Some Interesting Fellows

"Boston's methadone clinic for political junkies."

That is how Hendrick Hertzberg '65, former editor and now contributing editor to the New Republic, describes the Institute of Politics (IOP). Hertzberg should know; he is spending his second term as a recuperating IOP fellow.

But if the IOP is a clinic for those outside academia, for Harvard students it is a lifeline to the outside world.

The IOP offers forums for public figures speaking on various political issues throughout the year and runs a fellowship program for politicians and journalists.

"The institute in general is in the business of bringing people in public life to Harvard," says Charles Truehart, the director of the IOP forum. "It is designed to serve the Kennedy School" by keeping it in touch with the outside world.

Since its inception close to two decades ago, the Institute has brought politicians and journalists to Harvard for a semester of scholarship and relaxation.

Fellows are figures from public life who are often on a sabbatical from politics, Truehart says. Once here, fellows are required to teach a non-credit seminar and to participate in the life of Harvard, "keeping their door open to students," says Truehart.

"The fellowship selection process is very competitive," says Theresa Donavan, director of the fellowship. "There are lot more people interviewed than selected."

"There is a network of fellows and other people related to the Kennedy School" who suggest names to us for potential fellows, Truehart says.

"We try to have a broad a representation as possible among each group of fellows," Donovan says. This year's fellowship group has two women, two minorities, and four white males. Three are politicians and four are journalists.

Only one of the group of fellows is a conservative. Donovan explains, "There is a Republican administration so a lot of Republicans have jobs within the administration."

Lee Edwards

Lee Edwards may have reason to be optimistic today as he sits in his sunny Institute of Politics office.

But Edwards--the sole conservative among the politicians and journalists who make up this semester's IOP fellows--did not have such an airy forum a quarter century ago when he participated in the right's revolt against liberal Democratic orthodoxy and the staid Republican status quo.

Now Edwards can smile when he talks about how the fortunes of conservatives have changed to the point where being called a conservative no longer has bad connotations.

Edwards arrived at political consciousness during the transitional period from the stability of the '50s to the turbulent '60s, when John F. Kennedy '40 became President amidst a spirit of optimism about the future of America and Americans.

But unlike many other young thinkers of the time, Edwards became a conservative and a supporter of the far-right Barry Goldwater.

Edwards can't explain why he opposed the general political flow of his times except to say that it was due to his family. "I was a cradle conservative," says the newspaperman's son. "It was a natural thing for me to be attracted to Goldwater."

But Goldwater lost in a landslide, dealing a hard blow to the conservative movement and leaving the young Edwards leaderless.

Edwards did not seem to have been daunted. He and others turned toward journalism and Ronald Reagan in an attempt to bang out a cogent conservative philosophy. The philosophy, he says, has won the hearts and minds of American society in the '80s.

Working for the current president during his California gubernatorial campaign and founding and editing The Conservative Digest, Edwards says he slowly evolved his politics to accept many governmental responsibilities of the New Deal.

The problem with the liberals, according to this Republican, is not the New Deal, for "FDR's ideas had a heck of a run," but the excessive doling out of money and rights by Great Society liberals. His complaint is echoed by many neo-liberals.

But Edwards probably differs with the neoliberals and progressives of the 1980s over how to provide New Deal services to the public. He still believes "the government which governs least, governs best."

A staunch supporter of the recently developed philosophy of New Federalism, Edwards believes states and local governments should pick up some of the tab for the social programs Americans desire.

He also says a new trend toward "privatization," wherein local governments contract out public services to private companies, will succeed in changing the way government meets its responsibilities to its citizens.

Edwards likes to stress how the New Right has developed a compassion for the less fortunate which was not previously present in conservative philosophy.

He points to the concept of the safety net and the supply-side trickle-down effect, both introduced by Reagan, as tangible results of the new compassion among the right. "You cannot totally eliminate poverty," explains Edwards, "but you can do your best to eliminate it."

Yet economic issues are not the only ones on the New Right's political agenda. Foriegn policy and social issues are close behind.

Edwards says the Star Wars defense plan is a creative way to alleviate tensions of Americans about nuclear war. "MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) is mad," Edwards says of the United States' current policy toward the Soviet Union.

In fact Edwards claims a basic tenet of his conservative philosophy is "a realistic view of the Soviet Union," its aims in the world and policies toward America.

Social issues, especially those touted by the Christian right, also play a key role in the political plans for the conservatives. But it is this issue which Edwards is the most reluctant to discuss.

One of the major elements of the Christian right agenda is opposing abortion, a position Edwards shares. But his voice is lowered, and his analysis is personal rather than political. Here, perhaps he reveals how explosive an issue the Christian right agenda may prove to conservatives.

Richard Cohen

The balloon-bedecked stage of the Grand Ol' Opry in Nashville, Tenn., became a backdrop for Ronald Reagan one night during the 1984 presidential sweepstakes. That evening the image of the President standing next to Minnie Pearl and singing happy birthday to Roy Aikens flashed on television screens.

That same day, in that same state, campaigning for the same office, Walter Mondale, standing in front of a non-descript wall, spoke to a subdued gathering of farmers about agricultural issues. Juxtaposed against the singing Reagan, the viewers of dinnertime news also consumed the image of a droning Mondale.

"Pictures speak louder than words," explains Richard Cohen, the casually dressed senior political producer of CBS.

Cohen, who was responsible at CBS for coordinating campaign coverage and decided what images made on air, is spending the semester as an Institute of Politics fellow at the Kennedy school.

"We were manipulated" by those who ran the Reagan campaign to pass a favorable picture of their candidate along to the American viewer, he says.

"The clear strategy was to wrap Ronald Reagan in the flag," Cohen says of the Reagan campaign strategy. "They made Ronald Reagan the nation."

Although Cohen admits he and the rest of network news "was suckered in" by the Reagan campaign, helping the president avoid discussing issues, he does not accept blame for misinforming public.

If someone wants to be informed they have to make an effort to listen to the radio and read newspapers, Cohen says, adding it is not enough to rely on 22 minutes of network news.

But Cohen, who is on a leave of absence from CBS, has other doubts about the direction television news is taking, enough to say he doesn't think he will return to CBS.

"TV news has joined other institutions in the white-breading of America," Cohen says. He blames profit pressures and increased competition for the change.

Specifically, he faults TV news for being "bland and non-controversial."

Pointing to the television fairness doctrine, which says TV news should deal with "controversial issues of public importance." Cohen claims current TV journalists take the loosest interpretation of that mandate.

"It is not a very serious enterprise," Cohen says of his business, calling it "infotainment."

"I don't know if I want to be a part of that process," says Cohen. But he says he does not know what he will turn to once his fellowship ends.

"I am a child of the '60s in values. It is important to me that I do something of value."

Cohen began his career in politics during the late '60s when he was very involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement. And as an intern at ABC, he had some connections to the television news industry.

Although he originally wanted to be "a player in the arena, not a fan at the 50-yard line," getting a job at ABC while out of work changed Cohen's mind.

After the stint at ABC, Cohen says he worked as a producer on various projects until he landed the job at CBS.

A producer's job is to synthesize the facts and images gathered by the reporters into the segment that appears on the news, Cohen says. In that process, decisions have to be made about what are the best images in order "to get people interested in the story," he says.

But Cohen says he trys to weigh the substance of the image against its visual value. "If you use the very best picture invariably it makes the candidate look good."

Singing happy birthday is not substance to Cohen and CBS did not run a long story on Reagan's trip to Nashville. It only flashed a picture.

Barbara Patton

The conventional wisdom about New York's Nassau County, a staunchly Republican area, is that it elects few democrats and rarely ever unseats a G.O.P. incumbent. But three years ago the voters of the 18th assembly district on Long Island elected a Democratic women.

Barbara Patton, a fellow this fall at the Institute of Politics, says these suburban voters picked her over the Republican opponent because she ran an "old-fashioned, flesh-on-flesh campaign."

The 18th district voters stunned political observers even more because Patton, who is Black, is the first minority elected to the assembly from a suburban district.

"I would tell them, 'I might be Black and I might be a woman but I want the same things you want,"' and then talk about issues which affect everyone, Patton says, outlining her political method. "I am a Black woman but also a politician," Patton says. She did not concentrate on issues specific to Blacks or women in her campaigns.

The chief planks of Patton's campaign plattorm were lowering taxes, improving the schools by increasing state education aid, and fighting crime. Apparently these issues are attracting support because substantially more voters supported her last year than in 1982.

Patton was not always a politician. For many years she was a housewife. But in 1974 she decided to go back to school to earn a college degree, and eventually a law degree.

In 1975 she divorced her husband and moved from her native land, Brooklyn, to her current residence in Nassau.

When in New York City, Patton had done some political work but she said she experienced "culture shock" when she began to involve herself in local Nassau politics.

Getting involved was not difficult. After registering to vote, a local Democratic leader, who happened to be a neighbor, gave her a call and invited her to the next Democratic club meeting.

"It was not only a place to discuss politics, but clearly a place to meet neighbors," Patton says.

In January 1982, Patton, who had recently become a lawyer with a local law office, was tapped by the boss of that firm to run for the assembly that year.

Once in Albany, Patton, a member of the Democratic-controlled Assembly, had to work with the Republican-controlled Senate in order to get bills passed. But her Nassau Senate colleagues at first refused to work with her, she says.

"They need me as much as I need them," because of the split between the two houses, Patton says. "If they don't want to do business with me," Patton says, gesturing by flicking her hand out from under her chin, "goodbye and good luck."

Now Patton has taken on the issue of providing enough services to take care of the aged. She says she would like to chair a committee on aging in the assembly.

But other ambitions might prevent her from reaching this goal. The incumbent congressman, a Republican, is giving up his seat, and Patton says several people have asked her to run. Patton's response so far is, "I like it where I am.