>> From the Library of
Congress in Washington, DC.
>> Karen Lloyd: Good evening.
I'm Karen Lloyd, as director
of the Veterans History Project
and as a retired army aviator,
and I'm also the widow, sibling
and child of veterans, I am
so pleased to welcome you,
especially the veterans,
to the Library of Congress.
The Library makes a special
effort this week in particular
to honor and recognize
veterans and their families
and explore the ways military
men and women have connected
to home and family during and
after service from World War I
through the current conflicts.
We are proud to collaborate
with our colleagues
in the publishing office in the
Kluge Center to offer a series
of events titled "Coming
Home: Veterans Day
at the Library of Congress".
Out where the book
sales are occurring,
you will find a handy card.
Handy card, with all
this week's programs,
I ask you to consider coming
back for the ones on Saturday.
Many of which align
with our exhibit
"Echoes of the Great War".
This exhibit examines the
upheaval of the World War
as Americans confronted it,
both at home and abroad.
Located in the Jefferson
Building,
it is compellingly
rendered offering glimpses
of the human condition,
transcendent of time and place,
in part through over
30 collections
from the Veterans
History Project.
Also, please take a copy of the
Library's magazine which focus
in part on the Veterans History
Project and our collections.
The Veterans History
Project provides inspiration
and instruction to foster
nationwide volunteer effort
for individuals to reach out
to the veterans in their lives
and communities and
listen, really listen,
and then donate those
oral histories
in first person narratives of
their veterans from World War I
through the current conflicts.
Veterans like Mr. Reston who
graciously donated his interview
to VHP this afternoon.
And who my esteemed
colleague Betsy Clark--
Becky Clark will share
more about shortly.
Becky?
>> Becky Clark: Thank you Karen.
Before we get started, I
just want to let you know
that we're recording this
for further distribution
on the Library's website
so if you do have a device
that makes noise and can
take a moment of silence,
so we certainly would
appreciate it.
My name is Becky
Brasington Clark.
I'm director of the Library
of Congress Publishing Office
and I'm delighted
to be here tonight.
I want to thank the
Veterans History Project
and the John W. Kluge Center
for hosting this book talk
with James Reston, Jr., author
of "A Rift in the Earth: Art,
Memory and the Fight for
Vietnam War Memorial."
Jim conducted a great
deal of his research
for this book during his
term as a Kluge fellow.
He came to the publishing
office at the suggestion
of Kluge's own, Mary Lou Reker
who's in the audience tonight,
who encouraged Jim to ask
us if we might work with him
to develop his manuscript.
Managing Editor Peggy
Wagner, also in the audience,
shared my opinion that
his proposal looked wildly
promising, and Jim spent the
next few months in our office
as Senior Editor Susan Rayburn,
Editorial Assistant Hannah
Freece, both in the audience,
and Photo Researcher Athena
Angelos, worked with him
to sculpt the work that has
subsequently earned endorsements
from Ken Burns, John Kerry,
John McCain, James Fallows
and Bobbie Ann Mason,
not a bad lineup.
So the other day, I was puzzling
over how best to introduce Jim,
when a college friend
posted on Facebook a photo
from "The Fall of 1980".
There I am, wearing dark
glasses and a funny hat engaged
in some silly doo wop
dance with my buddies
in the hall of our dorm.
We are coffee guzzling
super nerds,
probably taking a
late night break
from the books to
blow off steam.
I can't tell you for certain
because I have absolutely
no memory of this event.
It undoubtedly happened
because there's a picture of it,
but it hasn't been part
of my history before now
because it hadn't-- had
had no place in my memory.
There I was and there it
is, a sliver of my own past,
commemorated in a photo unseen
by me over the ensuing 37 years.
As it turns out, the
competition to design a memorial
to the Vietnam War opened about
a month after that dorky photo
of me was taken and
as you'll discover
in Jim's wonderful new book,
the history of that competition
and the resulting art
wars over the selection
of Maya Lin's design have
also been hidden from view
for the past three decades.
Today, we know the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial is simply the
wall, not just a structure
but a deeply moving experience
that attracts three
million visitors annually.
Many, if not most
of those visitors,
are unaware of the
roiling controversy
that accompanied the
selection of Maya Lin's design
and the fact that
a vigorous campaign
to stop it almost succeeded.
"A Rift in the Earth" uncovers
that history and recounts it
in a vivid narrative that
reflects the difficulty
of honoring those who fought
and died in an unconventional
and deeply unpopular war.
In the process, Jim Reston
forces us to confront some
of the unreliable and
very human dynamics
that shape our perceptions of
reality and history, memory,
perspective, opinion and taste,
the book's greatest
revelation may be
that the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial is the result
of a difficult compromise
a forced marriage
of two very different
artistic visions.
"A Rift in the Earth"
underscores this compromise
as an impulse not of
resignation but of generosity.
Two very different pieces of
art share one public space,
reminding us so many years later
of the importance of making room
for opinions, we neither
understand nor trust.
James Reston, Jr. was an
assistant to Secretary
of the Interior Stewart Udall
before serving in the US Army
in the Vietnam era
from 1965 to 1968.
He is the bestselling
author of 17 books including
"The Conviction of Richard
Nixon: The Untold Story
of the Frost/Nixon Interviews"
which helped inspire
the 2008 film,
Frost/Nixon in which
Jim had a walk-on role.
He's also written three
plays and numerous articles
in "The New Yorker",
"Vanity Fair"
and "The New York
Times" magazine.
He won the Prix Italia and
the Dupont-Columbus Award
for his NPR radio
documentary, "Father Cares:
The Last of Jonestown".
It is a deep pleasure
to introduce Jim Reston.
[ Applause ]
>> James Reston, Jr.: So who
said you can't come home again?
[Laughter] This is
an inside joke
between two North
Carolinians here.
So, this book is totally
a product of the Library
of Congress and how
did it come to be.
Well, two-- more
than two years ago,
I had the idea of
a dual biography.
I had done dual biographies
before, Pete Rose
and Bart Giamatti, Su,
and Richard the Lionheart
and Saladin.
So the form of two competing
figures interested me a lot
and I thought perhaps
this might work.
Beyond that, the whole
matter of reconciliation
after divisive war is something
that is deep in my thinking
over the last 40 years or so.
My first book was a novel
that very much was a
Vietnam generation novel
with all the angst
that that can have.
My first nonfiction book was a
tale of the return of a deserter
from Paris to become
moral test on the morality
or immorality of
the Vietnam War.
And then in 1985, there was
"Sherman's March and Vietnam",
which focused on the
historical parallel
between the post civil war
era and the post Vietnam era.
So, reconciliation is an
enduring passion of mine,
but would anybody be
interested in this old tale
of a memorial in Washington?
My agent was profoundly
disinterested in the whole thing
but then several things
happened along the way.
First, it was that I came to a
lecture here on Martin Luther.
That was the subject of
my book before this one
and there encountered
Mary Lou Reker.
And I told her what was on
my mind and bless her heart,
she said, well, why don't
you come to the Kluge Center
as a visiting fellow
and work on it here.
That was a fabulous invitation.
Because as I started to look
into the treasures that are here
in the Library of Congress,
the 80 or more boxes
of original primary
material for--
from the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial Fund, 1421 submissions
for this incredible commission.
The historical record was so
deep and it had to be ferreted
out in the various divisions
at the Library of Congress
and newspaper divisions
and motion picture,
the recorded sound, the
prints and photographs.
So, this was an absolute gift,
not only of a place to write
but also with these
primary sources right there
at your fingertips.
And then I heard that there was
going to be a documentary come
out about the Vietnam War.
I actually encounter the
adviser at Dartmouth College,
who was an adviser to Ken Burns.
And he asserted that the
Ken Burns' documentary
on the Vietnam War would
exceed the reputation
of Ken Burns' Civil War series.
So I asked a critical
question, well,
when is this documentary
series going to come out.
And he said, well, it
would be two years.
And I thought ah-hah,
that's about the time
that it takes me
to write a book.
And so I'm happy to
report to you that "A Rift
in the Earth" was published the
day before the first segment
of the Ken Burns
documentary series.
That's not so easy to accomplish
as an author, I want
you to know.
So, there were these
nine months or so time
in the wonderful space of the
Kluge Center with Mary Lou
and the other really, very,
very interesting
scholars all around me.
It was perfect working place.
And I ended up with a manuscript
that needed a little
bit of work.
And that's how Becky Clark
came into the picture,
absolutely embracing
this notion.
But beyond that,
offering me more
of these wonderful resources
at the Library of Congress
and absolutely brilliant editor
by the name of Su Rayburn.
A ferocious, ferocious
fact checker and researcher
by the name of Hanna Freece,
a very professional photo
researcher and of course we had
to call down from the 1421
submissions to listening
down to a gallery
of photographs.
So, it took a village and that's
how the manuscript was then
readied for submission
to New York.
And it was certainly a
new experience for our--
my very fine editor in New York
to receive a manuscript that was
so perfect, you know,
that needed very little
editing on his part.
So, that worked very
well indeed.
Now, we are going through this
most extraordinary experience
with this Ken Burns series,
this national reconsideration
of the Vietnam War, the
first American defeat
in its national history
portrayed in such graphic detail
that it is my view that
that war will never again
so graphically chronicled,
the horror, the loss,
the resistance to the war.
And I have done little
bit of talking about this
around the country and when
there are people under 40
in the audience who
hopefully watched a little bit
of the Ken Burns thing, it
seems to me they must think
that the America
that's portrayed
in that series is
something on Mars or Pluto
or something like that.
It is just so far
from the experience
that the current younger
generation has had.
Well, I've been strongly arguing
that there's not one
Vietnam War, but two.
The first began in
1959 and ended in 1975.
The second Vietnam War began
in 1979 and is going on still,
because we're still
fighting over the issues
that the Vietnam War raises,
who is to blame, who
is to blame more?
Was it a dishonorable
enterprise?
Was it immoral or
was it a noble cause?
Was it a dismal mistake or
was it a fine upstanding fight
for a beleaguered small nation
that was being attacked
from elsewhere?
These questions are carrying
on as we speak and will--
I think the resonance of the
Ken Burns serious and the books
about Vietnam that
are published now,
will continue this very
interesting debate that's going
on about what the Vietnam
experience amounted to.
My preoccupation
is my generation.
And the choices that that
generation faced to serve
or to avoid service, to flee
to Canada, to avoid it legally
or in a suspect sort of
way, to get out of it.
So, for all of us, all of us
who face those choices,
it's personal.
It's personal.
Every one of that
generation has a story.
It includes the women
obviously and so,
many of us faced moral dilemmas
in that war and in that era.
My personal decision had
involved three years of service
in army intelligence,
but I would have to say
of my very distinguished
class at the University
of North Carolina, I know of
none who went into the military.
All of them virtually avoided
and now in their older age,
I experience not
infrequently a kind
of quiet guilt amongst those
who avoided it as if, you know,
this was the war
of our generation
and I was not a participant.
The statistics are revealing
26 million men were eligible,
15.4 that is the majority of
those eligible, were deferred,
exempted, disqualified
or avoided it
in some way or another.
Two million were deployed to
Vietnam, 58,000 died as we know,
but what we don't
talk about as much is
that 300,000 were wounded.
There were something
like five million gallons
of Agent Orange dioxin
dumped on that landscape
and 245,000 men have applied for
disability from Agent Orange.
Eight million tons of ordinance
were dropped on Vietnam,
many of that, of those
bombs remain unexploded
and 8,000 Vietnamese
have died from unexploded
or from unexploded
ordinance that exploded
for them including a
number of children,
two million Vietnamese died.
There are no statistics on
how many of those who were
in Vietnam suffer from
psychological difficulties.
There were 50,000 exiles
to Canada and Sweden.
This is the cost of war
for that generation.
So the question that
that generation asks
or either quietly or when they
are confronted, what did you do?
What are you proud of?
What are you sorry for?
What stirs you or
makes you angry?
What do you admire and
what do you deplore?
So, for the women, who
do they sympathize with,
the fighting men or
the resistor or what?
So, this was your generation's
war, did you participate?
So I operated on both
sides of this thing.
I had those three years
in the army by chance.
I was not deployed to
Vietnam, but I happened to run
into a letter that was an
exchange between myself
and the recruiter for army
intelligence back in 1965
who said, yes, we'll be glad
to have you in the program
that you want and then take--
send you to language school
but it'd probably be Vietnamese.
It turned out by
chance to be Japanese.
So that's just with
the luck of the draw.
But those three years gave
me an enduring sympathy
for the soldier,
for the fighting men
in harms way no matter
what the war is.
I then became very
deeply involved
in the whole amnesty movement
for-- it's the Vietnam exiles.
Could they come home?
Under what circumstances
could they come home?
Would they have to admit
that they did something
wrong to come home?
That was the nature of
the original pardons
by Jimmy Carter, was a
pardon and it is at the base
of the concept of pardon that
you have done something wrong
for which you must be pardoned.
That's why the term amnesty
was so important to those
who were trying to
get the exiles home.
So, over two years ago,
I happened on to this remarkable
story that brought these issues
into play in a very fresh
and different way I thought.
It was a drama over
a work of art.
And I had never written
about art before.
It had and has a
fascinating set of characters.
It involves profound
questions about patriotism,
particularly patriotism when
the enterprise is deeply flawed,
possibly immoral, definitely
started under false pretenses,
what is the nature of patriotism
under those circumstances?
It had really rather wonderful
issues of artistic integrity
when someone wins a
competition, will that work
of art be changed in anyway?
Would it be changed
involuntarily?
So there was this intersection
of art and memory and politics
that I felt was really
pretty wonderful.
So there were two emotional
roots for this book.
One was that I was quite
friendly with Frederick Hart,
who was a sculptor
of the three statues
that eventually were placed
in the Vietnam Memorial.
He was a brilliant artist.
And I spent a lot
of time with him
in the 1990s before
he passed away talking
about these controversies
that he had been right
at the center of.
The other emotional root
was that I have a friend
that I served with who is
on the wall and was killed
in the Tet Offensive
in January of 1968.
So those were the
emotional roots of the thing
that really got me going.
Now, where is the page that
I want to read from here?
So, out of this competition that
was very, very professional,
there was this astonishing
winner, Asian-American,
21 years old, knew absolutely
nothing about the Vietnam War.
Indeed, her basic design that
she presented to her class
at Yale University was
profoundly political
and it was an absolute
taboo for the applicants
to this competition that the
submission say anything for
or against the Vietnam
War itself.
Her drawing, which you
can see down in Princeton,
photographs the original panel
that she presented was
really rather elementary
and almost high school-ish.
It was just this
little black chevron
in a wash of oriental blue.
But more important than that
in a way is that it was meant
to below ground, of black
granite with no American flag,
no inscription about
service and duty and courage,
much less about valor
and heroism.
And it was a wonderful
revelation to me as a writer
that what really won her the
competition was not her high
school-ish drawing at all, but
her description of her vision.
And it went like this so,
"Walking through this park-like
area, the memorial appears
as a rift in the earth, a long,
polished, black stone wall,
emerging from and
receding into the earth.
Approaching the memorial, the
ground slopes gently downward
and the low walls
emerging on either side,
growing out of the
earth, extend and converge
at a point below and ahead.
Walking into this grassy
site contained by the walls
of the memorial we
can barely make
out the carved names upon
the memorial's walls.
These names, seemingly infinite
in number, convey the sense
of overwhelming numbers,
while unifying these
individuals into a whole."
That won her the
commission, not her design.
Now, there was a terrific
blowback to this design
that happened sub
rosa instantaneously
but did not really emerge for
another three or four months.
It was spearheaded by a very,
very confident, indeed, eloquent
and tough group of veterans
who absolutely despised
the memorial design.
The leader was Jim Webb,
later senator from Virginia
and briefly presidential
candidate,
along with Ross Perot,
about as tough an adversary
as one could find in America.
And they set out to
scuttle and undermine this.
They asserted that black
was the color of shame
and that it was below ground,
and that it had no inscription
about courage and
duty and honor.
There was no American flag.
And so what they wanted was to
kill it and to have another,
a competition all together
that would be judged
by Vietnam veterans solely
that would be above ground
of white granite, would
have an American flag,
would have an inscription
about honor,
with only Vietnam
veterans as the judges.
Well, this was a ferocious,
vicious four-year art war,
intense and racist and
disgusting in many ways.
And in the midst of it
all was this 21-year-old,
then 22-year-old young
Asian-American woman,
who was just as tough as
Ross Perot or Jim Webb,
and her story is
really quite remarkable.
So here it was, the
design had been chosen
in the most professional way.
Now, there was this blow back
from these very confident
and eloquent veterans who
started to ply the corridors
of Congress to get Congress
people against this who went
to the secretary of the
interior that had his--
had the purview over the
mall where this was supposed
to be built, and the opposition
was absolutely ferocious.
Bills were put in Congress to
insist upon a new competition,
all of this got fought
out in little agency
of the federal government called
the US Commission on Fine Arts.
Well, ultimately,
there was a compromise.
It emerged out of a
congressional meeting
with Senator John Warner
of Virginia presiding.
And in the narrative of that
meeting, probably orchestrated,
somewhere four hours into
the discussion or something,
a general stood up and said,
well, why don't we have a statue
that would go-- a
statue of a soldier
that would be imposed
upon the Maya Lin wall?
Well, to begin with, that
was an absolute violation
of the artistic integrity
of the Maya Lin design,
that was fairly one.
And there preceded this really
quite interesting debate
between the artistic side
and the veterans and Maya Lin
and some of these characters.
Well, ultimately, a statue
was agreed to and my friend,
Frederic Hart, was
asked to do it.
But the question was, what
should the statues look like?
What the general who proposed
this wanted was something
like exists in Fort Benning
in Georgia, which is a leader
of a combat group going up a
hill, follow me, follow me,
and the artistic group
and indeed the one's behind the
statue itself were horrified
at this notion.
How awful would that
be to have some sort
of glorified soldier
imposed upon the 40--
58,000 names of the dead.
Well, Frederick Hart was
under considerable pressure
to do exactly that thing, to
design artistically a sculpture
that would present and
idealized form of the soldier.
But he rejected that
to his great credit.
He rejected the notion that his
statue should have the feeling
of glory or valor or gallantry
and instead, what he was looking
for in the affect of the statues
was youth and camaraderie
and confusion and awe.
Aand some people believe the
way in which he was deferential
to the Maya Lin design was what
saved the memorial to be built.
And here's what he wrote in
a way, his language was just
as eloquent as Maya Lin's had
been in her original vision.
So Hart said about his statues,
"The gesture and expression
of the figures are directed to
the wall affecting an interplay
between the image and metaphor.
The tension between the two
elements creates a resonance
that echoes from
one to the other.
I see the wall as a kind of
ocean, a sea of sacrifice
that is overwhelming and
nearly incomprehensible
in its sweep of names.
I place these figures upon
the shore of that sea,
gazing upon it, standing
vigil before it,
reflecting the human face
of it, the human heart."
Well, I think that was a great
blessing to the whole project
and it then went forward.
Well, the great magic of that
memorial to me is not only
that it's just most successful
war memorial in history.
Really five million
are going a year,
it has influenced
all the building
of war memorials
since that time.
When I was in Vietnam
in December,
I was taken to a cemetery
for North Vietnamese dead
and how is it portrayed?
Black granite with the names
of the fallen, the
individual names.
But there's been an
evolution of this memorial.
It is dynamic.
It moves, it changes.
It began as a veterans memorial
and veterans insist that you use
that term, it's a
Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
But it has transcended a
veterans memorial and it has
in my view transcended
the war in Vietnam itself.
It is a place for all of
the generation of Vietnam,
the soldiers, the combat
soldiers, those who resisted,
those who were exiled.
So it embraces that
whole experience.
It is a Vietnam War Memorial.
So it is a place not
just for warriors
but as much for pacifist.
It has transcended the
specific war itself
and has become a
memorial about all wars.
It has become a place
of contemplation
for all wars almost
spiritual in feel,
a place of reflection
on the cost of war.
That's extraordinary.
Now, we mentioned
reconciliation, some,
perhaps my involvement in the
amnesty movement had a dollop
of atonement in it for
having served in the war
that I didn't believe
in, in the end.
When I was in Vietnam in
December, I encountered a marine
who is spending his life
teaching a high school
in Dong Ha, is that atonement?
There is this incredible fellow,
Chuck Searcy, who was trained
as I was in army intelligence
who's spent the last 20 years
of his life living in Vietnam
and searching or in heading
to search for unexploded
ordinance, is that atonement?
So, this was a time of
conflict of great dissension
within the rest of
almost everybody
who was of age at that time.
I end the book, perhaps this
is a personal reconciliation
within me.
I'm not sure.
I am sitting at a teahouse
beside the Hoan Kiem Lake
in the Old Quarter of Hanoi.
At last, the week
long rain has stopped
and the full moon is
rising through the mist.
I've waited for Dr.
Nguyen [inaudible],
Professor of English, a former
government minister of education
and a veteran of the battles
around Hue and for Bao Ninh,
Ninh is Vietnam's most
famous writer and the author
of an astonishing,
phantasmagoric novel
called "The Sorrow of War".
When it was published
in England in 1993,
The Independent hailed the book
as a masterpiece saying it,
"Vaults over all the
American fiction that came
out of the Vietnam War to take
its place alongside the greatest
war novel of the century."
Eric [inaudible], classic, "All
Quiet on the Western Front."
So, hold on, Dr. Cong Hong
arrived alone apologizing
that he'd been unable to
reach his friend Bao Ninh
who had apparently
dropped out of sight
and had thrown away
his cellphone.
He had had enough
of the taunting
of other Vietnamese
writers who are jealous
of his international fame and
of the Vietnamese government
that had banned his
book for 10 years
and was now denying him
its highest literary prize.
I was only mildly disappointed,
I had heard that despite
his literary mastery,
Bao Ninh in person was
shy and incommunicative.
Dr. Hong, white haired
with an oval brown face,
a general affect and thoughtful
manner had earned a PhD
in Australia and his fluency
was a great relief to me.
I told him I had seen the
shrines, the tunnels of Vinh Moc
and Cu Chi, the museums in
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City,
the heroic statue
of Thich Quang Duc,
the Tiger Cages of
Con Son prison.
If collective fury existed,
it seemed to be more directed
against the Chinese and the
French than the Americans.
Among the people as
far as I could tell,
there was no gloating about
victory over the United States.
Why was it?
I asked eventually, that there's
so little triumphalism
in Vietnam.
For an answer to
that he replied,
you have to go deep
into history.
For a thousand years, the
Chinese invaded Vietnam,
coming every 30 to 50 years
to plunder the country
and make it a vessel state.
Then the French came for 100
years with their arrogant quest
to civilize the country through
their brutal colonialism.
And after they left in 1954,
there was only a brief
respite before you came
to impose your American brand
of freedom and democracy.
You stayed only 15 years.
But why? I persisted,
after all the bombing,
several million deaths,
the poisoning of the land,
was there no more
anger and resentment?
Because, he replied, we fought
the war differently than you.
You measured success by how
many soldiers you killed
and how many weapons you seized.
We lost every battle.
Whenever 30 of us
went out on an ambush,
we were lucky if 15 returned.
Bbut it was never our
intention to defeat you.
Indeed, 1968, the year when your
friend was killed was the worst
year for us.
There were no more soldiers
left and the government had
to scrape the barrel to find
more men like me, students
and women, but we fought only
to make the Americans go away.
Why don't I see images
of valiant,
heroic fighters everywhere?
I asked. Because, he answered,
we do not glorify soldiers.
We remember the suffering
of the women
for their husbands
and their sons.
You will find no rambos here.
We only go to war when
we can't avoid it.
Our patriotism is like
a lump of charcoal.
When it is left alone, it
is dormant and harmless.
If you light it,
it burns very hot.
It can start a big
fire and spread rapidly
until it consumes
a whole forest.
But when it is over,
it is over and we focus
on peace and rebuilding.
He looked out on the lake.
This lake is called
Hoan Kiem, he said
and a legend is associated
with it,
the Legend of the
Returned Sword.
In 1428, a fisherman came here
and from the depths
a tortoise emerged
and handed him a magical
golden sword from heaven.
On his simple wooden handle
was written, to save a nation.
The fisherman became
a great man,
an emperor to defend
Vietnam against the invasion
of Ming Dynasty of China.
After many years, this king
prevailed against Chinese.
After his victory, he returned
here to this lake, magical sword
in hand and a giant
golden tortoise surfaced
from the depths and
snatched it away restoring it
to its divine owners
and leaving the king
with only its wooden handle.
The war was over.
The sword was now useless.
We are proud of this
legend, Dr. Hong said.
Its message is deep in our
culture and our character.
I thanked him for his time and
we parted with a warm handshake
and I watched him
fearlessly navigate
across the busy thoroughfare
through the swarm of motorbikes
without a backward glance.
Thank you.
[Applause] Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
All right.
Anybody want to ask
me a question?
If not-- yes ma'am?
>> Did you have a chance to
meet Maya Lin for your research?
>> James Reston, Jr.:
That's an interesting story.
I have preliminary interchanges
with her by email and it seems
that that was going
to do to be fine.
I actually made a mistake
and went to the wrong place
when she was lecturing
here in Washington
where we were supposed to sort
of begin our relationship.
But as I got more deeply into
this thing and also talked
to people who knew her
very well, it became very,
very clear that even
now, 35 years later,
the whole experience of building
this wall, despite the fact
that it secured her
international fame is a very,
very unpleasant memory for her.
And I-- what I wanted to do
from the literary standpoint was
to put the reader
into that fight
in the early '80s and late '70s.
And I made the decision
that really--
I didn't think that
I wanted to pursue
that relationship with her.
To begin with, it would
be a 35 or 40-year memory
and that's always for the
historian a difficulty.
Bbut beyond that, I-- in
this deep research here
in this wonderful place,
I realize that the
historical record was so rich
that I really could put them
into reader in those years,
'79 and to '84 without her.
So we had a few deflective
emails along the way.
She said very clearly,
she didn't really want
to talk about this.
So the answer is no,
I've never met her.
Yes ma'am.
>> OK.
>> James Reston,
Jr.: You go ahead.
>> My question is, there
are many Vietnam veterans
who will share that they didn't
understand why were they were
there and I do not feel--
I feel badly for them.
Sorry. And from your research
and study and your involvement,
did you feel that our
administration and politicians
at that time adequately
informed the public
as to why we were there?
>> James Reston, Jr.: Absolutely
not in couldn't be more clear
from the Ken Burns documentary
about that very thing
about how much was kept
from the American people
as this thing proceeded
most especially how confused
and bewildered they were about
how this could be brought
to some sort of a successful
conclusion at the same time
that they were asking tens and
tens of thousands of young men
to go and fight for these
totally forgettable hills all
over that country and then
abandoning them and so forth.
So, there is a very complicated,
I think, psychology of those
who have-- who were involved in
the toughest stuff in Vietnam.
We've had some wonderful
literature that has come
out about it, but it's all
fraught with this confusion
about why am I here or why
would-- what am I fighting for?
I was at a conference at
the Wilson Center here
with Ken Burns about three
weeks ago and at one point,
this subject came up and
Burns said, you know,
in the Civil War, a soldier
fought for God, for country,
for region, for town, for
village, for wife, for children.
In Vietnam War, they
fought for one another.
And a general there, General
McCaffrey, talked about going
out to talk to his men
before they went into combat
and this question would come up,
why-- what are you fighting for?
What are we fighting for?
And McCaffrey said in
this Wilson Center thing,
you're fighting-- said to
his troops, you're fighting
for the guy on your right
and the guy on your left.
And I thought, what a
low star is that anyway
to ask a whole generation
to risk their lives for.
So, this is an immensely
complicated era
of American history, but it goes
down from the macrocosm
to the microcosm.
So, yeah, that would
be my answer.
>> I actually have
three questions.
The first one is about
the timeframe, it was--
it's always been my
understanding though
that by the time we got
congressional approval
to global wall and the
dedication in 1982,
it was only two years
but you said it was four?
>> James Reston,
Jr.: I was talking
about the entire art war, as
it's kind-- come to be called.
It'd really begins with
this remarkable character,
Jan Scruggs back
in 1977 with his--
with several op-ed
pieces that he did '77,
'78 and then devoted his
life to this passion.
And then in '79, Jimmy
Carter invites Congress
to make this possible.
And then in 1980, he-- it
gets congressional approval.
So, the competitions comes
in the beginning of 1981,
and the dedications immemorial
is in November of 1982,
but then it is two more years
before Frederick Hart's statues
are in-- are added
to the whole thing.
So that's why I was using
that '79 to '84 timeframe.
>> I see. And in the
discussions involving the--
with many things were said
about the wall during those days
and one of them was that it
was a black gash of shame.
>> James Reston, Jr.: Right.
>> I was wondering if you
ever met General Price in any
of your adventures
with this group?
>> James Reston, Jr.:
No I didn't meet,
but General Price is an
African-American general.
And there is a critical
moment in this very debate
in the Senator Warner
meeting about trying to come
to some sort of compromise
that will save this memorial,
in which the opponents
of Maya Lin keep talking
about this black gash of shame
and Price had enough of it.
And he stood up and he said,
anybody who talks any more
about the color black being
associated with shame,
you come and talk to me.
>> That's right and he's
big [inaudible] booming--
>> James Reston, Jr.: Well,
I wish that I had
heard it personally,
but it's a very dramatic
moment in that whole discussion
and he's at least
from the literature,
a very, very impressive man.
>> Yes, he still is, yeah.
>> James Reston, Jr.: Yes.
>> And my third question
is, in your reference to how
to Vietnam veterans have dealt
with the aftermath of the war,
and what they're doing, whether
it's changing the schools
in Vietnam or whatever course
they have chosen to move on,
you're overwriting, themes
seem to be one of atonement
and I would question that.
I don't know that I think
that's the main emotion
that Vietnam veterans.
I don't think a lot of Vietnam
veterans feel we have anything
to atone for.
>> James Reston, Jr.: Yes.
Well I get it, you're absolutely
right and that's a very--
point, very well taken.
Well, I-- the way I should
have expressed that idea is
that there is a range of
emotions and of course,
there is a great number of
Vietnam veterans who are proud
of their service and had
no cons about anything.
This generation got
sliced and diced.
It got put into segments.
There-- You know, there were the
ones who fought in the combat
and then there were the ones
that were there,
but not in combat.
And then there were
those in those ships,
and then there were people like
me back home that never went
to Vietnam and then and
there were the resistors
and then there the
exiles and so forth.
But even within the group of
Vietnam veterans themselves
that were in the tough stuff,
there is a great
range of emotion.
And atonement is one
of then, one of them.
It is not the dominant one.
It is something that I
have experienced personally
with a number of people, but I
would certainly not represent
and I absolutely agree with you
that this is the
dominant emotion.
>> And along the same
lines, I want to be clear
about what you said about
during the McCaffrey's comment--
>> James Reston, Jr.: Right.
>> -- about they
fought for each other.
>> James Reston, Jr.: Right.
>> And your comment was
that that was a sad--
>> James Reston, Jr.:
Yes, by comparison
to the Civil War story,
I mean, that, you know--
what do young men go to war for?
>> Right.
>> James Reston, Jr.:
And if it's only a sort
of a macho experience and, you
know, you're in tough stuff
and you're just trying to
survive, well every war has
that including the Civil
War, that you're fighting
for you bodies, as well as all
these other things but it's
as if the Vietnam War is
devoid of those, of you know,
if you will more
noble sentiments.
Now and for everybody, now and
for everybody but of, you know,
of noble cause, a just war,
a just cause and it's only
about what's happening
in the battlefield,
there's something missing
there, that's my point.
>> Yeah, well I think,
General McCaffrey's reason
for that statement was because
it was such a difficult conflict
on so many levels but
when you're on the field,
when you're on the situation
where it's life and death,
it does come down to it's
you and your bodies, you--
all they're trying
to do is survive.
>> James Reston, Jr.: I get it.
>> Yeah.
>> James Reston,
Jr.: I do get it
and that's absolutely
true, this for in all wars.
But we're talking here
about a unique experience
in American History, 13-year
war is that America lost,
that is a defeat and we
are still trying to grapple
with how that happened.
And for those who did
participate anything much less,
who participated in the
toughest stuff of all,
there are some pretty profound
questions that come out of that.
>> Sir? Maya Lin made a
brilliant statement in,
I want to say the mid-'80s when
she spoke at The Wall and she--
I think she said maybe, eight
sentences in her presentation
at The Wall and the most
poignant one was I built this
wall for you and she didn't
really have anything more to say
about it [inaudible]
that I leave it to you.
>> James Reston, Jr.: Right,
well who's the audience?
Whom the question is?
Who's the "you"?
And it is my point that
the you is now far expanded
from what the original
or original concept was,
that she was hired by veterans
and it was a veterans
memorial to begin with.
But now, if you go to the wall,
you see these young fathers
and mothers with their small
children that are in their 30s
or something like that,
they're not Vietnam veterans
so what are they thinking about?
They're certainly not thinking
about [inaudible] or any
of that, they are there to
soak up the spiritual feeling
that everybody seems
to experience about war
in general and the cost of war.
And Maya Lin says that
very thing in some
of her statements along the way,
that that's what
The Wall was about.
Was it about the cost of war?
Yes, you had something
you want to--
>> Yeah. Two questions, first of
all, [inaudible] any controversy
about who was included
on The Wall?
>> James Reston, Jr.: Yes.
There is some-- there's
a little--
there's a few who little
anecdotes about that sort
of thing I happened to run into
someone out in my neighborhood
in Bethesda who was involved
with a family that lost someone
in 1958 who was there as
a CIA person and he was--
so he was killed and it
took a congressional action
to get his name on to that wall.
So in that sense, the scope
of the war was widened
from '59 back to '58 or--
but certainly before
'59 so there's that.
Then there's a whole category of
missing in action some of whom
who have been identified
and some were identified
after the engraving took place.
So they've been added
since, right.
Do you have something
else in your mind?
[ Inaudible ]
Yes, well, I would invite you
all, I expect you've all been.
I would invite you
to go multiple times
and this particular question
to look at who's there
and it's not just a
gnarly veteran who is--
got all his medals and
his fatigues on who was
in the Vietnam War
itself, not at all.
I mean, it is the general
population and a great deal
of young people and
the whole thing.
So that's the transformation
of the memorial
into this magical,
spiritual space.
Yes?
>> [Inaudible] in your work,
there was any sort of indication
about not just Maya Lin's
but everyone who was involved
in an evolution from a
stationary to physical construct
of the actual memorial to what
they call the traveling wall
and any interplay iny
our work around that?
>> James Reston, Jr.: I was--
I gave a talk at a
Literary Festival in North--
Western North Carolina about
a month ago and that wall,
that moving wall was coming a
month later to the little town
of Burnsville, North
Carolina above Ashville.
So I know about that
whole thing.
I think Su Rayburn here wanted
me to pay more attention to that
and I sort of avoided
the whole thing.
But that-- Then other just
amazing about the reverberations
of this one piece of art though.
Good, all right.
Ladies and gentleman,
thank you for coming.
[ Applause ]
>> This has been a presentation
of the Library of Congress.
Visits us as loc.gov.