Politics Always a Part of Crimson Editors' Consciences, Consciousness

What do Michael E. Kinsley '72, Grover G. Norquist '78 and Susan C. Faludi '81 have in common besides Harvard diplomas? All three were Crimson editors who espoused passionate and divergent political views during their undergraduate years.

While political radicalism at Harvard has declined since the 1969 takeover of University Hall and the 1972 storming of Mass. Hall, issues of ideology and political justice remain central to the thinking of Crimson staff, just as they are still considered by the University community as a whole.

A Charged Question

Being asked, "What are your politics?" has been a rite of passage for prospective editors of The Crimson since 1973. Over the last twenty-five years, however, the range of acceptable, and therefore most common, responses has changed--from "radical" in the '70s to "left" in the '80s to "Democrat," "centrist," and even the occasional "Republican" in the '90s.

Jonathan H. Alter '79, who held the now-defunct position of Crimson political editor, recalls how he was "booed in a good-natured way" when he identified himself as a "New Deal liberal" in 1975. "Liberalism was then considered a sell-out," Alter, who is now a senior editor at Newsweek, says, noting that "liberals" were not far enough left for the political atmosphere of the time.

Leftists so dominated The Crimson in the '70s that although political discussions occurred "all the time," according to Christopher B. Daly '76, another political editor of the paper, their scope was limited by unanimity among the participants.

"We lived it and breathed it, but we were rarely challenged on politics because we all agreed," says Daly, who is now a journalism professor at Boston University and the New England correspondent for The Washington Post.

Stephen J. Chapman '76, a Crimson editor and outspoken conservative in the early '70s, remembers being "one of four or five people maybe who considered themselves moderate or conservative out of fifty or sixty."

"We did get to present our view," Chapman, currently a columnist at the Chicago Tribune, says. "There were some people who detested us, but most people were civil despite thinking we were crazy."

Alter characterizes the treatment of political nonconformists not as "ostracism" but "as a source of amusement."

"Conservatives seemed a bit of an oddity," Alter says.

Radical Coverage

Former Crimson editors from the Vietnam War era agree that radicalism was both pervasive and influential.

Journalism became a vehicle for social activism as students joined the paper not because they were interested in writing, per se, but to promote their causes.

James K. Glassman '69, a Crimson managing editor, regards his class as the last for whom "the politics was just the subject matter, and journalism was the centerpiece."

"That standard changed," Glassman, who is now a financial columnist at The Washington Post, says, "My guard was sort of transitional--not as radical as those who came after."

Crimsonites in the early '70s faced the unique challenge of both participating in and covering undergraduate uprisings on campus.

Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III recalls the night he received a phone call from a Crimson writer he had seen picketing earlier that day--the reporter wanted to interview him for the news story he was writing about the protest.

Crimson editors were among the many students involved in the ejection of University faculty from their offices in Harvard Yard during the infamous 1969 anti-war uprising.

They also engaged in numerous sit-ins and teach-ins during this time, according to Glassman. Most demonstrations surrounded Vietnam War issues, especially on-campus recruitment by companies that manufactured biological weapons.

When confronted by punitively minded administrators about protest activities, Crimson editors had to choose between defending a cause and suffering the consequences or weaseling out by claiming journalistic status.

Glassman recalls how the demand, "Are you there as a reporter or a participant?" forced him to think seriously about his role.

"A lot of the political activity was just play until we really had to decide," Glassman says.

Objectivity and Passion

Messages recorded in the newsroom's "open book"--an ongoing journal and forum for editors to express opinions on all aspects of the paper--reveal The Crimson's sympathy for Vietnamese communists.

One entry pronounces: "[We are] dedicated to the continuous solidarity between the people of Viet Nam and the American people. May they march together to a better world of justice."

On October 16, 1969, an editorial titled "Support the NLF" made headlines from cities all over the U.S. to Paris. No longer just fodder for the open book, the pro-Communist sentiment of The Crimson's editors emerged publicly.

"The National Liberation Front whom we have been trying to exterminate has the support of the people of Vietnam," the editorial declares. "It deserves our support as well."

The heated nature of the global conflicts and domestic social issues that dominated the '70s encouraged activist journalism at The Crimson.

With a political composition that ranged from "far left to left," according to Daly, the newspaper projected its "anti-war, anti-administration, anti-Establishment" stance onto both its news and editorial pages.

"While we wanted to be accurate and good reporters, we had an agenda," says Daly of the early '70s Crimson.

But by the end of the decade, "students were becoming less involved," remembers Assistant Managing Editor James G. Hershberg '82, who is now an assistant history professor at George Washington University and the former director of the Cold War International History Project. Politically slanted news reporting abated in the face of declining activist fervor.

Steven M. Luxenberg '74, an associate managing editor of The Crimson, says "behavior became much more professionalized" during his tenure.

While many were "still forming their opinions" on the advocacy role of journalism, "there was definitely a camp that was less comfortable with being overtly political," Luxenberg, who is now the editor of The Washington Post Outlook section, says.

Back from Vietnam

With the demise of protest politics following America's withdrawal from Vietnam, Crimson reporting returned to subjects directly related to the campus-with a few notable exceptions.

The Crimson's "Politics Page," which no longer exists, continued to feature articles on foreign policy developments and the domestic affairs of other nations.

The death of Chilean leader Salvador Allende, the rise of the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, the future of Spain after Franco and the urgency of divestment from South Africa were recurring subjects of coverage.

Alter remembers that Gay W. Seidman '77, The Crimson's first female president, wore pins bearing messages of solidarity with Marxists in Angola.

"While Gay's successors were more...moderate liberals," says Crimson Editor Timothy R. Noah '80, "the paper retained its leftist flavor." Noah is now deputy business editor and senior writer at U.S. News & World Report.

Issues of workers' rights and unionization at Harvard presented opportunities for political reporting on campus.

The refusal of California-based wine-maker E. & J. Gallo Co. to sign a contract with the United Farm Workers became a local story when the Harvard Provision Co., a liquor store on Mt. Auburn St., sought to advertise its Gallo stock in The Crimson.

Daly says editors faced a crisis in deciding whether to "take [Harvard Provision's] dirty money or engage in censorship [by] stifling the advertisement."

According to Alter, labor organizers received a lot of positive press from The Crimson. Buttons with the message "You Can't Eat Prestige" abounded in the news-room during union negotiations at Harvard, revealing the editors' sympathy for low-wage workers.

The Reagan Years

Attention to foreign affairs and local workers' issues gave way to reporting on national politics during the election of 1980.

Crimson Managing Editor Susan C. Faludi '81 remembers thinking this an appropriate transition. A best-selling feminist author, Faludi characterizes the paper's international coverage as "a little self-aggrandizing" with its presumption that "anybody was going to be turning to the editorial pages of The Crimson for foreign policy."

In spite of the trend away from international news, the paper did issue two foreign affairs-related extra editions in 1981. One proclaimed the declaration of marshal law in Poland; the other, printed the night of Ronald Reagan's inauguration as President, announced the release of American hostages in Iran.

Spurning the Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter, the newspaper had endorsed leftist candidate Barry Commoner, a fringe party member, against Reagan. Radical politics of the '70s were still lingering at The Crimson.

The paper's response to Reagan's victory repudiated any lessening of political passion that had occurred toward the end of the decade.

Faludi remembers The Crimson being "uniformly horrified by Reagan."

Crimson president William E. McKibben '81 reportedly reacted to news of the vote by putting his fist through a soda machine.

Faludi emphasizes how alienated Reagan's popularity made her feel from main-stream America. "I didn't understand how it could have happened," she says.

Nevertheless, after having been the only newspaper in the country to support Commoner in 1980, The Crimson endorsed the mainstream Democrat Walter Mondale against Reagan in 1984.

"The whole debate had moved substantially to the right," Hershberg explains.

Among the triumphs of the paper's domestic political coverage in these years was the first interview of Reagan's presidency in 1981, conducted by Crimson president Paul M. Barrett '83.

When The Washington Post later claimed it had won Reagan's first interview, The Crimson forced a retraction.

In another Crimson coup, political editor Michael W. Hirschorn '86 called the victory of Gary Hart over Mondale in the 1984 New Hampshire primary.

Free Speech and the '90s

Prolific coverage of national politics in the Reagan years was attended by muted leftism on the editorial page. According to Barrett, who is now a deputy editor at the Wall Street Journal, "There was a self-conscious effort to moderate the tone of our editorials."

He describes Crimsonites from this era as students "interested in rock-and-roll, skeptical of big business and concerned about the environment."

Conservatives who joined The Crimson in the late '80s and early '90s found themselves still in the minority but no longer facing a uniformly liberal editorial board.

The paper "began to shift somewhat away from the existing liberal slant toward a more centrist viewpoint," says Ira E. Stoll '94, a Crimson president.

Joanna M. Weiss '94, a self-avowed conservative, became editorial chairman in 1993. Stoll, who is currently the managing editor of The Forward, remembers that this "upset some people."

Weiss, now at The Times-Picayune newspaper in New Orleans, considers that her appointment "shattered a grand editorial tradition" by moving The Crimson's top opinion page position out of the leftist camp.

Writers across the political spectrum at The Crimson in the early '90s found common ground in their promotion of free speech.

When the Black Students Association (BSA) demanded an apology from Keenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. '53 for making disparaging remarks about the performance of African-American students, The Crimson was torn between backing the BSA on principal and infringing on the professor's liberty.

The BSA's invitation of Leonard Jeffries, a professor at City University of New York and an alleged anti-Semite, to appear on campus in 1992 provoked another debate over supporting campus protest groups at the expense of Jeffries' right to express his opinions.

Concern for protecting free speech resurfaced in The Crimson's deliberation over its position on gay rights demonstrations during General Colin Powell's 1993 commencement address. Having supported gay rights editorially, the newspaper came down in favor of the demonstrators.

The Crimson faced a similar paradox this year, with the visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

A New Outlook

That a visit from a national military leader led to a discussion about preserving free speech shows how far The Crimson has come from the days when any member of the Establishment would have been shouted down upon arrival.

Any residual anti-war fervor left over from Vietnam was not sufficient to prevent The Crimson from supporting the Gulf War in 1992.

The decision followed an editorial meeting Stoll describes as "lively and long."

The paper's endorsement of Bill Clinton over Ralph Nader and Jerry Brown in the 1992 Democratic primary demonstrates "the shift in The Crimson's politics in the '90s," Stoll says.

But the ideological evolution from far left in the '60s to moderate in the '90s reflects a historic Crimson tradition.

"The newspaper's political leaning is forever shifting," says Epps, who was at Harvard when The Crimson celebrated its last major anniversary--the centennial.

For politically conscious writers, "struggling with how politics and journalism should co-exist," Alter says, is unavoidable.

Crimson editors admit they did not always achieve an objective balance in their undergraduate years. But those who have gone on to careers in journalism say their Crimson experience was instrumental to future success.

Although he regrets having produced some "over the top" writing during college, Glassman explains the importance of ideologically motivated journalism: "It gets people to think about what they otherwise wouldn't have."

Politics has waxed and waned on the pages of Harvard's daily from before the days of Crimson President Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 and through the years of John F. Kennedy '40, a former Crimson executive. The Crimson has not easily tread the line between journalistic neutrality and human conscience.