between and through russian history there has been truly sense the russian people have a strong leader somebody who tells them what to do and they do it and for many years that was the case. but what struck me was fascinating as khrushchev is the leader of the soviet union wanted to initiate a program of policy of reform throughout the entire country. he did some of that they got into trouble with conservatives so in 1956 he delivered a historic speech

denouncing stalin and saying in effect opening the door. >> but that happened after chris jeff and then the whole country just stopped in and open the doors once again and there is a possibility and happened in modern day russia to open up and do things that are exciting at this particular time and where we are unfortunately where the doors are being shut on russian talent and the writers

and the musicians andom the composers. you can't be at a concert without bumping into a piece of russian music. they are all over the place. it is there but there's a heavy hand of oppression. >> a follow-up. how is the washing con on —- washington concept of democracy different from the west? >> they don't they can ever get it really but something that isn't a western-style of democracy. they have an exaggerated sense of democracy this is the same way by the way i go back a little bit when people came the country in 1914 he felt

before he got here that a golden paradise in english translated, that there would be money in baskets on every street corner for people to dip into. totally hyped exaggeration. and i think the russian people today have essentially the same idea. which people are trying to paint the west end american democracy asde bad stuff. poisonous we are separate we are great and is trying to draw a distinction between us and them and i have to quickly add a distinction that many american politicians with the

extreme conservatives and trump followers say the same thing it's against them, the bad guys. russia says the same thing. >> now we have a question from the executive director of the national press club so discuss the process you use to meet with russian sources do these common danger because of contact with you and how do you feel about that? >> i was talking to somebody yesterday and toho explain amnesty what would it be like for an american journalist working in russia today as opposed when you were there? in my time things were so tight in the middle of the cold war communism in the heyday o if i went over to talk

to a russian citizen on the street and asked a question where is red square? it is likely, not certain but likely that some kgb person or police person would go over to the russian citizen and begin to question him that what the foreigner wanted from you. so when asking the simplest question you can get the russian into a lot of trouble and if i have information from the russian source, and i have to be very clear about this, they did not come dangling fruit from the tree in springtime it isbe very rare

indeed because everybody was in a frightening environment for those who did talk to me took huge risks and i took a risk to possibly opening them to the kgb crackdown on them and their family so is always on your mind as a reporter and should have been so be careful. >> an interesting follow-up , did the russians ever tried to recruit you and what was that like did you report it? >> sorry to disappoint you to the best of my knowledge they did not try. i was not even aware but nobody ever tried to recruit me as such i did get into

conversations they would try to persuade you but it was government was better than yours. so i guess it failed and i'm not aware of any serious professional effort. >> from what you shared in your first autobiographical novel. >> we learn more about nikita khrushchev and your most interesting relationship with him from beginning with the title so talk about that relationship with nikita

khrushchev. >> i will do that into stories. the first takes us back to julyh , 1956 at the us embassy actually is ambassador's residence and nikita khrushchev arrives and that is a big deal indicating they wanted to be friends with us at the embassy there only four people that spoke russian. and then with the junior press officer. but the ambassador said looking after the defense minister he love to drink but i did not he would suck back

85 because and when the party was over he kind of sidled up to khrushchev and said by the way i was drinking water on —- water and saidka i finally found a young americans who can drink like a russian so khrushchev burst into laughter and said how tall are you? i am 3 centimeters shorter than peter the great. to this day of how it injured my brain and then he always associated me with peter the great. andd second-story and then to

be voted to berlin and the danger of berlin and two weeks before that summit our u2 spy plane was shot down over russia so when we arrived in paris and it was my first big story my responsibility was to cover khrushchev so i knew him from this experience or several from 1956 so what more can you do to cover khrushchev? and they said normally he goes out in the morning for a walk.

a brief walk so let me have a crew at 6:00 a.m. i will be in front of the russian embassy and if he comes out maybe i can get the interview. he seemed reluctant that then 6:00 o'clock and at 630 comes around it often comes out at 7:00 o'clock large iron doors to the embassy open up that then i rushed toward him and he looked at me and said here comes peter the great he had a

weapon? they said no no no. he is okay. they walked out 7:00 o'clock in the morning producing the most. >> fill the air. >> and khrushchev looked at me andea said have you ever had those cracks i said yes. they are wonderful. he said do you think i would like and he said i'm sure you would. he said i would like it so i went to the bakery ordered a bench a bunch for him and his two bodyguards just erupted

into the lego in front of the public as an exclusive that then asking questions about berlin and if you would show up would he insist on certain things that president eisenhower could or could not deliver if it was inclusive. >> more questions have commended covering the soviet government has been described as reading science to a plate up.

>> is that what you found and how hard is it to get any type of context within thehe government? >> it's extremely difficult unless it was set up in advance by somebody in the government who wanted either to win you over to make you more sympathetic, may be make an effort to win you over completely but it was always their decision to reach out to o you so you would have an opportunity. >> on your own. >> no. it didn't happen that way but and so for example the person

stood in front of the microphone to speak, you know was the single most important person in the soviet union and with my time in the fifties and sixties, it was khrushchev. and then as you went down from them come in the picture and then to advocate khrushchev but rachel was ignored and

that was criminal on —- criminology and it was exciting and it was fun and it was an interesting challenge you had i to meet to be a successful journalist h in russia. >> how charlie just challenging was it to get your reports out of russia? when you are finally on radio or cbs evening news or television do you ever have to write in some code to ensure that messages in your stories maybe it was direct censorship of all. c would have to find a way to say something that would can circumvent the reality and get the words to through the sensor. and i can give you one illustration but one that was

very funny to p me that the russians that want to prove that they were distant one —- disinterested in red on d her so they wanted to show the red army was dishonored so they took a group of reporters commonly included to face outside of minsk. when we arrived there there was one small detachment for those soldiers who threw them down on the ground and chatted to peace and then the guy from the government said what was happening so we are interested in peace so a group of western

correspondence were taken for a ride today but this time to minsk where they were told they were watching the red army.. i'm saying exactly what happened i did not put any extra but that phrase was taken the american air would instantly pick up and what was going on. >> but that was the test the battle with the center everything you want —- continuing to get something across. what type of phrase did you use that the american idol is what understand that the russian sensor would not? >> it f was a daily challenge.

>> tell us about your contacts with dissidents do you have a special affinity for them or how do you cover that issue? they became a story later in the 1970s i returned many times but then briefly so i did not have an opportunity to cover jewish but not just jewish but they other dissidents as well. people who byed the 1970s with the oppressive communist system to have the guts to

stand up and join others in a number of those who wanted to go to israel tried very hard to get out of the soviet union most of the time they failed but when the russians wanted to make a point they sent thousands of refugees to israel to make a diplomatic point not to be nice to the jews. so in a sense they got rid of the people they did not like. >> do you see the current russian misinformation campaign as an extension of the propaganda you saw there or something entirely new? there are some follow-ups that

were the audience different was to make the rest of the world doubt america but now it seems to be designed to pit us against ourselves. >> it's a very good question the first part of the answer is that the russians with straight out propaganda for many many decades they are very good at taking ideas and twisting them but it's freedom

if you are not we were supposed to be to know the difference between the truth and a lie. how is it that tens of millions of americans citizens look into the russian propaganda system. that is astounding to me to this day. i don't quite understand how it could be but there is no doubt there are tens of millions of americans prepared to accept a russian version of reality and they are to accept that. it is astounding. >> it's interesting because it brings us back to journalism and of course within our

country we have spent the better part of the last five years or so with journalist being called enemy of the people by former president trump. it was the title of the book that you had published during the trump administration. it seems the role of the journalist today has become that much more important as well as dangerous. talk aboutth that. >> no question it is a danger from another point of view when the president of the united states links journalist as enemies of the state and enemies of the people was he aware that was one of the favorite expressions of joseph stalin and mussolini?

a favorite dictators and an american president uses that kind of expression to define an american journalist i felt horrible and felt the need to write the book enemy of the people. but more terrifying than that the president used that expression very effectively and tens of millions of americans citizens believed him. that result right now many people in this country 60 percent of people and the american polls do not believe

joe biden won the election fairly. 52 percent of republicans believe the press deliberately distorted the results of the american presidential campaign why do they believe that? because trump said so and then a lot of people who represent part of the american press corps who simply feel it is in their interest i only financial and not political but interest to propaganda this idea it's dangerous for democracy inor journalism and

for the american people that i sincerely hope that more and more will understand there is a distinction between a full press and one that's married took place on —- particular point of view. >> this past year has been a head spinner for all of this with the pint pandemic and the politics in the protest in the failed insurrection at the us capital and the security laden inauguration and vice president harris at the same time we have found in record time vaccines to combat the coronavirus o and we appear to be on the cusp of a recovery based on your experiences and those articulated what is your state of our

democracy in the state of the world? >> fragile. i think our democracy today had a fragility we did not appreciate until is challenged so dramatically during the trump era when facts became weapons a of war and announced as weapons and not accepted as true we're at a point now i find myself anme absolute agreement with president biden when he describes the political atmosphere of the united states today as a war between democracy on one side and authoritarianism on the

otherse side. those other words he used to define critical life today democrats who can accept truth and they believe they control truth and impose truth by the american people that battle is fought right in front of us anybody who picks up a newspaper watching the evening news sees it. it is right there what do they do with it? is it a single political point of view they cannot accept the wider judgment of reality? that question is very much in my mind. >> i do not want the hour to

and without offering you an opportunity to talk a little bit about the people that are so important in your life and critical players in your book so if we can engage in a lightning round i will have you offer some thoughts that start with madeleine. >> we been married 62 years. i can only say that i felt for her the moment i saw her and she has been with me all the way my closest buddy and advisor. >> and your big brother

bernard? >> enormously influential i think more than anyone else steered me into the direction of studies to pick up the language and the journalist can go into russia speaking anrussian imagine the advantages that you have as opposed to going into russia the average russian would not speak to an interpreter so bernie pointed me in the right direction. >> i do not have an opportunity to know your parents but i did get to know your sister and at the time we first met your father-in-law was living in your home. talk about your parents and

madeleine's parents my father was born with on —- in a small textile town and was a taylor coming to the country in 1914 and withinim a brief period of time became a great fan of this country and really ended up we could do no wrong. however, i stressed earlier the country gave him the opportunity to flourish. economically he did not. >> but he never forgot that. that was the key what you do at thehe opportunities that were

given? >> my mother was born in the capital of ukraine came here in 1913, was the kingpin of her family. she was alwayss the brightest and the most sensible and a terrific person to have with the mother and a speak with authority on that. and my in-laws rose was one of the smartest and most sensitive intellectual people i ever met. and bill greene was a stark analyst with a marvelous sense

of humor died at the tender age of 96 and even as he went out wasio cracking jokes. >> into professional colleagues walter cronkite and bill small. >> walter cronkite was the greatest man ever worked with. he t just knew when you do a story and how to lead into the story, his kindness that bill small was the bureau chief for cbs one of the toughest guys i ever had to deal with but also one of the fairest and most decent men i ever had to work with bill orsmall did more to bring women into s the industry than anyone

i know and he introduce people like wesley stahl and connie chung and into the top ranks of cbs. >> there is a poetic irony in the book the beginnings were so manyons and you in ways became a legacy of cbs news. you are the last correspondent personally hired by marrero and was a newcomer and what turns out to be his final broadcast and he invited you to join him b when he became director of usia and in a most poignant response said you needed to carry on his work in journalism so you did. in fact the book ends and

begins with morrow so do you have that sense, of irony to be the hand picked and hand selected as the final boy? >> that is a question i can ask from the current vantage point because now i am able to look back. at the time this was happening a new he was special, he was an idol listening to the newscast every night. i watched his broadcast bringing down senator mccarthy was one of the historic pieces of television that i had ever seen it was filled with

admiration for what he did but i could not appreciate the impact he would have on me and many thousands of means that have come along over the decades were everywhere today you will bumpws into a journalist who knows about edward r murrow and wants to be like him if so we'd be a much better country today but that's a hard thing to be that's why he has the esteemed that he has and deservedly so in setting an extraordinary example of courage and professionalism

professionalism, decency, fearls if he said something that would offend a senator or president he said it because it was true and he believed it to be true after he left cbs to goit to usia he invited me to join him toff be his specialist on communist affairs. i was flattered that i had to say no and it broke my heart. how could i say no to him? the only thing i could say is that i want to do in moscow that you did for your entire career. and he understood. >> and he applauded your

decision. >> last question the pandemic in the last year has prompted so many to look back at our lives and must around us with how fragile it is and look ahead how we went to conduct yourselves and who we want to be as the fog begins to lift your life is rich and full and you always seem to be looking ahead. give us your thoughts as you look back and around and ahead 2021. >>et let me try to look ahead. i am a very proud grandfather and i have a grandson and a granddaughter of 12 named eloise they are incredibly special to me they are the

brightest kids in the world but i would love for this country to be as open and rich and potential as it was in different stages of my life i would like the good angels of america to bless all of those kids who represent the future of this country. it's a very complicated and messy world and there are not manyan examples left. this is the best example in my judgment in the midst of very difficult times in the

strength with democracy and authoritarianism is dangerous but at this particular time we have a chance to see democracy when w and i want to win for eloise and then we can also back and say we did a good job. >> that will be the last word for today. the book is called assignment russia becoming a foreign correspondent and a crucible of the cold war. thank you so much for joining us today. >> we are pleased to present you virtually with the national press club coffee mug along with our hope you will join us again in person in the very near future.

thank you. >> astonishing a national debate of where we are as