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Joseph Wershba, Early Pioneer ofBroadcast Journalism,One of"Murrow's Boys," Dies atAge 90

Joseph Wershba, one of Murrow's boys, "the old professor," beloved and revered, one of the greats ofAmerican broadcast journalism. A pioneer in early television, a brave and relentless foe of Senator Joseph R.McCarthy during this nation's reign of terror, a founding producer and reporter for 60 Minutes from its incep­tion and for the ensuing two decades, and a newspaper columnist for the old New York Post, his first love.

By Sanford Socolow

How to describe Joe Wershba? "Abear ofa man, an oversized Teddy Bear,"writes Joe Persico. "A non-stop talker ofsprawling interests."

Morley Safer: "Honor, integrity, accep-

Photograph by Lisa Larson

Edward R. Murrow, who stood againstwitchhunt and fear, 1956.

tance of responsibility and ... a decorousdemeanor that could seduce the most re­luctant scoundrels."

Phil Scheffler (executive editor of 60Minutes, now retired): "The most self­confident person I have ever known, cer­tain of who he was and what he was."

Joe's professional life spanned themodern era of broadcast, from radio in

the 1940s until his retirement as a stal­wart producer on 60 Minutes in 1988.When Don Hewitt creator of the broad­cast, convinced CBS to launch the pro-

gram, Joe was one of six producersHewitt recruited to create the tough seg­ments which made the broadcast (and,incidentally, Mike Wallace) so famous.

Few rememberthat Joe, shortly af­ter he started atCBS in 1944, was anon air reporter inWashington, doing adaily interview seg­ment, "People in theNews," on the samelocal TV broadcast"anchored" (theword hadn't beencoined yet) byWalter Cronkite.

But he becamefamous - some onthe other side of thepolitical spectrumwould say "infa­mous" - as one ofthe stalwarts on theEdward R. Murrowteam, followed, ofcourse, by a 20-yearrun at 60 Minuteswhere he workedwith Mike Wallace,Morley Safer andDiane Sawyer.

As a CBS NewsCBS News/50 Minutes

radio writer in the40s, he met Shirley,a junior member ofthe same team, andthey married fouryears later. Their

romance was an episode in GeorgeClooney's film, "Good Night and GoodLuck." Shirley, his muse, lover, wife and

Continued on Page 6

The Second Indochina War: What Could Have Been...By Seymour Topping

Huang Hua, my closest and reveredChinese friend, died on November 24,

2010, at the age of98, and was eulo­gized in Beijing'sBabaoshan Revolu­tionary Cemeteryby President HuJintao for his serviceas a distinguisheddiplomat, foreignminister and VicePremier. His death

Seymour Topping evoked a painful

memory ofan historic episode in which Ibecame involved at his behest. The epi­sode was a forerunner of the SecondIndochina War involving the United States.If what transpired then had taken a dif­ferent turn, the Vietnam tragedy mighthave been averted.

My involvement began in Geneva onthe morning ofJuly 18, 1954 with a tele­phone call from Huang Hua summoningme to meet with him immediately. I was President Dwight D. Eisenhower with U.S. Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, 1956.

then with the Associated Press cov­ering the Geneva Conference onVietnam and Huang Hua was thedeputy to Premier Zhou Enlai, headof the Chinese Communist delega­tion. Atthatjuncture, the conferenceon the future of Vietnam was atstalemate with the fear prevalentthat the French Indochina War mightexpand into a nuclear conflict involv­ing the major powers. The greatFrench fort at Dien Bien Phu wasencircled by Ho Chi Minh's divi­sions and on the verge of collapse.President Eisenhower was contem­plating relieving the French garrisonwith an air strike of 200 Navyplanes. Off the Vietnamese coastAmerican aircraft carriers armedwith nuclear weapons had been puton alert. When I went to meetHuang Hua in his hotel room Tdidnot realize that a high stakes gamewas about to be played out that af­ternoon at the negotiating table in­volving the United States, Britain,France, the Soviet Union and China.

I first became friendly withContinued on Page 3

PAGE 2 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2012

Photograph by Bill Powers

Seaman Dennis Duggan hangs on for dear life as the boat jolts and lurches in one ofthe River Shannon locks. Jack Deacy, cup <iteain hand, looks on.

On River ShannonBy Jack Deacy

NEWYORKEarly in 1971 when I was a contribut­

ing editor at the still young New YorkMagazine, I made editor Clay Felker anoffer he didn't refuse: devote an entireissue to the Irish-American communityfor St. Patrick's Day. I put together theissue - "Notes On The New Irish"­which featured pieces by Pete Hamill, JoeFlaherty, Dennis Duggan, Gail Sheehy andmyself.

It was a good issue and sold well. Af­ter it appeared, the Irish Tourist Boardmade Dennis Duggan and me an offerwe could not refuse. They would fly usand three other journalists to Ireland, putus up in Dublin, then provide us with anEmerald Line Cruiser that we would saildown the River Shannon. An Irish junket.

Our recruiting station to sign up a crewwas the Lion's Head tavern in the Villagewhere Duggan and I regularly took re­freshment. In short order, Nick Browne,an author and Village Voice writer, andfreelance magazine photographer BillyPowers signed on. It was also our verygood fortune that poet Paul Schiffman,another Lion's Head regular, was puttingin his papers after 25 years as a Mer­chant Mariner, ending his career as a fullMaster (Captain! !). We made him anoffer he couldn't refuse. Now we had areal Captain, a professional man of thesea who could steer a boat. On a Thurs­day evening in mid September, Duggan,Powers, Schiffman and Deacy met at theLion's Head for drinks. Amid applauseand great envy, we got into a checker cabto JFK and got on the flight to Dublin.Nick Browne was in Paris covering theArc de Triomphe horserace - the FrenchKentucky Derby - and would meet us inDublin.

DUBLINAt Dublin Airport we were welcomed

graciously by a Tourist Board official. Sheled us out to a waiting motorcar: a classic1950 silver grey Damlier with long curv­ing fenders that resembled waves break­ing. The driver was an impressive fellowin a tailored grey chauffeur's uniform andcap. This was probably the car that car­ried De Gaulle years before.

A deadpan Duggan looked at the tour­ist board rep: "The car is good. But where

is the welcoming pipe band?"The Damlier pulled up in front of the

Shelburne Hotel, the grand old dame ofIrish hotels. We checked in and agreedto meet at seven o'clock in the hotel'sHorseshoe Bar. There we were to meettwo gentlemen from Irish Distillers, thefirm dear to our hearts that produced ev­ery drop of whiskey on the island. Theywere to be our official escorts in Dublin.

The Ireland of 1971 was still largely apoor country, struggling economically, withhigh unemployment and young men andwomen emigrating to look for work else­where. Above in Northern Ireland thesecond year of a brutal guerilla war wasunderway that would last for three de­cades more at a cost ofalmost 4,000 lives.Ireland was also in the fourth month ofanational bank strike - a strike called bybank managers, unionized management.Every bank in the country shut tight for120 days and counting. But as we wereto learn, you could cash a check almostanywhere.

Among the turmoil and trouble, thereseemed on the streets ofDublin and laterout in the country a kind ofmerriment andcontentment, almost a sense of optimismamong this nation of poets, bank manag­ers, storytellers, talkers, farmers, priests,drinkers and dreamers whose unyieldingmantra was: "It could be worse."

As for the visiting Yanks, guests of thenation, the next few days could not havebeen better. Our escorts, Patrick and John(their last names forgotten over the years)laid Dublin at our feet. To begin, a glori­ous sun-drenched afternoon at the small,charming racetrack (now gone) in Phoe­nix Park where we played the horses, anddrank champagne at the outdoor Cham­pagne Bar with Tom Clancy ofthe ClancyBrothers and his wife Joan, two old friendsfrom the Lion's Head. A lunch at a lodgein Wicklow Mountains, drinks atO'Donoghue's Pub where the traditionalmusic greats ofIreland drank and played.,a walkabout retracing the steps of LeopoldBloom in James Joyce's Ulysses.

Then on Sunday morning in the hotel,a surprise meeting and talk with the greatactor George Sanders who told us howvery depressed he was. We tried to con­vince him to come with us on Sunday af­ternoon to the All-Ireland Hurling final inCroke Park where we would be amongthe 90,000 cheering fans who sawKilkenny defeat Tipperary. Billy Powerssaid to him: "Mr. Sanders, come with us,it will do you good. It will lift your spir­its." He declined our offer. The game wasexciting and we had a big farewell dinnerin the Saddle Room in the hotel on ourlast night in Dublin. We actually paid thetab. But we would read less than a yearlater that Sanders would be dead, a sui­cide note beside him: "I am bored. I mustgo now."

CARRICK-ON-SHANNONOn Monday morning, we had to arise

and go now and go by railway to Carrick­on-Shannon in County Leitrim in West ofIreland. In the early afternoon we

Continued on Page 4

the mid 60's where The Band's mem­bers had hung out, I knew their music, Iknew which Band member had killed him­self and which had died of an overdose.

My interest was Helm's financialproblems. Both Helm and the Band'sorganist, Garth Hudson, had almost losttheir homes because of non-payment oftaxes. I had interviewed Hudson a weekbefore I went to talk to Helm and thefact that I still remained in the businesswas proof of just how desperate I wasfor health insurance. Hudson didn't an­swer questions for several minutes or atall and when he did he replied in what Ishall generously describe as parables. Iam paraphrasing here, but it went some­thing like this.

Me: Garth, you almost lost your house,but at the last minute someone bailed youout. You must be feeling pretty good aboutthis.

A long pause during which life is dis­covered on Mars; an ice age threatensWoodstock, getting as far as West Shokan,then withdraws; I die and having learnednothing from my previous life am rebornas a feature writer.

Hudson: Well, I'll tell ya. I playa lotbetter with my left hand now than I did

Continued on Page 3

the halls of the Plaza as the son ofa NewYork politician screamed, "I PISS on TheWashington Post" or being frozen out bythe crew on a sailing ship in New Zealandwhere they were doing a remake of"Mu­tiny on The Bounty" because the star hada screaming fit about that bitch from NewYork. Actually, he was alleged to haveused a much uglier word than bitch. No,no, don't ask who it was I couldn't possi­bly tell you. Oh, all right, Mel Gibson. Onthe plus side, he wasn't anti-Semitic.

Eventually, however, I got the knackof the interview. If I was talking to theguy who got shot out ofthe cannon at thecircus, I slipped into the cannon to get thefeel. (Dumb, dumb, dumb, had the thingfired it could have cut me in two.) If thesubject was an animal trainer, I rode theelephant. (Bonus reportorial tip: Alwaysbe extra nice to the elephants. A humanhates you; the worst you will suffer is ascreaming phone call from the publicist.The elephant hates you; you will be aheadline in The Daily News.)

So, when I had an assignment to go upto Woodstock to interview Levon Helm,the former guitarist and vocalist from thegreat 60's group, The Band, about 12years ago, I was confident I was ready. Ihad grown up not far from Woodstock in

Photograph by Elliot Ludy

American rock multi-instrumentalist andvocalist, Levon Helm.

questions involving murder raps or mari­tal tensions for last, which is why youonce could have seen me sprinting down

Rocker Levon Helm

Every now and then somebody chasesme down to talk to their journalism classabout writing profiles and since this givesme the opportunity to get to a young re­porter before some editor does, drainingevery ounce of creative juice and origi­nality and delight out of their bodies andleaving them an empty, beaten, health in­surance dependent shell, much like my­self, I usually say yes.

Kiddies, I say, essential to getting asubject to spill their guts is establishingtrust. One does this many ways: showinginterest in what interests the subject, feign­ing sincerity, mastering a range of wordsand sounds along the lines of"Wow! No!You don't say! That is so interesting!Oooh! Aaaah! "It may seem daunting, Isay, but if you have ever been on a blinddate with a person who appears mostlydead but you want to sleep with anyway,faking sincerity is a skill you already pos­sess. You've feigned orgasm? You areready for a career in journalism.

True, I was not always aware of allthis as I traipsed gaily out into my jour­nalism career. Nobody told me to save

The Nearly Naked InterviewBy Joyce Wadler

MARCH 2012 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 3

Eisenhower'sVietnamContinued from Page 1Huang Hua in Beijing (then named Pe­king) shortly after my arrival in China in1946. He was then the spokesman ofthe Communist branch of ExecutiveHeadquarters, the truce organization setup by General George Marshall, Presi-

Xinhua. com

Huang Hua, Chinese statesman, early Com­munist revolutionary, deputy to PremierZhou Enlai, who served as president of theUnited Nations Security Council, (1972), andsought to restore diplomatic relations withthe United States as China's foreign minis­ter in the 1970s and early 80s.

dent Truman's envoy, in the effort to bringabout a ceasefire in the civil war be­tween Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai­shek. In 1936 Huang Hua has been thetranslator for Edgar Snow, author of theclassic Red Star Over China, during theAmerican's interview with Mao inYenan, the isolated Communist base inWestern China.. Huang Hua's trust inme was such that in November of 1946,he arranged for me to fly to Yenan, thenblockaded by Chiang Kai-shek's troops,to meet with Chinese Communist lead­ers.

Huang Hua greeted me warmly whenI entered his Geneva hotel room, but Icould see that he was very tense andagitated. We discussed the conferencefor two hours and it soon became obvi­ous that the Chinese wanted me to actas an intermediary in getting a quickmessage to the American delegation.There were no diplomatic or other con­tacts between the Chinese and Ameri-

Capt. UnderpantsContinued from Page 2seven years ago.

Interviewing him was one miserableslog. Happily, I was accompanied by aphotographer, Chris Maynard, a man offew words, though not so few as Hudson,and when Hudson left us for a spell, hemade one of those corkscrew motionsat the side of his head you learn in sec­ond grade, then spoke the three littlewords a reporter cannot hear oftenenough when an interview has gonesouth.

"It's not you," he said.A week later I drove back up to the

country to interview Levon, who wasmarried and living in a barn-like house inWoodstock. He'd had a bout of throatcancer a year or two earlier but he wasas chatty as Hudson was withdrawn. Hetalked about losing his money to drugs;about the record companies he felt hadcheated him; about his former band-

can delegations. Typically, at the open­ing reception of the conference, JohnFoster Dulles, the u.S. Secretary ofState, had upon arrival turned his backand refused to shake the extended handofZhou Enlai, which the premier offeredin greeting. What Huang Hua asked meto do was write a dispatch for the AP onthe Chinese negotiating position and givea copy to the American delegation. Thedispatch would convey to the Americanside that China was prepared to sign aVietnam peace agreement, alreadyagreed upon by Britain and France inprinciple, which would provide for aceasefire based on partition of Vietnampending a plebiscite on unification. Thedraft agreement was to be discussed ata meeting of the major powers in theafternoon.

I agreed to what Huang Hua pro­posed, wrote my dispatch, filed it, andgave a copy to the American delega­tion. As recorded in the Pentagon Pa­pers, Bedell Smith, the head of theAmerican delegation, sent a copy ofmydispatch to Dulles, who had left the con­ference for Washington, describing itscontents as "extremely significant." .

When the conference delegations metthat afternoon, an agreement was arrivedat calling for general elections on unifi­cation of Vietnam after a ceasefire de­lay oftwo years. Prodded by China andthe Soviet Union, who were apprehen­sive of a wider war, the Vietminh del­egation reluctantly agreed on an interimpartition of Vietnam at the SeventeenthParallel instead ofthe Thirteenth Paral-

Zhou Enlai, the first Premier of the People'sRepublic of China serving from 1949 untilhis death in 1976. Zhou served under MaoZedong and was instrumental in consoli­dating the control ofthe Communist Party'sformidable rise to power.

mate Robbie Robertson, the one decentbusinessman in the group as far as Icould see, who was living in L.A., scor­ing movies, who Levon felt had rippedhim off, too.

It was a humid August day and at onepoint Levon suggested I kick off myshoes and take a walk to his lake.Naturally - take an interest in theirinterests -1 did. It was a nice enoughlake, but very buggy, so after a little'Oooh, aaah, great lake, sweet prop­erty, gee whiz, trees and everything?'I cut it short. It wasn't until two hoursafter I had left Levon 's that I realizedthat I was scratching my legs not be­cause of bugs, but because of poisonivy. Within 48 hours they were cov­ered with great oozing sores. It tooka course of oral antibiotics to clearthem up, but I was so grateful thatLevon had been a great talker I didn'thold it against him, even when Ilearned someone else had gotten awicked case of poison ivy on his land

leI which would have conformed moreclosely to the territory, consisting ofaboutthree-quarters of the country, actuallyheld by Hanoi's troops. However, herewas a major hitch in the negotiationswhich later would impede full implemen­tation of the pact. Huang Hua had toldme that as a condition of China's accep­tance of the pact, the United States mustput its stamp of approval on it. "We be­lieve." he said," that the U.S. as a mem­ber of the Conference should and is ob­ligated to subscribe to and guarantee anysettlement. Morally, there is no reasonfor the U.S. to avoid this obligation."However, Dulles refused to sign theagreement because it would imply rec­ognition ofCommunist sovereignty overregions that were at the time militarilyunder Hanoi's control. Dulles offeredinstead a unilateral statement of Ameri­can association with the accords, speci­fying simply that it would serve to bringabout peace in Indochina. The Chinesereluctantly accepted the qualified Ameri­can position.

In Vietnam, when the time arrived inJuly 1956 for the national plebiscite onreunification, Ngo Dinh Diem, who hadbecome premier of the Saigon govern­ment shortly before the Geneva Confer­ence, refused to go through with it. Heheld that South Vietnam was not boundby the Geneva accords since his govern­ment, like the United States, had notsigned it, and that a free vote was im­possible in Communist-controlled NorthVietnam. He held to that position althoughthe Geneva accords stipulated that the

Ho Chi Minh, president of the DemocraticRepublic of Vietnam [North Vietnam], a keyfigure in the decades long struggle forVietnamese independence, bringing theFrench to their knees at Dien Bien Phu in1954.

so he had to have known it was there.About a week later, I was heading

up to Woodstock again and since I hada few more questions for Levon, I madean appointment to drop in and see himagain. He came out to meet me, wear­ing only a pair of faded, navy blue un­derpants. The name on the band wasCalvin Klein. You notice things like thatwhen a guy is wearing only his under­wear. Also that even in rock 'n roll, timetakes a toll.

Levon said nothing about why he wasdressed only in underpants and notwishing to be uncool with a guy whohad played with Bob Dylan I did notbring it up. It certainly wasn't a seduc­tion move, there was none of that vibeabout it, his wife was in the house, andthe 60's were over. We sat in hisscreened in porch, stacked with cratesof empty Coca Cola bottles, and dis­cussed heroin and getting ripped offandI thought about the gorilla in the middleof the room and what a wuss I was

plebiscite was to be conducted under in­ternational supervision. Washington gavetacit support to the position taken by Diemby advising him to postpone the electionsas long as possible, although the UnitedStates had pledged to respect the Genevaagreement. At this impasse, the Vietconginsurgency backed by Hanoi in SouthVietnam reignited and the United Statesincreased its support ofSaigon's militaryforces. It was the beginning ofAmerica'sVietnam War. Following the breakdownof a ceasefire concluded in Paris onJanuary 17, 1973, by Henry Kissingerwith Le Duc Tho, the North Vietnameseenvoy, fighting erupted along the line de­marcation between opposing Vietnam­ese forces. Saigon fell to the North Viet­nameseArmy on April 30, 1975.

In my view, as well as that held byHuang Hua, if Dulles had signed theGeneva agreement and the United Stateshad thereafter insisted that Diem com­ply with its requirement for general elec­tions in 1956 under international super­vision, the second Vietnam war mighthave been averted. Given the popularityofHo Chi Minh, if the plebiscite had infact taken place, he almost certainlywould have succeeded to the presidencyof a unified Vietnam. This explains thereluctance of both Ngo Dinh Diem andthe Eisenhower Administration to go for­ward with the plebiscite.

As for how the Great Powers' gamein Geneva did actually play out: In 1954,in Hanoi, then capital ofembattled NorthVietnam, Ho Chi Minh was appointedpresident of the Democratic Republic ofVietnam and continued to serve as suchuntil his death in 1969, never to witnessthe unification of his country followingthe decisive military victory of the NorthVietnamese army in 1975. As for the"Domino Theory" put forward by Presi­dent Eisenhower, and his Secretary ofState, John Foster Dulles, contending thatemergence of a Communist Vietnamcould bring about Communist control ofall Southeast Asia: Of course, it neverhappened.

Seymour Topping opened the SaigonBureau of the AP in February 1950becoming the first American corre­spondent to be stationed in Indochina.He joined the New York Times in 1959and served as a correspondentabroad, foreign editor and managingeditor. Elements of this article werepublished in the author s recent book:"On the Front Lines of the Cold War,An American Correspondent s Journalfrom the Chinese Civil War, to theCuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam. "

being and finally, as casually as 1could,I asked Levon what I still feel was oneofthe most penetrating questions ofmycareer. I still wish 'Sixty Minutes' hadbeen there to capture it.

"Levon," I said, "Why are you doingthis interview in your underwear?"

His answer didn't rise to the samelevel. It also didn't make any sense, con­sidering we were sitting in a screenedin porch: His doctor had told him it wouldbe good for his health to get some sun,he said.

But giving the matter much thought,later, I decided that as so often is thecase, the subject's words were not asrelevant as his actions. The man hadfelt comfortable enough with me to doan interview in his underwear. I had es­tablished trust.

Joyce Wadler is at work on herjournalism memoir, "It Was Over WhenI Got There, " or will be as soon assomeone gives her money to write it.

PAGE 4 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2012

The Pipes Are Calling

Photograph by Bill Powers

Four hats in search of an Irish taxi: From left, Nick Browne ofthe Village Voice, Dennis Duggan of Newsday, Jack Deacy of New YorkMagazine, and Captain and poet, Paul Schiffman. Photo taken by Billy Powers of Time magazine, the unseen fifth member ofthe crew.

Photograph by Melissa Bellinelli

Left to right, David Tereshchuk, documentarian, broadcast, printand internet journalist, and his three memoirists: Mary Karr,Malachy McCourt and Sir Harold Evans.

The Memoir's The Thing

Continued from Page 2

boarded our 30 foot cruiser, claimed ourrooms on board, took a short instructioncruise with a man from the Emerald Linewho had very little to do in breaking inCaptain Schiffman and then provisionedup in town. The crew got assignments:able seamen Duggan, Deacy and Pow­ers were to handle the lines, the Captainand First Mate Browne would be on thebridge. In town we had a fresh salmondinner and drinks and bottles of wine atthe gracious old world Bush Hotel. Lateron board we opened a bottle of JamesonRedbreast Irish whiskey and toasted Ire­land and all who belonged to her. Wetoasted the River Shannon and all the fishwho swam in her waters. Many toaststhere were and songs, poems, stories andsea tunes played by the Captain on hisharmonica. We were happy boys in men'sbodies, ready and eager to cruise theRiver Shannon.

ON THE RIVERThe Shannon River, longest in the Brit­

ish Isles, has its source at Shannon Pot inthe mountains of County Cavan. It be­gins as a small trout stream then widensand descends, meanders south for 244miles through seven counties, many lakesand locks, through villages and town, be­fore emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.

The river is largely shallow, peaceful,serene. Over the next five days we wouldfirst swing north to Lough Kee and theruined Rockingham estate, then south toRooskey, onto Athlone, across LoughDerg into Portumna, then across LoughRee and into Killaloe, our destination.Blessed with days of sunny, warmweather this rain soaked island had notseen in years, we cruised by open fieldswhere farmers were saving the hay, bypatches offuchsia hedges with red bloodblossoms, by rolling hillocks marked withyellow gorse, cruising by green mead­ows with lumbering cows, grazing sheep,majestic horses and among them donkeyswith sad faces and the sign of the cross

Society of the SiluriansOfficers 2012-2013

PresidentTONYGUIDA

First Vice-PresidentHERBERT HADAD

Second Vice-PresidentGARY PAUL GATES

SecretaryJOAN SIEGEL

TreasurerMORT SHEINMAN

Board of GovernorsLEO MEINDLGOVERNOR EMERITUSLINDA AMSTERBETSY ASHTONIRABERKOWEVE BERLINERJERRY ESKENAZIALLAN DODDS FRANKRICKI FULMANLINDA GOETZ HOLMESMYRON KANDELBERNARD KIRSCHROBERT D. McFADDENBEN PATRUSKY

Committee Chairpersons

AwardsEVE BERLINER

DinnerMORT SHEINMAN

LegalKEN FISHER

MembershipMORT SHEINMAN

NominatingMYRON KANDEL

Silurian Contingency Fund TrusteesLARRY FRIEDMAN.CHAIRNAT BRANDTJOY COOKMARK LIEBERMANMARTIN j. STEADMAN

Silurian NewsEVE BERLINER, EDITOR

on their backs. There was a timeless qual­ity on the river.

On board all was not pastoral. For trav­eling with Dennis Duggan is to be a sup­porting player in his musical comedy viewof life. On board he was dispensing laugh­ter, spreadingjoy and high spirits. From dayone, he kept in character, this time playingthe feverish eyed,jaw chomping, growlingrole of Robert Newton as Long John Sil­ver. "Arrrr Captain, Master Jackie is in-

By David Tereshchuk

There's this thing about journalists.They get to a certain point in their ca­

reer when some (all right, let's be honest­many) feel they should be writing a mem­oir.

In close to his last days as executiveeditor of The New York Times, an unusu­ally querulous Bill Keller infamously causedructions by complaining about how manyof his staff were now authors. And it willcome as no surprise that a substantial pro­portion ofjournalists' books (certainly those

terfering with himself in the bow. Giveme rum captain."

Or: "Arrrr Captain, First MateBrowne, he bruised the port this morn­ing captain.

More grub for me captain." We allplayed our parts.

ROOSKEYDownstream we docked in the vil­

lage of Rooskey, wandered along itsmain street seeking food and drink.

of older - or moredelicately "veteran"- journalists like myfellow Silurians) aretaking the form ofpersonal memoiring.

For us it's prob­ably hard not to thinkthat our life-experi­ence has been espe­cially interesting ­why else did we gointo journalism in thefirst place, after all?And we're commu­nicators by profes­sion and outlook.

The book industryencourages us, too.As a publishinggenre the personalmemoir, since its re-markable upward

spike in the mid-1990s with FrankMcCourt's "Angela's Ashes," MaryKarr's "The Liars' Club" and their in­numerable successors and imitators, hasclearly become a mainstay ofthe busi­ness.

Just a cursory examination, con­ducted for the month in which I writethis, of the New York Times best-sellerlists, and I surveyed both e-book andhard-copy categories, shows that mem­oirs - whose authors range for instancefrom a TV comedienne, to a NFL quar­terback, to a Navy Seal, and yes, to a

Barking dogs were about but no sign ofpeople. Rooskey appeared to be com­pletely asleep. Then an old woman ap­peared.

Browne said: "Good evening ma'am,could you tell us where everyone is?"

"They're in church at services," shesaid. "You lads should be there too."

We walked on, then saw the big signon the road out of town:

Continued on Page 6

journalist noted for his atheism and nowrecently passed away - are an inescap­ably dominant presence.

So to gain some tips for a writer con­templating on how to set about tacklingthe genre, I turned to three people whoreally should knOw.

I got together with Mary Karr herself(who since her first blockbuster has alsoadded Cherry and Lit to her evolving lifestory on the page) and with MalachyMcCourt (Frank's younger brother, ofcourse, and author in his own right oftwo memoirs, "A Monk Swimming" and"Singing my Him Song" ... oh, and a Si­lurian too. He's become known in Man­hattanjournalism for his columnizing inthe West Side Spirit.) We were joinedby a relative newcomer to this territory,Sir Harold Evans - the legendary editorof England's Northern Echo, the Lon­don Times and for much longer the Sun­day Times) and later a publisher - run­ning Random House, where he commis­sioned and approved many a memoirduring seven years as the imprint's Presi­dent.

As an author himself, Sir Harry hasmostly been known for his popular stud­ies of American history, but in a recentshift, he joined the crowded field and putout his own personal tale, "My PaperChase."

For myself I've harbored some deep­seated reservations about the idea ofwriting a memoir, and I suspect it comesout of being a journalist. Like many ofus I've spent a sizable slice of my lifereporting - I hope thoroughly and objec-

Continued on Page 5

MARCH 2012 SILURIAN NEWS PAGE 5

Ellis Clary Clayton Moore Frank Buckles Irene Morgan Kirkaldy Sammy Baugh Dr. Samuel Mudd George Kissell

The Obituary WriterBy Richard Goldstein

A fragile, elderly man is introduced toa fellow guest at a cocktail party by awoman who seems to be keeping him up­right: "Mr. Stephenson is the subject ofawidely anticipated obituary."

It's one of my favorite New Yorkercartoons, drawn by Paul Noth.

For the past 12 years, I've been writ­ing advance obituaries for The New YorkTimes on the Mr. Stephensons of theworld as well as doing "spot" obits forthe newly departed.

Telling someone that you write obitu­aries often brings a chuckle, which I taketo be an uncomfortable concession to thefact that all of us are simply, as someoneonce said, the "temporarily living." Some­times a person ofmodest accomplishmentwill say, "I hope you won't be writing myobit soon." I usually reply, "Don't worry,you look great."

I prefer that to advising, "Quite hon­estly, you'd be best advised to have yourfamily put in a paid death notice."

But Times obits often do celebrate thelives of people whose names may notmean much to most readers but who in­fluenced their callings or simply lived afascinating life.

I wrote the Times's obit on GeorgeSteinbrenner, but I also reprised the lifeof George Kissell, a professor of base­ball, so to speak, who never played in themajor leagues but taught the game as acoach and instructor for generations ofSt. Louis Cardinal players. I relish writ­ing about these baseball "lifers." I told ofEllis Clary, a so-so major league infielderof the 1940's but a celebrated wit in thebaseball world. While working as a scoutlong after his playing days, he was strickenby a severe heart attack in Mobile andrushed to a hospital. When he got there,

Art ofMemoirContinued from Page 4tively - on the activities ofother people,individuals ofpublic importance or whoseactions have public significance. An im­mediate doubt loomed up - why wouldanyone be the slightest bit interested inmy own life?

Mary was reassuring, albeit in a con­trary kind of a way. She told the rest ofus in essence that memoiring had a valueof its own that's quite different from ­indeed, in utter opposition to ­journalism's oft-claimed objectivity.Moreover, she said that by writing a per­sonal memoir we are meeting a particu­lar contemporary need.

"It's a time when the subjective hasgained such authority because there's somuch lack ofconfidence in our churches,in our politicians, that in some ways weno longer have an objective sense ofhis­tory, or an objective sense ofwhat's rightor wrong ... And I think people are lonely,and when they read a first person narra­tive they have a sense ofconnection, be­cause whoever's writing wi II be emotion­ally invested in what they're writingabout."

That emotional investment, ofcourse,carries its own challenges. Malachy was

he asked that the ambulance mileage forthe trip be written down so he could list iton his meager expense account.

I wrote the obit on Sammy Baugh, oneofpro football's greatest quarterbacks, butI also wrote about Sam Dana, the foot­ball player who died twice.

The National Football League's offi­cial encyclopedia listed Dana as havingdied on July 7, 1969, identifying him asSam Salemi, his given name, a player forthe old New York Yankees team of theN.F.L. in 1928. Dana, who changed hisname from Salemi in 1945 (he said itsounded too much like salami), had beenconfused by the encyclopedia mavens withanother Sam Salemi - not a football player- who died in '69.

The error was eventually discovered,and Dana was honored by the Pro Foot­ball Hall of Fame on his 100th birthday.When he died four years later, he wasthe oldest surviving N.F.L. player, a manwhose story I was eager to tell.

I try to relate what made my subjectsthe persons they were. Or, as 1posed it inmy obituary on Clayton Moore: "Whowas that masked man?"

I found that Jack Clayton Moore be­came enthralled by cowboy heroes whenhe watched Tom Mix and William S. Hartin Saturday afternoon serials in his nativeChicago. He yearned to become a show­biz hero, and while he was mostly remem­bered as the Lone Ranger of early 1950stelevision, I found that Moore was an ob­sessive/compulsive sort. He also playedthe Lone Ranger in the movies, at rodeos,in shopping malls and even in a pizza com­mercial.

I'm intrigued by people whose livesevoke an era or who waged crusadesagainst the odds. Here are three of themwhose obits I wrote:

• Frank Buckles was old enough tohave seen veterans ofthe 1850s CrimeanWar snap to attention at a military review

very blunt when offering advice to awould-be memoirist. First, he said, "Iwrote about that which shamed me. Andthe next thing, I wrote about those thingsthat make me absolutely furious and an­gry. And number three, write about thatwhich you are passionate about that ispositive."

These formulations were not the mem­oir itself, Malachy was at pains to clarify,but they could be a valuable prelude tocreating the actual work. "The first one,shame; you can write it, and put it aside.Once you get it out of your system itclears the path." One's anger and one'spositive passions, he went on, turn intovaluable material to work with. (And ofcourse, one can return to shame and workon that too, if you regard it as an impor­tant part of the story being told.)

Sir Harry summed it up this way, ex­plaining that he had been exhausted byhis grand expositional tomes "The Ameri­can Century" and "They Made America,"that together had taken him 17 years towrite, and had looked forward to some"refuge" in a personal bit ofwriting.

"I thought, I'm not going down that coalmine again. There's one thing I knowabout, or at least I thought I did until Ibegan to investigate, and that was me.And nobody can say 'Oh that's not how

honoring them in England. He was enroute to driving an Army ambulance inFrance in 1918. When he died at 110, hewas the last surviving doughboy ofWorldWar I.

• Richard Mudd, a Michigan physician,spent seven decades trying to clear thename ofhis grandfather, Dr. Samuel Mudd,who was imprisoned for treating JohnWilkes Booth when he fled into Virginiaafter assassinating Lincoln. Richard Muddsought to erase the stain on his family'sname but he also challenged the constitu­tionality ofmilitary commissions like theone that tried his grandfather while civilcourts were functioning (an issue still inpost-9/l1 America) and cited physicians'obligations to treat those who come tothem. When he died at 101, he was stilltrying to absolve his grandfather of infamy.

• Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, a blackwoman returning by bus to her war- plantjob in Baltimore from a visit to her familyin Virginia in the summer of 1944, wasarrested for refusing to yield her seat to awhite passenger. She became the plain­tiff in a test case bringing a 1946 SupremeCourt ruling outlawing segregation in in­terstate transportation. In effect, she wasthe original Rosa Parks. But who knew?President Clinton did, and he awarded herthe Presidential Citizens Medal in her fi­nal years. When she died at 90, The Timestook notice.

Lest one be tempted to pile on the en­comiums for a life well lived, a caution:an obituary is not a eulogy. And some fig­ures make the obit pages mainly for theirnotoriety. But they may have some re­deeming qualities ifthe writer looks hardenough. As the old joke goes, a man wascalled upon to speak at the funeral of anexceedingly disagreeable fellow. He gotup, nodded toward the casket and told thegathering "his brother was worse."

Marge Schott, the eccentric owner ofthe Cincinnati Reds, became a baseball

it happened'"Not unsurprisingly Sir Harry discovered

it just wasn't that simple."The thing we're trying to grapple with

here is the limits to memory, one's ownsensibility", he explained - but then, asthe canny reporter he has always been,he also added: "and how much you wantto reveal."

All three memoirists, to varying indi­vidual degrees, had taken the trouble tosupplement their own subjective recollec­tions through some cross-checking withrecorded history, or with friends' and fami­lies' own recollections, or with both.

Today's times do seem to be favoringthe so-called "reported memoir" which isincreasingly showing up as a vogue labelin publishers' catalogues - the sub-genrein which personal recollections are ac­companied by some consulting of other,involved or independent, sources.

(All three discussants, by the way, werewithering in their dismissal of the JamesFrey debacle of2006, when his so-calledmemoir "A Million Little Pieces" was ex­posed as a farrago of lies. Some objec­tive and provable truth, indisputably, isexpected.)

My trio gave me summations of whathad guided them and what has rewardedthem in reviewing their own lives in print.

pariah for offensive racial and ethnic re­marks, most famously having remarkedthat Hitler was "good in the beginning."More benignly, she allowed Schottzie andSchottzie 02, her St. Bernards, to roamthe field during batting practice, in thecourse of which they left "presents" onthe grass. I chronicled all that, but I didnote she was a major benefactor ofCincinnati's children's hospital and, notsurprisingly, its zoo.

A few words on corrections:No matter how arcane a reference,

there's likely to be someone who knowsif the writer messed up. I once wroteabout a Medal of Honor recipient whohad wiped out a bunch of Germans atMount Belvedere in Italy during WorldWar II. Checking a map, I helpfully toldreaders that the mountain was astride aroad leading to Bologna. A veteran ofthatbattle wrote to The Times to say therewas more than one Mount Belvedere inItaly and that this firefight took place atthe one near the coastal village of Massa.A correction ran.

Relying on a family member to provideaccurate information is chancy - there'salways the prospect of embellishment orsimply a faulty memory. I once wrote anobit on a woman (whose identity I'll dis­pense with here) whose husband told meshe died at 57. When I got offthe phone, Irealized that was unlikely in view of thechronology ofher life. When I called back,the husband told me, as I recall it: "I justmade that up. You know, it's like Heinz's57 varieties." She had died at 81.

One of my favorite obit subjects wasMarion Hargrove, whose travails as abefuddled draftee at the outset of WorldWar II became the best-selling book "SeeHere, Private Hargrove," which servedas a primer for millions ofyoung men en­tering the Army. I could sympathize withHargrove, the trainee who faced left when

Continued on Page 6

Sir Harry: "If we can approach thetruth or get to the truth, it will make lifebetter - for everybody. It's a view I'vehad all my life, trying to find the truth incomplicated stories."

Malachy was as often, reflectively re­strained. "I don't have any ambition, re­ally, literary or otherwise. I had dreams­of having a bed, and a book, and beingable to read in bed. And I've found that.And I've found love."

Mary, who is a poet ofgreat precisionas well as a memoirist, talked ofher pro­cess ofreconciling with people - and withunchangeable past events - that she hadwritten about with often horrifying impact;and she ended by quoting a friend andauthor of"This Boy's Life." "Toby Wolfwrote to me: 'Take no care for your dig­nity'. Lucky for me, I didn't have any tobegin with."

The round-table discussion wasrecorded by David Tereshchuk for Voicesof "Our World, " a syndicated publicradio show. The complete programmay be viewed on the web atwww.vimeo.com/davidtereshchukTereshchuk's column, THE lvfEDIA BEAT,appears weekly at www.tereshchuk.comand www.huffingtonpost.com/david-tereshchuk

PAGE 6 SILURIAN NEWS MARCH 2012

Mike Wallace and Joe Wershba.

behind drinking and talking with the lo­cals. Browne, a big handsome fellow withRobert Mitchum looks, could be soft spo­ken and gentlemanly. But with too muchdrink taken his Dr. Jekyll could turn intoMr. Hyde. Aware of this, I volunteeredto go back to the bar and bring him home.By this time, after berating the bartenderand insulting a few locals, he was pitch­ing large Irish pennies at patrons sittingat tables. They were not amused. I con­vinced him to come on board. He waswalking unsteadily before me heading forthe gangplank but then veered left andinto the Shannon waters. I shouted "Manoverboard!" and went in after him. Wewere able to get him out and back onboard to dry out. My new Irish Tweedsuit was soaked with what smelled like aflock of sheep. But no good deed goesunpunished. Years later Browne had re­worked the story of the great rescue atKillaloe, claiming that when Ijumped in Ilanded on top ofhis shoulder, driving himdeeper into the water. Let's say it becamemy own little Chappaquiddick.

By Monday morning Duggan was offto Belfast to do a piece on the troublesand the four ofus rented a car and headedsouth to the Dingle Peninsula in Kerry.We would all meet again back in Dublinbefore flying home to New York. Junketfmished,journeyover.

But whenever we hear it said that it'snot the destination but the journey thatmatters, we think about the time we spenton the River Shannon.

Dorothy Strelsin Foundation GrantThe Society of the Silurians wishes to ex-press its deepest appreciation to the Dor-othy Strelsin Foundation, a supporter oftheater, the literary world and other aspectsof New York's cultural life, for a grant of$2,000. The grant, issued at the end of2011, was made possible through the ef-forts of one of our members, who prefersto remain anonymous. We thank thatmember and we thank the Foundation.

New Members

Andreas MinkU.S. Correspondent, former Editor in Chief, Aufbau,[Germany], Correspondent, Neue ZurcherZeitung,[Switzerland], Freelance, other German-Swissnewspapers and magazines

Steve FishmanContributing Editor, New York Magazine, ContributingWriter, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Reporter, MiamiHerald, Author

Jerry KirshenbaumStaff writer, Senior Editor, Assistant ManagingEditor, Sports Illustrated, Staff Writer, Time, Reporterand Columnist, Minneapolis Tribune

Patrick M. SmithExecutive Vice President, Rubenstein Associates,Reporter, Editor, New York Post, Reporter, Editor,Philadelphia Daily News.

Judith WeinraubReporter and Section Editor, The Washington Post,Reporter, the Washington Star, Freelance Contribu-tor, The New York Times [from London and New Delhi],Reporter, Writer, Time and Time-Life Books.

In MemoriamElinor Griest

James E. Pitt

Anthony Shadid

Society of the SiluriansPO Box 1195,

Madison Square StationNew York, NY 10159

212.532.0887www.silurians.org

THE KON TIKI LOUNGESTRAIGHT AHEAD

Food! Drink! Live Music!Dancing! Illuminations!

...and a hurricane every night!

A halfhour later the Kon Tiki appearedon high ground to our left. Hungry andthirsty, we walked up the steep driveway.The place was closed, padlocked.

"We'll have to kill a sheep and roast iton an open fire," Duggan said. Hedropped to his knees, channeling RichardIII, arms outstretched, eyes heavenward.He shouted: "A cheeseburger, a cheese­burger, my kingdom for a cheeseburger."

Shouts in response rang out from afarmhouse above. A man was in the door­way waving at us.

"I'm just at my supper lads," heshouted. "I'll be down to ye in no time."

Very soon we were at the long bardrinking and eating overdone chicken andgreasy chips. Happy sailors home fromthe river. People began to stream in, farm­ers with their families, red cheeked chil­dren slung up on knees and laps, grand­parents, hill bachelors, widows, youngcouples, bunches ofshy teenagers, a priest,a few nuns. They began to sing songs, telljokes and stories. We joined in.

Beyond the bar was the restaurant, alarge rectangular room with a largestrange looking sunken tank of water. Atone end of the tank was a small raft cov­ered with straw. The Kon Tiki! Fourmusicians appeared and boarded the raft.It was moved to the center of the tank.The band played "I'd Like To Get YouOn a Slow Boat to China". People got upto dance. It was strangely charming,whimsical. Soon we were on the dancefloor.

Then an announcement: "Ladies andgentlemen, prepare yourselffor the hurri­cane. Take shelter. Brace yourselves."The lights in the place flickered on andoff; out of the speakers came sounds ofscreaming wind, driving rain, thunder.Four big fans created a big breeze. Alongthe perimeter of the pond, streams ofwater began to fall from pipes above.Colored lights flashed on the band, whichbroke into "Stormy Weather."

"Can you believe it mates,?" Schiffmanshouted. "This is once in a lifetime stuff.It reminds me of my nights in port inMandalay."

KILLALOELate on Saturday morning, after nights

in Athlone and Portumna, late on Satur­day morning we sailed into the KillaloeYacht Club, our journey's end. We arrivedin the middle of the Harvest Festival atthe club, the lawn filled with well dressedladies and gents, drinking tea or gin andtonics and eating cucumber sandwichesand smoked salmon and brown bread.Among the crowd were several stunningyoung Irish women in bathing suits, vyingfor the title of Harvest Festival Queen.One was breathtaking with long ravenblack hair, alabaster skin, green eyes, aswan like neck. Romance was in the airand in the air it remained. On Sundaymorning a man from the boat companywould collect the cruiser. After dinner atthe club, four of us retired early to thecraft to pack up but Browne remained

THE KON TIKI LOUNGETO YOUR RIGHT

STRAIGHT AHEADYOU WILL NOT BE

DISAPPOINTED

Another offer we could not refuse. Wewalked and walked and walked. We cameto another large sign:

River Shannon DaysContinued from Page 4

In August 1964,23 years after MarionHargrove collided with the Army, his sonChristopher arrived at Fort Gordon, Ga.,having read his father's book three timesbefore enlisting so he would know whatto expect.

"Pfc. Christopher Hargrove later toldan interviewer that he had encounteredno trouble mastering the M-14 rifle, thebayonet and the proper way to salute.And unlike his father, he had never in­sulted the mess sergeants.

"As he explained it, 'I am not a Pri­vate Hargrove.'"

refused to have anything further to do withhim. It was a dramatic turn from his usualroutine.

Morley Safer reports about "our proud­est moment," a story examining the truthofthe so-called "Gulf ofTonkin" episodewhich was the Weapons of Mass De­struction mantra ofthe day, which allowedLyndon Johnson to escalate the VietnamWar. They reported that the alleged gun­boat attack on an American destroyer wasa myth, corroborated 41 years later by theNational Security Agency.

And there was the story about JimmyHoffa's body. Hoffa the head ofthe pow­erful Teamsters Union, had disappearedin 1975, and thought to have been mur­dered by the mob. His body was neverfound. Joe became acquainted with thelawyer for the Teamsters, and coinciden­tally, for some mobsters. He convincedDon Hewitt he had a good idea whereHoffa's body could be found. But he andHewitt also became convinced that mob­sters were looking for them, and althoughto some it seemed funny, Wershba andHewitt dropped the story and in a man­ner of speaking, hid out for several days.

Joe was a member of the team whichwent to Korea with Murrow, at the heightof the shooting war, to do a memorabledocumentary, "Christmas in Korea," whichdramatized as nothing before, the agoniesand hardships offrontline troops.

Although it was thought Joe favoredstories involving passionate, grumpy menand women, he also did sensitive, posi­tive stories about positive personalities.The roly-poly Mayor ofJerusalem, TeddyKolleck who unwittingly led Joe into anArab-Israeli riot. Jim Michener, who trav­eled back to the South Pacific with Joeand Diane Sawyer to retrace the stepshe took during World War Two which re­sulted in his acclaimed book, and theRogers and Hammerstein musical. Andhis portraits of the artists Al Hirschfieldand YusufKarsh.

Ofcourse, the most memorable projectofall was the Murrow broadcast about thedemagogic Senator from Wisconsin, JoeMcCarthy, which was broadcast 58 yearsago this month (March). In these pages,Joe wrote, in a profile ofMurrow, "Murrowdid not kill offMcCarthy or McCarthyism,but he helped halt America's incredibleslide toward a native brand offascism."

That sums up Joe's modesty and pa­triotism.

Continued from Page 5everyone else faced right. A generationlater, 1 was an equally flummoxed GI inbasic training at Fort Dix.

Obits used to simply exhaust them­selves by ending with a list of survivors.But Times obits often conclude with a"kicker," an anecdote or quote that sumsup a life or simply leaves the reader witha smile or sometimes a tear.

Here's mine for the Marion Hargroveobit:

Obit World

RememberingJoeContinued from Page 1companion remains a dedicated memberofthe Silurian organization.

Joe, shortly after marriage, was movedto Washington, and Shirley was to followat some future date. Their marriage vio­lated a then CBS Corporate policy whichdid not allow for married couples to workin the same areas. But her boss, TedChurch, knew and one day he told Shirley

Courtesy of Shirley Wershba

Joe and Shirley Wershba, a dance thatnever ended, husband and wife for 63years.

he was to lay off three persons in an eco­nomic cutback. If she would quit (shewas going to anyway when the time cameto move to D.C.), Church told her, itwould save the job of one staffer. Shedid. That story is told in the movie, in acompressed way, Shirley says, but it isthe romantic subtext in the movie.

The stories Joe was attached to aretoo numerous to catalogue here. Notable,the story of Milo Radolovich an Air Forceofficer forced out of the service becausehis sister and father, NOT Milo, were sus­pected of suspicious behavior. This wasin the midst of the McCarthy hysteria.Joe was the on camera reporter for thisMurrow anchored documentary whichwas the first arrow in the Murrow coun­terattack against the hysteria of the day.

Joe was a collector ofpeople. He keptin touch withjust about everyone he camein contact with. And he did it with oldfashioned careful, thoughtful letters, of­ten including some relevant clipping fromsome arcane journal. While stationed inLondon, 1 would receive occasional en­couraging letters from Joe. Out of theblue, which made them even more wel­coming. There was one exception to this:Roy Cohen. After producing a segmentabout Senator McCarthy's henchman, Joe