Timeless news-reading tips in 1973 speech

Publicity and photos from 1973 speech

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Do you remember ’73? Two weeks after President Nixon’s second inauguration, on Feb. 4, 1973, Harry delivered the following speech at a D.C.-area synagogue event. He was 52. After he died, I noticed the audio cassette tape of the speech mixed in with his music collection. It’s valuable now since we have so few recordings from those days. The transcript below is long and conversational, and you can only imagine his tone quite forceful in spots – so typical of Harry. However, much of his advice and his analogies seem timeless. And his humor, well, it’s so Harry, too.   
 

Speaker Introduction

Our speaker today has had a long and distinguished career in the Defense Department. When you consider what has happened in the last 25 years, it’s a remarkable achievement that he’s been able to stay there so long. His subject is an intriguing one: how to read between the lines. He’s going to give us some ideas of what to look for in reading newspapers and magazines. He speaks from a background of tremendous authority. He’s served [as a civilian] with the Air Force for 25 years, but he has also served in the office of the Secretary of Defense as executive agent to prepare news analyses and public opinion trends. He has continued in this work through all his career. I don’t want to take any more time except to tell you that all his remarks will be “operative”. It gives me great pleasure to give you Harry Zubkoff, whose title is civilian chief of the office of research and analysis for the Secretary of the Air Force, and chief of the executive agency for the Department of Defense to prepare analyses and public opinion trends. Mr. Zubkoff …

“How to Read Between the Lines”

I do have to say Dan, when I get an introduction like that I can’t help wishing my parents could have been here, because my father would have really enjoyed it, and my mother would have believed it.

More photos on this page of Harry in the workplace, 1970s

You know the first time you ask somebody to speak, you’re taking a calculated risk. The second time it’s a known risk. I must say I admire you. I just hope you’re not going to be disappointed. It’s like the lady who went into the store for pantyhose. The next day she came back and wanted her money back, and the clerk said, “What’s the matter? Didn’t they come up to your expectations?” And she said, “No, they come up to my knees.” I’m gonna come up to your knees.

What I want to talk about today is the press. And I’m going to try to give you an objective and a factual view, though I must confess, I suffer from the same affliction as the author of that book, “The Unbiased History of the Civil War from the Southern Point of View.”

You see the problem with the press is it’s not unique to this country. I read this little item not long ago about Queen Elizabeth when she went to France recently. She was really shocked to learn about her image as projected in the French press, and she made a count. In the French media, she had been reported as being pregnant on 92 separate occasions. She had suffered 149 accidents; had 9 miscarriages; abdicated 63 times; was on the verge of breaking up with Prince Philip 73 times; on the edge of a nervous breakdown 32 times; and had 27 attempts on her life.

That’s the way the press operates most all the way around the world. But I don’t want to talk about the lies; they’re relatively easy to spot. Like Mark Twain once said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that makes you a fool; it’s what you do know that ain’t so.” And that’s what’s happening.

* * * 

Now the manner in the way the press handles the news these days has been dubbed as “news-think”. News-think is a frame of mind. What the press is trying to do is put news in the paper; whether it’s news or not, everything has to be labeled news. And this is what we have to worry about. It’s not so much that what we read is the real story about what’s going on; it’s whether it’s a story at all. Because the news is filled with non-stories. And the way to make a non-story look like a story is to put a headline on it, a byline, and sometimes a date line. But any of them could have been written within a period of about 20 years.

In fact, we had some research we had to do not long ago comparing some stories about Vietnam with some of the stories about Korea. And would you believe that in 1952 as in 1972, you could not have told the difference between the stories on Korea and the stories on Vietnam? I think some of the newspapers simply lifted some of the stories out and changed a word here and there. So you have to worry about whether something is a story.

* * *

Also they have a great many subtler devices. You take some of the words they use, the headline writers. They use: attack, accuse, hit, denounce, berate. So you don’t just make a comment or two about a city master plan, you assail it. Even if all you did was scratch your head and make a comment, your opponent could have been your best friend, but it’s your opponent who assails you.

Come to think of it, I ran across this poem here, and I gotta read it, talking about somebody saying something. “As any reader knows, a news source can charge, declare, affirm, relate, recall, aver, reiterate; allege conclude, explain, point out, answer, note, retort or shout; rejoin, demand, repeat, reply, ask, expostulate or sigh; blurt, suggest, report, or mumble, add, shoot back, burst out or grumble; whisper, call, assert, or state, vouchsafe, cry, asseverate; snort, recount, harrumph, opine, whimper, simper, wheedle, whine; mutter, murmur, bellow, bray, whinny – and once in a while, say.”

Now the use of those kinds of verbs, you see, all bring out a picture in a reader’s mind. And it’s done on a calculated basis, really. And reporters use the same kind of a thing. For example, a couple guys in downtown Washington exchange shots. It’s reported as a shootout. Then you’ve got a story, you see. If it’s three people, they call it a riot. Then they put the story on the front page. Now, that alone makes it news, whether it’s a story or not, that’s news, it’s on the front page. I think if we could eliminate the front pages, we’d be a lot better off – like eliminating the last car on the railroad train.

* * *

One of the things they do is tagging. And they also do trending and counter-trending. Now tagging consists really of putting an identifying label on something or someone; very prejudicial. And then you identify them from that point on exclusively by that label. For example, they used to say about George McGovern, he was a mackerel, which is a colorless fish with a large mouth. And for this reason, nobody gave him a chance to get the democratic nomination; he got it anyway. Lyndon Johnson, he was power mad. Bobby Kennedy was ruthless. Gene McCarthy was lazy and cool. If the person they’re talking about manages through sheer guts to show another side of his personality, then the news says he’s changed or matured, and that means he’s ready for a new label.

Of course they ran into all kinds of problems with President Nixon, because they couldn’t come up with a label, so they called him the new Nixon. And then every once in a while to take care of those people who didn’t like Nixon, they would say, there’s a flash of the old Nixon. So it was either the new Nixon or the old Nixon depending on whether you liked him or not.

Also this business of labeling, it’s really overdone. They talked about, for example, the Chicago Seven; there was the Gainesville Eight; the Tweduck Four, and all the rest of them. These are prejudicial labels, that’s what they are, and they automatically color your mind. When they had that Oklahoma state prison riot, somebody wrote the Oklahoma State Prison 500. But that one didn’t take hold.

* * *

Now there’s this business of trending. Trending occurs when the news media decide that events in some area are moving in a given direction. And then all the information on that subject reinforces the idea of the trend. A good example is the way the news handled youth. In 1967, the youth was moving away from politics. It was a trend. In 1968, they were trending back into politics; in 1969 they were getting out of politics; in 1970, they were getting back in again.

The Cambodian incursion, you may recall, that got the youth back in in full fury. Before you knew it, though, they vanished back into the woodwork. Then they were registering in droves for the 18-year-old vote, and the trend was decisive political influence by the youth, that is, if they bothered to vote. Whether they voted or not, I doubt if it would have made any difference. Incidentally, they didn’t vote.

So, that’s trending. Now, counter-trending, that’s the time-honored, journalistic tradition about a man biting a dog. You see, it’s not news when a dog bites a man, but it’s news when a man bites a dog. So, what happens is, when the public has a certain perception about a trend that’s going on, one way to make a news story is to say that it’s going in the other direction. You deny the original trend, which the newspaper established in the first place. You say the country’s gradually moving to the left. So somebody says the country is moving toward the right. As soon as everyone’s convinced we’re moving toward the right, somebody else puts in we’re moving toward the left again. Well that’s what happens.

So news makes news by contradicting itself. That’s the great trick of the trade.

* * *

I want to give you a few more examples about words. You see it more clearly when you read the sports stories. Of course you have to give the sports reporters lots of sympathy. They have to report day after day the same kind of situation. You can’t hear anybody say, today Washington’s going to play. You can never hear the announcers say that this is a pretty routine game, performers are no better than average. All he’s got to do every Saturday or Sunday afternoon is say what a great football game this is. This is one of the most exciting games he’s seen in years, and he wishes everybody could get to see it. The thing is sports are too dull to read about, so you have to listen to the voice.

Also in sports, all games are tough, every opponent is tough, every win is tough, every loss is tough. All the plays are beautiful. In the [inaudible], they always fire their scores. You never hear about an ugly forward pass; they’re all beautiful forward passes. And did anyone ever hear about a dirty-cut athlete? They’re all clean-cut.

Then journalists also coin new words every now and then, enough to drive you out of your mind. Like simplistic. That’s a journalism word, simplistic. Then there’s finalize, relevant, charisma; and irrelevant is almost as good as relevant. Also, cigars and pipes are simply never smoked, they’re always puffed. Nobody eats sandwiches, they always munch on sandwiches. You never drink a beverage, you always sip a beverage. When King Edward abdicated – some of you are in my generation, you may remember – he used the phrase which has endured and will endure forever: at long last. It means exactly the same thing as at last, you see, but everybody who wants to be fancy says at long last. It will never fall out of the language. That’s because journalists keep repeating it. At long last.

We suffer from cliché-itis. You get words like an in-depth report, an ill-informed source. Anybody ever hear of a semi-final analysis? Or how about a shallow report? Or a poorly informed source? All the sources are well-informed; that’s the name of the game. Nobody calls a spade a spade anymore; it’s now an agricultural implement.

* * *

Now listen to what the newspapers do. From a recent news account: “Last week Henry Kissinger flew to the Middle East to explore the possibilities.” Explore is the key word. “Last week a representative of the Kremlin flew to the Middle East to exploit the growing tensions surrounding the tenuous cease-fire.” Actually the use of these words represents a trap. If you happen to agree with the implications of those two statements I just read, then you think it’s straight reporting. But if you disagree, then you immediately see the bias.

So take a careful look at the words they use in the newspapers. Put yourself in the other guy’s shoes. Try to take the other guy’s point of view. Pretend you’re an Arab. And all the sudden you’ll see all kinds of biased reporting in the paper. The truth is, the newspaper is overwhelmingly pro-Israel, and it’s reflected in the story. We’re happy that they’re pro-Israel. [Audience member says “Not the Post”.] No, not the Post, not Christian Science Monitor, not Newsweek. But most of the papers are pro-Israel.

Anyway, our press is really more sophisticated than the press in the communist countries. They don’t have to use words like lackey, or, the favorite word in the Chinese newspapers is running dog, or the imperialistic war mongers. We’re a little more subtle, but results are still pretty much the same. And a lot of it is not done consciously, which is even worse. Do you remember the incident in that Paris Summit meeting? Well TIME magazine and a lot of the news media described Krushchev – listen to these words: intransigent, belligerent, almost incredible, bellowing like a wounded rogue elephant, intemperate ramblings, diatribe, etc. – all loaded words.

The U.S., on the other hand: replied tartly, asserted coolly, and was stern. You see, the Russians, when they’re not bellowing, they’re dower. A stern American politician is a dower Russian political. Our people make speeches, no matter how boring. But a guy like Castro, he speechifies. Sometimes he speechifies excessively. You can just feel the demagoguery in these words. You don’t have to hear a word about what he said, but you’re automatically turned off by the way the papers report it.

* * *

So the papers are reflecting a bias. They don’t like to say that, they deny it, but it’s there just the same. You know the papers use to talk about the peace demonstrations and the peace movement. What they really meant was the Vietnam War movement – not the same thing at all. And just as an aside, a great many of those peace pushers are now urging the United Sates to help Israel’s war effort. Even to the point of a confrontation with Russia. Well, it’s not that they’re for peace, it’s that they’re very selective in the kinds of wars they want to fight.

The papers were kind of schizoid about the whole thing, too. You see, they tried to give the anti-war people an aura of respectability, the peace movement, but then in the next breadth, they talk about their …

[At this point someone turned over the cassette tape, so they lost a bit of the speech.]

… Florida was not particularly sophisticated – I hope there’s nobody here from Florida. It’s all right to go there for a vacation – but! Listen to Smathers, how he lit into Pepper. [FYI, George Smathers and Claude Pepper were Florida senators in the 1950s and ’60s.] He said, among other things, that Pepper was known around Washington as a shameless extrovert; that he reportedly practiced nepotism with his sister-in-law; that his own sister was once a thespian in New York City. And worst of all, Pepper himself before marriage practiced celibacy. Needless to say, Pepper lost the election. I’d figure he’d lose it again today because you can’t practice celibacy and win an election in 1972.

But people really do react in a peculiar way to words, and the newspapers take advantage of it. Now this is the tragic part of it, because people ought to know better. You see the world is not what we think it is. I mean everybody views the world based on his own background, his own education and experience. Everybody reacts to the information he hears and reads and sees. But most of all, of all the ways to see what’s going on in the world, we depend, of course, on the media to furnish us with all the information.

I’ll tell ya, for those of us like me who have been associated with the military departments for a long time, we simply do not recognize some of the information about the military presented in the media. It’s distorted; at least to us it’s distorted. The individual facts seem true enough, but often, equally significant facts which would cast a different light on a situation are not mentioned. And, I’m sure you all know that the papers are full of one-sided, unfavorable stories about defense. And the same information keeps appearing in the papers. Like one of the great myths: defense spending keeps going up and up and up. And no matter how many times or who says that it’s going down, it makes no impression because it’s not repeated. 

* * *

I often wonder, is the problem with me or is the problem with the media? I think it’s with the media. I did a little research. You know, we’re being educated by the media, mostly television these days. The educators are estimating that by the time a child goes to kindergarten, he has watched over 4,000 hours of commercial TV. That’s a lot of commercial TV, and that’s a lot of mistaken impressions that kid gets. By the time a kid graduates from high school, he’s watched 15,000 more hours of commercial TV. By that time he’s through, he’s had it, he’s brainwashed.

This mass media education is called, it’s a highly specialized thing called modern propaganda. Now modern propaganda, you see, is different from the ancient propaganda. Modern propaganda is not lies or tall tales so much; it’s based on facts. It operates with all kinds of truths, and half-truths, and limited truths, and truths taken out of context. One way to characterize propaganda is what I’m telling you today. If the result of this talk is that you read your newspapers more carefully and apply some discrimination and thought to what you read, I will have been successful in getting across some modern propaganda to you, because propaganda provokes a little action.

* * *

There’s a guy in France at the University of Bordeaux who’s generally considered one of the experts in propaganda. His name is Jacques Ellul. He said that in order for propaganda to work, it has to be aimed at educated people. And he says that intellectuals are actually the most vulnerable to modern propaganda. Why? A lot of us pride ourselves on being intellectuals. Well the reason is because intellectuals absorb the largest amount of second-hand, unverifiable information. Further, they have a compelling need to have an opinion on every important question of our time.

All of us know everything there is to know about anything. How many of you say, “Do you know about this?” and their answer is “I don’t know”? No. They all know something. So they all have opinions. And they’re the most easily influenced to have opinions because they consider themselves – all of them – capable of judging for themselves. That’s a great fallacy, we can all judge for ourselves.

So all you see under the influence of propaganda, all these drives that we have, they – unclear, often without any objective – sometimes become powerful, direct, precise. Propaganda gives us the objectives, organizes our traits into a system, freezes us into a mold. Any prejudices we have are going to be hardened by the propaganda. You see, we’re told that we’re right in harboring these prejudices. So then we find our reasons and justifications. And the stronger the conflicts in any society, the stronger the prejudices. And propaganda intensifies these conflicts, intensifies the conflicts.

* * *

So we see a lot of irrationality brought about by propaganda. For example, something that I call the doomsday irrationality goes like this: The world is in terrible shape. We’re dying of pollution. The air, the water – in another 20 years it won’t be fit to breathe, or drink.

I happened to grow up on the shores of Lake Erie. I’ve been reading about Lake Erie being a dead lake. They’ve got me convinced, Lake Erie is a dead lake. I was in Buffalo just a couple months ago. Looked in the paper and found that this year in Lake Erie was the biggest fishing take ever in history. The truth is it all went into gefilte fish, Lake Erie white fish. But that wasn’t in any paper except the Buffalo paper, and it was a trade paper at that. All the other papers are saying Lake Erie is dead. Not only that, we went out to a beach on Lake Erie and went swimming and the water was beautiful. And Lake Erie is supposed to be so polluted according to the papers that it’s worth your life, like going into the Potomac.

Another one of the irrationalities (I’ll be glad to argue with all the environmentalists), the irrationality about DDT – I’ll be glad to talk to you about that. Then there’s the love-hate syndrome. Love among the youth, anyway; you love everybody, except you hate the pigs; you hate the authorities and you hate the establishment – and you hate the military industrial complex. Which is another irrationality. I don’t know what the military industrial complex is. I’ve been living in the military all my life practically. I think it’s a myth! The establishment is a myth. What the heck is the establishment? All of us are the establishment – that’s what everybody is. You know it’s the image of a monolithic, impenetrable, inhuman being that controls our lives, and it’s capable of controlling our lives and nobody can change it! There’s no such thing. What’s the corporate state? Does anybody know what the corporate state is?

Another one of the great myths today is that we’re rapidly running out of energy. This one hits home because energy is in the paper today – we’re rapidly running out of energy. It just isn’t so. There are all kinds of statistics around to prove it isn’t so. There is a great powerful motive on the part of some element to want to push the line that it is true. The motive is money of course.

Well anyway, propaganda, it’s a phenomenon, and you have to recognize it. You have to learn to recognize it.

There’s another myth that technology causes more deaths. Everybody’s heard that one. Actually technology does not cause more deaths. Every one of us is going to die only once. We’re not immortal. So there aren’t going to be any more deaths from technology. What it does is maybe shift the statistics a little bit. Because you take the percentage of people who are killed by automobiles; it’s been going up since the beginning of the century. You can say that the technological development of the automobile brought about some earlier life terminations for some people, but it remains that the overall average life span since the beginning of this century has increased from about 47 to 70 years. And largely, if not entirely, because of technology. Technology doesn’t bring about deaths, it extends life.

* * *

Trouble is, once one of these myths or prejudices take hold, it’s very, very difficult to dislodge it. In fact, I don’t think it’s possible. You have to wait for a new generation. That’s what they have to do in Israel, wait for the next generation.

What we have to do is attack these myths before they gain a foothold. And the only way I know of to attack them is to read with some discernment.

One of the things I often do – do you ever read the newspaper and you get so furious about what you’re reading and you’re writing a letter to the editor in your head – a blistering, long letter to the editor. It never gets written, it never gets sent, but it’s good psychologically to work on it. I think we ought to write more letters to the editor. We ought to not just walk around with the letters in our head, but put them down on paper and send them out.

There’s another interesting statistic: 0.1 newspaper space is to the letters to the editor’s column. Over 35 percent of the readers read the letters to the editor’s column – the biggest percent of readers for any one subject. Why won’t the newspapers expand the letters to the editor’s column? Ask them. [Audience comments inaudible]

* * *

We all know what’s wrong with newspapers; deep down in our minds we know. The thing I want to say about these newspapers, though, if you get the impression from my criticism that I completely disagree with newspapers, it’s wrong. Frankly I think we have a pretty good press in the United States. The problem is you have to learn how to read it. Everybody thinks the television and movie image of our presses, these honest and fearless reporters always going out after the story, searching for the truth and writing it against all odds, and all that – well that’s not what newspapers are all about. Only once in a while is there something like that. I think the Watergate story is one of the most unusual developments of American journalism history, really. But it’s an exception, it’s not the norm.

And another thing, the opinion pages – Outlook in the Washington Post – or the New York Times opinion section. These sections are closed in a way to any other viewpoint but the current, fashionable, intellectual conceit. And people who try to put in different points of view are seldom, seldom successful.

But anyway, you get these newspaper stories and you think they’re trying to get the truth, and you look at every story and you think you’re getting a picture of the truth. Well it’s not so. What you have to do, you have to look at the newspaper as a whole. It’s a whole conglomeration of stories. Collectively, all these stories give you an impression of what’s going on the world, what’s going on in the country, what’s going on in the city. We live in a dynamic world, a shifting world, everything’s moving, everything’s changing. The press is like an impressionist painting; you get too close to look at details, they don’t mean anything. You have to step back and get the whole picture. Then you get a feel for what’s going on.

It’s like when you look down through water, and you know how light is refracted, the refraction of light and water, when you’re trying to judge the size and shape of something under the water. Well, the water corresponds to all the preconceptions through which the news always travels. And reporters, you see, they acquire these preconceptions. They learn by experience the kinds of stories that never get into the papers, the kinds of stories that never make the six o’clock news on television. And so they learn to color their stories so they will get in the papers, maybe even give them a byline. Maybe they will get on TV, give them an extra bonus of fifty dollars. They learn to tell which people are news and which are not news. Most of us are not news. That’s because we lead normal lives. You want to get in the newspaper? Kill your neighbor.

* * * 

Incidentally, I want you to know that when Agnew started talking about the media, and he was so critical, it didn’t surprise me; I’ve always felt that way. Where I differ with Agnew of course is his interpretation of objectivity. He’s like the guy who says there’s a terrible disease called cancer; the cause of it is international Zionism. So get rid of international Zionism, you won’t have cancer anymore. Of course it’s silly, but that’s the way it was.

I agree that the press needs criticism, but it also is a pretty good institution, if you look at it the right way. Just don’t have great expectations. Look at it for your impressions. And if you want to read and find the prejudices, just read the verbs, read the adjectives.

Actually newspapers do a better job than TV; TV gives you only headlines. They give you pictures, most of which are – unless it’s an actual news event taking place at the moment – most of them are distorted. They simply can’t put on the same kind of deep report that the printed press can give you. You see, news magazines, they emphasize a snappy style. Everything’s got to be snappy in a news magazine, cut short – they’re giving you all the news in a week, let’s say. Not true, but it’s news just by virtue they put it in the magazine. Lots of non-stories. All the serious books – the monthlies, the quarterlies, the semi-annuals – every one of them is a captive of a different point of view. Some of them are good if you happen to agree with their point of view. A lot of people only read the things they agree with. I always wonder about that. If you want to keep up with your prejudices, you have to read the other guy’s points of view.

The only thing that could be better in terms of the press is books, and the only trouble with books is that they come too late. Good interpretive books have been written, but by the time they get published, their interpretations have been overtaken by events. You know the first really good analysis of the campus unrest we were having a couple years ago, came out around the time the students were going back to school, started worrying about their grades, and about the jobs, and about their futures. And the new left – what’s happened to the new left? Anybody hear about the new left lately, in all the headlines about a year ago? They went right [audience says the same], right.

* * * 

Well the thing is nothing stays still long enough for a leisurely examination. Unless it stays on the front pages for months on end – and the only thing that’s been on the front pages for months on end is Watergate. Of course, everybody’s saturated with Watergate, and it’s left an incredible impression on our minds. Now, I ask you, if President Nixon were genuinely innocent of the whole business, do you think he will ever, ever be judged innocent by the people. No. I don’t know whether he is or not. (Erase that tape.) [Audience laughter]

Everybody remember the stories about the secret bombing in Cambodia that broke a few months ago? I want to tell you about the newspapers, about secret bombing. We did a research project on it. I had some very bright, young, summer students with me this summer, and they took this on as a project, when the newspaper stories came out about secret bombing in December 1969 and January 1970. These kids went back through the papers for those days. And, they found literally – literally I say – hundreds and hundreds of stories about the bombing in Cambodia back in 1969 or ’70. There was no secret bombing. I don’t know why they called it a secret bombing! [Audience comments inaudible] Nevertheless, if it was a secret I would hate to see something that was out in the open.

Anyway, you don’t read the newspaper stories. I’ll tell you what really happened. People weren’t aware, didn’t realize the implications of what they were reading. But you can get a sense of where we are and where we’re going if you look at the whole paper. And you try to relate all these seemingly unrelated bits and pieces of information that you read about. You get it. You’ll get the idea. Papers don’t spell out everything that’s going on. They provide a lot undigested information, and you gotta do a lot of mental work yourself in order to figure out what’s going on. I’ll tell ya another thing. Anyone who reads the paper shouldn’t be surprised at that secret bombing.

 * * *

But here’s another one. Everybody these last couple of weeks was surprised. Europe generally did not support the United States, did not support Israel, did not support the United States in its efforts to resupply Israel. And everybody got furious, everybody got surprised. I don’t see why we should’ve been surprised. We could have been disappointed, sure, but not surprised because the papers for the last year or two have been full of stories about the European energy problems.

Everybody knows that 80 to 85 percent of European oil comes from the Arab countries. Where do you think their interests lie, with Israel or with their own economic well-being? If they lose that oil, the whole continent’s economy goes down the drain. Who do you think they’re gonna support? Their selves or Israel? In fact, economic considerations are the prime motivating forces for all nations. And don’t ever delude yourself that that’s not true.

Take a little country like Iceland. Iceland depends on cod, fishing, that’s the major economic of Iceland’s economy. So they extend their territorial waters out to 50 miles. Well, England and Denmark and West Germany also fish in those waters, and they also need those fish. You know, Iceland has five ships in the Navy. They took on the British Navy, the West Germany Navy, the Denmark Navy. They shot at them, they boarded their boats, they arrested their people! They’re ready to go to war; you think they could win a war with England or with anybody? They can’t win any war! But you scratch them where it hurts economically and they’re gonna go to war! Everybody knows that. Yet, when that was in the papers, everybody was surprised because Iceland is fighting for its fish. They shouldn’t have been surprised. It was all in the newspapers long before they started.

I’ll tell ya, if I were an Arab oil-producing nation, I’d be worried. Because the colder Europe gets this winter, the more chances are that Europe is going to take some direct action. So don’t be surprised, because it’s in the papers. Incidentally, the secretary general of NATO has said that they consider the cut-off of oil a hostile act. Now what does that mean? That’s a cause for war, of course.

* * *

Well, I don’t want to take up too much time. I just want to tell you this. I got two things to tell you before you start clapping.

You see, the newspapers are good, as I say, for telling you the trends, where we’re going, how we’re gonna get there maybe. They put out early warnings. But it’s like, you know the coal miners used to take a canary down into the shaft to smell the gas. If the canary died, then the coal miners got out fast. Well, that’s what the newspapers are for. They’ll give you the trends, they’ll give you the tip-offs to what’s gonna happen. All you have to do is think about them, be aware of the implications. Everything that affects society and that affects the world is gonna be in the press.

You know, Will Rogers once said, “All I know is what I read in the papers.” And that’s true. I say amen to that. Just no better way to know what’s going on in the world than to read the papers. So start reading and start clipping.

Copyright 2017, Elaine Blackman

Radio interview conveys Harry’s diplomatic nature

Harry poses in the Pentagon parking lot for a media story in the 1980s

If you stumbled across this page online, you may wonder what the big deal is about a 1986 National Public Radio interview with a government media chief. If you knew Harry, however, I think you’ll appreciate this discovery for what it’s worth – another piece of the life and legacy of Harry, the insightful communicator. Here’s the transcription from the audio cassette tape of the interview.

Radio Show: “The Other Side of the Story”

  
Lester: This is the Les Kinsolving show, uninhibited radio all around our nation’s capital, WNTR radio, where you can join in by calling …

Today with our special guest, and I’ll introduce him, he’s the Pentagon press monitor for 36 years, who tells it like it is to reporters for 36 years. Ladies and gentlemen, Harry Zubkoff has been the Pentagon’s press monitor; he supervises the clippings of dozens of newspapers and zeroxing all the stories he finds every day that pertain to national defense. Pentagon spokesman Bob Sims agreed with me at noontime today that Harry Zubkoff is a very intelligent, very observant person. He is not ignorant; he is a very decent man. Well Harry told the Washington Times yesterday, Harry told them:

“Reporters aren’t reporters anymore, generally speaking, they’re all commentators; everybody wants to
be a commentator. The passion to get the facts right has been replaced by the urge to be sensational, to be speculative. Objectivity has gone down the drain. If those people out there in the great American republic depend upon their newspapers, their local newspapers, let’s say, without reference to a few national news magazines and a few other news sources, then they’re badly informed. A story about a $600 toilet seat has more impact than any amount of good solid reporting about what’s going on. It really colors our thinking.”

As I mentioned, Pentagon spokesman Bob Sims said that Harry Zubkoff is very intelligent, very decent, and very observant. But, when I asked the spokesman for the Secretary and the Department of Defense if he agrees with Harry about a whole roomful of Pentagon reporters who were sitting there watching and listening today, spokesman Sims, who is a retired Navy captain, took what is known in the U.S. Navy as immediate evasive action – I think that’s the term for it, I was in the Army – he said, “I don’t know what Harry said.” Well, I said, it’s right here in the Times. You can read it, Bob. And I held it right in front of his eyes. So spokesman Sims said, “When I go to the Washington Times for my session with their editors, you’ll know what my views are. Harry is entitled to his own views; he’s qualified to give his own opinion.” So I asked, Bob, Secretary Weinberger wouldn’t think of disciplining Harry for this very interesting candor, would he? Pentagon spokesman Sims replied, and this, too, is a quote: “We believe in candor and free flow of ideas.” And that is all I can say is that that is next best to spokesman Bob Sims agreeing in full view of those seething Pentagon reporters. Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to have on this air this afternoon, the free flowing candor of Harry Zubkoff himself, the Pentagon press monitor for 36 years.

Harry, welcome to WNTR.

Harry: Thank you, Lester, glad to be with you.

Lester: Harry, give us an encapsulation; tell all of us on the air here about the Early Bird.

Harry: Well, the Early Bird is simply a compilation of clippings taken from the morning papers every day and put together in a small package and distributed to the top people in the Pentagon.

Lester: How many is that?

Harry: Well, throughout the Pentagon, approximately 4,000 copies.

Lester: Isn’t there a supplemental that goes all over the service, all over the country?

Harry: No, no, the supplemental clips, which includes a great deal of material that we don’t have room to put into the Early Bird, is a much more limited distribution, just a few hundred copies. 

Lester: My heavens. You did me the great honor of printing things that I have written from time to time. One of them has to do with that rather fascinating and outrageous case – do you remember the midshipwoman at the Naval Academy who wouldn’t jump?

Harry: Yes, I do.

Lester: Right and I wrote a piece on that. The outrageous, she was a midshipman, they call them midshipmen down there, they haven’t yielded to the neuter movement yet. She was a senior, first classman, every midshipman has to jump, and she wouldn’t jump, or she couldn’t, and they had the whole psychiatric department down there trying to persuade her to jump. And so they separated her as they had done to a number of other midshipmen who couldn’t jump. You have to be able to jump a distance because you might have to jump off a ship. What she did is she went right downtown in Annapolis to the NAACP, and she suggested to them she was being discharged, that is, separated from the Naval Academy because of her race, which was an absolute falsehood. So under that pressure they let her back in. And I wrote about it, and let me say this, Harry, you may put out a limited number but when I went down to Fort Bragg to do a story on the 82nd Airborne, when I went into the PR office, they said, “Are you the same guy who wrote about the midshipwoman that wouldn’t jump?” Now how did it get down to Fort Bragg?

Harry: I have no idea, Lester.

Lester: You mean there’s a fast grapevine in the Armed Services?

Harry: I’m sure there is.

Lester: Harry, let me ask you this. Did you start this system of printing a big selection of news clippings every morning?

Harry: Well, let’s say I was there at the creation.

Lester: You were there at the creation. Now, have you ever put anything in there that has caused a furor?

Harry: Frequently.

Lester: Hahaha. Well what kind of furors? Can you give us an example?

Harry: There are all kinds of examples, Lester. There are stories that embarrass any administration. There are stories that are very critical and that some people would not like to be printed in our Early Bird edition or in any of our editions.

Lester: Even though it’s in a hugely distributed newspaper.

Harry: Of course. And it’s our mission to get our readers’ attention.

Lester: And sometimes there are those who react by wanting to kill the messenger.

Harry: Yes.

Lester: Let me ask this. How is it that you’re still alive, Harry?

Harry: Nine lives.

Lester: Hahaha. Tell me, can you go back and remember what the most ferocious action was when you printed something? Can you give us two or three examples of this?

Harry: No, that’s impossible, Lester.

Lester: Well, you understand why as a newsman I will try to get it out of you.

Harry: You cannot squeeze blood out of a turnip.

Lester: Well, the thing is, I like Bob Sims very much. He’s always been courteous, he doesn’t get nasty. Matter of fact, I think the Pentagon generally speaking has had some very delightful spokesmen that realize that they’re frequently gonna be unable to ask the questions we ask because of security reasons or one reason or another that’s legitimate but understand why we have to pursue, and all we ask is that they come up with something that is amusing, or if they have to evade, at least do it with style and with good humor.

Harry: All of them are very stylish.

Lester: Hahaha. Tell me this. Can you tell us some of the periodicals you draw from, other than the larger ones, like the Washington Post, and the New York Times, the Baltimore Sun, and so forth and so on. How many to you excerpt from?

Harry: We are screening 65 newspapers every day, and some 300 periodicals, including weeklies, biweeklies, monthlies, bimonthlies, quarterlies; a great many, including some daily newsletters.

Lester: Before I knew a great deal about his, I remember writing a piece about this, when I was publisher of Washington Weekly, and we ran a very funny piece about the fact that West Point had put in AstroTurf in Michie Stadium. I cover West Point and Annapolis and Ivy League Football and the rebel rousers, kind of cheerleaders, came to me outraged because this general there who was in charge of the athletic program out there gave orders that the Army mule could no longer run across the field and leave the Army team on the field. I said, well why on earth they would give an order like that? And he said, well because they Army mule might misbehave on the turf. And we checked with the post veterinarian and a mule cannot misbehave while running. [Harry laughs.] And they transferred the veterinarian to Leavenworth, not the prison, but the fort. And they said we’ve also consulted with the University of Texas and the University of Colorado. They have a buffalo and a longhorn steer that are, to put it delicately, they are more dangerous to astro turf and misbehaving than a mere mule. And they still allow them on the astro turf. So I went and asked the general, and he got very angry and very gruff, and brushed me off and so forth. And he didn’t know that we distributed Washington Weekly at the Pentagon. So we got a picture of the Army mule braying, and here’s the general, a very silly looking picture of him, and we headlined it in 60-point heads, General Bans Army Mule From West Point Astro Turf. I’m told that almost every Annapolis officer, graduate at the Pentagon had that posted above his desk. The next week they got apparently four or five-hundred phone calls, and the next week the Army mule was allowed to take one run down the astro turf and they gave me a small decoration. You do publish from all of these different periodicals, and Harry, let me ask one or two other things. You’ve been in 36 years.

Harry: Yes I have.

Lester: Where did you work before you came in to the Pentagon?

Harry: I worked for one year at the Veterans Administration.

Lester: You’re a veteran?

Harry: Yes, I am.

Lester: You mentioned the $600 toilet seat. And that is a point at grave issue because I remember asking President Reagan why he had rewarded the same newspaper with an exclusive interview whose cartoonist Herb Block continues to draw Casper Weinberger with a toilet seat around his neck, which I think is really toilet seat journalism, and it’s really misleading, because it wasn’t a toilet seat for $600, it was a whole system, a whole lavatory system. And the Washington Post knows that, and they also know that it was discovered not by the press, and not by Congress, but it was discovered by the Pentagon’s investigators as I understand it. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Harry: You’re absolutely right.

Lester: And they’ve discovered 90 percent of this stuff.

Harry: Indeed they have.

Lester: And Casper Weinberger has a choice. He can try to cover it up or for the sake of the economy or the sake of the country he could expose it, and whenever he exposes it, it leaks into the hands of those correspondents or others, and then they use it to smear the Pentagon. Is that an accurate assessment of the case?

Harry: Well, let’s say they do not accurately reflect the facts. 

Lester: Hahaha. Harry, you’re a diplomat. I wonder why you didn’t end up the Secretary of State. Harry, are you going to retire anytime soon?

Harry: As a matter of fact, I have retired, Lester.

Lester: You have retired! Hahaha. Well let me ask you this. Reflections on the past. Is that anything on your mind? You’ve made strong statements and I couldn’t agree with them more. Because I’ve noticed that it’s hard to find any news story in the Washington Post that you don’t see editorial content coming out; it’s very hard to see anything even approximating objectivity, and to a certain extent the New York Times, even though the New York Times is more dignified about it. Would you disagree with that?

Harry: Those papers are not alone. There are a great many papers around the country all affected by the same syndrome; that is, they want to do more than report the news.

Lester: Well, here’s the point. I of course speak as a commentator and columnist. We’re full of opinions. But I have been a reporter and I do know the difference between straight news and the editorial page. But as you know, there was a reported discussion between John Oaks, a reporter in the New York Times, and Ed Rosenthal about who had the most influence, and Rosenthal said, “I’ll give you six editorial pages, just give me the news columns.”

Harry: That’s why he’s the editor.

Lester: Harry, what are you gonna do in retirement?

Harry: I’m planning to do some writing, and I expect I will be writing about the media.

Lester: That’s wonderful. What was your impression about the Sidle Commission?

Harry: They did an excellent job. They tried to set up the procedures for including the press, and I think they succeeded. They had a mission to perform, they performed it.

Lester: Harry, if you had a son of military age and he was in the service, the special forces, and he was going on a very high risk combat mission, would you want his mission covered by a pool of reporters, including Sy Hersh of the New York Times, and Janet Cook of the Washington Post, and Lyle Denniston of the Baltimore Sun, who has stated as I mentioned in an earlier commentary today, stated that he will steal any secret he can from the Secretary’s desk?

Harry: Without reference to any individuals, if there is a mission going on like that and my son were on it, no I would not want the press involved, but the press has its job to do, the military has its job to do.

Lester: Did you fault the military from excluding the press from Granada?

Harry: No, I did not. In the immediate launching of that invasion, no, the press was allowed in after a few days.

Lester: Yes, and they screamed bloody murder because they weren’t allowed to go in.

Harry: Well, they have their own mission to perform, and they should be enthusiastic about doing it.

Lester: What’s your reaction to General Maxwell Taylor’s statement that we should never again go into battle accompanied by television cameras?

Harry: I’m not sure how to react to that. The problem is that television cameras are here to stay. How we can exclude them in the future, I think is hopeless.

Lester: Oh, but Harry, where in the Constitution are they guaranteed the right to cover all battle operations? If it were in the Constitution, why do you think that the big media had the good sense not to try to sue the government over Granada?

Harry: That would be a losing battle for them.

Lester: Right, in other words, they do not have the right to cover every combat activity; they do not have the right to fly over our fleet, and when it’s going into a battle situation and take pictures of it. They do not have the right to go in with landings, and when they see a wounded American, to do a close-up of the belly wound and show it in every home in America during dinnertime, do they Harry?

Harry: I can’t comment on what they have a right to do, Lester.

Lester: I just want your opinion. You’ve been a Pentagon press monitor for a long time.

Harry: They have a right to pursue their profession as best they can.

Lester: And isn’t it up to the Secretary of Defense and the Department of Defense to give the ultimate protection to our men who are going into combat, isn’t that a prior need?

Harry: Yes.

Lester: Harry, I could go on with you for hours and hours. I think I was the only reporter who testified to the Sidle Commission who had this kind of opinion, for which I was bitterly denounced by the Los Angeles Times, by the Cable News Network, and three or four others, including one of the panel members, but it was a lot of fun, I had a marvelous time and I appreciate it. Harry, any last thing that you want to get on the air?

Harry: I’m responding to your questions. I recall President Kennedy’s quote, which has always delighted me, when he said that “I’m reading more and enjoying it less.”

Lester: Haha! Harry Zubkoff, good luck to you and please let me know when that book comes out and we’ll certainly deal with it on this air. Harry, will you do me this favor, listen in occasionally and call and give me the benefit of your opinions.

Harry: I’ll do that, Lester.

Lester: That, ladies and gentlemen, was Harry Zubkoff, the Pentagon press monitor for 36 years. Harry Zubkoff, an absolutely delightful man.

Copyright 2017, Elaine Blackman

A personal update to friends everywhere

When my dad was about to turn 70, he wrote the following letter to a number of his friends. He gave typical updates on his life, probably of little interest to people who didn’t know him; however, it will fill in gaps for those who did. If you like Harry’s writing style, it’ll entertain you. And, it might encourage you to write a letter or email to old friends. Or, make a phone call.






28 May 1991 
To Friends Everywhere:

I have become one of the laziest people around. Even though I have spent the best years of my life in writing – so many hundreds of thousands of words – and still write a fair amount almost every day, I just can’t seem to find the energy to sit down and write letters. Those of you who send out annual letters, usually but not always around Christmas time, just to keep all your friends up to date on your families and your activities, put me to shame. I never even acknowledge receiving them. It’s not that I don’t love them. I read and reread every word. I enjoy them. I savor them. I just don’t acknowledge them.

Now, suddenly, the pangs of conscience are overwhelming me. The spirit moves me. The urge is upon me. So here I am, trying to put into words the things that have happened to me in the last five years since I retired. Retired from the government, that is, since I have never really fully retired, though I’m getting closer to it all the time. The fact that I will be 70 in a couple of weeks, and the realization that I am mortal, after all, is probably one of the factors that impels me to write this letter – that and a guilty conscience.

I retired in June 1986, at the age of 65, but my replacement, Herb Coleman, who was the Editor at Aviation Week, couldn’t get away from there until October, so I stayed on as a retired annuitant until he came aboard. Then, after lining up financing and people and other things, I started my newsletter, the Defense Media Review, in which I got a chance to do what they would never let me do for publication in the Pentagon (I did it for eyes only for a few selected officials) – namely, I got to comment on media performance in their coverage of national security affairs. I had two very bright young men working with me.

Everything went along swimmingly, as they say, for a couple years. Jeanette and I even got to do some traveling – to Israel in 1987, to Hawaii in 1988 – not as much as she wanted to do, but I still had commitments and deadlines. Then, on August 30, 1988, the day after we got back from a month’s vacation, two weeks in Hawaii and two weeks doing California, I had a heart attack. Well, not exactly a heart attack. It was diagnosed as severe angina, which, technically speaking is a warning signal that a heart attack may be imminent, and you better do something about it.

After an angiogram, which determined that one of the main arteries going to the heart was 90 percent blocked, they decided to do the angioplasty procedure, rather than a bypass operation. In the angioplasty procedure, they simply insert a “balloon” into the artery and press the blockage (cholesterol) against the wall of the artery, thereby clearing the passageway for the flow of blood to the heart. It’s much simpler and easier than a bypass, but it’s not feasible for everyone; it depends on exactly where the blockage is. There is no guarantee, of course, that the blockage will not return. Mine did, some six months or so later. That was in March 1989, just after we got back from a cruise in the Caribbean (six islands in eight days). 

I keep telling Jeanette that traveling can be hazardous to your health. So I got a second angioplasty and, according to the prevailing medical view, the odds are that the second one will last much longer. It’s now a little more than two years later, and it’s still holding, so maybe the doctors are right. Of course, an important element in recovering and staying healthy is exercise – aerobic exercise, to be precise. And, it goes without saying, I really don’t do enough of that.

By the way, an important factor in bringing on heart problems in the first place is smoking. And everybody knows that I smoked too much. In fact, from the time I was fifteen years old until the time I was sixty seven, well over fifty years, I smoked – two to three packs a day. Not only did it help bring about the coronary problem, it also did irreparable damage to my lungs. Looking back on it, it’s hard for me to believe that I was so dumb for so long. Knowing what we know now, it’s idiotic for smokers to continue smoking and it’s moronic for young people to start smoking. Anyway, I quit on August 30, 1988, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and, though I still miss it now and then, I have no real desire to start again.

By the end of 1988, the newsletter was becoming a burden that I didn’t want to carry too much longer. As it happens, shortly after I retired from the government, the College of Communication at Boston University established a Center for Defense Journalism and the Dean of the College invited me to serve on their Advisory Board. He also wanted the Center to start producing a newsletter. What he had in mind was very much like the one I was already producing – a commentary on media coverage of defense matters. So, for a very modest sum that did not involve a profit for me, I sold the newsletter to Boston University. It is now the flagship publication of the Center for Defense Journalism, and I am listed as a Contributing Editor, which means that I write an article now and then for them, and give them some ideas on what I think they ought to write about – all for free, of course.

For money I’ve been doing some free-lance writing and a little consulting for people who want to start newsletters or newspapers. I’m also trying to get into the fiction field, short stories mostly. The trouble is that I’m not hungry enough, as they say in the trade, which means that the motivation to try hard is lacking. Fortunately, you see, my government pension is quite generous, after almost 40 years of service (including Army time in WWII).

Last year I started taking some courses at the University of Maryland. One of the advantages of being over 65 is that you can go to school free here. One course in particular sounded intriguing – a course in modern military history, which starts in 1494 and extends to the present time. I found it fascinating and exciting. Also, humbling. There is so much I don’t know. As it happens, the professor used to work in the Army Historian’s office, and we knew each other slightly. I was truly impressed with the depth and range of knowledge he displayed.

When we got to the WWII era, about which I thought I knew a lot, I displayed my ignorance on occasion. He was very patient with me. Of course, most of the other students didn’t realize how truly ignorant I was. They thought that just because I was there that I knew more than I did. So, like the old saying goes, it’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. I tried to keep my mouth shut most of the time. One thing, though, that really impressed those young people, an attitude that was expressed very well by one when he said:  “You fought in World War II? Wow! My grandfather fought in World War II.”

Nowadays, when I’m out walking with my grandchildren, the young pretty girls never mistake me for their father. It used to be easy to start a conversation with them in the presence of the children, but now they got me pegged. “You must be the grandfather,” they say. I can’t imagine why, since I look as young and handsome as I always did.

That’s about all there is to the continuing story of my life. I’m now tapering off the work ethic and beginning to enjoy the retired life, especially the ability to yield to sudden impulses to take off and go where we want or do what we want.

With love and best wishes to all of you,
HZ

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

Letters to professors shed more light on Harry’s life

Through this blog, I hope that people who knew Harry are learning more about him and keeping him close to their hearts. This is why I share many of the personal emails and letters he wrote to friends and family. Now we can see that even letters he wrote to his professors at the University of Maryland, in the 1990s, add details to the story of his life. Here are five of those letters.


17 October 1991 

Dear Ms. Towner:

I had thought that you would have been told that I was auditing your course when the class began, but it dawned on me that you really didn’t know until you asked and I confirmed it. What that means, according to the instructions they give us when we senior citizens register, is that we should not add to your workload unnecessarily. For me, it means that I don’t volunteer my opinions or impose my biases in class discussions unless called upon – and I frequently have to bite my tongue to refrain from expressing an opinion. It also means that I don’t hand in a lot of papers for you to read and grade. You surely have enough of that to do without me.

It does not mean, however, that I do not take the class seriously. On the contrary, I find it extremely interesting and informative. I have done a great deal of writing over the years, all non-fiction articles, books and essays. Fiction, though, is difficult for me. Such things as motivation, dialogue, characterizations, etc., all the things that emerge in novels and short stories, elude me. You, in this short time since the semester began, have helped me immensely. You have started me thinking and writing about things I’ve not experienced before and I find it stimulating and enjoyable.

Anyway, I want you to know how much I appreciate the opportunity to audit your class, and I want to commend you on the outstanding manner in which you conduct it. It helps, of course, that you have some very bright young students who seem eager to learn, but you are doing a superb job of eliciting their participation, and their response to you is a reflection of your exemplary performance as a teacher.


18 December 1991

Dear Dr. Moss:

I want to tell you how much I enjoyed your course, History 157: The United States From the Civil War to the Present, this past semester. Not only were you extremely informative in your presentations, your lectures were entertaining, as well. Of course, the period from the 1920s to the present is of special interest to me, since it coincides with my life span – so far. You shed new light and brought new perspectives to events in the American experience about which I have personal knowledge.

It is particularly illuminating to note that the great depression of the 1930s was preceded by a decade of Republican (mal) administration, just as the great deficits and recession of the 1990s was preceded by similarly disastrous Republican administrations. Is there a lesson for historians here? In my view, these past two and three quarters administrations have also set the civil rights movement back a generation or more, and not enough note has been taken of this sad development. In any case, I wanted to thank you for having made this a truly interesting and rewarding semester for me.


29 March 1993

Dear Dr. Belz:

I just want to tell you how much I appreciate your course in Constitutional History. As a Golden ID student who is simply auditing this course rather than seeking credits, I find the subject material not only highly informative, but positively fascinating. The older I get, the more I realize how little I know, not just about historical events generally, but about events that have touched me personally and about the times in which I have lived. Take World War II, for example, during which I served in the Army in the European Theater and gained what I thought was a first-hand view of events. It was not until some years after the war, however, after reading a number of books and listening to countless lectures, that I came to some understanding of what that war was all about and the strategies and tactics that governed its conduct.

And so it is with respect to almost all the events I have lived through during the years since then. I have come to the realization that I have a worm’s eye view of history, looking at events from the bottom up, so to speak, while historians like yourself have a bird’s eye view, an overview of events that derives from a systematic study. I have an enormous respect for the depth of knowledge you consistently demonstrate in the classroom, but even more than that, for the manner in which you go about imparting that knowledge to your students, including myself. 

And, in case you sometimes feel like the proverbial voice crying in the wilderness, let me assure you that many of the younger people in the class, the real students, are equally impressed. You are communicating to them. To me, especially, you are bringing new and refreshing perspectives to my understanding of the recent past. I am profoundly grateful for that.


6 March 1994

Dear Dr. Shulman:

I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your lectures. The reason I audit your course on the history of the U.S. from WWII to the present is to learn how a generation twice removed from mine perceives the times I lived through. It’s strange, very strange, to hear these bright young people discuss and evaluate those times and the events that shaped today’s world. In a way I have come to understand the despair that gripped my father’s generation when my friends and I discussed WW I with him and the events that he lived through.

When I talk about WWII today, which is very rare indeed, I find that many historians are little interested. (Historians, by the way, seem to have little interest in history, per se, only in devising new ways to interpret and define the past. All historians are revisionists – which is my generalization for today.) Anyway, I truly admire the way you present and describe events about which I have first-hand knowledge and the perspectives you bring and the pains you take not to allow your own opinions to come through too strongly.

Aside from my military service in WWII, I worked as a civilian in the Pentagon for nearly four decades. The nature of my work, both military and civilian, made it possible for me to meet many of the important figures of our times, which gave me a sort of worm’s eye view of events and policies. When you mentioned Milton Eisenhower in class last week, I was struck by my own recollections about him. You may recall that after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, President Johnson appointed Milton Eisenhower to chair a Commission to study violence in American society. The Commission was supposed to complete its work in six months, but that was not possible. When Nixon became President, he extended the Commission twice, for six months each time.

My office in the Pentagon was deeply involved with Milton Eisenhower in that study for the entire year and a half, and during that time I came to the conclusion that Milton was far brighter and more talented than his younger brother. The fact that President Eisenhower is now slowly creeping up the ladder in the polls proves what I said about historians. They conveniently forget how bad he was. Every time he had a press conference, his press secretary had to go out to explain what the President meant to say – just like Reagan, who knew next to nothing about what was really going on. 

Incidentally, I also knew Allen Dulles and was convinced that he was smarter and more talented than John Foster Dulles, who, in my view, was a terrible Secretary of State. I believe that many of the problems that beset the U.S. throughout the “Cold War” were in large measure attributable to his policies. This is especially true with regard to the Middle East. He practically gave Egypt to the Soviet Union and brought about a full generation of hostility to the U.S. among the Arab states that could have been avoided, with direct impact upon the prospects for peace between those states and Israel. He turned France away from NATO and he also completely destroyed any prospects for peace and stability in the Pacific after Eisenhower engineered a phony peace in Korea (that Korean war, though not many people realize it, is still going on, to this day) and then got us involved in France’s aborted colonial enterprise in Vietnam, from which we are only now beginning to emerge.

Ah well, I voted for Adlai Stevenson, twice, so I’m obviously not in step. But thank you for making life interesting for me.

1 December 1995

Dear Dr. Davidson:

As we approach the end of the semester, I want you to know how much I have enjoyed auditing your course on The Politics of the Presidency. As I pointed out when I asked your permission to attend, I have lived through most of the recent times discussed in class. My earliest recollection of political awareness was the race between Al Smith and Herbert Hoover in 1928. I grew up during the great depression of the1930s, and the first time I voted was in 1942 in the local and Congressional elections. The first time I voted for President was in 1944.

Aside from service in the Army during WWII, I worked for the government (Department of Defense in the Pentagon) from 1949 until I retired in 1986. During those years I met and spoke to every President from Truman to Reagan, all of the Secretaries of Defense and many of the Secretaries of State, participating in briefings on many occasions and participating in preparing the national security elements of Presidential speeches. In short, I was one of those backroom guys who helped prepare position papers, etc., and who had a worm’s eye view of many of the important events of our times and of the key policy makers who controlled and shaped those events. 

Despite my experience, however, the overall view of history as presented by you provided the kind of perspective I never could have attained by myself. I especially admire your low-key and objective view of events, so unlike my own strongly held views and opinions. I have to bite my tongue to restrain from speaking out on so many things you discuss in class, for fear of imposing my own biases on these young students for whom Nixon and even Carter represent ancient history. I also admire your ability to elicit questions and discussions from those young students. 

In any case, I want to thank you for having made this semester not only an informative experience, but an enjoyable one, as well.

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

The media blitz of '86

On Halloween in 1950, Harry walked into the Pentagon to start a career that spanned 36 years. So it's fitting that this Halloween we can see (and hear) his quotes that honored the day he walked out. I remember the excitement when a TV station featured his retirement -- after The Washington Post scooped the story. Now I've discovered that more newspapers ran with the lead. So here's a glance at Harry’s retirement hoopla, which is news to most of his family and friends who follow this blog.

TV news story

On June 3, 1986, “Eyewitness News” interviewed Harry for a segment on WDVM TV in Washington, DC. The clowns in the first scene were his long-time friends who managed a timely surprise! Click here for the video on YouTube. Or you can watch it here (though it may not appear on your mobile device):

Here's the video transcript:

"Early Bird Editor Steps Down"

MAUREEN BUNYAN:  The publisher of one of Washington’s best read dailies and most influential newspapers is stepping down. Harry Zubkoff, editor of the Defense Department’s most popular publication, is calling it quits after nearly four decades. Andrea Roane reports.

ANDREA ROANE:  The atmosphere at the Pentagon is usually much more subdued than this, but an exception was made today for Harry Zubkoff. After 36 years as chief of the Pentagon’s news clipping and analysis service, Zubkoff is retiring. In that position, this man who thinks of himself as just another government clerk served as publisher of the Current News, Early Bird, and other source information for high-level Pentagon officials. In 1950, when Zubkoff started with the Early Bird it was just one or two pages long filled with pertinent news clippings for a half dozen officials. But it has grown substantially over the years.

HARRY ZUBKOFF:  We now clip probably 65 newspapers every day, well over 300 periodicals a month, and we provide literally hundreds of pages of things, clippings, stories, for the people to look at who are in a – are decision makers.

ROANE:  Almost 20,000 people here and abroad read Zubkoff’s Early Bird edition. Defense Secretary Weinberger starts off his day with it. So do the folks in the White House and lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

ZUBKOFF:  What the media are saying about defense policy, strategies, doctrines, programs, weapons acquisitions, everything that they have to take into consideration in the formulation of our national defense policies.

ROANE:  Modestly, Zubkoff believes his stepping down won’t change anything in his department, but his colleagues disagree.

MAN:  Harry is so good. For me he’s a genius, honestly. He’s a tremendous man and very impressive, really very impressive.

ROANE:  Can he be replaced?

WOMAN:  I don’t think so. No. Not in my mind.

ROANE:  In retirement, Zubkoff says he plans to write a book or two. They won’t be the kiss and tell variety about the Defense Department but rather about something he knows very well after 36 years, the media. Andrea Roane, Eyewitness News.


Print news stories

Now for Harry's quotes in three newspapers, with snapshots of seven.

Washington Post, June 1, 1986:  
"Our mission has become incredibly important as the press devotes more and more time and energy to covering national security issues ... ." 

"There are so many things I'm now in the habit of reading that I really cannot relish the prospect of giving them up ... I'll probably wind up spending $1,000 a year on subscriptions." (That explains why he did just that for the rest of his life!) 

"I'm sometimes torn. I often have the feeling that not only I, but almost anybody, could have done a better job than some of the reports I read. I have had the desire to be a commentator -- a columnist or a pundit. I do feel I could add something. But I'm not actively seeking a job and I doubt anyone will invite me. I might write a book, or two, or three. I really have not decided on anything ... I'll be 65 in June. I could stay here forever, probably, but I want to do other things."

Pentagram, June 5, 1986:
"You can always predict what's going to happen ... if you read carefully." 

"The Current News does provide sort of an Inspector General-type 'eye' for the secretary [of defense]. In stories that we pick up, we will call his attention to something that is happening out in the field someplace that may eventually really create a problem. This will often be the first indication that this problem exists. Then, he can call in his staff and say, get me the lowdown on this."  

"There is never a story in any newspaper that is free of errors." 

Army Times, June 16, 1986: 
"I have no doubt, and I've read them all, that the people who cover the Pentagon beat [for the major newspapers] are doing a better job than their counterparts at the White House or the State Department. We have the best reporters in the business."

But the "good information coming out the typewriters" of Pentagon reporters doesn't always show up in the newspapers ... "They don't want to be innovative, to startle their readers, to concentrate a lot of information on subjects that demand it, like military policy and strategy. That might bore their readers, they think. They would rather devote a whole section to style and fashions and gossip and society."

Doubting there will ever be the same kind of consensus toward military operations that existed during World War II, Harry said: "When I was a kid, there were 120 million Americans. Now there are 240 million. It's impossible to obtain more than a modest majority of opinion in favor of anything."

More retirement accolades

Pentagon admirers published a Special Issue of his Current News ...

And created a caricature that featured his reputation as a pilot, poet, and cowboy hat wearer.