Profile; Interview with Chris Bohjalian; Interview with Lindy Peavy and Ursula Smith; Interview with Olin Robison

He portrays ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and allows us entry into the intricate and noble struggles of what could be our lives. Join me in a conversation with one of Vermont's great storytellers Chris McGillion next on profile. Mr. Julian grew up in the suburbs of New York City graduated from Amherst College and lived in Brooklyn for a bit as an ad executive before moving to a farmhouse in Lincoln Vermont where he still lives with his wife and daughter. His fifth novel midwives was a breakthrough success. Winning by Julia numerous accolades including a selection of Oprah Winfrey's book club and rocketing the paperback edition of that book to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Subsequent novels have also done well and turned heads. The last similar is looks at alternative medicine transistor radio offers an intimate view of transsexuality. His novels have been and continue to be made into movies. CHRIS But Julian also writes for a variety of national

magazines and has been a columnist for the Burlington Free Press for more than a decade. His new novel The buffalo soldier has just been released. Thanks for making us a stop on your current national tour. I wouldn't of missed it for having me on a terrific. Now I see midwives prominently displayed still in airport bookstores where I just was. It's still really doing quite well isn't it. It is. I thought I lived to be 92 years old and I'm still publishing novels. The very first question people will ask me public readings or colleges is TELL ME ABOUT midwives. How did you write like a woman. Well we'll get to that in a minute. OK. How did the success of that book and the notoriety change your life. The reality is that it didn't change my life day to day in Lincoln it did not have any effect on how I live in Vermont. The wonderful part of my life in Lincoln and I think this goes for the entire state is it's a cozy neighborhood. People treat you like you're a neighbor regardless of whether you've just written a book that has become a small

cottage industry such as midwives in it or not. I would still meet my daughter at the school bus at 3 o'clock. I would still start riding at 5 am. Now outside of Vermont outside of Lincoln It has certainly had an effect because all of the sudden I was on a short list with Oprah's book club with the writers of the caliber of Toni Morrison and Wiley lamb and Alice Hoffman. What in the name of Heaven was I doing on any list with Tony Morrison or Wally Lamb or Alice Hoffman. Secondly it changes dramatically the expectation for your books. My books have continued to sell very very well. But the reality is that again if I live to be 90 to every single book I write after midwives is going to be a commercial disappointment in somebodies eyes because it won't be this steamroller monolith but it didn't freeze you up. I mean sometimes I think when there's that kind of expectation for your next book. Now I know I love writing and writing is such a solitary business

especially fiction that when I am alone in my library at 5am or 6am or 7am the last thing I'm worried about or other people's expectations I'm simply savoring what it is like to be. Dana Stevens the transsexual in transistor radio or civil Dan fourth my beleaguered midwife in midwives or or Alfred Benoit the 10 year old foster child in the Buffalo Soldier that is who I'm thinking about when I'm writing so I've never ever. Frozen up because of those expectations. Now min was was your fifth novel. Did you become a better writer over time or did the world finally discover you in NY. I became a better writer over time. Now there's no question about it. Some. Writers. Start out of the gate with an absolutely magnificent first novel. Joyce Carol Oates. Jay McInerney I made sure I didn't do that. And I wrote the single worst first novel ever published bar none that I could only get better and better and better. The problem of course with that strategy is you often have

to wait till your fourth or fifth book before you figured out linear momentum or narrative characterization. Did you always know you were going to be a writer. Yeah I was it was going to be a writer. I was going to try to be a writer I had no idea where there would be a successful writer but. My father still has in a cardboard banker's box under his bed in South Florida. These hideous one and two page short stories I wrote in the second and third grade about sibling rivalry is on the school safety patrol and disembodied hands emerging from wishing wells. Oh wow I thought I had amassed over two hundred and fifty rejection slips by the time I was twenty four years old and finally sold a short story to Cosmopolitan and you just kept on. This could be all right. You choose pretty edgy subjects for your books there is dousing and water which is homeopathy and the last similar is of course a med with free the buffalo soldier has a central character who is a black

foster child. Do you have an agenda with these or is this just good fodder for investigating human nature. I think it's the latter. I certainly have an opinion on social issues in all of my novels but I never set out to write a book to advance that opinion or to make a point. What I do look for is conflict. And I don't write novels about. Ocean liners that sink in 1912 or spies that come in from the cold. The drama in my books is about the the more personal anguish. And conflict. That can befall any one any time. And so that's why I'm drawn to these subjects. Home births vs. hospital birth the environment versus development alternative vs traditional medicine. All that baggage we bring to gender in some ways the buffalo soldier might be my least edgy novel in that regard because it's fundamentally in my mind a book about parenting.

Now most of the characters in your book are really good people trying to be better people so the the the conflict is really about fate rather than nasty people. How how are you just not interested in in the dark side of human nature. Why are there kind of any dark characters in what you write. Films are great. Yeah I do a villains in fiction and I love villains in fiction whether it's in the Series of Unfortunate Events children's books that my daughter is reading right now. I love villains in adult novels as well. But for some reason my books don't have a lot of villains. They have a lot of people who occasionally behave badly or who make really bad mistakes. For example the buffalo soldier there is a Vermont state trooper who makes a howling. Mistake. Which has all kinds of ramifications in this book. But you know I've yet to people my books with you know Beals about in time and time I think maybe each of these

these topics is complex so you you must do a lot of research how do you get your research done how do you how do you begin and how do you do that. I usually begin with a vague notion for a book. Woman falls in love with a man who wants to have a sex change. You know a woman dies in a home birth. In the case of the buffalo soldier. I had this notion originally. That had nothing to do with a foster child it had to do with a community. That was savaged by a flood very much like the flood that at the end of June 1998 raced through Addison County. And you know destroyed bridges right there and Lincoln you're down. However. Soon after I'd started writing this book about a small Vermont village that is beleaguered by a flood. And the reality that in this case there are fatalities. My daughter came home from school. With her kindergarten class picture

and there were 16 adorable smiling faces in this picture. But what struck me was the reality is that there were absolutely no African-American Asian-American Latino children in her class. And it dawned on me that this is a handicap. For her. This makes parenting more complicated I always grew up in multiracial communities in Florida and outside of New York City. And I began to wonder what if. What. Would it be like to suddenly be a child of color who is parachuted into. This community. And that's what set me off researching the foster care program in Vermont and researching what the life of a state trooper would be like with the life of foster parents are like. And I do the research. The vast majority of it just by sitting down and talking to people. And people love to talk about what they do. I had a great ride along with state troopers. You know it anywhere between 40 miles an hour when it's the speed limit and 80 miles an hour when you're you're getting somebody

who's speeding and had a great time with foster parents who shared with me their experiences as well as foster children who told me what it was like to be an outsider. So. It sounds like you don't completely plot out your stories you begin writing and things begin to happen is that true or do you really know where you're going. That's exactly why I have no idea where my so why should you ever know I have a vague notion and in some cases I have one first person narrative voice. But that's all I have. I have no idea how the book is going to end I was three quarters of the way through mid-wives before I had any idea whether simple Danforth would be acquitted or convicted. I was at least four fifths of the way through transistor radio before I knew who would be together at the end of you know sort of His love triangle. And I said so in the case of the buffalo soldier. It was a very organic process. It began with a couple who've lost their twin daughters when this whole Aisha's flood rumbles through their village. And all of the sudden it morphed.

Into not simply a novel about their grief. In the communities grieving but rather where they have the potential to find redemption and recovery and perhaps love in the form of this little boy who has parachuted into their life. It was interesting that you chose to use the third person in the Buffalo Soldier. I it took me by surprise and I actually had to get used to that from a crisp Agellius novel Why did you make that decision for this book. The buffalo soldiers in an sambal novel. I think it is my most and sambal novel Ive ever written there are six characters in this book I care about. First of all theres the 10 year old foster child Alford and they are wonderful. Thank you. Yeah theyre his foster parents Terry and Laura Sheldon Terry's a state trooper Laura runs a small Humane Society of the fictional equivalent of the Addison County Humane Society. Then there are three other characters spinning around this family across the street is a retired Middlebury College professor and his wife Paula Emily Hiebert

who take these three deeply wounded people under their wings. And then there is a woman with whom the state trooper has an extramarital affair. And when I had all of these characters spinning around. The notion of having all of them have their own voices of a lot of similar zer midwives or transistor radio concerns me as a Freddo have this unruly caca phonic mess with different voices fighting for air time and it would be sort of dead end transistor but it worked but not quite so many things. Transistor thing was sort of the limit. You're absolutely right. I think four is OK six was too many and the other thing that struck me about the buffalo soldier. Is that it's a softer novel. In the Buffalo Soldier there are no knobs plunged into women in labor. There are no Chittenden County state's attorney's going to and if electric shock on their kitchen floor there are no sex change operations described in visceral detail and in that

regard I like the notion of a third person novel to soften it. It was an immensely emancipating experience to one of the things I found when I started to write it is I can use all kinds of words that I could never use in a first person novel because of course. 19 year old Carli Banks in transistor radio is never going to use words like phantasmagoric And you know uncivil Danforth is never going to describe you know water as our best phone but you can do that in a third person now that you know the dictionary on your desk. No no but I did need a periodic like what works for you with Vermont as a set I mean here's another small town. Most of these are are about small town Vermont which is. Is what is it about that that works for you. Vermont is a wondrous microcosm for the cultural changes occurring everywhere in this country. And I say that with pride for our state. All of those issues but you know the environment versus development we see it 12 months a

year. We see it in the Champion land do we see it at our ski resorts we see it when they're trying to tap rivers to make snow. The notion. That you can explore all of the hopes that we bring to alternative and traditional medicine right here in Vermont is to rethink for a novelist what I want to try to novel about homeopathy and alternative medicine. I went to the yellow pages there like six homeopaths in Addison and shouldn't encounter listed in the Yellow Pages. Was I surprised that Vermont was on the front page of newspapers everywhere. In the spring of 2000 when our legislature was debating civil union. Absolutely not. I just. We are a wonderful wonderful way to explore those cultural conflicts I think that's why I set my books in Vermont rather than New York City. Or Miami or Colorado because here we can see the conflict and we can have real people embodying them. Is it going to get too small for you though. Are you going to. Are you ready to move out of that small town Vermont setting for four other books that are in in mind in the

last five years. I have tried to write two novels not set in Vermont. One was set in Miami Beach culture dowdy and one was set in 16 66 Boston. About her Puritan divorce trial. And each novel. I scrapped I scrapped them for different reasons. But one of the main reasons why I scrapped both of them. Is that there is something that always pulls me back to Vermont and until readers in San Jose or Amarillo Texas or Chicago say enough no more Vermont I think I'm going to keep writing books out in Vermont because I love this state. I cherish its people and I love the stories that are in our hard scrabble soil. You were as you said earlier seem to have an uncanny ability to capture the hearts and minds of your female characters and they're very strong and capable and so are actually the young people in your book this this young man is your male characters on the other hand seem a bit befuddled. They're weaker emotionally limited.

Do you feel you're reflecting some sort of identity struggle that men are or are having or is it easier to romance women or do you get tips from your wife what to create because there are many Sorry I don't just asked one but a couple here two years ago. My sister in law in New York City. Looked at me and she said Do you know why you're successful. And I said why. Knowing what good another she was about friendship because you know what you were those classic guys who just doesn't get it and women are really interested in wondering what makes you tick how do you do some of the stupid things you do in such a regular basis. And I take a certain a pride in that. I am not shy about writing about men's weaknesses. I am not shy about writing about men's foibles. I hope I'm not shy about writing about women's foibles and women's weaknesses I just know men's weaknesses a whole lot better. Interesting Are women better audiences for a more. I mean it seems that these are almost like

they're women's novels a lot of women really love these Does that bother you. No absolutely not. And I take enormous pride in my audience they take enormous pride in my fiction and the reality is that women buy dramatically more fiction than men. There. And if you subtract out Tom Clancy. And John Grisham and John Le Carre and Robert Ludlum and then. Women by Absolutely the vast majority of fiction in this country and I don't know why that is it. It's but it's a reality and it doesn't bother me at all. Do your wife or daughter help you with some of these characterizations or do you like to keep them out of your your working life. My daughter is eight and she does not consciously. Have any effect on my characters but I will tell you this. The most autobiographical character I've ever created is four year old Abby Fowler and a lot of similar ZX who is based. All that is good in that little girl is based on my own daughter

who is four years old when I was writing a lot of similar stuff. My wife is a great great editor and a great reader. She's also pretty naturally patient. I have asked her all kinds of unseemly questions at 11:00 at night and you know at 6:00 in the morning you know over dinner and over lunch. And you always answer honestly. She also has to endure hearing these books. Often a chapter at a time or a scene at a time as she's working in her studio she's a photographer and she had colors photographs and I will read to her for 20 minutes at a time while she's had coloring so that she can either nod in agreement with the scene or you know sort of squint when a line of dialogue is really clunky. Right. USA Today quoted that you were furious with John phrases resistance to having his novel The Corrections being on Oprah's list. What's wrong with raisins beef about commercial commercial in a in in the publishing industry.

Yeah well that's a that's a huge huge issue I think. Here's what my concern is. And first of all I will say that I loved Jonathan Franzen out of the corrections. I loved every page of that novel there are paragraphs in it that are better than any book I will write. What my concern was was first of all that it was simply impolite behavior it was rude. It was rude to Oprah Winfrey and it was rude to the other novelists who have been part of Oprah Winfrey's book club. The notion that he thought his work was so dramatically better than a hundred of us the third. Or Toni Morrison or even wah. Was offensive. Secondly it gets at this notion that. Everyone who buys commercial fiction. Everyone who do you know is a moron. Everyone who doesn't live in oh so whole loft or is part of the New York literati establishment. Is an idiot and is not reading sufficiently challenging fiction. My purpose is personally find that a lot of the books on Oprah Winfrey's book club

and a lot of the books that are bestsellers are intellectually challenging and you know there are always going to be a few books in the New York Times Book Review that aren't high art but let's get people reading. Yeah yeah. That was my concern. Yeah. You read a weekly column in the in the Free Press about anything from singing dogs to Florida retirement communities or the value of books. What's what's good about that gig for you what why do you maintain you to do that. My books can be pretty dark. Whether it's a woman who dies in birth or whether it's a foster child who's watching his foster parents marriage go to heck in a handbasket. They can be depressing. Now I hope that in the end they are not I hope in the end there are more uplifting than heart. Sometimes when you're in the muck and mire of writing those books it is wonderful on a Friday afternoon to write a column about a singing dog or the eccentricities of my father's community in south Florida and it always puts a smile on my face even if

it doesn't present all of my readers facing life. It certainly satisfies me and gives me a break from my fiction because there is a real polite side to you. I mean I think that you were offended by phrase phrase and then your characters are polite and you do this nice thing for the community. You also speaking of that are very involved in your community and your articles actually helped rebuild the Lincoln Library. That's pretty powerful. Is there a greater responsibility that comes with your notoriety or where does this impulse to do the right thing. I know it to be him. I like to believe the impulse to do the right thing came from you know my mom raised me right. I had a good mom to rebut that point notwithstanding there is a responsibility. There's a responsibility to write books that aren't necessarily morally edifying but certainly aren't the kind of books that when my eight year old daughter is 25 or 30 she sort of looks at her father's literary

canon and says Dear God he raised me. I also think that. Because I do have a certain highly visible public nature because my column and because of my books that it is important to write about issues that matter. And to not take that responsibility lightly and to change what I do. Great. Midwives was made into a movie with Sissy space sick and even a local Dana yet and wrote the theatrical new version they did a huge wonderful job such a job with that oh what's that and past the bleachers was also made into a movie what is that like for you. And this will be the Buffalo Soldier will be a movie and maybe transistor. Yes with Miramax and Wes Craven. So what is this like for you to have your books made into another four months. What's that experience for you. I love movies. I think movies are fabulous. And so I enjoy every step of the process. It doesn't bother me when the movies deviate from the books because I

understand that most books and movies are fundamentally different media. One is very solitary of one is very communal. A novel is read over days or weeks. A movie is savored in between 96 in one hundred twenty five minutes. I understand these realities and I take great comfort in the notion that somebody sees sufficiently CCWs enough in my books to make a movie. How do you get. You write You don't write the screenplay. No I spend about a week on the set of each movie and drink coffee and eat donuts and try to stay out of their way. I'm always I'm always that guy on the set who savoring the fact that they're bringing these cappuccinos in a suppressors all the time. One more question about the buffalo soldier. And actually it was interesting that that gender and race are major factors of identity that are explored both in and in and transistor and then the race issue in the Buffalo Soldier. But race seems to isolate this boy but you never

dive very deeply into that. I'm curious about why you chose him. You talked a little bit about it to be that that picture that just had white children in Lincoln. Why is this an important issue nationally or for Vermont and and how deep you know how deeply can you get really having having this that in a small town I'm with you. First of all in regard to the Buffalo Soldier. I don't view it as a book about race any more than I view it as a book about adultery or parenting or parental or marital of all which figure prominently in the novel. Alfred wonders constantly Is he an outsider in this community because he's African-American and everyone around him is white or is he an outsider because he's the foster kid and he's new to the community. Or is it something else that always has him on the out side looking in. So in that regard race matters as a plot device is an element of the plot

to bring Alfred to life. To answer the first part of your question absolutely fiction has a moral responsibility to explore race in this country. Movies have a moral responsibility to explore race in this country you can't have. Two hundred and forty years of slavery and then another hundred and twenty years of Jim Crow laws and segregation and not expect that you've left an indelible scar on the nation's consciousness. And I think artists do have a responsibility to explore that to probe it to use it in their art not just to edify. But but but to bring these issues to life. Well thank you and thank you for bringing it to life a bit in the Buffalo Soldier. It's terrific. The best to you on the rest of your national tour and thank you very much for being here to this been wonderful. Thank you for having me. OK. And thank you for being with us. A new kind of reality TV was recently introduced to American television. PBS is

phenomenal series Frontier House took three modern families back in time and to Vermont historians helped pave the way to a very authentic recreation of the 1883 Montana frontier. Meet Linda PV and Ursula SMITH Next on profile at. Nearly 25 years Linda PV and Ursula Smith have dedicated themselves to researching and writing women's history and biography specializing in the American frontier movement with titles like gold rush widows of Little Falls front tear children and women in waiting in the Western movement. They have coauthored nine books and numerous articles and reviews. They've been featured presenters at conferences and schools across the country. They're popular and varied programs through the Vermont Arts Council and the Vermont Council on the humanities have introduced scores of young Vermonters to living

history. Writer Linda Peavy grew up in Mississippi and historian and editor Ursula Smith in a small town in central California. They met in Montana where they lived for many years before moving to central Vermont. In 1994 last summer they got to return to Montana as chief historical consultants for the PBS series front to your house. Thank you for being here. Thank you for inviting us. Exciting connection I clearly adore Montana and the West why did you move to Vermont. Well there was a woman whose life we researched in writing the book Women in waiting in the westward movement. Life on the home front here her home front here was Vermont and we followed her for her life. And I heard her say over and over in the letters to her husband who had gone West indeed to Montana that she would never leave perm Hill which was outside Bethel Vermont. So we came East to look at her. And. We decided that Vermont was but Vermont. It

combines a lot of the best features of Montana with access to. The East Coast which we wanted for artistic purposes. Right I had just finished a graduate degree in fiction writing and playwriting and wanted to have a chance to be closer to the theatre scene is very much alive here and in Vermont and also of course an access to for New York has that sort of work for you. Oh yeah. Oh yes. Grants. Because it's worked for us because we've had excuses and reasons to return them in Montana period right. An opportunity just to to continue working in theater by getting back and forth to Vermont most of all it's worked because Vermont is just what we thought a small enough state to get to know the other artists the other humanists and people like yourself who are interested in the arts. And you've got beautiful mountains and not quite of the songs but you know what has a favorite project with Vermont school children in you.

Oh I think the one that comes immediately to mind is our experience and came to church. Yeah yeah. So what did you do with them for the town of Cambridge. The town of Cambridge was celebrating history through the arts and that in itself was exciting notion to us because we are primarily storytellers we like the people who are involved in all those wars that you memorize the dates for. And so this gave us a chance to take time off from just our westward Western experience research too and dig into the Cambridge history. We worked with historical society and for a week we worked with the students and we were helping them to understand the different ways we came at history through different kinds of writing. Yeah. So we and the historical society and the teachers themselves had already laid a good deal of background before we ever came in. So we simply took them back in this case. We went way beyond behind Montana history because we were dealing with

the early 19th century. We're in Western history of so much more recent. Sure. But we did take the chants to the fifth graders were studying the westward movement so we had already went with them with the westward movement and. 50 and 1860 are good times for starting the westward movement in Vermont because people were first moving to upstate New York that was West right and reminded originally banned to the wilderness for the people in the early colonies and then westward westward ever westward. And so we introduce the students to thinking about journals letters and diaries as a means of understanding and they became persona from they took on they one became the Doctor brush one became a blacksmith one who came the wheelwright were going from the real census and plat map records Cambridge Vermont and King of the city. It was wonderful it was a rule that say we wrote out of those persona and then actually

presented a core reading as well as presented with the fabulous great faculty great students to move on most of the American frontier history has concentrated on the white male who has conquered the West. Now what's interesting I think about many of your books is you really look at other populations you look at women you look at children you look at former slaves you look at immigrant Chinese and Mexican you look at the Native American. Did these people influence have influence in the West and how much is the wrong friend. The West was built with them and on them. John Wayne came in and did his thing and then rode off into the sunset. The community builders. Well I don't want to exclude all the white male population. Right. But they did have a lot. They were greatly influenced by their wives their children the needs of the. Family. They were greatly

influenced by the presence of the Native American. I mean the West is that population. There are more than it is the cowboy. Yeah I mean you have some interesting phenomenon going phenomena going on there. You've got the westering male as he moves into gold camps as he goes out and begins to herd cattle as he moves into the northern plains population in Vermont to see Stuart particularly familiar with. There was much. Intermarriage between Indian way marriages in which they would take an Indian wife and maybe have a whole family of children and maybe or maybe not stay with that woman because as more white women moved west and they wanted to climb oftentimes the Indian family was left behind. But not always. And a study of the mixed families in that area shows that a lot of the community building that's in the in the northern part of Vermont in parts of Oklahoma

was built with these mixed marriage patterns so they're not as uncommon as one might think. And there's another we don't want to focus on it today because but there is the mistake of the West is of course built on the open plains the rugged mountains. There is an urban west that is very rarely dealt with. Butte Montana a mining town at the turn of the century was near 100000 in population and you can't even conceive of that today. And it had its slums and it had it. If you look at the ethnic groups immigrant groups coming in. If you're ghettos all over this little this this large metropolitan. Same is true of Denver and other larger towns but interesting. Yeah. Now the other is you spoke about that the Cambridge much of your research comes from letters and diaries and journals these you know getting bits and classes now with these less mainstream population. Are they are they are the documents there I mean how do you get you to research how you have

to dig pretty deep and you do you do they're not on the surface. Well they are better but now they're more accessible now than they were with all of us involved in writing with its history in general and women's history in the West in particular began this work in the early 80s when we began the research that became the two books the Goldrush widows of Little Falls and women in waiting in the westward movement. These are books based on separated husbands and wives and how the woman was able to take over his duties as well as her own sometimes bankrupt businesses even in a struggle back here while this hidden army of women in other words supporting the laborers and the settling of the West from back here now. When we began looking many arc were not. At the. Even if they had the women's correspondents it wasn't indexed as such. So you've got to start so when we first begin to gather sharp shooting looking for some of these stories we would we would find the sets of correspondence between the men and look for the

date right. And the collections were are always of course catalogued under his name. So any archivist had very rarely before the 1980s late 1970s had ever looked beyond his name to see whose letters or journals might be in that what else was a way they would be everywhere swished portion. But yes and it's much easier now because now there are resources on the Internet so that you can look up and look at a collection and you could just run your eye down and find these things but this meant weeks of waiting where we wrote them letters scattershot out hard to find them. But but behind that finding them catalogue was even finding them being given to the archive. Exactly you know and these are actually in print these are not histories. Yeah. Well women didn't think of their their work on the home front here if they if the women who were diarists living solicits find book on women diaries of women who were going west. The books of this nature had begun to come

out but these women had a sense of history they were going west. Our women left behind did not. So it was hard. Quickly so we can get the Frontier House of course but your books have so many incredible vintage photographs and photography is really very new during its time. What was the role of the photographer in the photograph in the frontier. It was a wonderful combination of the new technology photography and the new adventure. The west so and the photographer the professional photographers who were by and large I tendered from time to first saw that the interest that was generated and the east and Midwest by what was going on it so. And families leaving home to go west always wanted that one last testament taken and they wanted it. And once they got there definitely wanted a picture of how they were faring. And you will notice in both pioneer women in front of children especially the Solomon butcher

photos the general photographer going around to the different farms they would drag out everything they drag out they see if they had a little piano or a harpsichord or rather all the organ all major measures were dancing out there. Including all of the livestock in the backyard oxen behind them and the women were dressed and the men in their Sunday best right. And if they were barefoot in those pictures you knew it was really hard times as they wanted to put their best foot forward now. And you even did that in Frontier House everybody got their picture exactly saying all that stuff. So you were chief historical consul tence for Frontier House and you also coauthored a beautiful book with the producer Simon show. Just came out of the eye here was to have modern families live under the conditions of 1883 Montana during the homestead era. What did the producers hope to reveal through this and what did you think of this

idea. I'll start with your last question first. I thought the idea was the most improbable thing I've ever heard when it was first put in front of us I thought. And that's even though we had seen and enjoyed 1900 House. Yes it was I was I was like I'm in shock reduction but putting one family for three months in a flat albeit 1900 was a how in landed me 0 0 house move and in London there's so they asked me different from putting three family groupings on homesteads in Montana territory 1883. For five months I thought. And I knew because they they made the point from the beginning that they wanted authenticity and I think this is just I didn't I didn't see how it would work. Do they know what they're getting it did the right right. And of course Simon is British shirt. And most of the the young staff working on this were New York television staff

types the idea and of course I had been in Montana for a while but prior to that I had. Lived on a hundred sixty acre homestead in South Dakota and now that was in 1070 we had indoor plumbing we had all the. Aunties we could lie in these old man legs. And huge debt to pay off. Yes. Yes and no nothing like us working if working five years I maintain the Smith family would have been great homesteaders but I'm working I did every morning in money and I just want to try to prove that and I just wondered the logistics just seems so impossible you get a sense of this experience. Yes I had a sense of where I lived in Montana and I had a sense of the adventure of the experience I felt they needed a couple of not so young women to go out in and there were three women home. You didn't get teachers who piled together on a homestead and when you know it was you know they did manage but I would have had to go alone.

She was not interested but skeptic as I was I would much rather be a historical consultant than a homesteader So that was my role from the beginning. But to your other question Simon explained to us and Micah Fink the associate producer who first contacted us and came up and interviewed us. He explained that he wanted to see. Whether or not this notion of being a homesteader which we've highly romanticized of course we admire homesteaders and all of this but it looks pretty good compared to the wear and tear of everyday 21st century life in carpools and soccer moms and all of this. Well it looks so good that fifteen hundred families applied to do this. Incredible. Yes that's right. Yeah but what were their motives were you know they were sorted out very carefully and the staff and it just included even psychologists looking at the top amount and they went to interview 40 of them. They needed to see whether or not this romanticism about the frontier was going to take them through the

whole experience. Sure I wouldn't have invaded them the I would have liked being in all the interviews but I wouldn't have interviewed them the final decisions they made good ones however. And the interesting thing to us is the story ends is they weeded out their people. Now if there were fifteen hundred people today who wanted to do this they probably are fairly representative of a whole bunch of people who would have thought we can go make it on the homestead. And then maybe the representative of the many motives they took out wouldn't be that far from what was going on a long time ago the wonderful thing of this project and I don't want to. Undercut the vision of Salman Shah. But. Seeing what happened he couldn't possibly have known how he was in effect replicating the experience from the very beginning. Right. That that the 21st century is not. That's right. Right. Is that.

Having actually Frontier House one of the things that you did was you created individual wised profiles based on the chosen families and so you had a sense you looked at them you know what would be a probable scenario and what possessions or money would they have had. Now you know kind of why did the glamours get the cabin that's already built or you know we weren't in on that. That was not a decision. But I think that it came about. They were there with anything you're got your ideal and you've got your practical. OK. The glints had the. The two children and the mother and the father. They needed a cabin that wasn't huge. But by getting them into that cabin and getting them started. You then had this whole other experience for the least likely but to us the least likely to be pioneers the more well how do you write a fornia family with all of the kids and everything and it was a much more complex house building

for them to carry out. I don't know how it was chosen but it was what I did to the one and again and it was the wisdom of the staff because it was a charming way it was well that we actually have some video of the glens cabin when you first visited it. Yeah with Simon Shaw. And here you warrior you're driving up a gorgeous spot. Yes here was was really quite amazing. Incidentally Fran you can see the road now this is probably the last time any motorized vehicle within the within two weeks they were done with this initial building that was done and they were carrying it in the verdant growth of springtime in Montana would have covered all those tracks but there it is. So you didn't see it at all and each home was how far apart they were about a 20 minute walk 20 minutes from each other so it was and then you went all the way up the valley so you're 20 minutes from the gate that led to frontis is the lowest in elevation and the first and there is Simon Wright our mentor and guide.

And this is our first look at the middle section the glimpse we have down the middle section. The soon to be newlyweds. Name Christian Brooks lived on the highest and we're now in the middle segment. And again he's being very thorough to make sure this is right he's been nice historians on there's the house there with the sod roof Well that's why we like working with someone you know speaking of that side roof. That's what that was our one disappointment in this cabin. Bernie built it totally. He built it totally authentically. But there was a drought in Montana had he stripped off the sod as they normally would right there in their front yard it would never have grown back all summer. So when we looked we were horrified and if you saw and noticed there would be strips of sod but of course in a real sod cabin there were had to been stripped a short time story and we just have never seen them because they were hundred years old by the time we fight. Now that's all that is gone. Now a couple of wrenches were thrown at the family's a snowstorm which nobody could have predicted in June or something.

That's right. We predicted and hoped for when he lived in Montana I'm going to know if you go up that high and to the right in the field tonight you're going to sell. But there was also kind of vermin you talked about and YAML drives food shortages. Were any of these artificial. No everything you mentioned was made with a cattle prod I heard you guys talk on the air no like oh maybe we can leave a hole then let the vermin in there as you say so right I am Anyway don't let me write about it so it will have we kept our mantra too. Simon was trust the process trust the process and really he does. Did he watch the process and one point he thought life was a little bit docile. He did tell me because their lives already had their cabin and he was and so like a week later there was between 12 and 14 inches of snow on their newly planted gardens. That was all you know. The footage that they took on this program. They had specific shoot days when the families would know. Occasionally if they heard something was up they would come in and sort of

surprise them. But most of the time they lived without feeling they were on camera they were actually there doing this work. But when the snow came of course the crew is heading out to town and nobody knows what Frontier valley looks like it's a long way from town to out in the valley and once they got you of course spectacular footage and yeah and I think the viewers are well aware that the families lost all awareness of the camera. I mean I think it was semi remarkable Yes quite remarkable. Yeah. Do you think that the producers were naive about many things that that would happen or even the families or everybody just kind of went with the flow. I think so. I don't know that they were naive. I don't know that they could have predicted the tensions that build. Yeah and this far as the weather goes it would be a very unusual year nearly between 5 and 6000 feet in Montana valley like that would be very unusual you that you didn't get some snow.

But this happened to be a record setting and we were so delighted both him and also for the run to their house and their Montana because they'd had a route so this was wonderful in the beginning and in early July and they were leaving here they get the spectacular the spectacular and we figured there would be bears. They had to be I took a look at that on that trip that we were taking with Simon and I said oh great you are here are gooseberries here are other berries there going to be bear sign it and sure enough there were bears as you saw in the show right. What was the most challenging part of this project for you. For us. I think I think the constant infusion of questions to us. I mean they were they were never ending. Certainly there was the bulk of it. Would it have been this way. Should we do this you know in the beginning but I thought once they got in on that on the site and the families were off on their own but they continued to. As

as they saw the families developing patterns that we would get questions that you know would this have happened or is the family asked for something or questioned something then we were called upon. But we work as a team. So I think it was the insurance you know. So let me so we're also learning to live with distractions. Yes. Because I thrive on the distraction if I get a call saying would you look up whether can you tell me whether or not this would have happened in 1993. I mean I'm off no matter what I'm supposed to be working on. And Ursuline we had another life. Oh yeah well you know maybe it wasn't me. I got arthritis but it was that was challenging and then getting our heads around the concept that although we wrote Profiles and we figured out why Nate and Christian might decide to go west a Christian might decide to go west to marry and we we were not we were writing profiles so that the crew the production staff could get. What they needed from that and they would know what

kind of clothes and they would know all these things they were not writing profiles for Nate and Kristen themselves to see to recreate the thrill of anything and they never really had any if they were to act in a way that homesteaders want to act or were almost all their reactions 21st century. It was a strange. Blend of. 20 Nate for instance from the time of his intake interview. He was full of ideas like oh we'll have a solar panel will heat the cabin with that I mean he was. Full of. And that was fine the production crew wanted 21st century that you are who you are and that was the body of the project. You go there and no matter how many 1883 things we supply them with no matter how with the setting in the materials are and the challenges are you take with who you are and to us as a story and that was one of the most. And once you're not homeless because what you bring with you is your self. That's the most important thing is to how you tackle homesteading. And you saw in the show the different families have different ideas about what's

cricket what can I do and what what show we fudge on and there was an Once there to that. Nate brilliant and off the wall thoughts about how I sort of gave way to one the time factor. How much time he had and the limitation of the tools although he did build that off the ground. Should I give this guy ran away to you. Yes it would be fine until when until winter when they would all die and right you were brighter. What's right you had to do before. I believe we're out of time I know you have a new book coming on Mt shawl and I'm sure the show I watch it on ESPN girls basketball team from 1984. OK I will be looking for it for Mark is so fortunate to have both of you. Vailable to us through the Vermont Arts Council the Council on the humanities. It's been a blast to talk with here today. Thanks to her and have shown to be with you thank you thank you for joining us today on profile. If there's anyone who can shed some light on the chaos of our times it's all when Robertson

has informed commentaries about global issues and those close to home are heard regularly on DPR. The former president of Middlebury College and current president of the internationally renowned Salzburg Seminar joins me today on profile. Born in Louisiana and raised in East Texas Olin Robison began his career as a Southern Baptist minister but soon left for Oxford where he earned a doctorate of philosophy. He returned to Texas and began a swift climb in the secular worlds of education and government. After a year as dean of students at St. Marcus Academy he joined the Washington administration of President Lyndon Johnson working for the Peace Corps. Then for Secretary of State Dean Rusk was a speech writer and liaison between the State Department CIA and the Pentagon. When the new Nixon administration took over Robeson returned to academia he eventually became president of Middlebury College where he served

for 15 years and raised three sons who are following in his footsteps in academia or journalism. For the past decade Robeson has been president and CEO of Salzburg Seminar and is frequently called on to advise and serve on numerous national and international councils commissions and institutes. And here in Vermont we're fortunate to hear his regular public radio commercials commentaries I'm sorry and it's also fortunate we have you with us today. So clearly you don't do commercials at all you know something's very different if you do commentaries. It's a pleasure to be here. It's great. I'd like to actually go back to your early career in government and in the 60s you did some really fascinating work. You were the director of University affairs for the Peace Corps a State Department liaison between the CIA and the Pentagon. And as head of a team to draft the government's response to CIA operatives on college campuses and cultural institutions I'm wondering what kind of impression that work had on the young man.

You have very good research. I haven't heard that at all. But it's all true. Right. Us through sort of through the end in 1967 it was. An outfit called Ramparts magazine had a big exposé saying that the CIA had in fact been giving money to a number of educational cultural and artistic institutions and this was this was quite a scandal at the time. And I happened to be in the position where I was asked to draft the responses for both the White House and the State Department. Very very interesting work and yeah time. But anyway that was a long way back and that's a division. Did you lose your story in a sense there were did it dampen your faith in government. That that kind of work or the dealings of the CIA in the Pentagon or did it was it just intriguing work. Well remember we were in the middle of the Cold War and a

lot of the. One of the notions about the fact that intelligence activities is is that these this this is dirty work for the most part didn't exist then because after all we were in a global competition with the Soviet Union. It was real. And for those of a more liberal bent of mind I'm whom I have been accused of being one who want somehow to think that this wasn't necessary and so forth but it was necessary Very much so so that I didn't consider it corruption the the difficult part in those days was that we were drifting and decisions were being made that were taking us deeper into war in Southeast Asia. And I was in the State Department at that time and was was very very hard because one could watch what was happening and I was far too junior to have an impact on anything. But that was the more difficult part was coming to grips with the fact that we were at war and the nagging suspicion that however

we got there this was a very very bad idea and people were dying and and so forth. Sure. Speaking of being a liberal being accused of being a fairly liberal only dent of the left in the country. OK. I think people in New England don't think of Southern Baptists from Texas as as as being quite liberal but you and I think Bill Moyers clearly defy that misconception. Tell us a little bit about how your upbringing and religion have affected your professional and private life. Well I grew up. In Port Arthur Texas which is a blue collar working class town. And I went to a little Baptist church. Life had three distinct parts home church and school. And we were. What would now be called fundamentalist Christians. We didn't have that word then. But lo and behold that's what we were. And one thing and another I went through Baylor University and Theological Seminary and at some

juncture decided that I was sufficiently disillusioned with the conservative environment in which I sat and I when I left Texas to go off to Oxford I was hands down the most liberal person I knew within whatever context you could think of at that time. And I got to Oxford and it became immediately apparent that I was the most conservative person in a thousand miles and it really shakes your self-image rather badly. Interesting. To move on so we have so much to talk about I'm going to skip away ahead to the Salzburg Seminar. It really has this incredible international reputation that you have helped to make it's not just Europe and America it's really global and it offers an array of programs that pull in different groups of over 60 scholars and young carefully chosen young leaders from around the world every week to discuss very important issues. It's actually closer to every other week we can't quite crowd them in every week but the calendar

looks pretty crowded it is very crowded and I've just come back from Salzburg and I saw a group leave in the main thing that I think the main impression they have as they leave is that they're exhausted. I bandaged up well I think that was the Global Economic Institute. This was a seminar we did on global economic institutions. Our board of directors asked that we do this about 18 months ago right after the the great brouhaha in Seattle. Sure. And so it had to do with or at least we thought it had to do with with global economic institutions like the World Bank and the IMF and the WTO and what used to be the gap and all these things and the fact that the people in the streets in Seattle and Washington and come back and eventually Jonah was basically claiming that these dramatically influential financial institutions economic institutions are not really accountable to much of anyone and that came to coin the word

democratic deficit and lack of transparency and all of that so we brought together as we would typically do roughly 60 participants or fellows as we call them the average age is about 35 to 38. So these are young mid career professionals who have been the dignified by their colleagues and their their superiors as the next generation of leaders. So it's a it's basically a leadership recognition and development program and in a typical session we'd have roughly 60 fellows or participants in a faculty of seven to ten very senior people. And in the 55 years of bringing such people together over 23000 now from over 150 countries the so-called faculty for these sessions are very prominent people in that field whatever that field is. And in 55 years every person who has ever served in this capacity and it's now hundreds and hundreds. No one's ever been paid. Not a single honorary it's also a bonus all pro bono.

Now can such a group even begin to see their way through a global economy that can be managed to actually increase prosperity and at the same time not increase poverty and not damage the environment and have good labor practices that are all of these complaints and concerns I mean can they begin to take a step towards a solution. Is that what happens that's not really what happens because people don't come they're representing their institutions in fact when they walk in the gates of the splendid shows Leopold's from the castle and you know you've seen it. Fran it's the place where they film the sound of music so we have more of this grand more noise quite grand. But it's not luxury assumedly it's it is an educational institution. And when people come in we say you you don't you represent only yourself. And and we in an American sense or American practice. Everyone is called by first names.

Now if we were an Austrian or a German or French or an Italian ist to Sion everyone would have titles right you know we'd been in Austria. If you have more than one doctorate you are Herr Doktor doctor. They really work on title so we take away the titles and the affiliations and it's not that people come there hoping to influence the World Bank but to go away. Having been challenged to think about it perhaps with different perspective different information sitting in a room with people whose opinions almost inevitably differ from yours sure. And we started session by saying we we come here because everyone has an interest or expertise in this subject and we're going to talk about it we're going to talk about it vigorously and in depth for seven days and we encourage you to be hard on ideas and easy on each other. Interesting. Now since you have spent so much time in Europe over the last 30 or 40 years you really have a sense of how their opinion of the United States has changed over that time.

Give us a sense of European opinion of the U.S.. Oh my this is only a 30 minute OK. And this is new. It would be a 30 second answer. Maybe maybe it is too complex I think to get by constantly evolves. I think that is why I almost can't think of a single declarative sentence about European attitudes toward the US which I couldn't even turn around and challenge you. But it does it's not static. It is very dynamic and it does evolve constantly. And for instance I think after September 11th there was an enormous outpouring of of concern of sympathy of a dent of occasion. We for instance at the seminar we had a session starting the next day. And. So we hastily got on transatlantic phone talking to the few people who were had arrived early should do go forward what we did go

forward but that with the Americans were not going to be able to be there because they were going to be catching planes that day and of course the planes were grounded. I remember saying to the group that was assembled in a conference room in Salzburg Oh well you know we'll go forward but. There won't be any Americans and a Polish man spoke up and he said we're all Americans now. Wow. And it was a a moment of of emotion. But he meant it. And. And yet I think right now. European attitudes toward America are are quite seriously different from what they were largely because of a widespread sense in Europe that the United States has not handled the situation in the Middle East with with creativity or decisiveness and so it will switch and perhaps six months from now it'll it'll be different yet again. Now over three years ago you wrote a commentary based on CIA Director George

Tenet's concern of a serious threat of Osama bin Laden this was well over three years ago. Clearly you were in Austria on September 11. Is that were you that you were hears in Middleburg. These are facts. And so I like others was not present for that session that one. Wow. And so your just a brief reaction to that attack since there had been some real strong warnings over three years before. Oh goodness friends. I do know I won. I think as I have said in the couple of radio commentaries I do think that that date will be one of those seminal moments in the lives of all of us who are alive to to to witness and somehow participate in what was happening then there has arisen in Washington especially among that

extraordinary large group of people who are permanent enemies of Bill Clinton. My goodness he provokes a strong reaction that somehow he did some things wrong or failed to take decisive action or else you know he might not have had this. I think that's a bum rap. I think that we as American people we're certainly not prepared to see American lives put at risk to go in and to do the kinds of things that have now been done in Afghanistan and I think the current administration for the most part has handled that decisively and well. But to think that that. Another president in this case Bill Clinton might have done this three years ago. I think that's just a nonstarter. Now I've heard you decry the loss of public diplomacy through the closing of American centers in libraries across the world and the decreased funding of radio Europe that is one of the I think I think it is just tragic.

And can I beat up on Jesse Helms for a bit. Just rabbit ears but maybe but I think it is important to know how what can we do about the hatred towards America. And this is key. I'm not sure that we can go out and fix it. But I think that it was an act of appalling hubris on our part. At the end of the Cold War to End 11 years ago to say we don't need these things look at us we look at us and wonder and look at our economic might power look at our cultural reach in the world and so forth. And one of those radio commentaries that you might've read because I have said it several times in this succeeding 10 years we've closed down all of the America's centers of American libraries from Reykjavik to Beirut and every last one of them on and these were done largely at the behest of Senator Helms who had a real bee in his bonnet about this and sold us some economic measures and you know all of those libraries taken together

probably don't equal the landing gear on an F-15. Why not use it. It's in government terms it's nothing. And yet they're gone now and I think I think it unlikely that we'll be able to put them back together or even foreign aid that everybody thinks there's so much as one half of 1 percent of the national model. It's it's very very small you know that the Pew Research Center at University of Maryland has done some extremely interesting research because it asks Americans. In surveys whether what they think of foreign aid and the answer is almost universally we get too much. Well then the second answer is Well how much do you think would be about right and the the average answers run between 5 and 8 percent. Well the real number is less than one half of 1 percent. I I was on an airplane about three four years ago that up to Los Angeles and since I was flying out there for a company I was sitting up in first class

and I was reading an economist and it was about the whole issue on international assistance foreign aid and a lady sitting next to me looked over and she said I don't believe in that. I said what. She said giving all that money to foreigners. And I said well we don't do much would you believe that it's less than half of one percent she said no. And it pretty well took care of that house. Here it is. But we don't we want at least generous countries in the world in terms of percentage of our gross national product and on a per capita basis I mean we we rank way down 20th 25th something like this. The Japanese are among the most generous. I haven't seen the recent statistics but the Norwegians rank right in the top and yet the Marshall Plan we were the most generous. And from your opinion we could never do that again is it because of this general attitude that you say Well I think so but I think it also reflects a lack of a

priority. On the part of the White House and I have seen one set of statistics that said that when Secretary of State George Marshall made that speech at Harvard which I think was June 7 1947. And the Gallup organization did a poll immediately thereafter that found that American support for this new idea was at 13 percent. But President Truman with working with both Democratic and Republican leaders in the Congress did it. And I think it must surely be the most extraordinary far sighted and generous act of one country toward the end it had just been defeated in war and in a way I think that Americans have been loved abroad because of that and because of their idealism a belief in a in a better way a democracy human rights.

Have we lost some of that idealism with our market driven pragmatic manners yes. I think we have. Yeah there's. That Sulzberger this last year we were we had a session going and people kept getting up talking about neo liberalism. And I sitting on the back row finally raised my hand I said define it. And this chap who is a European said neo liberalism means the market will provide and you don't have any choice anyway. And I guess I think part of what we're seeing right now as we've become dramatically more conscious of the the the differences between the West and much of the Islamic world is reflected in the fact that that there there there is a lot that the market cannot do.

It just doesn't it never can. And my personal hope is that we come out of. The post-September 11 world and as we move through the the military phases of this into whatever is coming next that we will we will be less simplistic and the realization that markets matter of course they matter. But for most people I know it's not their relationship to the market that gives meaning to life. Why should we think that that's true for people in China or Indonesia. It's kind of a jump but not really speaking of other things that are important you said that the separation of church and state is perhaps the most defining principle of American culture. Why is that so central to who we are. We tend to think because the separation of church and state or religion and government. And I tend internationally when talking about this

to talk about the separation of religion and government because I think that's frankly more sweeping the right sort. We think that's the norm. And in fact it historically and currently is the is not the norm at all. And we're not going to be able to change that. An awful lot and much of the world and it is so much the norm for us that for most Americans. And I think increasingly for many Europeans one of the tests of whether a government is legitimate is whether it's secular. But then we're leaving out. Many government if you absolutely and if you if you go to any Islamic country and you start talking about the separation of religion and government people just look at you as though you have lost it because it simply can't conceive and there is no there is no separation between sacred and secular it's all

one which incidentally is good Baptist the Elegy by the way. OK. Well it seems i get our inability to really deal with that well. Is is going to be a tricky thing as we proceed in the future because there are certainly at least half the world if not more that are involved then in not embracing modernism and the new and having Well I know it's a government I know it's almost old hat now but I I I do. Think that one of the great divide is between the industrialized West and the post industrialized West and much of the rest of the world is that by virtue of the the. The history of the cultures of which we are primarily a reflection whether it's So what happened in Europe over a 500 year stretch the the the Renaissance the Reformation the enlightenment then eventually the 20th century will Sony

and democracy of which we are very much the legatees. The Russians with whom I used to spend a lot of time they didn't participate in any of that. So not surprisingly they don't think the way we do about about much of anything is a matter of fact because they have a different history. And that doesn't mean ours is better theirs is worse just me just different. Again a little bit of a jump but it seems that we are clearly not that knowledgeable about the rest of the world and how they think and one of those a lot of smart people would have us believe the American press is in crisis and is not giving us the kind of news that we need and you have a journalistic side of you. What is your impression of are you concerned about the American press and corporate ownership and what that might mean. Before I die I guess I share maybe the usual irritations about the press. My concern is is the degree

to which the press generally not all of course but generally trivialize is much that is important and magnifies much of this trivial. And after all most of the American press. Fundamentally it's you know this is this is this is these are not charities. These are companies in business to how to turn a profit and. That does indeed matter and of course we all watch it and watch what happens on television and we breath shouldn't go there. So since that's what we're doing right now. But this is public television. Yes it is. Thank goodness. What scares you the most. I just you when you you have all of a global view of things what. What concerns you right now. And sometimes it's you know fully the grand You are what I said to you before we started that I I I I I'm. Not

particularly enamored with our current president. But anyone who listen to my commentaries knows that I have I think I want very badly for the United States to use our extraordinary power our influence our reach in ways that are simultaneously. Constructive imaginative creative. And I think that we generally spend a lot of time squandering much of that. So this is your 15 second sound bite that the role of America and you know are you still optimistic about this. I'm a born optimist you have to be. Otherwise you're going to go OK. Dr. Olin Robison thank you so much for being here today and thank you for being with us on profile. Lawyer.