A lifetime or so ago (1964-65, actually) I was a Nieman Fellow
in journalism at Harvard. It was a rewarding experience for me,
although not necessarily for Harvard, and as I look back now, I
don’t think I ever had it so good. I had carte blanche to attend
any classes I wanted to; at the same time the Nieman Foundation
paid me a stipend that matched what I had been making at the
New York Times. Fortunately I did not know, when I applied
for the Nieman, that it was Times policy then to prohibit
any of its newsroom people from accepting fellowships. But when I
got the Nieman, the Times relented, and as I said, I don’t
think I ever had it so good.
The only requirement the Nieman Foundation imposed on the
fellows was that they take one course of their own choosing, and
then be graded on their work. I chose an American history course
taught by Oscar Handlin, and was outraged when the graduate student
who graded the final exam gave me a B plus and not an A. When I
told emeritus professor Arthur Schlesinger Sr. of my distress, he
invited me home with him to watch “McHale’s Navy,” his favorite TV
show. Mrs. Schlesinger served tea.
Meanwhile I sampled the Harvard smorgasbord: Chinese history,
Russian history, art history, the American transcendentalists,
constitutional law, and so on. I dropped out of an economics class
taught by John Kenneth Galbraith because he merely read aloud from
the draft for his next book. I dropped out of a foreign policy
seminar taught by Henry Kissinger because I just didn’t like him.
He ridiculed another student, a young Army captain, who,
audaciously but politely, had questioned something he said. Nuts to
this, I thought, and never went back to the seminar again.
But that was a small matter. Harvard had endless delights. Some
days I skipped classes entirely, and roamed the stacks at Widener
Library. The principal delight, though, was the company of the
other Nieman Fellows. There were twelve of us — seven Americans,
and five from abroad — and all of us male. None of us gave that a
second thought, of course. Remember this was a lifetime ago.
We fellows were a convivial bunch. We had parties in one
another’s rented apartments, picnics and softball games with wives
and kids, and endless discussions about life, politics and
journalism. A subset of us also drank great quantities of beer,
often at a neighborhood Irish bar — Tigue’s, or McTigue’s, I think
— while we continued our discussions. I remember, in particular,
an argument about Vietnam. I insisted the U.S. would never be
involved in a protracted ground war, but that if it did nothing the
dominos would fall. Perhaps I should have stayed in Dr. Kissinger’s
seminar, after all.
In the years to come, however, not all of us remained in
journalism. One of us would join the Carter White House, while
another would become an ambassador in the Reagan Administration,
and another a Senate staffer. Nat Nkasa, a black South African
journalist, committed suicide. This is not the place to talk about
that, except to say that Nat was part of my education, and that he
died because of apartheid.
Anyway I want you to know that Nieman life way back then was
unstructured, free and not at all ideological. The commitment was
to journalism and not liberal causes, and the assumption was you
could always could tell the one from the other. The assumption most
likely was faulty, but it seems to me it was made in good faith.
Actually it was quite simple. A journalist was supposed to be the
soul of neutrality while he uncovered the facts, and then made up
his mind accordingly. In other words, in that far-off time, he
prized independence and objectivity.
But the Nieman Foundation has just announced the new crop of
fellows for the next academic year, and while I have no doubt they
are all bright and able, their selection shows that the old
assumption no longer applies. In fact, it’s dead and buried.
Consider the areas of interest that the new Nieman Fellows will
devote themselves to at Harvard.
These include, according to the announcement, “the legal and
moral history of capital punishment,” “roots of international
justice,” “the status of women,” “U.S. energy policy and
environmental consequences,” “growth of the Hispanic population,”
“gentrification in American cities,” and “the nature of change in a
community.”
But one way or another, these are all causes, and they all come
with approved ways of thinking. Capital punishment, for example, is
an abomination, while we need an international court of justice,
and women, of course, are oppressed. Little dissent is tolerated on
issues like this in liberal circles, and at Harvard, I am sure,
very little is found. Journalism, however, is not supposed to be
captive to minds like that, and indeed a long time ago at Harvard
it wasn’t. I know because I was there, and I had a very good
year.
